Making Over Martha 32
"Quite so," acquiesced Dr. Ballard gravely. "No, I’m not anxious about
Madam Crewe’s appendix. I’m anxious about her—granddaughter."
"Oh!" said Martha. "It’s _her_ you want to remove."
Dr. Ballard flushed. "Yes, Mrs. Slawson. That is—I wish to marry Miss
Crewe. You already know of Madam’s opposition. I don’t mind that—any
more. But something has happened—I don’t know what—to change Miss
Crewe, herself. I would never ask her to desert her grandmother. In
fact, I would not respect her if she did desert her, leave her alone in
her infirmity and old age. But I don’t want her mind to be embittered.
She is not happy. I wish you’d look after her—lend her a helping hand,
once in a while. Lend her a helping _heart_."
"I’ll do my best," promised Martha solemnly.
"I’ve grown attached to this place. I’d like to hear about—everybody,
once in a while. I’d like, so to speak, to keep my finger on the pulse
of the public."
Martha looked up perplexed. "The pulse o’ the public? I don’t know as
I exackly _get_ what you mean. But, if you want to feel the pulse o’
the public, why—_you’re_ the doctor! Anyhow, I’ll let you know how
things is goin’, if you’ll excuse the liberty, and won’t mind my
spellin’, which Sam says it’s fierce."
"I’ll deeply appreciate any line you may take the trouble to write me,"
Dr. Ballard assured her, with hearty sincerity.
It was September before Mrs. Slawson was actually settled at home again.
The nurses, over at the big house, were altogether capable and
trustworthy, but even after all need of her had passed, Mr. Ronald liked
to feel Martha was within call. He fancied his wife felt more content
when she was by, and, certainly, the baby slept better on her ample
bosom than anywhere else.
It was a tiny creature, very delicate and fragile, a mere scrap of
humanity that Martha could hold in the hollow of her hand.
In the privacy of their own sitting-room, the two trained nurses
confided to Mrs. Slawson: "It’s too bad the parents’ hearts are so set
on the child. They’ll never raise it, _never_!"
"Now, what do you think o’ that!" Martha said mournfully, and the two
uniformed ones never knew that, in her heart, she despised them, "and
their mizrable Bildadin’ talk, which nobody could stand up against it,
anyhow, much less a innocent little lamb that hasn’t the stren’th to
call’m liars to their faces."
"O’ _course_ we’ll raise her," she assured Mr. Ronald confidently.
"There’s no doubt about it. Yes, I know she ain’t very hefty, an’ she
ain’t very robustic. But what do you expec’? You ain’t give her a fair
show yet. You can’t take a baby, a few weeks old, ’specially if it had
the tough time gettin’ in on the game at all, that this one had, an’
expec’ her to be as big an’ husky as my Sabina. It wouldn’t be
sensible. Besides, look at her mother! Miss Claire’s no giantess, nor
ever was, but she’s as sound as a nut, an’ so’ll the baby be, when she
gets her gait on, an’ knows it’s up to her to keep in step with the
percession. Don’t you let nobody discourage you. Believin’s half the
battle. You can take it from me, that baby’s goin’ to live, an’ thrive,
like the little thorabred she is. _She_ wouldn’t give us all this
trouble for nothin’."
Her invincible confidence was like a tonic to Francis Ronald. It
reinforced his own more flickering faith, so he could meet Claire’s
hungrily questioning eyes with reassurance.
And, as the weeks went by, Martha’s prediction seemed less and less
preposterous.
"Didn’t I _tell_ you?" she exulted. "That baby’s a winner! She’s goin’
to be standard weight, all right, all right, an’ measure up to
requirements too, give her time. But between you an’ me, all this
new-fangled business with scales, an’ tape-measures, an’ suchlike, is
enough to discourage the best-intentioned infant. There’s more notions,
nowadays, than you can shake a stick at—an’ I’d like to shake a stick at
most of’m, believe _me_!"
At the time, she was thinking rather more of Miss Crewe, than of the
nurses, whose "queer fandangoes" she never could become reconciled to.
She was frankly anxious about Katherine.
"If I could do with her, like I do with Buller, I wouldn’t say a word,"
she ruminated. "I just keep a kinda gener’l line on him, an’ when the
time comes, I get a-holt of his collar-band, an’ march’m up to the
captain’s office, as brave as a lion. He’s got so the minute I tip’m
the wink, he comes for his washin’ an’ ironin’—I should say, bandidgin’,
as meek as a lamb to the slaughterhouse. But you can take it from me,
there’s no gettin’ a line on Miss Katherine. She’s devotin’ all her time
an’ attention to puttin’ off flesh an’ color. The trouble is, she’s got
nothin’ to do, an’ she does it so thora, she ain’t got time for anything
else. Dear me! I wisht I could sort o’ set her an’ Buller at each
other. It might help’m both to forget their losses. He certaintly is a
queer dick, an’ no mistake!"
