Making Over Martha 27

Making Over Martha 27

Martha extinguished the light with a jerk. "Oh, go to sleep, Ma, an’

quit your foolishness. I’ll say to you what I say to the childern. If

you cry about nothin’, look out lest the Lord’ll be givin’ you somethin’

to cry _for_."

 

"Then you don’t think——?"

 

"Oh, _go_ to sleep, Ma," repeated Martha, as if the question were not

debatable.

 

The sun was barely up when the children began to stir.

 

"Say, Sabina," Cora whispered, "I bet you don’t know what’s in Ma’s

room."

 

A quick sortie, and Sabina did know. Then Sammy knew, and Francie knew.

 

"Come, come!" cried Martha, appearing on the threshold, "get yourselves

dressed, the whole of you. Don’t use up all your joy at the first

go-off. Leave some to spread over the rest of the time. Ma’s goin’ to

stop, you know. Besides—we can’t keep Miss Claire waitin’."

 

"In my da’," observed Ma thoughtfully, "it wouldn’t ’a’ been thought

well of, for a lady like that to be la’nchin’ out, just before——"

 

"It’s not my picnic," Martha interrupted. "I said all I could to

pervent it in the first place. But her heart’s fixed, an’ I couldn’t

say her no, ’specially when Lord Ronald said he saw no harm, an’d go

along too."

 

"Well, if _he_ sees no harm—and is goin’ along too——" Ma murmured, as if

her consent were to be gained on no other grounds.

 

"Certaintly," said Martha.

 

Everything was in readiness in and about the trim little _Moth_, when

Claire Ronald appeared on the dock.

 

"Where’s Mr. Frank?" Mrs. Slawson asked.

 

"He got a message late last night from Boston, about some stuff for the

electric-plant. They’ve sent it on, and he had to go to Burbank to

examine it, so, in case it wasn’t right, it could be shipped straight

back. He said it would save time and cartage, and he wants the work put

through as soon as possible."

 

"Then, o’ course we’ll put off our trip!"

 

"Oh, no!"

 

"Did he say we could go, an’ him not here to go along too?"

 

"No—but——"

 

"Then, I guess we’ll call it off."

 

Claire’s mouth set, in quite an uncharacteristic way.

 

"No, indeed! We’ll _go_! We couldn’t have a better morning."

 

"Well, I do’ know, but I wisht I had my long-handled feather-duster here

to brush away some o’ them flims o’ dust off’n the ceilin’."

 

"Why, those are darling little clouds!" Miss Claire exclaimed

reproachfully. "When the sun gets high, it will draw them out of sight

entirely, and the sky will be as clear as crystal."

 

"It’s as you think, not as I do," Mrs. Slawson rejoined. "If you’re

shooted, I’m shot!"

 

"In with you, children. Steady now!" commanded Claire.

 

Martha being already at the wheel, her husband had only to stow Mrs.

Ronald and the girls safely amidships, see Sammy stationed in the stern

in charge of the rudder-ropes, release the boat from its moorings, and

_The Moth_ was ready for flight.

 

"Take care of yourselves!" he called after them.

 

"Sure!" Martha shouted back, and they were off.

 

Now she was fairly in the line of having her own way, Claire was

radiant.

 

"The idea of finding fault with this day!" she taunted laughingly.

"Why, I couldn’t have made it better, myself!"

 

"Why don’t those birds fly up in the sky, mother?" asked Francie. "What

makes ’em fly so low down, right over the water?"

 

"They are gulls," Mrs. Ronald answered, as if that explained the

mystery.

 

It was a tremendous surprise to find the blue heron a bird instead of "a

delicatessen."

 

For a couple of hours after her first introduction to the new

acquaintance Martha kept exclaiming at intervals. "Well, what do you

think o’ that!" as a sort of gentle indication of her amazement.

 

"Say, mother, the way the herring walks, it’d make you think o’ folks

goin’ up the church-aisle to get married—steppin’ as slow, as slow.

Bridesmaids an’ things."

 

Martha winked solemnly across at Claire.

 

"Nothin’ interests Cora so much these days, as the loverin’ business.

She’s got it on the brain."

