CHAPTER XIVMartha found an almost disorganized household when she got home."Say, this is never goin' to do in the world!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "I got to pull you all up with a round turn. The whole raft of you, from Ma down, needs a good whackin' into shape. Say, Ma, what you sittin' there whimperin' for? You look as if you'd lost your last enemy, an' had nobody left to take any comfort out of. I wouldn't put it before you to be yearnin' for the gayety o' little old New York again. That so?"Ma drew in her lips plaintively. "No, it ain't so. I'm contented here, enough, only—— 'Tis not the same place at all when you're not in it. Never a one o' them to think o' drawin' me a cuppertee, nor set a match to the fire, when the wind is blowin' that chill, it's enough to rattle the teeth in your jaws. When I feel cold, I feel—poor!"She began to cry."Now, Ma, you stop that, double-quick, or, you may take it from me, I'll give you something to cryfor. I'm as cross as your grandmother's worsted-work. I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail. Keep out o' my way, everybody, till I get my house lookin' like a house again, an' my fam'ly in order, so's they'll have the appearance o' civilized human bein's, no matter what they reely are. Cora, you set the kettle on, while Sammy an' me goes down cellar to start a little fire in the furnace, to take the chill out o' the air an' the grouch out o' Ma. Francie, while you're restin' run down to the store an' get me a pound o' tea—I see there ain't a leaf left in the caddy. You can take Sabina along for comp'ny, only don't forget to bring her back. We might need her for somethin' sometime. You never can tell. For goodness' sake! Is that rack-a-bones Flicker Slawson? Well, what do you think o' that! I bet there ain't been one o' you ever thought to give'm, or Nix either, a sup or a bite, since I been gone! Such a measly-appearin' dog an' cat,Inever see. I'm ashamed to look'm in the face."As she talked, Martha passed from room to room, tidying up, straightening out, getting the household wheels back into their accustomed grooves and, all the while, unconsciously transforming the atmosphere of the place, and the persons in it, until they reflected her own wholesome, vital air of well-being, well-doing.Ma, drinking hercupperteefrom the saucer, reveled in the genial warmth her daughter-in-law had caused to come up out of the cold, dark, nether regions into which she, herself, never descended, and felt a sense of virtuous satisfaction in her own personal benevolence, as she rehearsed all the gossip she had been able to cull from without or within, since her son Sammy's wife had been gone. Ma did not call it gossip, she called it news."'Twas Mrs. Peckett was in an' out, as usual, an' told me what was goin' on, or I'd never have known no more than if we'd been livin' in the Sarah desert, itself. 'Twas her told me what a bloody rascal is Buller that he'd be after comin' here, in the dead o' night wit' his fagots, to burn us alive in our beds, to say nothin' o' the gun he was for shootin' us wit', into the bargain. An' you to be standin' by, an' holdin' his hand, when 'twas cut off on account of the gangerine! Mrs. Peckett says every one in the place is callin' you a good Sam Maritan.""'In me eye,' says Biddy Martin," Martha sang out sceptically."Mrs. Peckett was sayin' 'twas the wife's dooty stand by her own man, an' not another woman's at all. Mrs. Peckett was after sayin' God knows she's as quick to do a kindness, as the next one, but the evil tongues some folks do be havin' nowadays, would make you look out for your repu*ta*tion.""Say, Ma," said Martha, "did you ever notice how some people'll try to keep their own place clean by shakin' their dirty rags on other people's heads?Theydon't care where the smut lands, so long's they've shook it off'n their own skirts. The trouble is, they sometimes get come up with. They don't watch which way the wind's blowin', so they get all their own dirt, an' then some, blown back on'm, which they'd better never have stirred it up, in the first place."Without in the least understanding her daughter-in-law's drift, Ma felt it desirable to change the subject. Did Martha know that the Fred Trenholms had "leegially" adopted the three Fresh Air children they had had with them all this summer and last?"An' they do be as proud, as proud! The way you'd think they'd a fortune left them, instead of a ready-made fam'ly to eat'm out o' house an' home, itself.""The Trenholms arebricks!"Ma coughed nervously, then tried again."That old bachelor brother o' Mrs. Coleses, the one's been so long sick-a-bed wit' the doctor, he's been took down wit' the meazles."Martha proceeded with her work."Well, that's the way it goes! When a fella's been cryin' wolf for years an' years, the chances are he'll attrac' some kinda thing his way, if it's only a meazly little skunk, which is more embarrassin' than dangerous. Meazles is a kinda come-down, for a party Hiram Parkinson's age an' ambitions. He's been walkin' around with, as you might say, one foot in the gravey,—poor soul! I bet it makes'm sore to feel he's with both feet in the soup. Meazles! I guess I'll send'm a glass or two o' my slip-go-down jelly to cool his throat.""I guess he didn't be expectin'that, whatever it was he did be expectin'," Ma dropped complacently."Well, you gener'ly getsump'n, if you expect it long enough. That's why it's up to us to be sure we like our order before it goes in, for in the end we'll have to chew it, anyhow."Martha drew her chair to the center-table, seated herself, and taking paper, pen and a bottle of ink from the drawer, prepared to write."Goin' to write, Martha?" queried Ma, peering over at her curiously."Looks like it, don't it?""A letter?""Maybe, or else my last will an' prayer-book, as they say.""I wonder——""I guess if you're goin' to wonder out loud, Ma, you'll have to do it later. I got to get this job off'n my hands right now, an' between you an' me an' the lamp-post, I ain't so flip with my pen an' ink, I can do much of anythin' fancy,while you wait. I got to take my time at it. It's the hardest stunt I know of. Firstoff, you got to have somethin' to write about, an' then, before you're fairly ready to put it down—what with delays, owin' to spellin', blots an' so forth—it's got away from you, an' you have to think up somethin' else in its place. While you're doin' that the next idea gets away, so you're left, whatever way you look at it. Now, 'silence in the court-house,' as Sammy says."Ma would have given all she was worth to discover what it was that, for the next couple of hours or so, Martha was so painfully employed upon. She did her best to find out, but though she craned her neck, ducked her head, peeked and peered, it was no use. A substantial elbow curved around the paper, effectually shielding it from inquisitive eyes.Dere doct. Ballad you will be supprised to here I am home again but that is wear I am for Miss Clare is well enough now to spair me and the baby is doing fine in spite of the nurses witch says she will live now witch I thank them kindly wen her two cheeks is getting as pink as roses and round besides so a blind man could see it and never a cry out of her the hole day long the lamb or night either except wen neccery. Mr. F. Ronald would not call the quean his cousin him and miss Kathrine is bizzy getting a party from the city to come and give a corse of leckchers to show the natives off of lantren slides what there bodies maid out of and how there jerms looks wen you see them on a sheet verry much unlarged. miss katrine hopes seeing what the licker does to his jerms will scair Buller off the drink annyhow he ain't drunk much as ushal becaus he has bin driving her round in his backboard witch he is verry proud of besides he has not the time wen he is doing it. Wile i bean away Hireram parkinsin got meezils if this dont intrust you madam Crew is verry well but her and Miss Kathrin is still on the outs why i do not no Miss Kathrine was getting verry thin and wite when you left she got going to Mr. F. Ronaldses now she looks better do not think that is becaus ennything accepting the corse of leckchers. MEN is necherly jellys pardon the libberty but believe me miss Kathrin is trew blew like if she got found of any party once would not change to get found of any other party no matter how plutonic as a gent leman i once lived out with his wife Mr. Grandvil lately maid to a judg told me witch I just looked it up in the dickshunnery for the speling and it ain't what he told me it was a tall but relating to regions of fire insted of cool like you feel for your relations. Buller is heeling alrite so I no he is clean I told him his hole arm would go if he did not let up on the drink i will let you no if he lets up I will let you no if Madam crew and Miss Kathreen lets up all so enny more i think will intrust you I know what was in your hart wen you asked me so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will knew you can count on me. Love to all Yourstrewly Martha Slawson.The writing of the letter in itself might not have excited any undue suspicion in Ma. Once in a long time Martha did actually "sit down to take her pen in hand" to write to one of the relations, though usually it was Cora who was offered up on the altar of family concord. But to-day "me son Sammy's wife's" conduct was exceptional. She wrote and rewrote, erased, tore up, until, Ma cogitated, "It's fairly a caution, an' out of all sensibleness, the way she does be destroyin' perfectly good paper."Also,"It'd surely be a stranger she'd be after wastin' all that time an' ink on, for not one of her own at all would ever be for gettin' the like of it." The next logical step in the shrewd deduction was—"Who is the stranger?"Ma watched the little Mont Blanc at Martha's elbow grow, until finally it coasted, like a tiny avalanche to the floor. She watched her daughter-in-law stoop, abstractedly gather up the fragments and stuff them into her apron pocket.When the great task was done, she saw the mysterious letter, artfully resisting, obliged at last to yield to main force, and go into its envelope whether it would or no. Saw it sealed, saw it stamped, saw it directed, saw it triumphantly carried, by Martha's own hand, to the R.F.D. mail-box, though Ma insisted "one of the childern could go just as good, an' save you the steps, itself."When Martha returned from her errand she found Mrs. Peckett in possession of Sam's chair by the table."And how's Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles? It's good to see you home again," the caller greeted her before she had fairly crossed the doorsill."Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain't had any troubles.""That's what Martha always says," Ma observed half-complainingly, "Martha always says she wouldn't be for callin' what-she's-come-up-wit'trouble. She says, if you don't notice it, 'twill pass you by the quicker, but if you clap a name to it, 'twill come in an' live wit' chu, till you'd never get rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken a sudden dive in a clumsily-run elevator. Through the "sinkin' at the stummick" that followed, she saw Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making ready for fight. She flung herself into the breach, laughed, winked confidentially over Ma's head to their neighbor, and said calmly:"Mrs. Peckett an' me'll have to grow your age, Ma, an' be the mother o' married sons, before we reely know what trouble is, won't we, Mrs. Peckett?"Mrs. Peckett nodded."Though I will say, I never put much stock in all the talk that's going the rounds about mother-in-laws' suffering at the hands of the parties their sons married. Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I always point to Mr. P.'s mother who lived with us a year and a half after we went to housekeeping. The store she set by me! She was so afraid I'd do too much, or be worried, or the like of that, that, at the last, when she couldn't say much of anything, for the weakness, she'd tell the nurse, 'Don't let Beulah in!' When the nurse told me about it, after Mother Peckett was gone I was so affected I 'most cried. I said to the nurse, 'Did you ever!' and the nurse said to me, 'We reap what we sow!' Just like that—'We reap what we sow!' I wager she's told the story to many a family she's been out nursing since. Though, of course, one case don't prove the rule. But even if I am exceptional, I believe there's lots of daughter-in-laws better than they give them credit for being.""Oh, I ain'tcomplainin'," Ma maintained. "Martha, here, duz fairly well, an' I'll say this much for her, she's turned out better than I expected."Martha bowed profoundly. "'Thank you, thank you, sir,' she sayed. 'Your kindness I never shall forget!'""Me son Sammy was me youngest, an' 'twas hard on me, part wit' him, to be married. All the time he was courtin' Martha, I was prayin' she'd turn'm down, or somethin'd happen to come between'm, the way they'd never go to the altar when the time come. I wanted Martha for to be takin' another fella was sparkin' her along wit' Sammy, but she didn't. She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me. It fairly broke me heart.""Oho! So you had your love-affairs, like the rest of us, Mrs. Slawson. Do tell! Is the heart-broken lover still hanging on, or——""Heart-broken nothin'!" ejaculated Martha scornfully. "Gilroy's as chipper as a squirrel, an' don't you forget it!"Ma wagged a sagacious head. "But he never married, Martha. You know that, as good as me. An' it's not for the lack of chances, itself. There's many a girl would give her eye-teeth for'm, wit' the riches he has, an' dressin' like a dood, the day."Mrs. Peckett sighed. "Well, well, and I thought you to be such a sober, steady-going woman, Mrs. Slawson! But it seemsyou'vehad your romance, too! It's a surprise, but—live and learn! Live and learn!""That's just it!" Martha returned. "We don't. We live, but we don't learn, more's the pity. Have a cup o' tea. Ma relishes it, along about this time in the afternoon, an' it won't be a mite o' trouble. An' you must sample some cookies I made this mornin'. I'm quite stuck on my own cookies, if I do say it, as shouldn't."After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed, Martha observed with more than usual gravity,"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin' to Mrs. Peckett you wouldn't just as lief was posted on a board-fence.""Why, what call have you to say that to me, I should like to know, Martha Carrol?""Nothin' much, only—I kind, o' wish she hadn't got wind o' Gilroy.""I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever hear the like? If I so much as open me lips, I'm rebuked for't, the way I'd bring confusion on the fam'ly. Better for me, if I kep' to me own room entirely, an' never set foot here at all, to be accused o' settin' the neighbors gossipin' when 'twas never me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned Gilroy's name."Martha shrugged. "Come on, now, Ma, cheer up! I didn't mean to hurt your feelin's. It's just I nacherly distrust Mrs. Peckett. I used to think she was good, firstoff. But she's as shifty as dust! I wouldn't put it before her to take anything she got a-holt of—the innocentest thing, an' twist it into what'd scandalize your name, so you'd never get rid of the smutch of it, however you'd try. The worst things ever I heard of the folks in this place, Mrs. Peckett told me. It's took me over a year to find out most of'm's just mischeevious tattle. You can lock up against a thief, but you can't pertec' yourself from a liar."Ma made no response, beyond blinking very fast for a second or so, but that was enough for Martha. Recognizing it as the sign of a coming deluge, she hastily changed the subject."What do you hear from the folks down home, these days?" she asked affably."No more than yourself. Sam got a letter from one o' them (Andy, I'm thinkin') this mornin'. Didn't he be after readin' it to youse before he went out?""No, he did not.""I thought surely he would be tellin' you, that are his wife, even if he kep' his old mother in ignorance. That's the way it is wit' childern, these times.""For the love o' Mike!" Martha murmured beneath her breath.When Sam came in, shortly after, had silently eaten his supper, and was preparing to settle down for a bout withThe New England Farmer, she proceeded to take him to task on his mother's behalf."Ma feels kind o' sore because you didn't show her the letter you got this mornin' from Andy."Sam pulled off his shoes with a jerk. "How'd she know I got a letter from Andy?""I d'know. But you did, didn't you?""Yes.""Well, why didn't you read it to her? She's gettin' old, an' the older she gets, the crankier she gets. I guess it's up to us to humor her, for, one thing's certain, she won't humorus, an' there might as well be some fun in the house for some one."Sam caught his lower lip between his teeth and held it there for a moment."There was nothing in Andy's letter would interest her. That is, there was no family news, or anything. 'Twas a business letter."Martha proceeded with her work, dropping her questioning at once."Well, an' why wouldn't I be interested in me own son Andy's venturin', no matter if itisbusiness, itself?" insisted the old woman querulously, when Martha repeated what Sam had said. "If that same Andy does be makin' a fortune, surely his own mother should be hearin' tell of it, first; leastwise, so she should in any God-fearin' fam'ly. But it's more like a heathen I'm treated now, than a Christian woman, that's raised a big crop o' childern till they'd be able fend for themselves. Andy is likeliest of the lot, an' now, when he's made his fortune, an' would be writin' his brother of his luck, his own mother would be told, 'It's only business!' the way she'll not take a natural joy in his triumphin', or, maybe, look to'm for a stray dollar, itself."To all of which Martha made no reply.But later, when Ma and the children were abed and asleep, she looked up from her mending to find Sam's eyes fixed on her in a stare of grim desperation."For a fella whose brother has just made his everlastin' fortune, you're the mournfullest party I ever struck," she quietly observed. "You're as glum-lookin' as one o' them ball-bearer undertakers at a funer'l. Cheer up! It ain't your funer'l! An' ifyouain't made the fortune, your brother has, so it's all in the fam'ly, anyhow.""What do you mean?" Sam asked."Why, Ma says Andy's letter was to tell you he's made a fortune."Sam groaned."Well, hasn't he?""No.""What was his letter about, then? He ain't after money, to borrow it off'n you, is he?"Sam shook his head."Because, if Andy wants to try any of his get-rich-quick games on us, he better guess again. He's got to take his chances with all the other fancy dancers, that's all there is to it. It's a poor pie won't grease its own tin.""He don't want to borrow, Martha. He——""Well——?"Sam swallowed hard, laidThe New England Farmeron the table, and drew himself in his chair a step nearer his wife."When I was down in New York, Andy was fairly beset with the idea of going into a scheme with a man he knew, who'd offered him a chance, if he could raise the cash, or as-good-as. Andy could talk of nothing else. The same with Nora-Andy. They told me all about it, and I'm bound to say it did sound good to me. But I'd no money to give or lend, and I told them so. Ma'd been blabbing about our having a bit saved, and Nora-Andy reproached me with withholding it from my own brother, when it was only a loan he needed, with good interest for the one loaned it, to take the chance of a lifetime. I told them the money wasn't mine, but yours and the children's. You'd saved it, not I. And then Andy said, he'd never lay hand on it, if it was the last penny he'd ever hope to see. 'Twas not money he wanted of me at all, and he brought out a paper, that, if I would set my name to it, would help him out, as fine as money, and nobody hurt by the transaction a hair."Martha dropped her sewing to her lap."You never signed it, Sam?" she entreated. "Of course, you never signed it. You know better'n me that it's wrong to set your name to any tool—(ol' lady Crewe's l'yer's very words)—wrong to set your name to any tool——""Instrument," suggested Sam drearily."Well, instrument, then. It's wrong to set your name to any instrument unless you know what you're up against.""I know it," confessed Sam humbly."Well?" Martha plied him."I did it, mother. And now, the note's come due, and Andy can't meet it, and——""Well, what do you think o' that!" sighed Martha.Sam had been leaning forward on his elbows, his palms propping his chin. Now his face dropped into his hands, as he hid his haggard eyes from her clear, searching ones."How much, Sam?""All we got. The whole two-hundred-and-fifty."For a moment Martha was dumb. Then, straightening back in her chair, taking up her sewing again, she said, "Well, at least wegotit. There's that to be thankful for. An' doncher break your heart, Sam, worryin' about your bein' such a fool as sign that tool—I should say instrument. I done the same thing myself, now I come to think of it. The pot can't call the kettle black. I set my name to a paper, ol' lady Crewe ast me to, an' God only knows how much I'll be stung for it, forIdon't.—But wouldn't it kinda discourage you from puttin' by for a rainy day, when the money you scrimped an' scringed to save, has to go for a umbrella to keep some other fella dry, which allyouget, is the drippin's—right in the neck!"CHAPTER XVAfter many days of serious pondering Martha decided that the only way to relieve her mind was to "march straight up to the captain's office," and ask Madam Crewe point-blank, precisely what the liabilities would be, in the event of the paper she had signed, falling due, and failing to be met by the old lady herself."But if she said 'twas herwill?" argued Sam. "You're all right if it was her will. You couldn't lose out on that, you know. Unless you were the kind that'd be looking for yourself. And, of course, if you sign one as witness, you're sure you can't be left anything in it.""I don't want to be left anything in it. But, by the same token, I don't want to beleftother ways, either. That's to say, I wouldn't want to have to cough up a couple o' hunderd now,just to oblige. Especially when I ain't got'm. Besides, it wasn'thertold me 'twas a will. 