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Title: The Making of Mary
Author: Jean Forsyth
Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19343]
Language: English
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THE "UNKNOWN" LIBRARY
THE MAKING
OF MARY
BY
JEAN FORSYTH
NEW YORK
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO.
31 EAST 17TH ST. (UNION SQUARE)
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO.
_All rights reserved._
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.
PROLOGUE.
A STURDY northeast wind was rattling the doors and windows of a deserted
farmhouse in Western Michigan. The building was not old, measured by
years, but it had never been painted or repaired, and its wooden face,
prematurely lined with weather stains, looked as if it had borne the
wear and tear of centuries. The windows, like lidless eyes, stared
vacantly at the flat stubble fields and the few spindling trees, a
dreary apology for an orchard. There were plenty of shingles off the
roof to allow the inquisitive rain-drops to follow one another through
the rafters, and thence to the floor of the room below, where the
darkness was creeping out of the corners to take possession.
The house had been but recently vacated, for there was still a "slab"
smoldering on the hearth of the wide fireplace in the outer kitchen, and
something that looked almost human, wrapped in a ragged bedquilt, was
lying much too near it for safety. A friendly gust of wind came down the
chimney, bringing back the smoke, and drawing a faint cough from the
bundle. Another gust and another cough, and then a sneeze which burst
open the quilt, to disclose an ill-clad little girl, six or seven years
old.
She gazed about with drowsy blue eyes till terror of the darkness made
her draw the tattered comforter over her head again, and crouching
nearer to the smoldering log, she tried to warm her fingers and toes.
More wind down the chimney made more smoke, and sent the child coughing
back from the fireplace. She was wide awake now, and stood listening.
Sounds there were, indeed, but not one that could be associated with any
living thing in the house. She felt her way around the walls to where
the candle used to be, but it was gone. There was no furniture to
stumble over, and when she came to the side of the wall in the inner
room from which the stairway crept up, she mounted it on her hands and
knees, trembling, partly with cold, partly with fear at the noise made
by the flapping of the sole of one of her old shoes. There was a step
missing at the turn of the stairs, but the child knew where the vacancy
was, and pulling herself over it, she reached the landing, felt all
around the walls there, and made the circuit of the three small rooms
in the same fashion. They were entirely empty.
Cautiously the girl stole down the broken stairs and back to her former
place by the smoking slab, where she curled herself up into the old
quilt again, as into a mother's arms, and spoke aloud, though there was
none to listen but the obstreperous wind:
"Anyhow she won't be here to lick me no more!" That thought seemed to
compensate for darkness and loneliness. The voices of wind and rain were
apparently more kindly than the human tones to which she had been
accustomed, and soothed by their stormy lullaby, the little maid fell
asleep.
The sunshine poured freely into the forsaken house next morning, drying
up the damp floors, and turning to gold the scrap of yellow hair that
showed through a hole in the old quilt. Presently the small girl shook
the covering away from her and stood up, to yawn and stretch herself
out of the stiffness from a night spent on the hard floor. She was not a
pretty child, unless naturally curling fair hair, that would be fairer
when it was washed, could make her so. The long, thin legs that came
below her torn dress made her too tall for her age, and what might have
been a passable mouth was spoiled by the departure of two of the front
"baby" teeth and the tardy arrival of the later contingent.
Part of the day the child seemed satisfied with her new-found liberty.
Having discovered a stale crust or two in a cupboard, she wanted no
more, for her diet had never been luxurious. Into every corner of the
house she intruded her small freckled nose, pulling down from shelves
all sorts of odds and ends that had been left behind as worthless at the
flitting.
There was an old straw bonnet with a pair of dirty strings, and
therewith the damsel elected to adorn the tousled head, which evidenced
but slight acquaintance with comb or brush. She could not find any
feminine garments to please her fancy, but there was a boy's jacket, out
at elbows and ragged round the edges, which she proudly donned, and as a
finishing touch she popped her long slim legs, old shoes and all, into a
worn-out pair of man's top-boots that reached to her knees.
"I just wish Mawm Mason had lef' a lookin'-glass behin', so's I could
see how I look. My! wouldn't she whack me if she seen me with this
bonnet on!" The child smiled broadly as she continued her confidential
address to the other valueless things left behind. "I allays knowed she
warn't my own mother, an' I'm glad Pete nor Matty aint my own brother
nor sister neither. I'd like him to see me in his jacket!"
She pulled the coat across her narrow little chest to where it met in
the days when there were buttons on it, and marched up and down the
room, making as much noise as possible with the big boots.
This killing of time was all very well while the daylight lasted and the
sun warmed up the frosty November air, but when the darkness began to
assert itself once more the small waif did not feel so contented.
"There aint no use goin' over to Mis' Morgan's. She don't want me no
more'n Mis' Mason did. I guess I'll sleep upstairs to-night with some o'
them things over me. I'll be warm anyhow."
In the middle of the front bedroom she heaped up all the _débris_ and
crawled beneath it. A fantastic pile it seemed to the moon when he
looked in after the rain had stopped, the childish head resting on the
cover of an old bandbox at one side and a pair of man's boots sticking
out at the other.
