Making Over Martha 15

Making Over Martha 15

Martha considered. "Well, when I was your age, I thought I did. But

now, the only thing I know, is, I _don’t_."

 

Cora pursed her lips. "Do you know, I think Dr. Ballard likes Miss

Crewe a lot."

 

"What makes you think so?"

 

"Well, the other day, I saw’m walkin’ together down Cherry Lane. An’

to-day I saw’m again. An’ I think it looks awful loverish to be walkin’

in Cherry Lane, where the trees branch over so, an’ it’s all quiet, an’

green, an’ lonesome, an’ nobody hardly ever comes, exceptin’——"

 

"Snoopy little girls who’ve no business there," supplied her mother

genially.

 

Cora sniffed. "Well, I guess you’ll be glad I was there, when you see

what I got. An’ I guess they’ll be glad too. One of’m dropped it an’

never noticed, an’ went off, an’ left it lyin’ in the middle o’ the

lane. After they’d gone, I saw somethin’ kind o’ like a yellow spot

sittin’ up in the grass, an’ I went an’ picked it up, an’ it was a bunch

o’ letters, tied with a pink ribbon. The ribbon’s so old it most frays

away before you touch it."

 

Martha extended a quiet, but coercive palm. "Hand it over."

 

Cora obeyed, craning her neck to see the last of the fascinating sheaf.

 

"Ain’t it funny writin’?" she inquired. "’Mifter Daniel Ballard.’ What

does _Mifter_ mean, mother? She don’t call him _Mifter_ inside. She

calls him, ’Beloved Daniel.’"

 

"How do you know?"

 

Cora hung her head. "I peeked," she confessed.

 

"How many of the letters did you peek at?"

 

"All of ’em. An’, oh, mother, it wasn’t any harm, ’cause they’re

fearful old. Eighteen-hundred and forty-four, they have written on ’em.

An’ the one who wrote ’em, her name was Idea Stryker. She must be dead

an’ buried long ago, mustn’t she, mother? I guess p’raps she died

because her beau, he didn’t answer her letters, or come to meet her

’down Cherry Lane’ like she begged him to. She felt simply terrible

about it. She liked him a whole lot, but he got mad at her, or

something, and wouldn’t answer her letters, or meet her, or anything.

When I get to be a grown-up young lady, I’d like to write such elegant

love-letters to somebody."

 

"He’d prob’ly go back on you, if you did. You see what happened to this

poor lady, an’ hist’ry repeats itself, like Mrs. Peckett. But what I

wanta tell you, Cora, is this: You done a wrong thing. You had no

business snoopin’ into what wasn’t your concern. Never you do so, no

more."

 

Cora’s voice sank. "I didn’t know ’twas wrong, mother."

 

"Did you know ’twas _right_?" Martha demanded. "A good way to do, when

you don’t know a thing’s wrong, is, stop a minute, an’ make sure it’s

_right_. See you folla that rule after this. Meanwhile, doncher let a

hint out o’ you, to Ann Upton, or anybody else, about these letters.

D’you hear?"

 

"Why?" asked Cora inquisitively.

 

Martha cast about for a reason potent enough to silence the childish,

chattering tongue.

 

"You don’t want to be disgraced, do you? Havin’ folks know you pried

into things wasn’t meant for you? Such scandals is sure to leak out, if

you whisper’m broadcast. If Mrs. Peckett oncet got a wind of it, you’d

never hear the last."

 

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Slawson’s mind was concerned much less with

Cora’s reputation, just at that moment, than with the letters she had

obliged that reluctant young lady to hand over. Now they were in her

own possession what should she do with them? To whom, by, rights, did

they belong?

 

"The letters’s signed Idea Stryker, which, I remember, Mr. Ronald said

that was ol’ lady Crewe’s queer name, before she was married. But she

wrote’m to somebody by the name o’ Ballard, which, I bet, he was the

doctor’s gran’pa, or somethin’. Now, who the lawful owner of them

letters is, it certaintly takes my time to decide. P’raps I better

wanda over to Miss Katherine after supper, an’ give’m to _her_. An’

_then_, I may be wrong."

 

The children, properly fed, cautioned "not to light the lamp, but set

outdoors like little ladies an’ gen’lmen, an’ get the air, an’ cool off,

an’ listen to the katy-dids doin’, till I come back," Martha proceeded

to wander over to Crewesmere.

 

Katherine had not yet gone upstairs, when she spied the familiar form

approaching through the waning light.

 

"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she said, going down the garden-path to meet her.

"I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve been thinking about you, ever since you

were here last, because I’m in trouble, and, I feel, somehow, you can

help me out. You’ve helped me out before, you know."

 

Her wistful attempt at a smile went to Martha’s heart.

 

"Well, my dear, helpin’ out is my speciality. Reg’lar service I have not

done since I was married, but helped out by the day, as there was need.

So, here I am, an’ if I can be of use, I never counted my _day_ by the

clock, an’ if the childern fall asleep on the grass itself, it won’t

hurt’m none. It’s too hot to rest indoors, anyhow."

 

"We’ll go to the back porch, where our voices won’t disturb

grandmother," explained Miss Crewe, leading the way.

 

"P’raps I better tell you right off what brought me," Martha began,

taking the lower porch step to sit upon in preference to the more

comfortable chair, on the level with her own, which Katherine indicated.

 

"No, please don’t!" Miss Crewe protested. "Let me speak first. I’m so

afraid something may happen to interrupt, and I know mine is more

important. I _must_ tell some one."

