Part 3

That was the way it was with everything in her life, she brooded. She was continually under some sort of crushing necessity to hold in, and hold back. She had never been free, as most girls of her age are, and there seemed no prospect that she ever would be. On the contrary, there was every likelihood she would be more and more confined and restricted, as the years went on, if, as the doctor had said, this was but the beginning of the end. The future looked desperately black. As for the past, she could remember a time, away back, when she was a little girl, when things had been very different.

A child's mind does not measure and weigh according to scale, and Katherine could not fix the precise degree of her mother's grace, her father's dashing beauty, the luxury of the home in which they, all three, lived. But she had more than her memory to rely upon. There were likenesses, there were relics, there were the continual jibes of her grandmother through recent years, to the effect that she "had been brought up like a fool; it was time she learned better."

At her mother's death, her father had carried her to his parents' home. Looking back, she had no sense of having suffered surprise or disappointment by the change. The new home must have compared favorably with the old. She could remember her grandfather's _table_--a most formidable function, to which she was conducted, at dessert, by a nervous nurse, "afraid of her life there'll be a to-do if you don't look right, an' hold up your head, an' speak out when you're spoken to, Miss Kath'rine."

Her father's sudden death had made no change in outward conditions. It was when her grandfather passed away that there was a difference. Then, suddenly, she seemed to wake one morning to a realization of lack. She could not be at all certain her impression was correct. The alteration might have been so gradual, she had failed to notice it, and it was her consciousness of the fact, and not the fact itself, that came upon her abruptly. The way did not matter, the fact did. It all summed itself up to this, that the grudging hand was certainly not her grandfather's, much less her father's. They had been open-handed to a fault. The one who stinted, of whom the country-people 'round about said: "She'll pinch a penny till the eagle screams," was--

"Katherine!"

The girl started guiltily at the sound of the thick, labored syllables.

"Yes, grandmother." She was at the bed's side in a moment.

"That doctor---- He's not to come again, understand? Call Driggs."

"Yes, grandmother. But perhaps Dr. Driggs will refuse to come. You found fault with his bill last time, you know, and he didn't like it very well."

"Tush! He's forgotten that by this time. But----"

"Well?"

"If he _should_ refuse, and I have to have--the other, understand, you're not to have anything to do with him. I forbid it!"

"Yes, grandmother."

"Ballard! I know the tribe. Leave him alone, and see he leaves _you_ alone."

"Please don't excite yourself, grandmother. I'm sure the doctor wouldn't want you to."

"Where's that woman?"

"You mean Mrs. Slawson? Gone home. She has a family to see to. She told you, didn't she, she's the wife of Mr. Ronald's new superintendent?"

"How much'll she charge?"

"Us, you mean? For what she did last night, and this morning?"

"Uh-huh."

"Nothing, grandmother."

"Nonsense! Compel her to set price. If she won't, it's because she hopes you'll pay more than's the custom. I know the trick. Don't be caught. Pay her regular price, and say she mustn't come, 'less we send. Won't pay, when we don't send."

Katherine felt herself flushing furiously from neck to forehead. "I wouldn't dare offer Mrs. Slawson money, grandmother. I can't imagine what she'd do, if I did. She came to help us out of pure friendliness. She did more than we could ever pay her for. She's put me under deep obligation."

"Pooh! Obligation! One in that class! When you've paid her, you've paid her."

Katherine turned her face away. "Let's not discuss it, grandmother. You oughtn't to talk much, just yet. Let's see! First, I'll get a basin and warm water, and give you a lovely bath, and afterwards, you can have your breakfast. I'll go down myself and prepare it, as soon as----"

Madam Crewe gave vent to a sound Katherine was painfully familiar with--something between a sneer, a snort, and a groan of exasperation.

"How many _lovely baths_ d'you calculate I can stand in twelve hours? One last night. Another five A.M. and, now, _you_ want to give me a third!"

