Making Over Martha 11

Making Over Martha 11

It wasn’t fair that one life should be crippled to serve the whim of

another. If her grandmother insisted on cutting her off from all

natural pleasures, let her take the consequences. She fell asleep at

last, nursing her sense of injury, brooding over her wrongs.

 

The next morning, while the casual Eunice was clearing the breakfast

table, Katherine heard a sound outside, which caused her to hurry to the

window. The sound was familiar, but the time for it unusual. The

doctor’s car was not due at Crewesmere so early in the day. Yet there

it was, and, as Katherine gazed, from it issued, as if in installments,

Mrs. Slawson, a small boy, a big girl, and—a huge, granite-ware

preserving-kettle.

 

In less than a minute the _tempo_ of the house was changed. Things

moved _vivace_.

 

"Sammy, you go out with this basket, an’ strip them trees as fast as you

can put. Cora, you show’m where to go, after Miss Crewe she tells you,

that’s a good girl. Eunice, get me every one o’ them perserve-jars

off’n the top pantry-shelf, an’ when you wash’m, see the water’s good

an’ hot, but not so’s it’ll crack the glass. We’ll need them scales,

Miss Katherine. I knew you had’m, or I’d ’a’ brought my own. If you

watch me measurin’, an’ write down what the perportions are, an’ how I

handle’m, you’ll have a ’rule’ for future use, which, if it never took a

prize like Mrs. Peckett’s, certaintly never poisoned anybody yet, that

ever et it, so far as _I_ know."

 

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

 

"I don’t know how it is, Mrs. Slawson," she said at length, "but

whenever you’re here, I feel about twice as strong and brave, as at any

other time. It isn’t alone that you _do_ so much, but you make me think

I can do things too; things I know I’m not equal to, otherwise."

 

Martha smiled. "Believe _me_, you don’t know what you’re equal to, an’

don’t you forget it. No more do I. We ain’t done up in bags, like

seven pounds o’ sugar, we human bein’s, so’s we know what we’re equal

to. The heft of us comes out, accordin’ to the things in life we got to

measure up to. When I was married, firstoff, I thought I wasn’t _equal_

to livin’ with my mother-in-law, an’ puttin’ up with her

peculiar-rarities. But, laws o’ man! I found I was. An’, what’s more,

I found I been equal to one or two other little things since, worse than

her, by a good sight. What helped me some, was realizin’ I got

peculiar-rarities of my own other folks has to be equal to."

 

Katherine caught her under lip between her teeth, as if to hold back

words trying to come out. A minute, and they came.

 

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

 

"They haven’t. No more than a body has a right to make herself unhappy.

But they do it, all the same."

 

"One wouldn’t mind making one big sacrifice, or two, or three, in a

lifetime, if that were all. But, it seems, nothing is ever enough. You

think you’ve vanquished one thing, and, before you know it, you’ve got

it all to do over again. Has your life been that way, Mrs. Slawson?

Does one never get through having to give up one’s own wishes and will

to the wishes and will of others?"

 

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

simmering on the stove.

 

"Did you ever scrub a floor?" she asked, at length. "No, o’ course you

didn’t. Mostly, ladies thinks scrubbin’ floors is dretful low work.

Well, it ain’t. Scrubbin’ floors’ll learn you a lot o’ other things, if

you let it. In the first place, there’s a right an’ wrong way to it,

same’s there is to tonier jobs. If you’re goin’ to begrutch your elbow

grease, an’ ain’t willin’ to get down on your marra-bones, an’ attend

strictly to business, you ain’t goin’ to succeed. Well, we’ll say, you

scrubbed a spot, good an’ clean. That ain’t all. You got to keep goin’

back on yourself, scrubbin’ back over the places where you left off,

else there’ll be streaks, an’ when your floor dries on you, the

streaks’ll show up, for all they’re worth, an’ give you dead away. As I

make it out, it’s just the same with livin’. If you begrutch takin’

pains, an’ keep your eye out, all the time, for fear you’ll do a little

more’n your share, why, you can take it from me, you’re goin’ to show

streaks. You better never done it at all, than done it so’s it’ll be a

dead give-away on you. You can’t scrub clean with dirty water, an’ you

can’t _live_ clean, ’less you keep turnin’ out all the messy feelin’s

you got in you, an’ refillin’ your heart with fresh, same’s you would

your water-pail. But, even when you’ve done your job right, oncet ain’t

goin’ to be enough. You couldn’t keep clean with one scrub-down, no

matter how thora. It’s got to be done over to-morra, an’ the next day,

an’ so on. If a body don’t like it, why, that don’t change the fax

any."

 

"But all of us don’t have to scrub floors. And I don’t see why, if one

had what you call a _job_ one didn’t like, he couldn’t change it. Just

say: I won’t live like this any longer. I’ll have something better. If

there aren’t ways of breaking loose from things one hates, and making

happiness for one’s self, there ought to be. We should invent them."