'Twas the l'yer—which is quite another pair o' shoes. Anyhow, I'm goin' up there to find out what I'm libel for in case she can't pay, like Andy."Sam saw there was nothing to do but stand aside and let her go.The moment she entered the room, Martha realized that a change had taken place in "ol' lady Crewe." It was not anything she could "put her finger on," as she would have expressed it, but it was there unmistakably, to be felt, to be—feared.At the sound of her step upon the floor, the little Madam looked up quickly. A faint smile curled the corners of her mouth for a second, then vanished."Well, and what's brought you here, after all these weeks? I thought you had fallen into the well.""I been stayin' with Miss Claire, I should say, Mrs. Ronald. An' since a week or ten days, when I went home, I been so took up with my house an' the fam'ly in gener'l, I ain't had a chance," Martha explained eagerly."Never mind apologizing. What's been the trouble with 'the house and the family in general'?""They got kind o' loose-jointed while I was away, so's I had to lick'm into shape again,—bring'm up to time. An' it kep' me hoppin'.""You havehoppedto some purpose, I hear. You and Dr. Ballard have been making a record for yourselves.""Me?" repeated Martha, amazed. "I ain't done nothin'. But pshaw! I forgot! You're just tryin' to take a rise out o' me, as ushal.""Awhat?""A rise. You know what I mean, ma'am. Tryin' to take my measure. That's what you're mostly up to—only folks ain't on to you."Madam Crewe regarded her fixedly for a moment."Do you know, Slawson," she pronounced thoughtfully at length, "I've an idea I'd quite enjoy some of the things you say—if you spoke English. The trouble is, I don't understand your patois."Martha smiled blandly. "Askin' your pardon, for the liberty, I often thought the same thing o' you. I don't understandyourwhat-you-may-call-it, either. Nor most of us don't understand each other's, an' that's what's the trouble with us, I guess. I sometimes wonder how we get along as good as we do, with the gibberish we talk, makin' hash o' what we mean, an' sometimes, not meanin' anythin'.""Right.""An' the funny part is, the parties we're most likely to slip up on is them we love the most.""Go on.""I was thinkin' how, when my girl Cora was a baby in my arms, I had the best holt o' her I'll ever have, prob'ly. Her an' me understood each other then. But now, every oncet in a while, I might as good be a Dutchman, an' her a Figi Injun for all we make o' each other. I try to hold in my horses, an' hang on to all the patience I got at them times, an' I guess she does the same, an' somehow, we manage to rub along, but you may take it from me it's some of a scratch! The same with the other childern, as they grow up. Even down to Sabina, who, young as she is, has a mind o' her own an' sever'l other parties to boot.""And in the meantime, you and your husband are going without common comforts, necessities—for those very children, who would turn about and rend you at the first opportunity."Martha laughed. "Not on your life they wouldn't rent us—orsellus either, when it come to the test. If we go without things, to givethema better start, we're not foolin' ourselves on it, believeme! We're makin' a A1 investment. We don't grumble at the taxes, or the 'sessments or all the rest o' the accidental expenses—so long as we know they're good. It's when you'd feel you got a bad bargain on your hands, like it'd be poor drainage, or hard as rocks, or leakin' and shifty—it'd bethenyou'd hold back, sendin' good money after bad. An' then you'd be wrong. For you can take it from me, there's no child so bad it ain't worth savin'. You read about'm in the papers, how they steal an' lie an' so forth, an' when all's said an' done, it's like pictures you'd get of yourself—they ain't as good as you are, bad as you are. No, you can't spoil a good child, an' you can help a bad one. So small credit to us, Sam an' I, if we do save. It's for the sake of our own, which, after all, we know the stuff they're made of. Same as you and Miss Katherine."Madam Crewe was silent."No, it's not puttin' money in the childern, makes me sore," Martha continued, "it's when we scraped an' screwed a few dollars together for a nest-egg, an' then, in the turn o' a hand, it's gone—to pay for somethin' we never owed, nor no one got any good out of, but the wrong fella.""You mean you've been doing something foolish? Speculating? Losing money?" demanded Madam Crewe abruptly."My husban' signed a paper for his brother, an' it let'm in for all we had put by. I was wonderin' if the paper I signed here early in the summer, I was wonderin' ifthathad a sting in it, too? An' if so, how much?""I don't understand.""I mean, the paper I signed here the time Eunice Youngs an' me both set our names to it together.""That paper was my will, woman. It had nothing to do with you.""That's what Sam told me, but—I——""You could not be called upon to pay one copper because of what you did that day. On the contrary—— No! Never mind! What have you stood to lose through your husband's foo——""He wasn't any foolisher'n me," Martha anticipated her quickly."Your husband's misfortune," amended Madam Crewe."Two-hunderd-and-fifty dollars. All we had saved. But we'll set about right over again, an' if we have luck, we can put by some more. An' anyhow, I'm thankful there won't be another such call on us. That was what I kinda had on my mind when I come.""Well, you can shift it off your mind. I give you my word. You believe me, don't you?""Yes'm.""And I believe you. So far we understand each other. Now, Slawson, I am going to prove that I trust you. I am going to ask you an honest question. I want an honest answer.""Yes'm.""You are the mother of four children. You have had experience in bringing them up right. I have had one child—one grandchild. I have brought them both up—wrong. What's the trouble?"Martha did not reply at once.Madam Crewe waited patiently, making no attempt to hurry her, and the room was as still as if it had been empty. At last Martha spoke."O' course I d'know what the trouble was, if there was any, with your boy. But it seems to me, I see where you kind o' slipped up on it with Miss Katherine.""Well?""Firstoff, the way I look at it, childern is all selfish, which is only to say they're human, like the rest of us. They're selfish an' they're mischeevious, an' they're contrairy, for, when all's said an' done, they're—childern. What we want to do is, learn'm not to be selfish an' mischeevious an' contrairy. An' how can we learn'm not to be it, if we're that way ourselves? There's a lady I usedta work out for—(you know her—Mrs. Sherman, Mr. Frank Ronald's sister). She give her boy every bloomin' thing money could buy——. But she never give'm a square deal. You can take it from me, what a young 'un respec's is a square deal. He mayn'tlikeit, but he respec's it. An'youfor givin' it to'm."Now, beggin' pardon for the liberty, I don't think Miss Katherine's had a square deal, or a fair show. She ain't had what's her rights, an' she knows it. You kep' her too close on—well, lots o' things. Love an' a free foot an', oh, lots o' things. She's lived so long, as you might say, from hand to mouth, that now she don't know which is her hand an' which is her mouth. An' that makes her look kinda awkward to you. What I'd rather my childern'd feel about me than anythin' else is, that I see their side an' try to treat'm white. All the cuddlin' an' the coddlin' in creation won't help you, if your child knows it ain't havin' justice. An' all the strictness an' the punishin' won't keep it straight, if it ain't sure there's love along with the lickin's."Miss Katherine's agoodchild. You couldn't go far wrong, if you took it for granted she was goin' to do the right thing, like you are yourself. If I was you, excuse me for sayin' it—if I was you, I'd kinda open up to Miss Katherine. She's young. With all she's so tall an' han'some-lookin', she ain't learned all the sense there is. She thinks, the same's the rest o' the kids, that the only reason she ain't got the world for the askin' is because her 'mean ol' fam'ly' don't want her to have no fun. Give her a chance. Show her you believe in her. You got to believe folks believe in you, to do your best. Now, take you, for instance. Your talkin' up so quick an' sharp as you do, makes most parties feel you're kinda hard to get along with. But my,Iget along with you first-rate, because I ain't fooled by your outsides. I know your insides is all right, an' that's enough for me. But a young lady, like Miss Katherine, she wouldn't know. She's got to be showed, like Sam says they do in Missouri. But, you can take it from me, you wouldn't have to show her but once. There! I've talked a blue streak, an' prob'ly tired you all out. Only, you see, when you get me onchildern, you got me on a subjec's my speciality, as you might say. That is, I try to make it my speciality, like Sam does cows an' pigs an' farm-produc's gener'ly, now he's got to deal with'm. Before I go, can't I get you somethin', or, maybe, see you safe in bed?""Bed?" echoed Madam Crewe sharply. "Why do you suggest bed to me? Do I strike you as belonging there?""Oh, no'm!" lied Martha calmly. "I wasn't thinkin' o' your comfort, so much as mine. It kinda's got to be a habit with me to want to tuck the little ones up an' cover'm over, 'n' know they're fixed for a good, sound sleep, before I leave'm."Madam Crewe set her lips."Well, Slawson, it won't be long before you can do that for me. But not to-night. Go your way now. It's growing late. But come again soon. Very soon, you understand?""Yes'm."On her way out, Martha stopped at the kitchen door."Say, Eunice," she accosted that placid young woman whom she found cozily toasting her toes before the grateful warmth of the range, "where's Miss Katherine?""I d'know.""Who's lookin' after the little Madam?""Nobody much, lately. Miss Katherine used to, and she does now, when she's home, but she's off, mostly, 'n' I have all I can do getting my work done up.""Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly. "Well, I'm comin' to-morra again. You can tell Miss Katherine. But in the meantime, if you was plannin' to go home to-night,doncher. Just you stay right on deck here all of the time, from this on, do you understand?""Why?""Because Itellyou, that's why. You might be needed on short notice. Now, are you goin' to do as I say or ain't you?""Yes.""That's a good girl. An'—an' if I should be needed for anythin', any time, just you come for me, quick as you can put, be it day or night, an' I'll drop everythin' an' come."Eunice followed her to the doorstep."Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."Martha laughed. "Well, I'm glad if I gotsomekinda move on you, young lady. You certaintly need it."But as she went her way home, Martha was in no laughing mood."I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair," she muttered, hurrying her steps, spurred on by an unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam, the children, even Ma.Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the light from the sitting-room lamp streaming out genially into the chill dusk of the early autumn evening. It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly re-established her with the world on the old terms of good-cheer and common-sense optimism. The broad, benevolent smile for which Madam Crewe had so often derided her, was on her face as she turned the knob of the sitting-room door, pushed it open. A second, and the smile was there no longer."What's the matter?" Martha asked, looking from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from Mrs. Peckett to Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.Nobody answered.Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place. Mrs. Peckett, deeply flushed, was standing near the window, while Sam, towering over all, showed a livid, threatening face, the like of which Martha had never seen in all the years of their life together."What's the matter?" she repeated.Again the question went unanswered, but after a moment, her husband, with a gesture, bade her close the entry-door."Now, whatisthe matter? For the love o' Mike, one of you say!" she demanded for the third time, after she had obeyed.The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed to pluck an answer out of Ma."As Heaven's me witness, Martha, I meant no harm," she whimpered peevishly."Well?" probed Martha."But to see me own son castin' black looks at me, as if he'd slay me——""Tell me whatyou'vedone, never mind about Sam!""The day I first see you writin' one o' them letters, Martha——""What letters?"Sam's fist came down on the table-top with the force of a sledge-hammer."Hold your tongue, Ma! By God! I won't have my wife's ears soiled with your dirty gossip. I've listened to you myself long enough, too long. I'd not have done it, even so, except for the need there is to stop your scandal-mongering—yours and this woman's here."Martha laid a restraining hand upon his arm."Why, Sam! What ails you?" she asked in wonder. "I never seen you the like o' this before. Let Ma speak. She was sayin' about letters. What letters?"The muscles in Sam's jaws twitched visibly beneath his tense skin. As Martha looked at him, she seemed scarcely to recognize him for the man who was her husband. Suddenly, from out of the dim recesses of her memory, emerged a line she had heard quoted in some far-off, vague time and association, when she had not consciously taken note of it. "Beware the fury of a patient man!" Now she understood what the words meant."If my wife must know this disgraceful thing, it's I will tell her," he spoke so low, his words were barely audible, but Ma would have felt easier if he had thundered. "Now listen, you two, to what I say. Never for one second have I doubted my woman. Never would I. When I tell you, Martha, what these have been saying, I don't do so for you to deny it. You're my wife. I believe in you—and would, against heaven and—hell. It seems, you've been writing letters to some one, lately, which God knows you've the right to do it. But these two here must needs spy on you, and sneak about, stealing the stray bits of scribbling you thought you'd destroyed and thrown away. They gathered them up, and, when your back was turned, pieced them together, to send to me with an anonymous letter—only I suspicioned something was afoot, and watched, and to-day I caught them at it. My God! There ought to be a separate fire in hell as punishment for such damned muck-raking!""Sam!" entreated Martha."Suppose youhavewritten Gilroy, who, none knows better than I, how once he wanted to marry you, and how you turned him down for me. Suppose you have written to Peter Gilroy, and Peter Gilroy has written to you——""I have, Sam, an'—he has," Martha confessed slowly."Surely you'd the right to do it, and I'd be the last to question you."Martha gave him a long look."Did you say Ma an' Mrs. Peckett got a-holt o' my letters to Gilroy?"Sam nodded."Did they give you the letters?"Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her. It was full of crumpled scraps.With patient care Martha smoothed out the first tattered shred that came to hand. Laboriously she read it aloud."'I knew what was in your heart when you ast hie so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will no. Love. All yours—MARTHA."She looked up to meet her husband's eyes."Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.Mrs. Peckett's chin, gradually lifting, at last almost regained its habitual level."You see," she observed suavely, "I'm not a liar, Mr. Slawson. And I'm not the other things you have called me to your shame—not mine. But I bear you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either. I'm not that kind of person. I'm a Christian woman, trying to do my duty.""Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely."The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening to cover her husband's unaccustomed profanity. "The only thing is, these bits here, as I look'm over, ain't from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy. They're from letters I wrote to—another man."Still Sam did not flinch.Martha took a deep breath."Won't you take a chair, Mrs. Peckett? An' I'll sit, too. An' so will you, Sam. So long's we got on this subjec', we better come to a clear understandin'. That's always the best way. As I said at the start, Sam, I have been writin' to Gilroy, an' he's been writin' to me."She leaned from her chair to where her sewing-machine stood, pulled open the drawer of its table, and took therefrom a couple of thin envelopes tied about with a strand of black darning-cotton."P'raps I'd ought to have told you firstoff, Sam, but I didn't, because I thought your feelin's might be hurt, an'—what you don't know won't worry you. The day after you had the news of Andy's note comin' doo, I got a letter from Gilroy. I've it right here now. Also mine answerin' it. That's to say, acopyof mine answerin' it. The reason I kep' 'm is, Gilroy is with Judge Granville, an'—well—when you're dealin' with foxy parties, you got to be foxy to match'm. I won't read you the letters. If you like,youcan read'm. They're hereforyou. Gilroy said 'twas him held your note for Andy. He'd took it over, an' he was writin' me to say that, for the sake o' the days gone by, he wanted to do me a kindness. He said he'd let you off the note. He said, well he knew what a poor provider you was, an' we'd prob'ly none too much, if we had anythin' a tall, an', as for him, he'dplenty, so he'd never miss it, bein' as he is a bachelder, an' right-hand-man to Judge Granville, an' prosperin' better an' better every day."I wrote'm back, post-haste, that I thanked'm kindly, but you'd already sent the money to Andy. Such bein' the case, I couldn't o' course take him at his word to let you off the note, but knowin' me so well as he'd used to, he'd know that I'd like nothin' better than take money off'n a friend who meant so kindly by meas his letter showed he did. Bein' that kind of a friend, I said, I knew he'd like to hear you're doin' grand—you're right-hand-man to Mr. Ronald, an' we've all we need an' more, too, an' prosperin' better an' better every day."I took my letter to Miss Claire, before ever I sent it off, to make sure it was all right, an' Gilroy'd know what I meant. Miss Claire laughed when she was through readin' it. She said, it was surely all right, but what he'd read between the lines had illustrations, whatever that means. Anyhow, it stirred up Gilroy somethin' fierce, an'——" Martha paused, the blood surged up to her face in a tide. "He wrote to me again. A whole lot o' love-sick trash. I sent his letter back to'm (me keepin' a copy) with just a gentle hint o' warnin' to the effec' that if ever he done the like again, I'd tell you on'm, an' we'd both of us come down to New York by the first train, an' take a turn out of'm—first you, an' then meon your leavin's. Here's the whole co-respondence, Sam. I'm glad to get rid of it. It was clutterin' up my machine-drawer. But, p'raps, before you take it, to lock it away—Mrs. Peckett an' Ma would like to examine it."Mrs. Peckett shook her head."Then you're satisfied I ain't a callyope?" Martha asked her."Awhat?" demanded Sam sharply."A callyope. One o' them things whistles on a boat, which, every oncet in a while we'd hear'm on the river, down home. Likewise, they mean coqwette.""You meansiren?""Yes. Sure. They're called both ways. Madam Crewe says all women are sirens. Then you're satisfied I ain't a siren, Mrs. Peckett?"Mrs. Peckett inclined her head, smiling with easy patronage.Martha regarded her narrowly for a moment."I see youain'tsatisfied!""I certainly am, so far as Mr. Gilroy is concerned, but——"Sam got upon his feet in a manner to cause Mrs. Peckett to come to a sudden halt."I know what she means, Sam. Keep cool, an' let me handle this, which I'm the only one can, anyhow. You'd like to know the name o' the party I wrote them letters to, you an' Ma amused yourselves playin' puzzles with? Well, I'll tell you his name. It's Dr. Ballard, an' evenyoucouldn't be so much of a looney as thinkDr. Ballardwould give a second thought to the likes o' me, that I'd be writin' love-letters to'm, much less him wastin' time to read'm, let alone write me back."Before he went away, Dr. Ballard told me, he'd a likin' for this place an' every mother's son in it, which,I s'pose, that means you, too, an' he ast would I write'm, to tell how things was goin' on, an' if Miss Claire an' the baby was gettin' on, an' how Buller was comin' along. I promised I would. An' I kep' my promise, an' I'm goin' to keep on keepin' it. Any objection?"Mrs. Peckett signified she had none."Then all that remains is to say good-by," said Martha gravely, rising and standing with quiet dignity beside her husband.Mrs. Peckett took a step toward the door. Then abruptly she turned and extended her hand to Martha.Sam Slawson shook his head. "No, you don't!" he forbade decidedly."I guess we better wait a while, an' see how we feel about each other later," Martha explained without animus. "My husban' says, 'No, you don't!' so' o' course that settles it for the present, anyhow. It's a kind o' pity things has come to this pass, for I don't like to be on the outs with anybody. But you certaintly took a risk, Mrs. Peckett. If my husban' had been likesomemen——! I don't see how you dared do it, knowin' you're a woman, yourself, with a man o' your own. P'raps 'twas because you'd set out to make me over, that you hold me so cheap. I always noticed folks is never so choice o' made-over things. They think the best wear's out of'm anyhow, an' it don't matter if they do use'm sort o' careless now. But itismatter, for it'syou'llbe blamed for not bein' clean, not the thing you've dirtied. Besides, sometimes amade-overwill serve you better than new. I give you leave to remember that, Mrs. Peckett."When their visitor was gone, Ma began to cry aloud."The fear is in me heart. I haven't a limb to move, the way I'd be dreadin' Sam's punishin' me!" she moaned, rocking backward and forward in her chair."He'll not punish you, Ma!" Martha promised.Still Sam bent stormy brows upon his mother."I'll not punish you," he said, "but after what's happened, I guess we'll all feel happier if you make your home away from this.""I'll die ere ever I'll go back to New York City to live wit' the likes o' them as don't want me!" sobbed the old woman explosively."A Home, then. I'll see you settled in a good Home."Ma looked into his stern eyes, saw no relenting there, and turned to Martha. She held up her hands with the mute appeal of a child begging to be carried.And Martha nodded. She would carry her."For," she explained to Sam, later, "Ma's only a child, after all. With no more sense, or as much as Sabina. Let her stay, Sam."
CHAPTER XIV
Martha found an almost disorganized household when she got home.
"Say, this is never goin' to do in the world!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "I got to pull you all up with a round turn. The whole raft of you, from Ma down, needs a good whackin' into shape. Say, Ma, what you sittin' there whimperin' for? You look as if you'd lost your last enemy, an' had nobody left to take any comfort out of. I wouldn't put it before you to be yearnin' for the gayety o' little old New York again. That so?"
