Making Over Martha 33

Making Over Martha 33

She told of her plan, and the Ronalds were interested from the first.

 

"I think it’s a capital idea, don’t you, Frank?" Claire cried, in her

quick, impulsive way.

 

"There is something in it, no doubt," he admitted cautiously, smiling

down at her with very different eyes from those Katherine had dreaded.

"But I don’t think much could be accomplished by one lecture. If these

people are to get anything, they’ve got to get it in good doses, ’repeat

when necessary.’ You can’t be sure you’ve made your point, until you’ve

hammered it in, given it what the journalists call ’a punch.’ This can

only be done by repetition, emphasis. But a _course_ of lectures—with

lantern-slides—a course extending through the winter—that would be a

great scheme, I think."

 

Katherine’s face fell. "We could never hope to have a _course_," she

mourned.

 

"Why not?"

 

"The expense. Think what the cost would be!"

 

"It would be cheaper, in proportion, than one."

 

"In proportion, yes. But I doubt if we could raise the money for one,

much less the course."

 

Mr. Ronald’s eyes scanned her quizzically. "You should drill under

Martha Slawson," he said with a touch of seriousness in his lighter

manner. "She would never recognize the obstacle. She leaps it, or she

mounts it, or she kicks it out of her way—but she never _admits_ it,—and

the consequence is,—it isn’t there. Now, suppose you were not required

to raise the price of the course. Suppose the price were guaranteed?

Would you guarantee to raise the audience? Get enough people to pledge

themselves to attend, so the lecturer would come up with the fair

assurance that he’d face something beside empty benches?"

 

"I could try."

 

"How would you go about it?"

 

"There’s a man named Buller——"

 

"Yes, I know him. A bad lot! Got his hand chewed up in a fox-trap,

while he was on his way to my Lodge, to fire it, for the purpose of

revenging himself on my superintendent’s wife, Martha Slawson. Dr.

Driggs told me about it. Gangrene set in, and the fellow’d have lost

his arm, if not his life, if Dr. Ballard hadn’t operated as promptly and

skilfully as he did. Yes, I know Buller."

 

Katherine, considerably dashed, took up her theme again,

notwithstanding.

 

"He’s very ignorant, very debased, of course. Yet, I think, as Mrs.

Slawson does, that he could be helped. He’s very low in his mind just

now, because he thinks his neighbors shun him on account of his

accident."

 

For the first time she heard the hearty ring of Frank Ronald’s laugh.

 

"Well, and this poor, abused soul is to aid you?—How?"

 

"He owns a horse and buckboard. It occurred to me he might be willing

to help us, to the extent of taking me about from house to house, when I

go to canvass. Incidentally, if the people see he’s engaged in work we

are interested in, it may re-establish him with them—with himself. He’s

lost all self-respect, all self-reliance. Mightn’t it help him to get

them back, if he felt he were concerned in some worthy enterprise,

connected with reputable people?"

 

"It might."

 

The early autumn twilight had fallen before what Martha Slawson would

have called their _conflab_ ended.

 

While Mr. Ronald was giving orders for the motor to be brought around,

his little wife displayed the wonderful baby, and Katherine, holding the

tiny soft creature to her cheek, suddenly felt her heart melt toward

that other tiny creature, not so soft, but almost as helpless, who was

sitting solitary and alone in the chill and dreariness of what she

called, by courtesy, _home_.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XIV*

 

 

Martha found an almost disorganized household when she got home.

 

"Say, this is never goin’ to do in the world!" she exclaimed in

astonishment. "I got to pull you all up with a round turn. The whole

raft of you, from Ma down, needs a good whackin’ into shape. Say, Ma,

what you sittin’ there whimperin’ for? You look as if you’d lost your

last enemy, an’ had nobody left to take any comfort out of. I wouldn’t

put it before you to be yearnin’ for the gayety o’ little old New York

again. That so?"

 

Ma drew in her lips plaintively. "No, it ain’t so. I’m contented here,

enough, only—— ’Tis not the same place at all when you’re not in it.

Never a one o’ them to think o’ drawin’ me a cuppertee, nor set a match

to the fire, when the wind is blowin’ that chill, it’s enough to rattle

the teeth in your jaws. When I feel cold, I feel—_poor_!"

 

She began to cry.

 

"Now, Ma, you stop that, double-quick, or, you may take it from me, I’ll

give you something to cry _for_. I’m as cross as your grandmother’s

worsted-work. I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail. Keep out o’ my

way, everybody, till I get my house lookin’ like a house again, an’ my

fam’ly in order, so’s they’ll have the appearance o’ civilized human

bein’s, no matter what they reely are. Cora, you set the kettle on,

while Sammy an’ me goes down cellar to start a little fire in the

furnace, to take the chill out o’ the air an’ the grouch out o’ Ma.

