Making Over Martha 34

Making Over Martha 34

"I guess if you’re goin’ to wonder out loud, Ma, you’ll have to do it

later. I got to get this job off’n my hands right now, an’ between you

an’ me an’ the lamp-post, I ain’t so flip with my pen an’ ink, I can do

much of anythin’ fancy, _while you wait_. I got to take my time at it.

It’s the hardest stunt I know of. Firstoff, you got to have somethin’ to

write about, an’ then, before you’re fairly ready to put it down—what

with delays, owin’ to spellin’, blots an’ so forth—it’s got away from

you, an’ you have to think up somethin’ else in its place. While you’re

doin’ that the next idea gets away, so you’re left, whatever way you

look at it. Now, ’silence in the court-house,’ as Sammy says."

 

Ma would have given all she was worth to discover what it was that, for

the next couple of hours or so, Martha was so painfully employed upon.

She did her best to find out, but though she craned her neck, ducked her

head, peeked and peered, it was no use. A substantial elbow curved

around the paper, effectually shielding it from inquisitive eyes.

 

 

Dere doct. Ballad you will be supprised to here I am home again but that

is wear I am for Miss Clare is well enough now to spair me and the baby

is doing fine in spite of the nurses witch says she will live now witch

I thank them kindly wen her two cheeks is getting as pink as roses and

round besides so a blind man could see it and never a cry out of her the

hole day long the lamb or night either except wen neccery. Mr. F.

Ronald would not call the quean his cousin him and miss Kathrine is

bizzy getting a party from the city to come and give a corse of

leckchers to show the natives off of lantren slides what there bodies

maid out of and how there jerms looks wen you see them on a sheet verry

much unlarged. miss katrine hopes seeing what the licker does to his

jerms will scair Buller off the drink annyhow he ain’t drunk much as

ushal becaus he has bin driving her round in his backboard witch he is

verry proud of besides he has not the time wen he is doing it. Wile i

bean away Hireram parkinsin got meezils if this dont intrust you madam

Crew is verry well but her and Miss Kathrin is still on the outs why i

do not no Miss Kathrine was getting verry thin and wite when you left

she got going to Mr. F. Ronaldses now she looks better do not think that

is becaus ennything accepting the corse of leckchers. MEN is necherly

jellys pardon the libberty but believe me miss Kathrin is trew blew like

if she got found of any party once would not change to get found of any

other party no matter how plutonic as a gent leman i once lived out with

his wife Mr. Grandvil lately maid to a judg told me witch I just looked

it up in the dickshunnery for the speling and it ain’t what he told me

it was a tall but relating to regions of fire insted of cool like you

feel for your relations. Buller is heeling alrite so I no he is clean I

told him his hole arm would go if he did not let up on the drink i will

let you no if he lets up I will let you no if Madam crew and Miss

Kathreen lets up all so enny more i think will intrust you I know what

was in your hart wen you asked me so will rite as orphan as I can and no

other soul will knew you can count on me. Love to all Yours

 

trewly Martha Slawson.

 

 

The writing of the letter in itself might not have excited any undue

suspicion in Ma. Once in a long time Martha did actually "sit down to

take her pen in hand" to write to one of the relations, though usually

it was Cora who was offered up on the altar of family concord. But

to-day "me son Sammy’s wife’s" conduct was exceptional. She wrote and

rewrote, erased, tore up, until, Ma cogitated, "It’s fairly a caution,

an’ out of all sensibleness, the way she does be destroyin’ perfectly

good paper."

 

Also,

 

"It’d surely be a stranger she’d be after wastin’ all that time an’ ink

on, for not one of her own at all would ever be for gettin’ the like of

it." The next logical step in the shrewd deduction was—"Who is the

stranger?"

 

Ma watched the little Mont Blanc at Martha’s elbow grow, until finally

it coasted, like a tiny avalanche to the floor. She watched her

daughter-in-law stoop, abstractedly gather up the fragments and stuff

them into her apron pocket.

 

When the great task was done, she saw the mysterious letter, artfully

resisting, obliged at last to yield to main force, and go into its

envelope whether it would or no. Saw it sealed, saw it stamped, saw it

directed, saw it triumphantly carried, by Martha’s own hand, to the

R.F.D. mail-box, though Ma insisted "one of the childern could go just

as good, an’ save you the steps, itself."

 

When Martha returned from her errand she found Mrs. Peckett in

possession of Sam’s chair by the table.

 

"And how’s Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles? It’s good to see you

home again," the caller greeted her before she had fairly crossed the

doorsill.

 

"Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain’t had any troubles."

 

"That’s what Martha always says," Ma observed half-complainingly,

"Martha always says she wouldn’t be for callin’ what-she’s-come-up-wit’

_trouble_. She says, if you don’t notice it, ’twill pass you by the

quicker, but if you clap a name to it, ’twill come in an’ live wit’ chu,

till you’d never get rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."

