So Maizie seated herself before the machine and watched to see what the glass plate should say of her. The plate remained for a moment clear, then slowly there grew a feather of color. Smoke color, a sort of dove gray, it was and so remained, despite its neutrality, quite plainly visible.
Mr. Procter lifted the helmet, hushed the machine. He went to his book, took it to the window, raised the shade a trifle and peered down. "As I knew," he said. Then closing the book and turning to his small daughter, he went on: "My little Maizie will some day nurse back to health those who are weary and worn; she will be patient, full of understanding, and she will be greatly beloved."
Maizie's face grew luminous. "And so I'll do good too, just like you," she said, with a beautiful faith.
"You will do good, too, my daughter," he answered, with exquisite egotism in his inclusion.
Peter, eager-eyed, looked up at his father.
"Do you think I have a color, too, daddy?" he asked.
"Yes, Peter. Take your place."
Peter did so.
For him there grew a tongue of sturdy bronze. In the dim light it waved across the surface of the glass plate.
And Mr. Procter said: "In time our little boy Peter will build great bridges."
"That four horses can walk across, daddy?" Peter cried in ecstasy.
"That a hundred horses can walk across, and a big engine pull safely its train of cars."
Then again into the inventor's eyes leaped a radiance. He placed his hand lovingly upon the machine as though it were alive, and indeed so it seemed to be, for into it he had put his finest ideals, his deepest hopes for the development of man.
"A few months more of work," he cried. "And then it will be ready to give to the world."
Someone came lightly up the stairs. A head appeared, then a body, then a hearty voice: "May I come in?" it asked.
Mrs. Procter swung the door wide to Mr. Reynolds, neighbor across the way. He entered with a little hesitation. He was a large man with a heavy brick-colored face, yet with eyes that had preserved some spirit of youth. Mr. Reynolds was as great an idealist as his friend, the inventor, though his idealism gave out in totally different directions. He read all sorts of books, but reacted to them with originality. His imagination only grasped their meanings, not his intellect. He worked in another town, several miles from Anchorville, in a large chair factory, and several times a week in the evening he stood upon a soap box on a street corner, and amused a mixed audience by his picturesque setting forth of what he thought was wrong with the world; also what methods he believed would, if employed, straighten out the tangles.
Since he spoke "straight from the shoulder," as he put it, touching dramatically upon the hand of wealth as causing the tangles, he had called down upon himself the wrath of the town's richest man, old John Massey, owner of the Massey Steel Mills. Twice Mr. Massey had threatened the eloquent and fearless orator with arrest, and twice for some unknown reason he had refrained from carrying out his threat, and the authorities of thetown complacently allowed Mr. Reynolds to continue his pastime.
"I knew you were at home today," said Mr. Reynolds, "and I must see the machine." He looked at the joyous face of the inventor.
"Why, have you been trying it out?" he cried.
"Yes, and with a fair degree of success. Of course, I realize it may not always work as it did today. Indeed, the colors are not so strong as I expect eventually to get them."
"A great piece of work," said Mr. Reynolds, advancing to the middle of the room and falling into the orator's attitude. "I've thought of it every day since you told me of it. When I see men in the factory working at jobs they fair hate, because they and theirs need bread—and breaking under the bondage—Oh, I say, Procter, I wish you could bring the machine to perfection soon and get others to believe in it."
Mr. Procter's eyes lost their light. "That's it, to make others believe!"
Mrs. Procter went to her husband. She put her hand on his arm and looked up into his face with a gaze of perfect faith. "A big purposeful idea like yours, that's going to make humanity happier, can't fail but some day to be brought to the world's attention. Never lose faith, my man."
The shadow of discouragement fell swiftly from him.
"And, now," she continued before he could speak, "all wait here a little while. The baby's still asleep," she flung over her shoulder as she left the room.
Shortly she returned bearing a large tray which she set down on the table. Then she lit the side lamp; it cast a soft glow over the room. "Now all draw close," Mrs. Procter invited.
So they drew chairs near the table. There was milk for the children, little seed cakes, thin bread and butter, and cups of strong tea for the inventor and the visitor.
The children, sipping their milk and eating the little sweet cakes, listening to the talk of their father and Mr. Reynolds, their expressed hopes for the success of the machine and its effect upon humanity, gazed at the invention. The sense of a community of interest filled them. They felt that they, each and all, had put something of everlasting worth into The Machine, just as it had put some enduring understanding into them.
"I feel," whispered Suzanna to Maizie, "as though we were in church."
Mr. Reynolds caught the whisper. "And well you may, little lassie," he returned. "Your fatheris a fine, good man with no thought at all of himself, and some day," finished Mr. Reynolds, grandly, "his name will go rolling down the ages as a benefactor to all mankind."
A tribute and a prophecy! The children were glad that Mr. Reynolds had such clear vision.
An influence vaguely felt by all the Procter family lingered for days after father's Saturday afternoon at home. And then ordinary hours intruded and filled the small lives with their duties and their pleasures. Still shadowy, deeply hidden, the influence of the visionary father lay. Even small Maizie awoke to tiny dreams, her literalness for moments drowned out.
At school, Maizie and Suzanna were perhaps the least extravagantly dressed little girls. Exquisitely clean, often quaintly adorned with ribbons placed according to Suzanna's fancies, it still could be seen that they came from an humble home.
Still, in their attitude there was toward their companions an unconscious patronage, felt but hardly resented by the others, since Suzanna and Maizie gave love and warmth besides.
And this unconscious feeling of superiority sprang from "belonging" to a father who worked in his free hours that others out in thebig world might some day be glad he had lived! This idealism lent luster even to his calling of weighing nails and selling washboards to the town of Anchorville.
Jenny Bryson, in Suzanna's class, bragged of her father's financial condition, and indeed she was a resplendent advertisement of his success.
Suzanna listened interestedly. She gazed with admiration at the velvet dress, the gold ring, and the pearl neck beads. She loved them all—the smoothness of the velvet, the sparkle of the gold, the soft luster of the pearls. But she felt no envy. She loved the adornments with her imagination, not with desire. And though she could not say so to Jenny, she rather pitied her for not having a father to whom a future generation would bow in great gratitude.
