Making Over Martha 20

Making Over Martha 20

"Nora’s just the same, as far as I can see. _Our_ Nora says Nora-Andy

is distroying Andy with her extravagance. She says the way she dresses,

alone, it’s no wonder he is always in and out of some get-rich-quick

scheme, that’ll land him in the poor-house, or worse, if he don’t look

out. But then, our Nora never did have the appearance of Nora-Andy, I

must say that, if I am her own brother. Our Nora is kind of sharp, and

she looks it."

 

"Well, I guess marriage’ll bevel some of the edges off’n her, all right,

all right," said Martha. "Were you surprised when you heard she was

keepin’ company with McKenna?"

 

"Yes, I was. I never thought Nora’d marry now—at her age."

 

"Nora always wanted to marry, an’ when she saw her chance she grabbed it

by both horns."

 

Sam’s serious __EXPRESSION__ relaxed a little. "That sounds as if McKenna

was the devil and all of a fellow. He’s not that at all, and he

certainly ain’t much to look at."

 

"Oh, well," Martha responded, "nobody but her’ll have a call to look

at’m much, oncet he’s married."

 

"I told her I thought she was taking a risk, throwing up a good place

she’d been in, for so many years, parlor-maid, to live out

general-housework with a stranger," said Sam. "I thought that was a

joke. But it made her mad. She said, ’God knows it’s no joke!’ She

said she had as much of a right to live her life as I have, which of

course it’s true. She said ’every dog has its day!’"

 

"True for you. So he has, just like s’ciety ladies. But that ain’t to

say there’ll be anybody’ll come. An’ I sometimes think there’s more

dogs, ’n days, anyhow."

 

Sam looked up. "Say, mother, you ain’t down-hearted, are you?"

 

"No. Why? What’d make me downhearted, I should like to know?"

 

"I just thought you might be," her husband answered. "I never heard you

speak that doubting kind of way before. And, we’ve no call to think ill

of the world, with all the luck that’s come to us."

 

"Certaintly. An’ if luck don’t stay with us, itself, it won’t be

because we ain’t set her a chair, an’ done every mortal thing we know of

to make her comfortable. I’ve no kick comin’, nor ever had. I like

life all right, the hard part along with the soft part. If you didn’t

have the one you wouldn’t know how to relish the other. But, speakin’

o’ Nora, I never looked to see her sportin’ a ’finity of her own, I can

tell you that!"

 

"’’Finity’?" questioned Sam.

 

"Genteel for fella," Martha answered. "I often heard Mrs. Sherman

speakin’ of’m. You can take it from me, I never looked to see that same

Nora get a-holt o’ one."

 

"Nor I. And I said as much to Ma. Ma told it back to Nora, and Nora

was as mad as could be. She said if it came to that, she didn’t see as

she was the worst-looking one in the family, when a body counted in what

some of us had married."

 

"Meanin’ me," observed Martha appreciatively.

 

"She said she ’didn’t see why folks should be so monstrous surprised

that she got a husband. Every Joan has her Jack.’ The very words she

said."

 

"Sure they have. But only it ain’t told what kind o’ Jack. So did

Balaam have a jack, if she wants _that_ kind. But, p’raps McKenna is a

prize-package. _We_ don’t know. I wonder will he take kindly to Ma?"

 

Sam shook his head. "One of the first things he told me was, ’We

couldn’t look to him to give my mother a home. He had troubles of his

own.’ It stirred me up so, I almost lost my temper. I said I didn’t

look to him to give my mother a home. If he gave my sister one, now

he’d contracted to marry her, I’d be glad."

 

"Why, Sam," said Martha looking at him with mock-reproach, "I wonder at

you, I do so! To speak up that fierce! You hadn’t ought to be so

violent, an’ use such strong language to a party just gettin’ ready to

come into the fam’ly. It might scare’m off. He must think you’re a

dretful bully."

 

"Nora told Ma, before I left, that Ma was foolish to stay back in New

York. She said she and McKenna, starting out, young married folks——"

 

"God save the mark!" murmured Martha.

 

"She said they couldn’t offer her a home, much as they’d like to. But

Ma said her heart was broke with the country. She wanted to live in the

city where something was going on."

 

"It’s one thing what you _want_, and another what you _must_. Poor Ma!

I’m sorry for her. When she comes back she’ll know a thing or two

more’n she does now. We’ll have to be kind o’ gentle with her, to make

up. But come on now, Sam. If you’ve et all you can, I’ll do my dishes,

while you lock up, an’ then we can go to bed. You look plain wore out."

 

"I’m glad to get home," Sam answered her, and though he said no more

Martha understood him.

 

Long after he was asleep she lay awake in the white moonlight, thinking.

