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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 52668
   :PG.Title: Making Over Martha
   :PG.Released: 2016-07-28
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Julie \M. Lippmann
   :DC.Title: Making Over Martha
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1913
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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MAKING OVER MARTHA
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      MAKING OVER
      MARTHA

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      BY

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      JULIE \M. LIPPMANN

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      AUTHOR OF
      MARTHA BY-THE-DAY,
      MARTHA AND CUPID

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      NEW YORK
      GROSSET & DUNLAP
      PUBLISHERS

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      COPYRIGHT, 1913,
      BY
      HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

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      Published October, 1913
      Reprinted November (twice), December, 1913
      May, August, October, 1914
      October, 1915

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.. _`CHAPTER I`:

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   MAKING OVER MARTHA

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   CHAPTER I

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Martha Slawson sat at her sewing-machine,
stitching away for dear life.  About her,
billowed yards upon yards of white cotton cloth, which,
in its uncut length, shifted, as she worked, almost
imperceptibly piling up a snowy drift in front of her,
drawn from the snowy drift behind.  This gradual
ebb and flow was all that marked any progress in
her labor, and her husband, coming in after some
hours of absence and finding her, apparently,
precisely where he had left her, was moved to ask what
manner of garment she was making.

"'Tain't a garment at all, Sam.  It's a motta."

"A motto?" Sam fairly gasped.

Martha put on more speed, then took her feet
from the treadle, her hands from the cloth-plate.

"I guess you forgot what's goin' to happen, ain't
you?" she returned, sitting back in her chair,
looking up at him amiably.

Sam squared his great shoulders.  "Going to
happen?  Oh, you mean—you mean—Mr. and
Mrs. Ronald coming home?"

"Sure I do!"

"Well, but I don't see——"

"I didn't suppose you would see.  Men ain't much
on *seein'* where sentiment's concerned.  They go it
blind, an' that's a fack.  I s'pose a *man* would let
a gen'lman an' lady come back from their weddin'-tour
(which they been gone 'most a year on it),
and never think o' givin' 'em a welcome home, any
more than to find their house an' grounds kep' up,
an' their bills kep' down, an' everything in tip-top
order.  But, with a woman it's different.  *I'm* goin'
to give Miss Claire an' Lord Ronald a reception
that *is* a reception.  Somethin' they won't forget in
a hurry.  I'm goin' to have lantrens in the trees, an'
a arch of laurel over the gateposts, an' then, as they
come on in, they'll see my motta strung acrost the
driveway—

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   HAIL TO THE CHIEF!

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in big yella letters, hemmed down on this white.
An' the childern, all four of 'em, is to sing it, besides.
Don't you remember, they learned it at school down
home—I should say, in New York, that time the
president come back, an' all the public-school childern
sung'm a welcome?"

Sam bit his lip.  "Yes, but that was a little
different.  Somehow, I think HAIL TO THE
BRIDE might be better, don't you?"

"No!" said Martha, with decision.  "First place,
she ain't exackly a bride by this time.  When a lady's
been married almost a year, an' traveled 'round the
world in the meanwhile, I wouldn't call her a bride.
An', besides, it wouldn't be polite to single her out,
an' sorta leave *him* in the cold.  Everybody knows
bridegrooms don't cut much of a figga, but you
needn't rub it in.  No, I thought it over careful, an'
HAIL TO THE CHIEF is what I decided on.
HAIL TO THE CHIEF lets us out on responsibility.
It's up to them to prove which it hits, see?"

Whether Sam did or didn't, he made no further
comment.  He went and sat himself down in his
own particular chair, took up from the center-table
the latest number of *The New England Farmer*,
and commenced studying it assiduously.

A second later, the machine was in motion again,
running with great velocity, impelled by Martha's
tireless foot.

Mrs. Slawson did not look up, when the eldest
of her four children, just home from school, came in,
and made straight for her side.

"Mother-r-r!"

No answer.

"Say, mother-r-r!"

"For goodness' sake, Cora, let go that R.  The
way you hang on to it, you'd think you was drownin',
an' *it* was a lifeline.  Besides, d'you know what I
decided to do?  I decided to strike.  For the rest o'
this week, I ain't answerin' to the name o'
'Mother-r-r.'  See?  There ain't a minute in the
day, when some one o' you childern ain't shoutin'
it—you, or Francie, or Sammy, or Sabina—an' it's
*got on my nerves*, as Mrs. Sherman says.  You can
call me 'Martha' or 'Little Sunshine' or anythin'
else you got a mind to, but 'Mother-r-r,' not on your
life."

"Say, moth——!"

"Look out, now!"

"What you sewin' on?"

"The machine."

"Pooh, you know I don't mean that.  What you
making?  Anything for me?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, what *are* you, then?"

"I'm a perfeck lady, an' I'm makin' a motta that
proves it."

"Mother-r-r, I think you're real mean.  All the
girls at school have fancier clo'es 'n I got, an' I
think you just might make me some new ones, so
there!"

"Sure I might!" admitted Mrs. Slawson blandly.

Cora's lip went out.  "Then, why don't you?
You got as much time as any other girl's mother.
Ann Upton's mother makes all Ann's dresses 'n'
things, an' she's got twice's many as I got.  She had
a new dress, when school took in, in September, an'
she got another new one, 'round about New
Year's, and now she's got another new one for
summer."

Martha stroked down a seam with deliberation.
"That's nice for Ann, ain't it, havin' so many?  She
can *spell* 'm, as they say here.  When she gets tired
o' wearin' one dress, she can change to another, an'
look like one o' them fashion-plates from mornin'
till night, an' feel like——"

"I been wearing the same old thing ever since
I was born," continued Cora, disregarding her
mother's irrelevant remark, continuing her
lamentation as if it had not been interrupted.

"Which shows it was good mater'al to begin
with," retorted Martha.  "Ann Upton's mother
prob'ly buys cheap goods with no wear in 'em."

"She don't either.  It's just she wants to have
Ann stylish.  *You* don't care a bit if I ain't
stylish."

"Certaintly I don't.  I got other things on my
mind.  I don't care a fig if you're stylish or not.  I
never was much on style myself, an' I get along all
right.  I mixed with the best s'ciety in New York
City, I can tell you, young lady.  Nobody coulda
went to the houses o' tonier folks than I did, an'
was made welcome too, an' don't you forget it.  An'
the complaints, if I missed a day!  You'd be
surprised!  These young ladies that think o' nothin' but
style, you can take it from me, their outsides is all
there is to'm.  They got nothin' else to think of, an'
nothin' to think of it with, if they had it."

"Well, I don't care, I wisht you was like Mrs. Upton!"

"Now, what do you think o' that!  D'you hear
what Cora says, father?  Cora don't like the style
o' mother you picked out for her.  She's just fairly
disgusted with your taste in ladies."

Sam Slawson did not hear, or, if he heard, did
not heed, and Cora proceeded, unabashed:

"Mrs. Upton does her own work, an'——"

"That all?  Most anybody could do their own
work, seems to me.  That's dead easy.  It's when
you do your own work, an' sever'l other people's
besides, that you're ap' to be some occupied," observed
Mrs. Slawson.

"Well, I don't care what you say, I just think I
might have a new dress—Dutch neck, with short
sleeves."

"Before you wanta wear a Dutch neck, you got
to *have* a Dutch neck.  *You* ain't a modern
bathroom, that you must show you got exposed pipes.
Better cover up your bones, an' think less about
what you're wearin'.  I got more to do than waste
time fussin' about such trivolous things, so you better
make up your mind you're goin' to skip this
fashion."

"Well, I wisht you'd make me a new dress,"
wailed Cora, returning to her muttons undaunted.
"You ain't too busy.  Last night, before I went to
bed, I saw you *sittin' down*, an' you weren't doin'
anythin', either, only mendin' Sammy's pants."

Sam Slawson raised his head.

"That's right, Cora.  Make your mother be
busy!  She don't work hard enough, as it is.  Get
a hump on, mother!  Get a hump on."

"If I get another hump on, besides the one I
already got, I'll be a drumederry," observed
Mrs. Slawson imperturbably, while Cora left the room in
tears, her sense of injury swelling beyond her power
of control, when her father's irony proved he was
siding with "mother" against her.

"The next time Cora gets fresh, and calls you
down, Martha, I just wish you'd turn her over to
me, and let me give her what she deserves,"
suggested Sam, as soon as the door was shut.

"Give her what she deserves?  You couldn't.  It'd
take too long, besides exhaustin' you too much.  But,
I thank you kindly for offerin'.  Barrin' a few airs an'
graces, Cora's all right, an' when she ain't, I'm not
too delicate yet, with easy livin', but what I can give
her a lickin' that'll dust some of her fancy frills
off'n her.  When young 'uns gets along to a certain
age, they're apter than not to get outa sorts an'
feel they didn't have a fair show on parents.  I been
there myself, an' I see it work in other fam'lies.  It
may surprise you, Sam, but the young is hard, hard
as nails.  Only, nails has the advantage.  Nails has
*heads*.  You got somethin' to tie to with *them*.  But
young folks is smooth *and* hard, an', when you think
you got'm trained good, that's just the time they
slip out from under your fingers, an' go spinnin' off,
goodness knows where, away from you—like them
pretty-appearin' candy balls that *looks* sweet, but
you break your jawbones tryin' to put a tooth in'm.
All you can do is lick'm oncet in a while.  An' it's
just the same with childern."

"Well, I won't have Cora giving you impudence,
mother.  If she hasn't the sense to appreciate you,
at least I won't stand by and hear her
tongue-lashing you."

Martha bowed.  "'Thank you—thank you, sir,
she said, your kindness I never shall forget!'  All
the same, I'll tell you this, right now, Sammy, I
certaintly got to set to an' begin puttin' in some modren
improvements onto me, for I begun to notice, I don't
really suit nobody but you, the way I am.  I'm too
old-fashioned or somethin', to please, nowadays.
Quite a lotta people has delicately hinted to me,
lately, I'd be a whole lot more satisfactory, if I was
altogether differnt.  There's my childern.  As I just
told you, I don't seem to be the style o' mother
they'd select at all, if they was out shoppin' for
mothers, an' had what Mrs. Sherman calls Carte
Blanche with 'em—whoever *she* is.  An' it's the same
with Ma.  I never really did suit Ma for a daughter-in-law
from the start.  She could tell you (an' *does*)
a hunderd ways I'd be better, *with alterations*, only
I been that took up, tendin' to her wants, ever since
you an' me was married, I ain't had time to put the
alterations in.  An', then, there's——"

"Say, Martha," interposed Sam, lowering his
voice to an almost inaudible whisper, "here's
Mrs. Peckett coming up the walk.  If you've got
anything 'round you don't want advertised all over the
place, you'd better put it out of sight, hadn't you?"

For answer Mrs. Slawson leaned over, plucked
up the material next her, at its nearest available
point, and gave its length a flourish that sent it
billowing conspicuously half across the floor.
Sam shrugged.

"My, my!" ejaculated Martha, looking around,
and speaking with loud distinctness, "if here ain't
Mrs. Peckett!"

Through the open, screened window, Mrs. Peckett
inquired, with elephantine playfulness (physically,
she was built on almost as heroic a scale as Martha
herself), "Got any place for a tired little girl to
rest?"

"Sure we have," said Mrs. Slawson.  "Come
right along in!"

Another moment, and Mrs. Peckett had obeyed.

"Take that chair there, the one alongside the
table, with the cushion in.  It's the comfortablest we
got—just suits that holla in your back, that, Ma
says, hers always needs restin'—an' Ma's a champeean
on restin'.  She knows how to do it in seven
differnt languages.  You'll excuse my goin' on with
what I'm doin'?  I can talk while I work."

Mrs. Peckett lowered herself gradually into the
proffered chair with the air of one accustomed to
distrust the good intentions of furniture.

"Certainly, I'll excuse you.  What you doing?"

"Sewing," said Martha agreeably.

"Sheeting?" Mrs. Peckett inquired.

Martha considered.  "Well, I s'pose you might
*call* it sheeting," she admitted.  "Down home—I
should say in New York City—we call it muslin, but
up here it's cotton-cloth.  I'm trying to remember
the differences.  I don't believe in lettin' things go
into one eye, an' outa the other ear, so you never
profit by your exper'ences.  I believe in livin' an'
learnin', if you die in the attemp'."

"This ain't very fine quality," observed Mrs. Peckett,
stooping and picking up an end of the material
to examine it critically through her thick-lensed
spectacles.

Martha sighed.  "Dear me! how sorry I am.
But I never was much of a cornersewer, as
Mrs. Sherman says, on white goods, an' that's a fack."

"I'm afraid you won't have much wear out of
it," pronounced the oracle.  "You'll have to get new
sheets in no time.  These'll go through before you
know it.  The next time you want to buy sheeting,
or anything of that sort, you just come to me.  I'll
advise you."

"Thank you," said Martha.

"I always heard tell, city folks wa'n't much of
any in the housekeeping line, and I suspicion it's
true.  They're too busy gallivanting the streets to
look after their houses.  For myself, I don't mind
telling *you*, I don't set much store by city folks."

"You don't say!"

"We get a good mess of 'em up here, summers.
Rich and poor, and if we 'natives,' as they call us,
ain't glad to see them go away every fall, I wouldn't
say so.  *I don't like 'em!*"

"What's your objection?"

"Well, the rich ones are stuck up, and the poor
ones are low down.  You never saw such nuisances
as those Fresh Air children!  Several of our ladies
take them in, every summer, for a spell, but *I*
wouldn't have one of them in *my* house, tracking
mud and dirt in on my clean floors—not for
anything I can think of.  Mrs. Fred Trenholm, who
lives down at Milby's Corners, she took in three last
season.  You should have seen them at church.
Ungodly don't express it!  Didn't know the creed
even.  Couldn't sit still through divine worship, on
the Sabbath, like Christians."

"Likely that's because most of'm's Jews," Martha
observed calmly.  "But that's as far as the difference
goes.  Their lungs needs just as much good
air to breathe as little Christians' lungs.  An' their
stummicks call for the same sorta nourishment.  My
childern can say off the creed, an' their colic, fine,
but I wouldn't wanta have my life depend on bein'
able to tell the dirt on their shoes from the dirt
on the little Sheenies'.  Nor I wouldn't want to die
for the number o' times mine wriggle less than they
do.  Childern is childern, the world over, an' this
idea of your bein' nearer heaven when you was a
child, like Cora's piece says, is rot—I beg your
pardon!—nonsense!  There's where lots o' folks slip up
on childern.  They go on the idea that young 'uns
are angels to begin with, an' they break their hearts
to see 'em runnin' down, as they grow up.  The
truth is, it's just the other way 'round.  Childern is
little animals at the start.  You got to housebreak'm,
an' train'm, till they learn the tricks o' decent
people, an' it's only little by little they get sense to
*know*.  Every time I lick my young 'uns, I feel kinda
mean.  They're doin' *almost* as good as they know
how, like the rest of us.  Only o' course it can't be
helped.  You got to lick'm some, to make'm understand.
Their constitutions seem to demand it.  I
try to bring mine up the way, it looks to me, as if
the Lord was tryin' to bring up us.  Lick'm thora,
when necessary, an' then, bear no malice.  As I
make it out, that's His way, an' I don't see how to
improve on it much.  But I interrupted you.  You
was talkin' about how you don't like city folks, an'
you'd got as far as the childern."

Mrs. Peckett's nearsighted eyes searched Martha's
face shrewdly, for a second.

"I was just thinking that city folks' ways ain't
our ways, that's all.  Now, I'd think pretty poorly
of myself to go out of my gate, of a morning, and
not pass the time of day with a neighbor.  But I
hear tell, that's what city folks do.  They would
let you live next door—in the same street with them,
for a year, and never know you."

"Sure!" said Martha cheerfully.  "I lived in
the same house over five years, before I come up here,
an', with the exception of a Dutchman gen'lman an'
his wife, acrost the hall, I wasn't on visitin' terms
with any of the tenants.  I was too busy tendin' to
my own affairs.  The way I come to know the
Dutchman gen'lman was kinda accidental,—on account
o' circumstances over which he had no control at the
time, but did later on.  Him an' me grew to be
real chummy, after he oncet got on to it I meant
business.  He gave me our cat Nixcomeraus, that's a
boss mouser now, which it was only a kitten then.
But, as a gener'l rule, we kep' ourselves *to* ourselves."

"Well, I don't call that Christian conduct," pronounced
Mrs. Peckett.  "It looks heathen to me, and
it certainly ain't according to Scripture.  We are all
brethern and——"

"Cistern," Martha suggested benevolently.

"And we'd ought to live as such.  I like to know
what's going on, and keep in touch with the folks
I'm living amongst, but do you think those city folks
encourage a body's running in and out freely?  Well,
I should say *not*.  They're a stiff-necked
generation—summer folks.  Nobody can say I'm a busybody,
or pushing, or the like of that.  Time and again I say
to Mr. Peckett, 'Folks do altogether too much
mixing in with other folks' affairs.'  You wouldn't
believe the way Mr. Peckett and I are bothered, all
the time, with people calling on us for charity, to
help them out of their troubles—just because it's
known to all we are forehanded, and have property.
But I always say to Mr. P., 'Now, don't be too
quick.  Just wait till the—till the——'"

"Clouds roll by," supplied Mrs. Slawson again.

"And, sure enough, the next time we see the
party, ten to one, somebody else has helped them
out, and there's no need of our mixing in at all.  No,
nobody can say I want to push myself.  I always tell
Mr. Peckett I ain't a mite curious, but I confess I
*am* terribly *interested*, which is altogether different,
and what the Bible tells us to be."

"Well, well!  Now, what do you think o' that!"
said Martha.  "I wouldn'ta known the difference."

Mrs. Peckett paused, as if to weigh her words.
"I tell you what I'll do," she announced with the
air of fully appreciating the measure of her kindness,
and wanting Mrs. Slawson to appreciate it, too, "I'll
take you in hand.  Whenever you want to know
anything, all you have to do is come to me, and I'll tell
you.  I'll consider it a pleasure.  I can see where
there's a lot for you to learn.  The city is a poor
place to be brought up and live in, all your life, with
its vice, and its selfishness, and the like of that.  But,
now you've come here, you'll see something different.
Why, you'll feel made over, when you've
learned our honest, generous country ways."

Seeing Mrs. Peckett rise cumbersomely, in
preparation for departure, Martha also got upon her
feet.

"Well, I declare," she ejaculated blandly, "just
before you come in, I was tellin' my husband the
time had come when I'd got to do somethin' or
other, so's I wouldn't be so old-style, an' shame my
fam'ly.  An' here you are, offerin' to improve me,
free grates for nothin', as Miss Claire, bless her! says.
It's like Providence's finger in the pie, an' no
mistake.  But I'm afraid I'll be puttin' you out too
much.  They say, it's hard to learn an old dog new
tricks."

Mrs. Peckett was a fleshy woman; all her movements
had a certain air of unctuousness.  She shook
her head, with reassuring, easy patronage.

"Not at all," she said, "I'll admire to——"

The door banged open, interrupting her
unceremoniously, and the Slawson son and heir, Sammy
junior, heated and perspiring, breathless but
communicative, burst noisily into the room.

"My, my!" ejaculated Martha.  "I guess you
think you're a en*gine*, don't you?  Pantin' like that,
's if you was luggin' a train o' cars behind you?
Hats off to ladies.  Don't you see Mrs. Peckett?
Say how de do, like a gen'lman."

Sammy bobbed an awkward pate.  "Say,
mother-r-r," he stammered.

"Well?"

"There's that big place, 'way along up the little
side street, I mean road, past the cimiterry.  You
can't but just see the house, it's so far back, an'——

"He means old lady Crewe's, I reckon," explained
Mrs. Peckett.  "She's one of the summer
folks, I've just been telling you about.  Rolling in
money, but as hard and close as a clinched fist.
Nobody knows how much she's worth."

"P'raps she's the kind that don't let her right
hand know what her left hand's got."

"Well, I don't know about that, but she has
considerable of a place.  Enough to keep a whole
regiment of regular hired help busy, an' every summer
she comes up from the city, with just her young
gran'-daughter, and they make out to get along, as
best they can, trusting to get hold of parties,
hereabouts, willing to accommodate.  That's no proper
way to do."

Martha smoothed back the hair from Sammy's
damp forehead, making it out, somehow, that he had
more to say, and calming his impatience to say it.

"An', mother-r-r, I was walkin' along the road,
an' a awful pretty lady, she called out to me from the
garden, an' I went, an' she said her gran'ma was
took sick, or somethin', an' there wasn't nobody she
could send to get the doctor, but 'ceptin' me, coz I
was goin' along, an', I said I'd tell the doctor, an'
she said——"

"I don't envy you your job," Mrs. Peckett
interposed.  "It'll be like hunting a needle in a
haystack to find Dr. Driggs, this time of day.  He may
be 'most anywheres out in the open kentry.  But
one thing's pretty certain, he won't be home."

"Is he the one lives down in the village, on the
main street, with a office which the door is 'round
the corner as you go to the station?" Martha
inquired.  "We're such a husky crowd, the lot of
us, we don't ever need a doctor, and I wouldn'ta
knew, except I happened to notice oncet, passin',
he had such a funny doormat.  There was *Salve*
done into it—white pebbles stuck in the wire nettin'.
Now, what do you think o' that!  It didn't say what
kind, either.  Just *Salve*.  Wouldn't you think *Pills*
woulda been better?  There's more pills used, any
day in the year, 'n salve.  But, if he's stuck on salve,
why, he's the doctor!  Only—that don't help us get
him, does it?  You won't mind my runnin' off, an'
leavin' you, Mis' Peckett?  But I guess I better
be movin' in the direction o' the Crewe place.  An',
father, s'pose you get a move on, like a good fella,
an' see if you can't scare up somethin' somewheres
that'll answer to the name o' doctor, when you call
it.  If you use the auta, you'll make better time, an'
you might overtake me, walkin'."

Mrs. Peckett laid a restraining hand on Martha's
shoulder.  "Now don't you stir a step," she
admonished.  "It's full two miles to walk to the Crewe
place, and the traveling's heavy, on account of the
dry spell.  By the time you get there, most likely
somebody else will have passed with a team, and
you'll have your trouble for your pains.  It won't
hurt *them* a mite to go out of their way, if they're
driving.  That's what I say to Mr. P.  'Don't be too
quick offering.  Give other folks a chance.'  Now,
here were you, not half an hour back, saying you'd
like I should improve you.  Well, this is your first
lesson.  Stay where you are, and let some one nearer
to, do the helping."

"Good idea!" vouchsafed Sam Slawson senior,
speaking for the first time.

As soon as Mrs. Peckett was well out of sight and
hearing, Martha turned reprovingly upon her husband.

"Sam Slawson, what d'you mean by——?"

Sam composedly pulled on his boots.

"Only way to get rid of her," he answered succinctly.

"Oh!" said Martha, going to the cupboard,
where she kept her store of simple home remedies.
"Now, if *you're* ready, *I* am.  An', young Sammy,
you run, an' tell your gran'mother to give you
childern bread an' milk for your suppers.  Your father
an' I are goin' out.  We mayn't be back till late."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER II`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER II

.. vspace:: 2

It was dusk when Martha reached the Crewe place.

As she turned in at the entrance-gate, she thought
she saw a spark of light prick out through the
darkness of one of the upper-story windows, but the
next instant it disappeared, and the gloomy house
stood formidably looming up against its background
of dense foliage, facing her, as with a challenge, as
black as ever.

Martha Slawson was not one to be intimidated.
She plodded steadily along the driveway,
regardless of the strange sensation of shifty gravel
crunching beneath feet used to hard city pavements,
the thickening shadows to eyes accustomed to the
glare of electric-lighted streets, and the soft,
surreptitious stirrings of she-knew-not-what among the
underbrush to ears familiar with the roar of the
Elevated, the clang and dash of passing surface cars.

"I don't see the use o' them sheds they build to
the front doors o' some o' the houses, in these parts,
which they call'm *port co-shares*, Sam tells me.  You
can take it from me, they're like to break your bones,
mountin' the high step o' them," she mused, panting
with the effort it had taken to hoist her heavy
frame from the level of the ground to that of the
house-door.

"Them swell ladies must be considerable of
acrobats, to do it graceful.  I know *I* couldn't."

She smoothed down her disordered garments, and
dusted off her grimy palms, before venturing to
search, in the darkness, for the bell.  She found it
readily enough, but it was some time before she
heard the chain-bolt withdrawn from within, a key
turned in a resisting lock, a door unlatched.  Then,
the door swung open inward, on its heavy hinges,
and Martha found herself face to face with what
she described next day to Cora as, "the livin' image
o' that marble statute in the Metropolitan Museum,
down home.  The girl in the flowin' robes, holdin'
a queer-lookin' thing, which its own mother wouldn't
reco'nize it for a lamp, in her hand.  You told me
her name.  Sykey, you said it was, though not spelled
that way on the slob she stood on, I noticed.  But,
I take your word for it.  Well, if this young lady
wasn't just like Sykey, lamp an' all!  You'd never
know the difference, exceptin' for complexion."

"I'm Mrs. Slawson," Martha announced at once.
"You told my boy, Sammy, you'd like him run for
a doctor."

Sykey paused a moment, bewildered.  "Oh, yes.
This afternoon.  I remember, now.  I thought he
had forgotten."  She spoke in the subdued voice
one uses when there is sickness in the house.

"No, he didn't forget.  My husband is fetchin'
the doctor.  But I come on ahead to see if I couldn't
help out some, in between times.  My husband an'
me is superintendent for Mr. Frank Ronald, two
miles or so down the main road.  You know'm
prob'ly."

The girl nodded.  "My grandmother was taken
sick at about four, this afternoon.  She seems stiff
on one side.  She can't move her arm, or her leg,
and when she talks it sounds as if her tongue were
thick.  I got her to bed as well as I could, and I
haven't dared leave her since for more than a minute
at a time.  We've no telephone.  This little branch
road is out of the line of general travel, and we've
no one to send on errands.  I've sat at the window
all the afternoon, hoping a team would pass, but
nobody went by but your little boy.  I thought I
saw you come in a while ago, and I hurried down
to the door, to let you in.  But when you were
nowhere to be seen, I gave up in despair.  I thought
my last chance was gone.  I'd have to spend the
night alone with grandmother, and——"

"The door?  Ain't this the right door to come in
by?" queried Martha.

There was a moment of hesitation before the
answer came.  "Oh, yes.  It's the right door for
*carriages*.  People afoot generally prefer the front
way—on account of the veranda-steps, you know."

Martha gazed at her companion a moment in
silence, then quietly doubled over, in a fit of
irrepressible merriment.

"If you'd just as lief, I'd prefer you wouldn't
tell Sammy, I mean Mr. Slawson," she said, when
she could enunciate.  "He'd never get over my
thinkin' I'm carriage-comp'ny.  An' he'd kill himself
laughin' at the sight o' me, climbin', hands an' knees,
up your high stoop-with-no-steps, which the back
view, lookin' at me from behind, certaintly musta
been funny.  But I've no business detainin' you
away from your gran'ma.  D'you think she'd think
me pushin', if I give her a hot bath, an' a brisk
alcohol rub?  Sam may not get the doctor right off,
an' a bath an' a alcohol rub is as good as anythin'
I know of for a str—for a——"

Katherine Crewe searched her face.  "For a
*what*?" she demanded uncompromisingly.

"A poor circulation," Martha returned imperturbably.

"I've no alcohol.  There's no running water in
the house.  I let the fire in the kitchen range go out
hours ago."

"Never you mind about that.  I got some alcohol
by me, an' if you show me the kitchen range, I'll
show you a fire in it, all right, all right."

"I don't know how it is," sighed Miss Crewe,
leading the way through dark passages, past shadowy
doors, "but, somehow, a great load seems lifted
off my heart, now you're here.  I've never seen you
before, but I feel you're able to set everything right."

"You go on feelin' that way.  It'll help me no
end with the *settin'*.  An', now, don't you wait here.
You run on up to the ol' lady, an' I'll be along
presently.  I'm used to kitchens.  I can find all I need
in'm, an' when I got the hot water, I can find my
way out."

"I'm afraid you'll think the floor isn't very
clean," the girl observed regretfully, pausing, with
her hand upon the doorknob, to gaze back dubiously.
"I suppose it needs a long-handled scrubbing-brush,
and——"

By the light of the lamp Miss Crewe left behind
her when she went, Martha made a quick survey of
the premises.  "'A long-handled scrubbing-brush,'"
she quoted quizzically.  "A long-handled Irish
woman, more likely.  My, but it's a caution, if you
turn up your nose at work, how the dirt will gather
under it.  It's like to take me all night to make a
impression on this place.  The grate chock-full o'
clinkers, an' the *kettles*—say, but I didn't say I'd
give the ol' lady a hot *mud*-bath."

For a few moments the kitchen resounded with
thunderous echoes to the vigorous efforts of
Mrs. Slawson toward reconstruction.  Then followed
other sounds, those of crackling wood, igniting coals,
bubbling water, escaping steam.  In the midst of it
all, Sykey appeared in the doorway.

"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she deplored, before she
had fairly crossed the threshold.  "I'm afraid it's
no use.  Grandmother won't have it.  I told her
about your coming and offering to help, and—she
won't have it."

Martha nodded reassuringly.  "Well, we won't
worry her talkin' about it, an' we won't worry
our-selves *thinkin'* about it.  Have you gotta bath-tub
handy?"

"Yes, but——"

"Plenty o' towels—bath-towels?  The fuzzy-wuzzy,
warm kind which they call'm Turkish or
Russian, I don't know which, but that gets up a
gentle irritation when applied, just like some folks."

The girl nodded.

"Then, the best thing you can do is, get'm ready.
It'll keep your mind off'n her not bein' willin'.  We
want everything laid out handy, so's we won't have
to go on a still-hunt the last minute.  I got plenty
o' water, steamin' hot.  If you'll go along up, an'
kinda *perpare for the worst*, I'll folla along
presently, an'—we'll *have* it."

A single shaded lamp left the great bedroom in
partial shadow, but as Martha approached the
majestic four-poster, about five minutes later, she made
out the figure of a diminutive old woman, stretched
full length beneath the spare coverings.  There could
be nothing formidable in such a tiny figure.  It was
only when Mrs. Slawson looked down upon the face,
that she met a pair of eyes that fairly held her at bay.

"I'm Mrs. Sammy Slawson," she announced, a
shade less confidently than usual.  "I live down the
road a ways—superintendent for Mr. Frank
Ronald, me an' my husband is."

The little body on the bed might be half dead, but
the great eyes were fiercely alive.  They measured
Mrs. Sammy Slawson from head to foot, with a
stare of icy insolence.

Martha did not quail.  She met the stare with a
perfectly unflinching gaze, then went on talking as
she worked, as calmly as if she were not being
challenged in mortal combat.

"I s'pose you don't like the idea of a trained
nurse?  Many don't.  I ain't *trained*, but I'm a nurse
all right, all right, an' if not one of the red, cross
kind, why that's only because, as I tell Sammy, I had
so much exper'ence with Ma an' the childern that,
be this an' be that, I learned to keep my shirt on,
an' not fly out, when tried.  Folks that's ailin' has
enough bother on their chests, without havin' to be
pationate, into the bargain.  It's up to them that's
tendin'm, to do the pationate ack.  Now, take me,
for instance.  You couldn't ruffle *me*, if you took
a flutin'-iron to me.  That's what come o' bein'
sixteen years married, with a mother-in-law threw in,
for good measure.  It learns you to keep your
temper.  You might need it for the nex' time.  I don't
blame *you* a mite if you feel like bitin' the head off
a tenpenny nail.  To have your circulation go back
on you, like, is a kind of nuisance, no doubt about
it.  But, sakes alive!  It might happen to anybody,
as Ma always says when she breaks things she hadn't
oughta touched, in the first place.  The best thing
I know of, for poor circulation, is a hot bath, an' a
alcohol rub—just for a starter.  I got plenty o' hot
water handy, an'—now don't you stir, nor bother
your head worryin' about givin' your gran'daughter
an' I trouble!  We got the bath-tub all ready, an'
yes—them towels is just the right things!  Couldn't
be better!  An'—here goes!"

Martha averted her face, as she bent over the
helpless form, to escape the furiously battling eyes.
She felt as mean as if she had been taking base
advantage of a defenseless creature to do it harm,
instead of good; but, in spite of this, and in spite
of the inarticulate sounds that came from between
the twisted lips at the touch of her hands, she gently
lifted the old woman in her strong arms, stripped
her, as she would a baby, and put her in the tub.

Tears of helpless rage oozed from between the
closed lids, but Mrs. Slawson pretended not to see.
She kept up a cheerful babble, what time her poor
little antagonist simmered, and again during all the
time her firm, strong fingers were plying away at
the nerveless flesh.

"Don't you try to lug that heavy tub, Miss Crewe,
dear.  Wait till I can lay hand to it.  If you must
be doin' somethin', s'pose you smooth down the
sheets, an' see there's no crumbs in the bed.  There's
nothin' like crumbs in the bed for keepin' you from
feelin' lonesome, but I guess your gran'ma willa had
enough comp'ny, by the time she gets rid o' me.
Poor ol' lady!  I been like a grain o' sand in her
eye, which it don't help her none, to say I'm sorry.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center

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

.. vspace:: 1

"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!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER III`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III

.. vspace:: 2

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*."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER IV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV

.. vspace:: 2

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.'"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER V`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V

.. vspace:: 2

The day had been sultry, and sunset brought
no relief.  Evening fell windstill, breathless.

For once Katherine was glad to obey her little
martinet grandmother's arbitrary regulation: Lights
out at nine.  She sat by her bedroom window looking
out over a white, moonlit world, thinking black
thoughts.  Suddenly she rose, for no better reason,
apparently, than that a quick, inner impulse of
impatience against herself, must find vent in some
outward act.

"It's dreadful!  I'm growing bitter, hard, deceitful.
I'm living a lie.  Acting as if I were obedient,
and respectful to her, and—feeling like a rebel every
minute in the day.  I've got to end it, somehow.  I
can't go on like this any longer."

Just outside her window a little balcony (the
railed-in roof of the porte-cochère) shone like a silver
patch against the darker foliage.  The shadows of
leaves cast an intricate pattern upon the moonlit
space, and Katherine gazed at it abstractedly until
a moving speck in the motionless night caught her
attention, and fixed it.  As she watched, the speck
became a shape, the shape an automobile moving
rapidly, almost noiselessly, toward the house, along
the white ribbon of a driveway.  Just before her
window it stopped.

"Hello!" called Dr. Ballard softly.

Katherine hid a radiant smile in the folds of her
shadowy curtain.  "Sh!" she cautioned.  "You'll
wake grandmother."

"Then come down.  I've something to tell you."

"No.  Too late!"

"Nonsense!"

"I can't."

"Oh, very well."

His instant acceptance of her negative was not
altogether agreeable.

One moment, and he was bending over his steering-wheel,
busying himself with the gear, probably
preparatory to driving on and away.  The next, he
was out of the car, had scaled the porch-pillar,
vaulted the low railing, and was calmly sitting not
two feet away from her, Turk-fashion, upon the
balcony floor.

Katherine laughed.  "I didn't know you could
climb like that."

"I can't.  That wasn't a climb.  'Twas a
scramble.  Bad work.  But I'm out of practice."

"You mustn't stay.  Grandmother wouldn't like
it.  Remember, she forbade my having anything to
do with you."

"Sorry, but I don't feel obliged to conform,
on that account.  If *you* don't like it, that's another
story."

Katherine was silent.

Dr. Ballard did not press the point.

"You said you had something to tell me."

"On second thought I'll postpone it."

"Why?"

"The moonlight suggests mystery.  Let's leave
it a mystery."

"I hate mysteries."

"As I diagnose your case, you're by way of
'hating' most things, nowadays.  Come.  Confess.
Aren't you?"

Katherine nodded mutely.

"Don't do it," advised Dr. Ballard.

"I can't help it," she burst out with quite
uncharacteristic impetuosity.  "So much in life is
hateful.  Sometimes, I feel one isn't bound to endure
things, when they make one so detestable.  I was
thinking about it just before you came.  Thinking
about the sort of thing life can make of one.  Everything
one oughtn't to be.  I hate *myself*, along with
all the rest."

Dr. Ballard sat with his hands clasped around his
knees, and gazed straight up above him into the
great stretch of dusky sky, spangled over with
constellations.

"I wonder what Mrs. Slawson would say to
that?" he ruminated.

Katherine started.  "Mrs. Slawson?"

"Yes.  I've made it out that she's rather a specialist,
when it comes to life, and that sort of thing.
Really, I think it might pay you to consult her.  By
the way, she asked me to say that you 'can heave the
perserve trouble off'n your chest.'  She is going to
see you get a 'rule,' or something."

"Oh, good!  That *is* a load off one's mind.  And,
speaking of chests, it can't be very good for yours,
to be doing heavy gymnastics, such as climbing
porch-posts.  Can it?"

"Why not?  My chest's O.K.  Nothing in the
least 's the matter with my chest."

"Oh,—I thought——" blundered Katherine awkwardly.

"What?"

"Somebody told me—I don't recollect who—that
you had a 'spot' or something, on your lung.  I'm
so sorry."

Dr. Ballard flung back his head with a low, boyish
chuckle.

"Somebody's got hold of the wrong case.  My
nerves, mixed with another chap's bellows.  No, I'm
not up here on account of any one *spot*—it's the
whole rundown machine that needs repairing.  I'm
used up.  Tired out."

"Tired out—waiting for patients?" asked Katherine
mischievously.

Dr. Ballard gave her a quick look.  "That's it.
Waiting for patients," he quoted with perfect good
humor.

"I suppose it's hard work building up a practice
in a city as big as Boston."

"Quite hard work."

"Don't you get discouraged?"

"Why should I?"

"Oh, there must be so many obstacles, hindrances.
Even if you are clever, there must be so many older
men with established reputations.  Great physicians,
great surgeons."

"Precisely.  That's the fun of it.  The game
wouldn't be worth playing, if 'twas easy to win out.
It's hard.  That's why I like it."

Katherine rose slowly, and stood in the window
embrasure, looking down upon him thoughtfully.

"You've given me something to sleep on," she
said.  "I'll remember what you've said.  'The game
wouldn't be worth playing, if 'twas easy.'  And I
have been whining because it is hard."

"Katherine!" shrilled a petulant voice, breaking
rudely through the soft evening hush.

"Coming, grandmother."

"*Good* night!" exclaimed Dr. Ballard with slangy
intention.

The next moment, Katherine saw his agile figure
disappear over the rim of the balustrade.  She
turned quickly to answer the imperative call, all the
old miserable feelings returning in a rush.

"I want a drink of water."

If Martha Slawson had been in Katherine's place,
the mother-heart in her would have understood that
childish call at once.  But the girl had no experience
that would help her to interpret the meaning of it.
She supplied the drink with as much promptness,
and as little sentiment, as a nickel-in-the-slot
machine.

Madam Crewe drained the glass thirstily.

"It's a warm night," she observed socially.

"Very warm."

"Queer the way my head acts," continued the
lonely old woman, obviously making conversation
to detain Katherine.  "Sometimes it seems full of
sounds, so I think I hear real voices speaking.  A
little while ago, I heard a man's laugh, as clear as
could be.  You weren't downstairs with a caller,
were you?"

"I haven't been out of my room since supper-time,
grandmother."