Then too, as mother said, if you merely bought clothes, you lost the joy of creating. Witness the ingenious way, following Suzanna's suggestion, that mother had draped a lace curtain over a worn blue dress, and behold, a result wonderful.
It was fun then to "make the best of your material," as mother again said. Mother, who, when not too tired from many tasks, could paint rare word pictures, build for eager little listeners castles of hope; build, especially for Suzanna,colorful palaces with flaming jewels, crystal lamps, scented draperies.
Joys sometimes come close together. Father's day, then Sunday with an hour spent in the Massey pew with gentle Miss Massey, old John Massey's only child, setting forth the lesson from the Bible, and then the thrilling announcement by the Superintendent that a festival was to be given by the primary teachers some time in August, the exact date to be told later.
Miss Massey, taking up the subject when the Superintendent had finished, thought it might add to the brilliance of the affair if Suzanna were to recite. So she gave Suzanna a sheet of paper printed in blue ink, with a title in red. "The Little Martyr of Smyrna," Suzanna spelled out.
"You are to learn the poem by heart, of course, Suzanna," said Miss Massey, "and if you need any help as to emphasis or gesture, you may come to me on any afternoon."
Suzanna flushed exalted. "I don't believe I'll need any help, thank you, Miss Massey," she said. She could scarcely wait then till she reached home to tell her mother the great news.
"You'll have to study hard," said Mrs. Procter after she had read over the verses, "but Suzanna, you have nothing suitable to wear."
"The lace curtain dress, mother?" asked Suzanna, hopefully.
"Beyond repair," returned Mrs. Procter.
Father, sitting near, looked around at his small daughter. "I have two dollars that I couldn't possibly use. Take them for a dress, Suzanna."
"But, dear—" began mother, and went on haltingly about a pair of new shoes she believed father had been saving for.
But father did not hear, and so behold Suzanna and her mother the next day at four o'clock in the afternoon in Bryson's drygoods store deciding upon a pink lawn and a soft valenciennes lace. And later, green cambric for a petticoat. And then on Wednesday the cutting out of the dress with suggestions and help from Mrs. Reynolds, the very kind neighbor across the way. On Thursday, baking day, mother put in every waking moment between the oven in the kitchen and the sewing machine in the dining-room.
"Mother dear, don't work so hard," Suzanna begged once. She held the fretful baby in her arms and tried to soothe him. He was always fretful, it seemed, when mother was very busy.
"The dress must be finished this week," said Mrs. Procter, basting away furiously.
"But there's two weeks yet to the festival,mother," said Suzanna, as she hushed the baby against her shoulder.
"Next week, Suzanna, the bedrooms must be thoroughly cleaned, the carpets taken up. O, please take the baby out into the yard and keep him amused."
Two red spots burned on Mrs. Procter's cheeks. Suzanna saw them. Ardently she wished mother would stop and rest. Such driving haste, such tenacity, meant later a nervous headache with mother put aside in a darkened room. Suzanna sighed as she took the baby out into the yard.
She put him into his carriage and wheeled him about till he fell asleep. Then she called Maizie to watch him, while she tiptoed back into the dining-room. Her mother still sat, dress in hand. Now she was drawing out the bastings. The red spots still burned.
"The baby's asleep, mother," whispered Suzanna. She longed ardently for the return of the loved one who could laugh and say something funny about sleep claiming the baby when he had made up his small mind to remain exasperatingly wide awake.
But instead—"Take out the stockings, Suzanna, and darn them. I'll call you when I need your help for supper. Keep your eye on Peter."
That was all. Suzanna lingered, but no further word came.
Suzanna dragged a low rocking chair into the yard, emptied the bag of freshly washed stockings on the ground beside her, selected a pair of Peter's, slipped the egg down, threaded her needle and began the task of filling in the huge holes. Then she called Maizie from beside the still sleeping baby.
"Maizie," she began, "listen to me say two verses of 'The Little Martyr of Smyrna.'"
Maizie sank down at her sister's feet. She listened in awe as Suzanna dramatically repeated the first part of the poem. Her gestures were remarkable, her voice charged with feeling.
"It's beautiful, Suzanna," said Maizie. "Everybody will listen and look at you in your new dress."
"O, it isn't a dress, Maizie," cried Suzanna, the while her small fingers dexterously wove the needle in and out. "It's a rose blossom. And when I recite in it on the last day of school my heart will be a butterfly sipping honey from the flower."
"I thought it was only a pale pink lawn at ten cents a yard," said Maizie. She spoke somewhat timidly now, fearful of Suzanna's scorn.
"You think everything is just what it is," answered Suzanna reproachfully. "Go see if the baby is still asleep, and look down the road for Peter."
Maizie went off obediently, but she returned in a moment with the news that the baby still slept and Peter was playing near Mr. Reynolds' gate. She seated herself as before. She wanted to hear more of Suzanna's fancies, but Suzanna remained silent, having been chilled a little by Maizie's practicality. So Maizie put out her hand and touched her sister. "Will the petticoat be a petticoat?" she asked, and wondered excitedly into what beauty Suzanna's imagination would transmute this ordinary piece of cambric.
Suzanna's spirits rose again. "It'll be a green satin cup for the rose," she answered, gazing dreamily before her. She let Peter's stocking fall to the ground while she clasped her hands ecstatically. "O, Maizie, it's almost too much joy! To wear a flower dress and to recite something that makes you so happy and yet you want to cry too."
Maizie nestled a little closer. "Do you think, Suzanna, when the green petticoat's nearly worn, that it'll come down to me?"
Suzanna pondered this for a moment. "Yes,it'll go down to you, Maizie, but not for years and years," she answered, finally. "Things do last so in this family."
Maizie, by a sad little shake of the head, agreed with this statement, and the sisters were silent. In different manner, however, for Maizie simply accepted an unpleasant fact, while Suzanna worked mentally to a solution of any situation. She found the solution at last.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Maizie," she said. "Once a month, when we love each other madly, I'll let you wear my petticoat."
"I hope it'll come on Sunday when we love each other that way," said Maizie, wistfully; "I'm sure mother wouldn't let you lend the petticoat to me for an every-day."
