Making Over Martha 14

Making Over Martha 14

Something "Slawson" could not have analyzed kept her silent after she

and Miss Crewe left the room. Katherine was singularly mute. Martha

had waved the girl aside, and, grappling with the chest single-handed,

triumphantly had carried it off, the little madam watching the

performance covertly, with eyes glistening appreciation.

 

Her feat successfully accomplished, Martha went her way, clasping her

precious bundle. She was home before she was aware. Sam met her at the

door, his face revealing, to her who knew it, a secret delight.

 

"I’m to go to the city next week, mother. So, pack your bag and get

ready for your _wedding-tour_," he greeted her with sober fun.

 

"Have you told Ma and the childern?"

 

"No. I thought you’d better."

 

"Good. No hurry. Time enough later. I hope Ma won’t kick. It’ll mean

some work for her, while I’m gone—_if she does it_, but nothing she

can’t reel off easy enough, if her spirit is willin’. I got a present,

Sam. From the ol’ lady."

 

"Yes, I know. The cow."

 

"No, I mean somethin’ else. The ol’ lady give me a surprise. She give

me a front seat to see her do a new turn, an’ she passed out soovenirs

to the audience, besides. I got mine here."

 

"What is it?"

 

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

 

"Money?"

 

"As good as. It’ll be money, when I’m done with it. Only, from now on,

for some days to come, I’m goin’ to be _Little Martha the Lace Mender_,

or, _The Postponed Bride_, an’ a buzz-saw will be safe for anybody to

monkey with by comparising."

 

It was a proud day for Martha when, her stint completed, she was able to

carry the curtains, exquisitely cleansed and mended, to Miss Claire.

 

"Now I’ve the money ackchelly in my pocket, I’ll tell Ma an’ the

childern," she said to Sam, who was washing his hands at the sink,

preparatory to sitting down to his midday meal.

 

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

 

"Nothin’ like tryin’, an’ findin’ out," Martha returned, "dishing up,"

with energy, as one after the other of her hungry brood appeared,

responding to her resounding call of "Dinner!"

 

"Say, Cora, doncher attempt to come to the table with that

shaggy-lookin’ head on you. Go smooth your hair back proper, like you

always wear it. I don’t mind most things, but to set down to eat

alongside somethin’ looks like a sky-tearer dog, _I will not_! Sammy,

take your hands outa your pockets, like a little gen’lman, an’ help

Sabina tie her napkin on an’ get into her high chair. Sabina, you leave

your brother tie your napkin on, when he offers to do it! I’m busy.

Say, Francie, when I told you trim the lamp this mornin’, I didn’t mean

cut the wick in _scollops_. Lucky I happened to see it, or we’d ’a’

been smoked out o’ house an’ home. Now, Ma, if you’re ready, we’ll

sit."

 

Ma being ready, they sat, and the meal progressed, notwithstanding the

fact that Cora, reappearing, shorn of her modish coiffure, was in no

mood for merry-making.

 

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

might concern.

 

"Ringlets is one thing, _stringlets_ is another," said Martha,

unreproachfully. "At least, _now_ you don’t look like somebody’d been

woolin’ the head of you. Have some stew?"

 

"No, I hate the very name o’ stew."

 

"Call it rag-goo, then, same’s Miss Claire’s grand chef-cook does. Have

some, anyhow, for luck. Here, cheer up, Cora! When I was a kid, I was

one o’ nine childern, an’ you can take it from me, we wasn’t thinkin’

half so much, in them days, what we’d eat as _where we’d get it_. When

I was twelve—two years younger than you—I went to live out scullery-maid

with Mrs. Underwood, God bless her! where my mother’d been cook before

me. From that day, I never went hungry no more, nor the ones at home

either. But I don’t like to see my childern turn up their noses at good

food. It ain’t becomin’. Now, eat your rag-goo like a lady, an’ we’ll

call it square. Say, Ma, you know what Sam an’ me’s goin’ to do?"

 

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

meditative cud.

 

"We’re goin’ to play hookey. We’re goin’ to fly the coop, for a couple

o’ days, an’ go back home, to New York. Sam’s gotta—on business, an’

I’m goin’ ta, on pleasure."