 

For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken a sudden dive in a

clumsily-run elevator. Through the "sinkin’ at the stummick" that

followed, she saw Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making

ready for fight. She flung herself into the breach, laughed, winked

confidentially over Ma’s head to their neighbor, and said calmly:

 

"Mrs. Peckett an’ me’ll have to grow your age, Ma, an’ be the mother o’

married sons, before we reely know what trouble is, won’t we, Mrs.

Peckett?"

 

Mrs. Peckett nodded.

 

"Though I will say, I never put much stock in all the talk that’s going

the rounds about mother-in-laws’ suffering at the hands of the parties

their sons married. Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I always point

to Mr. P.’s mother who lived with us a year and a half after we went to

housekeeping. The store she set by me! She was so afraid I’d do too

much, or be worried, or the like of that, that, at the last, when she

couldn’t say much of anything, for the weakness, she’d tell the nurse,

’Don’t let Beulah in!’ When the nurse told me about it, after Mother

Peckett was gone I was so affected I ’most cried. I said to the nurse,

’Did you ever!’ and the nurse said to me, ’We reap what we sow!’ Just

like that—’We reap what we sow!’ I wager she’s told the story to many a

family she’s been out nursing since. Though, of course, one case don’t

prove the rule. But even if I am exceptional, I believe there’s lots of

daughter-in-laws better than they give them credit for being."

 

"Oh, I ain’t _complainin’_," Ma maintained. "Martha, here, duz fairly

well, an’ I’ll say this much for her, she’s turned out better than I

expected."

 

Martha bowed profoundly. "’Thank you, thank you, sir,’ she sayed.

’Your kindness I never shall forget!’"

 

"Me son Sammy was me youngest, an’ ’twas hard on me, part wit’ him, to

be married. All the time he was courtin’ Martha, I was prayin’ she’d

turn’m down, or somethin’d happen to come between’m, the way they’d

never go to the altar when the time come. I wanted Martha for to be

takin’ another fella was sparkin’ her along wit’ Sammy, but she didn’t.

She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me. It fairly broke me

heart."

 

"Oho! So you had your love-affairs, like the rest of us, Mrs. Slawson.

Do tell! Is the heart-broken lover still hanging on, or——"

 

"Heart-broken nothin’!" ejaculated Martha scornfully. "Gilroy’s as

chipper as a squirrel, an’ don’t you forget it!"

 

Ma wagged a sagacious head. "But he never married, Martha. You know

that, as good as me. An’ it’s not for the lack of chances, itself.

There’s many a girl would give her eye-teeth for’m, wit’ the riches he

has, an’ dressin’ like a dood, the day."

 

Mrs. Peckett sighed. "Well, well, and I thought you to be such a sober,

steady-going woman, Mrs. Slawson! But it seems _you’ve_ had your

romance, too! It’s a surprise, but—live and learn! Live and learn!"

 

"That’s just it!" Martha returned. "We don’t. We live, but we don’t

learn, more’s the pity. Have a cup o’ tea. Ma relishes it, along about

this time in the afternoon, an’ it won’t be a mite o’ trouble. An’ you

must sample some cookies I made this mornin’. I’m quite stuck on my own

cookies, if I do say it, as shouldn’t."

 

After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed, Martha observed with

more than usual gravity,

 

"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin’ to Mrs. Peckett you

wouldn’t just as lief was posted on a board-fence."

 

"Why, what call have you to say that to me, I should like to know,

Martha Carrol?"

 

"Nothin’ much, only—I kind, o’ wish she hadn’t got wind o’ Gilroy."

 

"I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever hear the like? If I so much

as open me lips, I’m rebuked for’t, the way I’d bring confusion on the

fam’ly. Better for me, if I kep’ to me own room entirely, an’ never set

foot here at all, to be accused o’ settin’ the neighbors gossipin’ when

’twas never me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned

Gilroy’s name."

 

Martha shrugged. "Come on, now, Ma, cheer up! I didn’t mean to hurt

your feelin’s. It’s just I nacherly distrust Mrs. Peckett. I used to

think she was good, firstoff. But she’s as shifty as dust! I wouldn’t

put it before her to take anything she got a-holt of—the innocentest

thing, an’ twist it into what’d scandalize your name, so you’d never get

rid of the smutch of it, however you’d try. The worst things ever I

heard of the folks in this place, Mrs. Peckett told me. It’s took me

over a year to find out most of’m’s just mischeevious tattle. You can

lock up against a thief, but you can’t pertec’ yourself from a liar."

 

Ma made no response, beyond blinking very fast for a second or so, but

that was enough for Martha. Recognizing it as the sign of a coming

deluge, she hastily changed the subject.

 

"What do you hear from the folks down home, these days?" she asked

affably.

 

"No more than yourself. Sam got a letter from one o’ them (Andy, I’m

thinkin’) this mornin’. Didn’t he be after readin’ it to youse before he went out?"