"We can fix that, too," said ready Suzanna. "Some Friday you can begin to fuss about washing Peter. I'll have to wash him myself if you'retoomean. And Saturday morning you can peel the potatoes so thick that mother'll say: 'Maizie, do you think we're made of money! Here, let Suzanna show you how to peel those potatoes thin.' And then I'll be so mad I'll give you a push, and I won't speak to you for the rest of the day."
"Yes, go on," said Maizie, her eyes shining.
"And then on Sunday morning, just before breakfast, you'll come to me and put your arms around my neck and say: 'Dear, sweet,lovelySuzanna, I'm so sorry I've been so hateful. I'll go down on my knees for your forgiveness.And I'll sew on all the buttons this week!'"
Maizie drew away a little then. Suzanna went on, however. "And I'll say: 'Yes, dear sinner, I forgive you freely. You may wear my green petticoat today.'"
There fell an hour of a never-to-be-forgotten day when the pink dress lay on the dining-room table, full length, finished, marvelous to little eyes with its yards and yards of valenciennes lace that graduated in width from very narrow to one broad band around the bottom of the skirt. Suzanna, Maizie, Peter, and even the baby bowed before the miracle of beauty.
"How many yards of lace are on it, mother?" asked Suzanna, for the sixth time, and for the sixth time Mrs. Procter looked up from her sewing machine at which she was busy with the green petticoat and answered: "A whole bolt, Suzanna."
The children at this information stared rounder-eyed and then turned to gaze with uncovered awe at Suzanna, the owner.
"Do you think, mother," asked Maizie, "that when I'm older I can have a pink dress with no trimming of yours on it?"
"We'll see," said Mrs. Procter, who knew how strictly to the letter she was held to her promises.
Now Suzanna reluctantly left the dress and went to her mother. "Mother," she cried, softly, "when I recite 'The Little Martyr of Smyrna' up on the big platform, I'm afraid I won't be humble in spirit. It's too much to be humble, isn't it, when you've got a whole bolt of lace on your dress?"
Mrs. Procter, quite used to Suzanna's intensities, answered, running the machine deftly as she spoke: "Oh, you'll be all right, Suzanna. The minister means something else when he preaches of being humble. What bothers me now is how to manage a pair of shoes for you. Yours are so shabby."
"Can't I wear my patent leather slippers?"
"You've outgrown them, Suzanna. They're too short even for Maizie, you remember."
"I could stand them for that one time, mother."
"No," said Mrs. Procter decidedly; "I should be distressed seeing you in shoes too small for you."
"Mother, you could open the end of my patent leather slipper so my toes can push through and then put a puff of black, ribbon over the hole!" The idea was an inspiration, and Suzanna's eyes shone.
Mrs. Procter saw immediately possibilities in the idea. Years of working and scheming and praying to raise her ever increasing family on the inadequate and varying income of her inventor husband had ultimated in keen sensibilities for opportunities. "Why, I think I can do that," she said. "I'll make a sort of shirred bag into which your toes will fit and so lengthen the slipper and cover the stitching with a bow. I hope I can find a needle strong enough to go through the leather." Her face was bright, her voice clear. She was all at once quite different from the weary, dragged mother of the past few days, determined against all odds to finish the dress so the cleaning might be started the following week.
Suzanna gazed delightedly. With the fine intuition of an imaginative child she understood the reason for the metamorphosis. It was the quickening of the senses that rallied themselves to meet and solve a problem that brought a high glow; stimulated, and uplifted. She herself was no stranger to that glow.
She put her arms about her mother's shoulder.
"Isn't it nice, mother, to have to think out things?"
A little puzzled, Mrs. Procter looked at Suzanna. Then her face cleared.
"O, I understand. It is—can you understand the word, Suzanna—'exhilarating' sometimes."
"I feel what the word means, mother—like catching in your breath when you touch cold water."
"Exactly. Now please get the slippers."
Suzanna ran upstairs. Returning, slippers in hand, she found the other children had left.
"Has Maizie got the baby?" Suzanna asked anxiously.
Her mother smiled. "Yes, I carried him out to the yard. He's kicking about, happy on his blanket."
Suzanna, relieved, handed the slippers to her mother.
"And I brought my old black hair ribbon. That will do for the shirring, won't it, mother?"
"Nicely."
Together they evolved, worked, tried on, completed.
"It's more fun doing this than going to Bryson's and buying a new pair, isn't it, mother?"
"Well, I believe it is, daughter."
"I feel so warm here—" Suzanna touched her heart—"because we're doing something harder than just going out to the store and buying what we'd like."
Mrs. Procter gazed at her handiwork reflectively. "Well, it does make you feel that you've accomplished a great deal when you've created something out of nothing."
Mrs. Procter rose then, touched the new dress lovingly, and said: "So, we can put it away now, Suzanna; it's quite finished. The petticoat needs just a button and buttonhole."
Suzanna stood quite still. At last she looked up into her mother's face and put her question: "When will you begin to cut the goods out from under the lace, mother?"
Mrs. Procter, her thoughts now supperward, spoke abstractedly: "Oh, we'll not do that."
There was a silence, while the room suddenly whirled for Suzanna. Recovering from the dizziness, with eyes large and black and her face very pale, Suzanna gazed unbelievingly at her mother. For a moment she was quite unable to speak. Then in a tiny voice which she endeavored to keep steady, she asked: "Not even from under the wide row round the bottom, mother?"
"No, Suzanna," Mrs. Procter answered, quite unconscious of the storm in the child's breast. She moved towards the door.
"But, mother, listen, please." Suzanna's hands were locked till they showed white at the knuckles. "If you don't cut the goods away the green petticoat won't gleam through the lace! You see, it's a rose dress and a rose has shining green leaves, just showing."
The plea was ardent, but Mrs. Procter was firm. Indeed she did not glance at Suzanna. The reaction from her days of hard and continuous work was setting in. She merely said: "Suzanna, we must make that dress last a long time. I made it so that it can be lengthened five inches. We can't weaken it by cutting the goods away from under the lace. Now, dear, go and see that the children aren't in mischief. I must start supper."