The words seemed to Katherine to burn her lips,
as she uttered them.  She turned abruptly to the door.
Her grandmother called her back.

"You know what I've been thinking?"

Katherine stood at attention, but silent, unequal to
the task of counterfeiting interest.

"I've been thinking, I'm going to give the cow to
Slawson.  It bothers me when I can't pay my debts,
and the woman won't take a cent for what she's done.
Besides, it's expensive keeping live-stock these days,
with fodder so high, and labor even worse.  We
don't need a cow, just you and I.  Cheaper to buy
milk than feed the creature through the winter, and
hire Peter to come and milk.  It counts up.  Slawson
can keep her, and turn an honest penny letting
us have milk at lowest price.  See?"

"Yes, grandmother."

"You don't like the plan?"

"Giving the cow to Mrs. Slawson is very nice, I
think, but I always hate presents with strings to
them.  Having to supply us with milk takes the
cream off the cow."

"Pooh!  That's nonsense.  You've altogether too
big notions.  They'll get you into trouble, if you
don't take care.  I can see you making ducks and
drakes of a fortune in no time, if you didn't have
some one to hold a tight rein over you.  By the
way, how about those preserves?"

"I'll put them up to-morrow, grandmother."

"See you do.  Else, first thing you know, the fruit
will be gone.  Rotted on the trees."

"I promise you, I'll put it up to-morrow without
fail," Katherine repeated very distinctly.

Back in her own room she laughed bitterly, while
two hot tears slipped down her cheeks.  "*Promise*!
Poor thing! and she believes me!  She thinks my
word is as good as my bond.  So it is—and neither
of them is worth a rush," she assailed herself.  No,
she had forgotten.  She was telling the truth about
the preserves, at least.  Mrs. Stewson was going to
let her have a "rule."  But the false impression she
had deliberately conveyed about the caller still
"stuck in her crop," as Martha would have said.
And yet, what right had her grandmother or any
one else, to tie her hand and foot, so she must resort
to subterfuge if she wanted to move a muscle?

It wasn't fair that one life should be crippled to
serve the whim of another.  If her grandmother insisted
on cutting her off from all natural pleasures, let
her take the consequences.  She fell asleep at last,
nursing her sense of injury, brooding over her wrongs.

The next morning, while the casual Eunice was
clearing the breakfast table, Katherine heard a sound
outside, which caused her to hurry to the window.
The sound was familiar, but the time for it unusual.
The doctor's car was not due at Crewesmere so
early in the day.  Yet there it was, and, as Katherine
gazed, from it issued, as if in installments,
Mrs. Slawson, a small boy, a big girl, and—a huge,
granite-ware preserving-kettle.

In less than a minute the *tempo* of the house was
changed.  Things moved *vivace*.

"Sammy, you go out with this basket, an' strip
them trees as fast as you can put.  Cora, you show'm
where to go, after Miss Crewe she tells you, that's
a good girl.  Eunice, get me every one o' them
perserve-jars off'n the top pantry-shelf, an' when you
wash'm, see the water's good an' hot, but not so's
it'll crack the glass.  We'll need them scales, Miss
Katherine.  I knew you had'm, or I'd 'a' brought
my own.  If you watch me measurin', an' write down
what the perportions are, an' how I handle'm, you'll
have a 'rule' for future use, which, if it never took
a prize like Mrs. Peckett's, certaintly never poisoned
anybody yet, that ever et it, so far as *I* know."

It was wonderful how the load lifted from Katherine's
heart.

"I don't know how it is, Mrs. Slawson," she said
at length, "but whenever you're here, I feel about
twice as strong and brave, as at any other time.  It
isn't alone that you *do* so much, but you make me
think I can do things too; things I know I'm not
equal to, otherwise."

Martha smiled.  "Believe *me*, you don't know
what you're equal to, an' don't you forget it.  No
more do I.  We ain't done up in bags, like seven
pounds o' sugar, we human bein's, so's we know what
we're equal to.  The heft of us comes out, accordin'
to the things in life we got to measure up to.  When
I was married, firstoff, I thought I wasn't *equal* to
livin' with my mother-in-law, an' puttin' up with her
peculiar-rarities.  But, laws o' man!  I found I was.
An', what's more, I found I been equal to one or
two other little things since, worse than her, by a
good sight.  What helped me some, was realizin' I
got peculiar-rarities of my own other folks has to
be equal to."

Katherine caught her under lip between her teeth,
as if to hold back words trying to come out.  A
minute, and they came.

"But, I don't see why some people have a right
to make others unhappy."

"They haven't.  No more than a body has a
right to make herself unhappy.  But they do it, all
the same."

"One wouldn't mind making one big sacrifice, or
two, or three, in a lifetime, if that were all.  But, it
seems, nothing is ever enough.  You think you've
vanquished one thing, and, before you know it, you've
got it all to do over again.  Has your life been that
way, Mrs. Slawson?  Does one never get through
having to give up one's own wishes and will to the
wishes and will of others?"

Mrs. Slawson stirred in silence for a moment the
delicious brew simmering on the stove.

"Did you ever scrub a floor?" she asked, at
length.  "No, o' course you didn't.  Mostly, ladies
thinks scrubbin' floors is dretful low work.  Well,
it ain't.  Scrubbin' floors'll learn you a lot o' other
things, if you let it.  In the first place, there's a
right an' wrong way to it, same's there is to tonier
jobs.  If you're goin' to begrutch your elbow grease,
an' ain't willin' to get down on your marra-bones,
an' attend strictly to business, you ain't goin' to
succeed.  Well, we'll say, you scrubbed a spot, good an'
clean.  That ain't all.  You got to keep goin' back
on yourself, scrubbin' back over the places where
you left off, else there'll be streaks, an' when your
floor dries on you, the streaks'll show up, for all
they're worth, an' give you dead away.  As I make
it out, it's just the same with livin'.  If you
begrutch takin' pains, an' keep your eye out, all the
time, for fear you'll do a little more'n your share,
why, you can take it from me, you're goin' to show
streaks.  You better never done it at all, than done
it so's it'll be a dead give-away on you.  You can't
scrub clean with dirty water, an' you can't *live* clean,
'less you keep turnin' out all the messy feelin's you
got in you, an' refillin' your heart with fresh, same's
you would your water-pail.  But, even when you've
done your job right, oncet ain't goin' to be enough.
You couldn't keep clean with one scrub-down,
no matter how thora.  It's got to be done
over to-morra, an' the next day, an' so on.  If a
body don't like it, why, that don't change the fax any."

"But all of us don't have to scrub floors.  And
I don't see why, if one had what you call a *job* one
didn't like, he couldn't change it.  Just say: I won't
live like this any longer.  I'll have something better.
If there aren't ways of breaking loose from things
one hates, and making happiness for one's self, there
ought to be.  We should invent them."

"Well, p'raps you're right.  They certaintly do
a lot o' inventin' these days.  They invented a way
o' flyin' above the earth.  But there's no way *I*
know of you can sail over your own particular place
in the world.  After all's said an' done, you gotta
come back home, an' just stand flat, with your two
little feet planted square in the middle o' that state
o' life onto which it's pleased the Lord to call you."

"Then you don't believe people have the right to
make their own happiness?"

"Certaintly I do.  I don't only think they have
the right to, I think they gotta.  People have the
right to make their happiness out o' every last thing
comes in their way.  Every last scrap an' drop they
find anywheres about.  Same's you'd make a
perfectly good patch-quilt out o' the rag-bag, an' A1
soap out o' drippin's.  Any gener'l houseworker at
five dollars *per*, can make a roast out o' a prime cut
o' beef.  Any fool can be happy, if they're handed
out happiness in chunks.  But it takes a chef-cook
to gather up all the sort o' queer little odds an'
ends in the pantry, an' season'm here, an' whip'm up
there, an' put'm on a dish, garnished with parsley,
or smothered in cream, an' give'm a fancy French
name on a menoo-card, so's when they come on the
table, you smack your lips, an' say 'dee-licious!' an'
feel you got your money's worth."

"But if one has tried and tried?  And it was
no use?  Things only got more tangled?"

Martha pondered for a moment.  "Sometimes,
with a new spool o' thread, you get aholt o' the
wrong end, an' then you can pull an' pull, an' tug
an' tug, till you're black in the face, an' the more
you do, the more your cotton gets tangled on you.
But if you'll go easy, an' wait till you find the right
end, it'll run off as smooth as grease.  D'you mind
takin' a sip o' this licka, to see if you think it's
sweet enough to suit?  Taste differs, an' some likes
more sugar'n others."

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"Well," said Dr. Ballard as, toward the close
of the day, he was taking leave of Katherine, having
fulfilled his professional duty to his patient upstairs.
"Well, mademoiselle, was Mrs. Slawson of any use?
Was she a help?"

Katherine threw him a grateful glance.  "A help?
Rather.  More of a help than you'll ever know."

"The preserves are made?"

"You should view the shelves.  They're a wonder.
I believe we've a stock that'll last us for the rest of
our natural lives."

"And, you say, the Preserver has gone home?  I
expected to take her with me."

"That's what she expected.  But, about an hour
ago, Mrs. Frank Ronald drove up.  She came to
call, though, of course, it was my place to go see her
first, as she's a bride, and a stranger.  She brought
grandmother an armful of roses.  The loveliest
things!  Long-stemmed ones, almost as tall as she
is herself.  Have you ever seen her?  Mrs. Ronald?
She's the daintiest creature!  She makes me feel a
giantess.  And so unaffected, and cordial.  So
different from Mrs. Sherman, who was Katherine
Ronald.  Somehow, I feel as if her being here, were
going to make things pleasanter.  I'm happier, more
contented, and hopeful, than I've been for ever so
long."

"And Mrs. Ronald sent her car for Mrs. Slawson?"

Katherine Crewe laughed.  "'Not on your life,'
as Mrs. Slawson says.  Mrs. Ronald just took her
along in the car with her, preserving-kettle and all.
You should have seen the footman's expression!  I
had told Mrs. Ronald about the preserving, and, as
soon as she heard, she proposed taking 'Martha,'
as she calls her, back with her when she went.  She's
evidently a democratic little person.  I wonder how
such goings-on will please Mrs. Ronald, senior, and
Katherine Sherman.  They're so frightfully what,
when we were children, we used to call 'stuck up.'  I
know grandmother would be horrified.  She, also,
is stuck-up, as perhaps you may have gathered."

"Yes, she has made no attempt to hide it.  But,
I'd really like to know why *I* come in for such a
large share of her disapproval.  To forbid you to
have anything to say to me, now, is really——  If
she weren't such a poor, helpless little old body, I'd
have it out with her.  Have you any idea what the
trouble is?"

Katherine flushed.  "It's all too absurd.  A man
by the name of Ballard was bailiff to her father,
when she was a girl."

"I know that.  My grandfather.  What then?  A
bailiff's is a perfectly good job.  Look at Slawson.
He's all right, isn't he?  But, anyway, things haven't
stood still since those days.  *I'm* not a bailiff.  I'm a
physician.  What's the matter with that?"

"Nothing—only——"

"Only—what?"

"She says——"  Katherine hesitated.

"Out with it," urged Dr. Ballard.

"She says you've no practice.  No income."

He laughed aloud.  "How the deuce does she know?"

"You're so young."

"Oh, I am, am I?  Well, I'll tell you a secret:
I'm not quite so young as, apparently, I look.  I
don't wear my hair a little thin on top because I like
that style, particularly.  But, even if she's right,
and I have no practice—no income—how could
that——?"

Katherine turned her face away, unable to meet
his searching eyes.

He spoke again at once.  "The fact is, you're
not giving it to me straight.  You're trying to soften
the dull thud, or something.  Now, be honest.
Speak the truth, like a little man.  What's the
reason I'm *persona non grata* with Madam Crewe?
Speak out.  It'll be over in a minute, and then you'll
feel much better, and so shall I."

"It's too humiliating to have to repeat it," Katherine
fairly wailed.  "She's old.  She doesn't realize
how things sound.  She said—I'm quoting, word for
word—repeating every foolish syllable, but you *will*
have it.  She said: 'I know the Ballard tribe.  I
knew it, when I was young.  It injured me and mine,
and it will you, if you don't leave it alone.  Leave
this fellow alone, and see he leaves you.  Understand?'"

"So!  Well, that sounds 'kinda moreish,' as
Mrs. Slawson says.  I wish you'd go on.  She didn't tell
you what *the Ballard tribe* was guilty of?  No?
Then I'll have to look into it, and find out for
myself.  I never was much on genealogy, but if we've
a real, sure-nuff villain in the family—a villain whose
yellow streak is like to crop out unto the third and
fourth generations—why, I'm on to his trail.  I'm
going to hunt him down.  It'll be something to
amuse me, while, as you say, I'm *waiting for
patients*."





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.. _`CHAPTER VI`:

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   CHAPTER VI

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"You take up every little point in the edge, an'
pin it down to the frame, like this.  See!
Doncher stretch the lace so tight it'll tear on you.
Gentle now!  Watch me, an' then you folla suit."

Martha had pressed Cora into service, to do
apprentice-duty; and was instructing her in the gentle
art of curtain-cleansing.

From a far corner of the garret-room, where, for
convenience and safety, the frames had been set,
Flicker, the dog, sat watching with intent expression.
Occasionally, when one or the other of his friends
seemed on the point of noticing him, he wagged an
impartial, responsive tail.

"I want to do this job so good it couldn't be
done better," Mrs. Slawson observed, her skilful
fingers plying away busily as she spoke.  Cora
sniffed.

"Seems to me you always want to do every job
'so good it couldn't be done better,'" she grumbled.
"I never saw anybody so particular as you.  Ann
Upton's mother ain't.  Ann Upton's mother says it's
wastin' time.  That's the reason she can make Ann
such stylish clo'es, 'cause she don't waste time.  She
says she does things *good enough*, an' if folks don't
like it, they can lump it."

"Well, Mrs. Upton certaintly's got a right to her
own opinion.  Far be it from me to deprive her of
it.  But her opinion an' mine don't gee, that's all.
One thing I know—if you only try to do *good
enough*, you're goin' to get left in the end, an' don't
you forget it.  You can take it from me, you won't
find any admirin' crowds lingerin' 'round *your*
doorstep, young lady.  Did you never hear the sayin':
Leave good enough alone?  Well, that's how they
leave it, because everybody is hurryin' to get the
fella can be depended on to do the *best* work for
the money.  If you're satisfied to do things *good
enough*, you're goin' to be left alone, an' if *you* like
that kind o' solitary granjer, you're welcome to it.
That's all I got to say—on this subjec'."

For a time there was silence, while Martha worked
industriously, and Cora fumbled along with just
enough appearance of energy to escape being "hauled
over the coals" for laziness.  Presently, however,
Mrs. Slawson paused.

"Do you know," she announced cheerfully, "I
believe you'd feel a whole lot more like attendin'
strickly to business if I kinda relieved you o' what
you got under your apron."

Cora looked scared.  "Wha-at?" she stammered.

Her mother's expression continued bland.  "Yes.
It won't trouble *me* a mite, an' it's just a-burdenin'
you.  Nobody can give her mind to a job when
she's hankerin' after somethin' else.  Is it a book,
now, or what is it?"

Cora began to cry.  "I think you're real mean.
I ain't doin' any harm.  I'm workin' all right.  I
can't have a single thing, but you want to see it."

"Sure you can't," admitted Martha imperturbably.
"You mayn't believe it, but a mother's got a
reel sorta friendly interest in her childern.  If a
mother *keeps in touch*, as Mrs. Sherman says, with
her childern's minds, it saves her a lot o' keepin' in
touch with their bodies, by the aid of a switch, or
the flat of her hand, as the case may be.  Now, your
mind's on what you got under your apron, so let
me get right in touch with it, like a little lady."

With a dismal wail that caused Flicker's ears to
prick up apprehensively, Cora thrust her hand under
her apron, and brought forth an illustrated
periodical.

"Hand it over!" commanded her mother serenely.

Cora handed it over.

Martha examined the title-page.

"'THE INGLE-NOOK'!  Now what under the
sun is a Ingle-Nook, I should like to know!  'THE
INGLE-NOOK.  Containing Dora Dean Beebe's
Greatest Story: SWEET SIBYL OF THE
SWEAT-SHOP, or, THE MILLIONAIRE'S
MATE.'  Dear me!  Where'd you get aholt o' this
treasure?  Sund' School Lib'ry?"

"No!" blubbered Cora, recognizing the fact that
her mother's question was meant to be answered.

"Where?"

"Ann Upton.  Ann found it up to her house.  It
b'longs to her mother."

"Ho!" exclaimed Mrs. Slawson.  "No wonder
Mrs. Upton makes Ann stylish clo'es.  If this is the
sorta litherchure she improves her mind on, I can
see why she feels about a good many things the way
she does.  The name of it, alone, is enough to make
you neglect your work.  I don't wonder you're
longin' to shake Miss Claire's curtains, for to be
findin' out about sweet Sibyl an' how she got a-holt
o' one o' them grand millionaire gen'lmen, that's
always hangin' 'round sweat-shops, huntin' for mates.
It's bound to be a movin' story.  It couldn't help it.
Lemme see!  What's this?

"'The ruffian eyed sweet Sibyl men'"—Martha
hesitated before the elaborate, unfamiliar word
confronting her—"'men-*ac*\ingly.  "Have a care!" he
hissed through his clinch-ed teeth.' (Doncher worry,
I got one, an' then some!  I'd 'a' said, if I'd 'a'
been Sweet Sibyl.)

"'Sibyl turned, tears gushin' to her violet eyes,
an' coursin' down her blush-rose cheeks.  "I will
not do it!" she cried, her lovely, musical voice
tremblin' with emotion.  "I will not do it.  Even
a worm will turn."' (Well, what's the matter with
that, so long as the worm's got plenty o' room to
turn in, an' turnin' don't make it dizzy?)  Do you
know what *I* think?  I think this little story is 'most
too excitin' for young girls like us, Cora.  I think
your father wants to read it, instead of *The New
England Farmer*, an' if he finds it won't keep us
awake nights or won't harm our morals none, maybe
he'll give it back to us."

Cora wept.

"In the meantime, now this curtain's stretched
good an' firm, let's kinda go over it careful, to see
does it need a stitch anywheres, just to take our
minds off'n Sweet Sibyl, an' that Millionaire Mate o'
hers with the gen'lmanly taste for sweat-shops.  Say,
Cora, come to think, p'raps he ran the sweat-shop.
P'raps that's how he come to be a millionaire.  You
never can tell.  My! but ain't this a lovely job!  I
never stretched a curtain smoother, or straighter, in
my life.  It's as even as——"

In her enthusiasm Martha's arm swung out, in
a vigorous gesture, which, somehow or other,
Flicker's alert intelligence interpreted as a command.
With a bound he leaped from his sequestered corner,
landed, with geometrical precision, in the center of
the curtain, and went through, as if it had been a
paper-covered hoop.

For a second Cora was so dumbfounded that her
sobs caught in her throat.

Martha gazed at the destruction of her lovely
job in silence.  Then, Cora, scared by the suddenness
of the performance, seeing in the accident only
another avenue of bondage for herself, began to
cry afresh, aloud.

Her mother lifted an undaunted chin.  "Well,
what do you think o' that!" she ejaculated.  "Don't
cry, Cora.  You ain't hurt.  You're just
flabbergasted.  Flicker didn't mean no harm, did you,
Flicker?  He was just dreamin' he was one o' them
equestrienne bareback ladies, that rides horses four
abreast in the circus, an' jumps through hoops.
Flicker's prob'ly got ambitions, same's the rest o'
us.  An' it's all right to have ambitions, only you
wanta be sure you're suited to the part, if you got it.
Sometimes the ideas *we* got on that subjec' an' the
ideas God's got don't kinda gee.  That's why, when
we get to hankerin' after what we wasn't intended
for, we so frequent land in the middle an' fall
through.  Readin' such little stories as Sweet Sibyl,
gives a body wrong notions o' that very kind.  Now,
it wouldn't be healthy for me, or for you either, to
dream we was Sweet Sibyls.  We ain't that typical
type at all, so's even if we got a gait on, an' caught
up with the millionaire before he got away from
the sweat-shop (which it would be a stunt to do it,
outside o' THE INGLE-NOOK), he wouldn't
reco'nize us for his mate, on account o' our eyes not
bein' vi'let, or our cheeks blush-rose, or our voices
musical with 'motion.  Looka here, Cora, d'you know
what we're in?  We're in luck!  The lace part ain't
harmed a mite.  It's just the bobbinet Flicker went
through.  Acrow bobbinet can't be hard to match.
I'll get a len'th of it, when I go to the city, an' sew
the lace on again, as easy as can be.  *We're* in luck!"

But, even as she spoke, Martha was calculating
how much the *len'th* would cost, and to just what
extent her precious fifteen dollars would be depleted
thereby.

"You goin' to tell Miss Claire?" asked Cora inquisitively.

"No, ma'am.  What'd be the use?  What she
don't know won't fret her, an' it wasn't nobody's
fault.  When I've made it right, it'll *be* right.  The
less said, the sooner it'll be mended.  'S that Sammy
callin'?"

"Mother!  Mother!" the boy's strident voice
was heard shouting through the house.

Martha composedly made her way to the stairhead.

"Say, Sammy," she addressed him, "I ain't dead,
but if I was you'd 'a' waked me, sure.  Now, what
is it?"

"Mother!  Whatcher think!  You got a cow!
Ol' lady Crewe she made you a present of a cow!
A man, name o' Peter, he's brought the cow.  'With
the compliments o' Madam Crewe,' an' she's light
yella, an' she switches her tail like anything."

Martha sat down upon the top step of the flight.
"Well, what do you think o' that!" she murmured.
"This is my busy day, an' no mistake.  But who'd
'a' thought I'd 'a' had two such blows comin' on top
of another before noon?  P'raps it ain't true."

But when she got downstairs she found it was
true.  She regarded the cow dubiously.

"If it was a question o' givin' her a good
scrubdown," she observed, "I wouldn't hesitate a
minute.  Or even layin' a hand to her horns, to polish'm
up a bit, which they certaintly do look sorta like
they needed it.  But *milk* her!  I'm afraid her an'
me won't understand each other on the milk question.
There might be differculties, meanin' no
offense on either side."

"She's a good cow," declared the Swedish Peter.
"She is what they call Alderney, and her milk it is
boss milk, thick mit cream.  You will relish her
milk."

Martha's face was grave.  "I don't doubt your
word, young fella," she assured him meditatively.
"What I'm wonderin' is, when her an' me has wrastled
through our first round, will my injuries be such
as I'll ever relish anything, any more?"

Sam senior smiled.  "I'm afraid you're taking
her hard, mother.  You'll soon get the hang of her."

"No sooner than she's like to get the hang o'
me," returned Martha.  "She ain't like hens.  You
can tell by their slopin'-back foreheads, hens ain't
much of any, on intellec'.  But this cow's differ'nt.
I wouldn't like to bet, now, I got a mite more sense'n
her, if it come to a argument between us.  An' she
certaintly has the best o' me, so far as fightin'
qualifercations goes."

"Well, anyhow, you've got to thank Madam
Crewe," Sam Slawson mildly dictated.  "She's given
you a big present, and you must show her you're
grateful."

"Certaintly.  I'll go out there this very afternoon,
an' show her," replied his wife obediently.

So it was, that the tiny old lady, sitting up that
afternoon for the first time since her seizure, saw
through the open window, beside which her chair
had been placed, Mrs. Slawson advancing along the
driveway.  A quick gleam of satisfaction lit up the
unanimated little mask for an instant, while the
Madam gave a low grunt of approbation.

"Decent creature.  Comes to thank at once.
That's mannerly, beyond her station," she observed
to Katherine.  "Have her up."

Not for the world would Madam Crewe have
admitted to herself, much less to her granddaughter,
that she had grown to like this "creature" made
of such different clay from herself.  She was willing,
not glad to see her, but her willingness caused a
gentle glow to permeate her cold little frame.

"So you like the cow?  That's good.  I hope
you'll treat her well."

Mrs. Slawson smiled.  "Certaintly, I'll treat her
well, providin' she gives me a show," she promised
cordially.  "I'll treat her well, an' I hope she'll treat
me the same."

"You're not afraid of her?"

"No'm.  Certaintly not.  But, by the same
token, she ain't afraid o' me.  Till the one gets the
upper hand o' the other, neither of us won't know
where we're at.  An', meanwhile, we're both lyin'
low.  I guess animals is some like childern.  They
like to try it on, oncet in a while, an' if, be this or be
that, you don't master'm at the first go-off, they'll
be no earthly good to you.  Even when you got'm
trained, they're like as not to get skittish.  Take my
girl, Cora, or our small dog, for instance.  Now,
Flicker's as steady a little fella as ever drew breath.
But this mornin', if he didn't suddently get gay, an'
lep' right through one o' the curtains I was mendin'
for Miss Claire—I *should* say, Mrs. Ronald.  Now,
it's up to me to buy a new half o' bobbinet, an' all
for the sake o' Flicker dreamin' he'd like to go on
a tear."

Madam Crewe drew down her lips primly.

"I have no doubt repairing the damage will cause
you considerable trouble," she said.

"I don't mind the trouble.  It's the bobbinet *I*
mind.  I wonder, now, how much you'd have to give
a yard for fine, acrow bobbinet."

"Katherine," exclaimed Madam Crewe, summoning
the girl to her so abruptly that Martha was
alarmed.

Miss Crewe was at her grandmother's side in an
instant, bending her head to catch the whispered
words the old woman strained forward to breathe in
her ear.

"I guess I must be movin'," said Martha, after
Katherine had left the room.  "The childern need
me, an' I've already tired you out with my long
tongue."

"No.  Stay.  Sit down!"

Mrs. Slawson sat, though after her little fusillade
of commands, Madam Crewe did not deign to address
another syllable to her, and made plain that
she could dispense with conversation on Martha's
part.

The silence had become oppressive when, at last,
Miss Crewe reappeared.  With her was Eunice
Youngs, and between them they laboriously lugged
a sizable chest.  Madam Crewe waited until the box
had been set down before her, then imperiously
waved Eunice away as if she had been a bothersome
fly.  As soon as she had disappeared, fresh
commands rapped out thick and fast.

"My keys.  In the basket hanging behind the
hamper in my closet.  On the first hook.  Yes, that
bunch.  Now, *that* key.  No, not that one, *that* one!"

Before Katherine could fit the key in the lock,
Madam Crewe stopped her with a gesture.

"Wait.  I've something to say.  When I was
young, a girl got proper plenishing," she observed
dryly.  "In those days a bride's outfit didn't consist
of bows of ribbon on rags of lace—layers on layers
of nothingness, as if she were a ballet-dancer, or
worse.  My outfit—('twas a good English outfit, no
flimsy French trousseau!) my outfit will outlast me
and you, young lady, will reap the benefit of it, if
you marry to please me.  But not a yard or an inch,
mind you (Slawson is here to bear witness to what
I say!), not a yard, not an inch, nor a penny of my
money, if you marry otherwise.  And that reminds me."

The old woman's eyes grew shrewd.

"Sometimes wills are contested.  Attempts are
made to break them on the ground of the testator
being old, sick, of unsound mind.  If any such thing
were to happen in my case, I'd like you to be able
to speak up for me, Slawson.  Do you see that
chest?  It has not been opened for sixty-eight years,
yet I can tell you, to the last yard, what's in it.  I
was seventeen when I locked it fast, and the key's
never been turned in it since.  Now, listen! so you
can prove if my mind's intact, my memory good."

She reeled off a long table of contents, with hardly
a pause.  "Now open!" she dictated.

The raised lid revealed a mine of treasure, corresponding
in character, if not precisely in order, to the
given list.  India mull, fine as a web, creamy as ivory.
Matchless napery in rare old weaves.  Bed-linen in
uncut lengths.

"Enough to make you shiver to think o' lyin'
between'm," Martha ruminated.

Katherine's hands were almost reverent as, obeying
her grandmother's silent bidding, she lifted bolt
after bolt, and laid it aside.

"There!  That's what I'm after," exclaimed the
old woman at last.  "Now, unwrap that blue paper.
Careful!  Don't tear it!  Is this the sort of *bobbinet*
you mean, Slawson?"

Martha leaned forward, her eyes glowed.  "I
guess Miss Claire's ain't the quality this is, but——"

"Probably not.  *This* quality isn't made
nowadays."  Madam Crewe spoke proudly.  "But if
you think you can use it (it's what you call *acrow*
with age instead of dye) you may have enough for
one window, and save your money.  Katherine, get
my yardstick, and the shears, and measure it off
where I can see.  Give good measure, as I tell you,
but no waste.  If one window is complete, the
difference from the others won't be noticed."

For once, Martha was fairly silenced.  The
madam appeared too occupied to notice.

"Girls are fools," she ruminated.  "When I shut
that chest I was a girl.  I vowed to myself I'd never
open it again.  I thought it was the coffin in which
my happiness was buried.  Well, I haven't opened
it.  My granddaughter has opened it.  Rather a
joke, when one thinks of it!  Dear, dear, how it all
comes back!  The anger, the disappointment,
the——" her voice grew vague.  She pulled herself
up sharply.  "Before you replace that mull, child,
if you'd like enough for a frock, you can have it.  In
for a penny, in for a pound.  'Twas a fool-girl vow,
anyway, made in passion—a lifetime ago....
They're decking themselves out in lank draperies
now, so you'll be in the style, Katherine.  This mull
is better and costlier than most of the shoddy silks
the shoddy people are wearing these days.  It will
prove you are no *nouveau riche*.  You don't know
what *nouveau riche* means, do you, Slawson?"

Martha paused.  "No'm.  But I always thought
I wouldn't mind bein' the *nouveau*, whatever it is, if
I just had a try at the *riche*."

Madam Crewe drew down her lips in what
Mrs. Slawson had grown to call her "Foxy gran'ma"
expression.  She turned again to Katherine.  "I'll give
you a fichu to wear with the mull.  A French thing,
handworked, trimmed with Mechlin, rather good
Mechlin, as it happens.  I never wore it.  'Twas too
large.  Swallowed me up.  But the long ends won't
trail on *you*.  There, there!  Don't thank me.  I
hate sentimentality.  And I've almost been
sentimental myself—after sixty-eight years.  I know
you're pleased.  I understand my sex.  We're sirens,
all of us, at heart—when we have any heart.  I've not
the slightest doubt, now, but if Slawson put on a
pair of silk stockings and a lace petticoat, she'd
feel as coquettish as any of us.  No matter how plain
we are, we all have the *instincts* of beautiful women.
We're made that way....  Now close down the
lid.  See you turn the key all the way 'round.  I
recollect the lock is tricky.  Slawson, help Miss
Katherine carry the chest back where it came from.  Put
it away where you found it, and be sure to fasten
the trunk-room door, and bolt it securely.  And,
Slawson, you needn't come back here, when you've
done.  Just take your acrow bobbinet, and march
home to your husband and children, where you
belong.  I'm tired."

Something "Slawson" could not have analyzed
kept her silent after she and Miss Crewe left the
room.  Katherine was singularly mute.  Martha had
waved the girl aside, and, grappling with the chest
single-handed, triumphantly had carried it off, the
little madam watching the performance covertly,
with eyes glistening appreciation.

Her feat successfully accomplished, Martha went
her way, clasping her precious bundle.  She was
home before she was aware.  Sam met her at the
door, his face revealing, to her who knew it, a secret
delight.

"I'm to go to the city next week, mother.  So,
pack your bag and get ready for your *wedding-tour*,"
he greeted her with sober fun.

"Have you told Ma and the childern?"

"No.  I thought you'd better."

"Good.  No hurry.  Time enough later.  I hope
Ma won't kick.  It'll mean some work for her, while
I'm gone—*if she does it*, but nothing she can't reel
off easy enough, if her spirit is willin'.  I got a
present, Sam.  From the ol' lady."

"Yes, I know.  The cow."

"No, I mean somethin' else.  The ol' lady give
me a surprise.  She give me a front seat to see her
do a new turn, an' she passed out soovenirs to the
audience, besides.  I got mine here."

"What is it?"

"What'll take me with you down home.  I mean,
New York."

"Money?"

"As good as.  It'll be money, when I'm done with
it.  Only, from now on, for some days to come, I'm
goin' to be *Little Martha the Lace Mender*, or, *The
Postponed Bride*, an' a buzz-saw will be safe for
anybody to monkey with by comparising."

It was a proud day for Martha when, her stint
completed, she was able to carry the curtains,
exquisitely cleansed and mended, to Miss Claire.

"Now I've the money ackchelly in my pocket, I'll
tell Ma an' the childern," she said to Sam, who was
washing his hands at the sink, preparatory to sitting
down to his midday meal.

"I wonder if Ma'll kick?" he pondered solemnly.

"Nothin' like tryin', an' findin' out," Martha
returned, "dishing up," with energy, as one after the
other of her hungry brood appeared, responding
to her resounding call of "Dinner!"

"Say, Cora, doncher attempt to come to the table
with that shaggy-lookin' head on you.  Go smooth
your hair back proper, like you always wear it.  I
don't mind most things, but to set down to eat alongside
somethin' looks like a sky-tearer dog, *I will not*!
Sammy, take your hands outa your pockets, like a
little gen'lman, an' help Sabina tie her napkin on
an' get into her high chair.  Sabina, you leave your
brother tie your napkin on, when he offers to do
it!  I'm busy.  Say, Francie, when I told you trim
the lamp this mornin', I didn't mean cut the wick in
*scollops*.  Lucky I happened to see it, or we'd 'a'
been smoked out o' house an' home.  Now, Ma, if
you're ready, we'll sit."

Ma being ready, they sat, and the meal progressed,
notwithstanding the fact that Cora, reappearing,
shorn of her modish coiffure, was in no mood for
merry-making.

"I hate my hair this way!" she announced for
the benefit of whom it might concern.

"Ringlets is one thing, *stringlets* is another," said
Martha, unreproachfully.  "At least, *now* you don't
look like somebody'd been woolin' the head of you.
Have some stew?"

"No, I hate the very name o' stew."

"Call it rag-goo, then, same's Miss Claire's grand
chef-cook does.  Have some, anyhow, for luck.
Here, cheer up, Cora!  When I was a kid, I was one
o' nine childern, an' you can take it from me, we
wasn't thinkin' half so much, in them days, what
we'd eat as *where we'd get it*.  When I was
twelve—two years younger than you—I went to live out
scullery-maid with Mrs. Underwood, God bless
her! where my mother'd been cook before me.  From that
day, I never went hungry no more, nor the ones at
home either.  But I don't like to see my childern
turn up their noses at good food.  It ain't becomin'.
Now, eat your rag-goo like a lady, an' we'll call it
square.  Say, Ma, you know what Sam an' me's goin'
to do?"

Ma shook her head, after the fashion of a mild
bovine chewing the meditative cud.

"We're goin' to play hookey.  We're goin' to
fly the coop, for a couple o' days, an' go back home,
to New York.  Sam's gotta—on business, an' I'm
goin' ta, on pleasure."

The moment following Martha's announcement
was one of intense silence.  The children and Ma
were too amazed to speak.  The idea of *Mother*
deserting, even for a few days, was hardly conceivable.
Then, as the monstrousness of it began to percolate,
there rose a chorus of protest.

"O—oh, mother-r!  What'll we do?"

"I wanta go too!"

"No, take *me*, mother!"

Cora's voice, at last, dominated the rest.

"Hush!  Mother, can't you make them hush?  *I*
wanta say something!"

Martha checked the tumult with a warning hand.
"Cora has the floor, childern.  Let her have her
say, an' then you can have yours."

"Silence in the court-house, the cat's goin' to
preach!" Sammy disrespectfully whispered in
Francie's ear.

"I think it's *nice* mother'n father 're goin' down
to New York," Cora announced.  "It seemed kinda
funny, firstoff, but I think it's *nice*.  An' they'll have
a good time.  I'm glad they're goin'."

Sam senior and Martha exchanged a look.

"Good for you, Cora!  You're a good girl!" said Sam.

With the eldest sister approving, and praised for
doing so, the ground was cut from under the younger
children's feet.  They had nothing to say.

"Well, Ma?" suggested Martha.

"*I'm* glad you're goin' too," observed the old
woman, "for I ben thinkin', a long time, I do be
needin' a change meself, an' I wouldn't dare for to
be venturin' on the r-railroad alone.  So, when the
two of youse goes down, why, I'll just fare along
wit' chu."

"But Ma," objected Sam gently, "we can't make
out to take you.  We've barely enough to take
ourselves.  Mr. Ronald pays my expenses, but Martha's
goin' to buy her own ticket with the money Miss
Claire paid her for the curtains."

"You got somethin' laid by," suggested Ma
shrewdly.

"But we can't touch it.  It's the first we ever
been able to save, an' I wouldn't lay finger on
it for anythin'."  Martha answered with unusual
feeling.

Ma was not disturbed.

"Well, between youse be it!" she declared.  "I
d'kno' how you'll settle it, but this I kno'—I've bided
here the longest I'm abl'.  I can thole it no longer.
I'm goin' to the city.  The heart in me is wastin'
awa' to see me dear sons an' daughters down there.
So let there be no colloguin'.  I'm goin' to the city."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII

.. vspace:: 2

It was late that night, and Martha and her
husband were still engaged in whispered conference.

"Ma's mind's like a train," Mrs. Slawson observed
at length, "when it's oncet *made up*, you can
take it or leave it, but *it's* goin' its way, weather or
no.  There's no use strivin' with her, Sam.  We're
bound to give in, in the end, an' we may as well do
it firstoff, an' save our faces.  What's the good kickin'
against the bricks?"

"But for her to use your hard-earned money just
to gratify a whim!" Sam fairly groaned.

"Well, wasn't that what *I* was goin' to use it for?
An' after all, she's old.  Let her have her bit o' fun.
God knows I don't begrutch it to her.  She don't
get much joy outa her life."

"She has as much as you have."

A wonderful look irradiated Martha's face.  "I
have you, Sam," she said in a voice that matched
the look.  An instant, and both were gone.  Martha
was her old self again.  "An' I've the childern—an'
the hens—an' the—*cow*!"

"Ma acts like a child sometimes, and a bad child
at that."

"Certaintly she does.  I sometimes think it's a
kinda pity a body can't lick her good, an' put her to
bed 'to await the results of her injuries,' as the papers
says.  But what's the use o' growin' old, if your
white hairs don't bring you the respec' your black
ones didn't?  No, we gotta bear with Ma, Sam, an'
it's better grin than groan, while we're doin' it."

So, when the appointed day arrived, it was Ma, not
Martha, who accompanied Sam to New York on his
"wedding-tour."

"My!  I bet it's hot on the train!" exclaimed Cora,
appearing after a prolonged absence, seating herself on
the doorstep, from which the late afternoon sun had
just departed, fanning her flushed face with her hat.

For the first time during the busy day, Martha
paused long enough to listen.

"I guess it's a hunderd in the shade," she
observed.  "But then, o' course, you don't have to
stay in the shade, less you wanta."

Literal Cora, taking her seriously, came in out of
the shade.  "Mother, do you know something?"

Martha considered.  "Well, when I was your
age, I thought I did.  But now, the only thing I
know, is, I *don't*."

Cora pursed her lips.  "Do you know, I think
Dr. Ballard likes Miss Crewe a lot."