"In spite o’ his sportin’ a G.A.R. one, you can take it from _me_,
Buller ain’t got all his buttons!" she told Miss Katherine. "Do you
know what he says? He says everybody’s gone back on’m because he’s in
trouble. He says, nobody’ll look at’m now he’s mangled. They was his
friends before, when he had all the limbs was comin’ to’m, but—now he’s
shy a hand—they’re too proud to notice’m. He says the world’s a hard
place for cripples."
A faint smile flitted across Katherine’s face
"What a perverted point of view," she said, for the sake of saying
something.
"Do you know what I think?" Mrs. Slawson continued. "I think now is the
zoological moment to catch Buller, an’ see what kind o’ animal he
is—_if_ he’s got the makin’ of a man in’m. If he could be got to give
up the drink, I do believe he might amount to somethin’ yet. You can’t
know what a fella reely is, when he’s always steepin’ in licka. It’s
like pickles. You wouldn’t know if they’re dill, or sweet or what they
are, till you take’m out o’ soak an’ test’m."
"I should think _you_ might influence him," suggested Miss Crewe
impersonally. "You’re so strong and wholesome and steady."
"Land, no! Buller wouldn’t listen to me," said Martha. "How would _I_
be reformin’ anybody, when so many is reformin’ me?"
"Mrs. Peckett, then?"
"Mrs. Peckett’s way o’ doin’ things makes some folks nervous. It’s like
as if she said: ’I’m goin’ to raise the tone o’ this town, if I have to
raise it by the scruff of its neck!’ She’s a good woman, Mrs. Peckett
is, more power to her! Yes, she’s as good as old gold, and—just as
dull."
Katherine was amused. "Does Mr. Buller require people to be so very
brilliant, then?"
"Land, no! _He_ don’t. But his _case_ does. There’s a differnce. The
fella that gets the whip-hand of’m is the fella he’s goin’ to respec’.
No others need apply. If there was anybody in this town could kinda
give’m the fright of his life on the licka question, it’d be dead easy
tame him to’m afterwords."
Miss Crewe’s face lost its apathetic __EXPRESSION__. A light of interest
shone in her eyes.
"I wonder if an idea that has just occurred to me would be of any use?
Last winter I attended a course of lectures at Columbia College, and one
of the lectures was illustrated by lantern-slides, showing the effect of
alcohol on the body and mind of habitual drunkards. They were enough to
give one the horrors! If Buller could see those pictures——!"
Mrs. Slawson brought her hands down upon her knees with a sounding slap.
"There, didn’t I know you’d strike on just the right idea, quicker’n,
sure’n anybody else? An’ you’ve done it!"
"But it would cost a lot of money to get that lecturer here. We might
not be able to get him at all, even if we could raise the money to
pay——"
"Raise nothin’—beggin’ your pardon!" Martha exclaimed. "Mr. Frank
Ronald is always doin’ things for everybody. Why couldn’t you go to
him, an’ tell’m what you’ve just told me—that you’re interested in
savin’ Buller’s soul from destruction, not to speak o’ the rest of’m,
an’ that you know a gen’lman down to Columbia with slidin’ pictures, can
do it, if he got the price of his ticket, an’ somethin’ to boot? I
betcher Mr. Frank’d have’m up in no time, an’ thank you for givin’m the
chance."
Katherine shrank back. "Oh, no! I’d never dare," she said. "Mr.
Ronald is dreadfully unapproachable, I think. His eyes are so stern,
and he is so silent. He doesn’t help you out at all—just seems always
to be looking you through and through, and finding you very inferior."
"Have you see’m smile?"
"No."
"Well, you go down there, an’ get’m to smile for you oncet. An’ if you
don’t swear by’m ever after, my name ain’t Martha Slawson. You can take
it from me, Mr. Frank is true blue, like his eyes are. D’you think, if
he wasn’t, Miss Claire’d ever have married’m? Not on your life! She
took’m for first choice, when she’d the refusal o’ the pick o’ the land,
an’ I know what I’m talkin’ about."
By the time Martha was ready to go, Miss Crewe had decided that she
really must see Mr. Ronald, and find if it were possible to interest him
in her village-improvement plan.
If Mrs. Slawson would take her down to the big house, she could easily
walk back before dinner-time, she said.
"Say, you make a chance, an’ ask about Mrs. Ronald an’ the baby. You’ll
get’m quickest, that way. An’ even if you ain’t used to infants, it
won’t be no lie to show you’re dead stuck on this one, for she’s a
beauty on a small scale, an’ no mistake," Martha dropped as they drove
along.
Before Katherine was really aware, she found herself being escorted
upstairs to his wife’s sitting-room by Francis Ronald himself.
Burning logs were glowing on the open hearth, the place was warm and
bright, and fragrant with hothouse blooms. Claire Ronald, looking like
a delicate flower, of a very human variety, rose from her low chair
before the fire, to greet her guest, and from that moment Katherine’s constraint was gone.
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