 

"Dear me! But there are no lovers around here, I’m sure," Claire said,

amused.

 

"Oh, yes, there are. There’s you an’ Lord Ronald, an’ there’s Dr.

Ballard an’ Miss Katherine—an’——"

 

"Say, young lady, you talk too much——"

 

"Well, mother, it’s true. I know he likes her a lot, ’cause——"

 

"That’s enough, Cora. You’re too tonguey. Go along an’ play with your

little brothers an’ sisters."

 

When they were alone Mrs. Ronald turned to Martha. "Is it really true,

Martha? Is Dr. Ballard interested in Miss Crewe?"

 

Mrs. Slawson laughed. "Like that _advertisement_ says the baby’s

_interested_ in the soap: ’He won’t be happy till he gets it!’"

 

"And does she——?"

 

"Certaintly. You couldn’t help it. But the little ol’ lady has her

face set against it. _You_ got such pretty, tackful ways with

you—sometime, when you’re with the little Madam you might kind o’ work

around to help the young folks some, if you’d be so good."

 

Cora came wandering back. The play of the younger children did not

divert her. She watched the blue heron as it silently, delicately paced

up and down the beach, picking its way among the submerged stones,

suddenly darting its head beneath the surface of the water, bringing up

a bull-head, perhaps, and swallowing it whole.

 

"Ain’t he perfectly killin’?" she murmured. "The way he acts like he’s

too dainty to live? And see that yellow flower over there! We had

loads and loads of it last fall, and I used to take it to the teacher

till one of the girls laughed at me ’cause she said the woods’s full o’

them, an’ besides it gave the teacher _hey?_ fever. That’s a joke. It

means, it’d make her ask more questions than she does already. Ann Upton

said that. Ann is awful smart. Once, when her composition was all

marked up with red ink, ’cause the teacher had corrected it so much, Ann

said ’she didn’t care. It was the pink of perfection.’"

 

"That yellow weed is goldenrod," explained Miss Claire. "Do you

remember the names of any of the other wild-flowers I taught you a year

ago, Martha?"

 

"Well, not so’s you’d notice it. Lemme see! P’raps I do. Wasn’t there

a sort o’ purple flower you called Johnny-pie-plant?"

 

Mrs. Ronald laughed. "Joepyeweed, yes. You got the idea."

 

"An’ then, there was wild buckwheat, an’ Jewel-weed an’—now, what’s the

matter with me, for a farmer? Don’t I know a thing or two about the

country?"

 

"You certainly do."

 

"An’ _I_ know the name o’ some too," asserted Cora. "Brides-lace, and

Love-in-a-mist, and——"

 

"Sweet Sibyl of the Sweat-shop, or——"

 

"Mother, I think you’re real mean!" Cora cried, anxious to prevent

further betrayal.

 

"Say, ladies an’ gen’lmen, I hate to break up this pleasant

ent’tainment, but I guess you don’t realize how long we been dreamin’

the happy hours away, like Miss Frances Underwood used to sing, before

she married Judge Granville—which they ain’t so _happy_ now, not on your

life, poor dear! I think we better get a move on, or we’ll get soaked

good and plenty. It’s my opinion we’re goin’ to have a shower."

 

Claire did not attempt to argue the point. It was too evident that

something was really going to happen.

 

"Yes, let’s hurry," was all she said. "It’s later than I thought."

 

Martha summoned her straying flock, and they made for the boat.

 

The little clouds, no bigger than a man’s hand, had turned gray.

Francie’s friends, the gulls, were darting excitedly to and fro, as if

without direction, very close to the face of the water. Here and there

the lake showed a white-cap.

 

Martha stood at the wheel, in the bow, and steered straight for the

opposite shore.

 

For a while Mrs. Ronald kept up a careless chatter with the children,

then, as if by common consent, there was silence.

 

A sharp wind had risen out of nowhere, apparently, and begun to lash the

water into frothy fringes that tossed their beads of spray high over the

side of the boat. Suddenly Francie screamed. This time it was not the

spray, but the wave itself that the blast rushed before it to break full

upon _The Moth_, drenching the child to the skin.

 

Martha glanced around to see what the trouble was.