Part 13

Dr. Ballard laughed. "His left hand's in training already. Between the whiskey and the ether, last night, I was almost anesthetized myself. But joking aside, I'm going to leave Buller in your care. I'll show you about the bandaging, so when Driggs gets through with the patient, you can take him up. I wouldn't like to trust to Mrs. Buller. She's a slipshod creature, sure to neglect. Dr. Driggs tells me, Buller dreads _him_ like the mischief, so he won't go there any longer than he has to. May I trust you to keep your eye on him, follow him up, and let me know if there's any hitch in the healing?"

"Certaintly you may," said Martha.

"Another thing," Dr. Ballard paused. "I'd be glad to feel you are keeping an eye on--a--Crewesmere."

Mrs. Slawson nodded. "Certaintly, again. But you don't think--that is, you ain't in doubt about the ol' lady, are you? I'd hate to think she might have somethin' I ain't used to. I kinda got accustomed to _strokes_ now, so's if she'd have any more, I'd know just how to take a-holt, but if she set about gettin' up somethin' _new_, it'd sorta rattle me, maybe. You never can tell."

"No, that's it! You never can tell. _I_ can't tell."

"It ain't as if she didn't have a sympton to show you," pleaded Martha, "so's you'd be workin' in the dark. When ladies is that way, the doctors says to'mselves: 'Her color's good, an' her pulse is strong, which proves she's far from a well woman. While I'm waitin' for somethin' to happen, I'll remove her appendicitis.' Folks has such funny furbelows inside'm nowadays, I don't wonder the doctors is puzzled. What's the use o' adenoids now, an' appendicitises, I should like to know, if it's only to go to the trouble an' expense of havin' 'm cut out?"

"Quite so," acquiesced Dr. Ballard gravely. "No, I'm not anxious about Madam Crewe's appendix. I'm anxious about her--granddaughter."

"Oh!" said Martha. "It's _her_ you want to remove."

Dr. Ballard flushed. "Yes, Mrs. Slawson. That is--I wish to marry Miss Crewe. You already know of Madam's opposition. I don't mind that--any more. But something has happened--I don't know what--to change Miss Crewe, herself. I would never ask her to desert her grandmother. In fact, I would not respect her if she did desert her, leave her alone in her infirmity and old age. But I don't want her mind to be embittered. She is not happy. I wish you'd look after her--lend her a helping hand, once in a while. Lend her a helping _heart_."

"I'll do my best," promised Martha solemnly.

"I've grown attached to this place. I'd like to hear about--everybody, once in a while. I'd like, so to speak, to keep my finger on the pulse of the public."

Martha looked up perplexed. "The pulse o' the public? I don't know as I exackly _get_ what you mean. But, if you want to feel the pulse o' the public, why--_you're_ the doctor! Anyhow, I'll let you know how things is goin', if you'll excuse the liberty, and won't mind my spellin', which Sam says it's fierce."

"I'll deeply appreciate any line you may take the trouble to write me," Dr. Ballard assured her, with hearty sincerity.

It was September before Mrs. Slawson was actually settled at home again. The nurses, over at the big house, were altogether capable and trustworthy, but even after all need of her had passed, Mr. Ronald liked to feel Martha was within call. He fancied his wife felt more content when she was by, and, certainly, the baby slept better on her ample bosom than anywhere else.

It was a tiny creature, very delicate and fragile, a mere scrap of humanity that Martha could hold in the hollow of her hand.

In the privacy of their own sitting-room, the two trained nurses confided to Mrs. Slawson: "It's too bad the parents' hearts are so set on the child. They'll never raise it, _never_!"

"Now, what do you think o' that!" Martha said mournfully, and the two uniformed ones never knew that, in her heart, she despised them, "and their mizrable Bildadin' talk, which nobody could stand up against it, anyhow, much less a innocent little lamb that hasn't the stren'th to call'm liars to their faces."

"O' _course_ we'll raise her," she assured Mr. Ronald confidently. "There's no doubt about it. Yes, I know she ain't very hefty, an' she ain't very robustic. But what do you expec'? You ain't give her a fair show yet. You can't take a baby, a few weeks old, 'specially if it had the tough time gettin' in on the game at all, that this one had, an' expec' her to be as big an' husky as my Sabina. It wouldn't be sensible. Besides, look at her mother! Miss Claire's no giantess, nor ever was, but she's as sound as a nut, an' so'll the baby be, when she gets her gait on, an' knows it's up to her to keep in step with the percession. Don't you let nobody discourage you. Believin's half the battle. You can take it from me, that baby's goin' to live, an' thrive, like the little thorabred she is. _She_ wouldn't give us all this trouble for nothin'."

Her invincible confidence was like a tonic to Francis Ronald. It reinforced his own more flickering faith, so he could meet Claire's hungrily questioning eyes with reassurance.