The last scrap of bread was finished next day, and the two potatoes
picked up in the yard proved uneatable without the softening influence
of fire, so there was nothing for it but Mrs. Morgan's. After sunset,
when the rapidly falling temperature and the heavy bank of clouds in the
west gave warning of a snow-storm, the little girl, still wearing the
old bonnet, boy's jacket, and man's boots, left the only home she could
remember, and made her way slowly over the hard rough fields and snake
fences to the next farmhouse.
Mrs. Morgan was running in from the barn with a shawl over her head.
"Good sakes alive! Mary Mason! I hardly knowed you. What you got on? I
thought you was one o' them scarecrows out o' the fall wheat. Mis'
Mason moved to Californy three days ago. Didn't she take you with her?"
"No, mawm."
"So it 'pears. Wal, she hadn't any call to, I s'pose. You aint none o'
hers."
By this time they were in the kitchen of the farmhouse, Mrs. Morgan
rubbing her hands above the stove, and Mary Mason also venturing near,
stretching out her thin arms to the heat, for the adopted jacket was
somewhat short in the sleeves.
"What's that mark on yer wrist?"
"Bruise--but it don't hurt now."
"Who done it?"
"Ma--Mis' Mason. I've lots worse'n that on me," said the small girl with
some vanity.
"There, now! I jest knew that Mis' Mason was a hard case, though my man
would never hear to it. What you going to do now?"
"I dunno." The accent implied that to be a matter of small moment.
"I don't s'pose we can turn you out to-night. There's room in the attic
for you to sleep, but don't you go near one o' my girls' beds with that
head o' yourn."
As a hostess, Mrs. Morgan was a slight improvement upon Mrs. Mason. She
never took stick or strap to the foundling, and if she occasionally gave
her a cuff on the ear it was never strong enough to knock the girl down.
But the Morgan children bullied Mary Mason, the Morgan father grumbled
at an extra mouth to feed, and when she had been about a month in the
house the mistress of it told her she must move on.
"There's an old dress of Ellie's you can have, an' a pair of Sue's
cast-off boots, and Tom's old cap."
"Where am I to go, mawm?"
"You jest go on from one farmhouse to another, till you find a place
where they'll keep you all winter. It's comin' on to Christmas, an'
people won't be hard on ye. Tell 'em you aint got no folks."
* * * * *
The forlorn little pilgrim took up her march down the snow-covered road.
THE MAKING OF MARY.
CHAPTER I.
MY wife is a theosophist. This fact may account for her numerous
eccentricities or be simply one of them. I incline to the latter
opinion, because she preferred the unbeaten to the beaten track, both in
walk and conversation, long before Modern Buddhism was ever heard of in
the small Western town of whose chief newspaper (circulation largest in
Michigan) I have the honor to be editor and proprietor.
How such a hot-house plant as Theosophy ever took root in the swamps
and sands of the Wolverine State may seem surprising at the first
glance, but let the second rest upon our environment--the absence of
mountain or swift-flowing river, the presence of fever and ague and
half-burnt pine woods--and it will be seen that this Eastern lore with
its embarrassment of symbols supplies a long-felt want to starving
imagination. We of the West are forever reaching beyond our grasp, have
intelligence and perception, but lack the culture necessary for
discrimination, and therefore the romantic souls among us who rise above
the rampant materialism of the majority go to the other extreme, and
hail with enthusiasm the new-old religion.
"It's better to believe too much than too little, but you theosophists
swallow an awful lot," I say to Belle when she tries to convert me.
I am well aware that many of my fellow-citizens consider me a subject
for commiseration because I have lived for twenty years with so erratic
a house-mate, for I have not deemed it necessary to explain to them that
without the stimulus of her enlivening spirit, without the element of
surprise constantly contributed by my wife's love of variety, the daily
life, and therefore the daily paper, of their favorite editor would
partake of that flatness which is the predominant characteristic of this
western part of the State of Michigan.
Our four sons and two daughters enjoy their mother fully as much as I
do, for is she not the most fascinating romancer they ever knew? Now
that they are all of an age to be attending school and looking out for
themselves, after the manner of independent young Americans, they
require from her nothing but sympathy, for their grandmother sews their
buttons on. Grandma!--Ay, there's the rub.
I have no hesitation in owning that I am Scotch by birth. My mother left
her native land to make her home with us entirely too late in life to
allow Western ideas regarding Sabbath observance, the rearing of
children, or the amount of respect due to the opinion of elders, to
become ingrafted upon Scottish prejudice concerning these matters.
Mrs. Gemmell Senior has, however, the national peculiarity of judging
"blood thicker than water," and whatever her convictions may be
concerning the methods of Mrs. Gemmell Junior, she restricts the
expression of them to our family circle--in fact, I may say, to myself.
She generally seizes me when I lie at my ease on the well-worn lounge in
our sitting room, more properly dubbed the "nursery," for it is Liberty
Hall for the youngsters. Two rooms have been knocked into one to
accommodate their dolls' houses, bookshelves, toys, and printing
machines. Belle had the whole side torn out of the house to build an
open fire-place, on purpose to burn slabs, over which the children roast
pop-corn to their hearts' content.