Ma drew in her lips plaintively. "No, it ain't so. I'm contented here, enough, only—— 'Tis not the same place at all when you're not in it. Never a one o' them to think o' drawin' me a cuppertee, nor set a match to the fire, when the wind is blowin' that chill, it's enough to rattle the teeth in your jaws. When I feel cold, I feel—poor!"
She began to cry.
"Now, Ma, you stop that, double-quick, or, you may take it from me, I'll give you something to cryfor. I'm as cross as your grandmother's worsted-work. I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail. Keep out o' my way, everybody, till I get my house lookin' like a house again, an' my fam'ly in order, so's they'll have the appearance o' civilized human bein's, no matter what they reely are. Cora, you set the kettle on, while Sammy an' me goes down cellar to start a little fire in the furnace, to take the chill out o' the air an' the grouch out o' Ma. Francie, while you're restin' run down to the store an' get me a pound o' tea—I see there ain't a leaf left in the caddy. You can take Sabina along for comp'ny, only don't forget to bring her back. We might need her for somethin' sometime. You never can tell. For goodness' sake! Is that rack-a-bones Flicker Slawson? Well, what do you think o' that! I bet there ain't been one o' you ever thought to give'm, or Nix either, a sup or a bite, since I been gone! Such a measly-appearin' dog an' cat,Inever see. I'm ashamed to look'm in the face."
As she talked, Martha passed from room to room, tidying up, straightening out, getting the household wheels back into their accustomed grooves and, all the while, unconsciously transforming the atmosphere of the place, and the persons in it, until they reflected her own wholesome, vital air of well-being, well-doing.
Ma, drinking hercupperteefrom the saucer, reveled in the genial warmth her daughter-in-law had caused to come up out of the cold, dark, nether regions into which she, herself, never descended, and felt a sense of virtuous satisfaction in her own personal benevolence, as she rehearsed all the gossip she had been able to cull from without or within, since her son Sammy's wife had been gone. Ma did not call it gossip, she called it news.
"'Twas Mrs. Peckett was in an' out, as usual, an' told me what was goin' on, or I'd never have known no more than if we'd been livin' in the Sarah desert, itself. 'Twas her told me what a bloody rascal is Buller that he'd be after comin' here, in the dead o' night wit' his fagots, to burn us alive in our beds, to say nothin' o' the gun he was for shootin' us wit', into the bargain. An' you to be standin' by, an' holdin' his hand, when 'twas cut off on account of the gangerine! Mrs. Peckett says every one in the place is callin' you a good Sam Maritan."
"'In me eye,' says Biddy Martin," Martha sang out sceptically.
"Mrs. Peckett was sayin' 'twas the wife's dooty stand by her own man, an' not another woman's at all. Mrs. Peckett was after sayin' God knows she's as quick to do a kindness, as the next one, but the evil tongues some folks do be havin' nowadays, would make you look out for your repu*ta*tion."
"Say, Ma," said Martha, "did you ever notice how some people'll try to keep their own place clean by shakin' their dirty rags on other people's heads?Theydon't care where the smut lands, so long's they've shook it off'n their own skirts. The trouble is, they sometimes get come up with. They don't watch which way the wind's blowin', so they get all their own dirt, an' then some, blown back on'm, which they'd better never have stirred it up, in the first place."
Without in the least understanding her daughter-in-law's drift, Ma felt it desirable to change the subject. Did Martha know that the Fred Trenholms had "leegially" adopted the three Fresh Air children they had had with them all this summer and last?
"An' they do be as proud, as proud! The way you'd think they'd a fortune left them, instead of a ready-made fam'ly to eat'm out o' house an' home, itself."
"The Trenholms arebricks!"
Ma coughed nervously, then tried again.
"That old bachelor brother o' Mrs. Coleses, the one's been so long sick-a-bed wit' the doctor, he's been took down wit' the meazles."
Martha proceeded with her work.
"Well, that's the way it goes! When a fella's been cryin' wolf for years an' years, the chances are he'll attrac' some kinda thing his way, if it's only a meazly little skunk, which is more embarrassin' than dangerous. Meazles is a kinda come-down, for a party Hiram Parkinson's age an' ambitions. He's been walkin' around with, as you might say, one foot in the gravey,—poor soul! I bet it makes'm sore to feel he's with both feet in the soup. Meazles! I guess I'll send'm a glass or two o' my slip-go-down jelly to cool his throat."
"I guess he didn't be expectin'that, whatever it was he did be expectin'," Ma dropped complacently.
"Well, you gener'ly getsump'n, if you expect it long enough. That's why it's up to us to be sure we like our order before it goes in, for in the end we'll have to chew it, anyhow."
Martha drew her chair to the center-table, seated herself, and taking paper, pen and a bottle of ink from the drawer, prepared to write.
"Goin' to write, Martha?" queried Ma, peering over at her curiously.
"Looks like it, don't it?"
"A letter?"
"Maybe, or else my last will an' prayer-book, as they say."
"I wonder——"
"I guess if you're goin' to wonder out loud, Ma, you'll have to do it later. I got to get this job off'n my hands right now, an' between you an' me an' the lamp-post, I ain't so flip with my pen an' ink, I can do much of anythin' fancy,while you wait. I got to take my time at it. It's the hardest stunt I know of. Firstoff, you got to have somethin' to write about, an' then, before you're fairly ready to put it down—what with delays, owin' to spellin', blots an' so forth—it's got away from you, an' you have to think up somethin' else in its place. While you're doin' that the next idea gets away, so you're left, whatever way you look at it. Now, 'silence in the court-house,' as Sammy says."
Ma would have given all she was worth to discover what it was that, for the next couple of hours or so, Martha was so painfully employed upon. She did her best to find out, but though she craned her neck, ducked her head, peeked and peered, it was no use. A substantial elbow curved around the paper, effectually shielding it from inquisitive eyes.
Dere doct. Ballad you will be supprised to here I am home again but that is wear I am for Miss Clare is well enough now to spair me and the baby is doing fine in spite of the nurses witch says she will live now witch I thank them kindly wen her two cheeks is getting as pink as roses and round besides so a blind man could see it and never a cry out of her the hole day long the lamb or night either except wen neccery. Mr. F. Ronald would not call the quean his cousin him and miss Kathrine is bizzy getting a party from the city to come and give a corse of leckchers to show the natives off of lantren slides what there bodies maid out of and how there jerms looks wen you see them on a sheet verry much unlarged. miss katrine hopes seeing what the licker does to his jerms will scair Buller off the drink annyhow he ain't drunk much as ushal becaus he has bin driving her round in his backboard witch he is verry proud of besides he has not the time wen he is doing it. Wile i bean away Hireram parkinsin got meezils if this dont intrust you madam Crew is verry well but her and Miss Kathrin is still on the outs why i do not no Miss Kathrine was getting verry thin and wite when you left she got going to Mr. F. Ronaldses now she looks better do not think that is becaus ennything accepting the corse of leckchers. MEN is necherly jellys pardon the libberty but believe me miss Kathrin is trew blew like if she got found of any party once would not change to get found of any other party no matter how plutonic as a gent leman i once lived out with his wife Mr. Grandvil lately maid to a judg told me witch I just looked it up in the dickshunnery for the speling and it ain't what he told me it was a tall but relating to regions of fire insted of cool like you feel for your relations. Buller is heeling alrite so I no he is clean I told him his hole arm would go if he did not let up on the drink i will let you no if he lets up I will let you no if Madam crew and Miss Kathreen lets up all so enny more i think will intrust you I know what was in your hart wen you asked me so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will knew you can count on me. Love to all Yours
trewly Martha Slawson.
The writing of the letter in itself might not have excited any undue suspicion in Ma. Once in a long time Martha did actually "sit down to take her pen in hand" to write to one of the relations, though usually it was Cora who was offered up on the altar of family concord. But to-day "me son Sammy's wife's" conduct was exceptional. She wrote and rewrote, erased, tore up, until, Ma cogitated, "It's fairly a caution, an' out of all sensibleness, the way she does be destroyin' perfectly good paper."
Also,
"It'd surely be a stranger she'd be after wastin' all that time an' ink on, for not one of her own at all would ever be for gettin' the like of it." The next logical step in the shrewd deduction was—"Who is the stranger?"
Ma watched the little Mont Blanc at Martha's elbow grow, until finally it coasted, like a tiny avalanche to the floor. She watched her daughter-in-law stoop, abstractedly gather up the fragments and stuff them into her apron pocket.
When the great task was done, she saw the mysterious letter, artfully resisting, obliged at last to yield to main force, and go into its envelope whether it would or no. Saw it sealed, saw it stamped, saw it directed, saw it triumphantly carried, by Martha's own hand, to the R.F.D. mail-box, though Ma insisted "one of the childern could go just as good, an' save you the steps, itself."
When Martha returned from her errand she found Mrs. Peckett in possession of Sam's chair by the table.
"And how's Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles? It's good to see you home again," the caller greeted her before she had fairly crossed the doorsill.
"Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain't had any troubles."
"That's what Martha always says," Ma observed half-complainingly, "Martha always says she wouldn't be for callin' what-she's-come-up-wit'trouble. She says, if you don't notice it, 'twill pass you by the quicker, but if you clap a name to it, 'twill come in an' live wit' chu, till you'd never get rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."
For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken a sudden dive in a clumsily-run elevator. Through the "sinkin' at the stummick" that followed, she saw Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making ready for fight. She flung herself into the breach, laughed, winked confidentially over Ma's head to their neighbor, and said calmly:
"Mrs. Peckett an' me'll have to grow your age, Ma, an' be the mother o' married sons, before we reely know what trouble is, won't we, Mrs. Peckett?"
Mrs. Peckett nodded.