"Mrs. Slawson bathed you before she went?" Katherine demanded incredulously.

"Yes, and what's more, gave me breakfast. _Good_ breakfast! Better than _you_ can p'pare."

"She couldn't have slept a wink all night," the girl mused self-reproachfully.

Madam Crewe made no rejoinder. Apparently, she did not consider it necessary for one in Mrs. Slawson's class to sleep a wink all night.

Katherine turned away, pretending to busy herself with setting the room in order. In reality, she was very differently employed. Her stern young mind had constituted itself court, counsel, and jury, to sit in judgment upon her grandmother, and, according to the findings, convict her without privilege of appeal. She could see nothing that was not contemptible in the old woman's mode of living, her view of life. If she were poor, it would be different. There might be some excuse then, for this paltry measuring of everything by the standard of a copper cent. But, her grandmother had plenty, and more than plenty. If she stinted, it was merely to add more to an already ample fortune. And, meanwhile, youth, hope, dreams, all were vanishing. The best of life was being wilfully sacrificed to a mean whim. She knew the people 'round about, the "natives," turned up their noses at "ol' lady Crewe," and pitied her, Katherine, for being the granddaughter of a "tight-wad." It made her shrink from meeting the commonest acquaintance, when she considered how odious her position was, and how well every one knew it.

The doctor came early, while she was still smarting with a sense of her wrongs.

"I've brought a battery," he explained, indicating the instrument Sam Slawson was assisting him to unearth from the bowels of the runabout. "It's not my own. Dr. Driggs kindly lent it. I had a chat with him over the 'phone last night, after I got home, and he agrees with me that electricity will be----

"If Dr. Driggs is back, why didn't he come himself?" Katherine interrupted, so sensitively on edge that the most innocent suggestion jarred.

The young man before her looked blank for a moment. Then a tolerant smile stole into his fine, wholesome face.

"Precisely the question I put to him. But, he said he'd thank me kindly if I'd go on with the case."

Katherine winced. She knew why Dr. Driggs was not keen on coming to Crewesmere.

Dr. Ballard noticed the painful twitching of her brows, and instantly regretted his reply. To mend matters he began, at once, to explain why he was obliged to borrow of a fellow-practitioner, and to call upon Sam Slawson to be his charioteer.

"You see, I'm not here in the village in my official capacity. I only came for--well, on a sort of venture. But I like it, and I've sent for my--I mean, I've sent for a machine to get about in, by myself. I was feeling a bit seedy. I'm here for repairs. I belong in Boston--my office is there, and my heavy artillery's in it. But if electric treatment seems to agree with Madam Crewe, I'll send, and have my portable battery shipped on with the motor. It's quite at her service, as _I_ am. It's rather more modern than this, and--more--effective."

As Sam Slawson remarked to his wife later, he was surprised at the manner in which Miss Crewe received the doctor's friendly advance.

"She gave him a look, like he'd trod on her toes, and hurt her bad, besides taking the shine off her patent leather."

Martha smiled. "Anybody'd know you'd been a strap-hanger, Sam Slawson. You give yourself dead away."

"Well, she gave him the look, and said she: 'Thanks, but please don't send. My grandmother is much improved. She may not require the services of _any_ doctor, very long.'"

Mrs. Slawson nodded. "She's sore on the subjec' of her gran'ma. She knows her peculiar-rarities, an' she knows she's got to stand by the ol' lady, but it kinda gives her a turn, every time she thinks anybody's noticin' her doin' it. If Dr. Ballard wasn't such a great innercent of a fella, he wouldn't 'a' give it away that Dr. Driggs is _on to_ the little madam, and just as lief dodge her, if convenient. A party with more tack to'm than Dr. Ballard would 'a' kep' that dark. But there's where you can't have everything at oncet, in human bein's. If a fella's got a lotta tack, an' the kind o' light fantastic toe that, every time he opens his mouth, he don't put his foot into it, he's more than like to be the kind that thinks twicet before he speaks, which, it may be wise, but ain't as hearty, an' uncalkerlatin' as _I'd_ like in a husband. On the other hand, a fella that speaks, without stoppin' to count the costs, why, it's ten to one, a woman'll have to pay 'em, in the end, but anyhow she'll have the comfort o' knowin' his heart's in the right place, which, it ain't forever takin' the elevator up to the top floor, to consult with his brains. I'm sorry them two young things _got in_ wrong as regards each other. But it won't stop the course o' human events, so far as they're concerned, even if it does delay it some. I'm not a bit worried."