And, as the weeks went by, Martha's prediction seemed less and less preposterous.

"Didn't I _tell_ you?" she exulted. "That baby's a winner! She's goin' to be standard weight, all right, all right, an' measure up to requirements too, give her time. But between you an' me, all this new-fangled business with scales, an' tape-measures, an' suchlike, is enough to discourage the best-intentioned infant. There's more notions, nowadays, than you can shake a stick at--an' I'd like to shake a stick at most of'm, believe _me_!"

At the time, she was thinking rather more of Miss Crewe, than of the nurses, whose "queer fandangoes" she never could become reconciled to.

She was frankly anxious about Katherine.

"If I could do with her, like I do with Buller, I wouldn't say a word," she ruminated. "I just keep a kinda gener'l line on him, an' when the time comes, I get a-holt of his collar-band, an' march'm up to the captain's office, as brave as a lion. He's got so the minute I tip'm the wink, he comes for his washin' an' ironin'--I should say, bandidgin', as meek as a lamb to the slaughterhouse. But you can take it from me, there's no gettin' a line on Miss Katherine. She's devotin' all her time an' attention to puttin' off flesh an' color. The trouble is, she's got nothin' to do, an' she does it so thora, she ain't got time for anything else. Dear me! I wisht I could sort o' set her an' Buller at each other. It might help'm both to forget their losses. He certaintly is a queer dick, an' no mistake!"

"In spite o' his sportin' a G.A.R. one, you can take it from _me_, Buller ain't got all his buttons!" she told Miss Katherine. "Do you know what he says? He says everybody's gone back on'm because he's in trouble. He says, nobody'll look at'm now he's mangled. They was his friends before, when he had all the limbs was comin' to'm, but--now he's shy a hand--they're too proud to notice'm. He says the world's a hard place for cripples."

A faint smile flitted across Katherine's face

"What a perverted point of view," she said, for the sake of saying something.

"Do you know what I think?" Mrs. Slawson continued. "I think now is the zoological moment to catch Buller, an' see what kind o' animal he is--_if_ he's got the makin' of a man in'm. If he could be got to give up the drink, I do believe he might amount to somethin' yet. You can't know what a fella reely is, when he's always steepin' in licka. It's like pickles. You wouldn't know if they're dill, or sweet or what they are, till you take'm out o' soak an' test'm."

"I should think _you_ might influence him," suggested Miss Crewe impersonally. "You're so strong and wholesome and steady."

"Land, no! Buller wouldn't listen to me," said Martha. "How would _I_ be reformin' anybody, when so many is reformin' me?"

"Mrs. Peckett, then?"

"Mrs. Peckett's way o' doin' things makes some folks nervous. It's like as if she said: 'I'm goin' to raise the tone o' this town, if I have to raise it by the scruff of its neck!' She's a good woman, Mrs. Peckett is, more power to her! Yes, she's as good as old gold, and--just as dull."

Katherine was amused. "Does Mr. Buller require people to be so very brilliant, then?"

"Land, no! _He_ don't. But his _case_ does. There's a differnce. The fella that gets the whip-hand of'm is the fella he's goin' to respec'. No others need apply. If there was anybody in this town could kinda give'm the fright of his life on the licka question, it'd be dead easy tame him to'm afterwords."

Miss Crewe's face lost its apathetic expression. A light of interest shone in her eyes.

"I wonder if an idea that has just occurred to me would be of any use? Last winter I attended a course of lectures at Columbia College, and one of the lectures was illustrated by lantern-slides, showing the effect of alcohol on the body and mind of habitual drunkards. They were enough to give one the horrors! If Buller could see those pictures----!"

Mrs. Slawson brought her hands down upon her knees with a sounding slap. "There, didn't I know you'd strike on just the right idea, quicker'n, sure'n anybody else? An' you've done it!"

"But it would cost a lot of money to get that lecturer here. We might not be able to get him at all, even if we could raise the money to pay----"

"Raise nothin'--beggin' your pardon!" Martha exclaimed. "Mr. Frank Ronald is always doin' things for everybody. Why couldn't you go to him, an' tell'm what you've just told me--that you're interested in savin' Buller's soul from destruction, not to speak o' the rest of'm, an' that you know a gen'lman down to Columbia with slidin' pictures, can do it, if he got the price of his ticket, an' somethin' to boot? I betcher Mr. Frank'd have'm up in no time, an' thank you for givin'm the chance."

Katherine shrank back. "Oh, no! I'd never dare," she said. "Mr. Ronald is dreadfully unapproachable, I think. His eyes are so stern, and he is so silent. He doesn't help you out at all--just seems always to be looking you through and through, and finding you very inferior."

"Have you see'm smile?"

"No."