"Though I will say, I never put much stock in all the talk that's going the rounds about mother-in-laws' suffering at the hands of the parties their sons married. Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I always point to Mr. P.'s mother who lived with us a year and a half after we went to housekeeping. The store she set by me! She was so afraid I'd do too much, or be worried, or the like of that, that, at the last, when she couldn't say much of anything, for the weakness, she'd tell the nurse, 'Don't let Beulah in!' When the nurse told me about it, after Mother Peckett was gone I was so affected I 'most cried. I said to the nurse, 'Did you ever!' and the nurse said to me, 'We reap what we sow!' Just like that—'We reap what we sow!' I wager she's told the story to many a family she's been out nursing since. Though, of course, one case don't prove the rule. But even if I am exceptional, I believe there's lots of daughter-in-laws better than they give them credit for being."
"Oh, I ain'tcomplainin'," Ma maintained. "Martha, here, duz fairly well, an' I'll say this much for her, she's turned out better than I expected."
Martha bowed profoundly. "'Thank you, thank you, sir,' she sayed. 'Your kindness I never shall forget!'"
"Me son Sammy was me youngest, an' 'twas hard on me, part wit' him, to be married. All the time he was courtin' Martha, I was prayin' she'd turn'm down, or somethin'd happen to come between'm, the way they'd never go to the altar when the time come. I wanted Martha for to be takin' another fella was sparkin' her along wit' Sammy, but she didn't. She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me. It fairly broke me heart."
"Oho! So you had your love-affairs, like the rest of us, Mrs. Slawson. Do tell! Is the heart-broken lover still hanging on, or——"
"Heart-broken nothin'!" ejaculated Martha scornfully. "Gilroy's as chipper as a squirrel, an' don't you forget it!"
Ma wagged a sagacious head. "But he never married, Martha. You know that, as good as me. An' it's not for the lack of chances, itself. There's many a girl would give her eye-teeth for'm, wit' the riches he has, an' dressin' like a dood, the day."
Mrs. Peckett sighed. "Well, well, and I thought you to be such a sober, steady-going woman, Mrs. Slawson! But it seemsyou'vehad your romance, too! It's a surprise, but—live and learn! Live and learn!"
"That's just it!" Martha returned. "We don't. We live, but we don't learn, more's the pity. Have a cup o' tea. Ma relishes it, along about this time in the afternoon, an' it won't be a mite o' trouble. An' you must sample some cookies I made this mornin'. I'm quite stuck on my own cookies, if I do say it, as shouldn't."
After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed, Martha observed with more than usual gravity,
"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin' to Mrs. Peckett you wouldn't just as lief was posted on a board-fence."
"Why, what call have you to say that to me, I should like to know, Martha Carrol?"
"Nothin' much, only—I kind, o' wish she hadn't got wind o' Gilroy."
"I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever hear the like? If I so much as open me lips, I'm rebuked for't, the way I'd bring confusion on the fam'ly. Better for me, if I kep' to me own room entirely, an' never set foot here at all, to be accused o' settin' the neighbors gossipin' when 'twas never me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned Gilroy's name."
Martha shrugged. "Come on, now, Ma, cheer up! I didn't mean to hurt your feelin's. It's just I nacherly distrust Mrs. Peckett. I used to think she was good, firstoff. But she's as shifty as dust! I wouldn't put it before her to take anything she got a-holt of—the innocentest thing, an' twist it into what'd scandalize your name, so you'd never get rid of the smutch of it, however you'd try. The worst things ever I heard of the folks in this place, Mrs. Peckett told me. It's took me over a year to find out most of'm's just mischeevious tattle. You can lock up against a thief, but you can't pertec' yourself from a liar."
Ma made no response, beyond blinking very fast for a second or so, but that was enough for Martha. Recognizing it as the sign of a coming deluge, she hastily changed the subject.
"What do you hear from the folks down home, these days?" she asked affably.
"No more than yourself. Sam got a letter from one o' them (Andy, I'm thinkin') this mornin'. Didn't he be after readin' it to youse before he went out?"
"No, he did not."
"I thought surely he would be tellin' you, that are his wife, even if he kep' his old mother in ignorance. That's the way it is wit' childern, these times."
"For the love o' Mike!" Martha murmured beneath her breath.
When Sam came in, shortly after, had silently eaten his supper, and was preparing to settle down for a bout withThe New England Farmer, she proceeded to take him to task on his mother's behalf.
"Ma feels kind o' sore because you didn't show her the letter you got this mornin' from Andy."
Sam pulled off his shoes with a jerk. "How'd she know I got a letter from Andy?"
"I d'know. But you did, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, why didn't you read it to her? She's gettin' old, an' the older she gets, the crankier she gets. I guess it's up to us to humor her, for, one thing's certain, she won't humorus, an' there might as well be some fun in the house for some one."
Sam caught his lower lip between his teeth and held it there for a moment.
"There was nothing in Andy's letter would interest her. That is, there was no family news, or anything. 'Twas a business letter."
Martha proceeded with her work, dropping her questioning at once.
"Well, an' why wouldn't I be interested in me own son Andy's venturin', no matter if itisbusiness, itself?" insisted the old woman querulously, when Martha repeated what Sam had said. "If that same Andy does be makin' a fortune, surely his own mother should be hearin' tell of it, first; leastwise, so she should in any God-fearin' fam'ly. But it's more like a heathen I'm treated now, than a Christian woman, that's raised a big crop o' childern till they'd be able fend for themselves. Andy is likeliest of the lot, an' now, when he's made his fortune, an' would be writin' his brother of his luck, his own mother would be told, 'It's only business!' the way she'll not take a natural joy in his triumphin', or, maybe, look to'm for a stray dollar, itself."
To all of which Martha made no reply.
But later, when Ma and the children were abed and asleep, she looked up from her mending to find Sam's eyes fixed on her in a stare of grim desperation.
"For a fella whose brother has just made his everlastin' fortune, you're the mournfullest party I ever struck," she quietly observed. "You're as glum-lookin' as one o' them ball-bearer undertakers at a funer'l. Cheer up! It ain't your funer'l! An' ifyouain't made the fortune, your brother has, so it's all in the fam'ly, anyhow."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"Why, Ma says Andy's letter was to tell you he's made a fortune."
Sam groaned.
"Well, hasn't he?"
"No."
"What was his letter about, then? He ain't after money, to borrow it off'n you, is he?"
Sam shook his head.
"Because, if Andy wants to try any of his get-rich-quick games on us, he better guess again. He's got to take his chances with all the other fancy dancers, that's all there is to it. It's a poor pie won't grease its own tin."
"He don't want to borrow, Martha. He——"
"Well——?"
Sam swallowed hard, laidThe New England Farmeron the table, and drew himself in his chair a step nearer his wife.
"When I was down in New York, Andy was fairly beset with the idea of going into a scheme with a man he knew, who'd offered him a chance, if he could raise the cash, or as-good-as. Andy could talk of nothing else. The same with Nora-Andy. They told me all about it, and I'm bound to say it did sound good to me. But I'd no money to give or lend, and I told them so. Ma'd been blabbing about our having a bit saved, and Nora-Andy reproached me with withholding it from my own brother, when it was only a loan he needed, with good interest for the one loaned it, to take the chance of a lifetime. I told them the money wasn't mine, but yours and the children's. You'd saved it, not I. And then Andy said, he'd never lay hand on it, if it was the last penny he'd ever hope to see. 'Twas not money he wanted of me at all, and he brought out a paper, that, if I would set my name to it, would help him out, as fine as money, and nobody hurt by the transaction a hair."
Martha dropped her sewing to her lap.
"You never signed it, Sam?" she entreated. "Of course, you never signed it. You know better'n me that it's wrong to set your name to any tool—(ol' lady Crewe's l'yer's very words)—wrong to set your name to any tool——"
"Instrument," suggested Sam drearily.
"Well, instrument, then. It's wrong to set your name to any instrument unless you know what you're up against."
"I know it," confessed Sam humbly.
"Well?" Martha plied him.
"I did it, mother. And now, the note's come due, and Andy can't meet it, and——"
"Well, what do you think o' that!" sighed Martha.
Sam had been leaning forward on his elbows, his palms propping his chin. Now his face dropped into his hands, as he hid his haggard eyes from her clear, searching ones.
"How much, Sam?"
"All we got. The whole two-hundred-and-fifty."
For a moment Martha was dumb. Then, straightening back in her chair, taking up her sewing again, she said, "Well, at least wegotit. There's that to be thankful for. An' doncher break your heart, Sam, worryin' about your bein' such a fool as sign that tool—I should say instrument. I done the same thing myself, now I come to think of it. The pot can't call the kettle black. I set my name to a paper, ol' lady Crewe ast me to, an' God only knows how much I'll be stung for it, forIdon't.—But wouldn't it kinda discourage you from puttin' by for a rainy day, when the money you scrimped an' scringed to save, has to go for a umbrella to keep some other fella dry, which allyouget, is the drippin's—right in the neck!"
CHAPTER XV
After many days of serious pondering Martha decided that the only way to relieve her mind was to "march straight up to the captain's office," and ask Madam Crewe point-blank, precisely what the liabilities would be, in the event of the paper she had signed, falling due, and failing to be met by the old lady herself.
"But if she said 'twas herwill?" argued Sam. "You're all right if it was her will. You couldn't lose out on that, you know. Unless you were the kind that'd be looking for yourself. And, of course, if you sign one as witness, you're sure you can't be left anything in it."
"I don't want to be left anything in it. But, by the same token, I don't want to beleftother ways, either. That's to say, I wouldn't want to have to cough up a couple o' hunderd now,just to oblige. Especially when I ain't got'm. Besides, it wasn'thertold me 'twas a will. 'Twas the l'yer—which is quite another pair o' shoes. Anyhow, I'm goin' up there to find out what I'm libel for in case she can't pay, like Andy."
Sam saw there was nothing to do but stand aside and let her go.
The moment she entered the room, Martha realized that a change had taken place in "ol' lady Crewe." It was not anything she could "put her finger on," as she would have expressed it, but it was there unmistakably, to be felt, to be—feared.
At the sound of her step upon the floor, the little Madam looked up quickly. A faint smile curled the corners of her mouth for a second, then vanished.
