Part 6

"Decent creature. Comes to thank at once. That's mannerly, beyond her station," she observed to Katherine. "Have her up."

Not for the world would Madam Crewe have admitted to herself, much less to her granddaughter, that she had grown to like this "creature" made of such different clay from herself. She was willing, not glad to see her, but her willingness caused a gentle glow to permeate her cold little frame.

"So you like the cow? That's good. I hope you'll treat her well."

Mrs. Slawson smiled. "Certaintly, I'll treat her well, providin' she gives me a show," she promised cordially. "I'll treat her well, an' I hope she'll treat me the same."

"You're not afraid of her?"

"No'm. Certaintly not. But, by the same token, she ain't afraid o' me. Till the one gets the upper hand o' the other, neither of us won't know where we're at. An', meanwhile, we're both lyin' low. I guess animals is some like childern. They like to try it on, oncet in a while, an' if, be this or be that, you don't master'm at the first go-off, they'll be no earthly good to you. Even when you got'm trained, they're like as not to get skittish. Take my girl, Cora, or our small dog, for instance. Now, Flicker's as steady a little fella as ever drew breath. But this mornin', if he didn't suddently get gay, an' lep' right through one o' the curtains I was mendin' for Miss Claire--I _should_ say, Mrs. Ronald. Now, it's up to me to buy a new half o' bobbinet, an' all for the sake o' Flicker dreamin' he'd like to go on a tear."

Madam Crewe drew down her lips primly.

"I have no doubt repairing the damage will cause you considerable trouble," she said.

"I don't mind the trouble. It's the bobbinet _I_ mind. I wonder, now, how much you'd have to give a yard for fine, acrow bobbinet."

"Katherine," exclaimed Madam Crewe, summoning the girl to her so abruptly that Martha was alarmed.

Miss Crewe was at her grandmother's side in an instant, bending her head to catch the whispered words the old woman strained forward to breathe in her ear.

"I guess I must be movin'," said Martha, after Katherine had left the room. "The childern need me, an' I've already tired you out with my long tongue."

"No. Stay. Sit down!"

Mrs. Slawson sat, though after her little fusillade of commands, Madam Crewe did not deign to address another syllable to her, and made plain that she could dispense with conversation on Martha's part.

The silence had become oppressive when, at last, Miss Crewe reappeared. With her was Eunice Youngs, and between them they laboriously lugged a sizable chest. Madam Crewe waited until the box had been set down before her, then imperiously waved Eunice away as if she had been a bothersome fly. As soon as she had disappeared, fresh commands rapped out thick and fast.

"My keys. In the basket hanging behind the hamper in my closet. On the first hook. Yes, that bunch. Now, _that_ key. No, not that one, _that_ one!"

Before Katherine could fit the key in the lock, Madam Crewe stopped her with a gesture.

"Wait. I've something to say. When I was young, a girl got proper plenishing," she observed dryly. "In those days a bride's outfit didn't consist of bows of ribbon on rags of lace--layers on layers of nothingness, as if she were a ballet-dancer, or worse. My outfit--('twas a good English outfit, no flimsy French trousseau!) my outfit will outlast me and you, young lady, will reap the benefit of it, if you marry to please me. But not a yard or an inch, mind you (Slawson is here to bear witness to what I say!), not a yard, not an inch, nor a penny of my money, if you marry otherwise. And that reminds me."

The old woman's eyes grew shrewd.

"Sometimes wills are contested. Attempts are made to break them on the ground of the testator being old, sick, of unsound mind. If any such thing were to happen in my case, I'd like you to be able to speak up for me, Slawson. Do you see that chest? It has not been opened for sixty-eight years, yet I can tell you, to the last yard, what's in it. I was seventeen when I locked it fast, and the key's never been turned in it since. Now, listen! so you can prove if my mind's intact, my memory good."

She reeled off a long table of contents, with hardly a pause. "Now open!" she dictated.

The raised lid revealed a mine of treasure, corresponding in character, if not precisely in order, to the given list. India mull, fine as a web, creamy as ivory. Matchless napery in rare old weaves. Bed-linen in uncut lengths.

"Enough to make you shiver to think o' lyin' between'm," Martha ruminated.

Katherine's hands were almost reverent as, obeying her grandmother's silent bidding, she lifted bolt after bolt, and laid it aside.

"There! That's what I'm after," exclaimed the old woman at last. "Now, unwrap that blue paper. Careful! Don't tear it! Is this the sort of _bobbinet_ you mean, Slawson?"