Sam paused in the act of pulling off a boot.

"Say, Martha, you don't mean you're at it again?"

"'At it'! Me? No! What I mean is, Nature's bound to get in her fine work, no matter what kinda mater'al's handed out to her. You remember Miss Claire an' Lord Ronald? They started in complercatin' the pattren, as hard as they could, but 'twas no use. They couldn't get the best o' Nature, an' the consequence is, we're lookin' for 'em home from their weddin' tour any time now, an' if we don't get busy, the decorations won't be ready for my celebration proceeding."

The morning of the great day on which the Ronalds were expected to arrive, Martha was astir at sunrise, summoning her brood with the call: "Miss Claire's comin' home! Miss Claire's comin' home!"

"I'd call her _Missis_, considering," suggested Sam, yawning as he tucked his pillow more comfortably beneath his rough cheek.

"All right, call her it, if it's a comfort to you. Only get a move on," his wife replied, plucking the pillow unceremoniously out from under, giving it a mighty shake, and setting it across the sleeping-porch rail to air.

"You can take it from me, my hands is full this day. I've no time to parley, fussin' over my articles of speech. Besides, Miss Claire knows me an' my ways. If I was any diff'rent from what she's used to, she'd be disappointed."

"I thought Mrs. Peckett was making you over. To say nothing of Cora, and Ma. Perhaps Mrs. Ronald will take a hand at it, too. You never can tell."

"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!"

Mrs. Ronald smiled. "You're a loyal soul, Martha. But you'll love the country better, when you know more about the birds, and the insects, and the flowers. I'm going to set about directly teaching you. I'm going to make a naturalist of you, do you know it?"

Mrs. Slawson's smile was large, benign. "Certaintly. I'd like to be a nateralist. Mrs. Peckett's goin' to make a New England housekeeper outa me, an' ol' lady Crewe is tryin' to turn me into a farmer. If I get all that's comin' to me, it looks as if I'd be goin' some, before I get through."

"'Old lady Crewe'?"

"Why, don't you remember? That little ol' party looks like a china figga you'd get at Macy's, down in the basement. They have'm leanin' against tree-stumps, for match-boxes, an' suchlike. White hair, an' dressed to beat the band, in looped-up silk, with flowers painted onto the pattren. Ol' lady Crewe reminds you of one o' those. She was 'born a Stryker,' they tell me--whatever _that_ is--an' her folks owned about all the land in these parts Lord Ronald's folks didn't, in the ol' days. She's got no end o' money, but----" Martha hesitated.

"Oh, I recollect now. She's the one they say is a miser."

"Now, I wouldn't call her that," said Mrs. Slawson slowly. "I kinda hate to clap a label onto a body. It's bound to stick to'm, no matter what. It's like a bottle. Oncet it's had POISON marked on it, it's under suspicion, an' you wouldn't make free with it, no matter how careful it's been washed. Ol' lady Crewe certaintly _is_ savin', that no one can deny, an' I'm sorry for Miss Katherine, but----"

Again Mrs. Ronald let her curiosity escape in the repetition of the name Martha had just mentioned. "Miss Katherine?"

"Miss Katherine's the ol' lady's granddaughter, an' you can take it from me, you wouldn't see a han'somer in a day's travel."

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" cried Miss Claire, pretending jealousy, "I've got a rival. I see it! I know it! You don't like me best any more."