 

The moment following Martha’s announcement was one of intense silence.

The children and Ma were too amazed to speak. The idea of _Mother_

deserting, even for a few days, was hardly conceivable. Then, as the

monstrousness of it began to percolate, there rose a chorus of protest.

 

"O—oh, mother-r! What’ll we do?"

 

"I wanta go too!"

 

"No, take _me_, mother!"

 

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

 

"Hush! Mother, can’t you make them hush? _I_ wanta say something!"

 

Martha checked the tumult with a warning hand. "Cora has the floor,

childern. Let her have her say, an’ then you can have yours."

 

"Silence in the court-house, the cat’s goin’ to preach!" Sammy

disrespectfully whispered in Francie’s ear.

 

"I think it’s _nice_ mother’n father ’re goin’ down to New York," Cora

announced. "It seemed kinda funny, firstoff, but I think it’s _nice_.

An’ they’ll have a good time. I’m glad they’re goin’."

 

Sam senior and Martha exchanged a look.

 

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

 

With the eldest sister approving, and praised for doing so, the ground

was cut from under the younger children’s feet. They had nothing to

say.

 

"Well, Ma?" suggested Martha.

 

"_I’m_ glad you’re goin’ too," observed the old woman, "for I ben

thinkin’, a long time, I do be needin’ a change meself, an’ I wouldn’t

dare for to be venturin’ on the r-railroad alone. So, when the two of

youse goes down, why, I’ll just fare along wit’ chu."

 

"But Ma," objected Sam gently, "we can’t make out to take you. We’ve

barely enough to take ourselves. Mr. Ronald pays my expenses, but

Martha’s goin’ to buy her own ticket with the money Miss Claire paid her

for the curtains."

 

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

 

"But we can’t touch it. It’s the first we ever been able to save, an’ I

wouldn’t lay finger on it for anythin’." Martha answered with unusual

feeling.

 

Ma was not disturbed.

 

"Well, between youse be it!" she declared. "I d’kno’ how you’ll settle

it, but this I kno’—I’ve bided here the longest I’m abl’. I can thole

it no longer. I’m goin’ to the city. The heart in me is wastin’ awa’ to

see me dear sons an’ daughters down there. So let there be no

colloguin’. I’m goin’ to the city."

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER VII*

 

 

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

whispered conference.

 

"Ma’s mind’s like a train," Mrs. Slawson observed at length, "when it’s

oncet _made up_, you can take it or leave it, but _it’s_ goin’ its way,

weather or no. There’s no use strivin’ with her, Sam. We’re bound to

give in, in the end, an’ we may as well do it firstoff, an’ save our

faces. What’s the good kickin’ against the bricks?"

 

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

fairly groaned.

 

"Well, wasn’t that what _I_ was goin’ to use it for? An’ after all,

she’s old. Let her have her bit o’ fun. God knows I don’t begrutch it

to her. She don’t get much joy outa her life."

 

"She has as much as you have."

 

A wonderful look irradiated Martha’s face. "I have you, Sam," she said

in a voice that matched the look. An instant, and both were gone.

Martha was her old self again. "An’ I’ve the childern—an’ the hens—an’

the—_cow_!"

 

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

 

"Certaintly she does. I sometimes think it’s a kinda pity a body can’t

lick her good, an’ put her to bed ’to await the results of her

injuries,’ as the papers says. But what’s the use o’ growin’ old, if

your white hairs don’t bring you the respec’ your black ones didn’t?

No, we gotta bear with Ma, Sam, an’ it’s better grin than groan, while

we’re doin’ it."

 

So, when the appointed day arrived, it was Ma, not Martha, who

accompanied Sam to New York on his "wedding-tour."

 

"My! I bet it’s hot on the train!" exclaimed Cora, appearing after a

prolonged absence, seating herself on the doorstep, from which the late

afternoon sun had just departed, fanning her flushed face with her hat.

 

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

listen.

 

"I guess it’s a hunderd in the shade," she observed. "But then, o’

course, you don’t have to stay in the shade, less you wanta."

 

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