Making Over Martha 36

Making Over Martha 36

"An’ the funny part is, the parties we’re most likely to slip up on is

them we love the most."

 

"Go on."

 

"I was thinkin’ how, when my girl Cora was a baby in my arms, I had the

best holt o’ her I’ll ever have, prob’ly. Her an’ me understood each

other then. But now, every oncet in a while, I might as good be a

Dutchman, an’ her a Figi Injun for all we make o’ each other. I try to

hold in my horses, an’ hang on to all the patience I got at them times,

an’ I guess she does the same, an’ somehow, we manage to rub along, but

you may take it from me it’s some of a scratch! The same with the other

childern, as they grow up. Even down to Sabina, who, young as she is,

has a mind o’ her own an’ sever’l other parties to boot."

 

"And in the meantime, you and your husband are going without common

comforts, necessities—for those very children, who would turn about and

rend you at the first opportunity."

 

Martha laughed. "Not on your life they wouldn’t rent us—or _sell_ us

either, when it come to the test. If we go without things, to give

_them_ a better start, we’re not foolin’ ourselves on it, believe _me_!

We’re makin’ a A1 investment. We don’t grumble at the taxes, or the

’sessments or all the rest o’ the accidental expenses—so long as we know

they’re good. It’s when you’d feel you got a bad bargain on your hands,

like it’d be poor drainage, or hard as rocks, or leakin’ and shifty—it’d

be _then_ you’d hold back, sendin’ good money after bad. An’ then you’d

be wrong. For you can take it from me, there’s no child so bad it ain’t

worth savin’. You read about’m in the papers, how they steal an’ lie

an’ so forth, an’ when all’s said an’ done, it’s like pictures you’d get

of yourself—they ain’t as good as you are, bad as you are. No, you

can’t spoil a good child, an’ you can help a bad one. So small credit

to us, Sam an’ I, if we do save. It’s for the sake of our own, which,

after all, we know the stuff they’re made of. Same as you and Miss

Katherine."

 

Madam Crewe was silent.

 

"No, it’s not puttin’ money in the childern, makes me sore," Martha

continued, "it’s when we scraped an’ screwed a few dollars together for

a nest-egg, an’ then, in the turn o’ a hand, it’s gone—to pay for

somethin’ we never owed, nor no one got any good out of, but the wrong

fella."

 

"You mean you’ve been doing something foolish? Speculating? Losing

money?" demanded Madam Crewe abruptly.

 

"My husban’ signed a paper for his brother, an’ it let’m in for all we

had put by. I was wonderin’ if the paper I signed here early in the

summer, I was wonderin’ if _that_ had a sting in it, too? An’ if so,

how much?"

 

"I don’t understand."

 

"I mean, the paper I signed here the time Eunice Youngs an’ me both set

our names to it together."

 

"That paper was my will, woman. It had nothing to do with you."

 

"That’s what Sam told me, but—I——"

 

"You could not be called upon to pay one copper because of what you did

that day. On the contrary—— No! Never mind! What have you stood to

lose through your husband’s foo——"

 

"He wasn’t any foolisher’n me," Martha anticipated her quickly.

 

"Your husband’s misfortune," amended Madam Crewe.

 

"Two-hunderd-and-fifty dollars. All we had saved. But we’ll set about

right over again, an’ if we have luck, we can put by some more. An’

anyhow, I’m thankful there won’t be another such call on us. That was

what I kinda had on my mind when I come."

 

"Well, you can shift it off your mind. I give you my word. You believe

me, don’t you?"

 

"Yes’m."

 

"And I believe you. So far we understand each other. Now, Slawson, I

am going to prove that I trust you. I am going to ask you an honest

question. I want an honest answer."

 

"Yes’m."

 

"You are the mother of four children. You have had experience in

bringing them up right. I have had one child—one grandchild. I have

brought them both up—_wrong_. What’s the trouble?"

 

Martha did not reply at once.

 

Madam Crewe waited patiently, making no attempt to hurry her, and the

room was as still as if it had been empty. At last Martha spoke.

 

"O’ course I d’know what the trouble was, if there was any, with your

boy. But it seems to me, I see where you kind o’ slipped up on it with

Miss Katherine."

 

"Well?"