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, the other day, I saw'm walkin' together
down Cherry Lane.  An' to-day I saw'm again.  An'
I think it looks awful loverish to be walkin' in Cherry
Lane, where the trees branch over so, an' it's all
quiet, an' green, an' lonesome, an' nobody hardly
ever comes, exceptin'——"

"Snoopy little girls who've no business there,"
supplied her mother genially.

Cora sniffed.  "Well, I guess you'll be glad I was
there, when you see what I got.  An' I guess they'll
be glad too.  One of'm dropped it an' never noticed,
an' went off, an' left it lyin' in the middle o' the lane.
After they'd gone, I saw somethin' kind o' like a
yellow spot sittin' up in the grass, an' I went an'
picked it up, an' it was a bunch o' letters, tied with
a pink ribbon.  The ribbon's so old it most frays
away before you touch it."

Martha extended a quiet, but coercive palm.
"Hand it over."

Cora obeyed, craning her neck to see the last of
the fascinating sheaf.

"Ain't it funny writin'?" she inquired.  "'Mifter
Daniel Ballard.'  What does *Mifter* mean, mother?
She don't call him *Mifter* inside.  She calls him,
'Beloved Daniel.'"

"How do you know?"

Cora hung her head.  "I peeked," she confessed.

"How many of the letters did you peek at?"

"All of 'em.  An', oh, mother, it wasn't any
harm, 'cause they're fearful old.  Eighteen-hundred
and forty-four, they have written on 'em.  An' the
one who wrote 'em, her name was Idea Stryker.
She must be dead an' buried long ago, mustn't she,
mother?  I guess p'raps she died because her beau,
he didn't answer her letters, or come to meet her
'down Cherry Lane' like she begged him to.  She
felt simply terrible about it.  She liked him a whole
lot, but he got mad at her, or something, and
wouldn't answer her letters, or meet her, or
anything.  When I get to be a grown-up young lady,
I'd like to write such elegant love-letters to somebody."

"He'd prob'ly go back on you, if you did.  You
see what happened to this poor lady, an' hist'ry
repeats itself, like Mrs. Peckett.  But what I wanta
tell you, Cora, is this: You done a wrong thing.
You had no business snoopin' into what wasn't your
concern.  Never you do so, no more."

Cora's voice sank.  "I didn't know 'twas wrong,
mother."

"Did you know 'twas *right*?" Martha demanded.
"A good way to do, when you don't know a thing's
wrong, is, stop a minute, an' make sure it's *right*.
See you folla that rule after this.  Meanwhile,
doncher let a hint out o' you, to Ann Upton, or
anybody else, about these letters.  D'you hear?"

"Why?" asked Cora inquisitively.

Martha cast about for a reason potent enough to
silence the childish, chattering tongue.

"You don't want to be disgraced, do you?
Havin' folks know you pried into things wasn't meant
for you?  Such scandals is sure to leak out, if you
whisper'm broadcast.  If Mrs. Peckett oncet got a
wind of it, you'd never hear the last."

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Slawson's mind was
concerned much less with Cora's reputation, just at
that moment, than with the letters she had obliged
that reluctant young lady to hand over.  Now they
were in her own possession what should she do
with them?  To whom, by, rights, did they belong?

"The letters's signed Idea Stryker, which, I
remember, Mr. Ronald said that was ol' lady Crewe's
queer name, before she was married.  But she
wrote'm to somebody by the name o' Ballard, which,
I bet, he was the doctor's gran'pa, or somethin'.
Now, who the lawful owner of them letters is, it
certaintly takes my time to decide.  P'raps I better
wanda over to Miss Katherine after supper, an'
give'm to *her*.  An' *then*, I may be wrong."

The children, properly fed, cautioned "not to
light the lamp, but set outdoors like little ladies an'
gen'lmen, an' get the air, an' cool off, an' listen to
the katy-dids doin', till I come back," Martha
proceeded to wander over to Crewesmere.

Katherine had not yet gone upstairs, when she
spied the familiar form approaching through the
waning light.

"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she said, going down the
garden-path to meet her.  "I'm so glad you've come.
I've been thinking about you, ever since you were
here last, because I'm in trouble, and, I feel,
somehow, you can help me out.  You've helped me out
before, you know."

Her wistful attempt at a smile went to Martha's
heart.

"Well, my dear, helpin' out is my speciality.
Reg'lar service I have not done since I was married,
but helped out by the day, as there was need.  So,
here I am, an' if I can be of use, I never counted my
*day* by the clock, an' if the childern fall asleep on
the grass itself, it won't hurt'm none.  It's too hot
to rest indoors, anyhow."

"We'll go to the back porch, where our voices
won't disturb grandmother," explained Miss Crewe,
leading the way.

"P'raps I better tell you right off what brought
me," Martha began, taking the lower porch step to
sit upon in preference to the more comfortable chair,
on the level with her own, which Katherine indicated.

"No, please don't!" Miss Crewe protested.
"Let me speak first.  I'm so afraid something may
happen to interrupt, and I know mine is more
important.  I *must* tell some one."

The girl did not pause, except to take breath
between her difficult sentences.

"You remember the day grandmother had me
bring her her linen-chest?  It all dates from that
day, I mean my trouble.  I thought I knew before,
what trouble was, but *real* trouble is only what one
has to account for to one's own conscience."

Martha pretended not to notice the sobbing breath,
on which the last syllables caught, and were choked
out.

"Grandmother never took her eyes off the chest
while I unpacked it," Katherine labored on gallantly.
"Never, except once.  She said she knew everything
that was in it.  But she didn't.  There was something
she didn't mention.  I came on it, lying almost at
the bottom of the chest.  An odd, old-fashioned
pocket, hung on a strap, as if it had been suspended
from a belt or a sash, and the strap was snapped—torn.
A tiny bit of a shred was caught in the lock
of the chest.  I saw it, as soon as I opened the lid.
As my fingers touched the pocket, something inside
it crackled.  My heart fairly leaped, for I thought
'twas money.  And—oh, Mrs. Slawson, I need
money!  You mayn't believe it, but I do.  I never
have a cent I can call my own, and I'm not allowed
to try to earn anything.  You know—my father had
plenty, and I ought to have plenty, if I had my
rights.  I've sat here evening after evening, thinking,
thinking, what I could do in case of need—in case a
time came, when I couldn't endure it any longer.
And when I felt what was inside that pocket, when
I felt it crackle, I thought it was money, and—it
was like a gleam of hope.  I watched for my chance.
It came at last—the one time when grandmother
glanced away.  I grabbed the pocket, and hid it in
my dress.  I didn't stop to think what I was doing.
But if I had, I don't believe it would have made
any difference.  I didn't care if I *was* stealing.  I *just
wanted that money*!  It's shameful to sit here, and
face you, and tell about it, but—I guess I'm past
shame.  And then she gave me the mull, and was
kind.  I'd have put the money back then, but it was
too late.  She never took her eyes off me again, nor
the chest.  And then—later—after you'd gone, I stole
away to my room, and—what was in the pocket
wasn't money at all, but letters!  Old, useless,
miserable letters!"

"Did you read'm?" asked Martha to cover the
painful effort the girl was making at self-control.

"No, I didn't read them.  After I'd taken the
pocket, believing it held money, and found only
letters, I was too *honorable* to read the letters."

She spoke with bitterest self-contempt.

"I carried them in my dress, because I didn't dare
leave them anywhere else.  And to-day I—I—lost
them.  I know they were letters written by my
grandmother, when she was a girl.  Her handwriting hasn't
changed much, and I know if she dreamed they were
lying about loose, lost, perhaps had been found by
some busybody, who would publish them all over
town, she'd——"

"That's just what I come to tell you," Mrs. Slawson
announced with a breath of relief.  "Thanks
be! 'twas my girl, Cora, found the letters, an' she
brought'm home to me.  Not a soul besides us two
has laid eyes on'm.  Cora don't know any more than
the angels above, that the one wrote'm ain't dead
an' gone, with a antapsie held over her remains, this
many a year.  So, for all I see, your troubles are
over, you poor child, an' you can lay your head on
your pilla, an' sleep sound this night, if the heat,
which it certaintly *is* prosteratin', don't pervent.
Here's the letters."

Katherine smiled faintly as she took the little
packet.

"If I may make so bold, did you mean to be
givin' the letters to Dr. Ballard?" Martha inquired,
after a thoughtful pause.  "I own up to you, I
ain't been so fussy as not to read the name on the
envelopes."

Miss Crewe winced.  "Of course.  That was
right.  No, I hadn't planned to give him the letters.
At first I thought I would, but then I was afraid
I might be obliged to tell him how I came to have
them, and—I'm a coward.  I couldn't bear to risk
it.  Do you think it's my duty to tell Dr. Ballard,
Mrs. Slawson?  Tell me what you think I ought to do."

"When a body sets out to tell another body what
she'd ought to do, he better be careful," replied
Martha gravely.  "You never know what you're up
against.  For instance, if you're tellin' a fella *love
his neighbor like himself*, that's all right, only you
wouldn't be countin' on his bein' one o' the kind
thinks he's a little tin god on wheels.  Bein' as he
was that sort, you'd be tellin' 'm make a graven image
of his neighbor, which he'd be constantly fallin' down
before'm, an' worshippin' 'm, like a heathen idol.
You can take it from me, tellin' people what they'd
ought to do is a delicate job—too fine for the likes
of Martha Slawson.  But I'd just as liefs tell you
what you hadn't ought to do, one o' which is, lie
awake grievin' over spilled milk that's past an' gone.
You mustn't lug your mistakes along with you, every
place you go, like they was a basket o' dirty clo'es.
Now lots besides laundryesses has dirty clo'es to
wash, believe me.  But if you pack'm up respectable
in nice, clean wrappin' paper, with a stout string,
or a decent telescope bag, nobody'll be the wiser, an'
your neighbors won't objec' sittin' beside you in the
cars.  It's when you force your dirty clo'es under
the noses of the other passengers, an' make'm
uncomfortable, they've a kick comin'.  No, if I was you
(beggin' your pardon for the liberty) I wouldn't tell
Dr. Ballard a thing 'twouldn't be a pleasure to'm to
hear.  I worked for a lady, Mrs. Sherman, an' she
used ta wait to do things for, what she called—now,
do you believe me, I can't remember the name of
it!  It was some kind o' *moment*.  She talked about
it frequent.  The—the—sy——"  Martha racked
her brains laboriously.

"Could it possibly have been the psychological
moment?" suggested Miss Crewe.

"The very one!" Mrs. Slawson took her up
triumphantly.  "The sykeylogical moment!  Mrs. Sherman
was dead stuck on it.  She used to talk to
her brother, Mr. Frank Ronald, about the sykeylogical
moment, till you'd think it'd stop the clock.
Now if you know what a sykeylogical moment is,
an' reco'nize it when it comes along, why, you can
take it from me, that'll be a good chance for you
to give the doctor the letters in, but not before."

Katherine laughed.  "I'm sure you're right,
Mrs. Slawson," she said.  "I'll wait for the psychological
moment.  And I'll wash my soiled linen alone, too.
You've given me a lot of good advice.  I'm much,
*much* happier than I was before you came."

"Well, good-night then, an' God bless you!" said
Martha, rising.  "Now I'll go back to my—*other*
childern."

Halfway between Crewesmere, and the main road,
she came to a standstill.

"Hello!" exclaimed Dr. Ballard.  "What are
you doing so far from home at the witching hour
of eight o'clock?  It looks suspicious.  Don't you
think you'd better stand and deliver?"

Martha beamed, as she always did at sight of
those she liked.

"I'll *stand*, all right, all right, sir, but you can
search *me* for anything to deliver.  My husban' he
went to New York this mornin', an' before he went,
with all my worldly goods I he endowed, accordin'
to Scripture, as Mrs. Peckett says."

"Ho!  Slawson's gone to New York, has he?"
Dr. Ballard exclaimed.  "Well, I'm off for Boston,
myself, to-morrow.  I'm on my way now to
tell—Madam Crewe."

Martha nodded.

"Certaintly you are.  You'll find Miss Katherine
on the back porch, if you hurry.  But the ol' lady
makes her close the house at nine sharp, so you've
not much time to waste on me.  Good luck to you,
sir.  A safe journey, an' quick return."

The doctor chuckled as she left him.

"That woman's a *case*!" he said to himself, but
under the stimulus of her suggestion he hurried his
steps.

"Going to Boston?" Katherine repeated, her
brows contracting in a troubled, triangular way
which always gave a touching, childlike look to her
fine eyes.  "Isn't that rather sudden?  You didn't
tell me anything about it this afternoon—down
Cherry Lane."

"No, I'd not made up my mind then.  The resolve
came later."

"You'll return?"

"Oh, yes.  Very soon, if I get what I'm going
after.  Less soon, if I don't."

Katherine turned her face away.

"That sounds mysterious.  But I remember you
like mysteries."

"'Sure I do,' as Mrs. Slawson would say.  I like
mysteries for the fun of clearing them up.  It's to
clear up a mystery I'm going to Boston."

Katherine withheld the question on her lips.

"You don't ask what mystery."

"If you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."

"Well, then—I'm going *to discover the secret of
me life*.  In other words, I'm going to see if I can
get a line on my grandfather—the unfortunate
gentleman—no, of course he couldn't have been a
*gentleman*, because he was a bailiff!—the unfortunate
beggar who got himself disliked by his employer,
and Madam Crewe.  Personally, I've no social use
for defunct forbears.  It's a bit curious, because I'm
a Bostonian.  But professionally I'm all right on
them.  They have their uses scientifically.  If my
grandfather had a bug—I mean *germ* (disease or
vice germ) I needn't necessarily inherit that
particular insect, but there's no denying that if it happens
along, I'm more open to infection, than a fellow
whose grandad hadn't specialized as an entomologist.
I've a notion I'd like to read my title clear.  So I'm
going to Boston to dig up dead deeds—in both senses,
and see what I have back of me."

"I'd much rather see what I have ahead," Katherine
laughed mirthlessly.

Dr. Ballard's chin went up with a jerk.

"Oh, I'm not afraid of what's before me.  I'm
willing to stand and face the future.  If a fellow's
straight goods on his own account, he has nothing
to fear.  He'll win out, somehow.  But I wouldn't
care to look forward, if I'd lied, or was a coward,
or taken what belonged to some other fellow, or
had any other sort of dirty rag of memory trailing
after me.  You never can tell when such a thing will
trip you up.  I say, you're not cold this broiling
night, are you?"

"No.  Why?"

"You shivered."

"Did I?  It makes me nervous to hear you talk
about 'dirty rags of memory.'  I didn't suppose any
one lived who hadn't regrets.  I know *I* have."

"No doubt.  I can imagine what for.  *I'm* talking
of real offenses.  The sort of thing Madam Crewe
hints at in connection with my grandfather.  By
Jove, I wonder what the poor old duffer was guilty
of.  Perhaps, to put it euphemistically, he appropriated
funds not his own—swiped from *your* great-grandfather's
till.  Seriously, that's no joke!  I can
imagine that even if a chap didn't care much about
his family-tree, it might be a rather scorching reflection
to know you'd descended—*fallen*—from a rotten
apple of a thief, or something.  You'd be forever
looking for some taint of it to crop out in you.  I
confess, it wouldn't rejoice even my democratic soul.
But that's what I'm going out for to discover.  So,
when next you see me, perhaps you won't."

Katherine's hand went toward him in an impulse
too strong to resist.

"You know better than that," she said in a voice
not wholly steady.

Dr. Ballard's large, firm grasp closed about her
slender trembling fingers.

"I know better than that," he repeated gravely.
"But there's something else, not your friendship, I
can't be so confident of.  When I come back, if
everything's all right, as I believe it will be, I hope
you'll be kind to me, and set my heart at rest about
that too."

Katherine could not answer.  After a moment of
silent waiting, the doctor gently released her hand.

"I met Mrs. Slawson as I came along," he said
in his usual manner.  "She's a trump, that woman.
The most normal human creature I've ever met."

"Her English isn't normal," Katherine said, trying
to control the helpless trembling that was shaking
her from head to foot.

"She's an impressionist.  That's what's the
matter with Hannah!—I should say, Martha.  She
gets and produces her effects in the large.  She
doesn't trouble with details.  After all, I wonder if
we'd like her better, given the possibility of making
a grammarian of her."

Katharine smiled.

"She told me, the other day, that she was being
made over.  She mentioned the people concerned
in it, and the different things they were making her
over into.  I don't recollect that grammarian was in
the list."

"If the rest succeed as well in their efforts as
I would in mine, if I attempted to make a Lindley
Murray of her, I don't think we need worry.  She'll
progress along her own lines.  But she's not various.
You can't make a complex organism out of an
elemental creature like Mrs. Slawson, any more than
you could make a contemporaneous 'new woman'
out of Brunnhilde."

"Fancy *Martha* mounted on a celestial steed, bearing
the souls of dead heroes to Walhalla!"

Dr. Ballard laughed.

"Well, I can tell you this, if she saw 'twas for
the good of the souls, not the celestial steed, nor the
dead heroes, nor Walhalla itself, would faze her.  If
you ever should need some one to stand by in an
emergency, I couldn't think of a better than Martha
Slawson.  I hope you'll remember that, when I'm
gone."

A moment, and he was gone, had turned abruptly,
and left her without even so much as good-by.

Katherine bent her head to look down at the hand
he had held, on which presently two tears plashed.

"She'll shut me off from that, too," she murmured
bitterly.  "She'll shut me off from that too—*if she can*!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII

.. vspace:: 2

"Say, mother," Francie called in through the
kitchen screen-door, "Miss Claire, she wants
you to come on out.  She says she wants to show you
a very ol'."

"A very ol' *what*?" inquired Martha, turning
from her stack of washed breakfast dishes, to wipe
her hands on the roller-towel.

"I d'know.  Only it's up a tree, an' she wants
to show you it."

Martha went out at once.

Mrs. Ronald was standing, not far away, gazing
intently up into the branches of a splendid spruce.

"Sh!" she cautioned, as Mrs. Slawson drew near.

"What is it?" asked Martha.

"Look!"

Martha's eyes, taking the direction indicated by
Miss Claire's pointing finger, saw nothing.

"Do you see?"

"No."

"Quick!  Look!  O—oh! There he goes! He's
flown away!"

"You mean that—bird?"

"Yes—a vireo."

Mrs. Slawson's interest relaxed.  "Oh," she said
with obvious disappointment.

"What did you think I wanted to show you?
Didn't Francie tell you 'twas a vireo?"

"Certaintly she did.  But she didn't say 'twas a
very ol' *bird*.  Nacherly, I kinda pictured to myself
somethin' like Gran'pa Trenholm, or ol' lady Crewe
a-sittin' up there, needin' immediate assistance.  I
thought to myself, that I never have clumb a tree,
but if the need was great, there's no knowin' what
I *could* do."

Mrs. Ronald laughed.  "Oh, Martha," she said,
"I don't believe you'll ever make an ornithologist."

"Without knowin' what that may be," Mrs. Slawson
returned affably, "I don't believe I ever will,
though I'm ready to try."

"Yesterday, early, early, I got up, and went out,
before any one else in the house was awake.  I went
down to the ravine, and oh!  I wish you could have
been there with me.  It was so beautiful!  It's not
quite so early now, but, still, I think, maybe, we
might hear the veery.  Do you want to come?"

"Certaintly," said Martha.

For a time they walked on in silence, through the
fragrant freshness of the new day.  The full chorus
of ecstatic bird voices had somewhat diminished, but,
even so, the air seemed set to music.

Mrs. Ronald gave a great sigh.  "Oh, Martha,
isn't it lovely?  When I think what happiness life
holds, and how beautiful the world is, I wonder
anybody can be discontented, or restless, or sorrowful."

Martha seemed to ponder it.

"Well, I guess a good deal depends on the body,"
she brought out at length.  "As I make it out, the
world it goes a-grindin' 'round steady an' sure, like
a great, big coffee-grinder.  We all got to feel the
twist, first or last, before we're turned out fine
enough to suit.  Some folks feels the twist more'n
others.  I suppose it's nice to live easy, but there's
this about not bein' too soft: you ain't likely to get
hurt so much.  D'you remember, oncet or twice,
when I wasn't by, you tried to pull up the
dumb-waiter, down to a Hundred and Sixteenth Street?
An' the coarse rope, it got splinters into your soft
little hands.  Now, mine's so hard I could pull till
the cows come home, an' nary a splinter.  Yes, it's
good not to be too sens'tive.  If you are, you're
bound to get all that's comin' to you, an' then some."

"Do you know anybody in particular, who is
feeling the *twist* especially, just now?" asked
Mrs. Ronald with interest.

Martha nodded.  "I was thinkin' of Miss Katherine,"
she replied.  "She's right up here, in the
middle of all this, same as you and yet—you're
happy, an' she ain't."

"Could I help?"

"I don't know *yet*.  I'm keepin' my eye out.  If
I find you can I'll let you know."

"Good!" Claire approved.  She walked on a
step, then suddenly stood at attention.  "Hark!"
she whispered.  "The veery! the Wilson thrush!"

Mrs. Slawson, halting too, strained her ear to
listen.  At first her face expressed only the gentle
interest of one willing to be pleased, but presently
her eyes became luminous, her great chest rose and
fell to deep, full breaths of keenest appreciation.

When the wonderful performance was at an end,
and the veery had taken wing, Claire turned to her
silent, but questioning.

Martha considered a moment.  "When a cow lifts
up his head, an' gets ready to bella, what with its
size an' stren'th, you're prepared for the worst,
an'—you get it.  But when a tiny little fella, as
innercent-lookin' as that very bird you say is the
Wilson's thrush, when *he* sits up an' lets a flute-sola out
of'm, as elegant as the man in the band, down to
the movies, well, it certaintly *is* surprisin'.  It
somehow hits you right in the pit of the stummick.
My! but I bet the Wilsons is sorry he flew away on'm."

Mrs. Ronald turned quickly to examine a bit of
lichen, decorating a tree-trunk near at hand.  When
she faced Martha again, her cheeks were quite
crimson.

"Say, you hadn't ought to bend down like that a
hot day like this," cautioned Mrs. Slawson.  "You
got a rush o' brains to the head, I should say blood.
You want to go easy such hot wather.  I guess the
walkin' took it out o' you."

"Oh, no," Claire assured her heartily.  "I'm not
a bit tired.  And I tell you what I want to do some
day soon.  I want to go across the lake to the South
cove.  They say there's a blue heron there.  I'm
crazy to see him."

Martha nodded.  "Well, if Lord Ronald is
willin'——"

"He says he'll take me over in the launch, and
you can go too, and the children.  We'll have a
beautiful picnic some day very soon, and, if you
thought she would go, we might ask Miss Crewe,
and——"

"She couldn't leave her gran'ma for so long.
P'raps if you'd put it off till the fall——"

Miss Claire shook her head.  "No, I'm going
now," she said determinedly.

"Well, I'll go any day you say, then—so Lord
Ronald's willin'.  I can help'm with the la'nch.  I
know all about *The Moth's* machinery, if I don't
about the cow's.  An' when it comes to that, I could
milk all right, all right, if I only knew what to turn
on to make the milk come.  It's on account o' the
cow's not havin' her gear arranged so's a body can
push a button, or pull a crank like a Christian, I
have so much differculty.  You can take it from me,
autos an' la'nchs is simple by comparising.  But
what's really on my mind to say is, any mornin' you
wish to see your red herrin', just say the word, an'
I'll take you, though I tell you frank an' honest, if
I was you, beggin' your pardon for the liberty, I'd
stay on dry land myself, these days, an' not be
botherin' my head over delicatessens, which you can
get'm sent up, canned, by Park an' Tilford any day,
with your next order."

"Mother!  Mother!"

Francie's shrill, childish voice announced her but
a second before she herself appeared around the
tangle of bushes hedging the mouth of the ravine.

"Mother, mother!" she repeated, even after she
saw the familiar form she sought.

"Well?"

Martha spoke calmly, undisturbed either by the
child's heated face or manner.

"Mother—say—Mr. Ronald, he was over to our
house, huntin' for Miss Claire.  I guess he's fearful
worried."

"Did he say he was worried?"

"No, he didn't, but he ast if I seen her, an' he
said it was past breakfast-time."

"Now, what do you think o' that!" exclaimed
Martha.  "Francie's a little woman, ain't you,
Francie?  She knows, when a gen'lman thinks it's
past meal time, it's up to ladies to get a move on."

Claire laughed.  "I'll go at once," she returned
obediently.

As Martha and Francie made their slow way back
to the Lodge, Francie caught hold of her mother's
hand in a sudden access of childish affection.

"Say, mother, I'm glad I'm your little girl,
instead of anybody else's," she brought out
impulsively.

"'Thank you, thank you, sir, she sayed.  Your
kindness I never shall forget!'  I return the
compliment," Martha announced with much manner.

"Mother, why does God want His name to be
Hallow?"

"I didn't know He did."

"Yes, He does.  At the beginning of the Lord's
prayer, it says, 'Hallow would be thy name.'  Don't
you remember?"

"Certaintly I do, now you mention it.  But if you
ask me why, Robin, I got to give in, I can't tell you."

"I thought mothers knew everything," Francie
said pensively.  Martha's response was prompt.

"Well, be this an' be that, they do.  Takin'
mothers all together, they certaintly do.  But, each
one has her own speciality, *an'* if you ask *me* questions
about God, I tell you, truly, I ain't got the
answer, like I would have if I'd been to college, an'
belonged to the lemon-eye, same's Miss Claire.  On
the other hand, *I* may know things *she* don't, about
other matters nearer home.  You never can tell."

"Cora says you don't know what's stylish.  She
says our clo'es are awful plain."

"Now, what do you think o' that!  So Cora
says I don't know what's stylish.  Well, if *I* don't
know what's stylish, I don't know who does, seein'
I was in an' out o' the toniest houses in New York
City, an' was personally acquainted with their
dresses an' their hats.  That same Cora is called
after one of the stylishest ladies ever you saw,
Mrs. Underwood, which she is dead now, but, when she
was alive, looked like a duchess.  An' you,
yourself, are called after her daughter, Miss Frances,
who married a l'yer, Judge Granville, but *could* 'a'
had the pick o' the land.  Never fear, I know what
stylish is.  Only, I know the differnce between *ladies'*
stylish an' ladies'-*maid's* stylish.  I seen both.  Style's
one thing.  Loud's another.  I want my childern to
be seen but not heard."

"Mother, are you sorry Ma's gone away for
good?  She told Cora, 'fore she went, that you
didn't know she ain't comin' back, but she ain't.
She said her heart was broke with the quiet
up here.  She said she's goin' to live with Uncle
Dennis after this, or Uncle Andy, where it's lively,
an' there's more comin' an' goin'."

Mrs. Slawson suffered the full significance of
Francie's revelation to sink into her consciousness,
before she attempted to reply.

"Well, well," she said at last, with an air of
brave resignation, "so, Ma's gone away for good,
has she?  An' she didn't want for me to be breakin'
my heart with the news o' it.  It certaintly is a shock
an' no mistake.  But a body must do the best she
can, when she can't do no differnt.  I'll try to bear
up under it, Francie, much as I mourn my loss.  In
this life we got to go about with a smilin' countenance,
no matter what our private sorras are.  It
won't do to let the world see your sufferin'.  The
world has troubles of its own.  By the way, I wonder
if Sammy's got back from takin' the mornin's milk
to Madam Crewe's yet?"

Not only had Sammy got back, but he was the
bearer of news.

"Say, mother, they got comp'ny to ol' lady
Crewe's.  A gen'lman, he come up with a bag.  In
a rig, from over to Burbank.  The fella drove the
rig, he was comin' back our road, an' he saw me,
an' he says: 'Say, bubby, jump in an' I'll carry you
a ways,' an' I did, an' he did."

"My, my, but ain't you lucky?  To get a free
ride so early in the mornin'.  That was a kind ac' to
do, wasn't it?  Now, it's up to you to return the
compliment.  One good turn deserves another.
Keep your eye out for that young fella, Sammy, so's
if he goes past again, on his way back to fetch ol'
lady Crewe's comp'ny an' carry'm to the station,
you can call me, an' I'll give'm a glass o' cold
lemonade to cool'm off."

"He ain't comin' back.  The comp'ny ain't from
Burbank.  He's from New York.  He come up last
night on the Express, an' he's goin' back when he's
ready, but he don't know when he'll be ready, so he
couldn't tell the fella with the rig.  An' the fella
with the rig, he couldn't wait anyhow.  He has to
go back to Burbank, an' then 'way out another way,
miles an' miles, to get a party wants to catch a
north-bound train goes out the middle o' the night.  One
o'clock it goes out, the fella said.  An' if they don't
catch it, there ain't another till to-morra mornin', so
they got to catch it.  The fella with the rig tol' me,
he guessed ol' lady Crewe's comp'ny was a lawyer.
He said he could tell by the cut of his jib.  What's
the cut of his jib, mother?"

Mrs. Slawson shook her head.  "That's a lazy,
shif'less way o' learnin' knowledge, Sammy, to be
askin' it off'n parties that had to work hard
themselves to get it.  Since we got that grand
dickshunerry-book Lord Ronald give your father, there
ain't no excuse for any of us not knowin' things any
more.  Lord Ronald said: 'The dickshunerry habit
is a good thing.  When you don't know a word, look
it up.'"

"How do you spell *jib*?"

The glance Mrs. Slawson cast on Sammy sent him
off flushed with shame at having exposed an ignorance
so dense.

At Crewesmere, meanwhile, the newcomer was
calmly eating his breakfast, Katherine doing the
honors with what grace she could.

Mr. Norris was no stranger to her.  She knew him,
had always known him, in fact, as her grandmother's
man of affairs, a lawyer of repute.  While she had
no cause to distrust him, the fact that he was in a
position to advise in questions closely affecting
herself, affairs she was kept in total ignorance of, gave
her a feeling of resentment toward him, as toward
one who, voluntarily or not, held an unfair advantage.

"See he has a good breakfast," her grandmother
had directed.  "Let him eat and smoke his fill, but
don't send him up to me with any unsatisfied cravings.
A man's mind is a little less apt to be vacant if his
stomach is full."

During the succeeding long hours of the forenoon,
the two were closeted in Madam Crewe's sitting-room.
Katherine could hear the incessant, low
drone of their voices as she sat on the shaded
veranda, trying to employ her mind so it would
not dwell on the enervating heat and the fact that
now, at this moment, her grandmother might be
creating conditions that would irrevocably cripple her
future and she was powerless to prevent it.

At luncheon-time Madam Crewe summoned Eunice Youngs.

"While Miss Crewe and the gentleman are at
table, I want you to go to Mrs. Slawson's and tell
her I must see her at once.  Understand?  *Madam
Crewe says she must see Mrs. Slawson at once*.  Say,
she's to come in that motor-car Mr. Ronald gives
her and her husband the use of.  Say, Madam Crewe
wishes her to take a gentleman to the railroad station
in time for the five-forty-five train.  Have you brains
enough to repeat that straight?  Or, shall Miss
Katherine write it down for you?"

"Oh, grandmother," expostulated Katherine,
when Eunice had gone to "tidy up" for her
errand, "I don't think we can order Mrs. Slawson
about like that.  She's done a lot for us, already,
but we have no claim on her, and to send for her
to come, in all this heat, and bring her motor, and
take Mr. Norris to the station—it's exactly as
if——"

"My dear, don't bother your head over what
doesn't concern you.  Slawson and I understand each
other—which is more than you and I do, I'm afraid,"
the old woman pronounced with biting distinctness.

The meal was barely over when Martha arrived.

"Now, Slawson," Madam Crewe greeted her,
"I've sent for you on *business*, so I want you to stop
looking benevolent, if you can, and attend to what
this gentleman has to say."

"Yes'm," said Martha.

Mr. Norris adjusted his eye-glasses with professional
precision.  "Have you ever had any experience
with the law, or lawyers?" he asked, regarding
her steadfastly through his polished lenses.

"Certaintly, I have.  Oncet, I worked out for a
lady who got a divorce off'n her husband, on what
they call statuary grounds, an' the first she knew,
he up an' off, an' married the—statue.  He was a
railroad magnet.  The kind draws more'n more to'm,
all the time.  So, o' course, the law never so much
as laid a finger on'm.  An' about two years ago, my
little girl, she got run over by a auta, but, though
Mr. Frank Ronald he tried to get'm to pay us a
little somethin' for our trouble, we ain't seen a cent
o' money yet.  Oh, yes.  I know about the *law*!"

"I mean, do you understand that when you are
brought as a witness before the law, you are held
responsible for the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth?"

Martha cogitated.  "No, sir.  I can't say I do,
that is, *did*.  I never knew the law had so much to
do with *truth* before.  But, if you say so, I'm willin'
to take your word for it."

Mr. Norris pulled a long upper lip.

"My client, Madam Crewe, has called you here
for two purposes.  First, she wishes you to be
present whilst I ask her granddaughter a few important
questions.  Second, you and the maid—a—Eunice
Youngs, are to write your names as witnesses upon
a certain paper I have drawn up for my client.  Are
you willing to act for Madam Crewe in these matters?"

Martha shot a quick, inquiring glance at Katherine.
The girl nodded in response.

"Yes, sir!" Mrs. Slawson answered promptly.

"Then, see that you charge your mind seriously
with what you have undertaken.  Your memory must
be exact.  Now, Miss Crewe——"

Katherine inclined her head, smiling faintly.  But
Martha noticed she was very pale.

"Your grandmother would like to know, from
your own lips, the extent of your acquaintance with
Dr. Ballard, the physician who has been in attendance
on Madam Crewe since her late illness."

Katherine hung fire a moment, while the blood
slowly mounted to her cheeks, her temples.

"My grandmother forbade me to have anything
whatever to do with Dr. Ballard," she parried the
question.

"Did you obey her injunction?—Attend, Mrs. Slawson!"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"I didn't think she had any right to control me so."

"Not when she intimated there were reasons?"

"She told me things about Dr. Ballard—his people,
rather, but I didn't, and I don't, consider them
*reasons*.  She has no proof, or, if she has, she
certainly hasn't presented it.  I don't consider it worthy
of notice when a person says things about another
which are not backed up by proof."

"As a matter of fact, then, you do know Dr. Ballard,
in spite of your grandmother's prohibition?"

"Yes."

"You know him very well?"

"Quite well."

"My next question, Miss Crewe, you will answer
notwithstanding its peculiarly personal and intimate
character, because (I am authorized to tell you) upon
your answer important issues hang.  If Dr. Ballard
asks you to marry him, is it your intention to accept
him?"

For a long moment there was no sound in the
room, except such as came, muted, from out-of-doors,
and the leisurely ticking of the tall clock in
the corner.

Then Katherine, rising, impetuously faced the
lawyer and Madam Crewe.

"I will *not* answer that question, no matter what
issues hang on it," she retorted hotly.

"Miss Crewe, I have your interest at heart, believe
me.  I strongly advise you to answer."

"No."

"You mean you will not accept him."

"I mean no such thing.  I mean I refuse to answer."

"Why?"

"You ought to know.  The question is—indelicate.
When—*if* Dr. Ballard says he wishes to marry
me, it will be time enough for me to answer—*him*."

"He has already said so."

Miss Crewe started.  "What do you mean?" she
demanded imperiously.

"Dr. Ballard has already told your grandmother
he wishes to marry you.  Madam Crewe would like
to know your intentions."

"I wish my grandmother had chosen a different
way of obtaining my confidence," the girl broke out,
almost broke down.  "It seems very strange to me
that she should choose such a method as this.  It
seems—almost—disgraceful."

The old woman, sitting erect in her high-backed
chair, did not attempt to defend herself.

The lawyer, ignoring Katherine's outburst,
continued his dry-voiced interrogation.

"You would accept him?"

"If Dr. Ballard wishes to marry me," the girl
answered with marked quiet of voice and manner,
in strong contrast to her outbreak of a moment ago,
"if Dr. Ballard wishes to marry me—I will marry him."

"In opposition to your grandmother?"

"I don't *want* to oppose my grandmother, but if
she tries to spoil my life for the sake of a groundless
prejudice I will—yes—I will marry him *in opposition*
to her."

"Think well, Miss Crewe.  Take your time.  Answer
cautiously.  If you were told Dr. Ballard is
a struggling young doctor, with no present means of
support, to speak of, and a perfectly problematic
future.  If you were told that he would never be
able to provide you with more than a bare living
income——"

"I would marry him."

"If you were told that, in case you do so, your
grandmother would divert her property from you
(as she has a perfect legal right to do) and dispose
of it elsewhere——?"

"Still—I would marry him."

"Nothing would dissuade you?"

"Nothing."

"The inquisition is over."

It was the old woman who spoke.  Her face was
as impassive as ever, but Martha Slawson noticed
that her tiny, emaciated fingers clutched the arms
of her chair with a vise-like grip.

"For all the world like a bird I seen last Spring,"
Martha mused, "which somethin' had broke its
wing, an' its claws was holdin' on fierce, for dear
life, to the branch o' the bush it was clingin' to—as if
*that*'d save it!"

"May I go now?"

As Katherine made the appeal, she turned toward
her grandmother, but her eyes were kept resolutely
averted.

Mr. Norris raised a detaining hand.  "One moment,
please.  I assume you entertain no doubt of
Madam Crewe's mental competency?  That she is
of sound mind, capable of acting rationally on her
own behalf?  That any will and testament she might
choose to execute at this time would be above
suspicion of mistake, fraud, or undue influence?"

For a moment Katherine seemed to consider.
Then her lip curled.

"If you mean, am I likely in the future to
contest any will my grandmother may now make to my
disadvantage, I say no.  I will never dispute her
course, whatever direction it may take.  All I ask
is that she will not dispute mine.  I am only sorry
that they seem to diverge so completely.  I am sick
of the name of money.  I would say I am sick of
the sight of it—but I have never seen any——"
with which parting thrust, the girl turned on her
heel, and left the room.

She went none too soon, for the moment the door
closed upon her, her self-control gave way, and she
groped stumblingly to her own chamber blinded by
tears, choking back the sobs that were in themselves
a humiliation.

The three she had left, were silent when she had
gone, until Mr. Norris drew an important-looking
sheet from under a mass of papers at his elbow, and
addressed Mrs. Slawson.

"As a general rule I strongly advise you, or any
one, against placing your signature to any instrument
which you have not previously read and do not fully
understand.  In this case, however, there is
absolutely no harm.  Please call the other witness."

Martha took a step toward the door.

"If I put my writin' on that paper, it won't mean
I'm injurin'—anybody?" she demanded firmly.

"You have my word as to that."

"I'd never sign it, if it was to hurt Miss Katherine."

"Your placing your signature there cannot affect
Miss Crewe's interests one way or the other."

Martha summoned Eunice Youngs, and the two,
in their best manner, literally with great pains,
proceeded to affix their names as witnesses to the last
and testament of Idea Stryker Crewe.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER IX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX

.. vspace:: 2

It was late one evening at the end of the week,
when Sam came back, to Martha's surprise, alone.

"Ma just wouldn't leave the city," he explained.
"She's staying at Dennis's now, but Sarah told me
she couldn't keep her above a week or so, at the
longest.  She said Andy, or Hughey, or one of the
girls would be better able to look after her than
Dennis and herself, who have all they can manage
paying off on their house in Yonkers, and the children
to educate besides.  Sarah was quite short with me
on account of Ma.  She said she was real put out.
We'd no business leaving an old woman, Ma's age,
away from the country such hot weather, especially
when we were just getting on our feet now, and
were well able to give her a home without feeling it."