Martha leaned forward, her eyes glowed. "I guess Miss Claire's ain't the quality this is, but----"

"Probably not. _This_ quality isn't made nowadays." Madam Crewe spoke proudly. "But if you think you can use it (it's what you call _acrow_ with age instead of dye) you may have enough for one window, and save your money. Katherine, get my yardstick, and the shears, and measure it off where I can see. Give good measure, as I tell you, but no waste. If one window is complete, the difference from the others won't be noticed."

For once, Martha was fairly silenced. The madam appeared too occupied to notice.

"Girls are fools," she ruminated. "When I shut that chest I was a girl. I vowed to myself I'd never open it again. I thought it was the coffin in which my happiness was buried. Well, I haven't opened it. My granddaughter has opened it. Rather a joke, when one thinks of it! Dear, dear, how it all comes back! The anger, the disappointment, the----" her voice grew vague. She pulled herself up sharply. "Before you replace that mull, child, if you'd like enough for a frock, you can have it. In for a penny, in for a pound. 'Twas a fool-girl vow, anyway, made in passion--a lifetime ago.... They're decking themselves out in lank draperies now, so you'll be in the style, Katherine. This mull is better and costlier than most of the shoddy silks the shoddy people are wearing these days. It will prove you are no _nouveau riche_. You don't know what _nouveau riche_ means, do you, Slawson?"

Martha paused. "No'm. But I always thought I wouldn't mind bein' the _nouveau_, whatever it is, if I just had a try at the _riche_."

Madam Crewe drew down her lips in what Mrs. Slawson had grown to call her "Foxy gran'ma" expression. She turned again to Katherine. "I'll give you a fichu to wear with the mull. A French thing, handworked, trimmed with Mechlin, rather good Mechlin, as it happens. I never wore it. 'Twas too large. Swallowed me up. But the long ends won't trail on _you_. There, there! Don't thank me. I hate sentimentality. And I've almost been sentimental myself--after sixty-eight years. I know you're pleased. I understand my sex. We're sirens, all of us, at heart--when we have any heart. I've not the slightest doubt, now, but if Slawson put on a pair of silk stockings and a lace petticoat, she'd feel as coquettish as any of us. No matter how plain we are, we all have the _instincts_ of beautiful women. We're made that way.... Now close down the lid. See you turn the key all the way 'round. I recollect the lock is tricky. Slawson, help Miss Katherine carry the chest back where it came from. Put it away where you found it, and be sure to fasten the trunk-room door, and bolt it securely. And, Slawson, you needn't come back here, when you've done. Just take your acrow bobbinet, and march home to your husband and children, where you belong. I'm tired."

Something "Slawson" could not have analyzed kept her silent after she and Miss Crewe left the room. Katherine was singularly mute. Martha had waved the girl aside, and, grappling with the chest single-handed, triumphantly had carried it off, the little madam watching the performance covertly, with eyes glistening appreciation.

Her feat successfully accomplished, Martha went her way, clasping her precious bundle. She was home before she was aware. Sam met her at the door, his face revealing, to her who knew it, a secret delight.

"I'm to go to the city next week, mother. So, pack your bag and get ready for your _wedding-tour_," he greeted her with sober fun.

"Have you told Ma and the childern?"

"No. I thought you'd better."

"Good. No hurry. Time enough later. I hope Ma won't kick. It'll mean some work for her, while I'm gone--_if she does it_, but nothing she can't reel off easy enough, if her spirit is willin'. I got a present, Sam. From the ol' lady."

"Yes, I know. The cow."

"No, I mean somethin' else. The ol' lady give me a surprise. She give me a front seat to see her do a new turn, an' she passed out soovenirs to the audience, besides. I got mine here."

"What is it?"

"What'll take me with you down home. I mean, New York."

"Money?"

"As good as. It'll be money, when I'm done with it. Only, from now on, for some days to come, I'm goin' to be _Little Martha the Lace Mender_, or, _The Postponed Bride_, an' a buzz-saw will be safe for anybody to monkey with by comparising."

It was a proud day for Martha when, her stint completed, she was able to carry the curtains, exquisitely cleansed and mended, to Miss Claire.

"Now I've the money ackchelly in my pocket, I'll tell Ma an' the childern," she said to Sam, who was washing his hands at the sink, preparatory to sitting down to his midday meal.