 

The girl did not pause, except to take breath between her difficult

sentences.

 

"You remember the day grandmother had me bring her her linen-chest? It

all dates from that day, I mean my trouble. I thought I knew before,

what trouble was, but _real_ trouble is only what one has to account for

to one’s own conscience."

 

Martha pretended not to notice the sobbing breath, on which the last

syllables caught, and were choked out.

 

"Grandmother never took her eyes off the chest while I unpacked it,"

Katherine labored on gallantly. "Never, except once. She said she knew

everything that was in it. But she didn’t. There was something she

didn’t mention. I came on it, lying almost at the bottom of the chest.

An odd, old-fashioned pocket, hung on a strap, as if it had been

suspended from a belt or a sash, and the strap was snapped—torn. A tiny

bit of a shred was caught in the lock of the chest. I saw it, as soon

as I opened the lid. As my fingers touched the pocket, something inside

it crackled. My heart fairly leaped, for I thought ’twas money.

And—oh, Mrs. Slawson, I need money! You mayn’t believe it, but I do. I

never have a cent I can call my own, and I’m not allowed to try to earn

anything. You know—my father had plenty, and I ought to have plenty, if

I had my rights. I’ve sat here evening after evening, thinking,

thinking, what I could do in case of need—in case a time came, when I

couldn’t endure it any longer. And when I felt what was inside that

pocket, when I felt it crackle, I thought it was money, and—it was like

a gleam of hope. I watched for my chance. It came at last—the one time

when grandmother glanced away. I grabbed the pocket, and hid it in my

dress. I didn’t stop to think what I was doing. But if I had, I don’t

believe it would have made any difference. I didn’t care if I _was_

stealing. I _just wanted that money_! It’s shameful to sit here, and

face you, and tell about it, but—I guess I’m past shame. And then she

gave me the mull, and was kind. I’d have put the money back then, but

it was too late. She never took her eyes off me again, nor the chest.

And then—later—after you’d gone, I stole away to my room, and—what was

in the pocket wasn’t money at all, but letters! Old, useless, miserable

letters!"

 

"Did you read’m?" asked Martha to cover the painful effort the girl was

making at self-control.

 

"No, I didn’t read them. After I’d taken the pocket, believing it held

money, and found only letters, I was too _honorable_ to read the

letters."

 

She spoke with bitterest self-contempt.

 

"I carried them in my dress, because I didn’t dare leave them anywhere

else. And to-day I—I—lost them. I know they were letters written by my

grandmother, when she was a girl. Her handwriting hasn’t changed much,

and I know if she dreamed they were lying about loose, lost, perhaps had

been found by some busybody, who would publish them all over town,

she’d——"

 

"That’s just what I come to tell you," Mrs. Slawson announced with a

breath of relief. "Thanks be! ’twas my girl, Cora, found the letters,

an’ she brought’m home to me. Not a soul besides us two has laid eyes

on’m. Cora don’t know any more than the angels above, that the one

wrote’m ain’t dead an’ gone, with a antapsie held over her remains, this

many a year. So, for all I see, your troubles are over, you poor child,

an’ you can lay your head on your pilla, an’ sleep sound this night, if

the heat, which it certaintly _is_ prosteratin’, don’t pervent. Here’s

the letters."

 

Katherine smiled faintly as she took the little packet.

 

"If I may make so bold, did you mean to be givin’ the letters to Dr.

Ballard?" Martha inquired, after a thoughtful pause. "I own up to you,

I ain’t been so fussy as not to read the name on the envelopes."

 

Miss Crewe winced. "Of course. That was right. No, I hadn’t planned

to give him the letters. At first I thought I would, but then I was

afraid I might be obliged to tell him how I came to have them, and—I’m a

coward. I couldn’t bear to risk it. Do you think it’s my duty to tell

Dr. Ballard, Mrs. Slawson? Tell me what you think I ought to do."

 

"When a body sets out to tell another body what she’d ought to do, he

better be careful," replied Martha gravely. "You never know what you’re

up against. For instance, if you’re tellin’ a fella _love his neighbor

like himself_, that’s all right, only you wouldn’t be countin’ on his

bein’ one o’ the kind thinks he’s a little tin god on wheels. Bein’ as

he was that sort, you’d be tellin’ ’m make a graven image of his

neighbor, which he’d be constantly fallin’ down before’m, an’

worshippin’ ’m, like a heathen idol. You can take it from me, tellin’

people what they’d ought to do is a delicate job—too fine for the likes

of Martha Slawson. But I’d just as liefs tell you what you hadn’t ought

to do, one o’ which is, lie awake grievin’ over spilled milk that’s past

an’ gone. You mustn’t lug your mistakes along with you, every place you

go, like they was a basket o’ dirty clo’es. Now lots besides

laundryesses has dirty clo’es to wash, believe me. But if you pack’m up

respectable in nice, clean wrappin’ paper, with a stout string, or a

decent telescope bag, nobody’ll be the wiser, an’ your neighbors won’t

objec’ sittin’ beside you in the cars. It’s when you force your dirty

clo’es under the noses of the other passengers, an’ make’m

uncomfortable, they’ve a kick comin’. No, if I was you (beggin’ your

pardon for the liberty) I wouldn’t tell Dr. Ballard a thing ’twouldn’t

be a pleasure to’m to hear. I worked for a lady, Mrs. Sherman, an’ she

used ta wait to do things for, what she called—now, do you believe me, I

can’t remember the name of it! It was some kind o’ _moment_. She

talked about it frequent. The—the—sy——" Martha racked her brains laboriously.