Part 7

"Did you read'm?" asked Martha to cover the painful effort the girl was making at self-control.

"No, I didn't read them. After I'd taken the pocket, believing it held money, and found only letters, I was too _honorable_ to read the letters."

She spoke with bitterest self-contempt.

"I carried them in my dress, because I didn't dare leave them anywhere else. And to-day I--I--lost them. I know they were letters written by my grandmother, when she was a girl. Her handwriting hasn't changed much, and I know if she dreamed they were lying about loose, lost, perhaps had been found by some busybody, who would publish them all over town, she'd----"

"That's just what I come to tell you," Mrs. Slawson announced with a breath of relief. "Thanks be! 'twas my girl, Cora, found the letters, an' she brought'm home to me. Not a soul besides us two has laid eyes on'm. Cora don't know any more than the angels above, that the one wrote'm ain't dead an' gone, with a antapsie held over her remains, this many a year. So, for all I see, your troubles are over, you poor child, an' you can lay your head on your pilla, an' sleep sound this night, if the heat, which it certaintly _is_ prosteratin', don't pervent. Here's the letters."

Katherine smiled faintly as she took the little packet.

"If I may make so bold, did you mean to be givin' the letters to Dr. Ballard?" Martha inquired, after a thoughtful pause. "I own up to you, I ain't been so fussy as not to read the name on the envelopes."

Miss Crewe winced. "Of course. That was right. No, I hadn't planned to give him the letters. At first I thought I would, but then I was afraid I might be obliged to tell him how I came to have them, and--I'm a coward. I couldn't bear to risk it. Do you think it's my duty to tell Dr. Ballard, Mrs. Slawson? Tell me what you think I ought to do."

"When a body sets out to tell another body what she'd ought to do, he better be careful," replied Martha gravely. "You never know what you're up against. For instance, if you're tellin' a fella _love his neighbor like himself_, that's all right, only you wouldn't be countin' on his bein' one o' the kind thinks he's a little tin god on wheels. Bein' as he was that sort, you'd be tellin' 'm make a graven image of his neighbor, which he'd be constantly fallin' down before'm, an' worshippin' 'm, like a heathen idol. You can take it from me, tellin' people what they'd ought to do is a delicate job--too fine for the likes of Martha Slawson. But I'd just as liefs tell you what you hadn't ought to do, one o' which is, lie awake grievin' over spilled milk that's past an' gone. You mustn't lug your mistakes along with you, every place you go, like they was a basket o' dirty clo'es. Now lots besides laundryesses has dirty clo'es to wash, believe me. But if you pack'm up respectable in nice, clean wrappin' paper, with a stout string, or a decent telescope bag, nobody'll be the wiser, an' your neighbors won't objec' sittin' beside you in the cars. It's when you force your dirty clo'es under the noses of the other passengers, an' make'm uncomfortable, they've a kick comin'. No, if I was you (beggin' your pardon for the liberty) I wouldn't tell Dr. Ballard a thing 'twouldn't be a pleasure to'm to hear. I worked for a lady, Mrs. Sherman, an' she used ta wait to do things for, what she called--now, do you believe me, I can't remember the name of it! It was some kind o' _moment_. She talked about it frequent. The--the--sy----" Martha racked her brains laboriously.

"Could it possibly have been the psychological moment?" suggested Miss Crewe.

"The very one!" Mrs. Slawson took her up triumphantly. "The sykeylogical moment! Mrs. Sherman was dead stuck on it. She used to talk to her brother, Mr. Frank Ronald, about the sykeylogical moment, till you'd think it'd stop the clock. Now if you know what a sykeylogical moment is, an' reco'nize it when it comes along, why, you can take it from me, that'll be a good chance for you to give the doctor the letters in, but not before."

Katherine laughed. "I'm sure you're right, Mrs. Slawson," she said. "I'll wait for the psychological moment. And I'll wash my soiled linen alone, too. You've given me a lot of good advice. I'm much, _much_ happier than I was before you came."

"Well, good-night then, an' God bless you!" said Martha, rising. "Now I'll go back to my--_other_ childern."

Halfway between Crewesmere, and the main road, she came to a standstill.

"Hello!" exclaimed Dr. Ballard. "What are you doing so far from home at the witching hour of eight o'clock? It looks suspicious. Don't you think you'd better stand and deliver?"

Martha beamed, as she always did at sight of those she liked.