The children were playing contentedly in the road, Suzanna assured herself. And finding them so, she wandered disconsolately back to the front porch, where seated in a little rocking chair she stared straight before her. She felt as one thrown suddenly from a great height. One moment she had been thrillingly happy, the next, the bitter fruit of disappointment touched her lips. So events occur lightningly quick in this world. The day itself was as beautiful as it had been an hour before, yet its sun had ceased to shine for little Suzanna, since the crowning touch of The Dress, the poetic completeness of it, was denied her.
Years ago it seemed she had wakened in the morning after dreaming of a rose gown with its glimpses of cool green flickering through rows of open lace; but no more could she dream, since that lace was now condemned to blindness, unable even to hint at concealed beauties, and this because Economy, the stern god of the Procter home, so ordained.
Two tears at last found their slow way down her cheek. Not the least of her woe was caused by the realization that now the dress was ingloriously what Maizie had termed it, a pale pink lawn at ten cents a yard, bearing no appeal to her imagination, fulfilling no place in Suzanna's great Scheme of Things.
Suzanna's distress, as the days passed, did not abate. She never spoke of the dress, nor did she go to look at it as it hung shrouded in cheese cloth in the hall closet upstairs. No longer did she look forward with delight to the day when feelingly she should recite the troubles and the heroism of "The Little Martyr of Smyrna."
Instead she went quietly about performing her customary duties, finding for the time no real zest in life.
Mrs. Procter, innocent of the cause of Suzanna's listlessness, spoke no word. She wondered why the child had lost interest in the festival, indeed in all things pertaining to the occasion. It was difficult, she finally decided, to know how to cope with a child so complex, so changeable. She determined to treat the new mood with indifference, as being the most potent method. So she asked of Suzanna the performance of daily duties just as usual. When she discovered Suzanna gazing at her, Maizie close beside her with the same degree of reflection in her gray eyes, Mrs. Procter grew uncomfortable, then a trifle irritable. Both children seemed to regard her as an alien, one, for the time, quite outside their pale.
Suzanna, then, had taken Maizie into her confidence.
"One needs be clairvoyant," Mrs. Procter told her husband one evening, "to know what passes through small minds."
"Clairvoyant and full of patience," he answered, looking up from his color book. "I can remember even now my own sensations when at times my mother failed to go with me into my land of dreams."
Mrs. Procter cast her memory back over the events of several days.
"I can't think what has so changed Suzanna," she said at last; "I've disappointed her, I fear, about something or other. Dear me, what insight versatile children do demand in a mother. And Suzanna takes everything so very seriously. And Maizie stares at me too, with a little bewildered expression. It's strange that Maizie, with all her literalness, can understand at times Suzanna's disappointments when her fancies are not given due value. For, of course, it is some fancy of Suzanna's that I've either not noticed, or perhaps laughed at." She paused to smile at her husband.
"Such children come of giving them an inventor father, an 'impractical genius,' as I've heard myself in satire called."
She flushed up angrily at this.
"You've done wonderfully well," she said, and believed the assertion; just as though at forty to weigh nails correctly and to sell so many yards of garden hose a week was a fine measure of success. "And your name will go ringing down the ages." She would never let him lose confidence in his own powers. Circumstances alone had thrown him into a mediocre position in a small town, but they should never hold him down.
He grew beneath her look; beneath her belief in him. And so the conversation ended on the personal note; ended with hands clasped and fond eyes seeing each the other's charm after many years.
Suzanna, arranging the pantry the next morning, sought her mother upstairs with a domestic announcement.
"The vinegar bottle is empty," she said.
"And the gherkins all ready," cried Mrs. Procter. "Will you run over to Mrs. Reynolds and ask her for some vinegar, Suzanna?"
Listlessly, Suzanna returned downstairs, and from the pantry procured a cup. Slowly she left the house, walked down the front path and across the road to Mrs. Reynolds' home. Arrived there, she went round to the back door and knocked with slack knuckles.
Mrs. Reynolds, a white cloth tied about her forehead, opened the door. She gave out redolently the pungent odor of the commodity Suzanna sought to borrow.
Mrs. Reynolds was stout and comfortable looking ordinarily. A quaint and interesting personality, sprung from Welsh parentage, she fitted into the life of Anchorville only because of a certain natural adaptability. She seemed to belong to a wilder, more passionate people than those plain lives which surrounded her.
Suzanna knew her tenderness, her tragic depressions. She loved her deep voice, her resonant tones, all her quick changes of mood, and her occasional strange ways of expression, revealing her understanding of men and women's vagaries.
Mrs. Reynolds adored Suzanna. She had said often there was one thing she coveted from her neighbor, and that was her neighbor's child.
Mrs. Reynolds had no children and in that deplorable fact lay her keenest unhappiness.
She greeted Suzanna cordially.
"Come in, Suzanna, come in," she said. "I've been using vinegar and red pepper all morning," she continued, as she went her way to the pantry with Suzanna's cup. "I've one of my old headaches."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Suzanna, with immediate sympathy. "Have you been worrying?"
"Not more than usual, Suzanna," said Mrs. Reynolds with a sigh. "Here's your vinegar. Hold it steady. Vinegar's a bad thing to spill."
"Thank you," said Suzanna, politely, as she received the cup. And then: "I don't see why you should worry. You have no children. It's mother's many children that sometimes give her worry."
"Your mother'd have worries even without you all," returned Mrs. Reynolds. "Won't you sit down a spell, Suzanna?"
"No, I can't, mother's waiting." Suzanna walked toward the door, pausing on her way to glance about her. "My, but you're very clean here," she said, appreciatively. "Your cleanness is different from ours. Ours doesn't show so."
"There's no little hands to clutter things up," said Mrs. Reynolds, but her voice wasn't glad.
Suzanna, intuitively sensing the real trouble,said: "Reynolds slammed the door this morning, Mrs. Reynolds. We heard the slam in our dining-room and my mother jumped." Suzanna quite innocently borrowed Mrs. Reynolds' way of referring to her husband.
Mrs. Reynolds' face darkened. "Yes, I know he did. That man is getting more like a bear every day."
