Making Over Martha 7

Making Over Martha 7

"True for you, you never can," Martha admitted. "Who’d ’a’ thought, now,

ol’ lady Crewe would ever be troublin’ her head about me, an’ yet one o’

the first things she said, when she got her power back, an’ could

pronunciate clearly, was—’You’d oughta keep a cow!’ Knowin’ the risks

run by those that does, from the effects o’ hoofs an’ horns, an’ simular

attachments, I mighta thought she wanted to see my finish, because o’

the way I lit in, an’ give her a rub-down against her will, the night

she was took sick. But she didn’t. She don’t bear no ill will. It was

just she thought keepin’ a cow would be cheaper for our fam’ly, than

keepin’ the milkman. She wants to turn me into a farmer, an’ who knows!

You never can tell, as you say. That’s what I may turn into before I’m

done. But what I’m occupied with at the present moment is—did you get

that la’nch fixed up good last night, like I told you to? As soon as

the breakfast dishes is washed, I wanta take the childern, an’ go acrost

the lake to get laurel for my decorations."

 

Sam paused in the act of shaving, to turn his lathered cheek toward her.

 

"The launch is O.K., but I’m uneasy every time you take her out on the

water alone, mother. I’m not sure you understand the motor. And if a

squall blew up sudden——"

 

"Now, don’t you worry your head over me, that’s a good fella. I

understand that la’nch, an’ the auta, as good as if all three of us hada

been born an’ brought up by the same mother. The things I can’t seem to

get a line on is animals. Hens, an’ cows, an’ so forth. _They_ take my

time! O’ course, to look at ’em, you’d know hens ain’t very

brainy.—Look at the way they behave in front o’ autas, or anythin’

drivin’ up! They’re as undecided as a woman at a bargain-counter,

thinkin’ will she buy a remlet o’ baby-blue ribbon, or go to Huyler’s

an’ get a chocolate ice-cream soda. They’re hippin’ an’ hawin’, till

it’d be a _pleasure_ to run ’em down. Cows ain’t got that trick, but

they’re queer in their own way, an’ the both o’ them is too, what Mrs.

Sherman calls, _temper-mental_ to suit me. Now, who’d ’a’ thought all

them chicks woulda died on me, just because they got damped down some,

that cold, wet spell we had along in March? If they’d ’a’ told me they

wanted to come in outa the wet, I’d ’a’ fetched ’em indoors, or I’d ’a’

went out an’ held their hands. Anythin’ to oblige. But not on your

life! They was mum as oysters. They just up an’ died on me, without so

much as a _beg to be excused_—the whole bloomin’ lot o’ them. The Lord

tempers the cold to the shorn lamb, but I notice it aint reggerlated

much of any in the case o’ chickens. An’ talkin’ o’ chickens, I wonda

if that same Sammy done what I told’m an’ whitewashed the henhouse thora

inside. Mrs. Peckett says you gotta do it every oncet in a while, to

keep the vermin down. The quicklime kills ’em."

 

Breakfast well under way, Mrs. Slawson went out on a tour of inspection.

Evidently what she found did not satisfy her, for, when the family had

had its meal, and was about to rise and disperse, she held Sammy back

with a detaining hand.

 

"Say, young fella, how about that henhouse you was to fresco with

whitewash yesterday?"

 

"I did it, mother."

 

"Well, you let the brush kinda lick down the walls, but what I call a

thora coat you did not give it! Now, I like my jobs done thora.

There’s a good pail o’ whitewash waitin’ for you outside, to say nothin’

o’ the brush to lay it on with. An’, while the girls an’ me goes over

to the other side o’ the lake to get laurel, you get busy on the

inter’or o’ that hen-residence, my son. An’——"

 

"Oh—oh, mother-r!" Sammy’s wail came from a stricken heart.

 

It failed to make the slightest impression apparently.

 

"You knew you was botchin’ all the time," Martha pulled him up short.

"After a while, you’ll get on to it that you can’t palm off careless

work on me—I know too much about it."

 

"I did what you told me, mother," the boy managed to bring out, between

heavy sobs.

 

"What did I tell you?"

 

"You told me—_do the inside o’ the henhouse, an’ I done it!_"

 

"Yes, but how about the roosts? You never touched brush to the roosts.

It’s a pity if a child o’ mine’s gotta be told do every last thing, when

he knows better. You can take it from me, I ain’t bringin’ you childern

up to be the kind o’ household pets servants is, nowadays. I wanta

learn you to think for yourselves, sometimes, an’ do a thing the right

way, because it’s right to do it that way. Never mind if anybody sees

it, or not. Now, you listen to me, since you’re so partic’lar: You go

into that hen-house, with your pail, an’ your brush, an’ you whitewash

down every last thing in it, roosts an’ all. Don’t you leave a thing go

free. Do you understand me?"

 

Sammy’s pitiful face moved his father to raise a voice in his behalf.

 

"Say, mother, Sammy knows he’s been a bad boy an’ he’s got to take his

punishment. He’s got to do the henhouse over. There’s no doubt about

that. But suppose he passes his word of honor to you, as man to man,

that he’ll do it thorough next time, will you be easy on him, for this

once, and let him go across the lake with you and his sisters, and do

the whitewashing later?"

 

Martha shook her head.