Martha smiled tolerantly.  "There'd be no time
o' year'd suit Sarah for takin' any more trouble than
she's got to," she observed, pouring her husband's tea.

"It's a nice little place they've bought," Sam
informed her, between bites of cold ham and potato.
"Dennis travels down and up every day, which is,
what you might call a stunt, but he has the satisfaction
of knowing the roof over his head is his own."

Martha set an ice-cold cup-custard at Sam's plate.

"From Yonkers to the Battery *is* a kind o' long
stretch, but—where there's a will there's a—sub-way,
I s'pose.  Would he be with the same steamship
company he was with, since I first knew'm, I wonder?"

"Yes, and they gave him a raise last month.  He's
doing *all right*, Dennis is.  You ought to see the
way Sarah's got the house fixed.  They pay off for
the new furniture every month, so they don't feel it,
Sarah says."

"Well, Sarah mayn't feel it, but you can take it
from me, *I* certaintly would, in her place," Martha
observed.  "Gettin' things on the excitement plan,
would wrack my health.  I hate the thought o' owin'.
Payin' for a dead horse never did *appeal* to me, as
Mrs. Sherman says.  How's Andy doin'?"

"Andy *was* succeeding great, but something went
wrong, somehow, all of a sudden, and his scheme fell
through.  He explained it to me, but I forgot the
particulars, to tell the truth.  He'll be on his feet again
in no time.  Andy always was the smart one of the
family."

Martha ruminated.  "Wouldn't you wonder how
anythin' gets done in this world, when nothin'
anybody ever tries seems to succeed?  Is Nora as
gallus-lookin' as ever?  Or is she holdin' in her
horses some, now her husban's kind o' down an' out,
for the time bein'?"

"Nora's just the same, as far as I can see.  *Our*
Nora says Nora-Andy is distroying Andy with her
extravagance.  She says the way she dresses, alone,
it's no wonder he is always in and out of some
get-rich-quick scheme, that'll land him in the poor-house,
or worse, if he don't look out.  But then, our Nora
never did have the appearance of Nora-Andy, I must
say that, if I am her own brother.  Our Nora is kind
of sharp, and she looks it."

"Well, I guess marriage'll bevel some of the edges
off'n her, all right, all right," said Martha.  "Were
you surprised when you heard she was keepin'
company with McKenna?"

"Yes, I was.  I never thought Nora'd marry now—at her age."

"Nora always wanted to marry, an' when she
saw her chance she grabbed it by both horns."

Sam's serious expression relaxed a little.  "That
sounds as if McKenna was the devil and all of a
fellow.  He's not that at all, and he certainly ain't
much to look at."

"Oh, well," Martha responded, "nobody but
her'll have a call to look at'm much, oncet he's
married."

"I told her I thought she was taking a risk,
throwing up a good place she'd been in, for so many
years, parlor-maid, to live out general-housework
with a stranger," said Sam.  "I thought that was
a joke.  But it made her mad.  She said, 'God knows
it's no joke!'  She said she had as much of a right
to live her life as I have, which of course it's true.
She said 'every dog has its day!'"

"True for you.  So he has, just like s'ciety ladies.
But that ain't to say there'll be anybody'll come.
An' I sometimes think there's more dogs, 'n days,
anyhow."

Sam looked up.  "Say, mother, you ain't down-hearted,
are you?"

"No.  Why?  What'd make me downhearted, I
should like to know?"

"I just thought you might be," her husband
answered.  "I never heard you speak that doubting
kind of way before.  And, we've no call to think ill
of the world, with all the luck that's come to us."

"Certaintly.  An' if luck don't stay with us, itself,
it won't be because we ain't set her a chair, an' done
every mortal thing we know of to make her
comfortable.  I've no kick comin', nor ever had.  I like
life all right, the hard part along with the soft part.
If you didn't have the one you wouldn't know how
to relish the other.  But, speakin' o' Nora, I never
looked to see her sportin' a 'finity of her own, I can
tell you that!"

"''Finity'?" questioned Sam.

"Genteel for fella," Martha answered.  "I often
heard Mrs. Sherman speakin' of'm.  You can take it
from me, I never looked to see that same Nora get
a-holt o' one."

"Nor I.  And I said as much to Ma.  Ma told
it back to Nora, and Nora was as mad as could be.
She said if it came to that, she didn't see as she was
the worst-looking one in the family, when a body
counted in what some of us had married."

"Meanin' me," observed Martha appreciatively.

"She said she 'didn't see why folks should be so
monstrous surprised that she got a husband.  Every
Joan has her Jack.'  The very words she said."

"Sure they have.  But only it ain't told what
kind o' Jack.  So did Balaam have a jack, if she
wants *that* kind.  But, p'raps McKenna is a
prize-package.  *We* don't know.  I wonder will he take
kindly to Ma?"

Sam shook his head.  "One of the first things he
told me was, 'We couldn't look to him to give my
mother a home.  He had troubles of his own.'  It
stirred me up so, I almost lost my temper.  I said
I didn't look to him to give my mother a home.  If
he gave my sister one, now he'd contracted to marry
her, I'd be glad."

"Why, Sam," said Martha looking at him with
mock-reproach, "I wonder at you, I do so!  To
speak up that fierce!  You hadn't ought to be so
violent, an' use such strong language to a party just
gettin' ready to come into the fam'ly.  It might
scare'm off.  He must think you're a dretful bully."

"Nora told Ma, before I left, that Ma was foolish
to stay back in New York.  She said she and
McKenna, starting out, young married folks——"

"God save the mark!" murmured Martha.

"She said they couldn't offer her a home, much
as they'd like to.  But Ma said her heart was broke
with the country.  She wanted to live in the city
where something was going on."

"It's one thing what you *want*, and another what
you *must*.  Poor Ma!  I'm sorry for her.  When she
comes back she'll know a thing or two more'n she
does now.  We'll have to be kind o' gentle with her,
to make up.  But come on now, Sam.  If you've
et all you can, I'll do my dishes, while you lock up,
an' then we can go to bed.  You look plain wore out."

"I'm glad to get home," Sam answered her, and
though he said no more Martha understood him.

Long after he was asleep she lay awake in the
white moonlight, thinking.  "Down home," she knew
it was stifling.  Sam had told her that the hot wave
was breaking all records for intensity and duration.
And yet, somehow, her soul yearned for the stretches
of sun-softened "ashfalt" with its smell of mingled
dust and tar, for all the common city sounds and
sights amid which she had been born and bred; all
the noise and commotion that spelt *Home* for her.
She could understand Ma's feeling, and her heart
softened to the poor old woman.

"It's all right up here," she admitted to herself.
"I like the folks first rate, such as they are an' what
there is of'm, only they ain't what a body is used
to.  I never see nicer parties than the Trenholms,
an' the Coleses, an' the Moores.  That time Hiram
Black's house burned down, if every mother's son
of'm didn't turn out an' lend a hand.  Got the
Blacks fixed up fine an' dandy, in no time, in a new
place, with what they called 'donations.'  Down
home you wouldn't find your neighbors givin' you
furnitur', an' bricky-braw things like that, not on
your life!  An' when you'd paid the insurance money
itself, the Company'd kick before it'd give you the
price o' your losin's.  An' yet, I know how Ma feels.
If young Luther Coles had 'a' had the fever down
home he had up here last fall, they'd a-yanked'm
away from his own flesh an' blood to the pest-house.
An' here his mother was let take care of'm, an' the
meals was got by the neighbors, which she hauled'm
up in a basket, three times a day, an' et'm hot an'
fresh from the oven, without havin' to raise her
hand, only take'm out from under a clean napkin.
You'd go hungry a long time in New York City,
before the folks acrost the air-shaft from you, would
know your boy was dyin' on you, much less sneak
in a bite an' a sup, from time to time, through the
dumb-waiter.  But—all the same—*I know how Ma
feels.*"

Martha had reached this stage in her musings
when a faint knock sounded on the door below.  She
waited, listening.  The knock was repeated.  As
quietly as she could, which was not very quietly, she
slipped from her bed, threw on her light cotton
kimono, which always lay ready at hand in case
of emergency, and hastened downstairs, leaving Sam
asleep and snoring, worn out by the city heat, his
sense of responsibility in connection with Mr. Ronald's
commissions, and the long day's journey home,
with its fatiguing delays and tiresome changes.

She shot the bolt back, turned the key with resolute
hand.  She could not imagine what had happened
that would account for this unusual disturbance, but
whatever it might be, she braced herself to meet it.

On the doorstep stood the shivering figure of a
girl, clad only in her night-dress.  She was shivering
with excitement, not chill.

"Mrs. Slawson," she managed to bring out, before
words became impossible, drowned in the torrent
of her tears and sobbing.

Martha placed a motherly hand about the frail
shoulders.

"Come now, come now!  Don't cry like that.
You'll shake yourself to pieces.  I don't know what's
the matter, but it'll be all right, anyhow, never fear.
You're Ellen Hinckley, ain't you?  I think I seen
you a couple o' times at church."

As Martha talked, she drew her visitor into the
house, automatically locked and bolted the door, and
settled the girl in Sam's chair in the sitting-room.

The moonlight, streaming in through the windows,
made the place almost as light as day, but for some
purpose of her own, Martha was about to strike a
match, when Ellen Hinckley stopped her with a
quick cry.

"No, no!  Don't do it!  I've run away.  I've
left my mother's.  My stepfather'll follow me when
he finds I'm gone."

She drew a long painful breath, then panted out
her story in short, labored gasps.

"I've never had a home.  You mayn't believe it,
but mother don't care a scrap about me, except for
the work I can do.  I've tried and tried for years
to bear it, but it's got to be too hard.  I can't live
that way any longer.  You know,—Mr. Wedall——?"

Martha nodded.  "The pasture?"

"Yes, he's my minister.  He knows all about me.
He told me to do my best, but if the time came when
I just couldn't bear it another minute I might go.
He said *he* couldn't help me run away,
because—because——"

"Certaintly he couldn't!" said Martha.

"But he said, if ever I *had* to do it, the Lord
would raise up some one who could.  Mother's never
liked me.  I've not been happy a minute since my
father died.  *He* wasn't happy.  He had no peace
of his life.  He used to tell mother she'd get her
come-uppance some day, and she's got it now, for
Buller, that's her second husband, he beats her.  He's
got her money and mine too, what father left us,
and he's afraid I'll law him, now I'm of age and
can.  I tried to run off yesterday, but he caught me
and took away my clothes, and locked me in my
room.  I had some money I'd got hold of.  'Twas
my own—and when he caught me, and he and
mother stripped me and locked me up, I held on to
it, all through, though he beat me black and blue
with his belt-strap."

She spread her poor little trembling palm,
disclosing a fistful of crumpled bills.

"See?  And here's where he beat me—and *she*
stood by and let him!"

As she spoke, the girl drew back the coarse night-dress
from her breast, displaying shoulders and back
seamed across with cruel wales.

Martha drew in her breath shudderingly,
shielding her eyes with her elbow in a quick, instinctive
defensive gesture.

"I'd know you speak the truth without—*that*!"
she said.

"After they left me, and locked me in—when I
could *think*—I remembered what Mr. Wedall said
about the Lord raising up help for me, and it made
me mad, for there was no one to lift a hand for me.
And then, all at once, somehow, you came into my
mind.  I saw you help a dog once, nobody else would
touch.  D'you remember?  All the rest were afraid.
They said he might be mad.  But you said, 'Of
course he ain't mad.'  And you took him up, and
took him home, and—you weren't afraid."

"No, I'm not afraid," said Martha.

"After you came into my mind I never rested
till I found a way to get out.  I waited till
everything was quiet.  They'd gone to bed.  Then I
managed it—through the window—down the
grapevine trellis—I——"

Martha made her way to the corner cupboard.
"I'll fix you up with arnica an' water inside and
out," she explained.  "An', while I'm doin' it, you
tell me what you've planned."

"Nothing.  I've planned nothing.  Buller says
I'm looney.  Perhaps I am.  I can't seem to think."

"Have you got any folks anywheres?  I mean,
on your father's side?"

"I've an uncle.  Father's brother.  But he lives
in Montreal."

"Montreal!  Where would that be, I wonder?"

"In Canada.  Up north."

Mrs. Slawson bound on her soothing compresses
in silence.  Suddenly she paused, alert, listening.
Then, quick as a flash, she caught her visitor by the
sleeve, drew her back in to the entry and pushed her
into a small closet under the stairs.

"Hush!  I hear a horse.  Don't you breathe till
I come an' tell you."

A moment later she was lying in bed, as still as
though she, like Sam, were fast asleep and dreaming.

Presently Sam stirred, sat up drowsily, and listened.

"Say, mother, you asleep?"

No answer.

A voice from below in the garden called up
hoarsely:

"Hullo, there!"

"What's wanted?" demanded Sam.

"I'm Buller, from Milby's Corners.  My wife's
daughter has wandered off in the night.  I'm out
hunting for her, to take her home.  She ain't all
there in the upper story.  I thought, maybe, she'd
come in here.  The last I saw of her, she was making
this way.  She's in her night-shift.  I could see her
plain as day, far ahead of me."

Sam was so obviously but just-awakened, that
Buller from Milby's Corners turned his horse's head,
as if to make a quick departure, when Mrs. Slawson,
yawning, leaned over the rail of the sleeping-porch
and spoke.

"Say, wait a minute.  The poor thing!
Wanderin' about in the night,—an' her light-headed—away
from your pertectin' love an' care!  Ain't it
awful!  My husban' an' me'll get up, an' be dressed
in no time, for we'd like to help her, if we can, poor
creature!  In the meantime, seein' you ain't found
her here, I s'pose you'll be goin' further.  Out in
her night-clo'es!  My!  I wonder——  Say, Sam—do
*you* see somethin' white flitterin' along towards
the south—down the valley road d'rection?  Seems
to me *I* do!"

Sam thought maybe he did.

Buller kicked a heel into his horse.

"G'long!  I'm off down the valley road.  I
bet 'tis her.  I'll have her yet, the d—the poor
dear!"

The instant he was gone, Martha dragged Sam
into the house.

"Quick!  Dress you!  An' go down get the auta.
I have the girl hid in the entry closet.  I'm goin' to
take her out o' harm's way, which is that brute
beast's."

"But, Martha——" remonstrated Sam.

"Sam Slawson, do as I tell you!  Or you'll have
to *shove* us into Burbank in your present gob, which,
believe *me*, it ain't bewitchin'.  You can take it from
me, lad, I'm goin' to catch that north-bound express
that leaves Burbank at one o'clock this night, which,
if we don't make it, there ain't another till to-morra
mornin'.  So we *got* to make it, or I'll know the
reason why!"

Impelled by a motive power so irresistible, Sam
dressed and went about his business without
venturing another word.

Martha clothed herself in the brief intervals when
she was not attending Ellen Hinckley, giving her
bread to eat, milk to sip, enveloping her in garments
gathered from everywhere, anywhere, a conglomerate
assortment that would have been grotesque if it had
not been touching.

"No one'll mind your looks," Martha reassured
her.  "Just you sit tight, an' keep your own counsel,
an' not a dog'll bark after you.  Ma's veil tied down
over Cora's hat is quite stylish, an', be this an' be
that, you've got as good a motorin' costume as any.
They all look like Sam Hill.  So now, I guess, we
might be movin'!"

"It's a crazy scheme," Sam whispered in his wife's
ear, as she bent to him to deliver last instructions,
while he was cranking up.  "Suppose a tire bursts?"

"It ain't goin' to," she assured him with perfect
confidence.

Out of the gate they sped, then along the hard,
white high-road.  Even Martha's garrulous tongue
was stilled.

The world, bathed in this silver, ethereal light,
seemed unfamiliar, remote, the sky to have withdrawn,
in infinite cool reaches, beyond the burning
little tragedy they were enacting.  After a considerable
period of silence, Martha turned to ask Ellen
Hinckley if she were comfortable.  The poor
creature had fallen asleep, lulled by the motion of the
car, the soft night air, but more than all by the
sense of blessed security under Mrs. Slawson's
protecting wing.

Martha was about to nudge Sam to look, when he
turned a three-quarters profile toward her.

"I hear something back of us.  Can you see?"

"No.  If I stir she'll wake.  You don't think it's him?"

"It may be.  Joe Harding's place is down the
valley road.  He has a car.  Buller mayn't suspect
we're helping the girl, but when he didn't find her
in that direction, Harding may have offered to take
a hand in the game."

"Would any man o' conscience help a fella like
Buller, who all the neighborhood knows the life
he's led this poor creature—him an' the mother,
which she's a disgrace to the name."

"No, but Harding ain't a man of conscience,—not
so you'd notice it, as you say.  If Buller's out
on the still-hunt, Harding'd join in for the pleasure
of the chase."

"Put on power," directed Martha.

Again that swift, silent progress through the night.

Once Sam whispered: "I guess we were stung.  I
can't hear anything back of us any more, can you?"

"No," said Martha.  "But stung or no stung,
keep a-goin'.  We ain't takin' no risks."

Ellen Hinckley slept fitfully, but even in her
waking moments she was not aware of the dangers
the others had feared.

"Let her rest," Martha meditated.  "After she's
made a clean getaway, she'll have all that's comin' to
her, in the line o' excitement an' strain.  I don't
believe'm when he says she ain't all there in the
upper story.  But that's not meanin' I think she's
furnished as handsome as some.  She may have all
her buttons, an' yet not be the brainiest party I ever
come in contract with.  Why didn't she up an' open
her mind an' give Buller a piece o' it long ago?
There's many things a married woman's got to
shoulder, God knows, but chas*tise*ment, hot off'n his
griddle, as you might say, not on your life, even a
married woman needn't stand, much less a unmarried
maiden-girl.  It ain't decent.  If a man oncet took
the strap to me, I'd fix'm so's the doctor'd have to
hunt for the buckle o' his belt behind his internal
workin's, in back among his spine.  An' I'd be
proud o' the job."

When they were within about five miles of Burbank
Sam gave a low whistle.

"I was wonderin' if you heard it too," Martha
responded promptly.  "Firstoff I thought 'twas my
imagination, but it ain't.  Somethin' certaintly's
follain' along in our tracks."

"The first was a false alarm.  So may this be,"
said Sam.

"Sure.  But, could you speed up some?  Just for luck?"

Presently Martha heard another sound.

"Now, Ellen," she announced firmly, "you
got to brace up.  Cryin' won't do you a mite o' good."

"He's following.  I know it.  He's got a car.
He'll get me and take me back and—*kill* me!"

"He will if you don't do as I say.  But not on
your life he won't, if you mind your aunt Martha.
Firstoff, have you got your money safe an' handy?"

"Yes.  Here."

"That's right.  See you don't lose it, when I assist
you onto the train.  There mayn't be much time to
spare, but if the brakeman's any good on the catch,
I'm up to handin'm a neat throw, an' between us
you'll get there!"

"But my ticket——"

"This is no time for thinkin' o' tickets.  Let the
conductor be glad if, after the train is on its way,
you got the price o' one o' them long, floatin'
streamer-effec's he carries in his vest-pocket, to amuse
'mself punchin' holes in it."

They sped into Burbank under all the power Sam
dared put on.

"Thank God!" sobbed Ellen Hinckley.

But when they reached the station, no train was
in sight, the place was virtually deserted.

Sam drew up beside the platform and, for a
moment sat quite still, evidently cogitating.

"No such thing!  The train ain't gone!" said
Martha, as if he had maintained it had.  "It's only
five minutes to one."

"It might have been ahead of time."

"Did you ever know one was?" inquired his wife.

He got out and made his way to the waiting-room.
A moment and he was back.

"There's been delays back along the road.  The
train's two hours late.  It won't be here till three,
or after."

"Well, what do you think o' that!" said Martha.

The next instant she was dragging Ellen Hinckley
into the waiting-room, through it, and on into the
telegraph-operator's booth.

"Say, young fella," she addressed him bluntly,
"this party here's in danger of her life.  Me an'
my husban' is gettin' her out o' harm's way, which
he's hot on our track.  He'll be along any minute.
Think o' your mother, if you ever had one.  An if
not, think o' some other female o' the same sect,
only younger.  Lend a hand, anyhow, to help us
out, will you?"

The youth eyed Mrs. Slawson dubiously.

"How do I know——?" he began objecting.

"You don't.  But, by the time I get through with
you, you will.  Only this ain't the *time*, see?  Come
now, step lively, like they say in New York.  Put
this party away, out o' sight.  No matter how
crampin' the place.  An' be quick about it!"

The young man gazed about his booth helplessly,
shook his head, then got upon his feet.  He drew a
key from his pocket, as if acting under hypnotic
suggestion.

"I'm taking your word for it," he grumbled.  "If
it gets me into trouble——"

"*I'll* get you out," answered Martha confidently.

Without further ado he led them through the
waiting-room, unlocked the baggage-room door and,
in the semi-darkness, he and Martha walled their
captive in behind a barricade of freight and baggage.

"Try to be contented till train-time," Mrs. Slawson
admonished Ellen.  "Don't you be scared.  We
won't forget you, nor we won't let your stepfather
get you, 'less it's over this young-man-here's dead
body an'——"

"Oh, I say!" objected the telegraph-operator
plaintively.

Martha shook her head at him.  "I only wanted
to cheer her up," she whispered, as they passed out
into the waiting-room, he locking the door behind
them.

Sam came forward to meet her.

"I guess we had our scare for nothing," he observed.
"If that'd been Buller behind us, he'd have
got here before now."

"Not if he'd had tire-troubles.  But prob'ly
you're right," said Martha.

Sam considered.  "Then what's the use of keeping
the poor girl hid?"

"It won't hurt her.  An' a ounce o' pervention is
worth a pound o' cure."

Later the telegraph-operator took the trouble to
shove up his window and address Martha through
it.  His tone was loftily supercilious, ironically
facetious.

"Nothing doing!  You've been stringing me, I
guess!" he sagely opined.

Mrs. Slawson regarded him blandly.

"Certaintly.  My husban' an' me, we come
twenty-five miles streakin' through the night on
purpose to do it.  Such a precious jewel of a fella as
you, anybody'd want to string'm, for safe-keepin',
so's he wouldn't fall down an' roll away an' be
lost in a crack o' the floor."

The telegraph-operator grimaced.

"Say, now, no joke!  You said you'd tell me the
whole story, so I'd know what I was in for.  I ain't
hankering to be called down by the Company for
outdoing my duty."

Mrs. Slawson smoothed her dress over her knees.
"Come an' sit on my lap, sonny-boy, an' I'll tell
you all about it.  Only bein' so young, an' havin'
such a tender conscience with you, it might keep you
awake in your crib nights.  Did you ever see weels,
as thick as my thumb, on the white skin of a young
girl's shoulders?  Well, I could turn back the waist
o' that one in there, an' show you such.  Raised by
the leather-belt o' her mother's second husban',
which they're perfect ladies an' gen'lmen, o' course,
bless their hearts.  They will be after her like mad,
when they know she's given'm the slip.  Good lan'!
If young fellas was reely young fellas nowadays,
you'd be glad of the chancet to pour some o' the
Widow Cruse's oil on a poor ill-used child's troubled
waters.  An' not be thinkin' o' yourself all the
time—if it'd harm *you* to help her, or if the Comp'ny
would objec'."

The youth regarded her with level eyes.

"You can count on me," he said.  "I'm with you
in this, no matter what."

"Good bey!" said Martha.

The hours dragged wearily along.  One by one
disappointed travelers who had strayed off to kill
time at the hotel, returned to meet their delayed
train.

Martha had advance information concerning its
coming, the lad at the wire furnishing it gratuitously.

"It'll be along now in five minutes," he said,
"and I've put the baggage-man wise, so he's ready
to help you get her off, as fine as silk, even if——"

Just then Martha saw Sam approaching.  Though
his step and manner were, to all outward appearances
as usual, she instantly knew something was amiss.

"What is it?" she asked calmly.

"He's come.  Him and Harding are here.  They
haven't seen me nor the car yet.  I put that beyond,
under a shed, where it wouldn't be conspicuous.  But
we can't dodge them long, and——"

"This way, ma'am!" summoned the baggage-man,
touching Martha's elbow.  "I got the young
lady ready for you—and the train's coming."

"Take care of yourself, Sam," Martha cautioned
him, following her leader.

The train thundered up.  Before it had fairly
come to a halt, Buller sighted Sam.  He made a
rush toward him, brandishing a menacing arm.

"Keep cool," advised Sam.  "And keep off!"

"You've got the girl!" Buller roared.  "We
know you have, from them as saw you coming over
here, three in the car.  Where is she?"

"Find her," said Sam.

Buller turned to Harding.  "*You* handle him,
Joe.  I'll tackle the woman."

Martha stood at the baggage-room door, as Buller
came pounding down the platform.

"Hand over that girl!" He spoke with sinister
calmness.

"Certaintly," said Martha.  "That's just what
I'm waitin' to do."

The engine whistled.  Buller started toward Martha,
getting in the way of the baggage-man, who was
pushing a loaded hand-truck before him.  His elbow
sent Buller reeling.  In that instant, through a maze,
Buller saw Martha lift what had looked like a piece
of burlap-covered baggage from the truck, and toss
it, with sure aim, to the brakeman on the platform
of the slow-moving car.  The brakeman caught it
deftly, and set it on its feet.  The train slid past.

"Ellen!" Buller cried.  Then, turning on Martha,
"You—devil!"

Mrs. Slawson bowed civilly.  "Same to you, sir."

"I'll—I'll do you up yet.  You're not done with
me, not by a long shot."

"I haven't a doubt o' it.  I'm ready for you, any
time.  Likewise *Mister* Slawson.  Only, I advise you,
take it out on me.  My husband might hurt you too
much, if he got goin'."

As they were driving home through the waning
light, Sam told Martha he faintly remembered hearing
Ellen's knock on the door—"only he was too
tired to get up."

"You were smart to hear it through your own
snores," she returned pleasantly.  "But when we get
home, you must turn in, an' take a real sleep.  I'll
wake you when Buller comes."





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.. _`CHAPTER X`:

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   CHAPTER X

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Dr. Ballard had been absent a fortnight or
more, and July was drawing to its close, when
one afternoon Katherine heard the sound she had
been longing for all these days, the familiar musical
notes of his motor-horn.

Looking ahead expectantly, he spied her at once,
and gave salute, as the car swept up to the porch,
a silent military salute.  Alighting, he passed directly
upstairs to Madam Crewe's sitting-room.

Katherine followed after, drawn as if by the sense
of something pending, something too interesting to
miss.

Madam Crewe glanced around as the doctor entered.

"Oho, so *you're* back, are you?"

Dr. Ballard took a chair without waiting to be
invited and said lightly, as he seated himself facing
his patient:

"You speak the truth."

The old woman raised her chin.  "Thank you,
young man.  You flatter me!"

"Not in the least," came the prompt retort.  "I
haven't come with any such intention.  I've come—and
I may as well out with it at once—I've come
to tell you that I have found the reason for your
dislike of 'the Ballard tribe.'  I've discovered the
case you have against us.  I've been ferreting about
among my grandfather's effects, and I've unearthed
his Journal.  Curious, isn't it, that a *bailiff* should
have kept a Journal?"

Madam Crewe deigned no response.

After a pause lasting several seconds, Dr. Ballard
continued: "I presume you would feel seriously
affronted if I were to take the liberty of supposing
you might be interested."

"Fudge!  Have you the Journal there?"

"Yes."

"You have read it?"

"Quite so."

"Then you—know?"

"Yes."

"Well?  And what then?  What are you going
to do about it?"

"I am going to read my grandfather's Journal
aloud, now, here—I mean, that portion of it that
relates to you."

Madam Crewe straightened to a military stiffness.
"You are going to do nothing of the sort," she
averred stoutly.

"Indeed I am."

"I'll not permit it.  I'll send Katherine from the
room."

"Oh, no you won't.  You are too just to do that.
You have made certain charges against my
grandfather; now, the only fair thing, is to give
him a show—to let him state his case, from his
side."

"No.  He wouldn't tell the truth.  He falsified
once.  He'd falsify again."

"You haven't proved it."

"You have my word."

"Your word is all very well, as far as it goes.
But even you would hardly claim that it goes all the
way 'round the truth, and then tucks under, like
Dick's hatband.  My grandfather has a word too,
and I'm going to see that he has a chance to get it
in edgewise, and—what's more, that you listen."

Madam Crewe turned her body stiffly toward
Katherine.

"Come here.  Sit down!" she commanded autocratically.

Dr. Ballard took up his book, opening it at an
obviously marked point.

"The first entry bearing any reference to you or
yours was written in 1844.  In the spring of that
year he mentions going to see one Squire Stryker,
in connection with the stewardship of his estate.  I'll
skip all the non-essentials and——"

"Skip nothing.  Since you *will* read, read!"

"Very well.

"'Boston, February 6th, 1844.  This morning
saw Squire Stryker.  He wishes to engage a bailiff.
A hard man, I judge him to be.  Not easy to please,
because he is exacting, arbitrary, without judgment
or justice.  He is ruled by passion, not principle.

"'Feb. 10th.  I have made my decision.  For
good or ill, I go to Squire Stryker's, in New
Hampshire, to-morrow.'

"Following are several pages given over to notes
and data connected with the estate.  Its acreage, its
possibilities, its limitations.  Nothing else.  They
carry one to April, and—this:

"'A strange thing has happened.  No, not a
strange thing.  The thing is simple, the strangeness
is in its effect on me.  There is a lane hard by, called
Cherry Lane.  'Tis part of the estate.  At this
season the trees are in full blossom.  I went there
to estimate the probable yield of fruit, and the
condition of the trees, and—underneath the white and
pink boughs stood a white and pink maid.  She
looked at me and smiled.  She told me she was
Squire Stryker's daughter.  She knew I was the new
bailiff, she said.

"'April 14.  I have seen the child again.  Yes,
again and again.  Many times, in fact.  I call her
child because so indeed she seems to me, who am,
at least, fifteen years older.  She tells me she is
seventeen.  'Tis hard to believe for that in stature
she's no higher than my heart, and her eyes are as
open and unconscious as a child's except when——  But
that is my fancy!  I am sure 'tis my fancy.

"'June 1st.  'Tis many weeks since that was
written.  Not that I have naught to say.  Rather,
too much.  I find I cannot set down what is in my
heart.  *Idea Stryker and I are betrothed!*

"'June 14.  Every afternoon towards sundown
my little sweetheart and I walk in Cherry Lane.  I
wish she had a mother.  I do not like these clandestine
meetings.  Sometimes I doubt myself.  Not my
love for Idea, God knows, but my power to make it
tell for her best good.  To-day I told her my
conscience troubled me.  I am no friend to untruth or
furtive acts.  Idea put on a look of high contempt,
aping her father.  She scowled at me, folded her
arms across her bosom and, measuring me up and
down, in his own manner to the life, said: "Deuce
take your conscience, sir!  I'll have none of it."  Then,
suddenly changing, she clung to me crying,
"I'll have nothing but your love, Daniel!  But, your
love I'll die to have, and to hold."  I let my heart
direct me rather than my head, and gave way to
her.  But I still feel the better course would be to
tell her father and make an end of this deceit.

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"''Tis many a long day since I have taken up
this book to write in it.  Now that I do, 'tis in a
different year and place.  Yet I have often thought
'twas cowardly to shun the setting down in black
and white of what will always be the deepest record
of my heart.  I have said Idea and I were at
variance upon the point of telling her father what was
between us.  Again and again I tried to tell her 'twas
unworthy of us both.  But she always overruled me.
I gave way.  Then, one day when I spoke of it, she
suddenly burst forth in such a passion as I have
never seen.  Poor child!  'Twas her father's fury,
but not, this time, done in mimicry.  She told me
she was weary of being preached to about the truth,
deceit, and duty.  She would have me know she'd as
good a sense of propriety as I.  Nay, better, for,
after all, who was I but her father's servant, she
would like to know.  "How dare you criticise me?"
she blazed.  "You forget I am your master's daughter."

"'I can see her now, standing there stamping
her foot at me, her eyes flashing, her cheeks like
flame.  The rage in her flared up, then died down
as quickly.  That was her way.  The heat in *me* has
a different habit.  It smolders and grows until it
seems to freeze me with its white intensity.  It is
my bosom-enemy which I am trying to conquer.  I
had not done it then.  "You are right," I said.  "I
had forgotten.  I had forgotten everything except
that you are the girl I loved, who I thought loved
me.  You have done well to remind me of my place.
I will never forget it again, or that you are *my
master's daughter*."

"'With that I turned, and left her standing,
stunned, bewildered, in Cherry Lane.  I could see
she did not realize what had happened.  She thought
I would come back.  She waited for me.  And so I
did come back, but not to let her see me.  Only to
watch over her, that no harm should befall, for the
spot was lonely and far from the house, and dusk
was about to fall.  When the first star showed, she
went home.  I could hear her crying softly, all the
way.  She would cry, then stop to dry her tears, and
call me names through her sobbing.

"'There were no more meetings after that,
though she *got in my way* more than once, as I went
about my duties.  I knew very well what she wanted,
but I could not relent.  What my dear mother used
to call my dumb demon had taken possession of me.
It would not let me speak.  Would not let me write
to answer any of the letters Idea sent me begging
me to meet her when the sun went down.

"'Then, one day, I was summoned before the
Squire.  She had told him.

"'He was waiting for me in his library, clad in
his riding-clothes just as he had come from horseback.
He carried a riding-crop.  His face was of
a dull reddish color, his eyes green.  He began, the
moment I entered the door, to assail me, standing
with his back to it, his legs planted wide.

"'"You miserable beggar!" he brandished his
crop in my face.  "First, you have the insolence to
make love to my daughter, then you insult her by
refusing, when she *stoops* to offer you her hand in
reconciliation."

"'"That is precisely the point," I heard myself
say.  "'Tis because she *stoops*."

The words were no sooner out, than Idea was
clinging to me.  "I'm not proud any more, Daniel,"
she cried.  "I'll never stoop again.  If you'll only
forgive me this once, I'll promise never to vex you
any more.  Please, Daniel, please!"

"'The Squire snatched her wrist.  "Silence!"
he thundered, and would have swung her violently
aside, but I prevented it.  I saw the old look in her
eyes.

"'"Then come with me," I said, "now—this
hour.  Marry me and——"

"'Her father flung himself between us, when she
would have come to me.  He swore he would
disown her.  No shilling of his should she ever get.
She should be a beggar—married to a beggar.

"'I saw her shrink.  She could not face it.  When
I saw that, I turned to go, but the Squire stopped me.

"'"Not so fast, my fine fellow!  You've not returned
the letters, yet.  D'you think I'd let you keep
them, you low dog, to use against her fair name,
for a price?"

"'I had forgotten the letters.  I turned to Idea,
and it was as if I had not seen her before, so clear
her image stood out, now.  She was clad in some
flowery stuff ("dimity," she had once told me 'twas)
with a sash about her waist, and on the sash a pocket
hung suspended by a strap.  'Twas to hold her
handkerchief, but her handkerchief had to hold her
tears now—and the pocket hung empty.  I went to
her and held out the letters.  She would not take
them.

"'"Here are your letters," I said.

"'Still she would not touch them.

"'Her father cursed us both.  I felt my self-control
slipping from me.  If I let it go to lay my
hand upon the man—God help him—and me.  But
I could not escape until Idea had the letters.  Again,
she would not take them.  With a quick movement
I thrust them in her pocket.  She did not seem to
understand what I was doing.  She thought I was
trying to grasp her hand, I think, for she flung it
out to me imploringly.  But I only dimly saw that
as I wheeled about, and so, off and away.  That day
I left the place.  Later, I learned, the Squire and
Idea went too.  But before they did so he caused
his man of law to follow me, again demanding the
letters.

"'"The letters have already been returned," was
all I could say.  "She has them.  I gave them back.
When she would not take them, I thrust them in
her pocket."

"'With that the lawyer had, perforce, to be
content.  At least he has not troubled me since.  So I
close this book.  A closed book, too, the story of
my love.  A book I know I must never open if ever
I am to be at peace with life.  For I will say it
once and so be done, Idea is my mate—the one
woman in the world whom only I love, or ever shall.
I have lost her, but the memory of her I must keep
until I die—my passionate, headstrong, struggling,
loving child.  May God be with her, true and loyal
little heart, wherever she may go.'"

Dr. Ballard looked up, as he closed down the cover.

"You see, he *did* give back the letters," he said.

Madam Crewe clutched the arms of her chair,
sitting forward, gazing fixedly into space.  When
she spoke it was as if she spoke in a dream, filling
out the bailiff's tale.

"I had no letters and, as for the pocket, 'twas
never seen from that day on.  My father insisted
'twas a ruse on my—the bailiff's part, his offering
to return them.  He said he had kept them to use
as a means of blackmail.  I was too desperate to
care.  My father swore the man would presently
show his hand, but he did not, nor his face either.
I never saw him again.  At first I would hear no
ill of him, but my father and the attorney told me
I was too young, too ignorant of the world, to
know how base the creature was, what a narrow
escape I had had.  There were nights—many and
many of them—when, here and abroad, I cried myself
to sleep, regretting my *escape* hadn't been narrower.

"Now, sir, you know the story of your grandfather
and me.  It is all very long ago.  The wonder
is, the memory has stayed by me all these years."

For the first time within her recollection, Katherine
felt herself drawn to her grandmother.  It was
as if a means of communication had been opened
up between them.  She would have liked to go to her
and lay her arms about her shoulders lovingly.

Dr. Ballard broke the silence.

"The truth lies between your word, and my
grandfather's.  *I* believe he was honest.  You
believe the contrary."

Madam Crewe was silent.

The doctor continued.  "Now, as you say, all
that took place very long ago.  Even granting my
grandfather's motives to have been the worst, I
count myself out of the tangle.  I stand on my own
feet, don't I?  If I have built up my life on honest
principle, I can't see how you can reasonably hold
me to account for the sins or fancied sins of my
forbears.  Our democracy isn't worth the name, if
it doesn't admit a man's a man for a' that.  I love
your granddaughter.  I wish to marry her.  I ask
your consent."

Katherine could not see her grandmother's face
for the sudden mist that had gathered to trouble her
vision.  But she heard the familiar voice distinctly
enough.

"Wait a moment.  Hear me out.  Then repeat
your declaration, if you choose.  They say I'm
avaricious.  Rich, grasping, penurious.  Suppose I
told you I'm poor?  That the bulk of my fortune
was squandered long ago?  That I've had a hard
time to keep my nose, and this girl's here, above
water?  Would you wish to marry her, still?"

"Certainly.  Why not?"

"You say that because you don't believe it's true."

"I say it because, saving your presence, I don't
care a continental whether it's true or not.  Your
money or the lack of it, is nothing to me.  I care
for *Katherine*!"

"Suppose I told you Katherine's grandfather, the
man I married, was a coward and a liar, as they
said your grandfather was?  Suppose I told you
her father, my son, followed in his father's footsteps?"

Dr. Ballard shrugged impatiently.  "It's Katherine
I want for my wife.  It's not her dead and
buried ancestors.  I have to deal with Katherine's
faults and virtues, not those of her family."

"You hear that, Katherine?  It's *your* faults and
virtues he——"

Madam Crewe put the question with a sort of
bravado, but her utterance was slightly unsteady.
She did not conclude her sentence.

Katherine had grown very white.