"He liked our twin that went away, Mrs. Reynolds. He wasn't like a bear when he played with her."
At this statement Mrs. Reynolds suddenly threw her apron over her head and sobbed: "That's just it, Suzanna, that's just it; there aren't any little cluttering fingers about."
Suzanna set the vinegar cup carefully down on the table, the while her keenly sensitive mind worked rapidly. Those gifts which by dint of their frequency in her own home seemed rather overdone were actually missed here! A strong, deep sympathy for Mrs. Reynolds' disappointment grew within her, but did not entirely crowd out the thought that through this very disappointment her own burning desire might be brought to pass. She now went swiftly and touched the weeping woman.
"Mrs. Reynolds," she began, "will you tellme how you feel about cutting pink goods away from under lace. Can you afford to do that?"
Mrs. Reynolds' apron came down with a jerk, and for a second she stared her perplexity at the upturned, earnest little face. Then with quick understanding which revealed her real mother-spirit, she answered: "Why land, Honey-Girl, Reynolds makes pretty good money at times. I guess we can do about as we please in most simple ways."
"Well, then, keep your apron down," advised Suzanna; "and just think this thought over and over: 'Reynolds is not going to be cross any more!' Thank you again for the vinegar, I must be going now."
It was not without misgiving that Suzanna started immediately to put her secret plan into execution. And her judicious side urged the completion of all details before she said anything to those most nearly concerned in her new move. Only to Maizie, whose constant attendance she skillfully managed to elude while she made her simple preparations, did she at last give any confidence, and it was in this manner she spoke:
"There's going to be a great change, Maizie; and tonight you must manage to stay awake to do something for me."
Maizie, at once interested, grew wildly expectant. Though she could send up no airships of her own, she loved to contemplate Suzanna's daring flights.
"I'll do anything, Suzanna," she promised.
So Suzanna gave Maizie her news. Hearing it, Maizie's lips quivered, but she kept back the tears by the exercise of great control. They were upstairs in their own room. It was late afternoon. Peter was out playing. Mrs. Procter, the baby with her, was downtown ordering groceries.
"Now, you mustn't cry, Maizie," said Suzanna; "it all had to be, and what is to be is for the best." Suzanna quoted from Mrs. Reynolds. "Go downstairs and get father's dictionary."
Maizie obeyed, returning quickly with the desired book.
"And now stand at the window so as to tell me when you see mother coming."
So Maizie took her stand while Suzanna labored hard with the pen. An hour passed. Once Suzanna flew downstairs to the kitchen, then returned to her work. At last, Maizie in excited tones announced that her mother and the baby had turned the corner. Suzanna laid down her pen.
"Well, it's all finished," she said.
Maizie looked at her sister. Now the tears came, blurring the big gray eyes.
"You mustn't cry, Maizie," said Suzanna, trying to subdue her own emotions.
"Couldn't you just wear the dress as it is?" asked Maizie in a small voice, touching the crux of the whole matter, the cause of the great change.
"I just couldn't," Suzanna returned. "It wouldn't be a rose blossom, you see, Maizie,when it could just as well be one."
Maizie nodded. Perhaps she understood Suzanna's sense of waste. Undoubtedly her grief at Suzanna's contemplated step had sharpened her sensibilities. Vague stirrings told her that the artist in Suzanna had been desperately hurt; and for the once her imagination thrilled as did her sister's to the dress as a Rose Blossom. She knew with passion that it could not remain simply pink lawn cut and slashed into a mere garment.
So she went softly to Suzanna and touched her gently.
"I'll help you all I can, sister," she said.
So it was that just as the clock was striking nine, little Maizie stole from her room—shared as long as she remembered with Suzanna—crept down the stairs and into the parlor where her father sat studying, as always, a formidable book,the while her mother sat sewing, her chair drawn close to his. Maizie went straight to the quiet figure.
"Mother," she said, "Suzanna told me to stay awake till the clock struck nine and then to give you this."
"This" was a note folded into the shape of a cocked hat, which Suzanna thought very elegant. Mrs. Procter, accustomed to Suzanna's ways, unfolded the note, smiled at the large printed letters, sighed a little at the thought of the great effort put into their forming, read once, twice, then sat up very straight. The note thus told its own story:
My Loving Mother:I have given myself to the Reynolds for there own. Mrs. Reynolds is not happy with Reynolds' slams of doors and crossness be cause they have no child. They will be pretty sprised to see me to night and glad with my big shiny bag witch I have borrowed from my once very loved father. I have my pink dress witch will soon be a rose in it and my other things. I wore my hat and coat even if it is warm. You will not miss me much because the last baby went away and a baby always makes more work. And anyway one little girl out of a big family wont make any difrunce. But if you want any fine errands ran, you can borrow Mrs. Reynolds new child. Tell father I am loving my naybor as myself. It hurtme till something stopped inside to see Mrs. Reynolds put her apron over her head at Reynolds slams. Perhaps the mother angel that stops at our house all the time will pause at Mrs. Reynolds' next time and leave a bundle, thinking when I'm there a family don't have to be started which is always hard, I suppose. Mother, please don't forget about borrowing. It is not polite to come 2 often even to borrow me for some thing big. It took me an hour and twenty minutes to write this while you were at the butshers and grosers and Maizie at the window. I had to stop too, to watch the beans on the stove. I have labored over some of the big spelling with fathers dicsionary on my knee, remembering to make all my i's big I's.Farewell forever,SuzannaReynolds.
I have given myself to the Reynolds for there own. Mrs. Reynolds is not happy with Reynolds' slams of doors and crossness be cause they have no child. They will be pretty sprised to see me to night and glad with my big shiny bag witch I have borrowed from my once very loved father. I have my pink dress witch will soon be a rose in it and my other things. I wore my hat and coat even if it is warm. You will not miss me much because the last baby went away and a baby always makes more work. And anyway one little girl out of a big family wont make any difrunce. But if you want any fine errands ran, you can borrow Mrs. Reynolds new child. Tell father I am loving my naybor as myself. It hurtme till something stopped inside to see Mrs. Reynolds put her apron over her head at Reynolds slams. Perhaps the mother angel that stops at our house all the time will pause at Mrs. Reynolds' next time and leave a bundle, thinking when I'm there a family don't have to be started which is always hard, I suppose. Mother, please don't forget about borrowing. It is not polite to come 2 often even to borrow me for some thing big. It took me an hour and twenty minutes to write this while you were at the butshers and grosers and Maizie at the window. I had to stop too, to watch the beans on the stove. I have labored over some of the big spelling with fathers dicsionary on my knee, remembering to make all my i's big I's.
