Part 14

Dere doct. Ballad you will be supprised to here I am home again but that is wear I am for Miss Clare is well enough now to spair me and the baby is doing fine in spite of the nurses witch says she will live now witch I thank them kindly wen her two cheeks is getting as pink as roses and round besides so a blind man could see it and never a cry out of her the hole day long the lamb or night either except wen neccery. Mr. F. Ronald would not call the quean his cousin him and miss Kathrine is bizzy getting a party from the city to come and give a corse of leckchers to show the natives off of lantren slides what there bodies maid out of and how there jerms looks wen you see them on a sheet verry much unlarged. miss katrine hopes seeing what the licker does to his jerms will scair Buller off the drink annyhow he ain't drunk much as ushal becaus he has bin driving her round in his backboard witch he is verry proud of besides he has not the time wen he is doing it. Wile i bean away Hireram parkinsin got meezils if this dont intrust you madam Crew is verry well but her and Miss Kathrin is still on the outs why i do not no Miss Kathrine was getting verry thin and wite when you left she got going to Mr. F. Ronaldses now she looks better do not think that is becaus ennything accepting the corse of leckchers. MEN is necherly jellys pardon the libberty but believe me miss Kathrin is trew blew like if she got found of any party once would not change to get found of any other party no matter how plutonic as a gent leman i once lived out with his wife Mr. Grandvil lately maid to a judg told me witch I just looked it up in the dickshunnery for the speling and it ain't what he told me it was a tall but relating to regions of fire insted of cool like you feel for your relations. Buller is heeling alrite so I no he is clean I told him his hole arm would go if he did not let up on the drink i will let you no if he lets up I will let you no if Madam crew and Miss Kathreen lets up all so enny more i think will intrust you I know what was in your hart wen you asked me so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will knew you can count on me. Love to all Yours

trewly Martha Slawson.

The writing of the letter in itself might not have excited any undue suspicion in Ma. Once in a long time Martha did actually "sit down to take her pen in hand" to write to one of the relations, though usually it was Cora who was offered up on the altar of family concord. But to-day "me son Sammy's wife's" conduct was exceptional. She wrote and rewrote, erased, tore up, until, Ma cogitated, "It's fairly a caution, an' out of all sensibleness, the way she does be destroyin' perfectly good paper."

Also,

"It'd surely be a stranger she'd be after wastin' all that time an' ink on, for not one of her own at all would ever be for gettin' the like of it." The next logical step in the shrewd deduction was--"Who is the stranger?"

Ma watched the little Mont Blanc at Martha's elbow grow, until finally it coasted, like a tiny avalanche to the floor. She watched her daughter-in-law stoop, abstractedly gather up the fragments and stuff them into her apron pocket.

When the great task was done, she saw the mysterious letter, artfully resisting, obliged at last to yield to main force, and go into its envelope whether it would or no. Saw it sealed, saw it stamped, saw it directed, saw it triumphantly carried, by Martha's own hand, to the R.F.D. mail-box, though Ma insisted "one of the childern could go just as good, an' save you the steps, itself."

When Martha returned from her errand she found Mrs. Peckett in possession of Sam's chair by the table.

"And how's Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles? It's good to see you home again," the caller greeted her before she had fairly crossed the doorsill.

"Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain't had any troubles."

"That's what Martha always says," Ma observed half-complainingly, "Martha always says she wouldn't be for callin' what-she's-come-up-wit' _trouble_. She says, if you don't notice it, 'twill pass you by the quicker, but if you clap a name to it, 'twill come in an' live wit' chu, till you'd never get rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."

For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken a sudden dive in a clumsily-run elevator. Through the "sinkin' at the stummick" that followed, she saw Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making ready for fight. She flung herself into the breach, laughed, winked confidentially over Ma's head to their neighbor, and said calmly:

"Mrs. Peckett an' me'll have to grow your age, Ma, an' be the mother o' married sons, before we reely know what trouble is, won't we, Mrs. Peckett?"

Mrs. Peckett nodded.