 

"Well, p’raps you’re right. They certaintly do a lot o’ inventin’ these

days. They invented a way o’ flyin’ above the earth. But there’s no

way _I_ know of you can sail over your own particular place in the

world. After all’s said an’ done, you gotta come back home, an’ just

stand flat, with your two little feet planted square in the middle o’

that state o’ life onto which it’s pleased the Lord to call you."

 

"Then you don’t believe people have the right to make their own

happiness?"

 

"Certaintly I do. I don’t only think they have the right to, I think

they gotta. People have the right to make their happiness out o’ every

last thing comes in their way. Every last scrap an’ drop they find

anywheres about. Same’s you’d make a perfectly good patch-quilt out o’

the rag-bag, an’ A1 soap out o’ drippin’s. Any gener’l houseworker at

five dollars _per_, can make a roast out o’ a prime cut o’ beef. Any

fool can be happy, if they’re handed out happiness in chunks. But it

takes a chef-cook to gather up all the sort o’ queer little odds an’

ends in the pantry, an’ season’m here, an’ whip’m up there, an’ put’m on

a dish, garnished with parsley, or smothered in cream, an’ give’m a

fancy French name on a menoo-card, so’s when they come on the table, you

smack your lips, an’ say ’dee-licious!’ an’ feel you got your money’s

worth."

 

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

more tangled?"

 

Martha pondered for a moment. "Sometimes, with a new spool o’ thread,

you get aholt o’ the wrong end, an’ then you can pull an’ pull, an’ tug

an’ tug, till you’re black in the face, an’ the more you do, the more

your cotton gets tangled on you. But if you’ll go easy, an’ wait till

you find the right end, it’ll run off as smooth as grease. D’you mind

takin’ a sip o’ this licka, to see if you think it’s sweet enough to

suit? Taste differs, an’ some likes more sugar’n others."

 

* * * * *

 

"Well," said Dr. Ballard as, toward the close of the day, he was taking

leave of Katherine, having fulfilled his professional duty to his

patient upstairs. "Well, mademoiselle, was Mrs. Slawson of any use? Was

she a help?"

 

Katherine threw him a grateful glance. "A help? Rather. More of a help

than you’ll ever know."

 

"The preserves are made?"

 

"You should view the shelves. They’re a wonder. I believe we’ve a stock

that’ll last us for the rest of our natural lives."

 

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

me."

 

"That’s what she expected. But, about an hour ago, Mrs. Frank Ronald

drove up. She came to call, though, of course, it was my place to go

see her first, as she’s a bride, and a stranger. She brought

grandmother an armful of roses. The loveliest things! Long-stemmed

ones, almost as tall as she is herself. Have you ever seen her? Mrs.

Ronald? She’s the daintiest creature! She makes me feel a giantess.

And so unaffected, and cordial. So different from Mrs. Sherman, who was

Katherine Ronald. Somehow, I feel as if her being here, were going to

make things pleasanter. I’m happier, more contented, and hopeful, than

I’ve been for ever so long."

 

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

 

Katherine Crewe laughed. "’Not on your life,’ as Mrs. Slawson says.

Mrs. Ronald just took her along in the car with her, preserving-kettle

and all. You should have seen the footman’s __EXPRESSION__! I had told Mrs.

Ronald about the preserving, and, as soon as she heard, she proposed

taking ’Martha,’ as she calls her, back with her when she went. She’s

evidently a democratic little person. I wonder how such goings-on will

please Mrs. Ronald, senior, and Katherine Sherman. They’re so

frightfully what, when we were children, we used to call ’stuck up.’ I

know grandmother would be horrified. She, also, is stuck-up, as perhaps

you may have gathered."

 

"Yes, she has made no attempt to hide it. But, I’d really like to know

why _I_ come in for such a large share of her disapproval. To forbid

you to have anything to say to me, now, is really—— If she weren’t such

a poor, helpless little old body, I’d have it out with her. Have you

any idea what the trouble is?"

 

Katherine flushed. "It’s all too absurd. A man by the name of Ballard

was bailiff to her father, when she was a girl."

 

"I know that. My grandfather. What then? A bailiff’s is a perfectly

good job. Look at Slawson. He’s all right, isn’t he? But, anyway,

things haven’t stood still since those days. _I’m_ not a bailiff. I’m

a physician. What’s the matter with that?"

 

"Nothing—only——"

 

"Only—what?"

 

"She says——" Katherine hesitated.

 

"Out with it," urged Dr. Ballard.

 

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

 

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

 

"You’re so young."

 

"Oh, I am, am I? Well, I’ll tell you a secret: I’m not quite so young

as, apparently, I look. I don’t wear my hair a little thin on top

because I like that style, particularly. But, even if she’s right, and

I have no practice—no income—how could that——?"