Making Over Martha 9

Making Over Martha 9

"The joke’s on you, Martha!" Mr. Ronald said, smiling quizzically.

 

Martha turned grave in a moment. "Beggin’ your pardon, sir," she

returned, "I’m afraid it’s on the _hens_. But, what’ll I do to Sammy?

He’s a young villain, o’ course, only I ain’t a leg to stand on, for to

punish’m. He’s just been mindin’ his mother."

 

"’And the moral of that is,’ as Alice would say, that even obedience can

sometimes be too complete," observed Mr. Ronald with relish.

 

Whatever misgivings young Sam might have entertained, nothing in his

mother’s demeanor, when she, Miss Claire, and Lord Ronald arrived at the

Lodge a little while later, seemed to justify them.

 

Perhaps she hadn’t seen the hens. Perhaps the hens had licked or lapped

the whitewash off, an inspiration derived from his experience with

Flicker, the dog, and Nixcomeraus, the cat. In any case, Mrs. Slawson

was apparently undisturbed, standing by (young Sam noticed his mother

never sat in the presence of ladies and gentlemen "like Mr. and Mrs.

Ronald, Dr. Ballard, or Miss Katherine") as Miss Claire inquired after

Ma’s health.

 

"Fair-rly, fair-rly, thank you kindly," the old woman was responding,

"I’m thryin’ a new remidy, now, an’ I think it’s goin’ to help me. Ol’

Mis’ Harris says, ’no matther who ye a-are, or what ails ye, if ye get a

nutmeg, an’ bore a hole through’t, an’ string it on a white-silk t’read,

an’ a black-silk t’read, an’ hang’t ’round your neck, ye’ll be

surprised,’ ol’ Mis’ Harris says."

 

"I’d be surprised anyhow," observed Martha. "I’m always surprised."

 

"And you like living up here?" Mrs. Ronald gently put to the old woman.

 

"Well, tolerabl’, tolerabl’. I don’t mind the livin’ in it, as ye might

sa’, but——"

 

"Ma means, as long as she lives she’ll never die in the country," Martha

supplied.

 

"Well, if it comes to dyin’ itself, I’d rather die where there was moar

to be folla’in’ me. I sa’ to me son Sammy’s wife, often an’ often,

’When I die don’t ye go to anny gr’reat expense for me funerll. I should

want ye lay me out decent, but plain, an’——’"

 

Martha shrugged good-naturedly. "An’ I always answer back, ’Don’t ye

trouble yourself. In such cases they ain’t accustomed to consult the

corpse.’"

 

"But you’re not thinking of dying yet," Claire said. "I’m sure you’re

not."

 

The old woman shook her head. "No, I don’t wanta die—not while the sun

shines so bright, an’ the evenin’ star’s so pretty."

 

"Of course you don’t. And you’re not going to die for ever and ever so

long. You only feel a little low-spirited sometimes, perhaps. Isn’t

that it? The country seems strange to you, I have no doubt. Why don’t

you make some visits to your other sons and daughters?" Mrs. Ronald

suggested craftily. "That would be a fine plan, I think. How glad they

would be to see you after your long separation. And, oh, Martha,

talking of visits—you know the visitor I told you we are expecting in

August? I’m thinking of fitting up a little room especially for—for

her. I have sent to Grand Rapids for all my dear old things, because

I’ve a fancy they’ll help to make her feel as happy as they used to make

me, and perhaps then she won’t get homesick, and want to slip away from

us as—as visitors do, sometimes. My curtains were lovely, but I think

they need a stitch here and there. If you will put them in order for

me—mend them thoroughly, and launder them in your finest style, I’ll

give you—let me see! the cleaners in town asked me fifteen dollars.

I’ll pay you fifteen dollars."

 

Fifteen dollars! Martha’s eyes gleamed. Here was her opportunity to

earn the price of her ticket to New York and back.

 

"You’ll do it?"

 

"You betcher—I’ll do it with pleasure, an’ thank you for the chance,

Miss Claire. An’—my! but if here ain’t Dr. Ballard, comin’ up the

walk!"

 

Martha performed the act of introduction with dignity, then quietly

effaced herself, silently signaling her family to "fade away, an’ make

room for your betters."

 

Claire "took" to the newcomer at once, predisposed in his favor by a

certain shadow of resemblance she saw, or thought she saw, to a friend

of her youth, a certain Bob Van Brandt who, once upon a time, had laid

his heart at her feet. There was the same manly frankness, the same

touch of boyish impetuosity. She wondered if there were the same fatal

lack of determination.

 

What time she pondered, her husband was harking back to otherwhiles,

when a Ballard had lived in the neighborhood.

 

"My grandfather," the young man said quite simply. "He was bailiff, as

they called it in those days, to Squire Stryker."

 

Frank Ronald liked that. It rang true.

 

Martha was not listening to the conversation. Her mind was full of the

thought that now she could conscientiously go honeymooning with Sam.