 

"Sorry I can’t accommodate you, but when anythin’s to do, there’s no

time like the present. If Sammy learns his lesson this trip, he won’t

have it to learn again, on another occasion, when p’raps he’d miss more

than goin’ acrost the lake. Besides, he’s got some other little trifles

hangin’ over’m, I let him off easy on, at the time. We’ll just settle

up his account now, for them _an’_ the henhouse, all together, an’ call

it square."

 

There was a terrible finality in his mother’s words and aspect, that

dried Sammy’s tears, quenched his sobs. Where was the good of

struggling? Sammy was a small boy, but he had sagacity enough to

realize he was face to face with fate. He turned away mournfully, and

disappeared in the direction of the henhouse.

 

Mrs. Slawson’s severity fell from her, as if it had been a mantle.

 

"The poor fella," she said commiseratingly. "I’d give a lot to leave’m

go along. But with childern, you got to strike while the iron is hot,

or you’ll be forever warmin’ their poor little hides, which constant

naggin’ is death to their dispositions. But if I’d ’a’ had my choice,

I’d ’a’ selected a differnt way to punish’m. For, firstoff, I won’t

enjoy the fun, knowin’ he’s left behind, an’, second, I really need his

help with the laurel _and_ with the la’nch. But p’raps I need a

punishment on my own account, for leavin’m grow to this age without

knowin’ he can’t string his mother. If I do, you can take it from me,

_I got it_."

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER IV*

 

 

Miss Claire’s entry into her new domain was triumphal.

 

As the motor approached the lodge-gate, she plucked impulsively at her

husband’s sleeve.

 

"Look, Frank, look! See! An arch of pink laurel! Flags!

And—and—what’s this?"

 

A quartette of children’s voices singing brought the motor to a halt on

the hither side of a wonderful, lettered strip, stretched, like an

unrolled scroll, to span the driveway, from the tips of two lofty

uprights. Mr. Ronald bent forward attentively. Immediately his firm jaw

began to twitch, and, as he spoke, his lowered voice betrayed a

treacherous tremolo.

 

"They’re singing _Hail to the Chief_. But its own mother wouldn’t know

it."

 

Claire threw him a reproachful glance, as, to the consternation of the

new footman, she flung open the door of the car herself, alighted

unaided, and impetuously clung about Martha Slawson’s neck.

 

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" she cried.

 

There were tears of joy in Martha’s eyes.

 

"God bless you, Miss Claire, ma’am! God bless you, dear."

 

"I say, Martha, which of us are you hailing? Which of us is _Chief_?"

broke in Mr. Ronald lightly, nodding a salutation toward Sam, Ma, and

the children drawn up by the driveway in martial array.

 

Martha laughed. "Between youse be it, sir. Time’ll tell. Sam didn’t

want me put it up, but I says to him, you both started in with a fair

field, an’ no favor, an’ let the best man win. Guessin’ which of you’ll

come out ahead, maybe’ll relieve the monoterny of married life for you

some."

 

If Sam Slawson had been a boy, he could not have felt more eager to

"show the boss" what he had made of the place during his absence. While

the two of them were exploring, the children and Ma busy with the

treasures their fairy princess had brought home to them from the other

side of the world, Martha devoted herself to "mothering" Miss Claire.

 

"My! To be brushin’ your hair like this takes me back to a

Hunderd-an’-sixteenth Street, an’ no mistake!"

 

Mrs. Ronald’s eyes, peering through her bright veil, met Mrs. Slawson’s

in the mirror.

 

"Tell me, Martha, you miss the city sometimes, don’t you? Would you

like to go back?"

 

Martha’s reply was prompt. "I _am_ goin’ back, for a day or two, with

Sam, when Mr. Ronald sends’m down on business next month. That is, I’m

goin’, if I can raise the price o’ my ticket. We’re goin’ on a spree.

Just us two, all alone by ourselves."

 

Mrs. Ronald clapped her hands. "Good!" she cried enthusiastically.

"But you haven’t answered my question. I’ll put it another way. Do you

feel quite contented up here? Does the country suit you?"

 

This time Mrs. Slawson paused to consider. "I like the country

first-rate," she brought out at last. "I like it first-rate,

notwithstandin’ it ain’ just exackly the kinda pure white, Easter-card

effect it’s gener’ly cracked up to be. When you think o’ the country,

you naturally think o’ daisies, an’ new-mown hay, an’ meddas, an’ grass

which it don’t have signs all ’round to keep off of it, an’ blue skies

you ain’t gotta break your neck peekin’ out o’ the air-shaft

ground-floor winda to see. Well, true for you, the whole outfit’s here

all right, all right, but so’s more or less o’ human bein’s, an’

whenever you get human bein’s picnicking ’round, complercations ’s sure

to set in. Human bein’s, if they ain’t careful, clutters up the

landscape dretful. An’ they do it in the country, same as down home.

You’re goin’ to slip up on it fierce, if you think the city’s got a

corner on all the rottenness there is. There’s a whole lot o’ news

ain’t fit to print is happenin’ right up here in this innercent-lookin’

little village. You wouldn’t believe it, unless you _knew_. There’s

parties bein’ bad, an’ other parties bein’ good. Folks doin’ mean

tricks, an’ folks doin’ the other kind. It’s all just about the same’s

in the city, when you get right down to it. Only, there ain’t so much

_of_ it. But it makes me tired to hear Mrs. Peckett behavin’ as if the

country was the whole thing, an’ New York wasn’t in it. New York _is_

bad in spots, but it’s good in spots too, an’ don’t you forget it!"