"Though I will say, I never put much stock in all the talk that's going the rounds about mother-in-laws' suffering at the hands of the parties their sons married. Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I always point to Mr. P.'s mother who lived with us a year and a half after we went to housekeeping. The store she set by me! She was so afraid I'd do too much, or be worried, or the like of that, that, at the last, when she couldn't say much of anything, for the weakness, she'd tell the nurse, 'Don't let Beulah in!' When the nurse told me about it, after Mother Peckett was gone I was so affected I 'most cried. I said to the nurse, 'Did you ever!' and the nurse said to me, 'We reap what we sow!' Just like that--'We reap what we sow!' I wager she's told the story to many a family she's been out nursing since. Though, of course, one case don't prove the rule. But even if I am exceptional, I believe there's lots of daughter-in-laws better than they give them credit for being."

"Oh, I ain't _complainin'_," Ma maintained. "Martha, here, duz fairly well, an' I'll say this much for her, she's turned out better than I expected."

Martha bowed profoundly. "'Thank you, thank you, sir,' she sayed. 'Your kindness I never shall forget!'"

"Me son Sammy was me youngest, an' 'twas hard on me, part wit' him, to be married. All the time he was courtin' Martha, I was prayin' she'd turn'm down, or somethin'd happen to come between'm, the way they'd never go to the altar when the time come. I wanted Martha for to be takin' another fella was sparkin' her along wit' Sammy, but she didn't. She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me. It fairly broke me heart."

"Oho! So you had your love-affairs, like the rest of us, Mrs. Slawson. Do tell! Is the heart-broken lover still hanging on, or----"

"Heart-broken nothin'!" ejaculated Martha scornfully. "Gilroy's as chipper as a squirrel, an' don't you forget it!"

Ma wagged a sagacious head. "But he never married, Martha. You know that, as good as me. An' it's not for the lack of chances, itself. There's many a girl would give her eye-teeth for'm, wit' the riches he has, an' dressin' like a dood, the day."

Mrs. Peckett sighed. "Well, well, and I thought you to be such a sober, steady-going woman, Mrs. Slawson! But it seems _you've_ had your romance, too! It's a surprise, but--live and learn! Live and learn!"

"That's just it!" Martha returned. "We don't. We live, but we don't learn, more's the pity. Have a cup o' tea. Ma relishes it, along about this time in the afternoon, an' it won't be a mite o' trouble. An' you must sample some cookies I made this mornin'. I'm quite stuck on my own cookies, if I do say it, as shouldn't."

After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed, Martha observed with more than usual gravity,

"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin' to Mrs. Peckett you wouldn't just as lief was posted on a board-fence."

"Why, what call have you to say that to me, I should like to know, Martha Carrol?"

"Nothin' much, only--I kind, o' wish she hadn't got wind o' Gilroy."

"I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever hear the like? If I so much as open me lips, I'm rebuked for't, the way I'd bring confusion on the fam'ly. Better for me, if I kep' to me own room entirely, an' never set foot here at all, to be accused o' settin' the neighbors gossipin' when 'twas never me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned Gilroy's name."

Martha shrugged. "Come on, now, Ma, cheer up! I didn't mean to hurt your feelin's. It's just I nacherly distrust Mrs. Peckett. I used to think she was good, firstoff. But she's as shifty as dust! I wouldn't put it before her to take anything she got a-holt of--the innocentest thing, an' twist it into what'd scandalize your name, so you'd never get rid of the smutch of it, however you'd try. The worst things ever I heard of the folks in this place, Mrs. Peckett told me. It's took me over a year to find out most of'm's just mischeevious tattle. You can lock up against a thief, but you can't pertec' yourself from a liar."

Ma made no response, beyond blinking very fast for a second or so, but that was enough for Martha. Recognizing it as the sign of a coming deluge, she hastily changed the subject.

"What do you hear from the folks down home, these days?" she asked affably.

"No more than yourself. Sam got a letter from one o' them (Andy, I'm thinkin') this mornin'. Didn't he be after readin' it to youse before he went out?"