"A body wad think," said my mother one cold night five or six years ago,
when I lay on the sofa, trying to send my weariness off in smoke, "A
body wad think there had been nae cherritable wark dune in the toon ava,
till they theossiphies set aboot it. If yer provost and baillies lookit
efter things as they ocht, there wad be a dacent puirs-house for the
idignant folk, an' a wheen daft leddies like Eesabel needna gang roun'
speirin' at yon infeedels for their siller tae build a hoose o' refuse."
"There is a county poorhouse, mother, but it doesn't happen to be
located in this city, and they won't take in anybody there that hasn't
been a resident of the county for a certain time."
"Aweel! there's plenty o' kirks, though ye never darken the door o' ane.
Do they no' leuk efter their ain puir folk?"
"Yes; but after nobody else's. This House of Refuge is to be
non-sectarian, non-religious, humanitarian, in the broadest sense of the
term. Ah! There's Belle now," and I gave a sigh of relief as I heard my
wife's latch-key in the front door.
She came in with an out-of-door breeze, her dark face glowing from the
wintry wind, flakes of newly fallen snow resting like diamonds upon her
prematurely white hair, and her brown eyes sparkling with the animation
of twenty summers rather than of forty-two.
"Children all gone to bed? That's right! Don't go, mother! I'm sure
you'll like to hear about the House of Refuge. We've got it fixed at
last! Those rich old lumbermen that won't give a cent to a church, or
any charity connected with one, have gone to the bottom of their pockets
this time. Fancy Peter Wood, Dave--five hundred dollars! And Jeff
Henderson, five hundred. I have the list in my bag. Like to see it?"
"No' the nicht, thenk ye," said my mother stiffly, but I added:
"Hand it over to me, and I'll put it in to-morrow's _Echo_. That's what
they want."
"Nothing of the kind, you old cynic! I shan't tell you another thing
about it." But still she went on: "We've taken the old Laurence house on
the corner of Garfield Avenue and Pine Street, and it's to be fitted up
to accommodate any sort of refugees."
"Irrespective of race, creed, sex, or color," I whispered
parenthetically.
"No one is ever to be turned from the door without a good square meal,
and there's to be a back, outside stair erected, up which a tramp can go
at any hour of the night, and find a nice clean bed awaiting him--locked
away from the rest of the house, of course."
"Oh, why?" I innocently inquired. "Surely you have enough faith in your
brother man to believe that he would not commit any breach of
hospitality?"
"_I_ have," replied Belle, squeezing my recumbent form further against
the back of the sofa, upon which she had seated herself. "But remember
we are not all theosophists on the Board."
In the words of the historic witness against Mrs. Muldoon, "That's the
way the row began!" Belle was elected Treasurer of the House of Refuge,
but as she knows nothing of figures, I had to keep the books of that
unique institution, and was therefore enabled to form a practical
estimate of its workings.
I shall not attempt a description of the numerous "cases" in which my
advice, if not my pocketbook, was freely drawn upon, but shall leave
them, along with the description of the many antecedent fads of my
beloved better half, to some historian of longer wind, and shall content
myself with recounting the particular "case"--and attachments--which
most nearly affected our family life and happiness.
* * * * *
"This is what I call solid comfort," said Belle to me one evening late
in September, as we sat in the parlor in a couple of deep, springy
armchairs, fronting a huge grate fire, that would be banished by the
lighting of the furnace. "Children all in school again, your mother off
on a long visit, and plenty of new books on the table."
I looked up from one of the aforesaid new books.
"Just wait! The season's business hasn't begun in the Refuge yet."
"Everything is in good shape for it, though. We've had enough donations
of groceries and vegetables to keep us going almost all winter. We've
lots of wood for the furnace, and Mack and Hardy have given us some
second-hand furniture and----"
The electric door-bell sent out a long, imperative summons.
"Who can that be, Dave, at this time of night? None of the boys locked
out?"
"No; they all went up to bed a while ago."
Belle rose and walked to the door. I pulled the tidy from my chair-back
over my bald head to protect me from the draught, but that did not
prevent me from hearing what went on.
"Are you Mrs. Gemmell?" This from a female voice, breathless with
excitement.
"I am."
"Then you are one of the trustees of the House of Refuge?" gasped
another feminine speaker.
"Yes. Won't you come in?"
"No, thank you. We've just come to tell you about this young girl who
has run to us for protection."
"We're school-teachers, mawm."
"She's in my class, and she hasn't a friend in the city and knew nowhere
else to go."
Then followed some hysterical whispers, which roused my curiosity so
much that I went to the door and peeped over the shoulder of my tall
wife. The two plain, business-like young women were evidently much
distressed, but between them was a fair-haired slip of a girl of
fifteen or sixteen, the least disturbed of the group. The three older
women might have been talking in a foreign tongue, or of someone else,
so unconcerned did she appear, present danger being over.
"How did she happen to be with these people?" Belle was asking as I came
forward.
"The wife of this brute of a man told us that she was nursemaid with the
Ferguson Family Concert Company, but they dropped her here in Lake City
without a friend or a cent."
"She took her in to help sell fruit and ice cream evenings, and she let
her go to school through the day."