"Well, you go down there, an' get'm to smile for you oncet. An' if you don't swear by'm ever after, my name ain't Martha Slawson. You can take it from me, Mr. Frank is true blue, like his eyes are. D'you think, if he wasn't, Miss Claire'd ever have married'm? Not on your life! She took'm for first choice, when she'd the refusal o' the pick o' the land, an' I know what I'm talkin' about."

By the time Martha was ready to go, Miss Crewe had decided that she really must see Mr. Ronald, and find if it were possible to interest him in her village-improvement plan.

If Mrs. Slawson would take her down to the big house, she could easily walk back before dinner-time, she said.

"Say, you make a chance, an' ask about Mrs. Ronald an' the baby. You'll get'm quickest, that way. An' even if you ain't used to infants, it won't be no lie to show you're dead stuck on this one, for she's a beauty on a small scale, an' no mistake," Martha dropped as they drove along.

Before Katherine was really aware, she found herself being escorted upstairs to his wife's sitting-room by Francis Ronald himself.

Burning logs were glowing on the open hearth, the place was warm and bright, and fragrant with hothouse blooms. Claire Ronald, looking like a delicate flower, of a very human variety, rose from her low chair before the fire, to greet her guest, and from that moment Katherine's constraint was gone.

She told of her plan, and the Ronalds were interested from the first.

"I think it's a capital idea, don't you, Frank?" Claire cried, in her quick, impulsive way.

"There is something in it, no doubt," he admitted cautiously, smiling down at her with very different eyes from those Katherine had dreaded. "But I don't think much could be accomplished by one lecture. If these people are to get anything, they've got to get it in good doses, 'repeat when necessary.' You can't be sure you've made your point, until you've hammered it in, given it what the journalists call 'a punch.' This can only be done by repetition, emphasis. But a _course_ of lectures--with lantern-slides--a course extending through the winter--that would be a great scheme, I think."

Katherine's face fell. "We could never hope to have a _course_," she mourned.

"Why not?"

"The expense. Think what the cost would be!"

"It would be cheaper, in proportion, than one."

"In proportion, yes. But I doubt if we could raise the money for one, much less the course."

Mr. Ronald's eyes scanned her quizzically. "You should drill under Martha Slawson," he said with a touch of seriousness in his lighter manner. "She would never recognize the obstacle. She leaps it, or she mounts it, or she kicks it out of her way--but she never _admits_ it,--and the consequence is,--it isn't there. Now, suppose you were not required to raise the price of the course. Suppose the price were guaranteed? Would you guarantee to raise the audience? Get enough people to pledge themselves to attend, so the lecturer would come up with the fair assurance that he'd face something beside empty benches?"

"I could try."

"How would you go about it?"

"There's a man named Buller----"

"Yes, I know him. A bad lot! Got his hand chewed up in a fox-trap, while he was on his way to my Lodge, to fire it, for the purpose of revenging himself on my superintendent's wife, Martha Slawson. Dr. Driggs told me about it. Gangrene set in, and the fellow'd have lost his arm, if not his life, if Dr. Ballard hadn't operated as promptly and skilfully as he did. Yes, I know Buller."

Katherine, considerably dashed, took up her theme again, notwithstanding.

"He's very ignorant, very debased, of course. Yet, I think, as Mrs. Slawson does, that he could be helped. He's very low in his mind just now, because he thinks his neighbors shun him on account of his accident."

For the first time she heard the hearty ring of Frank Ronald's laugh.

"Well, and this poor, abused soul is to aid you?--How?"

"He owns a horse and buckboard. It occurred to me he might be willing to help us, to the extent of taking me about from house to house, when I go to canvass. Incidentally, if the people see he's engaged in work we are interested in, it may re-establish him with them--with himself. He's lost all self-respect, all self-reliance. Mightn't it help him to get them back, if he felt he were concerned in some worthy enterprise, connected with reputable people?"

"It might."

The early autumn twilight had fallen before what Martha Slawson would have called their _conflab_ ended.

While Mr. Ronald was giving orders for the motor to be brought around, his little wife displayed the wonderful baby, and Katherine, holding the tiny soft creature to her cheek, suddenly felt her heart melt toward that other tiny creature, not so soft, but almost as helpless, who was sitting solitary and alone in the chill and dreariness of what she called, by courtesy, _home_.

*CHAPTER XIV*

Martha found an almost disorganized household when she got home.

"Say, this is never goin' to do in the world!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "I got to pull you all up with a round turn. The whole raft of you, from Ma down, needs a good whackin' into shape. Say, Ma, what you sittin' there whimperin' for? You look as if you'd lost your last enemy, an' had nobody left to take any comfort out of. I wouldn't put it before you to be yearnin' for the gayety o' little old New York again. That so?"

Ma drew in her lips plaintively. "No, it ain't so. I'm contented here, enough, only---- 'Tis not the same place at all when you're not in it. Never a one o' them to think o' drawin' me a cuppertee, nor set a match to the fire, when the wind is blowin' that chill, it's enough to rattle the teeth in your jaws. When I feel cold, I feel--_poor_!"