"No, he did not."

"I thought surely he would be tellin' you, that are his wife, even if he kep' his old mother in ignorance. That's the way it is wit' childern, these times."

"For the love o' Mike!" Martha murmured beneath her breath.

When Sam came in, shortly after, had silently eaten his supper, and was preparing to settle down for a bout with _The New England Farmer_, she proceeded to take him to task on his mother's behalf.

"Ma feels kind o' sore because you didn't show her the letter you got this mornin' from Andy."

Sam pulled off his shoes with a jerk. "How'd she know I got a letter from Andy?"

"I d'know. But you did, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, why didn't you read it to her? She's gettin' old, an' the older she gets, the crankier she gets. I guess it's up to us to humor her, for, one thing's certain, she won't humor _us_, an' there might as well be some fun in the house for some one."

Sam caught his lower lip between his teeth and held it there for a moment.

"There was nothing in Andy's letter would interest her. That is, there was no family news, or anything. 'Twas a business letter."

Martha proceeded with her work, dropping her questioning at once.

"Well, an' why wouldn't I be interested in me own son Andy's venturin', no matter if it _is_ business, itself?" insisted the old woman querulously, when Martha repeated what Sam had said. "If that same Andy does be makin' a fortune, surely his own mother should be hearin' tell of it, first; leastwise, so she should in any God-fearin' fam'ly. But it's more like a heathen I'm treated now, than a Christian woman, that's raised a big crop o' childern till they'd be able fend for themselves. Andy is likeliest of the lot, an' now, when he's made his fortune, an' would be writin' his brother of his luck, his own mother would be told, 'It's only business!' the way she'll not take a natural joy in his triumphin', or, maybe, look to'm for a stray dollar, itself."

To all of which Martha made no reply.

But later, when Ma and the children were abed and asleep, she looked up from her mending to find Sam's eyes fixed on her in a stare of grim desperation.

"For a fella whose brother has just made his everlastin' fortune, you're the mournfullest party I ever struck," she quietly observed. "You're as glum-lookin' as one o' them ball-bearer undertakers at a funer'l. Cheer up! It ain't your funer'l! An' if _you_ ain't made the fortune, your brother has, so it's all in the fam'ly, anyhow."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Why, Ma says Andy's letter was to tell you he's made a fortune."

Sam groaned.

"Well, hasn't he?"

"No."

"What was his letter about, then? He ain't after money, to borrow it off'n you, is he?"

Sam shook his head.

"Because, if Andy wants to try any of his get-rich-quick games on us, he better guess again. He's got to take his chances with all the other fancy dancers, that's all there is to it. It's a poor pie won't grease its own tin."

"He don't want to borrow, Martha. He----"

"Well----?"

Sam swallowed hard, laid _The New England Farmer_ on the table, and drew himself in his chair a step nearer his wife.

"When I was down in New York, Andy was fairly beset with the idea of going into a scheme with a man he knew, who'd offered him a chance, if he could raise the cash, or as-good-as. Andy could talk of nothing else. The same with Nora-Andy. They told me all about it, and I'm bound to say it did sound good to me. But I'd no money to give or lend, and I told them so. Ma'd been blabbing about our having a bit saved, and Nora-Andy reproached me with withholding it from my own brother, when it was only a loan he needed, with good interest for the one loaned it, to take the chance of a lifetime. I told them the money wasn't mine, but yours and the children's. You'd saved it, not I. And then Andy said, he'd never lay hand on it, if it was the last penny he'd ever hope to see. 'Twas not money he wanted of me at all, and he brought out a paper, that, if I would set my name to it, would help him out, as fine as money, and nobody hurt by the transaction a hair."

Martha dropped her sewing to her lap.

"You never signed it, Sam?" she entreated. "Of course, you never signed it. You know better'n me that it's wrong to set your name to any tool--(ol' lady Crewe's l'yer's very words)--wrong to set your name to any tool----"

"Instrument," suggested Sam drearily.