At this juncture the subject under discussion broke into a beaming
smile, showing all her fine teeth. Her cheek dimpled and reddened, and
her blue eyes, full of fun, looked straight into mine. I became
suddenly aware that I had forgotten to remove the tidy, and retired in
confusion, but heard Belle's conclusion of the interview:
"Just wait a second till I give you a line to the matron of the House of
Refuge. You can leave the girl there till we see what can be done for
her. She'll be perfectly safe, and had better keep on going to school as
usual."
* * * * *
A week afterward I asked my wife what had become of her latest
_protégée_.
"You mean Mary Mason? She's in the refuge yet, attending school, and
we've settled that man's ice-cream saloon."
"How?"
"Boycotted him. We can't reach him any other way."
"That's rather hard on his wife, who seems to be a decent sort of
party."
"The innocent often appear to suffer with and for the guilty, but if
you understood the law of Karma you would know that all the evil that
befalls us is really the result of some wrongdoing of our own in a
previous incarnation. Mary Mason herself is an instance."
"What's the matter with her?"
"Poor girl! She's been knocked from pillar to post all her days. She
hasn't an idea who her parents are, and there isn't a creature in the
world she has any claim upon. She must have gone very far astray _last
time_ to have been brought into the world again with such
disadvantages."
"It appears to me she has a great many advantages--lovely blue eyes,
good teeth, the fashionable golden shade of hair, and the prettiest
complexion I've seen for many a day."
"Don't be provoking, Dave! The poor little thing has the marks of some
of her beatings on her yet. The Ferguson family were the first who ever
treated her decently, or paid her any wages."
"Why did they drop her?"
"One of our Committee took it upon herself to write and ask them. They
replied that the girl was of perfectly good character, so far as they
knew, but she fell so ridiculously in love with Frank Ferguson, their
eldest son, that she was making a nuisance of herself, and so they had
to let her go."
I laughed.
"There are generally two sides to that kind of story."
"At the meeting of the trustees to-morrow it is to be decided what's to
be done with her, because she says she doesn't want to go to school any
more. She's never had much of a chance before to learn anything, and
she's in a class with little bits of girls, and she doesn't like
it--says she'd rather go to work to earn her own living."
Belle came home from that meeting with her face ablaze with righteous
wrath. Her hands trembled so much over the teacups at our evening meal
that even sixteen year old Watty, our eldest son, remarked it.
"What's the matter with _mamma_? Her trolley's off."
I knew there was trouble in the wind, so I fortified myself with a good
supper and read my paper at the same time, to leave myself free for what
was to follow. The children study their lessons in the back end of the
nursery, and I therefore forbore to take up my usual position upon the
sofa, but withdrew to the parlor with my pipe.
Presently my wife followed me, nearly walking over the furniture in her
excitement.
"Go on, Belle; out with it!"
"You will listen, will you, seriously?"
"Certainly, mawm. I never had any sort of an objection to your making a
scavenger barrel of me, so go ahead."
"Oh, these benevolent women, Dave! Any one of them alone is as
good-hearted as can be, but lump them together on a committee, and
they're as cold and cruel and grasping as the meanest business man you
could name!"
"More so!" said I, approvingly, and for once Isabel did not resent the
disparagement of her sex.
"The question arose, what was to be done about Mary Mason, and every one
of them, David--every one of them, with young daughters of their own
growing up at home, voted to let that girl go round this town selling a
book."
"Was that what she wanted to do herself?"
"Yes; but think of them letting her do it! You know as well as I do what
sort of a city this is, and whether it's safe for a lovely girl like
that to go to men's offices, trying with her pretty looks and ways to
wheedle them into subscribing for Stanley's 'Darkest Africa.' Oh, I was
wild! I said to Mrs. Robinson: 'How would you like your Lulu to do it?'
'The cases are very different,' said she; 'my daughter has no need to
earn her living.' 'Mrs. Constable,' said I, 'if your grandchild were
left alone in the world, what would you think of the charity of any body
of women who allowed her to go from under their protection to make her
living in this way?' 'I don't see the connection,' said she; 'Mary
Mason's been fighting the world since she was seven years old, and just
because she happens to have a pretty face, you seem to think she should
be put in a glass case and never do anything for herself.'"
"She had you there, Belle," said I, pulling her down to the arm of my
big easy-chair. "Let the girl alone; she'll come out all right. She's
too good-looking for a nurse or a housemaid, and she doesn't know enough
arithmetic to be a shop girl. I don't see what else she can do."
"That's just what the ladies calmly decided," said my wife, walking the
floor again. "They seemed to think that a little business training would
just be the making of Mary. Oh, these Christians!"
"You see, my dear," said I, "committees are not supposed to have any
conscience. They have the income of the Refuge in trust for the
contributors, and they have no right to keep on supporting a girl who is
willing to work for herself. How she proposes to do it is none of their
business."
"That's just what it is--their business; their business to see that she
doesn't meet the very fate we've saved her from once already. Oh!
there's no getting these narrow-minded, orthodox, bigoted people to see
more than one side of a question."
"Take care you don't become dogmatic on your own side," said I, rising
to knock the ashes out of my pipe. "If it's the law of Karma that's
responsible for her having been left to shift for herself at so early an
age, it's the same law that's after her now, and I wouldn't interfere
with its operations, if I were you."