"I wonder if Ma'll kick?" he pondered solemnly.

"Nothin' like tryin', an' findin' out," Martha returned, "dishing up," with energy, as one after the other of her hungry brood appeared, responding to her resounding call of "Dinner!"

"Say, Cora, doncher attempt to come to the table with that shaggy-lookin' head on you. Go smooth your hair back proper, like you always wear it. I don't mind most things, but to set down to eat alongside somethin' looks like a sky-tearer dog, _I will not_! Sammy, take your hands outa your pockets, like a little gen'lman, an' help Sabina tie her napkin on an' get into her high chair. Sabina, you leave your brother tie your napkin on, when he offers to do it! I'm busy. Say, Francie, when I told you trim the lamp this mornin', I didn't mean cut the wick in _scollops_. Lucky I happened to see it, or we'd 'a' been smoked out o' house an' home. Now, Ma, if you're ready, we'll sit."

Ma being ready, they sat, and the meal progressed, notwithstanding the fact that Cora, reappearing, shorn of her modish coiffure, was in no mood for merry-making.

"I hate my hair this way!" she announced for the benefit of whom it might concern.

"Ringlets is one thing, _stringlets_ is another," said Martha, unreproachfully. "At least, _now_ you don't look like somebody'd been woolin' the head of you. Have some stew?"

"No, I hate the very name o' stew."

"Call it rag-goo, then, same's Miss Claire's grand chef-cook does. Have some, anyhow, for luck. Here, cheer up, Cora! When I was a kid, I was one o' nine childern, an' you can take it from me, we wasn't thinkin' half so much, in them days, what we'd eat as _where we'd get it_. When I was twelve--two years younger than you--I went to live out scullery-maid with Mrs. Underwood, God bless her! where my mother'd been cook before me. From that day, I never went hungry no more, nor the ones at home either. But I don't like to see my childern turn up their noses at good food. It ain't becomin'. Now, eat your rag-goo like a lady, an' we'll call it square. Say, Ma, you know what Sam an' me's goin' to do?"

Ma shook her head, after the fashion of a mild bovine chewing the meditative cud.

"We're goin' to play hookey. We're goin' to fly the coop, for a couple o' days, an' go back home, to New York. Sam's gotta--on business, an' I'm goin' ta, on pleasure."

The moment following Martha's announcement was one of intense silence. The children and Ma were too amazed to speak. The idea of _Mother_ deserting, even for a few days, was hardly conceivable. Then, as the monstrousness of it began to percolate, there rose a chorus of protest.

"O--oh, mother-r! What'll we do?"

"I wanta go too!"

"No, take _me_, mother!"

Cora's voice, at last, dominated the rest.

"Hush! Mother, can't you make them hush? _I_ wanta say something!"

Martha checked the tumult with a warning hand. "Cora has the floor, childern. Let her have her say, an' then you can have yours."

"Silence in the court-house, the cat's goin' to preach!" Sammy disrespectfully whispered in Francie's ear.

"I think it's _nice_ mother'n father 're goin' down to New York," Cora announced. "It seemed kinda funny, firstoff, but I think it's _nice_. An' they'll have a good time. I'm glad they're goin'."

Sam senior and Martha exchanged a look.

"Good for you, Cora! You're a good girl!" said Sam.

With the eldest sister approving, and praised for doing so, the ground was cut from under the younger children's feet. They had nothing to say.

"Well, Ma?" suggested Martha.

"_I'm_ glad you're goin' too," observed the old woman, "for I ben thinkin', a long time, I do be needin' a change meself, an' I wouldn't dare for to be venturin' on the r-railroad alone. So, when the two of youse goes down, why, I'll just fare along wit' chu."

"But Ma," objected Sam gently, "we can't make out to take you. We've barely enough to take ourselves. Mr. Ronald pays my expenses, but Martha's goin' to buy her own ticket with the money Miss Claire paid her for the curtains."

"You got somethin' laid by," suggested Ma shrewdly.

"But we can't touch it. It's the first we ever been able to save, an' I wouldn't lay finger on it for anythin'." Martha answered with unusual feeling.

Ma was not disturbed.

"Well, between youse be it!" she declared. "I d'kno' how you'll settle it, but this I kno'--I've bided here the longest I'm abl'. I can thole it no longer. I'm goin' to the city. The heart in me is wastin' awa' to see me dear sons an' daughters down there. So let there be no colloguin'. I'm goin' to the city."