"Well, instrument, then. It's wrong to set your name to any instrument unless you know what you're up against."

"I know it," confessed Sam humbly.

"Well?" Martha plied him.

"I did it, mother. And now, the note's come due, and Andy can't meet it, and----"

"Well, what do you think o' that!" sighed Martha.

Sam had been leaning forward on his elbows, his palms propping his chin. Now his face dropped into his hands, as he hid his haggard eyes from her clear, searching ones.

"How much, Sam?"

"All we got. The whole two-hundred-and-fifty."

For a moment Martha was dumb. Then, straightening back in her chair, taking up her sewing again, she said, "Well, at least we _got_ it. There's that to be thankful for. An' doncher break your heart, Sam, worryin' about your bein' such a fool as sign that tool--I should say instrument. I done the same thing myself, now I come to think of it. The pot can't call the kettle black. I set my name to a paper, ol' lady Crewe ast me to, an' God only knows how much I'll be stung for it, for _I_ don't.--But wouldn't it kinda discourage you from puttin' by for a rainy day, when the money you scrimped an' scringed to save, has to go for a umbrella to keep some other fella dry, which all _you_ get, is the drippin's--_right in the neck_!"

*CHAPTER XV*

After many days of serious pondering Martha decided that the only way to relieve her mind was to "march straight up to the captain's office," and ask Madam Crewe point-blank, precisely what the liabilities would be, in the event of the paper she had signed, falling due, and failing to be met by the old lady herself.

"But if she said 'twas her _will_?" argued Sam. "You're all right if it was her will. You couldn't lose out on that, you know. Unless you were the kind that'd be looking for yourself. And, of course, if you sign one as witness, you're sure you can't be left anything in it."

"I don't want to be left anything in it. But, by the same token, I don't want to be _left_ other ways, either. That's to say, I wouldn't want to have to cough up a couple o' hunderd now, _just to oblige_. Especially when I ain't got'm. Besides, it wasn't _her_ told me 'twas a will. 'Twas the l'yer--which is quite another pair o' shoes. Anyhow, I'm goin' up there to find out what I'm libel for in case she can't pay, like Andy."

Sam saw there was nothing to do but stand aside and let her go.

The moment she entered the room, Martha realized that a change had taken place in "ol' lady Crewe." It was not anything she could "put her finger on," as she would have expressed it, but it was there unmistakably, to be felt, to be--feared.

At the sound of her step upon the floor, the little Madam looked up quickly. A faint smile curled the corners of her mouth for a second, then vanished.

"Well, and what's brought you here, after all these weeks? I thought you had fallen into the well."

"I been stayin' with Miss Claire, I should say, Mrs. Ronald. An' since a week or ten days, when I went home, I been so took up with my house an' the fam'ly in gener'l, I ain't had a chance," Martha explained eagerly.

"Never mind apologizing. What's been the trouble with 'the house and the family in general'?"

"They got kind o' loose-jointed while I was away, so's I had to lick'm into shape again,--bring'm up to time. An' it kep' me hoppin'."

"You have _hopped_ to some purpose, I hear. You and Dr. Ballard have been making a record for yourselves."

"Me?" repeated Martha, amazed. "I ain't done nothin'. But pshaw! I forgot! You're just tryin' to take a rise out o' me, as ushal."

"A _what_?"

"A rise. You know what I mean, ma'am. Tryin' to take my measure. That's what you're mostly up to--only folks ain't on to you."

Madam Crewe regarded her fixedly for a moment.

"Do you know, Slawson," she pronounced thoughtfully at length, "I've an idea I'd quite enjoy some of the things you say--_if you spoke English_. The trouble is, I don't understand your patois."

Martha smiled blandly. "Askin' your pardon, for the liberty, I often thought the same thing o' you. I don't understand _your_ what-you-may-call-it, either. Nor most of us don't understand each other's, an' that's what's the trouble with us, I guess. I sometimes wonder how we get along as good as we do, with the gibberish we talk, makin' hash o' what we mean, an' sometimes, not meanin' anythin'."

"Right."

"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.