"You don't in the least understand what you are talking about," and
Belle sailed from the room to settle a noisy dispute in the nursery.
CHAPTER II.
THROUGH that winter I caught occasionally a glimpse of Mary Mason on the
street, but as I had not the pleasure of her acquaintance, I did not
stop to ask her how she was getting on. My wife told me, however, that
she lived in a room over a store down town, and took her meals out, and
that she was succeeding very well with her subscription list.
"The girl is all right, if only the gossips would let her alone. Some of
them assert that she had a child in the Refuge, and though the ladies on
our committee indignantly deny that, they shake their heads, and say of
course they don't know anything about her now."
"It's the only excitement a lot of these women have," said I. "They
wouldn't read a French novel for the world, and some of them wouldn't be
seen in a theater, so they have to satisfy their morbid craving for
sensationalism by hearing and repeating all sorts of unsavory tales--and
they do it in the name of charity! They're very sorry that there is so
much wickedness in the world, but since it is there, they enjoy the
investigation of details, and it doesn't matter very much whether
they're doing any good or not."
"There aren't any details to investigate, so far as Mary Mason is
concerned. I took pains to make sure of that, when I heard that a big
hulk of a machinist, who rooms on the same flat, was telling lies about
her, just because she refused to have anything to say to him."
When I was leaving the _Echo_ office at noon one day I saw Henderson's
handsome black span, with the wreck of a sleigh behind them, come down
the street at a full gallop, and I was just debating with myself whether
my duty as a citizen, which called me to attempt to stop the brutes, was
stronger than my duty to my wife and family, which bade me stay where I
was, when a young lady jumped the snow ridge at the edge of the sidewalk
and flung herself at the bit of the nearest horse. The powerful animal
swung her right off her feet, but he was checked for an instant, and in
that instant a young man seized the mate on the other side; the team was
stopped and surrounded by a crowd directly. Then I saw it was Mary Mason
who was the heroine of the drama. She withdrew from the throng,
straightened her flat hat above her rosy face, and walked off with her
habitual indifferent air.
"She's got good grit, that girl," said I to myself, but I thought no
more about her till I came home on a certain evening in March, and found
her comfortably ensconced on one side of our nursery fire, while my
mother from the other side cast suspicious glances at her over her
spectacles. "Miss Mason," had supper with us, and then I retired to my
big leather-covered spring rocker in the parlor to await developments.
That chair needs to be approached with deference, for it has a
precocious trick of either tilting in the air the feet of any unwary
occupant, or of tipping him out on the floor. I know its disposition,
can preserve my proper balance, and have never been flung either forward
or backward--except once each way.
Presently Belle followed me, "loaded up," as the boys say.
"It seems as if I was never to get free from the responsibility of that
child."
"What's up now?"
"Down town to-day I met the chief of police----"
"Great chum of yours!"
"Yes, indeed. We've had considerable conversation at different times
about some of my cases. To-day he said, 'You're interested in that young
girl, Mary Mason, aint you, Mrs. Gemmell?' 'Yes,' said I, though my
heart sank, and I didn't see why he couldn't have addressed any other
one of the committee; 'anything wrong with her?' 'Not yet,' said he;
'but there will be pretty soon if somebody doesn't look after her.
There's a scheme on foot to take her off to Chicago--to sell a book--so
they say.' 'Good gracious! Nobody would dare!' 'Wouldn't they, though?'
said he. 'There's a well-known drummer in this town at the bottom of
it. He's aware the girl has no friends, and in Chicago she don't even
know a soul. It's too bad, for I've had my eye on the young woman all
winter, and she's kept perfectly straight.'
"You may think, Dave, that I ought to be hardened to horrors by this
time, but I became fairly dazed as the chief of police went on to say,
'I can't move in the matter. We never can touch these things until the
mischief is done; but if you like to make inquiries, you'll find out
that I've been telling you the truth.'
"When he left me, I turned to come home, not knowing what to do, but
going round the first corner, didn't I run right into Mary Mason
herself! I hadn't laid eyes on her for a couple of months. 'How d'ye do,
Mrs. Gemmell?' she said, for I stopped and stared at her as if she'd
been a white crow. 'What about "Darkest Africa?"' I found breath to
ask, though it was Darkest Chicago I had in my mind. 'I've done with
that now,' she said; 'did very well, too.' 'And what are you going to do
next?' 'I dunno. Whatever turns up. I've got an offer to go to Chicago
to sell a book there.' I caught her by the arm as if I'd been the chief
of police. 'Mary, will you please go to my house and wait there for me
till I come?' 'Oh, yes, mawm, if you want me to,' and off she went,
asking no questions.
"Well, Dave, I've put in four hours of amateur detective work this
afternoon, and I feel as if I needed a moral bath. I found out it was
all true, as the chief of police had said. There was a plot to ruin the
girl, and I don't think the author of it will forget his interview with
me in a hurry."
"What good will that do the young woman? There are plenty more of his
kind in the world, and with her inherited tendencies I suppose it's only
a question of time--how soon she goes to the bad."
"David Gemmell!"