"I'll _stand_, all right, all right, sir, but you can search _me_ for anything to deliver. My husban' he went to New York this mornin', an' before he went, with all my worldly goods I he endowed, accordin' to Scripture, as Mrs. Peckett says."

"Ho! Slawson's gone to New York, has he?" Dr. Ballard exclaimed. "Well, I'm off for Boston, myself, to-morrow. I'm on my way now to tell--Madam Crewe."

Martha nodded.

"Certaintly you are. You'll find Miss Katherine on the back porch, if you hurry. But the ol' lady makes her close the house at nine sharp, so you've not much time to waste on me. Good luck to you, sir. A safe journey, an' quick return."

The doctor chuckled as she left him.

"That woman's a _case_!" he said to himself, but under the stimulus of her suggestion he hurried his steps.

"Going to Boston?" Katherine repeated, her brows contracting in a troubled, triangular way which always gave a touching, childlike look to her fine eyes. "Isn't that rather sudden? You didn't tell me anything about it this afternoon--down Cherry Lane."

"No, I'd not made up my mind then. The resolve came later."

"You'll return?"

"Oh, yes. Very soon, if I get what I'm going after. Less soon, if I don't."

Katherine turned her face away.

"That sounds mysterious. But I remember you like mysteries."

"'Sure I do,' as Mrs. Slawson would say. I like mysteries for the fun of clearing them up. It's to clear up a mystery I'm going to Boston."

Katherine withheld the question on her lips.

"You don't ask what mystery."

"If you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."

"Well, then--I'm going _to discover the secret of me life_. In other words, I'm going to see if I can get a line on my grandfather--the unfortunate gentleman--no, of course he couldn't have been a _gentleman_, because he was a bailiff!--the unfortunate beggar who got himself disliked by his employer, and Madam Crewe. Personally, I've no social use for defunct forbears. It's a bit curious, because I'm a Bostonian. But professionally I'm all right on them. They have their uses scientifically. If my grandfather had a bug--I mean _germ_ (disease or vice germ) I needn't necessarily inherit that particular insect, but there's no denying that if it happens along, I'm more open to infection, than a fellow whose grandad hadn't specialized as an entomologist. I've a notion I'd like to read my title clear. So I'm going to Boston to dig up dead deeds--in both senses, and see what I have back of me."

"I'd much rather see what I have ahead," Katherine laughed mirthlessly.

Dr. Ballard's chin went up with a jerk.

"Oh, I'm not afraid of what's before me. I'm willing to stand and face the future. If a fellow's straight goods on his own account, he has nothing to fear. He'll win out, somehow. But I wouldn't care to look forward, if I'd lied, or was a coward, or taken what belonged to some other fellow, or had any other sort of dirty rag of memory trailing after me. You never can tell when such a thing will trip you up. I say, you're not cold this broiling night, are you?"

"No. Why?"

"You shivered."

"Did I? It makes me nervous to hear you talk about 'dirty rags of memory.' I didn't suppose any one lived who hadn't regrets. I know _I_ have."

"No doubt. I can imagine what for. _I'm_ talking of real offenses. The sort of thing Madam Crewe hints at in connection with my grandfather. By Jove, I wonder what the poor old duffer was guilty of. Perhaps, to put it euphemistically, he appropriated funds not his own--swiped from _your_ great-grandfather's till. Seriously, that's no joke! I can imagine that even if a chap didn't care much about his family-tree, it might be a rather scorching reflection to know you'd descended--_fallen_--from a rotten apple of a thief, or something. You'd be forever looking for some taint of it to crop out in you. I confess, it wouldn't rejoice even my democratic soul. But that's what I'm going out for to discover. So, when next you see me, perhaps you won't."

Katherine's hand went toward him in an impulse too strong to resist.

"You know better than that," she said in a voice not wholly steady.

Dr. Ballard's large, firm grasp closed about her slender trembling fingers.

"I know better than that," he repeated gravely. "But there's something else, not your friendship, I can't be so confident of. When I come back, if everything's all right, as I believe it will be, I hope you'll be kind to me, and set my heart at rest about that too."

Katherine could not answer. After a moment of silent waiting, the doctor gently released her hand.

"I met Mrs. Slawson as I came along," he said in his usual manner. "She's a trump, that woman. The most normal human creature I've ever met."

"Her English isn't normal," Katherine said, trying to control the helpless trembling that was shaking her from head to foot.