"Well, and what's brought you here, after all these weeks? I thought you had fallen into the well."
"I been stayin' with Miss Claire, I should say, Mrs. Ronald. An' since a week or ten days, when I went home, I been so took up with my house an' the fam'ly in gener'l, I ain't had a chance," Martha explained eagerly.
"Never mind apologizing. What's been the trouble with 'the house and the family in general'?"
"They got kind o' loose-jointed while I was away, so's I had to lick'm into shape again,—bring'm up to time. An' it kep' me hoppin'."
"You havehoppedto some purpose, I hear. You and Dr. Ballard have been making a record for yourselves."
"Me?" repeated Martha, amazed. "I ain't done nothin'. But pshaw! I forgot! You're just tryin' to take a rise out o' me, as ushal."
"Awhat?"
"A rise. You know what I mean, ma'am. Tryin' to take my measure. That's what you're mostly up to—only folks ain't on to you."
Madam Crewe regarded her fixedly for a moment.
"Do you know, Slawson," she pronounced thoughtfully at length, "I've an idea I'd quite enjoy some of the things you say—if you spoke English. The trouble is, I don't understand your patois."
Martha smiled blandly. "Askin' your pardon, for the liberty, I often thought the same thing o' you. I don't understandyourwhat-you-may-call-it, either. Nor most of us don't understand each other's, an' that's what's the trouble with us, I guess. I sometimes wonder how we get along as good as we do, with the gibberish we talk, makin' hash o' what we mean, an' sometimes, not meanin' anythin'."
"Right."
"An' the funny part is, the parties we're most likely to slip up on is them we love the most."
"Go on."
"I was thinkin' how, when my girl Cora was a baby in my arms, I had the best holt o' her I'll ever have, prob'ly. Her an' me understood each other then. But now, every oncet in a while, I might as good be a Dutchman, an' her a Figi Injun for all we make o' each other. I try to hold in my horses, an' hang on to all the patience I got at them times, an' I guess she does the same, an' somehow, we manage to rub along, but you may take it from me it's some of a scratch! The same with the other childern, as they grow up. Even down to Sabina, who, young as she is, has a mind o' her own an' sever'l other parties to boot."
"And in the meantime, you and your husband are going without common comforts, necessities—for those very children, who would turn about and rend you at the first opportunity."
Martha laughed. "Not on your life they wouldn't rent us—orsellus either, when it come to the test. If we go without things, to givethema better start, we're not foolin' ourselves on it, believeme! We're makin' a A1 investment. We don't grumble at the taxes, or the 'sessments or all the rest o' the accidental expenses—so long as we know they're good. It's when you'd feel you got a bad bargain on your hands, like it'd be poor drainage, or hard as rocks, or leakin' and shifty—it'd bethenyou'd hold back, sendin' good money after bad. An' then you'd be wrong. For you can take it from me, there's no child so bad it ain't worth savin'. You read about'm in the papers, how they steal an' lie an' so forth, an' when all's said an' done, it's like pictures you'd get of yourself—they ain't as good as you are, bad as you are. No, you can't spoil a good child, an' you can help a bad one. So small credit to us, Sam an' I, if we do save. It's for the sake of our own, which, after all, we know the stuff they're made of. Same as you and Miss Katherine."
Madam Crewe was silent.
"No, it's not puttin' money in the childern, makes me sore," Martha continued, "it's when we scraped an' screwed a few dollars together for a nest-egg, an' then, in the turn o' a hand, it's gone—to pay for somethin' we never owed, nor no one got any good out of, but the wrong fella."
"You mean you've been doing something foolish? Speculating? Losing money?" demanded Madam Crewe abruptly.
"My husban' signed a paper for his brother, an' it let'm in for all we had put by. I was wonderin' if the paper I signed here early in the summer, I was wonderin' ifthathad a sting in it, too? An' if so, how much?"
"I don't understand."
"I mean, the paper I signed here the time Eunice Youngs an' me both set our names to it together."
"That paper was my will, woman. It had nothing to do with you."
"That's what Sam told me, but—I——"
"You could not be called upon to pay one copper because of what you did that day. On the contrary—— No! Never mind! What have you stood to lose through your husband's foo——"
"He wasn't any foolisher'n me," Martha anticipated her quickly.
"Your husband's misfortune," amended Madam Crewe.
"Two-hunderd-and-fifty dollars. All we had saved. But we'll set about right over again, an' if we have luck, we can put by some more. An' anyhow, I'm thankful there won't be another such call on us. That was what I kinda had on my mind when I come."
"Well, you can shift it off your mind. I give you my word. You believe me, don't you?"
"Yes'm."
"And I believe you. So far we understand each other. Now, Slawson, I am going to prove that I trust you. I am going to ask you an honest question. I want an honest answer."
"Yes'm."
"You are the mother of four children. You have had experience in bringing them up right. I have had one child—one grandchild. I have brought them both up—wrong. What's the trouble?"
Martha did not reply at once.
Madam Crewe waited patiently, making no attempt to hurry her, and the room was as still as if it had been empty. At last Martha spoke.
"O' course I d'know what the trouble was, if there was any, with your boy. But it seems to me, I see where you kind o' slipped up on it with Miss Katherine."
"Well?"
"Firstoff, the way I look at it, childern is all selfish, which is only to say they're human, like the rest of us. They're selfish an' they're mischeevious, an' they're contrairy, for, when all's said an' done, they're—childern. What we want to do is, learn'm not to be selfish an' mischeevious an' contrairy. An' how can we learn'm not to be it, if we're that way ourselves? There's a lady I usedta work out for—(you know her—Mrs. Sherman, Mr. Frank Ronald's sister). She give her boy every bloomin' thing money could buy——. But she never give'm a square deal. You can take it from me, what a young 'un respec's is a square deal. He mayn'tlikeit, but he respec's it. An'youfor givin' it to'm.
"Now, beggin' pardon for the liberty, I don't think Miss Katherine's had a square deal, or a fair show. She ain't had what's her rights, an' she knows it. You kep' her too close on—well, lots o' things. Love an' a free foot an', oh, lots o' things. She's lived so long, as you might say, from hand to mouth, that now she don't know which is her hand an' which is her mouth. An' that makes her look kinda awkward to you. What I'd rather my childern'd feel about me than anythin' else is, that I see their side an' try to treat'm white. All the cuddlin' an' the coddlin' in creation won't help you, if your child knows it ain't havin' justice. An' all the strictness an' the punishin' won't keep it straight, if it ain't sure there's love along with the lickin's.
"Miss Katherine's agoodchild. You couldn't go far wrong, if you took it for granted she was goin' to do the right thing, like you are yourself. If I was you, excuse me for sayin' it—if I was you, I'd kinda open up to Miss Katherine. She's young. With all she's so tall an' han'some-lookin', she ain't learned all the sense there is. She thinks, the same's the rest o' the kids, that the only reason she ain't got the world for the askin' is because her 'mean ol' fam'ly' don't want her to have no fun. Give her a chance. Show her you believe in her. You got to believe folks believe in you, to do your best. Now, take you, for instance. Your talkin' up so quick an' sharp as you do, makes most parties feel you're kinda hard to get along with. But my,Iget along with you first-rate, because I ain't fooled by your outsides. I know your insides is all right, an' that's enough for me. But a young lady, like Miss Katherine, she wouldn't know. She's got to be showed, like Sam says they do in Missouri. But, you can take it from me, you wouldn't have to show her but once. There! I've talked a blue streak, an' prob'ly tired you all out. Only, you see, when you get me onchildern, you got me on a subjec's my speciality, as you might say. That is, I try to make it my speciality, like Sam does cows an' pigs an' farm-produc's gener'ly, now he's got to deal with'm. Before I go, can't I get you somethin', or, maybe, see you safe in bed?"
"Bed?" echoed Madam Crewe sharply. "Why do you suggest bed to me? Do I strike you as belonging there?"
"Oh, no'm!" lied Martha calmly. "I wasn't thinkin' o' your comfort, so much as mine. It kinda's got to be a habit with me to want to tuck the little ones up an' cover'm over, 'n' know they're fixed for a good, sound sleep, before I leave'm."
Madam Crewe set her lips.
"Well, Slawson, it won't be long before you can do that for me. But not to-night. Go your way now. It's growing late. But come again soon. Very soon, you understand?"
"Yes'm."
On her way out, Martha stopped at the kitchen door.
"Say, Eunice," she accosted that placid young woman whom she found cozily toasting her toes before the grateful warmth of the range, "where's Miss Katherine?"
"I d'know."
"Who's lookin' after the little Madam?"
"Nobody much, lately. Miss Katherine used to, and she does now, when she's home, but she's off, mostly, 'n' I have all I can do getting my work done up."
"Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly. "Well, I'm comin' to-morra again. You can tell Miss Katherine. But in the meantime, if you was plannin' to go home to-night,doncher. Just you stay right on deck here all of the time, from this on, do you understand?"
"Why?"
"Because Itellyou, that's why. You might be needed on short notice. Now, are you goin' to do as I say or ain't you?"
"Yes."
"That's a good girl. An'—an' if I should be needed for anythin', any time, just you come for me, quick as you can put, be it day or night, an' I'll drop everythin' an' come."
Eunice followed her to the doorstep.
"Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."
Martha laughed. "Well, I'm glad if I gotsomekinda move on you, young lady. You certaintly need it."
But as she went her way home, Martha was in no laughing mood.
"I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair," she muttered, hurrying her steps, spurred on by an unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam, the children, even Ma.
Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the light from the sitting-room lamp streaming out genially into the chill dusk of the early autumn evening. It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly re-established her with the world on the old terms of good-cheer and common-sense optimism. The broad, benevolent smile for which Madam Crewe had so often derided her, was on her face as she turned the knob of the sitting-room door, pushed it open. A second, and the smile was there no longer.
"What's the matter?" Martha asked, looking from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from Mrs. Peckett to Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.
Nobody answered.
Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place. Mrs. Peckett, deeply flushed, was standing near the window, while Sam, towering over all, showed a livid, threatening face, the like of which Martha had never seen in all the years of their life together.
"What's the matter?" she repeated.
Again the question went unanswered, but after a moment, her husband, with a gesture, bade her close the entry-door.
"Now, whatisthe matter? For the love o' Mike, one of you say!" she demanded for the third time, after she had obeyed.
The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed to pluck an answer out of Ma.
"As Heaven's me witness, Martha, I meant no harm," she whimpered peevishly.
"Well?" probed Martha.
"But to see me own son castin' black looks at me, as if he'd slay me——"
"Tell me whatyou'vedone, never mind about Sam!"
"The day I first see you writin' one o' them letters, Martha——"
"What letters?"
Sam's fist came down on the table-top with the force of a sledge-hammer.
"Hold your tongue, Ma! By God! I won't have my wife's ears soiled with your dirty gossip. I've listened to you myself long enough, too long. I'd not have done it, even so, except for the need there is to stop your scandal-mongering—yours and this woman's here."
Martha laid a restraining hand upon his arm.
"Why, Sam! What ails you?" she asked in wonder. "I never seen you the like o' this before. Let Ma speak. She was sayin' about letters. What letters?"
The muscles in Sam's jaws twitched visibly beneath his tense skin. As Martha looked at him, she seemed scarcely to recognize him for the man who was her husband. Suddenly, from out of the dim recesses of her memory, emerged a line she had heard quoted in some far-off, vague time and association, when she had not consciously taken note of it. "Beware the fury of a patient man!" Now she understood what the words meant.
"If my wife must know this disgraceful thing, it's I will tell her," he spoke so low, his words were barely audible, but Ma would have felt easier if he had thundered. "Now listen, you two, to what I say. Never for one second have I doubted my woman. Never would I. When I tell you, Martha, what these have been saying, I don't do so for you to deny it. You're my wife. I believe in you—and would, against heaven and—hell. It seems, you've been writing letters to some one, lately, which God knows you've the right to do it. But these two here must needs spy on you, and sneak about, stealing the stray bits of scribbling you thought you'd destroyed and thrown away. They gathered them up, and, when your back was turned, pieced them together, to send to me with an anonymous letter—only I suspicioned something was afoot, and watched, and to-day I caught them at it. My God! There ought to be a separate fire in hell as punishment for such damned muck-raking!"
"Sam!" entreated Martha.
"Suppose youhavewritten Gilroy, who, none knows better than I, how once he wanted to marry you, and how you turned him down for me. Suppose you have written to Peter Gilroy, and Peter Gilroy has written to you——"
"I have, Sam, an'—he has," Martha confessed slowly.
"Surely you'd the right to do it, and I'd be the last to question you."
Martha gave him a long look.
"Did you say Ma an' Mrs. Peckett got a-holt o' my letters to Gilroy?"
Sam nodded.
"Did they give you the letters?"
Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her. It was full of crumpled scraps.
With patient care Martha smoothed out the first tattered shred that came to hand. Laboriously she read it aloud.
"'I knew what was in your heart when you ast hie so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will no. Love. All yours—MARTHA."
She looked up to meet her husband's eyes.
"Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.
Mrs. Peckett's chin, gradually lifting, at last almost regained its habitual level.
"You see," she observed suavely, "I'm not a liar, Mr. Slawson. And I'm not the other things you have called me to your shame—not mine. But I bear you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either. I'm not that kind of person. I'm a Christian woman, trying to do my duty."
"Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely.
"The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening to cover her husband's unaccustomed profanity. "The only thing is, these bits here, as I look'm over, ain't from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy. They're from letters I wrote to—another man."
Still Sam did not flinch.
Martha took a deep breath.
"Won't you take a chair, Mrs. Peckett? An' I'll sit, too. An' so will you, Sam. So long's we got on this subjec', we better come to a clear understandin'. That's always the best way. As I said at the start, Sam, I have been writin' to Gilroy, an' he's been writin' to me."
She leaned from her chair to where her sewing-machine stood, pulled open the drawer of its table, and took therefrom a couple of thin envelopes tied about with a strand of black darning-cotton.
"P'raps I'd ought to have told you firstoff, Sam, but I didn't, because I thought your feelin's might be hurt, an'—what you don't know won't worry you. The day after you had the news of Andy's note comin' doo, I got a letter from Gilroy. I've it right here now. Also mine answerin' it. That's to say, acopyof mine answerin' it. The reason I kep' 'm is, Gilroy is with Judge Granville, an'—well—when you're dealin' with foxy parties, you got to be foxy to match'm. I won't read you the letters. If you like,youcan read'm. They're hereforyou. Gilroy said 'twas him held your note for Andy. He'd took it over, an' he was writin' me to say that, for the sake o' the days gone by, he wanted to do me a kindness. He said he'd let you off the note. He said, well he knew what a poor provider you was, an' we'd prob'ly none too much, if we had anythin' a tall, an', as for him, he'dplenty, so he'd never miss it, bein' as he is a bachelder, an' right-hand-man to Judge Granville, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.
"I wrote'm back, post-haste, that I thanked'm kindly, but you'd already sent the money to Andy. Such bein' the case, I couldn't o' course take him at his word to let you off the note, but knowin' me so well as he'd used to, he'd know that I'd like nothin' better than take money off'n a friend who meant so kindly by meas his letter showed he did. Bein' that kind of a friend, I said, I knew he'd like to hear you're doin' grand—you're right-hand-man to Mr. Ronald, an' we've all we need an' more, too, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.
"I took my letter to Miss Claire, before ever I sent it off, to make sure it was all right, an' Gilroy'd know what I meant. Miss Claire laughed when she was through readin' it. She said, it was surely all right, but what he'd read between the lines had illustrations, whatever that means. Anyhow, it stirred up Gilroy somethin' fierce, an'——" Martha paused, the blood surged up to her face in a tide. "He wrote to me again. A whole lot o' love-sick trash. I sent his letter back to'm (me keepin' a copy) with just a gentle hint o' warnin' to the effec' that if ever he done the like again, I'd tell you on'm, an' we'd both of us come down to New York by the first train, an' take a turn out of'm—first you, an' then meon your leavin's. Here's the whole co-respondence, Sam. I'm glad to get rid of it. It was clutterin' up my machine-drawer. But, p'raps, before you take it, to lock it away—Mrs. Peckett an' Ma would like to examine it."
Mrs. Peckett shook her head.
"Then you're satisfied I ain't a callyope?" Martha asked her.
"Awhat?" demanded Sam sharply.
"A callyope. One o' them things whistles on a boat, which, every oncet in a while we'd hear'm on the river, down home. Likewise, they mean coqwette."
"You meansiren?"
"Yes. Sure. They're called both ways. Madam Crewe says all women are sirens. Then you're satisfied I ain't a siren, Mrs. Peckett?"
Mrs. Peckett inclined her head, smiling with easy patronage.
Martha regarded her narrowly for a moment.
"I see youain'tsatisfied!"
"I certainly am, so far as Mr. Gilroy is concerned, but——"
Sam got upon his feet in a manner to cause Mrs. Peckett to come to a sudden halt.
"I know what she means, Sam. Keep cool, an' let me handle this, which I'm the only one can, anyhow. You'd like to know the name o' the party I wrote them letters to, you an' Ma amused yourselves playin' puzzles with? Well, I'll tell you his name. It's Dr. Ballard, an' evenyoucouldn't be so much of a looney as thinkDr. Ballardwould give a second thought to the likes o' me, that I'd be writin' love-letters to'm, much less him wastin' time to read'm, let alone write me back.
"Before he went away, Dr. Ballard told me, he'd a likin' for this place an' every mother's son in it, which,I s'pose, that means you, too, an' he ast would I write'm, to tell how things was goin' on, an' if Miss Claire an' the baby was gettin' on, an' how Buller was comin' along. I promised I would. An' I kep' my promise, an' I'm goin' to keep on keepin' it. Any objection?"
Mrs. Peckett signified she had none.
"Then all that remains is to say good-by," said Martha gravely, rising and standing with quiet dignity beside her husband.
Mrs. Peckett took a step toward the door. Then abruptly she turned and extended her hand to Martha.
Sam Slawson shook his head. "No, you don't!" he forbade decidedly.
"I guess we better wait a while, an' see how we feel about each other later," Martha explained without animus. "My husban' says, 'No, you don't!' so' o' course that settles it for the present, anyhow. It's a kind o' pity things has come to this pass, for I don't like to be on the outs with anybody. But you certaintly took a risk, Mrs. Peckett. If my husban' had been likesomemen——! I don't see how you dared do it, knowin' you're a woman, yourself, with a man o' your own. P'raps 'twas because you'd set out to make me over, that you hold me so cheap. I always noticed folks is never so choice o' made-over things. They think the best wear's out of'm anyhow, an' it don't matter if they do use'm sort o' careless now. But itismatter, for it'syou'llbe blamed for not bein' clean, not the thing you've dirtied. Besides, sometimes amade-overwill serve you better than new. I give you leave to remember that, Mrs. Peckett."
When their visitor was gone, Ma began to cry aloud.
"The fear is in me heart. I haven't a limb to move, the way I'd be dreadin' Sam's punishin' me!" she moaned, rocking backward and forward in her chair.
"He'll not punish you, Ma!" Martha promised.
Still Sam bent stormy brows upon his mother.
"I'll not punish you," he said, "but after what's happened, I guess we'll all feel happier if you make your home away from this."
"I'll die ere ever I'll go back to New York City to live wit' the likes o' them as don't want me!" sobbed the old woman explosively.
"A Home, then. I'll see you settled in a good Home."
Ma looked into his stern eyes, saw no relenting there, and turned to Martha. She held up her hands with the mute appeal of a child begging to be carried.
And Martha nodded. She would carry her.
"For," she explained to Sam, later, "Ma's only a child, after all. With no more sense, or as much as Sabina. Let her stay, Sam."