It is worth while making a caustic speech occasionally to see Isabel
rise to her full height. Her brown eyes positively emit sparks, and her
gray hair, which she wears waved and parted, gives her an air of
distinction that would not be out of place upon an avenging spirit.
"I came home all tired out," she went on, sinking into the chair beside
mine, "and looking through the nursery window, there sat Mary Mason with
our little Chrissie on her knee. The two faces in the firelight looked
so much alike that my heart gave a great thump, and I vowed that girl
should never be set adrift again. This is the second time she has been
cast upon my shore, and I must see to her."
So Mary Mason dropped into our family circle without anybody having very
much to say in the matter--except my mother!
"Wha's yon 'at Eesabell's ta'en up wi' the noo?"
"Her name's Mason," said I; "Mary Mason."
"I h'ard yer wife was thinkin' o' keepin' a hoosemaid, but I didna
expeck tae see her pap hersel' doon at the table wi' the fem'ly."
"She's not a housemaid. She's just staying with us for a while."
"Ye'd think Eesabell micht hae eneugh adae wi' her ain, 'thoot takin' in
ony strangers."
"But Mary is to help with the housework, in return for her board and
clothes."
"Let her wear a kep an' apron, then, an' eat wi' Marg'et."
"Margaret might object," and I laughed at the probable dismay of our
stalwart, rough-and-ready five-foot-tenner, should this ladyfied blonde
permanently invade her domain.
"Hoo lang's she gaun to st'y?"
"That's more than I can tell you."
When Mary had been a week in the house, it became apparent that
something must be done with her.
"She's bound she'll not go back to the public school, Dave, and yet she
cannot read or write. Do you think we can afford to send her to
boarding-school--to a convent, for instance, where she'd be well looked
after, and allowances made for her backwardness?"
Belle and I were out driving together. It was the first springlike
evening we had had, and I was trying Jim Atwood's new mare on Maple
Avenue, which had been newly block-paved. So engrossed was I in watching
her paces I did not reply to my wife at once, and she continued:
"You were going to get me a horse and a victoria this spring, but I'm
willing to give them up to send Mary to school."
"Please yourself, my dear. You would be the one to use the turnout. I'm
content to borrow from my friends. Isn't she a beauty?"
Belle came out of space to answer me.
"Yes, just now; but she'll not be when she's old. Her features are not
good at all; her forehead's too narrow, and her nose too broad. Were it
not for her lovely hair and complexion, she'd have nothing to brag about
but a pair of very ordinary blue eyes."
"Who? The mare?"
"Don't be stupid, Dave, and do attend to what I am saying. I hardly ever
have a chance to speak to you, goodness knows!"
"You get the editorial ear oftener and longer than anybody else."
"Lend it to me now, then. Don't you think a convent would be the best
place for Mary?"
"Perhaps--as there are no theosophical educational institutions that we
know about."
"Mary isn't far enough on for theosophist yet. She'll have to come back
many times before she is. The Roman Catholic Church is on her plane this
incarnation."
"It does seem to catch the masses, that's a fact, whereas your theosophy
doesn't appear to be practicable for uneducated people nor for
children."
"I don't agree with you there."
"Then why were you so anxious to send Watty to a church school to finish
his education, and why are you on the lookout already for a
boarding-school for the two girls where they will have the best of
Christian influences? What is your object in being so particular that
the younger boys are regular in their attendance at our surpliced
choir?"
"It gives them a good idea of music--but that is not the point just now.
Can we afford to send Mary Mason to a convent, or can we not?"
"Choose between her and the buggy mare 'suitable for a lady to drive,'"
said I; but in reality it was my mother who settled the question.
When we came home that evening she was sitting by the fireside,
"Nursin' her wrath to keep it warm."
"Ye maun either pit yon hizzy oot the hoose, or I'll hitta gang."
"What's the matter now, mother?"
"I tell't her to brush the boys' bits tae be ready for the schule in the
mornin'. They were thrang wi' their lessons an' she wasna daein' a han's
turn."
"And what did she say?"
"S'y! I wush ye'd seen the leuk she gi'ed me!"
"The boys can brush their ain bits," said she; "I'm no' their servant."
I laughed.
"It's well seen she hasn't been brought up in Scotland, or she would
know it was the bounden duty of the girls in the house to wait on the
boys."
"An' a hantle better it is than to see the laddies aye rinnin' efter the
lasses, tendin' them han' an' fut as they dae here. When a man comes
hame efter his d'y's wark, he should be let sit on his sate, an' hae a'
things dune for him."
"David," said Belle, sinking to a footstool at my feet with a dramatic
gesture, "you shall never button my boots again! But seriously," she
continued, as mother withdrew in high dudgeon to her sanctum upstairs,
"I don't think Mary should be expected to brush the boys' boots. We
didn't engage her as servant, and even if we had, there isn't a hired
girl in this part of the country that wouldn't make a fuss if she had to
brush the boots of the man of the house, not to mention the boys. We'll
have to pack Mary off somewhere, if only to keep the peace."
So Mary was sent to a convent, and at the end of three months came back
for her holidays to our summer cottage at Interlaken. Being so near the
big lake does not agree with my mother, and she rarely spends more than
a week with us there, but during July and August visits my married
sister in town. The coast was clear for Belle and me to decide what
progress had been made in the making of Mary, and we fancied we
discovered a good deal.