When she did not respond, the old woman
demanded peevishly, "Well, well?  What have you
to say for yourself?  Can't you speak?"

"I say—I can't marry—Dr. Ballard."  The girl
rose and stood holding on to the back of her chair
with two cold, trembling hands.

Her grandmother fairly raised herself up in her
seat.  "What do you mean——?  'You can't marry
Dr. Ballard?'"  Her voice rose to a sharp falsetto.

Katherine shook her head.

"Nonsense!  Whim!"  The old woman spoke
with unaccountable passion.

Dr. Ballard laid a firm, warm hand on Katherine's
cold ones.  His face was rather pale, but his tone,
when he spoke, was quite composed.

"Forgive me," he said.  "I see I've got in all
wrong on this.  I didn't mean to distress you.  Let
us drop it now, and later, some time, when we two
are alone together, we'll thresh it out, eh?"

Again Katherine shook her head.  "No, I want
never to talk about it again," she said tremulously.

"Why?"  The old woman asked the question
almost fiercely, bending forward to peer searchingly
into her granddaughter's face.

For a moment it looked as if Katherine were in
danger of being swept off her feet by the intensity
of her hidden feeling.  She opened her lips, then
resolutely closed them again.  Her grandmother did
not seem to see, or, at all events, did not regard her
effort at self-control.

"Have you no tongue in your head?"

"Say it isn't true—what you've just hinted, about
my father and his.  Say it isn't true, and
I'll—*tell*——"

"Ho!  Do you think I'm to be called to account
by you, young miss?" Madam Crewe interrupted
testily.  "If Dr. Ballard is ready to marry you, in
the face of the conditions I asked him to suppose,
why, get down on your knees, and thank God for
such a disinterested lover.  But don't flatter yourself
you can oblige me to do as you choose.  I am
sixty-eight years old and I will not be forced."

Dr. Ballard laughed out.

"Don't you see it's all nonsense, Katherine?  The
whole thing isn't worth a serious thought.  If your
grandmother likes to have her little joke, why, let us
try to see the humor of it.  Perhaps she doesn't want
you to marry me.  But now she sees it's inevitable,
she'll——"

"No," said Katherine.  "It's not inevitable.  I
can't marry you."

Dr. Ballard was silent, but Madam Crewe's words
snapped out like sparks from a live wire.

"The day Norris was here, you said you would.
You *insisted* you would.  Does your refusal now
mean you've reconsidered the conditions he
suggested?  You've thought better of your first
decision?"

Katharine gave her a long look.  It seemed to her,
her humiliation was complete.  And still she
managed to hold herself in check.

"You make it very hard for me—you force me
to say things—I——  Very well, then listen!  I *do*
love Dr. Ballard and—I'd have married him if—I
could!"

He was on his feet in a second, the chair he had
sat in crashing backward with the violence of the
sudden spring he made from it.  But Katherine was
quicker than he.  She turned and had run from the
room before he could prevent her.

Madam Crewe let her breath escape in a long
sigh of fatigue.

"Dear me!  What tiresome things the young
are!  As Slawson says, they're hard as nails.  You'd
better reconsider, and ask *me* to marry you instead
of Katherine.  I'm seasoned, if not mellowed.  Yes,
you'd much better marry me."

Dr. Ballard smiled grimly.  "Where my handsomer
grandfather failed, how could *I* hope to
win?" he retorted, throwing her a glance of mock
gallantry.  But even as he looked, he saw her face
blench, her figure sag together like a wilted plant.
In a second he had her in his arms, carrying her to
the couch, forgetting the personal in the
professional, working over her with a will.

A familiar figure appeared in the open doorway.

Martha paused a moment, then came forward
swiftly.

"Another——?" she inquired, her hands busying
themselves at once in obedience to the doctor's silent
orders.

He shook his head.  "No."

Presently Martha felt a quiver of muscles beneath
her fingers.  Madam Crewe's eyelids lifted.  She
made an effort to raise herself.

"What's all this—to-do?" she taxed her strength
to demand.

Dr. Ballard laid a restraining hand upon her
shoulder.

"Nothing.  That is, nothing serious.  You'd been
over-exerting.  Nature stepped in and shut down the
shop for a moment."

"Meaning—I lost consciousness?  For how long?
How came Slawson here?  Did you send?"

Martha answered in the doctor's stead.

"No'm.  I just happened along.  My Sabina, she
took it into her head this afternoon there was no
place like home—an' she was glad of it.  Her
an' me disagreed on some triflin' matters, an'
she threatened she'd leave if I didn't come
to terms.  I tol' her: 'I'm sorry you feel that
way, but if you concluded you must go, why,
I s'pose you must.  We all enjoyed your s'ciety
for the last five years, but the best o' friends must
part, an' far be it from me to stand in your way, if
you perfer to look for another situation, an' think
you can better yourself.  I'll do up your things for
you, for luck!'  So I did an' out she stepped, as bold
as brass, with her clo'es done up in a bundle slung
on the end of a old gulf-stick Mr. Ronald he give
her brother Sammy, to carry over her shoulder.
She ain't been gone above three hours, but I thought
while I was bringin' up the evenin's milk, I'd ask if,
maybe, she'd blew in here?"

Madam Crewe compressed her lips.  "No.  Even
your baby would know better than to come here for
a happy home," she said with a caustic smile.  "On
your way back, you'd better look for *my* child, who,
also, has probably run away.  It seems to be the
fashion nowadays for youngsters to defy their
elders."

Dr. Ballard gave Martha a look.

"Well, I must be movin'.  I took the liberty to
bring you a form o' Spanish cream I made this
afternoon.  It's kind o' cool an' refreshin', when
you ain't an appetite for substantialler things."

Passing Katherine's door she paused and lightly
tapped on the panel.  There was no answer.  She
dared not take it on herself to turn the knob, so went
slowly downstairs, and, finally, out of the house and
grounds.

Once in the road she saw, a short distance ahead
of her, an easily recognizable figure.

"Oh—Miss Katherine!" she called softly.

For a moment the girl seemed undecided what to
do.  She walked on as if she had not heard the call,
then suddenly wheeled about and stopped.

"I was afraid I'd missed you," Mrs. Slawson
said casually.  "All I wanted, was to tell you that
if your gran'ma shouldn't be so well after her
faintin'-spell, why, I'm ready to come an' help any
time, be it night or day."

Katherine looked up, her face changing quickly.

"Fainting-spell?" She echoed the words vaguely.

"Yes.  She come out o' this one all right, but if
she had another you couldn't tell, at her age, poor
ol' lady!  Thanks be! it wasn't a stroke.  Anyhow,
I'd advise you keep Eunice Youngs overnight, to
run an' carry, if need be."

The struggle was short and sharp.  Martha
pretended not to see.  She pretended not to be
aware that Miss Katherine had on her traveling
hat, carried her coat over her arm, a bag in her
hand.

"I'll go back!" the girl said at last, as if ending
a debate.

"Be sure you send if you need me," Martha repeated.

They parted without another word, and Mrs. Slawson,
resuming her homeward way, summed up
the case to herself.

"Yes, she's gone back this time.  But come
another tug o' war between her an' the ol' lady, an'
I wouldn't be so certain.  I wonder now, how my
young vagabone is doin', which her brothers an'
sisters are all out on the still-hunt, searchin' for her
this minute."

She had barely reached the house, and was busying
herself with preliminary supper preparations,
before starting out again to look for her stray lamb,
when the screen-door was gently opened from without,
and a small person, very grimy as to outward
visible signs, very chastened as to inward spiritual
grace, entered the kitchen quietly.

Martha appeared totally unconscious of any other
presence than her own, until Sabina's mind
became vaguely troubled with doubts of her own
substantiality.  Her pilgrim's pack slipped from her
shoulder, the "gulf-stick" fell clattering to the floor.
Even then Mrs. Slawson made no sign.

The suspense was fast becoming unendurable.
The child's under-lip thrust out, her chin began to
quiver, but she controlled herself gallantly.
Nixcomeraus, the cat, rose from where he had been
lying curled up in a doze, humped a lazy back,
stretched, yawned, and, with dignified mien, crossed
the floor to rub against his little friend's familiar
legs.  That something, at least, recognized her, and
knew she had come home, after her long, weary
absence, almost upset Sabina's equilibrium.  She bent
down to stroke pussy's fur.

"I see," she essayed, with a superb effect of
nonchalance, "I see you still have the same old cat!"

At the sound of her voice Martha turned.

"My, my!" she exclaimed, one hand clasping the
other in surprise, "you don't mean to say this is
Sabina!  How glad I am to see you!  Won't you sit
down an' stay a little while?  Cora an' Francie an'
Saromy've gone out strollin', but they'll be back
before long, an' they'd be disappointed if you'd 'a'
went before they got home, so's they'd miss your
call."

Sabina's eyes rolled.  She gulped hard once, twice,
three times.  Then with a roar, her "austere
control" gave way, she cast herself bodily upon her
mother, clasping the maternal massive knees.

"I ain't goin' to stay *a lit-tle whi-ile*," she sobbed.
"I'm goin' to stay *always*.  I want C-Cora! 'n' I
want F-Francie! 'n' I want S-Sammy! 'n' YOU!"

Martha bent to lift the giant-child so the stout
little arms could clutch her neck.

"Now, what do you think o' that!" she ejaculated,
holding the shaken traveler close.

Appeared Sammy in the doorway, troubled at
first but brightening suddenly at sight of his
recovered sister.

"Hey, Sabina's home!" he shouted ecstatically
back to the others.  Then all came trooping in with
a rush, clinging about the youngest, hugging her,
kissing her as if she had been gone a year.

"Why, it's just like the Prodigal's son, ain't it?"
suggested Martha, in whose lap Sabina sat enthroned,
refusing to leave it for even a moment.

"Who's he?" asked Sammy.

Mrs. Slawson cast a look of reproach at her son.

"Shame on you, to ask such a question, at your
age!  Don't you remember the old prodigal gen'lman
lived in the Bible, which his son had a rovin'
disposition an' went off gallivantin' till his pervisions
give out, an' he had to come home to get a square
meal?  When his father saw'm afar off, he got up,
an' went out, an' called'm a fatted calf, an'—no I
I'm wrong, he asked'm wouldn't he *like* some fatted
calf, which, his son, bein' fond o' young veal, *did*,
an' so they killed'm—I mean the calf.  Now I'm
wonderin' which one o' you three I better do it to
for Sabina!  There, there, Sabina!  Don't holla so!
O' course I don't mean I'd reely hurt your brothers
an' sisters.  Come, you're all tired out, or you
wouldn't be so foolish!  Cheer up, now!  You're
back home, after all your wanderin's, an' you won't
be naughty any more—*if you can help it*, will you?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI

.. vspace:: 2

Whatever had been the cause of disagreement
between Madam Crewe and her granddaughter,
Martha noticed that a negative peace, at
least, had been restored by the time she had occasion
to go to Crewesmere again.

"And so you've been aiding and abetting a run-away
girl, eh?" the old lady accosted her sharply.

Mrs. Slawson had almost forgotten the Ellen
Hinckley episode, in the quick succession of events
nearer home.

"You mean——" she pondered.

"You know perfectly well what I mean.  The
Hinckley girl.  You assisted her to make her escape
from that Buller brute.  I hope you thought well,
before you took the risk."

"Risk?" repeated Martha.

"Yes, *risk*.  Evidently you don't know the difference
between courage and recklessness."

"No'm, I don't.  But I'll look'm up in the dickshunerry."

Madam Crewe brought her teeth together with a snap.

"Slawson, you're a strange specimen.  I sometimes
wonder if you're *plus* or *minus*.  You certainly
are not a simple equation, that's sure."

Martha smiled.  "Speakin' o' the Hinckley girl—Ellen—I'd
a letter from the uncle she went to, sayin'
she landed there safe an' sound.  So *she's* off'n my
mind."

"And Buller?"

"He never was on it.  *I* don't mind *him*.  His
name ought to been spelled with a Y 'stead of the
R.  Them kind's never dangerous."

"Well, I hope not.  All the same, I wish you'd
kept your finger out of that pie for your own safety's
sake."

Martha laughed.  "I got two good fists of my
own with me, that shoots out fine when required.
Warranted to hit the bull's eye every time.  I used
to tell my husband, when we lived down in the city,
I was afraid I might be arrested for carryin'
unconcealed weapons."

Madam Crewe's stern little visage did not relax.
"You'd need a more effective weapon than your
two fists, if you had Buller to deal with," she said.
"I've a mind to give you my son's revolver.  Will
you take it?"

Martha drew back quickly.  "No'm, thank you,
bein' much obliged, all the same.  My husband an'
me, we don't believe in settlin' disputes that way.
Shootin', be it by one, or be it by many, is murder,
an' nothin' else.  I'd like to put a stop to it, if I
could.  I'm dead set against it.  They talk about
puttin' a stop to war, an' some says you couldn't do
it.  But you *could* do it.  If every man who was
'listed, just crossed his arms, an' said respectful but
firm: 'No, siree!  Not on your life I won't shoot!'
an' stuck to his word—where'd they get their armies?
You can't *square* anythin' with *round* bullets.  I
wouldn't mind cuffin' Buller a good lick or two, but
I wouldn't *shoot*'m.  I've too much respec' for my
own peace o' mind."

"Well, at least take the precaution to keep off
these country roads after nightfall.  Get yourself
home now.  And when you come here again, if it's
at night like this, bring that dog of yours, that you
talk so much about, along with you."

"Flicker?  Goodness!  Flicker's the peaceablest
party of us all.  He wouldn't be a mite o' perfection,
even if we'd let'm out.  Since we first took'm off'n the
street, Flicker thinks everybody means well by'm.
He'd never get over the shock if somebody treated'm
low down.  He just wouldn't *believe* it, that's all.
But anyhow, Sam (my husband) he's been obliged
to set some traps for the foxes that prowels 'round
after Mr. Ronaldses hens an' ours, an' we're afraid
Flicker might get caught in one, if we'd leave'm run
free nights."

Acting on Madam Crewe's gentle hint, Martha
proceeded to take herself off.  She had not really
thought of Buller with any apprehension, but as
she walked along the dark, lonely road, the suggestion
worked, and she fancied him lying in wait for
her behind "any old ambush growin' by the way,
ready to spring," as she told herself.

This did not prevent her from tramping on when,
at last, she reached her own door, and realized she
was out of yeast, and Cora had need of some for
the night's "raisin'."

Mrs. Lentz "admired" to let her have the loan
of a cake.  Martha chatted a while, then started
away, this time headed directly for home.  She had
gone but a short distance, the length of a city block
perhaps, when, suddenly, she came to a standstill.

"Who's there?" she demanded sternly.  Her
voice sounded unfamiliar, even to her own ears.  She
attempted to flash her lantern-light into the inky
blackness of the thicket hedging the road-bank.
"Who's there?" she repeated.

Silence.

For a second, she doubted her own instinct, and
was on the point of passing sheepishly on, ashamed
of her childishness, when a sinister rustle in the
shadow brought her, as it were, up standing again,
instantly alert, on the defensive.

"Who's there?" rang out for the third time.
"If you don't speak or show this minute, I'll come
an' fetch you."

The rustle increased.  A blotch of shadow detached
itself from its vague background, and a huddled
shape inched forward, like a magnified beetle.

Martha held her lantern up as she took a step
forward to meet the thing.

"MA!" she exploded.  Then——  "Well, what
do you think o' that!"

"O—oh, Martha!"

The next minute the magnified beetle was passionately
clinging to "me son Sammy's wife," as if there
were no other anchorage in all the world.

"But for the love o' Mike, Ma, how come you
here?  You're shakin' like an ash-pan.  You're all
done up.  Never mind tellin' me now.  When we're
home is time enough."

Fairly carrying the poor, limp creature, heartening
her, soothing her, Martha got her, at last, to
the Lodge, set her in Sam's chair, with the comforting
*pilla* to rest the *holla* in her back, brought her
the reinforcing *cuppertee* which, in hot weather or
cold, was Ma's greatest solace and, to crown all, sat
down and listened, while she told of the dangers she
had passed.

"It's a thrawn lot they are, down there," she
began, sniffing vigorously.  "You wouldn't believe
the way they do be goin' on.  I bided wit' Dennis
an' Sarah for a bit, but there was no peace in the
house at all.  Every time I'd open me mouth, Sarah
she'd be for jumpin' down me throat.  There's no
livin' wit' the likes of her, let alone himself, an' the
childern.  Nora-Andy told me they've the hearts of
stone in their breast, the way they'd be never carin'
how you'd get along.  'Twas two weeks I bided
wit'm, an' then Sarah she brought me in the subway
down to Hughey's.  'Twas the baby there had
whoopin'-cough, an' Hughey says 'twould be very
unlucky for one so old as me to be catchin' it off
her.  Liza says: 'It would that.  I wouldn't have it
on me conscience,' says she.  I says, 'How would I
be catchin' the whoopin'-cough, when I had it, itself,
an' all the young 'uns here had it, long ago, an' me
by, an' never a touch of it on me.'  But they was
that set on keepin' me safe from contagion, they
wouldn't so much as let me stay the night under the
roof.  Sarah was as mad, as mad.  Her an' Liza
had it hot an' heavy between'm.  They fairly had
me killed wit' their sparrin'.  'Twas to Mary-Ellen's
they took me at last.  An' when Sarah told Mary-Ellen
of Liza's behavior, Mary-Ellen was fit to slay
her.  'If it's to Liza Slawson my mother has to look
for a home, her own daughters must be under the
sod,' says she.  I was wit' Mary-Ellen one week,
come Tuesda', an' I would 'a' be contented to settle
down there, only for Owen havin' a letter from his
rich uncle, sayin' he'd come to visit'm for a bit.
They couldn't be after offendin' him, explainin'
they'd no room itself.  So Mary-Ellen ast me would
I shift over to Nellie's till she'd have the uncle in
my bed.  An' to Nellie's I went.  But, you know as
good as me, the sorta man is himself.  You could
search the world over, an' not find a contrarier.  Me
heart was sore for Nellie, but at the same time she'd
no call to say I drew the temper out of her Michael,
the like she never see equaled.  'He's never so gusty
when we're alone,' says she.  Well, well!  Be this
an' be that, I couldn't be sure I'd a roof to lay me
head on, the night.  Nora's new man has a tongue
in'm, would scare you off, before you'd ever set foot
in it, at all.  Like a surly dog!  An' all the while,
the city as hot as hot!  The heart of me did be
oozin' out in sweat, every day.  An' not one o' them
to take me to the Park, or set foot in Coney Island,
itself, let alone back home.  The cravin' took holt
o' me, till I could thole it no longer.  I had the
thrifle in me purse Sam give me when he left, for to
spend, if I needed it.  (God knows the rest never
showed me so much as the face of a penny!)  I
packed me little bag, an', be meself, I wanda'ed to
the railroad station—the cops tellin' me how to get
there, itself.  An' so I come back.  Travelin' all the
da', from airly dawn.  I'd to wait at Burbank for
the trolley to bring me here.  Then I started for to
walk afoot.  But the dark come down, an' every
sound I heard, it stopped the tickin' of me heart,
like a clock.  When I heard the steps of one along
the road, I crep' into the bushes, to hide till they'd
pass.  Your voice, Martha, was never your own at
all.  'Twas like a man's voice.  The height of you
showed like a tower itself, back o' the lantren.  I'd
never know 'twas a female.  I'd no stren'th to resist
a wild tramp.  So, when you ast me, 'answer who
it is,' the tongue in me head was dumb.  But, 'tis
glad I am to be home again, surely."

Sam went to the front door to shake out the ashes
from his pipe.  When he came back Martha was
helping Ma up the stairs to her own room.

"Won't the childern be surprised an' pleased to
see you back, in the mornin'," she was saying heartily.

Cora, bringing up the rear, remarked with importance,
"Mother sent'm to bed sooner'n usual 'cause
to-morrow morning we all got to get up early.
We're going with Miss Claire, in the la'nch, across
the lake, to see a blue herring, she's got there in a
cove."

"A blue herring, is it?  Well, well!" said Ma
abstractedly.

Cora went on.  "Mother said when Francie told
her, firstoff, you'd gone away for good, an' wasn't
coming back—Mother said, 'No matter how much
I feel my loss, I must try to be cheerful.'  Mother
said it was a shock, but you mustn't let the world see
your suffering.  The world's got troubles of its
own."

Ma's dull eyes brightened.  She gazed up searchingly
into her daughter-in-law's face.  "And, did you
say that indeed, Martha?" she questioned.

Martha punched a pillow pugilistically.  "Very
likely," she answered holding the ticking with her
teeth, while she pulled the clean slip over it.  "Yes,
I said it."

The old woman slowly, tremulously undressed.

After Cora had gone, and Ma was in bed, Martha
lingered a moment, before turning out the light.

"I'm sorry you had such disappointment," she
said.  "But doncher care, Ma.  Sometime us two'll
go down to New York together, an' I'll give you the
time o' your life."

For a moment Ma made no response.  Then her
quavering voice shook out the words, as if they had
been stray atoms, falling from a sieve: "It ain't the
disappointment I'm after mindin' so much," she
lamented.  "I could thole that, itself—but—(perhaps
it's a silly old woman I am)! but the notion it's got
into me head that—that—maybe the lot o' them—*didn't
want me!*"

Martha extinguished the light with a jerk.  "Oh,
go to sleep, Ma, an' quit your foolishness.  I'll say
to you what I say to the childern.  If you cry about
nothin', look out lest the Lord'll be givin' you
somethin' to cry *for*."

"Then you don't think——?"

"Oh, *go* to sleep, Ma," repeated Martha, as if
the question were not debatable.

The sun was barely up when the children began
to stir.

"Say, Sabina," Cora whispered, "I bet you don't
know what's in Ma's room."

A quick sortie, and Sabina did know.  Then
Sammy knew, and Francie knew.

"Come, come!" cried Martha, appearing on the
threshold, "get yourselves dressed, the whole of
you.  Don't use up all your joy at the first go-off.
Leave some to spread over the rest of the time.
Ma's goin' to stop, you know.  Besides—we can't
keep Miss Claire waitin'."

"In my da'," observed Ma thoughtfully, "it
wouldn't 'a' been thought well of, for a lady like that
to be la'nchin' out, just before——"

"It's not my picnic," Martha interrupted.  "I
said all I could to pervent it in the first place.  But
her heart's fixed, an' I couldn't say her no, 'specially
when Lord Ronald said he saw no harm, an'd go
along too."

"Well, if *he* sees no harm—and is goin' along
too——" Ma murmured, as if her consent were to
be gained on no other grounds.

"Certaintly," said Martha.

Everything was in readiness in and about the trim
little *Moth*, when Claire Ronald appeared on the dock.

"Where's Mr. Frank?" Mrs. Slawson asked.

"He got a message late last night from Boston,
about some stuff for the electric-plant.  They've
sent it on, and he had to go to Burbank to examine
it, so, in case it wasn't right, it could be shipped
straight back.  He said it would save time and
cartage, and he wants the work put through as soon
as possible."

"Then, o' course we'll put off our trip!"

"Oh, no!"

"Did he say we could go, an' him not here to go
along too?"

"No—but——"

"Then, I guess we'll call it off."

Claire's mouth set, in quite an uncharacteristic
way.

"No, indeed!  We'll *go*!  We couldn't have a
better morning."

"Well, I do' know, but I wisht I had my long-handled
feather-duster here to brush away some o'
them flims o' dust off'n the ceilin'."

"Why, those are darling little clouds!" Miss
Claire exclaimed reproachfully.  "When the sun
gets high, it will draw them out of sight entirely,
and the sky will be as clear as crystal."

"It's as you think, not as I do," Mrs. Slawson
rejoined.  "If you're shooted, I'm shot!"

"In with you, children.  Steady now!" commanded
Claire.

Martha being already at the wheel, her husband
had only to stow Mrs. Ronald and the girls safely
amidships, see Sammy stationed in the stern in charge
of the rudder-ropes, release the boat from its
moorings, and *The Moth* was ready for flight.

"Take care of yourselves!" he called after them.

"Sure!" Martha shouted back, and they were off.

Now she was fairly in the line of having her own
way, Claire was radiant.

"The idea of finding fault with this day!" she
taunted laughingly.  "Why, I couldn't have made
it better, myself!"

"Why don't those birds fly up in the sky,
mother?" asked Francie.  "What makes 'em fly so
low down, right over the water?"

"They are gulls," Mrs. Ronald answered, as if
that explained the mystery.

It was a tremendous surprise to find the blue heron
a bird instead of "a delicatessen."

For a couple of hours after her first introduction
to the new acquaintance Martha kept exclaiming at
intervals.  "Well, what do you think o' that!" as
a sort of gentle indication of her amazement.

"Say, mother, the way the herring walks, it'd
make you think o' folks goin' up the church-aisle to
get married—steppin' as slow, as slow.  Bridesmaids
an' things."

Martha winked solemnly across at Claire.

"Nothin' interests Cora so much these days, as
the loverin' business.  She's got it on the brain."

"Dear me!  But there are no lovers around here,
I'm sure," Claire said, amused.

"Oh, yes, there are.  There's you an' Lord
Ronald, an' there's Dr. Ballard an' Miss
Katherine—an'——"

"Say, young lady, you talk too much——"

"Well, mother, it's true.  I know he likes her a
lot, 'cause——"

"That's enough, Cora.  You're too tonguey.  Go
along an' play with your little brothers an' sisters."

When they were alone Mrs. Ronald turned to
Martha.  "Is it really true, Martha?  Is Dr. Ballard
interested in Miss Crewe?"

Mrs. Slawson laughed.  "Like that *advertisement*
says the baby's *interested* in the soap: 'He won't be
happy till he gets it!'"

"And does she——?"

"Certaintly.  You couldn't help it.  But the little
ol' lady has her face set against it.  *You* got such
pretty, tackful ways with you—sometime, when
you're with the little Madam you might kind o'
work around to help the young folks some, if you'd
be so good."

Cora came wandering back.  The play of the
younger children did not divert her.  She watched
the blue heron as it silently, delicately paced up and
down the beach, picking its way among the submerged
stones, suddenly darting its head beneath the surface
of the water, bringing up a bull-head, perhaps, and
swallowing it whole.

"Ain't he perfectly killin'?" she murmured.
"The way he acts like he's too dainty to live?  And
see that yellow flower over there!  We had loads
and loads of it last fall, and I used to take it to the
teacher till one of the girls laughed at me 'cause she
said the woods's full o' them, an' besides it gave the
teacher *hey?* fever.  That's a joke.  It means, it'd
make her ask more questions than she does already.
Ann Upton said that.  Ann is awful smart.  Once,
when her composition was all marked up with red
ink, 'cause the teacher had corrected it so much, Ann
said 'she didn't care.  It was the pink of perfection.'"

"That yellow weed is goldenrod," explained Miss
Claire.  "Do you remember the names of any of
the other wild-flowers I taught you a year ago,
Martha?"

"Well, not so's you'd notice it.  Lemme see!
P'raps I do.  Wasn't there a sort o' purple flower
you called Johnny-pie-plant?"

Mrs. Ronald laughed.  "Joepyeweed, yes.  You
got the idea."

"An' then, there was wild buckwheat, an' Jewel-weed
an'—now, what's the matter with me, for a
farmer?  Don't I know a thing or two about the
country?"

"You certainly do."

"An' *I* know the name o' some too," asserted
Cora.  "Brides-lace, and Love-in-a-mist, and——"

"Sweet Sibyl of the Sweat-shop, or——"

"Mother, I think you're real mean!" Cora cried,
anxious to prevent further betrayal.

"Say, ladies an' gen'lmen, I hate to break up this
pleasant ent'tainment, but I guess you don't realize
how long we been dreamin' the happy hours away,
like Miss Frances Underwood used to sing, before she
married Judge Granville—which they ain't so *happy*
now, not on your life, poor dear!  I think we better
get a move on, or we'll get soaked good and plenty.
It's my opinion we're goin' to have a shower."

Claire did not attempt to argue the point.  It was
too evident that something was really going to
happen.

"Yes, let's hurry," was all she said.  "It's later
than I thought."

Martha summoned her straying flock, and they
made for the boat.

The little clouds, no bigger than a man's hand, had
turned gray.  Francie's friends, the gulls, were darting
excitedly to and fro, as if without direction, very
close to the face of the water.  Here and there the
lake showed a white-cap.

Martha stood at the wheel, in the bow, and steered
straight for the opposite shore.

For a while Mrs. Ronald kept up a careless chatter
with the children, then, as if by common consent,
there was silence.

A sharp wind had risen out of nowhere, apparently,
and begun to lash the water into frothy fringes
that tossed their beads of spray high over the side
of the boat.  Suddenly Francie screamed.  This time
it was not the spray, but the wave itself that the blast
rushed before it to break full upon *The Moth*,
drenching the child to the skin.

Martha glanced around to see what the trouble was.

"There's some tarpaulin under the seats," she
shouted back over her shoulder, "wrap it about you
an'—dry up!"

Again there was silence, while the clouds massed
themselves into granite barricades, shutting out the
light, and the gale gathered force and fury with
every second.  It was impossible, now, to see the
farther shore.  The little *Moth* seemed blindly
fluttering in a dense mesh of gray mist impossible to
penetrate.

"We're going every *which way*!" moaned Cora.

At the same instant—"The rudder-ropes, Sammy!"
shouted Martha.

The boy slipped from his place, and, by sense of
touch alone, found the cause of the obstruction, and
freed the ropes.

*The Moth* gave a leap forward into the mist.

"I'm afraid!" roared Sabina in no uncertain voice.

"What you afraid of?" came back from the bow.
"Don't you know, if there was any danger *I'd get out*!"

To the children, accustomed as they were to accept
their mother's word without question, the statement
carried instant reassurance.  Sabina stopped roaring,
and Francie only screamed when each new wave
broke over her, threatening to swamp the boat.

"Hush, Francie!" called Miss Claire at length
in a tense, strained voice.  "You'll make your
mother nervous."

Martha, hearing, answered back, "She don't make
me nervous.  There's nothing to be nervous about.
Let her scream, if it makes her happy."

Francie stopped screaming.

All the while the throbbing of the little engine
had been steady, incessant.  But now Martha noticed
that, at intervals, it missed a beat.  She waited
to see if it would right itself.  A minute, and it had
ceased altogether.

"Sammy!"

It only needed that to send the boy crawling, on
his hands and knees, to start it up afresh, if he
could—working, as his father had taught him to work.

*The Moth* spun around and around, in the trough
of the waves.

Martha "knew what she knew," but her hands
never left the wheel for an instant.  What if the
engine could not be made to go?  What could she
say to Mr. Frank if——?  No, there was this comfort,
if the worst came to the worst *she* would be the
last to have a chance to say anything, to any of those
waiting on the shore....

She heard the steady heart-beat start afresh....
The boy was back in his place.  Martha, with new
courage, strained her vision to pierce through the
curtain of mist and rain, could see nothing, but clung
to her wheel.

At length she realized she was steering toward
something that she, alone of all the little group,
could see—a faint adumbration, showing dark
through the pall of enveloping gray.

But now the wind and the water were so high it
was impossible to steer straight for the home-shore—she
could only make it by slow degrees.

The storm had whipped her thick hair out of its
customary coils.  It blew about her face and shoulders
in long, wet strands, buffeting her, blinding her.
She never lifted a hand to save herself the stinging
strokes.

Little by little the dark line widened, the way
was made plain.  Little by little Martha wheedled
*The Moth* shoreward.

"I see somepn'," shouted Francie, at last.  "I
see our dock!"  After an interval: "I see folks on
our dock!"  Later still: "I see father, 'n' Mr. Ronald,
'n' Ma, 'n'—oh! lots o' folks!"

*The Moth* fluttered forward.  The waves beat her
back.  She seemed to submit with meekness, but a
second later, seeing her chance, she dodged neatly,
and sped on again, so, at last, gaining the quiet
water of the little bay.

Mr. Ronald and Sam Slawson, in silence, made
her fast to her moorings.  In silence, Martha gave
Claire into her husband's arms.  He wrapped the
shaking little figure about, in warm dry coverings,
and carried her home, as he would a child.

The second they were out of sight and hearing, a
babel of voices rose, Ma's shrill, high treble piping
loud above the rest:

"When we saw the tempest gatherin', an' youse
out in it, on the deep, an' not a boat could make to
get to youse, the fear was in me heart, I didn't have
a limb to move."

A burly form shoved her unceremoniously aside,

Joe Harding approached Martha, implanted a
sounding kiss on her cheek.

"By gum, you're a cracker-jack, Mrs. Slawson,
and no mistake!" he announced.

One by one the little knot of men and women
followed suit, Fred Trenholm, Nancy Lentz,
Mr. Peckett—all who, by the wireless telegraph that, in
the country, flashes the news from house to house,
had heard of *The Moth's* danger, and had come over
to help if they could, and—couldn't.

Martha looked from one to the other in surprise.

"Well, what do you think o' that!" she managed
to articulate through her chattering teeth, and then
could say no more.

"Come along home, Martha," urged Sam gently.





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.. _`CHAPTER XII`:

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   CHAPTER XII

.. vspace:: 2

At first it seemed as if no one was to be any the
worse for the morning's adventure.

As soon as she had attended to the children, had
changed her own cold, drenched garments for dry,
Martha hastened over to the big house.

Tyrrell, the butler, informed her that Mrs. Ronald
was resting quietly enough now, but they had
been uncommonly anxious about her at the start.
The shock had unnerved her.  When her husband
carried her in, she was crying like a baby.

"Well, you know where to find me, if, when she
wakes, she seems the least bit ailin'.  All you have
to do is ring me up, an' I'll be over in the shake of
a lamb's tail."

But when the day passed, and there was no summons,
when supper was over and the children, including
Cora and Ma, in bed, Martha could stand
it no longer.

"I just *got* to go over, an' see for myself how
the land lays," she explained to Sam.  "I know it's
silly, but I just *got* to."

"All right.  Come along," said Sam.

Martha shook her head.  "No, you don't.  Somebody's
needed here in case, while I'm between this
an' the big house, the telephone'd ring."

Patient Sam acquiesced at once.  "Have it your
own way.  You've earned the right to have notions,
and be fidgety if you want to.  But no news is good
news, an' what you'll make by running over there
at this hour of night, when they said they'd 'phone
if anything was needed, I don't know."

"I'll sleep better if I see for myself," was all the
explanation Martha could give.

It was very dark, outside, once she got beyond the
light from the Lodge windows.  In her haste she
had forgotten to bring the lantern with her, but she
did not go back for it, because she felt she knew
every inch of the ground, and, moreover, the impulse
that drew her forth was so strong that she could not
endure the idea of delay for a moment.  She had
discovered a short-cut across the grounds and meant
to use it, though she knew Sam disapproved any
trespassing on his adored lawns, hedges, and shrubberies,
and, as a general rule, she respected his wishes.
But now she made straight for the thicket of bushes
walling in her kitchen-garden, meaning to push
through it, at the point of least resistance, strike
across the roadway and so slice off a good quarter
of a mile, by bisecting the lawn sweeping up to the
big house.  Just within the thicket she stood as if
at attention.  For the life of her she could not have
said what brought her to a standstill, but also, for the
life of her, she could not go on until she knew what
was on the other side of that wall of bushes.

Listening, she could hear nothing but the common-place
night-sounds, now grown familiar to her ears.
The stirrings of leaves, when the wind sighed through
them, the surreptitious whirr of wings aloft, up over
the tree-tops, the lowly meanderings of insects among
the grass, the soft pad-pad of tiny, furry feet
scampering to safety.  But there was still another sound,
an unusual, unfamiliar sound.  It came to Martha
in a flash what it was.  A fox, caught in one of
Sam's traps.

"Oh, you poor devil, you!" she heard herself
exclaim.

The words were echoed by a human groan, so
close at hand, she fairly started.

"Who are you?"  Her question rang out sharply.

"None of your damned business!" came back in
instant answer.  "But since you're here, curse
you! come, and get me out of this —— —— trap."

A light flashed, by which Martha made out a
man's figure crouching on the ground the other side
of the hedge.  His face was completely hidden, not
alone by the drooping brim of his soft hat, but by a
sort of black mask he wore.  Without a moment's
hesitation she forced her way through the hedge.
Now she could see more plainly, she made out that
the man was on his hands and knees.  One hand
was free—the other, caught in the fox-trap, was
bleeding cruelly.  On the ground, within easy reach
lay a pistol, a bundle of fagots, and a bull's-eye
electric torch.  The man's uninjured left hand was
clutching the torch.

"Doncher stir a muscle, Mr. Buller," Martha said
imperatively, "till I make out how this thing works.
I don't want to hurt you more than I got to,
unspringin' the trap."

Buller swore violently as he bade her, "Go ahead
then, and be quick about it!"

A moment, and the mangled hand was free.  Instantly,
its owner listed over on the grass in a dead
faint, in total darkness.

Martha felt about in the darkness for the torch,
set it glowing and, by aid of its light, found a flask
in Buller's pocket, some of the contents of which
she forced between his lips.  When he was fully
conscious, she bade him pick up his belongings, and
come along home with her, where she could look
after his hand, and, if necessary, telephone for the
doctor.

Clutching at her shoulder, he staggered to his feet.

"Don't forget your gun," warned Martha drily.

"Damn the gun!" returned Buller.

Somehow they reached the Lodge.  Sam, hearing
footsteps, came to the door with an anxious face.

"Martha," he whispered, before he had made out
she was not alone, "hurry back to the big house.
Mr. Ronald's just called you up this minute.  His
wife wants you, and—I'm going for the doctor."

Martha pushed Buller forward into the entry.

"Look after'm, Sam.  He was on his way to give
us a call.  With his pistol an' a bunch o' kindlin's
to fire the house.  He heard me comin', an' lay low
for a minute, an' got caught in the trap you set
for—the other fox.  But take care of'm," she said, and
vanished into the night.

Neither Sam nor Buller spoke for a moment.
Then Sam opened the sitting-room door.

"Come in," he invited the other.  "Let's take a
look at your hand."

The tortured Buller thrust it forward where the
lamplight could fall upon it.  Sam shook his head.

"That's beyond me," he explained.  "But I tell
you what, I'm going for Dr. Driggs, anyhow.  You
get in the car and come along with me.  Only, I
better take that black dingus off your face, hadn't I?"

Buller made a clumsy effort to detach it himself,
but his left hand alone could not manage it.  Sam
did it for him.

"Now, as soon as I get the car," he explained,
"we can start."

While he was gone Buller paced the floor like
a caged animal, writhing with pain, crying, cursing.
Sam was gone but a few minutes.  It seemed an
eternity to the poor, waiting wretch.  Then away
they sped through the cool, calming darkness of the
night.

In the extremity of his anguish, nothing really
signified to Buller, yet again and again he found
himself wondering if Slawson would "split" on him.
As a matter of fact, Sam never opened his lips,
beyond delivering his message to the doctor from
Mr. Ronald, then turning Buller over to him for
immediate attention.

The old physician scowled through his spectacles
when he saw the wound.

"How did you manage *this* job?" he asked in his
blunt, uncompromising way.

Buller winced.  "Trap.  Foxes after my hens.  I
set a trap to catch them."