"She's an impressionist. That's what's the matter with Hannah!--I should say, Martha. She gets and produces her effects in the large. She doesn't trouble with details. After all, I wonder if we'd like her better, given the possibility of making a grammarian of her."

Katharine smiled.

"She told me, the other day, that she was being made over. She mentioned the people concerned in it, and the different things they were making her over into. I don't recollect that grammarian was in the list."

"If the rest succeed as well in their efforts as I would in mine, if I attempted to make a Lindley Murray of her, I don't think we need worry. She'll progress along her own lines. But she's not various. You can't make a complex organism out of an elemental creature like Mrs. Slawson, any more than you could make a contemporaneous 'new woman' out of Brunnhilde."

"Fancy _Martha_ mounted on a celestial steed, bearing the souls of dead heroes to Walhalla!"

Dr. Ballard laughed.

"Well, I can tell you this, if she saw 'twas for the good of the souls, not the celestial steed, nor the dead heroes, nor Walhalla itself, would faze her. If you ever should need some one to stand by in an emergency, I couldn't think of a better than Martha Slawson. I hope you'll remember that, when I'm gone."

A moment, and he was gone, had turned abruptly, and left her without even so much as good-by.

Katherine bent her head to look down at the hand he had held, on which presently two tears plashed.

"She'll shut me off from that, too," she murmured bitterly. "She'll shut me off from that too--_if she can_!"

*CHAPTER VIII*

"Say, mother," Francie called in through the kitchen screen-door, "Miss Claire, she wants you to come on out. She says she wants to show you a very ol'."

"A very ol' _what_?" inquired Martha, turning from her stack of washed breakfast dishes, to wipe her hands on the roller-towel.

"I d'know. Only it's up a tree, an' she wants to show you it."

Martha went out at once.

Mrs. Ronald was standing, not far away, gazing intently up into the branches of a splendid spruce.

"Sh!" she cautioned, as Mrs. Slawson drew near.

"What is it?" asked Martha.

"Look!"

Martha's eyes, taking the direction indicated by Miss Claire's pointing finger, saw nothing.

"Do you see?"

"No."

"Quick! Look! O--oh! There he goes! He's flown away!"

"You mean that--bird?"

"Yes--a vireo."

Mrs. Slawson's interest relaxed. "Oh," she said with obvious disappointment.

"What did you think I wanted to show you? Didn't Francie tell you 'twas a vireo?"

"Certaintly she did. But she didn't say 'twas a very ol' _bird_. Nacherly, I kinda pictured to myself somethin' like Gran'pa Trenholm, or ol' lady Crewe a-sittin' up there, needin' immediate assistance. I thought to myself, that I never have clumb a tree, but if the need was great, there's no knowin' what I _could_ do."

Mrs. Ronald laughed. "Oh, Martha," she said, "I don't believe you'll ever make an ornithologist."

"Without knowin' what that may be," Mrs. Slawson returned affably, "I don't believe I ever will, though I'm ready to try."

"Yesterday, early, early, I got up, and went out, before any one else in the house was awake. I went down to the ravine, and oh! I wish you could have been there with me. It was so beautiful! It's not quite so early now, but, still, I think, maybe, we might hear the veery. Do you want to come?"

"Certaintly," said Martha.

For a time they walked on in silence, through the fragrant freshness of the new day. The full chorus of ecstatic bird voices had somewhat diminished, but, even so, the air seemed set to music.

Mrs. Ronald gave a great sigh. "Oh, Martha, isn't it lovely? When I think what happiness life holds, and how beautiful the world is, I wonder anybody can be discontented, or restless, or sorrowful."

Martha seemed to ponder it.

"Well, I guess a good deal depends on the body," she brought out at length. "As I make it out, the world it goes a-grindin' 'round steady an' sure, like a great, big coffee-grinder. We all got to feel the twist, first or last, before we're turned out fine enough to suit. Some folks feels the twist more'n others. I suppose it's nice to live easy, but there's this about not bein' too soft: you ain't likely to get hurt so much. D'you remember, oncet or twice, when I wasn't by, you tried to pull up the dumb-waiter, down to a Hundred and Sixteenth Street? An' the coarse rope, it got splinters into your soft little hands. Now, mine's so hard I could pull till the cows come home, an' nary a splinter. Yes, it's good not to be too sens'tive. If you are, you're bound to get all that's comin' to you, an' then some."