"What have they done to you, those nuns, to tone you down so quickly,
Mary?" I asked, as she sat beside me, swinging in a low rocker, and
looking so pretty that I was quite proud of her as an ornament to our
front veranda.
"I dunno," she said, "unless it was the exercise for sitting perfectly
still on a row of chairs. A nun goes behind us and drops a big book or
something, and any girl that jumps gets a bad mark."
"Capital!" I cried; "no wonder you have learned repose of manner."
Thus encouraged, the girl continued:
"Then we have little parties and receptions, and we have to converse
with the nuns and with each other, and anybody that mentions one of the
three D's gets a bad mark."
"The three D's?"
"Yes, sir--Dress, Disease, and Domestics."
"Hear this, Belle," I said, laughing, as my wife took the rocking chair
on the other side of me; "fancy any collection of women being obliged to
steer clear of the three D's!"
"You should ask Mary about her studies," was the severe reply. "We were
much pleased with your letters."
"Yes, mawm; Sister Stella was always very good about that; helped me
with the big words, and often wrote the whole thing out for me.
Sometimes I had to copy it two or three times before I could please
her."
Belle hastily changed the subject. "Let Mr. Gemmell hear that piece you
recited to me this morning."
I am no judge of elocution, but the general effect of the young girl
standing there in the arch of the veranda, a clematis-wreathed post on
either side, and her face, with its delicate coloring, turned toward the
golden twilight, was pleasing in the extreme.
"She'll maybe be famous some day," said Belle, when Mary had discreetly
retired. "She is far quicker at learning verses off by heart than she is
at reading them."
"Still, to be a successful elocutionist nowadays one has to be
thoroughly well educated, and Mary is too late in beginning."
"You can't tell. She's got the appearance, and that's half the battle."
"With us, perhaps; but remember, we are not capable critics, even though
one of us is a Theosophist."
"Laugh as you like, Dave. Theosophy satisfies me, because it explains
some things in my own nature that I never could understand before."
"It may be that you are too soon satisfied. That's the way with all new
movements--one story is good till another is told. Your
great-granddaughter will smile at the credulity of your ideas on this
very subject."
"She can smile, and so can you. We don't pretend to know everything; we
only hope that we are on the right road to learn. I, for one, am
thankful to think that there are wiser heads than mine puzzling over the
problem of our psychic powers. I've always taken impressions from
inanimate objects, and it has bothered me. Now I find my sensations
analyzed and classified under the head of Psychometry, and it is a
comfort to know that other people besides myself can discern an _aura_,
and are foolishly wise enough to trust the impressions they receive in
that way."
"But if I were you, I don't think I'd make a parlor entertainment out of
the gift,--if it is a gift,--as I heard you did at the Wades' the other
night."
"Who told you? What have you heard?"
"Newspaper men hear everything. You asked Mr. Saxon to hold his
handkerchief pressed tightly in his hand for a few minutes, and then to
give it to you. You shut your eyes as you held it, and received the
impression of his 'aura,' or the atmosphere which surrounds him, or
whatever you like to call it, and then the company asked you questions,
and you gave him a great old character. He didn't like it a bit, nor did
his wife, nor his mother-in-law. You'll make enemies for yourself if you
don't watch out."
"It _was_ wrong of me to exercise my powers just to gratify idle
curiosity. No good Theosophist would approve of it."
"Say, rather, 'no sensible person would.' The Theosophists haven't a
monopoly of common sense. To me they appear slightly deficient in that
article, but I dare say they make up for it in uncommon sense."
"You speak more wisely than you know," said Belle solemnly. "If I hadn't
taken in some of the Brotherhood ideas I wonder where that pretty,
innocent young girl would have been by this time. Would you like me to
go back and be as I was in the old days, a rank materialist, caring for
nothing but dress, dancing, and having a good time? You know you
wouldn't, David. You know as well as I do that Theosophy has been the
making of me, and through me it shall be the making of Mary too."
CHAPTER III.
TO the Scotchman or Englishman, with Loch Katrine or Windermere in his
fond memory's eye, it is not surprising that the great lakes of America
seem howling wildernesses of water, for the shores are mostly low and
unpicturesque. There is no changing tide to give variety, no strong
smell of seaweed nor salt breeze to brace the wearied nerves, but the
wearied nerves are braced nevertheless. The sand is soft and clean to
extend one's length upon, and the waves forever rolling up at one's feet
are soothing in their monotony. There is no fear of the encroachment of
the water, no fear of its leaving a bare mud-flat for nearly a mile; and
the unlimited expanse of blue which meets the horizon satisfies the eye,
which cares not if the land on the other side be hundreds or thousands
of miles away, so long as it be out of sight.
Two young people one evening in July seemed to find Lake Michigan
perfectly satisfactory in every respect. The girl sat on a log of
driftwood, poking holes in the sand with the pointed toes of her shoes,
much too fine for the purpose, while the young man stretched at her feet
looked at her instead of the sunset they had come to admire. I could not
help thinking what a pretty picture they made, as I strolled along the
shore with my pipe, to get cooled off after a very hot day in town.