"And got caught in it yourself!  Huh!  That's
sometimes the way.  Here, swallow this down.  It'll
dull the pain some.  Now is the time you may wish
you weren't a drinking man, Buller.  I'll do the best
I can for you, but you've given yourself a nasty
hurt, and your blood's not in a state to help the
healing along much.  However, we'll see what we'll see.
I'll give you these extra drops to take home with
you.  Use them if the pain comes back.  Don't
meddle with my bandage, d'you hear.  Leave it
alone.  And, let me see you in the morning.  Now,
Mr. Slawson——  Ready!"

Again that swift, almost silent speeding through
the night.

Since Buller's torture had ceased, the motion
seemed for him part of a blissful dream, by which
he was being gradually lulled to deeper and deeper
peace.  At first he started in to babble fatuously,
but Dr. Driggs brusquely bade him, "Shut up!  This
is no time for merrymaking!" and he dropped back
into himself, subdued but not suppressed.

At the big house Sam stopped his car.

"I'll take Buller home, and come back for you,"
he explained to Dr. Driggs.

"Better dump him out on the road," was the
harsh, whispered rejoinder.  "I know him from the
ground up.  He lied to me about his hand.  He was
up to deviltry of some kind, other than trapping
foxes, depend upon it!  Between you and me, that's
a fierce hand he's got.  I don't envy him his dance
with it."

In the meantime, Martha had found Claire Ronald
feverish and excited.  It did not take her long
to decide she would not leave the big house that
night.  When Sam returned to take him home,
Dr. Driggs was not ready to go.  Neither was Martha.

"But *you'd* better turn in, Slawson," advised
Mr. Ronald.  "No use in everybody's getting worn out.
If I should need you, I'll call you up."

Early next morning the young kitchen-maid from
the big house appeared at the Lodge door for
certain necessaries Martha wanted and could not be
spared long enough to come, herself, and fetch.

"Eh, now!  You don't say so!  Things must be
pretty bad over there!" observed Ma.

The girl nodded dumbly.  She adored Mrs. Ronald.

"If I was you, beggin' pardon for the liberty,"
Martha addressed Mr. Frank, "I'd get a-holt of
those doctors an' nurses from the city you have
engaged.  They was comin' up in two weeks, anyhow.
You never can tell.  This might be a false alarm, but
then again it mightn't.  Either way, we don't want
to take no risks."

"I'll telegraph," said Francis Ronald dully.

"What's the matter with the telefoam?  Ain't
you got a long-distance connection here?"

While Central was clearing the wire, Katherine
Crewe was ushered in.  She hesitated on the library
threshold, then came forward rapidly, her face more
lovely than Martha had ever seen it, in its softened
expression of human sympathy.

"I'm so sorry—I've just heard—I came to see if
I could do something—be of any help," she stammered
shyly.

Frank Ronald had risen and was about to reply,
when Dr. Driggs pushed through the doorway,
interrupting gruffly.

"I'm not quite satisfied with the way things are
going.  Nothing to be uneasy about, you know, but,
under the circumstances, I'd like another man to talk
the case over with."

"I've just called up the New York specialist.  He
and the nurses——"

"Lord!  I don't mean *that*!  It'll take *them* a full
day to get here.  We can't wait that long.  I want
some one *now*."

"Now?" Frank Ronald echoed, without any appearance
of understanding what the word meant.

"Now," repeated Dr. Driggs.  "I'd like to call
in——"

Tinkled the telephone-bell with irritating insistence.

Frank Ronald's cold hand gripped the thing as if
he would choke it.

"Hello!  Is this New York?  Is this Dr. Webster?
'Morning, Dr. Webster!  This is F. B. Ronald
speaking.  Yes—I've called you up, because my
wife——  Can you hear me *now*?  Is this better?—My
wife—I'm worried about my wife.  I've called
in Dr. Driggs of this village.  He wants more
advice....  Yes, by all means come on at once, and
bring the nurses.  But Driggs says he can't wait.
Must have some one immediately....  Eh? ... *Who*,
do you say? ... Boston?  Yes, I get that
... Ballard of Boston? ... There's a young
fellow here from Boston named Ballard, but he
... I don't believe he's the man.  Wait a minute....
Please repeat that! ... You say he's the
best skill in New England?  National repute? ... I'm
afraid....  Hello!  Dr. Webster ... Driggs,
here, says *'tis* the man you mean.  He says
he was just trying to tell me, when ... yes ... I'm
sure we can get him.  Yes, we *are* in luck! ... Very
well ... Burbank Junction ... midnight....
Good-by!"

Francis Ronald's words and manner were painfully
precise.

Thought Martha, "I've seen parties none too
steady on their pins, just that kind o' mincin' about
their steps.  As if they'd dare you say they couldn't
walk a chalk-line.  Poor fella.  He's so crazed with
worry he can't see straight, but he's goin' to prove
anybody thinks so, is another!"

When Katherine reached home she found Madam
Crewe awaiting her.

"Well, and how are things going?  You had
your tramp for nothing, eh?  Young Sammy's account
of Mrs. Ronald's danger was hocus-pocus, of
course!"

"No.  Dr. Driggs is very anxious.  He wants a
consultation.  While I was there Mr. Ronald called
up Dr. Webster—*Elihu* Webster, from home.  He's
coming up with two nurses——"

"And Mrs. Ronald is going to *wait* for him?
That's obliging of her, I'm sure!"

"Dr. Driggs had asked Mr. Ronald to let him
have Dr. Ballard.  He had asked, before they got
Dr. Webster on the wire.  Then, the first name
Dr. Webster suggested was Dr. Ballard's.  He called him
'the best skill in New England.'  Said he was of
'national repute.'"

"You mean Driggs did.  Well, what then?
Driggs is getting old.  He sometimes muddles.  He's
probably got this young sprig here confused with
the great one."

"No, grandmother.  Dr. Webster said it.  Dr. Driggs
only repeated what Dr. Webster said."

During the pause following Katherine's statement,
Madam Crewe sat quite still, apparently absorbed
in contemplation of her two, tiny hands, lying folded
and motionless in her lap.  When, at length, she
looked up, a curious ghost of a smile curled the
corners of her mouth.

"Really I am uncommonly gratified.  You see, I
can't help thinking, how barely I missed the honor
of being this young man's grandmother.  I'd have
*liked* to have a grandchild of whom I could be
proud."

Katherine winced.  "I'm sorry I've disappointed
you," she said bitterly.

"Don't mention it.  It's not the first disappointment
I've had in my life.  It probably won't be the
last.  Moreover, now that you *know*, undoubtedly
you'll think better of your decision to give him up.
You'll marry him, after all, in spite of the loss of
me and my money.  So I'll have my *eminent* grandson,
whether I want him or not."

"*Grandmother!*"

"Well, won't I?  It seems to me, you have quite
a keen eye for the main chance.  At least, that's how
I've made it out, judging from your behavior.  At
first, you were all for marrying him, when you
thought you could do it on the sly, without sacrificing
your interests with me.  Then, on the impulse of the
moment, for Norris's benefit, maybe, you played
tragedy-queen and forswore your fortune for the
sake of the man you love.  All of which would have
been very pretty and romantic—if you had stuck to
it.  But, when you had had time to calculate—presto! it's
your lover you repudiate, to hang on to the
money.  Now you're fairly certain he's got all you'll
need—doctors fleece one abominably, nowadays!
Come and feel your pulse, and give you a soothing-syrup,
and send in a bill for ten dollars, and *that's*
no placebo, I tell you!  Oh, there's no doubt
you'll be rich, if you marry a *doctor*——  Where
was I?"

"You were running down doctors, grandmother,
and I don't see how you can, when you know what
those you've had have done for you.  I——"

"There, there!  I don't need *you* to inform me,
young miss.  What I was saying is, nobody would
doubt, for a minute, you'll take him now.  *I* don't."

"Grandmother," the girl began, with the same
kind of exaggerated punctilio Martha had observed
in Mr. Ronald.  "Grandmother, I want to be very
respectful to you.  I don't want to say one word
that will excite you, or make you ill.  But I think
you take unfair advantage of me.  You taunt me,
and jeer at me because you know I can't hit back,
without being an unutterable coward."

Madam Crewe made a clicking sound with her tongue.

"On the whole, I think I'd like it better if you
*did* hit back, providing you hit back in the right
way.  No temper, you understand.  No rage, no
rumpus and that sort of vulgarity.  But real
dexterous thrusting and parrying.  Now, for example,
you missed an opportunity a few moments ago.
When I said I'd have liked to have a grandchild I
could be proud of, you might have retorted, 'I'm
sorry I disappoint you, grandmother, but, perhaps,
if *you* had been Dr. Ballard's grandmother, his
distinction might not have been so great.'  That would
have been a silencer, because,—it would have been
true.  I'm afraid you're not very clever, my dear."

"If that sort of thing—slashing people with one's
tongue, is clever, I'm glad I'm stupid."

"There!  That's not so bad!  Try again!" applauded
the old woman.

Katherine turned away, with a gesture of discouragement.

"It never occurred to me before," Madam Crewe
meditated, "but what you really need is a sense of
humor.  You're quite without humor.  You've brains
enough, but you have about as much dash and sparkle
as one of your husband-that-is-to-be's mustard-plasters.
Only the mustard-plaster has the advantage of
you in sharpness."

The girl wheeled about abruptly.  "He is not my
husband that-is-to-be.  I have told you that before."

"But the circumstances have changed.  Now you
know he is distinguished—probably well-to-do——"

"It only makes another barrier.  Can't you see?
Can't you understand?"

"Perhaps I might, if you'd have the goodness to
explain.  But you must remember, I'm an old
woman.  It's a great many years since I had heroics."

"Perhaps you never had them," Katherine retorted.
"Perhaps you never were *young*—never
cared for any one with all your heart.  Perhaps you
never had a heart."

"Perhaps," agreed Madam Crewe.  "In which
case, don't appeal to it.  Appeal to my imagination.
That, at least, I can vouch for."

"I took your word for it, that Dr. Ballard was
a young struggling doctor, poor—with, at best, no
more than a problematic future—that's what you
said—a problematic future."

"Well?"

"When I began to suspect he cared for me, I was
glad he hadn't a lot of advantages, to emphasize my
want of them.  It didn't seem to me, then, so
impossible, that as poor as I should be, and as dull as
you've always said I am, I might marry him some
day, if he loved me.  I never cared a rush about
that nonsense connected with his grandfather.  I
wouldn't have cared, if it had been true.  So when
you threw mud at *my* grandfather and father, I
didn't suppose *he'd* care—or believe it—either.  And,
he didn't and—doesn't.  So far, we stood about
equal.  I could give him as true a love as he could
give me.  But——"

"Oho!  So that's your idea.  I see your point
now.  You've got the kind of love that weighs and
balances, have you?  You won't take more than you
can give!  Why, young miss, let me tell you, you
may think that's high-flown and noble—it's no such
thing!  If you want to know what it is, it's your
great-grandfather's arrogance turned inside out,
that's all!  If you refuse to marry the man you love,
because you have nothing to offer him, you're as bad
as I was when I refused because my lover had nothing
to offer me.  There's a pride of poverty that's
as detestable as the pride of riches.  You talk about
love!  You don't know what the word means.  If
you did, you'd see that the real thing is beyond such
mean dickering.  In love *fair exchange is low snobbery*."

The girl stared silently into her grandmother's
face.  Two bright spots were glowing in the withered
cheeks, the old woman's eyes shot forth the fire of
youth.

For the second time Katherine felt that the
drawbridge was down.  Impulsively, she took a step
forward, grasping one of the little old hands, folding
it tight in both her own.

"Grandmother, I want to tell you something—I
see what you mean and—I know it's true.
But—but—there's something else——"

Madam Crewe did not withdraw her hand.  It almost
seemed to Katherine as if its clasp tightened on
hers.

"What else?"

"When he—when Dr. Ballard first spoke to me
about his grandfather, he said, 'But after all, the only
thing that really counts is character.'  He said: 'One
can afford to whistle at family-trees if one's own
record is clean!'  He said: 'After all, what's most
important, is to be straight goods one's self.  If I'd
lied, or was a coward or had taken what belonged to
some one else, or had any other dirty rag of memory
trailing after me, I'd hesitate to ask any one to share
my life with me, but——'"

"Well?"

"Grandmother—*I've* the kind of dirty rag of
memory, he spoke about.  I'm a coward—I've
lied—I've taken what belonged to some one else."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIII`:

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   CHAPTER XIII

.. vspace:: 2

Madam Crewe said nothing.

She gazed into Katherine's face blankly for
a moment, then gradually withdrew her eyes to fix
them on a bit of sky visible through the bowed
shutters of the open window.

When the silence became unendurable, "Won't
you speak to me, grandmother?" the girl pleaded.
"Won't you let me feel you understand?"

There was a long pause before any answer came.

"Understand?  No, I don't understand.  How
could one understand one's own flesh and blood
being, doing—what you describe?  That story would
be perpetually new—perpetually incomprehensible.
But perhaps you're vaporing.  Using big words for
insignificant things.  A child's trick.  Tell me the
truth, and be quick about it."

There was something so formidable in the tiny
old woman sitting there, coldly withdrawn into
herself again, controlling any show of natural emotion
with a fairly uncanny skill, that Katherine quailed
before her.

In as few words as possible, she sketched the story
of the recovered pocket.

Madam Crewe heard her through, in silence.  In
silence, received the object that had, at one time,
been such a determining factor in her life.  Katherine
could not see that she betrayed, by so much as
the quiver of an eyelash, the natural interest one
might be conceived as feeling in so significant a link
with the past.

"Be good enough to leave me," the old woman
said at last.  "And don't open this subject again,
unless I bid you.  If I need any one I'll ring for
Eunice.  Don't *you* come—for the present.  Oh,
before you go, see that you keep a close mouth about
this thing, not alone to me, but to *every one*.
Understand?"

Katherine nodded dumbly.  She felt like a child
dismissed in disgrace, or a prisoner returned to his
cell.  She did not know how long she remained in
her room, but when Eunice came to announce
luncheon, she sent her away, merely explaining that
she was not hungry.  And would Eunice kindly answer
if Madam Crewe should ring?

Within her, a hundred impulses of revolt urged
to some act of self-deliverance.  She fought them
down with appeals to her own better nature, her
grandmother's need of her.  It was to escape from
herself, as much as from her environment, that, at
last, in desperation, she caught up her hat and left
the house.

She had been gone several hours, and it was
twilight, when a low tap sounded on Madam Crewe's
door.

Without waiting for permission to come in,
Dr. Ballard did so.  The old woman started up, as if
his presence roused her from sleep, but he could see
she had been fully awake.

"You look as if you had been through the wars,"
she observed dryly, examining his face with her
searching eyes.

He dropped heavily into the chair she indicated.

"I have," he answered.

"You've saved two souls alive?  Mother and child?"

He nodded.  "But the war's not over.  The
fight's still on.  I've done all *I* can.  The rest lies
with——"

The old woman took him up sharply.  "Don't
try to talk.  Touch that bell."

Then, when Eunice, responding, stood on the
threshold: "Bring me the leathern case you'll find
standing beside the clothes-press in my dressing-room.
Yes ... that's the one.  Bring it here to me!
Now, go downstairs and fetch a plateful of hard
biscuits.  Hurry! ... Stop! ... Before you
go, hand me that glass from my table."

When the girl was gone, Madam Crewe unlocked
the case before her, took from it a flask, and with
surprisingly steady hands, poured a share of its
contents into the glass Eunice had placed on the wide
arm of her chair.

"Wine?" asked Dr. Ballard doubtfully, hesitating
to drink.

"No, not wine.  Drink it down.  Now, the biscuits.
Don't talk."

She pretended to busy herself with the leathern
case upon her knees—replacing the flask, turning the
key in the lock, rather elaborately fingering the
smooth surface, as if all her attention was concentrated
on some imaginary fleck or flaw she had just
discovered.

When, watching covertly, she saw the haggard
lines slowly fade from her companion's face, the
blood gradually mount to his cheeks, she drew an
audible breath.

"That's great stuff!" Daniel Ballard observed
appreciatively.  "What do you call it?"

Madam Crewe raised her eyebrows.  "I don't
call it.  It has no name, so far as I know.  It's an
old stimulant my father picked up somewhere in the
far East.  He treasured it like gold."

"It's certainly done the trick.  I was all in, and
now I feel quite fit.  Mrs. Slawson and I have been
*on the job* since morning.  She's a wonder, that
woman!  No end of nerve and pluck.  I could make
a corking good nurse of her!  She's back there now,
watching.  Firm as Gibraltar.  I couldn't stand it
any longer.  I had to get away for a moment, to
catch a breath of fresh air, and a glimpse of——"

"Me?" Madam Crewe caught him up.

He corrected her gravely.  "No, the evening star."

"Katherine came home from the Ronalds' this
morning much disturbed."

"Over the case?"

"Yes—that, and—the fact of your being what she
hadn't supposed."

Dr. Ballard looked his question.

"She feels overawed, now she's aware *what a
great man are you*.  A bit sheepish, too, I fancy,
because, if I remember right, she has twitted you,
more than once, on being worn out waiting for
patients."

"Well, what of it?  Suppose she has?  I can
stand chaffing, I hope.  And besides, she was right.
I *am* worn out waiting for patients—waiting for patients
to 'do the rest' after I've, so to speak, 'pressed
the button.'"

"It's hard to believe you're the Daniel Ballard of
Boston there's so much fuss about.  Are you sure
you're the man Elihu Webster meant?  The man
he called a celebrated specialist—the best skill in
New England—and so forth and so forth?"

"I'm the only M.D. of my name in Boston," the
young man said simply.  "But I don't call myself
a specialist, much less and-so-forth and-so-forth!"

"What do you call yourself, then?"

"A physician."

"I wish I had married your grandfather," Madam
Crewe announced.

Daniel Ballard bent his head, acknowledging what
was more than mere compliment, by a silence
sincerer than words.

"I must go.  Where's Katherine?" he asked,
after a moment.

"I don't know.  Not at home, I fancy.  Will you
do me a favor?"

"If I can."

"Don't try to see her for a while.  Leave her
alone."

He had risen to go, but her words checked him.

"I can't give you any such promise," he said.  "It
seems a strange request for you to make."

"You don't trust me?"

"No.  Not in this."

"You may."

He hesitated.  "Perhaps.  Still—I give no promise.
I'll think it over.  When I have more time,
you'll explain?"

"Perhaps," she echoed.

The next minute she was alone.

However she accomplished it, Madam Crewe had
her way.  Katherine did not see Dr. Ballard again
before he left for Boston.  He left a brief note
explaining that Mr. Ronald refused to release him,
even after Dr. Webster arrived with his brace of
nurses.

Katherine read the letter with a bitter smile.
Technically, she had nothing to complain of.  She
had definitely said she would never marry him.  He
had taken her at her word—and yet, his easy
acquiescence hurt her cruelly.  It did not *explain*
anything, that Mr. Ronald himself confessed his
dependence on Dr. Ballard.

The saving of his wife and baby (a miracle,
Dr. Webster called it) made Frank Ronald feel that,
whoever came or went, "Ballard" and Martha
Slawson could not be spared from Claire's bedside,
until the danger was over, recovery absolutely certain.

It was all perfectly plausible, and yet—

Then came an urgent recall to Boston, which "the
best skill in New England" felt obliged to respond
to in person.

"If you didn't have a family, Mrs. Slawson," he
said to Martha, the last evening, as they sat in
Claire's sitting-room, gratifying Frank Ronald's
whim that they remain within call,—"If you didn't
have a family I'd urge you to take up nursing.  You
have an excellent knack for it.  I could make a
capital nurse of you."

Martha nodded appreciatively.  "Thank you, sir.
But there's so many things I'm, as you might say,
billed to be made over into first, I guess I'll have to
cut out the trained nurse.  Besides, I might fall down
on a case I was a stranger to.  It's dead easy do for
anybody you love, but to go an' pick'm up off'n the
roadside——!  Well, that's a differnt proposition.
The dirt an' the smell o' some o' them!  You
wouldn't believe it!"

"Do you love that scamp Buller?"

"Not on your life!  That is,—not so you'd notice it."

"Yet you stood by him like a soldier, when
Driggs and I took his hand off, last night.  How's
that?"

Martha pondered a moment.  "Well, you see,
sir, to tell the truth, I feel kind o' responsible for
Buller.  'Twas me made'm mad in the first place, an'
then, when he wanted to get back at me, 'twas our
trap give'm the nip.  Poor fella!  You couldn't
help be sorry for'm, he'll miss that strong right hand
o' his so, which it used to be a reg'lar pretidigiagitator
with the licka——  'Now you see it an'
now you don't effec'.'"

Dr. Ballard laughed.  "His left hand's in training
already.  Between the whiskey and the ether,
last night, I was almost anesthetized myself.  But
joking aside, I'm going to leave Buller in your care.
I'll show you about the bandaging, so when Driggs
gets through with the patient, you can take him up.
I wouldn't like to trust to Mrs. Buller.  She's a
slipshod creature, sure to neglect.  Dr. Driggs tells me,
Buller dreads *him* like the mischief, so he won't go
there any longer than he has to.  May I trust you
to keep your eye on him, follow him up, and let me
know if there's any hitch in the healing?"

"Certaintly you may," said Martha.

"Another thing," Dr. Ballard paused.  "I'd be
glad to feel you are keeping an eye on—a—Crewesmere."

Mrs. Slawson nodded.  "Certaintly, again.  But
you don't think—that is, you ain't in doubt about
the ol' lady, are you?  I'd hate to think she might
have somethin' I ain't used to.  I kinda got
accustomed to *strokes* now, so's if she'd have any more,
I'd know just how to take a-holt, but if she set about
gettin' up somethin' *new*, it'd sorta rattle me, maybe.
You never can tell."

"No, that's it!  You never can tell.  *I* can't tell."

"It ain't as if she didn't have a sympton to show
you," pleaded Martha, "so's you'd be workin' in
the dark.  When ladies is that way, the doctors says
to'mselves: 'Her color's good, an' her pulse is
strong, which proves she's far from a well woman.
While I'm waitin' for somethin' to happen, I'll
remove her appendicitis.'  Folks has such funny
furbelows inside'm nowadays, I don't wonder the
doctors is puzzled.  What's the use o' adenoids now, an'
appendicitises, I should like to know, if it's only to
go to the trouble an' expense of havin' 'm cut out?"

"Quite so," acquiesced Dr. Ballard gravely.
"No, I'm not anxious about Madam Crewe's
appendix.  I'm anxious about her—granddaughter."

"Oh!" said Martha.  "It's *her* you want to remove."

Dr. Ballard flushed.  "Yes, Mrs. Slawson.  That
is—I wish to marry Miss Crewe.  You already know
of Madam's opposition.  I don't mind that—any
more.  But something has happened—I don't know
what—to change Miss Crewe, herself.  I would
never ask her to desert her grandmother.  In fact,
I would not respect her if she did desert her, leave
her alone in her infirmity and old age.  But I don't
want her mind to be embittered.  She is not happy.
I wish you'd look after her—lend her a helping hand,
once in a while.  Lend her a helping *heart*."

"I'll do my best," promised Martha solemnly.

"I've grown attached to this place.  I'd like to
hear about—everybody, once in a while.  I'd like,
so to speak, to keep my finger on the pulse of the
public."

Martha looked up perplexed.  "The pulse o' the
public?  I don't know as I exackly *get* what you
mean.  But, if you want to feel the pulse o' the
public, why—*you're* the doctor!  Anyhow, I'll let
you know how things is goin', if you'll excuse the
liberty, and won't mind my spellin', which Sam says
it's fierce."

"I'll deeply appreciate any line you may take the
trouble to write me," Dr. Ballard assured her, with
hearty sincerity.

.. vspace:: 2

It was September before Mrs. Slawson was actually
settled at home again.  The nurses, over at the
big house, were altogether capable and trustworthy,
but even after all need of her had passed, Mr. Ronald
liked to feel Martha was within call.  He fancied
his wife felt more content when she was by, and,
certainly, the baby slept better on her ample bosom
than anywhere else.

It was a tiny creature, very delicate and fragile,
a mere scrap of humanity that Martha could hold in
the hollow of her hand.

In the privacy of their own sitting-room, the two
trained nurses confided to Mrs. Slawson: "It's too
bad the parents' hearts are so set on the child.
They'll never raise it, *never*!"

"Now, what do you think o' that!" Martha said
mournfully, and the two uniformed ones never knew
that, in her heart, she despised them, "and their
mizrable Bildadin' talk, which nobody could stand
up against it, anyhow, much less a innocent little
lamb that hasn't the stren'th to call'm liars to their
faces."

"O' *course* we'll raise her," she assured Mr. Ronald
confidently.  "There's no doubt about it.  Yes,
I know she ain't very hefty, an' she ain't very
robustic.  But what do you expec'?  You ain't give
her a fair show yet.  You can't take a baby, a few
weeks old, 'specially if it had the tough time gettin'
in on the game at all, that this one had, an' expec'
her to be as big an' husky as my Sabina.  It wouldn't
be sensible.  Besides, look at her mother!  Miss
Claire's no giantess, nor ever was, but she's as sound
as a nut, an' so'll the baby be, when she gets her
gait on, an' knows it's up to her to keep in step with
the percession.  Don't you let nobody discourage
you.  Believin's half the battle.  You can take it
from me, that baby's goin' to live, an' thrive, like
the little thorabred she is.  *She* wouldn't give us all
this trouble for nothin'."

Her invincible confidence was like a tonic to Francis
Ronald.  It reinforced his own more flickering faith,
so he could meet Claire's hungrily questioning eyes
with reassurance.

And, as the weeks went by, Martha's prediction
seemed less and less preposterous.

"Didn't I *tell* you?" she exulted.  "That baby's
a winner!  She's goin' to be standard weight, all
right, all right, an' measure up to requirements too,
give her time.  But between you an' me, all this
new-fangled business with scales, an' tape-measures,
an' suchlike, is enough to discourage the
best-intentioned infant.  There's more notions, nowadays,
than you can shake a stick at—an' I'd like to shake
a stick at most of'm, believe *me*!"

At the time, she was thinking rather more of Miss
Crewe, than of the nurses, whose "queer fandangoes"
she never could become reconciled to.

She was frankly anxious about Katherine.

"If I could do with her, like I do with Buller, I
wouldn't say a word," she ruminated.  "I just keep
a kinda gener'l line on him, an' when the time comes,
I get a-holt of his collar-band, an' march'm up to the
captain's office, as brave as a lion.  He's got so the
minute I tip'm the wink, he comes for his washin'
an' ironin'—I should say, bandidgin', as meek as a
lamb to the slaughterhouse.  But you can take it
from me, there's no gettin' a line on Miss Katherine.
She's devotin' all her time an' attention to
puttin' off flesh an' color.  The trouble is, she's got
nothin' to do, an' she does it so thora, she ain't got
time for anything else.  Dear me!  I wisht I could
sort o' set her an' Buller at each other.  It might
help'm both to forget their losses.  He certaintly is
a queer dick, an' no mistake!"

"In spite o' his sportin' a G.A.R. one, you can
take it from *me*, Buller ain't got all his buttons!"
she told Miss Katherine.  "Do you know what he
says?  He says everybody's gone back on'm because
he's in trouble.  He says, nobody'll look at'm now
he's mangled.  They was his friends before, when
he had all the limbs was comin' to'm, but—now he's
shy a hand—they're too proud to notice'm.  He says
the world's a hard place for cripples."

A faint smile flitted across Katherine's face

"What a perverted point of view," she said, for
the sake of saying something.

"Do you know what I think?" Mrs. Slawson
continued.  "I think now is the zoological moment to
catch Buller, an' see what kind o' animal he is—*if*
he's got the makin' of a man in'm.  If he could be
got to give up the drink, I do believe he might
amount to somethin' yet.  You can't know what a
fella reely is, when he's always steepin' in licka.  It's
like pickles.  You wouldn't know if they're dill, or
sweet or what they are, till you take'm out o' soak
an' test'm."

"I should think *you* might influence him,"
suggested Miss Crewe impersonally.  "You're so
strong and wholesome and steady."

"Land, no!  Buller wouldn't listen to me," said
Martha.  "How would *I* be reformin' anybody,
when so many is reformin' me?"

"Mrs. Peckett, then?"

"Mrs. Peckett's way o' doin' things makes some
folks nervous.  It's like as if she said: 'I'm goin'
to raise the tone o' this town, if I have to raise it
by the scruff of its neck!'  She's a good woman,
Mrs. Peckett is, more power to her!  Yes, she's as
good as old gold, and—just as dull."

Katherine was amused.  "Does Mr. Buller require
people to be so very brilliant, then?"

"Land, no!  *He* don't.  But his *case* does.
There's a differnce.  The fella that gets the
whip-hand of'm is the fella he's goin' to respec'.  No
others need apply.  If there was anybody in this town
could kinda give'm the fright of his life on the licka
question, it'd be dead easy tame him to'm afterwords."

Miss Crewe's face lost its apathetic expression.
A light of interest shone in her eyes.

"I wonder if an idea that has just occurred to
me would be of any use?  Last winter I attended
a course of lectures at Columbia College, and one
of the lectures was illustrated by lantern-slides,
showing the effect of alcohol on the body and mind of
habitual drunkards.  They were enough to give one
the horrors!  If Buller could see those pictures——!"

Mrs. Slawson brought her hands down upon her
knees with a sounding slap.  "There, didn't I know
you'd strike on just the right idea, quicker'n, sure'n
anybody else?  An' you've done it!"

"But it would cost a lot of money to get that
lecturer here.  We might not be able to get
him at all, even if we could raise the money to
pay——"

"Raise nothin'—beggin' your pardon!" Martha
exclaimed.  "Mr. Frank Ronald is always doin'
things for everybody.  Why couldn't you go to him,
an' tell'm what you've just told me—that you're
interested in savin' Buller's soul from destruction,
not to speak o' the rest of'm, an' that you know a
gen'lman down to Columbia with slidin' pictures, can
do it, if he got the price of his ticket, an' somethin'
to boot?  I betcher Mr. Frank'd have'm up in no
time, an' thank you for givin'm the chance."

Katherine shrank back.  "Oh, no!  I'd never
dare," she said.  "Mr. Ronald is dreadfully
unapproachable, I think.  His eyes are so stern, and he
is so silent.  He doesn't help you out at all—just
seems always to be looking you through and through,
and finding you very inferior."

"Have you see'm smile?"

"No."

"Well, you go down there, an' get'm to smile for
you oncet.  An' if you don't swear by'm ever after,
my name ain't Martha Slawson.  You can take it
from me, Mr. Frank is true blue, like his eyes are.
D'you think, if he wasn't, Miss Claire'd ever have
married'm?  Not on your life!  She took'm for first
choice, when she'd the refusal o' the pick o' the land,
an' I know what I'm talkin' about."

By the time Martha was ready to go, Miss Crewe
had decided that she really must see Mr. Ronald, and
find if it were possible to interest him in her
village-improvement plan.

If Mrs. Slawson would take her down to the big
house, she could easily walk back before dinner-time,
she said.

"Say, you make a chance, an' ask about Mrs. Ronald
an' the baby.  You'll get'm quickest, that
way.  An' even if you ain't used to infants, it won't
be no lie to show you're dead stuck on this one, for
she's a beauty on a small scale, an' no mistake,"
Martha dropped as they drove along.

Before Katherine was really aware, she found herself
being escorted upstairs to his wife's sitting-room
by Francis Ronald himself.

Burning logs were glowing on the open hearth,
the place was warm and bright, and fragrant with
hothouse blooms.  Claire Ronald, looking like a
delicate flower, of a very human variety, rose from
her low chair before the fire, to greet her guest, and
from that moment Katherine's constraint was gone.

She told of her plan, and the Ronalds were interested
from the first.

"I think it's a capital idea, don't you, Frank?"
Claire cried, in her quick, impulsive way.

"There is something in it, no doubt," he admitted
cautiously, smiling down at her with very different
eyes from those Katherine had dreaded.  "But I
don't think much could be accomplished by one lecture.
If these people are to get anything, they've got
to get it in good doses, 'repeat when necessary.'  You
can't be sure you've made your point, until
you've hammered it in, given it what the journalists
call 'a punch.'  This can only be done by repetition,
emphasis.  But a *course* of lectures—with
lantern-slides—a course extending through the winter—that
would be a great scheme, I think."

Katherine's face fell.  "We could never hope to
have a *course*," she mourned.

"Why not?"

"The expense.  Think what the cost would be!"

"It would be cheaper, in proportion, than one."

"In proportion, yes.  But I doubt if we could
raise the money for one, much less the course."

Mr. Ronald's eyes scanned her quizzically.  "You
should drill under Martha Slawson," he said with
a touch of seriousness in his lighter manner.  "She
would never recognize the obstacle.  She leaps it,
or she mounts it, or she kicks it out of her way—but
she never *admits* it,—and the consequence is,—it
isn't there.  Now, suppose you were not required to
raise the price of the course.  Suppose the price were
guaranteed?  Would you guarantee to raise the
audience?  Get enough people to pledge themselves to
attend, so the lecturer would come up with the fair
assurance that he'd face something beside empty
benches?"

"I could try."

"How would you go about it?"

"There's a man named Buller——"

"Yes, I know him.  A bad lot!  Got his hand
chewed up in a fox-trap, while he was on his way to
my Lodge, to fire it, for the purpose of revenging
himself on my superintendent's wife, Martha Slawson.
Dr. Driggs told me about it.  Gangrene set in,
and the fellow'd have lost his arm, if not his life,
if Dr. Ballard hadn't operated as promptly and
skilfully as he did.  Yes, I know Buller."

Katherine, considerably dashed, took up her theme
again, notwithstanding.

"He's very ignorant, very debased, of course.
Yet, I think, as Mrs. Slawson does, that he could be
helped.  He's very low in his mind just now, because
he thinks his neighbors shun him on account of his
accident."

For the first time she heard the hearty ring of
Frank Ronald's laugh.

"Well, and this poor, abused soul is to aid you?—How?"

"He owns a horse and buckboard.  It occurred
to me he might be willing to help us, to the extent
of taking me about from house to house, when I
go to canvass.  Incidentally, if the people see he's
engaged in work we are interested in, it may re-establish
him with them—with himself.  He's lost all
self-respect, all self-reliance.  Mightn't it help him
to get them back, if he felt he were concerned in
some worthy enterprise, connected with reputable
people?"

"It might."

The early autumn twilight had fallen before what
Martha Slawson would have called their *conflab*
ended.

While Mr. Ronald was giving orders for the
motor to be brought around, his little wife displayed
the wonderful baby, and Katherine, holding the tiny
soft creature to her cheek, suddenly felt her heart
melt toward that other tiny creature, not so soft, but
almost as helpless, who was sitting solitary and alone
in the chill and dreariness of what she called, by
courtesy, *home*.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV

.. vspace:: 2

Martha found an almost disorganized household
when she got home.

"Say, this is never goin' to do in the world!"
she exclaimed in astonishment.  "I got to pull you
all up with a round turn.  The whole raft of you,
from Ma down, needs a good whackin' into shape.
Say, Ma, what you sittin' there whimperin' for?
You look as if you'd lost your last enemy, an' had
nobody left to take any comfort out of.  I wouldn't
put it before you to be yearnin' for the gayety o'
little old New York again.  That so?"

Ma drew in her lips plaintively.  "No, it ain't
so.  I'm contented here, enough, only——  'Tis not
the same place at all when you're not in it.  Never
a one o' them to think o' drawin' me a cuppertee,
nor set a match to the fire, when the wind is blowin'
that chill, it's enough to rattle the teeth in your
jaws.  When I feel cold, I feel—*poor*!"

She began to cry.

"Now, Ma, you stop that, double-quick, or, you
may take it from me, I'll give you something to cry
*for*.  I'm as cross as your grandmother's worsted-work.
I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail.
Keep out o' my way, everybody, till I get my house
lookin' like a house again, an' my fam'ly in order,
so's they'll have the appearance o' civilized human
bein's, no matter what they reely are.  Cora, you
set the kettle on, while Sammy an' me goes down
cellar to start a little fire in the furnace, to take the
chill out o' the air an' the grouch out o' Ma.  Francie,
while you're restin' run down to the store an' get me
a pound o' tea—I see there ain't a leaf left in the
caddy.  You can take Sabina along for comp'ny, only
don't forget to bring her back.  We might need her
for somethin' sometime.  You never can tell.  For
goodness' sake!  Is that rack-a-bones Flicker
Slawson?  Well, what do you think o' that!  I bet there
ain't been one o' you ever thought to give'm, or Nix
either, a sup or a bite, since I been gone!  Such a
measly-appearin' dog an' cat, *I* never see.  I'm
ashamed to look'm in the face."

As she talked, Martha passed from room to room,
tidying up, straightening out, getting the household
wheels back into their accustomed grooves and, all
the while, unconsciously transforming the atmosphere
of the place, and the persons in it, until they
reflected her own wholesome, vital air of well-being,
well-doing.

Ma, drinking her *cuppertee* from the saucer,
reveled in the genial warmth her daughter-in-law had
caused to come up out of the cold, dark, nether
regions into which she, herself, never descended, and
felt a sense of virtuous satisfaction in her own
personal benevolence, as she rehearsed all the gossip she
had been able to cull from without or within, since
her son Sammy's wife had been gone.  Ma did not
call it gossip, she called it news.

"'Twas Mrs. Peckett was in an' out, as usual, an'
told me what was goin' on, or I'd never have known
no more than if we'd been livin' in the Sarah desert,
itself.  'Twas her told me what a bloody rascal is
Buller that he'd be after comin' here, in the dead o'
night wit' his fagots, to burn us alive in our beds,
to say nothin' o' the gun he was for shootin' us wit',
into the bargain.  An' you to be standin' by, an'
holdin' his hand, when 'twas cut off on account of the
gangerine!  Mrs. Peckett says every one in the place
is callin' you a good Sam Maritan."

"'In me eye,' says Biddy Martin," Martha sang
out sceptically.

"Mrs. Peckett was sayin' 'twas the wife's dooty
stand by her own man, an' not another woman's at
all.  Mrs. Peckett was after sayin' God knows she's
as quick to do a kindness, as the next one, but the
evil tongues some folks do be havin' nowadays, would
make you look out for your repu*ta*tion."

"Say, Ma," said Martha, "did you ever notice
how some people'll try to keep their own place clean
by shakin' their dirty rags on other people's heads?
*They* don't care where the smut lands, so long's
they've shook it off'n their own skirts.  The trouble
is, they sometimes get come up with.  They don't
watch which way the wind's blowin', so they get all
their own dirt, an' then some, blown back on'm,
which they'd better never have stirred it up, in the
first place."

Without in the least understanding her daughter-in-law's
drift, Ma felt it desirable to change the subject.
Did Martha know that the Fred Trenholms
had "leegially" adopted the three Fresh Air
children they had had with them all this summer and
last?

"An' they do be as proud, as proud!  The way
you'd think they'd a fortune left them, instead of
a ready-made fam'ly to eat'm out o' house an' home,
itself."

"The Trenholms are *bricks*!"

Ma coughed nervously, then tried again.

"That old bachelor brother o' Mrs. Coleses, the
one's been so long sick-a-bed wit' the doctor, he's
been took down wit' the meazles."

Martha proceeded with her work.

"Well, that's the way it goes!  When a fella's
been cryin' wolf for years an' years, the chances are
he'll attrac' some kinda thing his way, if it's only
a meazly little skunk, which is more embarrassin' than
dangerous.  Meazles is a kinda come-down, for a
party Hiram Parkinson's age an' ambitions.  He's
been walkin' around with, as you might say, one foot
in the gravey,—poor soul!  I bet it makes'm sore to
feel he's with both feet in the soup.  Meazles!  I
guess I'll send'm a glass or two o' my slip-go-down
jelly to cool his throat."