"Do you know anybody in particular, who is feeling the _twist_ especially, just now?" asked Mrs. Ronald with interest.

Martha nodded. "I was thinkin' of Miss Katherine," she replied. "She's right up here, in the middle of all this, same as you and yet--you're happy, an' she ain't."

"Could I help?"

"I don't know _yet_. I'm keepin' my eye out. If I find you can I'll let you know."

"Good!" Claire approved. She walked on a step, then suddenly stood at attention. "Hark!" she whispered. "The veery! the Wilson thrush!"

Mrs. Slawson, halting too, strained her ear to listen. At first her face expressed only the gentle interest of one willing to be pleased, but presently her eyes became luminous, her great chest rose and fell to deep, full breaths of keenest appreciation.

When the wonderful performance was at an end, and the veery had taken wing, Claire turned to her silent, but questioning.

Martha considered a moment. "When a cow lifts up his head, an' gets ready to bella, what with its size an' stren'th, you're prepared for the worst, an'--you get it. But when a tiny little fella, as innercent-lookin' as that very bird you say is the Wilson's thrush, when _he_ sits up an' lets a flute-sola out of'm, as elegant as the man in the band, down to the movies, well, it certaintly _is_ surprisin'. It somehow hits you right in the pit of the stummick. My! but I bet the Wilsons is sorry he flew away on'm."

Mrs. Ronald turned quickly to examine a bit of lichen, decorating a tree-trunk near at hand. When she faced Martha again, her cheeks were quite crimson.

"Say, you hadn't ought to bend down like that a hot day like this," cautioned Mrs. Slawson. "You got a rush o' brains to the head, I should say blood. You want to go easy such hot wather. I guess the walkin' took it out o' you."

"Oh, no," Claire assured her heartily. "I'm not a bit tired. And I tell you what I want to do some day soon. I want to go across the lake to the South cove. They say there's a blue heron there. I'm crazy to see him."

Martha nodded. "Well, if Lord Ronald is willin'----"

"He says he'll take me over in the launch, and you can go too, and the children. We'll have a beautiful picnic some day very soon, and, if you thought she would go, we might ask Miss Crewe, and----"

"She couldn't leave her gran'ma for so long. P'raps if you'd put it off till the fall----"

Miss Claire shook her head. "No, I'm going now," she said determinedly.

"Well, I'll go any day you say, then--so Lord Ronald's willin'. I can help'm with the la'nch. I know all about _The Moth's_ machinery, if I don't about the cow's. An' when it comes to that, I could milk all right, all right, if I only knew what to turn on to make the milk come. It's on account o' the cow's not havin' her gear arranged so's a body can push a button, or pull a crank like a Christian, I have so much differculty. You can take it from me, autos an' la'nchs is simple by comparising. But what's really on my mind to say is, any mornin' you wish to see your red herrin', just say the word, an' I'll take you, though I tell you frank an' honest, if I was you, beggin' your pardon for the liberty, I'd stay on dry land myself, these days, an' not be botherin' my head over delicatessens, which you can get'm sent up, canned, by Park an' Tilford any day, with your next order."

"Mother! Mother!"

Francie's shrill, childish voice announced her but a second before she herself appeared around the tangle of bushes hedging the mouth of the ravine.

"Mother, mother!" she repeated, even after she saw the familiar form she sought.

"Well?"

Martha spoke calmly, undisturbed either by the child's heated face or manner.

"Mother--say--Mr. Ronald, he was over to our house, huntin' for Miss Claire. I guess he's fearful worried."

"Did he say he was worried?"

"No, he didn't, but he ast if I seen her, an' he said it was past breakfast-time."

"Now, what do you think o' that!" exclaimed Martha. "Francie's a little woman, ain't you, Francie? She knows, when a gen'lman thinks it's past meal time, it's up to ladies to get a move on."

Claire laughed. "I'll go at once," she returned obediently.

As Martha and Francie made their slow way back to the Lodge, Francie caught hold of her mother's hand in a sudden access of childish affection.

"Say, mother, I'm glad I'm your little girl, instead of anybody else's," she brought out impulsively.

"'Thank you, thank you, sir, she sayed. Your kindness I never shall forget!' I return the compliment," Martha announced with much manner.

"Mother, why does God want His name to be Hallow?"

"I didn't know He did."

"Yes, He does. At the beginning of the Lord's prayer, it says, 'Hallow would be thy name.' Don't you remember?"