*CHAPTER VII*

It was late that night, and Martha and her husband were still engaged in whispered conference.

"Ma's mind's like a train," Mrs. Slawson observed at length, "when it's oncet _made up_, you can take it or leave it, but _it's_ goin' its way, weather or no. There's no use strivin' with her, Sam. We're bound to give in, in the end, an' we may as well do it firstoff, an' save our faces. What's the good kickin' against the bricks?"

"But for her to use your hard-earned money just to gratify a whim!" Sam fairly groaned.

"Well, wasn't that what _I_ was goin' to use it for? An' after all, she's old. Let her have her bit o' fun. God knows I don't begrutch it to her. She don't get much joy outa her life."

"She has as much as you have."

A wonderful look irradiated Martha's face. "I have you, Sam," she said in a voice that matched the look. An instant, and both were gone. Martha was her old self again. "An' I've the childern--an' the hens--an' the--_cow_!"

"Ma acts like a child sometimes, and a bad child at that."

"Certaintly she does. I sometimes think it's a kinda pity a body can't lick her good, an' put her to bed 'to await the results of her injuries,' as the papers says. But what's the use o' growin' old, if your white hairs don't bring you the respec' your black ones didn't? No, we gotta bear with Ma, Sam, an' it's better grin than groan, while we're doin' it."

So, when the appointed day arrived, it was Ma, not Martha, who accompanied Sam to New York on his "wedding-tour."

"My! I bet it's hot on the train!" exclaimed Cora, appearing after a prolonged absence, seating herself on the doorstep, from which the late afternoon sun had just departed, fanning her flushed face with her hat.

For the first time during the busy day, Martha paused long enough to listen.

"I guess it's a hunderd in the shade," she observed. "But then, o' course, you don't have to stay in the shade, less you wanta."

Literal Cora, taking her seriously, came in out of the shade. "Mother, do you know something?"

Martha considered. "Well, when I was your age, I thought I did. But now, the only thing I know, is, I _don't_."

Cora pursed her lips. "Do you know, I think Dr. Ballard likes Miss Crewe a lot."

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, the other day, I saw'm walkin' together down Cherry Lane. An' to-day I saw'm again. An' I think it looks awful loverish to be walkin' in Cherry Lane, where the trees branch over so, an' it's all quiet, an' green, an' lonesome, an' nobody hardly ever comes, exceptin'----"

"Snoopy little girls who've no business there," supplied her mother genially.

Cora sniffed. "Well, I guess you'll be glad I was there, when you see what I got. An' I guess they'll be glad too. One of'm dropped it an' never noticed, an' went off, an' left it lyin' in the middle o' the lane. After they'd gone, I saw somethin' kind o' like a yellow spot sittin' up in the grass, an' I went an' picked it up, an' it was a bunch o' letters, tied with a pink ribbon. The ribbon's so old it most frays away before you touch it."

Martha extended a quiet, but coercive palm. "Hand it over."

Cora obeyed, craning her neck to see the last of the fascinating sheaf.

"Ain't it funny writin'?" she inquired. "'Mifter Daniel Ballard.' What does _Mifter_ mean, mother? She don't call him _Mifter_ inside. She calls him, 'Beloved Daniel.'"

"How do you know?"

Cora hung her head. "I peeked," she confessed.

"How many of the letters did you peek at?"

"All of 'em. An', oh, mother, it wasn't any harm, 'cause they're fearful old. Eighteen-hundred and forty-four, they have written on 'em. An' the one who wrote 'em, her name was Idea Stryker. She must be dead an' buried long ago, mustn't she, mother? I guess p'raps she died because her beau, he didn't answer her letters, or come to meet her 'down Cherry Lane' like she begged him to. She felt simply terrible about it. She liked him a whole lot, but he got mad at her, or something, and wouldn't answer her letters, or meet her, or anything. When I get to be a grown-up young lady, I'd like to write such elegant love-letters to somebody."

"He'd prob'ly go back on you, if you did. You see what happened to this poor lady, an' hist'ry repeats itself, like Mrs. Peckett. But what I wanta tell you, Cora, is this: You done a wrong thing. You had no business snoopin' into what wasn't your concern. Never you do so, no more."

Cora's voice sank. "I didn't know 'twas wrong, mother."