Farewell forever,SuzannaReynolds.
P. S. Mrs. Reynolds can afford to cut away the goods from under all lace, which makes my heart jump! Perhaps tho even tho I'm sorry for her, if she hadn't promised to cut away the goods from under the lace in my pink dress, I wouldn't have adopted myself out to her. So I shall see you when I recite "The Little Martyr of Smyrna" with the green showing through the windows of my many yards of lace. O, Mother, I couldn't bare to ware that dress which is just adresswhen it could be arose.
P. S. Mrs. Reynolds can afford to cut away the goods from under all lace, which makes my heart jump! Perhaps tho even tho I'm sorry for her, if she hadn't promised to cut away the goods from under the lace in my pink dress, I wouldn't have adopted myself out to her. So I shall see you when I recite "The Little Martyr of Smyrna" with the green showing through the windows of my many yards of lace. O, Mother, I couldn't bare to ware that dress which is just adresswhen it could be arose.
"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Procter, attracted by the strange, almost solemn silence. "What's the trouble, Jane?"
She handed the note to him, waited while he read it through not once, but many times, as she had.
He passed it back to her. "Shall we go for her?" he asked.
But she shook her head. "Sometimes I don't know just how to act where Suzanna's concerned," she said. She folded the note. "No, sometimes I feel just helpless."
Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds were in the kitchen, she belatedly washing the supper dishes, he smoking his pipe near the window. She lent, through her vivid personality, color to him. Big, hearty, he was not picturesque. He seemed to take note of realities more than she did. Perhaps springing from emotional folk, she stood with a quality of rich background denied to him by a line of unimaginative ancestors.
He read his big books, she found truths in her own heart. She found a quick, tender language springing from her understanding. He used his words like bludgeons.
Still they loved one another, and her deepest hurt was that he wanted that which she could not give him. So she placed his longing before hers and grieved most for his lack.
The front door-bell rang. They looked at one another wonderingly, then Mr. Reynolds slowly withdrew his feet from the window sill and went as slowly down the hall. He opened the door toSuzanna, who stood waiting, conventionally attired in hat and cloak, pale, and with eyes wide and dark.
"Good evening, Reynolds," said Suzanna.
"O! good evening, come in, come in," urged Mr. Reynolds hospitably, but totally at a loss as he looked at the little figure. "Come right out to the kitchen."
Suzanna followed him. When once in the kitchen, she stood for a moment blinking in the light streaming from the hanging lamp under which Mrs. Reynolds stood; then she said:
"I've come to you, Mrs. Reynolds, to stay. I've adopted myself out to you."
"Well, I never, dear love!" was all Mrs. Reynolds could say as she wiped her hands on a convenient roller towel.
Mr. Reynolds laughed. "Oh, you think you'd like a change of homes, Suzanna?"
Suzanna turned to him then. She spoke quietly, but decisively so he might perfectly understand. "No, that's not it, Reynolds. I love my little home; but first I don't want Mrs. Reynolds to throw her apron over her head at your slams. And second it's for myself I come, because you can afford to do something for me my own mother thinks she can't on account of little money."
But Mr. Reynolds caught only the first reason. "What do you mean, young lady, about slammin'; that's what I want to know." His tone was belligerent. Mrs. Reynolds threw him a withering look. "Here, Suzanna," she said; "give me the bag, and you sit down. Take your hat off, my brave little lass. 'Twas but you and you alone could think of this sweet thought."
"I'd rather have things settled before I take my hat off," said Suzanna. She relinquished the bag, however, and seated herself in the chair Mrs. Reynolds pulled forward. Then she went on: "You know, Reynolds, you do slam doors and make Mrs. Reynolds cry. And you know, anyway, you oughtn't to blame Mrs. Reynolds because you get no visits. It may be just as much your fault because the mother angel don't like your ways."
She paused a moment before continuing. "And, anyway, my father never blames mother for anything, only when she's tired and cries he remembers to love her even if he's on the way upstairs to the attic to his wonderful Machine, and he puts his arm about her waist, though mother says it's much larger now than it was years ago. That's what my father that used to be, does."
"Why bless my soul!" blustered Mr. Reynolds, his face a fine glowing color; "bless my soul!" he repeated, removing his shoes and slamming them down, as he always did under stress. "Women, my dear, will make up all sorts of stories. If I did give the door a bit of a slam, it was because the bacon didn't set right, perhaps. And a woman's always fancying things."
"But you don't put your arm about her, you know that, Reynolds. I was born in this town and I've never seen you put your arm about her."
Mrs. Reynolds' apron was over her head again, but she made no sound. Her husband knocked the ashes from his pipe, and ran his fingers through his thick hair. Then he stared helplessly at Suzanna. She rose valiantly to the occasion.
"If you say, 'There, there, don't cry, you should have married a better man,' she'll say: 'There couldn't be a better' and take her apron down." Thus innocently Suzanna exposed a tender home method of salving hurts, and her listener, as near as his nature could, appropriated the method. He rose from his chair and went softly to his wife. At her side he hesitated in sheer embarrassment, but as she began to sob, he hurriedly repeated Suzanna's formula: "There, there, dear, don't cry. I'm a bad 'un, I am—"
Mrs. Reynolds lowered her shield. "Youknow better than that, Reynolds," she denied, almost indignantly. "You're a good provider, with a bit of a temper."
"Well, out with it then. Whatisthe trouble? I'm willing to do what I can, even occasionally to doing what the little lass suggests." And with the words, his big arm went clumsily about his wife, the while he looked at Suzanna for approval. She nodded vigorously, her eyes shining.