"Certaintly I do, now you mention it. But if you ask me why, Robin, I got to give in, I can't tell you."

"I thought mothers knew everything," Francie said pensively. Martha's response was prompt.

"Well, be this an' be that, they do. Takin' mothers all together, they certaintly do. But, each one has her own speciality, _an'_ if you ask _me_ questions about God, I tell you, truly, I ain't got the answer, like I would have if I'd been to college, an' belonged to the lemon-eye, same's Miss Claire. On the other hand, _I_ may know things _she_ don't, about other matters nearer home. You never can tell."

"Cora says you don't know what's stylish. She says our clo'es are awful plain."

"Now, what do you think o' that! So Cora says I don't know what's stylish. Well, if _I_ don't know what's stylish, I don't know who does, seein' I was in an' out o' the toniest houses in New York City, an' was personally acquainted with their dresses an' their hats. That same Cora is called after one of the stylishest ladies ever you saw, Mrs. Underwood, which she is dead now, but, when she was alive, looked like a duchess. An' you, yourself, are called after her daughter, Miss Frances, who married a l'yer, Judge Granville, but _could_ 'a' had the pick o' the land. Never fear, I know what stylish is. Only, I know the differnce between _ladies'_ stylish an' ladies'-_maid's_ stylish. I seen both. Style's one thing. Loud's another. I want my childern to be seen but not heard."

"Mother, are you sorry Ma's gone away for good? She told Cora, 'fore she went, that you didn't know she ain't comin' back, but she ain't. She said her heart was broke with the quiet up here. She said she's goin' to live with Uncle Dennis after this, or Uncle Andy, where it's lively, an' there's more comin' an' goin'."

Mrs. Slawson suffered the full significance of Francie's revelation to sink into her consciousness, before she attempted to reply.

"Well, well," she said at last, with an air of brave resignation, "so, Ma's gone away for good, has she? An' she didn't want for me to be breakin' my heart with the news o' it. It certaintly is a shock an' no mistake. But a body must do the best she can, when she can't do no differnt. I'll try to bear up under it, Francie, much as I mourn my loss. In this life we got to go about with a smilin' countenance, no matter what our private sorras are. It won't do to let the world see your sufferin'. The world has troubles of its own. By the way, I wonder if Sammy's got back from takin' the mornin's milk to Madam Crewe's yet?"

Not only had Sammy got back, but he was the bearer of news.

"Say, mother, they got comp'ny to ol' lady Crewe's. A gen'lman, he come up with a bag. In a rig, from over to Burbank. The fella drove the rig, he was comin' back our road, an' he saw me, an' he says: 'Say, bubby, jump in an' I'll carry you a ways,' an' I did, an' he did."

"My, my, but ain't you lucky? To get a free ride so early in the mornin'. That was a kind ac' to do, wasn't it? Now, it's up to you to return the compliment. One good turn deserves another. Keep your eye out for that young fella, Sammy, so's if he goes past again, on his way back to fetch ol' lady Crewe's comp'ny an' carry'm to the station, you can call me, an' I'll give'm a glass o' cold lemonade to cool'm off."

"He ain't comin' back. The comp'ny ain't from Burbank. He's from New York. He come up last night on the Express, an' he's goin' back when he's ready, but he don't know when he'll be ready, so he couldn't tell the fella with the rig. An' the fella with the rig, he couldn't wait anyhow. He has to go back to Burbank, an' then 'way out another way, miles an' miles, to get a party wants to catch a north-bound train goes out the middle o' the night. One o'clock it goes out, the fella said. An' if they don't catch it, there ain't another till to-morra mornin', so they got to catch it. The fella with the rig tol' me, he guessed ol' lady Crewe's comp'ny was a lawyer. He said he could tell by the cut of his jib. What's the cut of his jib, mother?"

Mrs. Slawson shook her head. "That's a lazy, shif'less way o' learnin' knowledge, Sammy, to be askin' it off'n parties that had to work hard themselves to get it. Since we got that grand dickshunerry-book Lord Ronald give your father, there ain't no excuse for any of us not knowin' things any more. Lord Ronald said: 'The dickshunerry habit is a good thing. When you don't know a word, look it up.'"

"How do you spell _jib_?"

The glance Mrs. Slawson cast on Sammy sent him off flushed with shame at having exposed an ignorance so dense.

At Crewesmere, meanwhile, the newcomer was calmly eating his breakfast, Katherine doing the honors with what grace she could.