Making Over Martha

Cover art

MAKING OVER
MARTHA

BY

JULIE M. LIPPMANN

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

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1913,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

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

MAKING OVER MARTHA

CHAPTER I

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—

HAIL TO THE CHIEF!

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."

CHAPTER II

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Downstairs she found Sam.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sam grinned.

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

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

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

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

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

"Sure," said Sam.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mrs. Slawson!"

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

"The ol' lady—she ain't—worse?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No answer.

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

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

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

"Call—that—man!"

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

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

"Call—that—doctor!"

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

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

CHAPTER III

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Katherine!"

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

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

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

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

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

"Well?"

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

"Yes, grandmother."

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

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

"Where's that woman?"

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

"How much'll she charge?"

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

"Uh-huh."

"Nothing, grandmother."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sam paused in the act of pulling off a boot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I did it, mother."

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

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

It failed to make the slightest impression apparently.

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

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

"What did I tell you?"

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

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

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

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

Martha shook her head.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" she cried.

There were tears of joy in Martha's eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Old lady Crewe'?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Ask Lord Ronald,' what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, sir."

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

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

"What is it?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You'll do it?"

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

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

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

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

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

Frank Ronald liked that. It rang true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'How much sugar?' says I.

"'Accordin' to conscience,' she says.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER V

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."

* * * * *

"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."

CHAPTER VI

"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-acingly. "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."

CHAPTER VII

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!"

CHAPTER VIII

"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.

CHAPTER IX

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.