"It's just this, then, Reynolds," the words were now a whisper, and the big red-faced man had to stoop to hear. "It's that I'm achin' all the time to hold one in my arms; and always to you I've let on that I didn't care. An'—an'—I know the hunger in your own fine heart, my lad."
Mr. Reynolds' face grew wonderfully soft; indeed, tender in a new understanding. "I didn't know, Margie, that you grieved. Come, look up. You and me are together anyway."
"And you have me, now, too," broke in Suzanna, eager to help. "I'm going to stay with you forever'n forever, only except when my mother that used to be wants to borrow me back. Now, I'll go to bed, if you please."
And then one swift, cuddling memory of little Maizie alone in bed across the street brought the hot tears to Suzanna's eyes, but she winked themresolutely back as she lifted the black, shiny bag.
"Tomorrow," she said to Mrs. Reynolds, "you can cut the goods away from under the lace on my pink dress, can't you?" She went on, not waiting for an answer. "Shall I go right along upstairs?"
Mrs. Reynolds spoke gently: "Yes, Suzanna. Did you tell your mother you were coming to me to be my own lass?"
"I wrote her a letter."
Suzanna on her way upstairs waited a moment while Mrs. Reynolds whispered directions to her husband: "You run across to the little home while I put her to bed." Then looking wistfully up into his face: "Do you think she'll let me undress her?"
"That young'un will do anything to make you happy, Margie."
From the top of the stairs the words floated down: "Are you coming—mother—"
Suzanna's voice choked on the word, but Mrs. Reynolds heard only the exquisite title. She lifted her face, glowing like a heaven of stars.
"I'm coming, Suzanna," she called. And she went swiftly up the stairs to the little girl. "This night you sleep under the silk coverlet—and more I couldn't do for royalty!"
Suzanna woke the next morning to a realization that she was in a strange place. She occupied a large bed, too large, it seemed to her, for one small girl. And even the silken coverlet failed to assuage the sudden wave of homesickness which threatened to engulf her.
She lay thinking. A clock on the dresser showed her the hour to be seven. Maizie would be up and downstairs. She would have buttoned Peter and would be carrying the blue dishes from the pantry to the dining-room. Father would be in the attic for a glance at his beloved Machine before obeying mother's cheerful call to breakfast.
Suzanna choked back a lump insistent upon rising to her throat. Across the way was home and she had adopted herself out of it! Here all was quiet, and comfortable, very comfortable. The mattress was thick, her small body quite sank into its depths; the bed she shared with Maizie, she had realized on occasions, had lumps, and no silken coverlet spreading itself brilliantly. Stillthere were rare and beautiful compensations for the lack of thick mattresses and silken coverlets—and greatest grief to her of all was that she stood no longer a daughter to a great man!
The tears came perilously near. Suzanna choked them back as she heard "Reynolds" close the front gate with what to him was a gentle click. She felt that in a moment Mrs. Reynolds would summon her downstairs to a breakfast hot and delicious.
Why had she left home if she loved it so!
The sentence formed itself in her mind.
Well, she hadn't realized that home and those in it were so dear till she left. And her reason was a good one. It had seemed she could scarcely live possessed of a dress whose sweet possibilities were denied by a mother's spirit of economy. Never had she so intensely wished for anything as for the goods to be cut away from under the rows of lace.
Still now, lying there alone in her strange surroundings, that desire was losing its poignancy. It didn't seem quite to fill her entire universe.
Mrs. Reynolds put her head inside the door. She wore a crisp blue and white dress, her black hair was drawn smoothly back from her brow. Her eyes dwelt lovingly on the little girl.
"Quite awake, Suzanna?" she asked.
Suzanna nodded. She couldn't trust herself to speak.
"Well, then," said Mrs. Reynolds, "I'm going to give thee a treat." She went away quite unconscious that she had fallen into her original quaint method of speech.
Presently she returned, carrying a tray covered with a white and red napkin.
Suzanna sat up, received the tray in her lap and waited unexcitedly while Mrs. Reynolds removed the enshrouding napkin.
There lay an orange cut up and sugared; a poached egg on a slice of perfectly browned toast, and a glass of rich milk.
"For my little girl," said Mrs. Reynolds in her contralto voice. "Now eat thee, my dearie, and take your time. I'll leave now."
Alone once more, Suzanna surveyed the tray. She lifted a spoon with the tiniest piece of orange on its tip, and found strangely that when she attempted to swallow the fruit her throat quite closed up.
Suddenly there came a memory of Drusilla. Drusilla had told of the little silver chain, binding all to one another. Surely the chain binding Suzanna to her mother was doubly thick, yet shehad broken it! She put the tray to one side and sprang from the bed. Her desire, recently so keen, so all absorbing, seemed little indeed beside the yearning now to be back across the way once again her Mother's Child.
Mrs. Reynolds, returning, found her little guest at the window, bare feet on the cold floor; the white gown held tightly at the neck by a small, trembling hand. A glance at the tray on the bed revealed a breakfast practically untasted.
"Why, my lamb," began Mrs. Reynolds, "not a bite gone down!"
Suzanna turned, a desperate little face she showed, eyes wide and appealing.
"I just couldn't eat, Mrs. Reynolds." No thought now of bestowing the beloved title.
"And the food brought fine to bed to you."
"Not even then."
"Well, come then, dear heart; you must be dressed. I put your clothes away neat and tidy."
Mrs. Reynolds opened a closet door and brought forth an armful of garments. Suzanna surveyed them as though they had no relation to her.
Mrs. Reynolds went suddenly and picked up the little figure, carried her to a rocking chair and with no word held her close.
"What is it, my little girl?" asked Mrs. Reynolds after a time, softly.
Her little girl! Suzanna winced. But shewasMrs. Reynolds' little girl now. Hadn't she broken all ties with the loved ones across the way?
She tried to find comfort in Mrs. Reynolds' joy. "I am your little girl, aren't I?" she asked softly, calling valiantly on her sense of justice.
Mrs. Reynolds looked searchingly into Suzanna's face. With no child of her own, she was still a mother-at-heart. She was full of understanding.
"As much, my own lassie," she answered, "as any other woman's child can be. You see," she went on after a pause, "there's a bond 'tween mother and child that can't ever be broke."