"Did you know 'twas _right_?" Martha demanded. "A good way to do, when you don't know a thing's wrong, is, stop a minute, an' make sure it's _right_. See you folla that rule after this. Meanwhile, doncher let a hint out o' you, to Ann Upton, or anybody else, about these letters. D'you hear?"

"Why?" asked Cora inquisitively.

Martha cast about for a reason potent enough to silence the childish, chattering tongue.

"You don't want to be disgraced, do you? Havin' folks know you pried into things wasn't meant for you? Such scandals is sure to leak out, if you whisper'm broadcast. If Mrs. Peckett oncet got a wind of it, you'd never hear the last."

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Slawson's mind was concerned much less with Cora's reputation, just at that moment, than with the letters she had obliged that reluctant young lady to hand over. Now they were in her own possession what should she do with them? To whom, by, rights, did they belong?

"The letters's signed Idea Stryker, which, I remember, Mr. Ronald said that was ol' lady Crewe's queer name, before she was married. But she wrote'm to somebody by the name o' Ballard, which, I bet, he was the doctor's gran'pa, or somethin'. Now, who the lawful owner of them letters is, it certaintly takes my time to decide. P'raps I better wanda over to Miss Katherine after supper, an' give'm to _her_. An' _then_, I may be wrong."

The children, properly fed, cautioned "not to light the lamp, but set outdoors like little ladies an' gen'lmen, an' get the air, an' cool off, an' listen to the katy-dids doin', till I come back," Martha proceeded to wander over to Crewesmere.

Katherine had not yet gone upstairs, when she spied the familiar form approaching through the waning light.

"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she said, going down the garden-path to meet her. "I'm so glad you've come. I've been thinking about you, ever since you were here last, because I'm in trouble, and, I feel, somehow, you can help me out. You've helped me out before, you know."

Her wistful attempt at a smile went to Martha's heart.

"Well, my dear, helpin' out is my speciality. Reg'lar service I have not done since I was married, but helped out by the day, as there was need. So, here I am, an' if I can be of use, I never counted my _day_ by the clock, an' if the childern fall asleep on the grass itself, it won't hurt'm none. It's too hot to rest indoors, anyhow."

"We'll go to the back porch, where our voices won't disturb grandmother," explained Miss Crewe, leading the way.

"P'raps I better tell you right off what brought me," Martha began, taking the lower porch step to sit upon in preference to the more comfortable chair, on the level with her own, which Katherine indicated.

"No, please don't!" Miss Crewe protested. "Let me speak first. I'm so afraid something may happen to interrupt, and I know mine is more important. I _must_ tell some one."

The girl did not pause, except to take breath between her difficult sentences.

"You remember the day grandmother had me bring her her linen-chest? It all dates from that day, I mean my trouble. I thought I knew before, what trouble was, but _real_ trouble is only what one has to account for to one's own conscience."

Martha pretended not to notice the sobbing breath, on which the last syllables caught, and were choked out.

"Grandmother never took her eyes off the chest while I unpacked it," Katherine labored on gallantly. "Never, except once. She said she knew everything that was in it. But she didn't. There was something she didn't mention. I came on it, lying almost at the bottom of the chest. An odd, old-fashioned pocket, hung on a strap, as if it had been suspended from a belt or a sash, and the strap was snapped--torn. A tiny bit of a shred was caught in the lock of the chest. I saw it, as soon as I opened the lid. As my fingers touched the pocket, something inside it crackled. My heart fairly leaped, for I thought 'twas money. And--oh, Mrs. Slawson, I need money! You mayn't believe it, but I do. I never have a cent I can call my own, and I'm not allowed to try to earn anything. You know--my father had plenty, and I ought to have plenty, if I had my rights. I've sat here evening after evening, thinking, thinking, what I could do in case of need--in case a time came, when I couldn't endure it any longer. And when I felt what was inside that pocket, when I felt it crackle, I thought it was money, and--it was like a gleam of hope. I watched for my chance. It came at last--the one time when grandmother glanced away. I grabbed the pocket, and hid it in my dress. I didn't stop to think what I was doing. But if I had, I don't believe it would have made any difference. I didn't care if I _was_ stealing. I _just wanted that money_! It's shameful to sit here, and face you, and tell about it, but--I guess I'm past shame. And then she gave me the mull, and was kind. I'd have put the money back then, but it was too late. She never took her eyes off me again, nor the chest. And then--later--after you'd gone, I stole away to my room, and--what was in the pocket wasn't money at all, but letters! Old, useless, miserable letters!"