"I guess he didn't be expectin' *that*, whatever it
was he did be expectin'," Ma dropped complacently.

"Well, you gener'ly get *sump'n*, if you expect it
long enough.  That's why it's up to us to be sure
we like our order before it goes in, for in the end
we'll have to chew it, anyhow."

Martha drew her chair to the center-table, seated
herself, and taking paper, pen and a bottle of ink
from the drawer, prepared to write.

"Goin' to write, Martha?" queried Ma, peering
over at her curiously.

"Looks like it, don't it?"

"A letter?"

"Maybe, or else my last will an' prayer-book, as
they say."

"I wonder——"

"I guess if you're goin' to wonder out loud, Ma,
you'll have to do it later.  I got to get this job off'n
my hands right now, an' between you an' me an' the
lamp-post, I ain't so flip with my pen an' ink, I can
do much of anythin' fancy, *while you wait*.  I got to
take my time at it.  It's the hardest stunt I know of.
Firstoff, you got to have somethin' to write about,
an' then, before you're fairly ready to put it down—what
with delays, owin' to spellin', blots an' so forth—it's
got away from you, an' you have to think up
somethin' else in its place.  While you're doin' that
the next idea gets away, so you're left, whatever way
you look at it.  Now, 'silence in the court-house,'
as Sammy says."

Ma would have given all she was worth to discover
what it was that, for the next couple of hours or so,
Martha was so painfully employed upon.  She did
her best to find out, but though she craned her neck,
ducked her head, peeked and peered, it was no use.
A substantial elbow curved around the paper,
effectually shielding it from inquisitive eyes.

.. vspace:: 2

Dere doct. Ballad you will be supprised to here I am
home again but that is wear I am for Miss Clare is well
enough now to spair me and the baby is doing fine in spite
of the nurses witch says she will live now witch I thank
them kindly wen her two cheeks is getting as pink as roses
and round besides so a blind man could see it and never a
cry out of her the hole day long the lamb or night either
except wen neccery.  Mr. F. Ronald would not call the
quean his cousin him and miss Kathrine is bizzy getting
a party from the city to come and give a corse of leckchers
to show the natives off of lantren slides what there bodies
maid out of and how there jerms looks wen you see them
on a sheet verry much unlarged.  miss katrine hopes seeing
what the licker does to his jerms will scair Buller off the
drink annyhow he ain't drunk much as ushal becaus he has
bin driving her round in his backboard witch he is verry
proud of besides he has not the time wen he is doing it.
Wile i bean away Hireram parkinsin got meezils if this
dont intrust you madam Crew is verry well but her and
Miss Kathrin is still on the outs why i do not no Miss
Kathrine was getting verry thin and wite when you left
she got going to Mr. F. Ronaldses now she looks better
do not think that is becaus ennything accepting the corse
of leckchers.  MEN is necherly jellys pardon the libberty
but believe me miss Kathrin is trew blew like if she got
found of any party once would not change to get found of
any other party no matter how plutonic as a gent leman i
once lived out with his wife Mr. Grandvil lately maid to
a judg told me witch I just looked it up in the dickshunnery
for the speling and it ain't what he told me it was a tall
but relating to regions of fire insted of cool like you feel
for your relations.  Buller is heeling alrite so I no he is
clean I told him his hole arm would go if he did not let up
on the drink i will let you no if he lets up I will let you
no if Madam crew and Miss Kathreen lets up all so enny
more i think will intrust you I know what was in your
hart wen you asked me so will rite as orphan as I can
and no other soul will knew you can count on me.  Love
to all Yours

.. vspace:: 1

trewly Martha Slawson.

.. vspace:: 2

The writing of the letter in itself might not have
excited any undue suspicion in Ma.  Once in a long
time Martha did actually "sit down to take her pen
in hand" to write to one of the relations, though
usually it was Cora who was offered up on the altar
of family concord.  But to-day "me son Sammy's
wife's" conduct was exceptional.  She wrote and
rewrote, erased, tore up, until, Ma cogitated,
"It's fairly a caution, an' out of all sensibleness,
the way she does be destroyin' perfectly good
paper."

Also,

"It'd surely be a stranger she'd be after wastin'
all that time an' ink on, for not one of her own at
all would ever be for gettin' the like of it."  The
next logical step in the shrewd deduction
was—"Who is the stranger?"

Ma watched the little Mont Blanc at Martha's
elbow grow, until finally it coasted, like a tiny
avalanche to the floor.  She watched her daughter-in-law
stoop, abstractedly gather up the fragments and
stuff them into her apron pocket.

When the great task was done, she saw the mysterious
letter, artfully resisting, obliged at last to
yield to main force, and go into its envelope whether
it would or no.  Saw it sealed, saw it stamped, saw
it directed, saw it triumphantly carried, by Martha's
own hand, to the R.F.D. mail-box, though Ma
insisted "one of the childern could go just as good, an'
save you the steps, itself."

When Martha returned from her errand she found
Mrs. Peckett in possession of Sam's chair by the
table.

"And how's Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles?
It's good to see you home again," the caller greeted
her before she had fairly crossed the doorsill.

"Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain't had any
troubles."

"That's what Martha always says," Ma observed
half-complainingly, "Martha always says she
wouldn't be for callin' what-she's-come-up-wit'
*trouble*.  She says, if you don't notice it, 'twill pass
you by the quicker, but if you clap a name to it,
'twill come in an' live wit' chu, till you'd never get
rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."

For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken
a sudden dive in a clumsily-run elevator.  Through
the "sinkin' at the stummick" that followed, she saw
Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making
ready for fight.  She flung herself into the breach,
laughed, winked confidentially over Ma's head to
their neighbor, and said calmly:

"Mrs. Peckett an' me'll have to grow your age,
Ma, an' be the mother o' married sons, before we
reely know what trouble is, won't we, Mrs. Peckett?"

Mrs. Peckett nodded.

"Though I will say, I never put much stock in all
the talk that's going the rounds about mother-in-laws'
suffering at the hands of the parties their sons
married.  Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I
always point to Mr. P.'s mother who lived with us
a year and a half after we went to housekeeping.
The store she set by me!  She was so afraid I'd
do too much, or be worried, or the like of that, that,
at the last, when she couldn't say much of anything,
for the weakness, she'd tell the nurse, 'Don't let
Beulah in!'  When the nurse told me about it, after
Mother Peckett was gone I was so affected I 'most
cried.  I said to the nurse, 'Did you ever!' and the
nurse said to me, 'We reap what we sow!'  Just
like that—'We reap what we sow!'  I wager she's
told the story to many a family she's been out nursing
since.  Though, of course, one case don't prove the
rule.  But even if I am exceptional, I believe there's
lots of daughter-in-laws better than they give them
credit for being."

"Oh, I ain't *complainin'*," Ma maintained.
"Martha, here, duz fairly well, an' I'll say this much
for her, she's turned out better than I expected."

Martha bowed profoundly.  "'Thank you, thank
you, sir,' she sayed.  'Your kindness I never shall
forget!'"

"Me son Sammy was me youngest, an' 'twas hard
on me, part wit' him, to be married.  All the time
he was courtin' Martha, I was prayin' she'd turn'm
down, or somethin'd happen to come between'm, the
way they'd never go to the altar when the time
come.  I wanted Martha for to be takin' another fella
was sparkin' her along wit' Sammy, but she didn't.
She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me.  It
fairly broke me heart."

"Oho!  So you had your love-affairs, like the rest
of us, Mrs. Slawson.  Do tell!  Is the heart-broken
lover still hanging on, or——"

"Heart-broken nothin'!" ejaculated Martha
scornfully.  "Gilroy's as chipper as a squirrel, an'
don't you forget it!"

Ma wagged a sagacious head.  "But he never
married, Martha.  You know that, as good as me.
An' it's not for the lack of chances, itself.  There's
many a girl would give her eye-teeth for'm, wit' the
riches he has, an' dressin' like a dood, the day."

Mrs. Peckett sighed.  "Well, well, and I thought
you to be such a sober, steady-going woman,
Mrs. Slawson!  But it seems *you've* had your romance,
too!  It's a surprise, but—live and learn!  Live and
learn!"

"That's just it!" Martha returned.  "We don't.
We live, but we don't learn, more's the pity.  Have
a cup o' tea.  Ma relishes it, along about this time
in the afternoon, an' it won't be a mite o' trouble.
An' you must sample some cookies I made this
mornin'.  I'm quite stuck on my own cookies, if I
do say it, as shouldn't."

After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed,
Martha observed with more than usual gravity,

"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin' to
Mrs. Peckett you wouldn't just as lief was posted on
a board-fence."

"Why, what call have you to say that to me, I
should like to know, Martha Carrol?"

"Nothin' much, only—I kind, o' wish she hadn't
got wind o' Gilroy."

"I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever
hear the like?  If I so much as open me lips, I'm
rebuked for't, the way I'd bring confusion on the
fam'ly.  Better for me, if I kep' to me own room
entirely, an' never set foot here at all, to be accused
o' settin' the neighbors gossipin' when 'twas never
me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned
Gilroy's name."

Martha shrugged.  "Come on, now, Ma, cheer
up!  I didn't mean to hurt your feelin's.  It's just
I nacherly distrust Mrs. Peckett.  I used to think
she was good, firstoff.  But she's as shifty as dust!
I wouldn't put it before her to take anything she got
a-holt of—the innocentest thing, an' twist it into
what'd scandalize your name, so you'd never get rid
of the smutch of it, however you'd try.  The worst
things ever I heard of the folks in this place,
Mrs. Peckett told me.  It's took me over a year to find
out most of'm's just mischeevious tattle.  You can
lock up against a thief, but you can't pertec' yourself
from a liar."

Ma made no response, beyond blinking very fast
for a second or so, but that was enough for Martha.
Recognizing it as the sign of a coming deluge, she
hastily changed the subject.

"What do you hear from the folks down home,
these days?" she asked affably.

"No more than yourself.  Sam got a letter from
one o' them (Andy, I'm thinkin') this mornin'.
Didn't he be after readin' it to youse before he went
out?"

"No, he did not."

"I thought surely he would be tellin' you, that are
his wife, even if he kep' his old mother in ignorance.
That's the way it is wit' childern, these times."

"For the love o' Mike!" Martha murmured beneath
her breath.

When Sam came in, shortly after, had silently eaten
his supper, and was preparing to settle down for a
bout with *The New England Farmer*, she proceeded
to take him to task on his mother's behalf.

"Ma feels kind o' sore because you didn't show
her the letter you got this mornin' from Andy."

Sam pulled off his shoes with a jerk.  "How'd
she know I got a letter from Andy?"

"I d'know.  But you did, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, why didn't you read it to her?  She's
gettin' old, an' the older she gets, the crankier she
gets.  I guess it's up to us to humor her, for, one
thing's certain, she won't humor *us*, an' there might
as well be some fun in the house for some one."

Sam caught his lower lip between his teeth and
held it there for a moment.

"There was nothing in Andy's letter would interest
her.  That is, there was no family news, or
anything.  'Twas a business letter."

Martha proceeded with her work, dropping her
questioning at once.

"Well, an' why wouldn't I be interested in me own
son Andy's venturin', no matter if it *is* business,
itself?" insisted the old woman querulously, when
Martha repeated what Sam had said.  "If that same
Andy does be makin' a fortune, surely his own mother
should be hearin' tell of it, first; leastwise, so she
should in any God-fearin' fam'ly.  But it's more like
a heathen I'm treated now, than a Christian woman,
that's raised a big crop o' childern till they'd be able
fend for themselves.  Andy is likeliest of the lot, an'
now, when he's made his fortune, an' would be
writin' his brother of his luck, his own mother would
be told, 'It's only business!' the way she'll not take
a natural joy in his triumphin', or, maybe, look to'm
for a stray dollar, itself."

To all of which Martha made no reply.

But later, when Ma and the children were abed
and asleep, she looked up from her mending to find
Sam's eyes fixed on her in a stare of grim desperation.

"For a fella whose brother has just made his
everlastin' fortune, you're the mournfullest party I
ever struck," she quietly observed.  "You're as
glum-lookin' as one o' them ball-bearer undertakers at a
funer'l.  Cheer up!  It ain't your funer'l!  An' if
*you* ain't made the fortune, your brother has, so it's
all in the fam'ly, anyhow."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Why, Ma says Andy's letter was to tell you he's
made a fortune."

Sam groaned.

"Well, hasn't he?"

"No."

"What was his letter about, then?  He ain't after
money, to borrow it off'n you, is he?"

Sam shook his head.

"Because, if Andy wants to try any of his
get-rich-quick games on us, he better guess again.  He's
got to take his chances with all the other fancy
dancers, that's all there is to it.  It's a poor pie
won't grease its own tin."

"He don't want to borrow, Martha.  He——"

"Well——?"

Sam swallowed hard, laid *The New England
Farmer* on the table, and drew himself in his chair
a step nearer his wife.

"When I was down in New York, Andy was
fairly beset with the idea of going into a scheme with
a man he knew, who'd offered him a chance, if he
could raise the cash, or as-good-as.  Andy could talk
of nothing else.  The same with Nora-Andy.  They
told me all about it, and I'm bound to say it did
sound good to me.  But I'd no money to give or
lend, and I told them so.  Ma'd been blabbing about
our having a bit saved, and Nora-Andy reproached
me with withholding it from my own brother, when
it was only a loan he needed, with good interest for
the one loaned it, to take the chance of a lifetime.
I told them the money wasn't mine, but yours and
the children's.  You'd saved it, not I.  And then
Andy said, he'd never lay hand on it, if it was the
last penny he'd ever hope to see.  'Twas not money
he wanted of me at all, and he brought out a paper,
that, if I would set my name to it, would help him
out, as fine as money, and nobody hurt by the
transaction a hair."

Martha dropped her sewing to her lap.

"You never signed it, Sam?" she entreated.  "Of
course, you never signed it.  You know better'n me
that it's wrong to set your name to any tool—(ol'
lady Crewe's l'yer's very words)—wrong to set your
name to any tool——"

"Instrument," suggested Sam drearily.

"Well, instrument, then.  It's wrong to set your
name to any instrument unless you know what you're
up against."

"I know it," confessed Sam humbly.

"Well?" Martha plied him.

"I did it, mother.  And now, the note's come
due, and Andy can't meet it, and——"

"Well, what do you think o' that!" sighed Martha.

Sam had been leaning forward on his elbows, his
palms propping his chin.  Now his face dropped into
his hands, as he hid his haggard eyes from her clear,
searching ones.

"How much, Sam?"

"All we got.  The whole two-hundred-and-fifty."

For a moment Martha was dumb.  Then, straightening
back in her chair, taking up her sewing again,
she said, "Well, at least we *got* it.  There's that to
be thankful for.  An' doncher break your heart,
Sam, worryin' about your bein' such a fool as sign
that tool—I should say instrument.  I done the same
thing myself, now I come to think of it.  The pot
can't call the kettle black.  I set my name to a paper,
ol' lady Crewe ast me to, an' God only knows how
much I'll be stung for it, for *I* don't.—But wouldn't
it kinda discourage you from puttin' by for a rainy
day, when the money you scrimped an' scringed to
save, has to go for a umbrella to keep some other
fella dry, which all *you* get, is the drippin's—*right in
the neck*!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV

.. vspace:: 2

After many days of serious pondering Martha
decided that the only way to relieve her mind
was to "march straight up to the captain's office,"
and ask Madam Crewe point-blank, precisely what
the liabilities would be, in the event of the paper she
had signed, falling due, and failing to be met by the
old lady herself.

"But if she said 'twas her *will*?" argued Sam.
"You're all right if it was her will.  You couldn't
lose out on that, you know.  Unless you were the
kind that'd be looking for yourself.  And, of course,
if you sign one as witness, you're sure you can't be
left anything in it."

"I don't want to be left anything in it.  But, by
the same token, I don't want to be *left* other ways,
either.  That's to say, I wouldn't want to have to
cough up a couple o' hunderd now, *just to oblige*.
Especially when I ain't got'm.  Besides, it wasn't *her*
told me 'twas a will.  'Twas the l'yer—which is
quite another pair o' shoes.  Anyhow, I'm goin' up
there to find out what I'm libel for in case she can't
pay, like Andy."

Sam saw there was nothing to do but stand aside
and let her go.

The moment she entered the room, Martha realized
that a change had taken place in "ol' lady
Crewe."  It was not anything she could "put her
finger on," as she would have expressed it, but it
was there unmistakably, to be felt, to be—feared.

At the sound of her step upon the floor, the little
Madam looked up quickly.  A faint smile curled the
corners of her mouth for a second, then vanished.

"Well, and what's brought you here, after all
these weeks?  I thought you had fallen into the
well."

"I been stayin' with Miss Claire, I should say,
Mrs. Ronald.  An' since a week or ten days, when
I went home, I been so took up with my house an'
the fam'ly in gener'l, I ain't had a chance," Martha
explained eagerly.

"Never mind apologizing.  What's been the
trouble with 'the house and the family in general'?"

"They got kind o' loose-jointed while I was away,
so's I had to lick'm into shape again,—bring'm up
to time.  An' it kep' me hoppin'."

"You have *hopped* to some purpose, I hear.  You
and Dr. Ballard have been making a record for
yourselves."

"Me?" repeated Martha, amazed.  "I ain't done
nothin'.  But pshaw!  I forgot!  You're just tryin'
to take a rise out o' me, as ushal."

"A *what*?"

"A rise.  You know what I mean, ma'am.  Tryin'
to take my measure.  That's what you're mostly up
to—only folks ain't on to you."

Madam Crewe regarded her fixedly for a moment.

"Do you know, Slawson," she pronounced
thoughtfully at length, "I've an idea I'd quite enjoy
some of the things you say—*if you spoke English*.
The trouble is, I don't understand your patois."

Martha smiled blandly.  "Askin' your pardon,
for the liberty, I often thought the same thing o'
you.  I don't understand *your* what-you-may-call-it,
either.  Nor most of us don't understand each
other's, an' that's what's the trouble with us, I guess.
I sometimes wonder how we get along as good as
we do, with the gibberish we talk, makin' hash o'
what we mean, an' sometimes, not meanin' anythin'."

"Right."

"An' the funny part is, the parties we're most
likely to slip up on is them we love the most."

"Go on."

"I was thinkin' how, when my girl Cora was a
baby in my arms, I had the best holt o' her I'll ever
have, prob'ly.  Her an' me understood each other
then.  But now, every oncet in a while, I might as
good be a Dutchman, an' her a Figi Injun for all
we make o' each other.  I try to hold in my horses,
an' hang on to all the patience I got at them times,
an' I guess she does the same, an' somehow, we
manage to rub along, but you may take it from me
it's some of a scratch!  The same with the other
childern, as they grow up.  Even down to Sabina,
who, young as she is, has a mind o' her own an'
sever'l other parties to boot."

"And in the meantime, you and your husband are
going without common comforts, necessities—for
those very children, who would turn about and rend
you at the first opportunity."

Martha laughed.  "Not on your life they wouldn't
rent us—or *sell* us either, when it come to the test.
If we go without things, to give *them* a better start,
we're not foolin' ourselves on it, believe *me*!  We're
makin' a A1 investment.  We don't grumble at the
taxes, or the 'sessments or all the rest o' the
accidental expenses—so long as we know they're good.
It's when you'd feel you got a bad bargain on your
hands, like it'd be poor drainage, or hard as rocks,
or leakin' and shifty—it'd be *then* you'd hold back,
sendin' good money after bad.  An' then you'd be
wrong.  For you can take it from me, there's no
child so bad it ain't worth savin'.  You read about'm
in the papers, how they steal an' lie an' so forth, an'
when all's said an' done, it's like pictures you'd get
of yourself—they ain't as good as you are, bad as
you are.  No, you can't spoil a good child, an' you
can help a bad one.  So small credit to us, Sam an'
I, if we do save.  It's for the sake of our own, which,
after all, we know the stuff they're made of.  Same
as you and Miss Katherine."

Madam Crewe was silent.

"No, it's not puttin' money in the childern, makes
me sore," Martha continued, "it's when we scraped
an' screwed a few dollars together for a nest-egg,
an' then, in the turn o' a hand, it's gone—to pay for
somethin' we never owed, nor no one got any good
out of, but the wrong fella."

"You mean you've been doing something
foolish?  Speculating?  Losing money?" demanded
Madam Crewe abruptly.

"My husban' signed a paper for his brother, an'
it let'm in for all we had put by.  I was wonderin'
if the paper I signed here early in the summer, I
was wonderin' if *that* had a sting in it, too?  An' if
so, how much?"

"I don't understand."

"I mean, the paper I signed here the time Eunice
Youngs an' me both set our names to it together."

"That paper was my will, woman.  It had nothing
to do with you."

"That's what Sam told me, but—I——"

"You could not be called upon to pay one copper
because of what you did that day.  On the
contrary——  No!  Never mind!  What have you
stood to lose through your husband's foo——"

"He wasn't any foolisher'n me," Martha anticipated
her quickly.

"Your husband's misfortune," amended Madam Crewe.

"Two-hunderd-and-fifty dollars.  All we had
saved.  But we'll set about right over again, an' if
we have luck, we can put by some more.  An' anyhow,
I'm thankful there won't be another such call
on us.  That was what I kinda had on my mind
when I come."

"Well, you can shift it off your mind.  I give you
my word.  You believe me, don't you?"

"Yes'm."

"And I believe you.  So far we understand each
other.  Now, Slawson, I am going to prove that I
trust you.  I am going to ask you an honest question.
I want an honest answer."

"Yes'm."

"You are the mother of four children.  You have
had experience in bringing them up right.  I have
had one child—one grandchild.  I have brought them
both up—*wrong*.  What's the trouble?"

Martha did not reply at once.

Madam Crewe waited patiently, making no attempt
to hurry her, and the room was as still as if it
had been empty.  At last Martha spoke.

"O' course I d'know what the trouble was, if
there was any, with your boy.  But it seems to me,
I see where you kind o' slipped up on it with Miss
Katherine."

"Well?"

"Firstoff, the way I look at it, childern is all
selfish, which is only to say they're human, like the
rest of us.  They're selfish an' they're mischeevious,
an' they're contrairy, for, when all's said an' done,
they're—childern.  What we want to do is, learn'm
not to be selfish an' mischeevious an' contrairy.  An'
how can we learn'm not to be it, if we're that way
ourselves?  There's a lady I usedta work out for—(you
know her—Mrs. Sherman, Mr. Frank Ronald's
sister).  She give her boy every bloomin' thing
money could buy——.  But she never give'm a square
deal.  You can take it from me, what a young 'un
respec's is a square deal.  He mayn't *like* it, but he
respec's it.  An' *you* for givin' it to'm.

"Now, beggin' pardon for the liberty, I don't
think Miss Katherine's had a square deal, or a fair
show.  She ain't had what's her rights, an' she
knows it.  You kep' her too close on—well, lots o'
things.  Love an' a free foot an', oh, lots o' things.
She's lived so long, as you might say, from hand to
mouth, that now she don't know which is her hand
an' which is her mouth.  An' that makes her look
kinda awkward to you.  What I'd rather my childern'd
feel about me than anythin' else is, that I see
their side an' try to treat'm white.  All the cuddlin'
an' the coddlin' in creation won't help you, if
your child knows it ain't havin' justice.  An' all
the strictness an' the punishin' won't keep it
straight, if it ain't sure there's love along with the
lickin's.

"Miss Katherine's a *good* child.  You couldn't go
far wrong, if you took it for granted she was goin'
to do the right thing, like you are yourself.  If I
was you, excuse me for sayin' it—if I was you, I'd
kinda open up to Miss Katherine.  She's young.
With all she's so tall an' han'some-lookin', she ain't
learned all the sense there is.  She thinks, the same's
the rest o' the kids, that the only reason she ain't
got the world for the askin' is because her '*mean ol'
fam'ly*' don't want her to have no fun.  Give her
a chance.  Show her you believe in her.  You got
to believe folks believe in you, to do your best.
Now, take you, for instance.  Your talkin' up so
quick an' sharp as you do, makes most parties feel
you're kinda hard to get along with.  But my, *I*
get along with you first-rate, because I ain't fooled
by your outsides.  I know your insides is all right,
an' that's enough for me.  But a young lady, like
Miss Katherine, she wouldn't know.  She's got to
be showed, like Sam says they do in Missouri.  But,
you can take it from me, you wouldn't have to show
her but once.  There!  I've talked a blue streak,
an' prob'ly tired you all out.  Only, you see, when
you get me on *childern*, you got me on a subjec's my
speciality, as you might say.  That is, I try to make
it my speciality, like Sam does cows an' pigs an'
farm-produc's gener'ly, now he's got to deal with'm.
Before I go, can't I get you somethin', or, maybe,
see you safe in bed?"

"Bed?" echoed Madam Crewe sharply.  "Why
do you suggest bed to me?  Do I strike you as
belonging there?"

"Oh, no'm!" lied Martha calmly.  "I wasn't
thinkin' o' your comfort, so much as mine.  It kinda's
got to be a habit with me to want to tuck the little
ones up an' cover'm over, 'n' know they're fixed for
a good, sound sleep, before I leave'm."

Madam Crewe set her lips.

"Well, Slawson, it won't be long before you can
do that for me.  But not to-night.  Go your way
now.  It's growing late.  But come again soon.
Very soon, you understand?"

"Yes'm."

On her way out, Martha stopped at the kitchen door.

"Say, Eunice," she accosted that placid young
woman whom she found cozily toasting her toes
before the grateful warmth of the range, "where's
Miss Katherine?"

"I d'know."

"Who's lookin' after the little Madam?"

"Nobody much, lately.  Miss Katherine used to,
and she does now, when she's home, but she's off,
mostly, 'n' I have all I can do getting my work
done up."

"Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly.
"Well, I'm comin' to-morra again.  You can tell
Miss Katherine.  But in the meantime, if you was
plannin' to go home to-night, *doncher*.  Just you
stay right on deck here all of the time, from this on,
do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Because I *tell* you, that's why.  You might be
needed on short notice.  Now, are you goin' to do
as I say or ain't you?"

"Yes."

"That's a good girl.  An'—an' if I should be
needed for anythin', any time, just you come for me,
quick as you can put, be it day or night, an' I'll drop
everythin' an' come."

Eunice followed her to the doorstep.

"Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."

Martha laughed.  "Well, I'm glad if I got *some*
kinda move on you, young lady.  You certaintly need
it."

But as she went her way home, Martha was in
no laughing mood.

"I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair,"
she muttered, hurrying her steps, spurred on by an
unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam, the
children, even Ma.

Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the
light from the sitting-room lamp streaming out
genially into the chill dusk of the early autumn
evening.  It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly
re-established her with the world on the old terms of
good-cheer and common-sense optimism.  The broad,
benevolent smile for which Madam Crewe had so
often derided her, was on her face as she turned the
knob of the sitting-room door, pushed it open.  A
second, and the smile was there no longer.

"What's the matter?" Martha asked, looking
from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from Mrs. Peckett to
Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.

Nobody answered.

Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place.  Mrs. Peckett,
deeply flushed, was standing near the window,
while Sam, towering over all, showed a livid,
threatening face, the like of which Martha had never
seen in all the years of their life together.

"What's the matter?" she repeated.

Again the question went unanswered, but after a
moment, her husband, with a gesture, bade her close
the entry-door.

"Now, what *is* the matter?  For the love o' Mike,
one of you say!" she demanded for the third time,
after she had obeyed.

The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed
to pluck an answer out of Ma.

"As Heaven's me witness, Martha, I meant no
harm," she whimpered peevishly.

"Well?" probed Martha.

"But to see me own son castin' black looks at me,
as if he'd slay me——"

"Tell me what *you've* done, never mind about Sam!"

"The day I first see you writin' one o' them
letters, Martha——"

"What letters?"

Sam's fist came down on the table-top with the
force of a sledge-hammer.

"Hold your tongue, Ma!  By God!  I won't have
my wife's ears soiled with your dirty gossip.  I've
listened to you myself long enough, too long.  I'd
not have done it, even so, except for the need there
is to stop your scandal-mongering—yours and this
woman's here."

Martha laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

"Why, Sam!  What ails you?" she asked in wonder.
"I never seen you the like o' this before.  Let
Ma speak.  She was sayin' about letters.  What
letters?"

The muscles in Sam's jaws twitched visibly beneath
his tense skin.  As Martha looked at him, she seemed
scarcely to recognize him for the man who was her
husband.  Suddenly, from out of the dim recesses
of her memory, emerged a line she had heard quoted
in some far-off, vague time and association, when
she had not consciously taken note of it.  "Beware
the fury of a patient man!"  Now she understood
what the words meant.

"If my wife must know this disgraceful thing, it's
I will tell her," he spoke so low, his words were
barely audible, but Ma would have felt easier if he
had thundered.  "Now listen, you two, to what I
say.  Never for one second have I doubted my
woman.  Never would I.  When I tell you, Martha,
what these have been saying, I don't do so for you
to deny it.  You're my wife.  I believe in you—and
would, against heaven and—*hell*.  It seems, you've
been writing letters to some one, lately, which God
knows you've the right to do it.  But these two
here must needs spy on you, and sneak about, stealing
the stray bits of scribbling you thought you'd
destroyed and thrown away.  They gathered them
up, and, when your back was turned, pieced them
together, to send to me with an anonymous letter—only
I suspicioned something was afoot, and watched,
and to-day I caught them at it.  My God!  There
ought to be a separate fire in hell as punishment for
such damned muck-raking!"

"Sam!" entreated Martha.

"Suppose you *have* written Gilroy, who, none
knows better than I, how once he wanted to marry
you, and how you turned him down for me.  Suppose
you have written to Peter Gilroy, and Peter Gilroy
has written to you——"

"I have, Sam, an'—he has," Martha confessed slowly.

"Surely you'd the right to do it, and I'd be the last
to question you."

Martha gave him a long look.

"Did you say Ma an' Mrs. Peckett got a-holt o'
my letters to Gilroy?"

Sam nodded.

"Did they give you the letters?"

Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her.  It was full
of crumpled scraps.

With patient care Martha smoothed out the first
tattered shred that came to hand.  Laboriously she
read it aloud.

"'I knew what was in your heart when you ast
hie so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul
will no.  Love.  All yours—MARTHA."

She looked up to meet her husband's eyes.

"Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.

Mrs. Peckett's chin, gradually lifting, at last
almost regained its habitual level.

"You see," she observed suavely, "I'm not a liar,
Mr. Slawson.  And I'm not the other things you have
called me to your shame—not mine.  But I bear
you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either.  I'm not
that kind of person.  I'm a Christian woman, trying
to do my duty."

"Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely.

"The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening
to cover her husband's unaccustomed profanity.
"The only thing is, these bits here, as I look'm over,
ain't from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy.  They're
from letters I wrote to—another man."

Still Sam did not flinch.

Martha took a deep breath.

"Won't you take a chair, Mrs. Peckett?  An' I'll
sit, too.  An' so will you, Sam.  So long's we got on
this subjec', we better come to a clear understandin'.
That's always the best way.  As I said at the start,
Sam, I have been writin' to Gilroy, an' he's been
writin' to me."

She leaned from her chair to where her sewing-machine
stood, pulled open the drawer of its table,
and took therefrom a couple of thin envelopes tied
about with a strand of black darning-cotton.

"P'raps I'd ought to have told you firstoff, Sam,
but I didn't, because I thought your feelin's might be
hurt, an'—what you don't know won't worry you.
The day after you had the news of Andy's note
comin' doo, I got a letter from Gilroy.  I've it right
here now.  Also mine answerin' it.  That's to say,
a *copy* of mine answerin' it.  The reason I kep' 'm
is, Gilroy is with Judge Granville, an'—well—when
you're dealin' with foxy parties, you got to be foxy
to match'm.  I won't read you the letters.  If you
like, *you* can read'm.  They're here *for* you.  Gilroy
said 'twas him held your note for Andy.  He'd took
it over, an' he was writin' me to say that, for the
sake o' the days gone by, he wanted to do me a
kindness.  He said he'd let you off the note.  He said,
well he knew what a poor provider you was, an' we'd
prob'ly none too much, if we had anythin' a tall, an',
as for him, he'd *plenty*, so he'd never miss it, bein'
as he is a bachelder, an' right-hand-man to Judge
Granville, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.

"I wrote'm back, post-haste, that I thanked'm
kindly, but you'd already sent the money to Andy.
Such bein' the case, I couldn't o' course take him at
his word to let you off the note, but knowin' me
so well as he'd used to, he'd know that I'd like nothin'
better than take money off'n a friend who meant so
kindly by me *as his letter showed he did*.  Bein' that
kind of a friend, I said, I knew he'd like to hear
you're doin' grand—you're right-hand-man to
Mr. Ronald, an' we've all we need an' more, too, an'
prosperin' better an' better every day.

"I took my letter to Miss Claire, before ever I
sent it off, to make sure it was all right, an' Gilroy'd
know what I meant.  Miss Claire laughed when she
was through readin' it.  She said, it was surely all
right, but what he'd read between the lines had
illustrations, whatever that means.  Anyhow, it stirred
up Gilroy somethin' fierce, an'——"  Martha
paused, the blood surged up to her face in a tide.
"He wrote to me again.  A whole lot o' love-sick
trash.  I sent his letter back to'm (me keepin' a
copy) with just a gentle hint o' warnin' to the effec'
that if ever he done the like again, I'd tell you on'm,
an' we'd both of us come down to New York by the
first train, an' take a turn out of'm—first you, an'
then me *on your leavin's*.  Here's the whole
co-respondence, Sam.  I'm glad to get rid of it.  It
was clutterin' up my machine-drawer.  But, p'raps,
before you take it, to lock it away—Mrs. Peckett
an' Ma would like to examine it."

Mrs. Peckett shook her head.

"Then you're satisfied I ain't a callyope?"
Martha asked her.

"A *what*?" demanded Sam sharply.

"A callyope.  One o' them things whistles on a
boat, which, every oncet in a while we'd hear'm on
the river, down home.  Likewise, they mean coqwette."

"You mean *siren*?"

"Yes.  Sure.  They're called both ways.  Madam
Crewe says all women are sirens.  Then you're
satisfied I ain't a siren, Mrs. Peckett?"

Mrs. Peckett inclined her head, smiling with easy
patronage.

Martha regarded her narrowly for a moment.

"I see you *ain't* satisfied!"

"I certainly am, so far as Mr. Gilroy is concerned,
but——"

Sam got upon his feet in a manner to cause
Mrs. Peckett to come to a sudden halt.

"I know what she means, Sam.  Keep cool, an' let
me handle this, which I'm the only one can, anyhow.
You'd like to know the name o' the party I wrote
them letters to, you an' Ma amused yourselves
playin' puzzles with?  Well, I'll tell you his name.
It's Dr. Ballard, an' even *you* couldn't be so much of
a looney as think *Dr. Ballard* would give a second
thought to the likes o' me, that I'd be writin'
love-letters to'm, much less him wastin' time to read'm,
let alone write me back.

"Before he went away, Dr. Ballard told me, he'd
a likin' for this place an' every mother's son in it,
which, *I s'pose*, that means you, too, an' he ast
would I write'm, to tell how things was goin' on, an'
if Miss Claire an' the baby was gettin' on, an' how
Buller was comin' along.  I promised I would.  An'
I kep' my promise, an' I'm goin' to keep on keepin'
it.  Any objection?"

Mrs. Peckett signified she had none.

"Then all that remains is to say good-by," said
Martha gravely, rising and standing with quiet
dignity beside her husband.

Mrs. Peckett took a step toward the door.  Then
abruptly she turned and extended her hand to
Martha.

Sam Slawson shook his head.  "No, you don't!"
he forbade decidedly.

"I guess we better wait a while, an' see how we
feel about each other later," Martha explained
without animus.  "My husban' says, 'No, you don't!'
so' o' course that settles it for the present, anyhow.
It's a kind o' pity things has come to this pass,
for I don't like to be on the outs with anybody.
But you certaintly took a risk, Mrs. Peckett.  If
my husban' had been like *some* men——!  I don't
see how you dared do it, knowin' you're a woman,
yourself, with a man o' your own.  P'raps 'twas
because you'd set out to make me over, that you hold
me so cheap.  I always noticed folks is never so
choice o' made-over things.  They think the best
wear's out of'm anyhow, an' it don't matter if they
do use'm sort o' careless now.  But it *is* matter, for
it's *you'll* be blamed for not bein' clean, not the thing
you've dirtied.  Besides, sometimes a *made-over* will
serve you better than new.  I give you leave to
remember that, Mrs. Peckett."

When their visitor was gone, Ma began to cry aloud.

"The fear is in me heart.  I haven't a limb to
move, the way I'd be dreadin' Sam's punishin' me!"
she moaned, rocking backward and forward in her
chair.

"He'll not punish you, Ma!" Martha promised.

Still Sam bent stormy brows upon his mother.

"I'll not punish you," he said, "but after what's
happened, I guess we'll all feel happier if you make
your home away from this."

"I'll die ere ever I'll go back to New York City
to live wit' the likes o' them as don't want me!"
sobbed the old woman explosively.

"A Home, then.  I'll see you settled in a good Home."

Ma looked into his stern eyes, saw no relenting
there, and turned to Martha.  She held up her hands
with the mute appeal of a child begging to be carried.

And Martha nodded.  She would carry her.

"For," she explained to Sam, later, "Ma's only
a child, after all.  With no more sense, or as much
as Sabina.  Let her stay, Sam."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI

.. vspace:: 2

Martha had been gone but a quarter of an
hour or so, when Katherine appeared at her
grandmother's door.

It had become a purely perfunctory act, this pausing
at the sitting-room threshold, and asking, "Can
I do anything for you, grandmother?"  To-night
the answer was startlingly out of the ordinary.

"Yes.  Come in.  I want to speak to you."

The girl came forward, outwardly calm, inwardly,
so shaken with a morbid dread of what might await
her, that she dared not venture to speak, for fear
her voice would betray her.

"Light the lamp."

Her uncertain fingers fumbled the first match, till
it dropped to the floor.  The second went out, before
she could guide it to the wick.  Only at the third
attempt was she successful—and she knew her
grandmother despised clumsy inefficiency.

"Where have you been?"

"To the Ronalds.  We're getting up a course of
lectures, don't you remember, for the natives—to run
through the winter."

"The natives to run through the winter?"

Katherine shrank back hypersensitively from the
foolish banter.

"I am doing the work.  Mr. Ronald is giving the
money."

"A very proper arrangement."

"It has kept me busy.  I hope you haven't felt
neglected."

"Not in the least.  As usual, everything has been
done for me that *had* to be done."

The little old woman was trying her best to act
on Martha's advice, but her tongue, sharpened by
years of skilful practice, could not sheathe its keen
edge all at once.  When next she spoke, it was with
so studied a mildness that Katherine stared at her,
wondering.

"You probably met Slawson as you came in?
You must have passed her on the road."

"No, the Ronalds brought me home in their car.
We drove out along the mountain-road, to see the
foliage.  We came back the other way."

"Well, get your things off now.  And when
you've had your dinner, come back to me.  Or—no!
I'll ring!"