 

"Firstoff, the way I look at it, childern is all selfish, which is only

to say they’re human, like the rest of us. They’re selfish an’ they’re

mischeevious, an’ they’re contrairy, for, when all’s said an’ done,

they’re—childern. What we want to do is, learn’m not to be selfish an’

mischeevious an’ contrairy. An’ how can we learn’m not to be it, if

we’re that way ourselves? There’s a lady I usedta work out for—(you

know her—Mrs. Sherman, Mr. Frank Ronald’s sister). She give her boy

every bloomin’ thing money could buy——. But she never give’m a square

deal. You can take it from me, what a young ’un respec’s is a square

deal. He mayn’t _like_ it, but he respec’s it. An’ _you_ for givin’ it

to’m.

 

"Now, beggin’ pardon for the liberty, I don’t think Miss Katherine’s had

a square deal, or a fair show. She ain’t had what’s her rights, an’ she

knows it. You kep’ her too close on—well, lots o’ things. Love an’ a

free foot an’, oh, lots o’ things. She’s lived so long, as you might

say, from hand to mouth, that now she don’t know which is her hand an’

which is her mouth. An’ that makes her look kinda awkward to you. What

I’d rather my childern’d feel about me than anythin’ else is, that I see

their side an’ try to treat’m white. All the cuddlin’ an’ the coddlin’

in creation won’t help you, if your child knows it ain’t havin’ justice.

An’ all the strictness an’ the punishin’ won’t keep it straight, if it

ain’t sure there’s love along with the lickin’s.

 

"Miss Katherine’s a _good_ child. You couldn’t go far wrong, if you

took it for granted she was goin’ to do the right thing, like you are

yourself. If I was you, excuse me for sayin’ it—if I was you, I’d kinda

open up to Miss Katherine. She’s young. With all she’s so tall an’

han’some-lookin’, she ain’t learned all the sense there is. She thinks,

the same’s the rest o’ the kids, that the only reason she ain’t got the

world for the askin’ is because her ’_mean ol’ fam’ly_’ don’t want her

to have no fun. Give her a chance. Show her you believe in her. You

got to believe folks believe in you, to do your best. Now, take you, for

instance. Your talkin’ up so quick an’ sharp as you do, makes most

parties feel you’re kinda hard to get along with. But my, _I_ get along

with you first-rate, because I ain’t fooled by your outsides. I know

your insides is all right, an’ that’s enough for me. But a young lady,

like Miss Katherine, she wouldn’t know. She’s got to be showed, like

Sam says they do in Missouri. But, you can take it from me, you

wouldn’t have to show her but once. There! I’ve talked a blue streak,

an’ prob’ly tired you all out. Only, you see, when you get me on

_childern_, you got me on a subjec’s my speciality, as you might say.

That is, I try to make it my speciality, like Sam does cows an’ pigs an’

farm-produc’s gener’ly, now he’s got to deal with’m. Before I go, can’t

I get you somethin’, or, maybe, see you safe in bed?"

 

"Bed?" echoed Madam Crewe sharply. "Why do you suggest bed to me? Do I

strike you as belonging there?"

 

"Oh, no’m!" lied Martha calmly. "I wasn’t thinkin’ o’ your comfort, so

much as mine. It kinda’s got to be a habit with me to want to tuck the

little ones up an’ cover’m over, ’n’ know they’re fixed for a good,

sound sleep, before I leave’m."

 

Madam Crewe set her lips.

 

"Well, Slawson, it won’t be long before you can do that for me. But not

to-night. Go your way now. It’s growing late. But come again soon.

Very soon, you understand?"

 

"Yes’m."

 

On her way out, Martha stopped at the kitchen door.

 

"Say, Eunice," she accosted that placid young woman whom she found

cozily toasting her toes before the grateful warmth of the range,

"where’s Miss Katherine?"

 

"I d’know."

 

"Who’s lookin’ after the little Madam?"

 

"Nobody much, lately. Miss Katherine used to, and she does now, when

she’s home, but she’s off, mostly, ’n’ I have all I can do getting my

work done up."

 

"Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly. "Well, I’m comin’ to-morra

again. You can tell Miss Katherine. But in the meantime, if you was

plannin’ to go home to-night, _doncher_. Just you stay right on deck

here all of the time, from this on, do you understand?"

 

"Why?"

 

"Because I _tell_ you, that’s why. You might be needed on short notice.

Now, are you goin’ to do as I say or ain’t you?"

 

"Yes."

 

"That’s a good girl. An’—an’ if I should be needed for anythin’, any

time, just you come for me, quick as you can put, be it day or night,

an’ I’ll drop everythin’ an’ come."

 

Eunice followed her to the doorstep.

 

"Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."

 

Martha laughed. "Well, I’m glad if I got _some_ kinda move on you,

young lady. You certaintly need it."

 

But as she went her way home, Martha was in no laughing mood.