 

"It wouldn’ta been right to take the money outa the little we got

saved," she ruminated. "That’s gotta stay where it is, no matter what.

But if I do the curtain-job, I’ll have my own cash. I can go with my

own man, an’ I wouldn’t call the queen my cousin."

 

When, at length, the Ronalds took leave, Dr. Ballard, lingering, said:

 

"I’m in a hole, Mrs. Slawson." He paused, hesitated, then colored. "I

say I’m in a hole—really it’s Miss Crewe. My difficulty is, I want to

help her out, and, up to date, haven’t been able. Madam Crewe is

fretting herself into a fever because the fruit on the place is going to

waste. Confound it! She’s making Miss Crewe’s life miserable, teasing

her to ’do it up.’ Miss Crewe doesn’t know how to do it up, she tells

me, and, there you are!"

 

"What about Eunice Youngs? The girl I got to _accommodate_ for’m, at

four dollars per," inquired Mrs. Slawson.

 

The doctor laughed. "Nothing doing, I gather, else Miss Crewe wouldn’t

be in so deep. This morning I managed to kidnap her—Miss Crewe, not

Eunice. Took her for a drive. She needs fresh air and change. I took

her to Mrs. Peckett’s, because I knew Mrs. Peckett boasts she’s the best

housekeeper in New England."

 

Martha folded her arms across her bosom, and half closed her eyes.

 

"’If I do say it as shouldn’t,’" she repeated in Mrs. Peckett’s fat,

self-satisfied voice. "’If I do say it as shouldn’t, no one can beat me

on jells and perserves. My jells and perserves have took first prize at

the country fair, as far back as I can remember.’ I ran in oncet to

ask, would she give me a helpin’ hand, or, rather, a helpin’ tongue, on

the perserve question. ’Why, certaintly,’ says she. ’I’m always

delighted to oblige, I’m sure. My rule is simple as ABC. There’s no

art in it at all. It’s just _my_ way o’ doin’, I s’pose, for every time

I give my rule to anybody else, it never comes out right.’ An’ then she

give me her rule, an’ I knew the reason why.

 

"’You take what you’re goin’ to jar, and you wash it, if it’s berries,

or pare an’ cut up if it’s pit-fruit. Add water, an’ set on the stove

in a kettle till you come to a boil. Add sugar an’——’

 

"’How much sugar?’ says I.

 

"’Accordin’ to conscience,’ she says.

 

"’How about if you haven’t got a conscience?’ I says. Mrs. Peckett

looked like she’d drop in her tracks with shock. ’Why, _Mrs. Slawson_!’

says she, ’everybody’s got a conscience.’

 

"’Oh,’ I says. ’You see, comin’ from the city I didn’t know. I suppose

some keeps theirs just to measure by, when they’re puttin’ up fruit,’

for I was tired o’ seein’ her dodge from the table to the stove, always

tryin’ to shut me off from seein’ how she done things. As if she

couldn’t o’ refused firstoff, if she didn’t want to help. _I_ wouldn’t

’a’ minded. If she done the same to Miss Katherine, I don’t wonder

she’s just about where she was before—in the same old hole."

 

"That’s just where she is," Dr. Ballard admitted. "Have you any

suggestions for getting her out?"

 

Martha pondered a moment. "Well, I never took a prize at no country

fair, or city one either, for my jells, or perserves, or anything else.

I ain’t a boss housekeeper, an’ I don’t pertend to be, but my suggestion

is—bright an’ early to-morra mornin’, me an’ my perservin’ kettle will

wanda out to Crewesmere, as they call it. I’ll bring Sammy with me to

pick, an’ sort the fruit, an’ Cora to wash, an’ heat the jars. They’re

used to it. An’—you just tell Miss Katherine, if you’ll be so good,

that she can heave the perserve-trouble off’n her chest. Tell her don’t

worry. Mrs. Peckett ain’t the only one’s got a ’rule.’"

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER V*

 

 

The day had been sultry, and sunset brought no relief. Evening fell

windstill, breathless.

 

For once Katherine was glad to obey her little martinet grandmother’s

arbitrary regulation: Lights out at nine. She sat by her bedroom window

looking out over a white, moonlit world, thinking black thoughts.

Suddenly she rose, for no better reason, apparently, than that a quick,

inner impulse of impatience against herself, must find vent in some

outward act.

 

"It’s dreadful! I’m growing bitter, hard, deceitful. I’m living a lie.

Acting as if I were obedient, and respectful to her, and—feeling like a

rebel every minute in the day. I’ve got to end it, somehow. I can’t go

on like this any longer."

 

Just outside her window a little balcony (the railed-in roof of the

porte-cochère) shone like a silver patch against the darker foliage.

The shadows of leaves cast an intricate pattern upon the moonlit space,

and Katherine gazed at it abstractedly until a moving speck in the

motionless night caught her attention, and fixed it. As she watched,

the speck became a shape, the shape an automobile moving rapidly, almost

noiselessly, toward the house, along the white ribbon of a driveway. Just before her window it stopped.