"But I adopted myself out to you," said Suzanna, though her heart was beating with hope.
"Yes, you did," admitted Mrs. Reynolds; "but you didn't at that break the tie that binds you to your own mother. You could never do that, Suzanna, lassie."
As Suzanna looked up into the kind face, new thoughts came surging to her. She couldn't separate them, couldn't arrange them. They all jumbled together, like vivid picture impressions, full of color and feeling. One thought at length cleared itself, stood out.
Love and the chain binding you to those you loved was the biggest thing in the world.
So she told Mrs. Reynolds about Drusilla's chain. And Mrs. Reynolds, greatly impressed, said: "Yes, it's a blessed thread that holds us together. Reynolds calls it the 'sense of brotherhood.'" Her voice lowered itself: "He's a Socialist, Reynolds is, Suzanna." There was pride and fear mixed with a little condemnation in her voice.
"A Socialist—it's a nice word, isn't it?" said Suzanna, settling more comfortably into the hollow of Mrs. Reynolds' arm.
"And I'm going to see Drusilla, as you call her," said Mrs. Reynolds, "and take her some of my crab jelly. I've seen her many's the time sitting out in the yard with naught but a trained maid by her. Poor, poor old soul, with a rich daughter-in-law."
"And a King that's gone to the Far Country," said Suzanna; "and she longs for him. Oh, she's a lonely old lady."
"She must be that and all," said Mrs. Reynolds, wholly sympathetic.
They sat rocking then in silence. Suzanna was the first to speak.
"Mrs. Reynolds," she began in a low voice."I think I'll dress now, and after I've helped with the breakfast dishes I'll go and see my mother."
The heartbreak in the small voice touched Mrs. Reynolds deeply. "Why, small lass," she cried: "You mustn't think I'll hold you to your giving yourself away to me. No, not even for a bit of time. Sweet, you gave me joy last night. I pretended that you were my own. I undressed you and put you to bed, and heard your prayers. You did something for me, and I be vastly grateful to you."
Suzanna's eyes brightened. "Oh, thank you for saying all that, Mrs. Reynolds."
"Yes, you came to me in the night with your shiny bag, and you told in your little way some truths to Reynolds. You made him see clear and farther than he has for many a day, the fine man though he is, and I'll always hold you in my heart as my dream child."
"Your dream child—and I'll dream for you—that you should have your heart's desire like the fairies say," finished Suzanna.
"Ah, lack-a-me," cried Mrs. Reynolds. "Who e'er gets his deepest heart desire in this drear world?"
Suzanna sprang to her feet.
"Oh, but heart's desires change."
"Change!"
"Yes. You can have new ones every day. Why, for many days my deepest heart's desire has been to have the goods cut away from under the lace. Now, I don't care so much for that—not so much—Now I want most in the world to see—my—mother—"
Fearful that she had hurt Mrs. Reynolds by her confession, she put out her hand and stroked the capable hand lying near.
But Mrs. Reynolds wasn't hurt. She was smiling. "Well, it's a hard thing at times to learn to put one wish in place of another. But I guess life teaches you that; it hurries you forward so you have to put wish on wish." She stood up. "And now, the morning's well started, Suzanna. Dress quickly and come down to a warm breakfast."
She raised the tray and Suzanna knew that now she was hungry.
"Come down when you're ready, my wee bit girl," said Mrs. Reynolds, as she left, carrying the tray with her.
So Suzanna in a short time descended. How restful the house was; no insistent voices of children, no clattering of dishes.
"It's so quiet and nice here, Mrs. Reynolds," said Suzanna, as she entered the kitchen. "At home there's lots of talking and sometimes the baby cries."
"Do you like quiet, Suzanna?"
"Ye-es," Suzanna stammered. A recurrent attack of homesickness was upon her; that dreadful pulling of the heartstrings; that sinking feeling that she had cut herself loose from all to whom she belonged rightfully.
She stood still watching Mrs. Reynolds who was busy at the stove. She admired the deftness with which an egg was broken and dropped into boiling water, and in a few seconds brought to the top intact, to be placed upon the awaiting toast.
"You're awful quick, Mrs. Reynolds," she started to say when a knock sounded upon the door.
The door slowly opened and, alone, Suzanna's mother entered.
She stood just looking in. She was pale, her eyes wide, languid, shadows beneath them as though she had not slept. But those same tired eyes lightened as they fell upon Suzanna.
"Mother-eyes," the phrase grew in Suzanna's heart. She should never in all her life forget that look of longing, of love.
And somehow another impression, new, almost unbelievable, came to Suzanna. Her mother wasyoung, for wasn't that yearning note in her voice; that tentative little gesture; her whole questioning attitude, all her seekings, but expressions of her youngness? She wasn't after all far removed from her little daughter, not for this minute, anyway. A delicious sense of comradeship with this mother flooded the child.
And the mother stood and looked at her child, almost as for the first time, at least with a sense of newness, as though Suzanna had been born anew to her.
In the night a far reaching understanding had come to her. It came out of her conclusion to strike a blow at the child's oversensitiveness by a full dose of ridicule; by accusing her of affectation, a clever playing to the gallery; this when the night was early, and the mother still aching with weariness from the day's many tasks. And then as the hours wore on, and the quiet soothed her weary nerves, the knowledge came, flashing out of the ether, as often it does for serious mothers, that the gift of keen sensibility, of intense desire was too valuable to be quenched.
What if Suzanna began to question her own motives; what if she should lose belief in her ownspiritual integrity; learn in time to look in on herself with a spirit of morbid analysis instead of living out her natural qualities beautifully and spontaneously!
All these truths stirred her again as she looked at her child.
While Suzanna didn't move from her place, she wanted to stay at some distance that she might look her soul's full at her mother—her mother!
At length she spoke: "Mother—I want to be your little girl again. Will you take me back?"
Would she take her back? Mrs. Procter's arms opened wide. Into them Suzanna flew.
Mrs. Reynolds regarded the cold poached egg, the second one spoiled that morning. Furtively she wiped the tears from her eyes. At last she cleared her voice and spoke:
"I'll go upstairs and pack your bag, Suzanna," she said.