Francie, while you’re restin’ run down to the store an’ get me a pound

o’ tea—I see there ain’t a leaf left in the caddy. You can take Sabina

along for comp’ny, only don’t forget to bring her back. We might need

her for somethin’ sometime. You never can tell. For goodness’ sake!

Is that rack-a-bones Flicker Slawson? Well, what do you think o’ that!

I bet there ain’t been one o’ you ever thought to give’m, or Nix either,

a sup or a bite, since I been gone! Such a measly-appearin’ dog an’

cat, _I_ never see. I’m ashamed to look’m in the face."

 

As she talked, Martha passed from room to room, tidying up,

straightening out, getting the household wheels back into their

accustomed grooves and, all the while, unconsciously transforming the

atmosphere of the place, and the persons in it, until they reflected her

own wholesome, vital air of well-being, well-doing.

 

Ma, drinking her _cuppertee_ from the saucer, reveled in the genial

warmth her daughter-in-law had caused to come up out of the cold, dark,

nether regions into which she, herself, never descended, and felt a

sense of virtuous satisfaction in her own personal benevolence, as she

rehearsed all the gossip she had been able to cull from without or

within, since her son Sammy’s wife had been gone. Ma did not call it

gossip, she called it news.

 

"’Twas Mrs. Peckett was in an’ out, as usual, an’ told me what was goin’

on, or I’d never have known no more than if we’d been livin’ in the

Sarah desert, itself. ’Twas her told me what a bloody rascal is Buller

that he’d be after comin’ here, in the dead o’ night wit’ his fagots, to

burn us alive in our beds, to say nothin’ o’ the gun he was for shootin’

us wit’, into the bargain. An’ you to be standin’ by, an’ holdin’ his

hand, when ’twas cut off on account of the gangerine! Mrs. Peckett says

every one in the place is callin’ you a good Sam Maritan."

 

"’In me eye,’ says Biddy Martin," Martha sang out sceptically.

 

"Mrs. Peckett was sayin’ ’twas the wife’s dooty stand by her own man,

an’ not another woman’s at all. Mrs. Peckett was after sayin’ God knows

she’s as quick to do a kindness, as the next one, but the evil tongues

some folks do be havin’ nowadays, would make you look out for your

repu*ta*tion."

 

"Say, Ma," said Martha, "did you ever notice how some people’ll try to

keep their own place clean by shakin’ their dirty rags on other people’s

heads? _They_ don’t care where the smut lands, so long’s they’ve shook

it off’n their own skirts. The trouble is, they sometimes get come up

with. They don’t watch which way the wind’s blowin’, so they get all

their own dirt, an’ then some, blown back on’m, which they’d better

never have stirred it up, in the first place."

 

Without in the least understanding her daughter-in-law’s drift, Ma felt

it desirable to change the subject. Did Martha know that the Fred

Trenholms had "leegially" adopted the three Fresh Air children they had

had with them all this summer and last?

 

"An’ they do be as proud, as proud! The way you’d think they’d a

fortune left them, instead of a ready-made fam’ly to eat’m out o’ house

an’ home, itself."

 

"The Trenholms are _bricks_!"

 

Ma coughed nervously, then tried again.

 

"That old bachelor brother o’ Mrs. Coleses, the one’s been so long

sick-a-bed wit’ the doctor, he’s been took down wit’ the meazles."

 

Martha proceeded with her work.

 

"Well, that’s the way it goes! When a fella’s been cryin’ wolf for

years an’ years, the chances are he’ll attrac’ some kinda thing his way,

if it’s only a meazly little skunk, which is more embarrassin’ than

dangerous. Meazles is a kinda come-down, for a party Hiram Parkinson’s

age an’ ambitions. He’s been walkin’ around with, as you might say, one

foot in the gravey,—poor soul! I bet it makes’m sore to feel he’s with

both feet in the soup. Meazles! I guess I’ll send’m a glass or two o’

my slip-go-down jelly to cool his throat."

 

"I guess he didn’t be expectin’ _that_, whatever it was he did be

expectin’," Ma dropped complacently.

 

"Well, you gener’ly get _sump’n_, if you expect it long enough. That’s

why it’s up to us to be sure we like our order before it goes in, for in

the end we’ll have to chew it, anyhow."

 

Martha drew her chair to the center-table, seated herself, and taking

paper, pen and a bottle of ink from the drawer, prepared to write.

 

"Goin’ to write, Martha?" queried Ma, peering over at her curiously.

 

"Looks like it, don’t it?"

 

"A letter?"

 

"Maybe, or else my last will an’ prayer-book, as they say."

 

"I wonder——"