Chapter 6

Mrs. Maria Dodge sifted flour over her molding board preparatory to transferring the sticky mass of newly made dough from the big yellow mixing bowl to the board. More flour and a skillful twirl or two of the lump and the process of kneading was begun. It continued monotonously for the space of two minutes; then the motions became gradually slower, finally coming to a full stop.

“My patience!” murmured Mrs. Dodge, slapping her dough smartly. “Fanny ought to be ready by now. They’ll be late—both of ’em.”

She hurriedly crossed the kitchen to where, through a partly open door, an uncarpeted stair could be seen winding upward.

“Fanny!” she called sharply. “Fanny! ain’t you ready yet?”

A quick step in the passage above, a subdued whistle, and her son Jim came clattering down the stair. He glanced at his mother, a slight pucker between his handsome brows. She returned the look with one of fond maternal admiration.

“How nice you do look, Jim,” said she, and smiled up at her tall son. “I always did like you in red, and that necktie—”

Jim Dodge shrugged his shoulders with a laugh.

“Don’t know about that tie,” he said. “Kind of crude and flashy, ain’t it, mother?”

“Flashy? No, of course it ain’t. It looks real stylish with the brown suit.”

“Stylish,” repeated the young man. “Yes, I’m a regular swell—everything up to date, latest Broadway cut.”

He looked down with some bitterness at his stalwart young person clad in clothes somewhat shabby, despite a recent pressing.

Mrs. Dodge had returned to her bread which had spread in a mass of stickiness all over the board.

“Where’s Fanny?” she asked, glancing up at the noisy little clock on the shelf above her head. “Tell her to hurry, Jim. You’re late, now.”

Jim passed his hand thoughtfully over his clean-shaven chin.

“You might as well know, mother; Fan isn’t going.”

“Not going?” echoed Mrs. Dodge, sharp dismay in voice and eyes. “Why, I did up her white dress a-purpose, and she’s been making up ribbon bows.”

She extricated her fingers from the bread and again hurried across the floor.

Her son intercepted her with a single long stride.

“No use, mother,” he said quietly. “Better let her alone.”

“You think it’s—?”

The young man slammed the door leading to the stairway with a fierce gesture.

“If you weren’t blinder than a bat, mother, you’d know by this time what ailed Fan,” he said angrily.

Mrs. Dodge sank into a chair by the table.

“Oh, I ain’t blind,” she denied weakly; “but I thought mebbe Fannie—I hoped—”

“Did you think she’d refused him?” demanded Jim roughly. “Did you suppose—? Huh! makes me mad clean through to think of it.”

Mrs. Dodge began picking the dough off her fingers and rolling it into little balls which she laid in a row on the edge of the table.

“I’ve been awful worried about Fanny—ever since the night of the fair,” she confessed. “He was here all that afternoon and stayed to tea; don’t you remember? And they were just as happy together—I guess I can tell! But he ain’t been near her since.”

She paused to wipe her eyes on a corner of her gingham apron.

“Fanny thought—at least I sort of imagined Mr. Elliot didn’t like the way you treated him that night,” she went on piteously. “You’re kind of short in your ways, Jim, if you don’t like anybody; don’t you know you are?”

The young man had thrust his hands deep in his trousers’ pockets and was glowering at the dough on the molding board.

“That’s rotten nonsense, mother,” he burst out. “Do you suppose, if a man’s really in love with a girl, he’s going to care a cotton hat about the way her brother treats him? You don’t know much about men if you think so. No; you’re on the wrong track. It wasn’t my fault.”

His mother’s tragic dark eyes entreated him timidly.

“I’m awfully afraid Fanny’s let herself get all wrapped up in the minister,” she half whispered. “And if he—”

“I’d like to thrash him!” interrupted her son in a low tense voice. “He’s a white-livered, cowardly hypocrite, that’s my name for Wesley Elliot!”

“But, Jim, that ain’t goin’ to help Fanny—what you think of Mr. Elliot. And anyway, it ain’t so. It’s something else. Do you—suppose, you could—You wouldn’t like to—to speak to him, Jim—would you?”

“What! speak to that fellow about my sister? Why, mother, you must be crazy! What could I say?—‘My sister Fanny is in love with you; and I don’t think you’re treating her right.’ Is that your idea?”

“Hush, Jim! Don’t talk so loud. She might hear you.”

“No danger of that, mother; she was lying on her bed, her face in the pillow, when I looked in her room ten minutes ago. Said she had a headache and wasn’t going.”

Mrs. Dodge drew a deep, dispirited sigh.

“If there was only something a body could do,” she began. “You might get into conversation with him, kind of careless, couldn’t you, Jim? And then you might mention that he hadn’t been to see us for two weeks—’course you’d put it real cautious, then perhaps he—”

A light hurried step on the stair warned them to silence; the door was pushed open and Fanny Dodge entered the kitchen. She was wearing the freshly ironed white dress, garnished with crisp pink ribbons; her cheeks were brilliant with color, her pretty head poised high.

“I changed my mind,” said she, in a hard, sweet voice. “I decided I’d go, after all. My—my head feels better.”

Mother and son exchanged stealthy glances behind the girl’s back as she leaned toward the cracked mirror between the windows, apparently intent upon capturing an airy tendril of hair which had escaped confinement.

“That’s real sensible, Fanny,” approved Mrs. Dodge with perfunctory cheerfulness. “I want you should go out all you can, whilest you’re young, an’ have a good time.”

Jim Dodge was silent; but the scowl between his eyes deepened.

Mrs. Dodge formed three words with her lips, as she shook her head at him warningly.

Fanny burst into a sudden ringing laugh.

“Oh, I can see you in the glass, mother,” she cried. “I don’t care what Jim says to me; he can say anything he likes.”