It darted through Katherine's mind that her
grandmother spoke with singular self-repression.  Again
she regarded her with puzzled eyes.  Such moderation
could only breed suspicion, in a mind grown
abnormal in solitary confinement.

The girl ate no dinner.

It was late before she heard the silver tinkle that
sounded, in her ears, like the crack of doom.

It was well her grandmother bade her, with a
gesture, to sit down.  Her quaking knees would
hardly have borne her, standing.

"I'm a coward!  A poor, weak coward!" she
confessed to herself bitterly, resenting her weakness,
yet apparently powerless to control it.

"I've been thinking over what you told me, and
I have concluded to change my tactics with regard
to you," the old woman plunged in, without
preamble.  "Perhaps I've made a mistake in the past,
keeping from you things you should have known.
All I can say is, I acted in good faith, for your best."

Katherine smiled faintly.  "Isn't that what parents
always say when they punish?"

Madam Crewe raised her chin in her old supercilious
manner, then quickly lowered it.

"I don't know.  I've had no experience.  I never
punished.  Perhaps that is where I made my mistake."

Again Katherine's lips curled slightly in a wry
smile.

"You need have no regrets there, grandmother.
You have nothing to make up to me on that score."

"You mean I have punished you?"

"Oh—very thoroughly."

"Curious!  I can't see myself doing it."

"I can't see you *not* doing it!"

Madam Crewe, in her turn, stared, surprised.
Katherine was acting out of all character, in quite a
new, unaccountable fashion.

"I suppose I must take your word for it," her
grandmother admitted with an odd sigh.  "Be kind
enough not to interrupt.  You know the story of
the man I did not marry.  Now you shall hear the
story of the man I did marry.

"My father took me abroad after—after the Ballard
fiasco.  I did not care where I went, what I did.
I was quite broken down.  Quite, as Slawson would
say, 'broken up.'  Nothing made any difference to
me.  Everything was distasteful.

"One day, in London, my father brought a young
man to me, introducing him as my future husband.
That was all there was to it.  I neither objected,
nor approved.  I had no mother.  I did not understand.

"We were married almost immediately—my new
lover was very eager.  He urged haste.  Almost
immediately I discovered that my father had been duped
by a cheap adventurer, a man without heart or
conscience.  A poor, weak wretch of profligate habits,
a liar, a cheat.  He had posed in society as a man
of means, heir to a title.  He was nothing of the
sort.  All those he had brought to stand sponsor for
him, were hirelings paid to mislead us.

"For a long time I tried to hide the truth from
my father.  When, at last, he learned it, it killed
him.  He died in a fit of apoplexy, brought on by
rage against the man who had gulled him.

"My fortune was large.  My husband squandered
a considerable part, before I had sense to take steps
to save it.  He was a spendthrift.  He forged my
name on checks, he stole from my purse.  I presume
you wonder why I did not rid myself of him?  In
those days divorces were not the casual things they
are now.  A woman divorced, was a woman disgraced.
Moreover, there was the boy.  For his sake
I bore, forbore.  For his sake, I fought to save my
fortune.  He was my one hope.  He was to make
up, by his perfect rightness, for all that was wrong
in my universe.  I suppose I spoiled him.  Slawson
says you can't spoil a good child.  If that is so, my
boy must have been bad from the beginning.  This
I know, he was always his father's child.  He had
none of me in him.  As a baby, he was full of soft,
coaxing ways.  It was torture to see them gradually
becoming smooth, calculating, treacherous.

"Sit still!  I know he was your father—but he
was my son *first*.  I used to pray, night after night,
that he might not live to follow in his father's
footsteps.  Useless.  The taint was too strong.

"He married your mother precisely as your grandfather
had married me.  I would have prevented it,
if I had known.  It was all so carefully, secretly
arranged that I did not know.  Your mother was
sacrificed, as I had been.  Her fortune was swept
away.  She died when you were hardly more than
a baby.  I was glad when she died.  She was out
of it.

"Your father brought you to me to be cared for.
The sight of you, in your little black ribbons, was
a constant reproach.  I was afraid to look into your
eyes, for fear I should see in them what had killed
your mother.

"One thing I determined, that you were not to
be spoiled.  I would bring you up as well as I could.
I had failed with your father.  I would try a
different method with you.  I repeat, I acted in good
faith.  I did my best.

"Your father died suddenly—no matter how—enough
that 'twas disgracefully.  Within a twelve-month,
I was a widow.  Behind my crêpe I humbly
thanked Almighty God.

"When I came to settle up my estate, I found
myself practically impoverished.  That is, everything
had been so attached, encumbered, I could get
no benefit from it.  My income must be turned back
to the estate, to save it.  My only salvation—yours—was
to cut myself off from all but a pittance, until
every claim had been met, and I stood free and quit.
That has been done.  I owe no man anything.  I
have sacrificed much, but not my integrity, and not
one acre, one security belonging to the property your
great-grandfather left me, rescued from my husband.
It is all intact.  Your inheritance——"

Katherine was on her feet in an instant.

"Inheritance!" she blazed.  "You have just told
me what my inheritance is!  Fraud, lies,
treachery—everything that is base.  What does money matter
to a creature like me?  I can never get away from
what I am.  As you say, 'the taint is too
strong!'  Hush!  *I* am speaking now.  And I'm *going* to
speak, and you've *got* to listen!  For once in my
life, I am going to have my say—I'm going to forget
I am young and you are old, and I'm going to let
you know what I have been feeling, thinking, *being*
all these years, when you've thought I was a tame
thing you could order about, and scold and ridicule,
to the top of your bent.

"I know, now, why I was a lonely, unloved child.
I've always wondered, before, for I *tried* to be
good—even when I was too much of a baby to be
anything else.  I know, now, why you watched me out
of the corners of your eyes, as if you were waiting
for me to try to deceive you, in some way.  You
were waiting for my '*inheritance*' to crop out.  How
could I ever have been anything, but at my worst
with you?  How could I be clever, when you insisted
I was dull?  How could I be *myself*, when you
condemned me, by your fears, to be my grandfather,
and my father?  What you waited for, came.  Of
course it would.  I stole, I lied.  I was a coward.
'The taint was too strong!'

"But let me tell you this, it needn't have been
so.  I could have been saved if, when I was a
child——  Oh, I can't bear it!  I can't bear it!"

She shrank together into a wretched heap on the
floor, her head bowed on her knees.

Madam Crewe gazed at her, a strange shadow
creeping over her face.  As if to herself, she
murmured, "That is what your grandfather used to
plead—and your father.  Whenever they were
discomforted, they always said they couldn't bear it.
So they didn't bear it.  *I*—and others—had to bear it."

The sound of her voice, low as it was, brought
Katherine to her feet.  All the pent-in passion of
her life, breaking loose now, beat mercilessly down
upon the defenseless old woman before her.  In
some unaccountable way, the two seemed to have
changed places.  It was she who dominated, her
grandmother who submitted.

The lamp burned low, sending out a rank odor that
filled the room.  The clock struck out three deep
bell-notes.

Katherine, shuddering, sobbing, felt herself caught
up in the whirlwind-strength of a new impulse.  She
turned her back on her grandmother.  A moment,
and the door of her own chamber shut her in.

Madam Crewe's head fell forward upon her breast.

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The clock had just struck half-past five, when
Martha groped her way downstairs.

She had her work "cut out for her," as she would
have expressed it, and must start in promptly.  She
had just kindled a new fire in the kitchen-range, and
was about to set out for the henhouse, and
cow-barn, when a step on the porch brought her up
standing.

In a second she had crossed the room, swung open
the kitchen-door.

"Miss Katherine!" she exclaimed, in the breathless
undertone of one brought face to face with a
dread turned reality.

Katherine seemed to understand without need of
explanation.  She shook her head.

"No—grandmother's not sick.  Grandmother is
all right.  But—I'm going away.  I've left home.
I'll never go back!  Never!  We had it out together
last night, grandmother and I.  *Last* night, and *all*
night.  I'll never cross that doorsill again, if I have
to beg in the streets, or—starve."

Martha quietly closed the door, led Katherine to
a chair, then set the water-kettle on the stove,
without asking a question, saying a word.

"I've come straight to you, Mrs. Slawson," the
girl continued breathlessly, "because you're my only
friend in the place.  The only one who knows
anything about the kind of life I've led, and would
understand."

"But, I *don't* understand," Martha corrected her.
"I thought—that is to say, I somehow or other, got
the idea the two of youse was goin' to get along
better, after this.  I can't think how things could 'a'
got to this pass when, the last I heard, everything
looked so promisin'."

Katherine took her up quickly.  "I don't know
what you mean by *promising*.  The day Mrs. Ronald
was taken sick, I told grandmother about—about—what
I'd done.  You know—the pocket—with the
letters.  And she treated me like a dog.  Oh, she
was cruel.  Sent me away, out of her sight, as if
I'd been something hateful to her—which I am.
She hasn't spoken to me since, until last night, except
to give some order.  I don't know how you can say
you thought things 'looked promising.'"

Martha measured out two heaping tablespoonfuls
of freshly-ground coffee into the percolator, and set
it on the stove.

"I saw your gran'ma yesterday, Miss Katherine,"
she explained.  "Her an' me had a long talk, an',
from what she dropped, I got the impression she
meant to turn over a new leaf two-wards you, if
you'd give her the chance."

"Did she say she meant to?"

"No, not eggsackly '*say*.'  But——"

"Well, then, I guess you were mistaken.  Or,
perhaps she *meant* to try to do better by me, and,
when the time came, she just couldn't, that's all.  I'll
give her the benefit of the doubt.  But no matter
what she *meant*, no matter what *I* did, the end of it
was, we had a terrible time and—I've come away
for—good."

After an interval, during which Martha had
quietly relieved Katherine of the bag she clutched,
she set before her a cup of steaming, fragrant
coffee.

Katherine shook her head.  "I couldn't touch it.
I'm not hungry."

"Drink it down, hungry or not!" commanded
Martha authoritatively.

Katherine obeyed.

"You must have been at the house late, yesterday
afternoon," she said, between her absent sips.  "For,
I wasn't there, and I'd been at home all day except
for an hour or so toward evening, when I went to
the Ronalds'.  When I came in grandmother called
me, and, now I come to think of it, she did seem
milder, kinder.  She told me to take my dinner and
then, after dinner, to come to her.  It always scares
me when grandmother summons me to appear before
her—like a pensioner, or a criminal.  It's always been
that way, ever since I can remember.  The sight of
her, sitting there, cold and distant as a marble image,
always freezes me to ice.  I can't help it.  I know
I'm a coward, but I can't help it.

"I couldn't eat my dinner, for thinking what she
had to say, so, by the time I went up to her, I was
all of a tremble inside, though I probably didn't
show it.

"Then she told me—told me—about her life.
About my grandfather—my father.  If you knew
what I've sprung from, Mrs. Slawson, you'd turn
me out of your house."

"Rot!" said Martha, "askin' pardon for the liberty."

Katherine went on—"Think of being watched, day
after day—always under suspicion.—Think of
having some one always being in fear and trembling
because the time'll surely come when you'll show what
you've sprung from.  And, of course, it comes.  I
did the things my grandfather and my father had
done before me.  That was why, when I told her
about the pocket, she sent me away from her.  The
thing she had dreaded, had happened."

"It always does," said Martha.

"So that's what I am," the girl went on shudderingly,
"a coward, and a liar, and a thief.  The
child, and the grandchild, of cowards, thieves, liars.
There's no hope for me!  I can never be anything
else."

Martha's hand upon her shoulder shook her, none
too gently.

"Say, stop that nonsense, Miss Katherine.  Stop it
right now, before you say another word.  There
ain't any truth in it, to begin with, an' *I* say it's
wicked to *think* such things.  Just you answer me a
couple o' questions, will you?"

Martha's unaccustomed severity startled Katherine
out of her hysteria.  She nodded acquiescence.

"Why did you tell me, firstoff, when you'd took
the pocket?"

"Because I loathed myself so.  I couldn't bear it
alone."

"Why did you clap the name o' thief to yourself?
Are you proud o' it?"

"It's the truth.  I have to tell the truth!"

"Why have you?"

"Because it's *right* to."

"Then, on your own say-so, you ain't any o' those
things you said.  Don't you see you ain't?  A thief
don't hate what he does, so he's afraid to be alone
with himself.  A liar don't *have* to stick to the truth,
does he?  A coward won't stand up, an' face the
music, 'cause it's *right* to—not so you'd notice it,
he won't.  All this hangin' on to your antsisters'
shirt-tails an' apern-strings, for good, or for bad,
makes me sick on my back.  I'm tired seein' crooked
sticks tryin' to pull glory down on themselves off'n
what they call their Family-trees.  Don't you fool
yourself.  It's every man for himself these days—*thank
God*!  It don't folla you're what your gran'pa
is, any more'n your gran'ma.  You got a mind o'
your own, an' a conscience o' your own, an' if you
did, in a way o' speakin', lose your grip on yourself,
an' done what tempted you—to do it oncet, ain't to
say you'll ever do it again.  It's just the very reason
why you *won't* ever do it again!"

Katherine shook her head.  "That may be true.
All I can say is, it doesn't seem true to me now.
Anyway, I can't change my feeling about grandmother.
I want never to see her again.  She hates
me and—I——"

"Now, easy!  Go easy, Miss Katherine.  What
makes you think the ol' lady hates you?"

"Everything she has ever done.  She's never
kissed me in her life, that I can remember."

"Kissin' ain't all there is to lovin'.  What did
your gran'ma want to save her money for?  What
did she scrimp an' screw for, after bein' used to live
in the lap o' lucksherry all her days——?  I'm a
ignorant woman, but it seems to me, she could 'a' paid
up all was owin', and lived off'n her capital, an' said
to herself: 'Hooray!  A short life, an' a merry
one!  Let the grandchild I hate, look out for herself.
What do *I* care?'"

"Perhaps she don't mind saving and denying herself,
any more.  She's got used to it," suggested
Katherine.  "Maybe she likes it."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Martha admonished,
"Think it over."

"I have thought it over—and over and over.
Nothing will change me.  I'll not go back, Mrs. Slawson."

"Where are you goin'?"

"To Boston."

"What for, to Boston?"

"First, to tell Dr. Ballard just what and who I
am.  Grandmother thought it was *lying* for me to
hold back that story, when I should have made a
clean breast of it, at once.  She acts as if she had
to protect Dr. Ballard against me.  She acts as if
*he* is the one who's dear to her and I'm the stranger.
Well, I'll show her!  I'd never marry him now,
if—if——"

"An', after you got through throwin' down Dr. Ballard?"

"I'll go somewhere else.  To another town—and
earn my living."

"Doin' what?"

"I don't know yet.  But the way will open."

"You bet it will.  Good an' big, the way'll open,"
Martha echoed her words with scoffing emphasis.
"It'll make you dizzy lookin' at it gapin' at you!"

Katherine's pale cheeks flushed.  "I'm not a fool,
Mrs. Slawson.  There are some things I can do, as
it is.  I can learn to do more."

"Certaintly.  There's lots o' lovely things you
can do in this world—*if you don't charge anythin'
for'm*."

Katherine rose.

"I came to you, Mrs. Slawson, because I felt you
were my friend."

"So I am."

"I came to you because I knew what you'd done
for the Hinckley girl.  I want you to do the same
for me.  There's a train leaves Burbank Junction
for Boston at eleven-thirty-three.  Will you take me
over there in your motor?"

"No, ma'am!"

Katherine stared at her, out of astonished eyes.

"No, ma'am!" repeated Martha.  "When I took
Ellen Hinckley to Burbank, it was outa harm's way.
If I took *you* it'd be into it.  Ellen Hinckley was a
poor, weak sister, which runnin' away was all there
was *for* her.  *You* are strong as they make'm, an'
stayin' 's all there is for you.  Ellen owed it to
herself to leave her mother.  You owe it to yourself
to stand by yours."

"Then I'll go to Mr. Ronald.  He'll take me—when
I tell him."

"Don't you believe it.  An' you won't tell'm
either, Miss Katherine.  You're too proud, an' he's
too *fair*.  It wouldn't take him a minute to tell you,
'Stay by the poor little ol' lady, till she's no need
o' you no more, which it won't be long, now,
anyhow.'  It wouldn't take'm a minute to tell you that,
Miss Katherine—not for Madam Crewe's sake—but
for yours."

"I'll never go back," the girl reiterated
determinedly.  "Whatever I do, I'll never go back.  If
you won't take me to Burbank, I'll wait here at the
station, for the trolley.  There'll be another train
out sometime.  I'll get to Boston somehow."

"Miss Katherine," Martha pleaded, but the girl
stopped her with an impatient gesture.

"It's no use, Mrs. Slawson.  I feel as if there
were nothing but ugliness and horror in all the world.
It's come out—even in *you*!"

Martha turned her face away quickly, as if she
had been struck.

"I've not gone back on you, Miss Katherine.
Take my word for it, till you can see for yourself
what I say's true.  You think everything's ugly now.
That's because you got knocked, same as if it was,
flat on your back.  You're just bowled clean over.
You're lookin' at things upside down.  But let me
tell you somethin'—there's been good in all the
knocks ever I got in my life, if I had the sense to
see."

"I don't believe it!" said Katherine passionately.

Martha smiled.  "Certaintly you don't, at the
present moment.  But you will, in the course o'
time.  Why, the hardest knock a party'd land you,
right between the eyes, you'd see *stars*."

Katherine turned quickly away, stooped to pick
up her bag, and without another word, passed to the
door.

"Say, Miss Katherine," called Martha, "I want
to tell you somethin'.  Now, listen!  Dr. Ballard,
he tol' me oncet——" she was talking to empty air.

Katherine had gone.

Martha followed at far as the doorstep, to look
after the girlish figure marching so resolutely out into
the cold gray of the early autumn morning.  She
stood watching it, until it passed out of sight, around
the bend of the road that led to the village.

Then, with all her day's work still before her,
Martha Slawson deliberately sat down to think.

"Between the two o' them, they've made a mess
of it, for fair," she told herself.  "But I'll give
the ol' lady this credit, I do b'lieve she started in
*wantin'* to do the right thing.  The trouble with her
is, she waited too long, an' in the meantime, Miss
Katherine's been bottlin' in her steam, an' gettin'
bitterer an' bitterer, till all it took was the first word
from the little Madam, to bust her b'iler, an' send
the pieces flyin'.  Miss Katherine says they talked
all night.  I bet 'twas her done the talkin'.  I can
jus' see her takin' the bit between her teeth, an' lettin'
rip, for all she was worth, same's Sam wipin' up the
floor with Mrs. Peckett, which he'd never raised his
hand to a soul in his life before, an' prob'ly never
will again.  Just for oncet the both of'm, him an'
her, had their fling, more power to'm!  In the
meantime, the fat's in the fire.  If I'd 'a' had the
book-learnin' I'd oughta, an' not been the ignorant woman
I am, I'd 'a' been able to speak the wise word to
Miss Katherine, that would 'a' cooled her off, an'
ca'med her down, till she'd have her reason back, an'
could see the right an' wrong of it for herself.  But
I haven't, an' she ain't, an' while I'm sittin' here
thinkin' about it, she's makin' tracks for Boston, an'
Dr. Ballard.  Bein' a man, he'll welcome her with
open arms.  Bein' a girl, she'll forget all about her
good intentions to throw'm down, the minute she
claps eyes on'm.  An' then, when it's all over, an'
Time has fanned the first flush off'n 'm, he'll get
to thinkin' how she ain't the woman he thought her,
because she left her gran'ma in the lurch, which he
tol' me with his own lips he'd never ask her do it.
In fac', he wouldn't respec' her if she did do it, an'
the poor ol' lady so sick, 'n' old, 'n' lonesome.  An',
with one like Dr. Ballard, a girl'd want to think
twice before she'd risk lowerin' herself, to do what
he couldn't respec'.  No, Dr. Ballard mustn't know
Miss Katherine's left her gran'ma alone.  He mustn't
know it, even if she *does* it!  But how is he goin'
not to know it, I should like to know?"

For a few moments Martha painfully pondered the
problem, without any sign of untangling its knotted
thread.  Then suddenly she rose and, going to the
foot of the stairway, called up to Sam:

"Say, Sam—come here a minute, will you?  I
wisht you'd wake up Cora, an' tell her get busy fixin'
the breakfast.  An' when you come down, set Sammy
feedin' the hens, an' turnin' the cow out.  I ain't able
to do my chores, because I got suddently called away.
I prob'ly won't be back till dinnertime, or maybe
night.  Don't wait for me, an' don't be uneasy.  I'll
tell you about it later."

She caught up her coat and hat, hanging on a hook
on the entry closet door, and put them on while
she was making her way across the grounds, in the
direction of the big house.

She knew, before she crossed the kitchen doorsill,
that Mr. Ronald would not be up at this hour of
the morning; nevertheless, she got Tyrrell to take
a message for her to his door.

"Tell'm I got somethin' very important I wanta
say.  Ask'm will he let me telefoam it up to'm."

Mr. Frank sent down word, "Certainly!"

"I got a favor to ask of you, sir," Martha told
him without reserve.

"Let's hear it."

"Somethin' 's happened out to ol' lady Crewe's.
Miss Katherine, she come to me just now, all upset
an' wild-like.  Las' night, when I see the little
Madam, she showed as plain as could be, she's not
long for this world, an' by now—what with the shock
she's got—she's prob'ly goin' fast.  Will you
telefoam Dr. Ballard, an' ask'm to come to her right
off?  He told me, before he left, if any of you folks,
here, or *her'd* reely need'm, I was to let'm know,
an' he'd come, if it took a leg."

"But, Martha," objected Mr. Frank, "that's the
point.  If we *really need* him.  Are you sure the case
is so urgent?  Recollect, Dr. Ballard is a busy man.
His time is worth more than money.  Much more.
There isn't one chance in a thousand, that he could
leave to come here, on the spur of the moment, even
if I asked him."

"He'd come," said Martha confidently.

"And I don't want to ask him—I'd have no right
to do it, unless the need is extreme.  Is the need
extreme?  Are you sure of it?"

Martha hesitated but a moment.  "Yes, sir.  I'm
sure," she answered.

"Then I understand you to say that I am to call
up Dr. Ballard.  I am to tell him that Madam Crewe
is in a critical condition.  I am to ask him to come
on at once.  It is a matter of life or death.  That
is the message, Martha?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're positive?  Life or death?"

"Life—*an'* death," repeated Martha distinctly.

"Then call up Central, and ask for Long Distance.
When you get it, give me the wire.  Shall
you wait for the answer?"

"No, sir.  I'm goin' straight to the little ol' lady's
now.  She needs me, an'—I *know* the doctor'll
come."





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.. _`CHAPTER XVII`:

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   CHAPTER XVII

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The "little ol' lady's" need of her was as
distinct in Martha's consciousness, as if it had
come to her in the form of a verbal message, through
ordinary physical channels.

Its insistent reiteration, since the night before, had
drowned out the impression of Mrs. Peckett's
mischievous tongue, even Katherine's poignant
reproaches.  Everything else fell into the background
before that one soundless cry of appeal.

For once in her life Martha hurried.

Eunice Youngs met her at the kitchen-porch, showing
a scared face.

"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she drawled, with something
in her voice and manner almost resembling
animation, "oh, Mrs. Slawson, if ever I was glad to
see anybody!"

"What's the trouble?"

"I d'know.  When I went up to Miss Katherine's
room about an hour ago, with Madam's coffee, I
knocked an' knocked, an' no one answered.  Then,
I went to Madam's door, an' knocked an' knocked,
an' no one answered.  But the sitting-room door
was open, so I peeked in, an'——"

"Well?"  Martha's impatience spurred her on.

"Madam was sitting up in her chair, just like
always, only she—looked like she was dead."

Before the words were fairly out, Martha had
brushed Eunice aside, and was halfway up the back
stairs.  In the moment it took her to cover the
distance between them and the sitting-room, her
thoughts ran riot, but one sentence kept repeating
itself unconsciously:

"Poor Miss Katherine!  Poor Miss Katherine!"

Automatically she tapped on the sitting-room
door, pushed it open, and entered.

Madam Crewe was sitting in her chair, as Eunice
had described her, but as Martha came forward, the
drooping head lifted ever so slightly, the heavy eyes
gave out a faint spark.

Without a word Martha poured into a glass one
of Dr. Ballard's stimulants, in the use of which she
had been well instructed.  She held the glass to
Madam Crewe's lips, supporting her while she
drank, then waiting until the lips showed a tinge of
color.

"Good—morning!  Why don't—you—ask—me,
how I—slept?"

Martha caught the labored words with difficulty.
She caught, what was even more difficult, the
intention to preserve the old tone of caustic raillery.

"I never do," she answered imperturbably, playing
up with gallant spirit, to the required pace.  "I
never do.  Mornin's, when folks ask you how you
slep', mostly it's just for the chance to let you know
how *they didn't*."

"Kath—er—ine?"

"I see her before I come in here.  She's kinda
played out, this mornin'.  I guess we better let her
rest a while, hadn't we?"

Madam Crewe's eyes conveyed assent.

Chatting lightly on, ignoring any reason for not
doing so, Martha undressed the rigid little body, and
laid it tenderly in bed.  Somehow, she managed to
prepare a breakfast which the Madam patiently
suffered herself to be fed, though Martha knew it
was a hardship.

"It'd astonish you, how she's fightin'," Mrs. Slawson
told Miss Claire, whom Mr. Ronald brought
out in the course of the early forenoon to make
inquiries.  "It'd astonish you.  She *won't* give in.  She
falls asleep, in spite of herself, but after a minute,
there she is awake again, for all the world as if the
spirit in her wouldn't let itself be downed.  I never
see anybody *livin'* as fierce as her.  She's doin' it,
for all she's worth.  Every minute, full up,
begrutchin' the time she has to lose for rest."

"You were right about Dr. Ballard, Martha,"
Francis Ronald admitted.  "He is coming.  I am
going to Burbank to meet him and bring him back
with me, directly I have taken my wife home."

Martha nodded.  "I knew he'd do it.  He's the
kind you couldn't slip up on.  Same's yourself,
sir."

When Martha returned to her patient, Madam
Crewe had to be told where she had been, had to
be shown the flowers Mrs. Ronald had brought,
informed of the messages she had left.

Then—"Where's Katherine?"

The question kept repeating itself, as if in spite
of her.

"Comin' presently," Martha shied the point dexterously.

"I tried—last night ... 'square deal'——  Failed."

"Oh, no! you didn't fail.  You mustn't be in too
much of a hurry.  Miss Katherine'll see what you
meant, give her a chance to get the right squint at it.
You got to be pationate with childern.  Time goes
slow for them.  Miss Katherine's a *good* child!"

Madam Crewe raised her eyes, and fixed them full
on Martha.  "Slawson—you're a *good* woman."

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It seemed to Katherine Crewe, trudging along the
dreary stretch of road on her way to the station,
that there was no use struggling any longer in a
world where the combined forces were so obviously,
so uncompromisingly against her.  Her one hope
had been Mrs. Slawson.  Mrs. Slawson had failed her.

As she foresaw it, there was nothing in her meeting
with Dr. Ballard to promise better things.  She
had told him, once and for all, she would never
marry him.  He had taken her at her word, and gone
away.  What she had to tell him now, would only
constitute another reason for her to hold to her
decision—another ground for him to accept it with easy
resignation.

Filed past, in slow procession through her brain,
all the haunting years, through which she had tried,
and tried, and had had nothing but disappointment,
frustration, for her pains.

Dr. Ballard had assured her one could
overmaster conditions.

Not when the blood of weaklings ran in one's veins.

Everything he or Mrs. Slawson had told her, that
had seemed convincing at the time, was negatived
now, by her knowledge of what she was.  Now she
knew why she had never been able to compel life to
give her what she demanded.  It was because she
was one of the "unfit," predestined, by two
generations of degenerates, not to survive.  She could
see nothing but animus, as her grandmother's motive
for telling her.  The accumulated, smoldering resentment
of years, gathering force through this crowning
act of injustice, flamed up fiercely until it blinded
her.

When, at last, she reached the station, it was only
to find she had missed the car she should have taken.
She must wait an hour for another.

She almost smiled.  The little incident was so of
a piece with the rest of her experience.

As she composed herself to sit out the hour, in
the chill desolateness of the deserted waiting-room,
her thoughts still harried her, but now she felt them
less keenly.  It was as if her wits were wrapped in
cotton.

At a touch on her shoulder, she started up, trembling,
dazed.  She had not seen the station-master,
until he actually stood before her.

"Did you want to take the next trolley to Burbank?"

"Yes," she answered, wondering why her eyes
were so heavy, her head so dull.

"Well, it'll be along in five minutes, now.  I
*thought* you wanted to take the last one, but you
didn't stir, and come to find out, you were asleep.
I hated to rouse you now, only I thought, maybe,
I'd ought to."

She had slept two hours.

Speeding through the country, her head became
clearer.  Not for that were her thoughts less
harassing.  Another element had entered in, to make
them more so,—indecision.  Little by little, bit by
bit, came back certain stray fragments of sentences
she dimly recollected having heard Mrs. Slawson
pronounce.  Sentences that, at the time, in her
benumbed state, had left her cold, making no conscious
impression.  She remembered Martha's face, when
first she saw her at the porch door.  What had she
been afraid of?  Martha Slawson, who was never
afraid of anything?  The answer that had sprung
to her own lips, was given without deliberation.  It
had just naturally come in response to Mrs. Slawson's
look of dread.  She had replied that her grandmother
was "all right."  How had she known her
grandmother was all right?  She had not stopped
to inform herself, before she left the house.  She
had gone without a word, without a look.

The last time she and her grandmother had come
to grief, trying to "understand each other," the old
woman had borne a brave front until the ordeal was
over, then had quietly fainted away.  What if she
had done the same thing now?—when no one was
there to come to the rescue.

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—"By your own say-so you ain't any of those
things.—You got a mind o' your own an' a conscience
o' your own....  You're strong as they make'm....
This hangin' on your antsisters, for good or
for bad, makes me sick....  Don't you fool yourself:
It's every man for himself, these days, thank
God! ... Somethin' beautiful in all your blows,
if you only had sense to see.  The hardest knock you
ever got, you'd see *stars*...."

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Once, when she was a child, Katherine had been
given a toy which, more than all of her others, had
filled her with delight and wonderment.

It was a large, circular box, set on a pedestal,
revolving on a pin.  Perpendicular slits were cut, at
regular intervals, all around its lower wall, and
within were coiled long, colored picture-scrolls,
facing outward.  When the box, or drum, revolved,
the scene depicted suddenly sprang into motion.

She could not have followed, had she tried, the
subtle, involuted train of association that led her back
to her experience with the long disremembered
plaything.  But, even as she thought of it, she saw
herself, as she had so often sat, a disappointed,
bewildered child, staring at the stupid, tiresome lengths
of crude, static prints, which her inexperienced hand
had not learned to adjust, so they would become
significant, entertaining.

Like a sudden flash of light, came the suggestion
that, up to this, she had sat just so, regarding life.
Seeing it in the flat, finding it dull, stale, unprofitable.
What if it were possible to learn the trick of adjustment!
What if it were possible to discover the dynamic
pivot, by which the great revolution would
take place, the revolution that would make life
interesting, give it meaning?  Had any one ever found
either?

Instantly, she thought of two persons—the two
who, more than any others she had ever known, had
got the most good pleasure out of life.  Daniel
Ballard—Martha Slawson.  Two very different
personalities, in widely different situations, yet with the
same invincible courage, the same curious capacity for
inspiring others with their own faith in all that is
best.  These two had the same wide vision, the same
high purpose.  They both had looked on life, and
found it good.

Long before her car reached Burbank, Katherine
had determined to go home.

She heard, with composure, the Junction "starter's"
announcement, that her car had gone out three
minutes before.  She must wait an hour, if she wanted
to take the next.  In her present mood, she was glad
of the opportunity to try her new-found strength.
Out of her depths of depression she had leaped in
one miraculous moment, to a height of exaltation
such as she had never known before.  She was ready
to fight the world, in order to prove she could come
out conqueror.

"No, ma'am, there ain't any other way of getting
back, excepting the trolley, unless you take an
automobile.  But I tell you what!  The Boston train'll
be along presently.  There'll be rigs here then, and
motors come to meet it, and probably some of them'll
be going back your way.  They'd give you a lift, I
dare say, if you're in a great hurry and asked
them."

Katherine considered.  To sit in the station, tamely
waiting for things to come her way, was out of all
line with her present impulse.  She could not endure
inaction.  She had a flagellant's ecstatic eagerness
to begin her own castigation.  She would *walk*.

The starter did not confide to her his private
opinion of her plan, when she indicated what she
proposed to do by asking directions as to the way.

"There's a goodish stretch out of here, where the
walking's easy.  But you'd have to get beyond that,
before you'd be likely to be come up with, by a rig,
or a car, going your way.  You see, the trolley-line
and the motors both use the road.  Foot passengers
ain't allowed to, where there's so much traveling.
It'd be dangerous.  But once you get off the main
beat, going in the direction of your town, all you have
to do is stick to the road and you'll *get there*!"

Looking after her, as she started off gallantly
enough, his skepticism found vent in a long, low
whistle and a muttered—"You'll get there—*if* you
have luck."

But Katherine felt no doubt of herself.  It was
only after she had covered "the goodish stretch,"
and come out on the road where the walking was
"heavy," that her elation dropped a trifle, her bag
began to prove itself subject to the law of
gravitation.  Still she plodded on resolutely.

She had no hope that she would be able to outstrip
the trolley, but at least she was not meekly
submitting to overmastering forces, as she had done
in the past.  And if nothing better offered, she
would take the trolley, when it should come along,
and so accomplish her purpose in the end.

She did not know how far she had walked, when
her ears caught the sound of an approaching
automobile.

The way, at that point, was narrow, and for a
moment she hesitated.  Would it be better to step up
on the bank, or proceed, as she was doing, trusting
to the chauffeur to guide and control his car so as
not to run her down?  She chose the first course, glad
that she had done so, when, looking back the way
she had come, she saw what an immense machine it
was bearing down upon her.  Then all at once, her
heart gave a leap.

It was the Ronalds' car.

A minute, and the chauffeur had seen, recognized
her.  The car came to a halt.

The next thing she knew, Francis Ronald had
sprung from the limousine, taken her bag, given it
to his driver, handed her into the car, and, himself,
taken his place beside his man.  It was only then,
that she realized he had closed the door upon her,
and a companion.  A man.  She looked up.  The
car started into motion.  She was in Daniel Ballard's
arms, being held very close.

She tried to wrench herself away.

"No, no!" she panted.  "You don't understand!
You don't know!"

Recapturing the hand she had freed, he pressed
it to his lips, smiling at her reassuringly.

"I know everything.  It's all right.  What do you
think I care?"

"But you *don't* know," she insisted.  "I was
coming to tell you.  I was on my way.  And then I
remembered how old she is, and weak and forlorn
and—I am going back to her—to comfort her.  But I
had been on my way to you—to tell you—tell you
what I am—what I've done.  I'm——"

"Hush!" commanded Dr. Ballard gently.  "Be
still, and you'll find it's all right.  *She* made it right,
before I left to go to Boston.  She told me everything.
What you had told her, what, I suppose, she
has told you.  Everything.  She asked me to wait
until you had found yourself.  She said, you were
an idealist—'Up in the clouds,' she put it.  She
feared you would draw a storm down on yourself
and me, if you were trusted with your own life, at
this juncture.  She begged me not to press on you
any more problems than you already had.  She
wanted you to profit by her mistakes, to have what
she had missed—and to have it untarnished by
regrets.  It was for that she tested you.  It was for
that she denied herself necessaries, that, in the end,
you might have plenty.  She said, she must make sure
you did not set money above love, as she, as—*others*
had done before you.  Talk about idealists!  She
managed it all very clumsily, but, at least, she tried
to do right by you, according to her lights.  I told
her, 'twas wrong to tamper with human hearts.  I
told her, she had no right to try to direct human
destinies.  But I'd better have held my tongue.  The
mischief was already done.  She had tampered.  She
had *tried*....  She was always hoping you would
come to see she had acted in good faith.  You see
it now, don't you, sweetheart?  You'll show her you
do, when we get *home*, won't you—if it's not too
late?"

"Too late?"

The syllables rang out with cruel sharpness.

"You don't know, then, that she is—dying?"

Katherine gave him a terrified look.

"Oh, let us go fast—*fast*!  Dan—*darling*—don't
let it be too late!"

It was nearing sunset when the car drove into
Crewesmere.

Martha heard it, but the sound carried no comfort
to her heart.  At best, it could only mean that
Dr. Ballard had arrived and—Dr. Ballard was not
Katherine!  Katherine for whom her grandmother had
been vainly calling all through the day.

"She'll be here presently," Martha had answered.
"She's gone out."  "She'll come in pretty soon,
now."  "I expect her any minute."

Once, the little old woman had made a mighty
effort, gathered her forces together, and brought out
the question,

"Has she left me?  Gone to Boston?"

Martha could not have escaped her searching eyes,
if she had tried.  She met them squarely, and told
her untruth as convincingly as if it had been the
truth.  In the depths of her soul, she "had the faith
to believe" it was the truth.  "Only, I'm bound to
confess, it don't look like it."

"Leave you?  Gone to Boston?  Not on your life.
Miss Katherine's a *good* child.  Even if she'd got
kinda bewizzled-like, an' started off, meanin' to go,
she wouldn't 'a' went.  She'd turn back, an' come
home.  You can take it from me!  I know Miss
Katherine."

But the hands of the clock had slipped around,
and Katherine had not come home.

Dr. Driggs dropped in, like the rest of the neighbors,
to "inquire."  He did not venture inside the
sick-room, but when Martha described the situation,
Madam Crewe's hungry longing to keep up until she
could see her grandchild, he left something to be
administered that, he thought, "might help along,
some, maybe."

It did.

After she had taken it, the wonderful little soul
revived amazingly.  She beckoned Martha to her
with a look, whispering out the difficult syllables, as
if on her last breath—

"If Katherine shouldn't come——"

"She will come, never fear," Martha reassured her.

"I've left you—a little keepsake.  A thousand
dollars....  It's down ... black-and-white
... in letter to Katherine.  Promise ... take some,
and go ... with your Sam ... to New York
... alone ... honeymoon."

"Certaintly," said Martha, humoring her soothingly,
without the slightest suspicion she was listening
to anything but the babbling of aged weakness.

"Certaintly, ma'am.  An' thank you kindly for
the thought.  Sam an' me'll have the time of our
lives."

"See ... you do!" ordered the little Madam.

The western sky was a blaze of glory when she
spoke again.

"I'll meet you ... dearest Daniel ... when
the sun goes down!"

"What, ma'am?" inquired Martha, instantly on
the alert.

The lowered lids lifted.  The lapsing mind leaped
back to consciousness.

"Katherine!"

"She'll be here right off.  She's on her way!"

An automobile drove up before the house.

"Dr. Ballard's come all the way from Boston to
see you, ma'am," Martha said.

A moment, and the door opened.  A girlish figure
flew across the room.

"Grandmother!  Dear, *dear* grandmother!"

Katherine knelt by the bedside, gathering up the
little body in her loving arms.

Dr. Ballard bent to lift the tiny wrist.

There was a gentle sigh, a flicker of the eyelids.
Madam Crewe looked up contentedly, over Katherine's
bowed head, and her eyes fixed themselves
full on Martha.

The look said, "Slawson, you're a good woman!"

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   THE END

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