"Down home," she knew it was stifling. Sam had told her that the hot

wave was breaking all records for intensity and duration. And yet,

somehow, her soul yearned for the stretches of sun-softened "ashfalt"

with its smell of mingled dust and tar, for all the common city sounds

and sights amid which she had been born and bred; all the noise and

commotion that spelt _Home_ for her. She could understand Ma’s feeling,

and her heart softened to the poor old woman.

 

"It’s all right up here," she admitted to herself. "I like the folks

first rate, such as they are an’ what there is of’m, only they ain’t

what a body is used to. I never see nicer parties than the Trenholms,

an’ the Coleses, an’ the Moores. That time Hiram Black’s house burned

down, if every mother’s son of’m didn’t turn out an’ lend a hand. Got

the Blacks fixed up fine an’ dandy, in no time, in a new place, with

what they called ’donations.’ Down home you wouldn’t find your

neighbors givin’ you furnitur’, an’ bricky-braw things like that, not on

your life! An’ when you’d paid the insurance money itself, the

Company’d kick before it’d give you the price o’ your losin’s. An’ yet,

I know how Ma feels. If young Luther Coles had ’a’ had the fever down

home he had up here last fall, they’d a-yanked’m away from his own flesh

an’ blood to the pest-house. An’ here his mother was let take care of’m,

an’ the meals was got by the neighbors, which she hauled’m up in a

basket, three times a day, an’ et’m hot an’ fresh from the oven, without

havin’ to raise her hand, only take’m out from under a clean napkin.

You’d go hungry a long time in New York City, before the folks acrost

the air-shaft from you, would know your boy was dyin’ on you, much less

sneak in a bite an’ a sup, from time to time, through the dumb-waiter.

But—all the same—_I know how Ma feels._"

 

Martha had reached this stage in her musings when a faint knock sounded

on the door below. She waited, listening. The knock was repeated. As

quietly as she could, which was not very quietly, she slipped from her

bed, threw on her light cotton kimono, which always lay ready at hand in

case of emergency, and hastened downstairs, leaving Sam asleep and

snoring, worn out by the city heat, his sense of responsibility in

connection with Mr. Ronald’s commissions, and the long day’s journey

home, with its fatiguing delays and tiresome changes.

 

She shot the bolt back, turned the key with resolute hand. She could

not imagine what had happened that would account for this unusual

disturbance, but whatever it might be, she braced herself to meet it.

 

On the doorstep stood the shivering figure of a girl, clad only in her

night-dress. She was shivering with excitement, not chill.

 

"Mrs. Slawson," she managed to bring out, before words became

impossible, drowned in the torrent of her tears and sobbing.

 

Martha placed a motherly hand about the frail shoulders.

 

"Come now, come now! Don’t cry like that. You’ll shake yourself to

pieces. I don’t know what’s the matter, but it’ll be all right, anyhow,

never fear. You’re Ellen Hinckley, ain’t you? I think I seen you a

couple o’ times at church."

 

As Martha talked, she drew her visitor into the house, automatically

locked and bolted the door, and settled the girl in Sam’s chair in the

sitting-room.

 

The moonlight, streaming in through the windows, made the place almost

as light as day, but for some purpose of her own, Martha was about to

strike a match, when Ellen Hinckley stopped her with a quick cry.

 

"No, no! Don’t do it! I’ve run away. I’ve left my mother’s. My

stepfather’ll follow me when he finds I’m gone."

 

She drew a long painful breath, then panted out her story in short,

labored gasps.

 

"I’ve never had a home. You mayn’t believe it, but mother don’t care a

scrap about me, except for the work I can do. I’ve tried and tried for

years to bear it, but it’s got to be too hard. I can’t live that way

any longer. You know,—Mr. Wedall——?"

 

Martha nodded. "The pasture?"

 

"Yes, he’s my minister. He knows all about me. He told me to do my

best, but if the time came when I just couldn’t bear it another minute I

might go. He said _he_ couldn’t help me run away, because—because——"

 

"Certaintly he couldn’t!" said Martha.

 

"But he said, if ever I _had_ to do it, the Lord would raise up some one

who could. Mother’s never liked me. I’ve not been happy a minute since

my father died. _He_ wasn’t happy. He had no peace of his life. He

used to tell mother she’d get her come-uppance some day, and she’s got

it now, for Buller, that’s her second husband, he beats her. He’s got

her money and mine too, what father left us, and he’s afraid I’ll law

him, now I’m of age and can. I tried to run off yesterday, but he

caught me and took away my clothes, and locked me in my room. I had

some money I’d got hold of. ’Twas my own—and when he caught me, and he

and mother stripped me and locked me up, I held on to it, all through,

though he beat me black and blue with his belt-strap."

 

She spread her poor little trembling palm, disclosing a fistful of crumpled bills.