She began to cry.

"Now, Ma, you stop that, double-quick, or, you may take it from me, I'll give you something to cry _for_. I'm as cross as your grandmother's worsted-work. I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail. Keep out o' my way, everybody, till I get my house lookin' like a house again, an' my fam'ly in order, so's they'll have the appearance o' civilized human bein's, no matter what they reely are. Cora, you set the kettle on, while Sammy an' me goes down cellar to start a little fire in the furnace, to take the chill out o' the air an' the grouch out o' Ma. Francie, while you're restin' run down to the store an' get me a pound o' tea--I see there ain't a leaf left in the caddy. You can take Sabina along for comp'ny, only don't forget to bring her back. We might need her for somethin' sometime. You never can tell. For goodness' sake! Is that rack-a-bones Flicker Slawson? Well, what do you think o' that! I bet there ain't been one o' you ever thought to give'm, or Nix either, a sup or a bite, since I been gone! Such a measly-appearin' dog an' cat, _I_ never see. I'm ashamed to look'm in the face."

As she talked, Martha passed from room to room, tidying up, straightening out, getting the household wheels back into their accustomed grooves and, all the while, unconsciously transforming the atmosphere of the place, and the persons in it, until they reflected her own wholesome, vital air of well-being, well-doing.

Ma, drinking her _cuppertee_ from the saucer, reveled in the genial warmth her daughter-in-law had caused to come up out of the cold, dark, nether regions into which she, herself, never descended, and felt a sense of virtuous satisfaction in her own personal benevolence, as she rehearsed all the gossip she had been able to cull from without or within, since her son Sammy's wife had been gone. Ma did not call it gossip, she called it news.

"'Twas Mrs. Peckett was in an' out, as usual, an' told me what was goin' on, or I'd never have known no more than if we'd been livin' in the Sarah desert, itself. 'Twas her told me what a bloody rascal is Buller that he'd be after comin' here, in the dead o' night wit' his fagots, to burn us alive in our beds, to say nothin' o' the gun he was for shootin' us wit', into the bargain. An' you to be standin' by, an' holdin' his hand, when 'twas cut off on account of the gangerine! Mrs. Peckett says every one in the place is callin' you a good Sam Maritan."

"'In me eye,' says Biddy Martin," Martha sang out sceptically.

"Mrs. Peckett was sayin' 'twas the wife's dooty stand by her own man, an' not another woman's at all. Mrs. Peckett was after sayin' God knows she's as quick to do a kindness, as the next one, but the evil tongues some folks do be havin' nowadays, would make you look out for your repu*ta*tion."

"Say, Ma," said Martha, "did you ever notice how some people'll try to keep their own place clean by shakin' their dirty rags on other people's heads? _They_ don't care where the smut lands, so long's they've shook it off'n their own skirts. The trouble is, they sometimes get come up with. They don't watch which way the wind's blowin', so they get all their own dirt, an' then some, blown back on'm, which they'd better never have stirred it up, in the first place."

Without in the least understanding her daughter-in-law's drift, Ma felt it desirable to change the subject. Did Martha know that the Fred Trenholms had "leegially" adopted the three Fresh Air children they had had with them all this summer and last?

"An' they do be as proud, as proud! The way you'd think they'd a fortune left them, instead of a ready-made fam'ly to eat'm out o' house an' home, itself."

"The Trenholms are _bricks_!"

Ma coughed nervously, then tried again.

"That old bachelor brother o' Mrs. Coleses, the one's been so long sick-a-bed wit' the doctor, he's been took down wit' the meazles."

Martha proceeded with her work.

"Well, that's the way it goes! When a fella's been cryin' wolf for years an' years, the chances are he'll attrac' some kinda thing his way, if it's only a meazly little skunk, which is more embarrassin' than dangerous. Meazles is a kinda come-down, for a party Hiram Parkinson's age an' ambitions. He's been walkin' around with, as you might say, one foot in the gravey,--poor soul! I bet it makes'm sore to feel he's with both feet in the soup. Meazles! I guess I'll send'm a glass or two o' my slip-go-down jelly to cool his throat."

"I guess he didn't be expectin' _that_, whatever it was he did be expectin'," Ma dropped complacently.

"Well, you gener'ly get _sump'n_, if you expect it long enough. That's why it's up to us to be sure we like our order before it goes in, for in the end we'll have to chew it, anyhow."

Martha drew her chair to the center-table, seated herself, and taking paper, pen and a bottle of ink from the drawer, prepared to write.

"Goin' to write, Martha?" queried Ma, peering over at her curiously.

"Looks like it, don't it?"

"A letter?"

"Maybe, or else my last will an' prayer-book, as they say."

"I wonder----"

"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.