The family were all at Interlaken, but Margaret was left in Lake City
to keep the grass watered, and to give me my midday dinner. I am unable
to decide which occupation she considered the more important. It is not
easy to get grass to grow with us, and anyone who can display a
reasonably green patch in July and August gives evidence of considerable
perseverance in the matter of lawn sprinkling. I told Margaret she would
be ready to enter the Fire Brigade next winter, she was getting to be
such an expert with the hose. But to return to the shore of Michigan.
The pair of lovers interested me so much that I gradually edged nearer
to them. The species seldom objects to the proximity of a stout little
man with a prosaic pipe in his mouth and a pair of light blue eyes,
handicapped by spectacles, that seem always to be looking for a sail on
the horizon. In fact, I never attract any attention anywhere, unless my
wife is along, and then I am only too proud and happy to shine in her
reflection.
So I sat down on a piece of stump, worn white and smooth like a skeleton
before being cast up by the waves; but when the two caught sight of me,
the man sprang up and came toward me, holding out his hand, while the
girl sauntered off in the other direction, and I saw that she was Mary
Mason.
"Hello, Link?" said I to the young fellow. "Didn't know you were down
here."
"I'm at the hotel for a week or two. I've just been making the
acquaintance of your adopted daughter."
"My what?"
"You have adopted her, haven't you?"
"Don't know that I have--hadn't considered the matter at all."
"She's a sweet girl, and a beauty too. Anyone would be proud to own
her."
"You'd better let Dolly Martin hear you say that."
Abraham Lincoln Todd straightened himself up in the most independent
bachelor style.
"She can look after me when we're married, but in the meantime I'm a
free man."
He is considered very handsome, tall and dark, a good business man too,
and Belle had quite approved of the engagement between him and Dolly
Martin, who, though not a pretty girl, was strong and sensible, and the
daughter of one of her oldest friends.
Lincoln must be taking advantage of his intimacy with our family to
flirt with Mary Mason.
Interlaken is not a fashionable resort. Even the hotel is a homely
abode, which the guests seem to run themselves, though they generally
prefer to live outdoors and go inside only for meals and beds. Once in
a while, on a chilly evening, the young people get up a dance, and some
of us older folks are dragged into it too.
Scotchmen love to dance, and I am no exception. I am not up to waltzing
or any of the newfangled round dances, but give me a Highland
schottische, or a square dance, when there is an inventive genius to
call off the figures and prescribe plenty of variety. There was no
professional caller-off at Interlaken, but Lincoln Todd did duty for one
as he danced. When he tired of it, and led off into a round of waltzes,
ripples, jerseys, bon tons, rush polkas, and goodness knows what
besides, I remained as a wall-flower.
The reason that I sat there was that I could not take my eyes off Mary
Mason. Where she learned to dance I know not, but dance she did, with a
grace and _abandon_ that made every other girl in the room a
clod-hopper. Lincoln Todd was quite infatuated with her.
Ours is one of the dozen or so of cottages that radiate from the big
hotel. Most of the cottagers take dinner and supper at the hotel, being,
like ourselves, in a servantless condition. Belle said she could get
along perfectly well without Margaret, when she had Mary Mason to help
her with the housework, and, indeed, there was not much to be done. The
four bedrooms open into one central room that we call the sitting-room,
but it is only in wet weather it justifies the name, for, as a rule, we
sit in rockers or swing in hammocks on the broad veranda that runs round
three sides of the house. The cottages lie so close together that a good
jumper can easily spring from one veranda to the next, and the lady
proprietors gossip across, and the men too when they come down from
business every evening, or from Saturday till Monday. My lot is
generally the shorter allowance, and one Sunday afternoon I lay in my
favorite hammock on the north side of the veranda, sleeping the sleep of
the brain-tired editor, till voices roused me.
"Mary, where did you get that new tennis racket?"
"Mr. Todd gave it to me."
"Haven't I told you distinctly that you were not even to take candy from
Mr. Todd?"
"He gives things to you and Chrissie."
"That's a very different matter. Chrissie is a child, and he is an old
friend of the family."
"I can't help it if he likes to give me presents."
"You can help taking them, especially from an engaged man."
"I don't care if he is engaged. He says he don't care anything at all
about Miss Martin. He only went after her for her money. He likes me
best, and he says he'll never marry her."
"Mary! I should think you'd know better than to make yourself so cheap.
You give Mr. Todd back that racket right away, and tell him Mrs. Gemmell
said you were not to keep it, and the next time he brings you down
flowers or chocolates you do the same."
If I had not known the sex and the approximate age of Mary, I should
have thought it was a small boy in a temper who stamped off the veranda.
The next Saturday night the full moon was assisted in her duties by a
large bonfire down on our beach. The Adamless Eden, having received its
"week-end" male contingent, was stimulated to a corn-roasting. The green
ears, stuck on the ends of long sticks, were held by girls and men over
the fire till roasted, and then passed on to a row of matrons, disguised
in large aprons, who salted and buttered them ready for eating. If you
know anything that tastes sweeter than a freshly roasted and buttered
ear of Indian corn, your experience is broader than mine.
Using my eyes habitually in the way of business, I could not avoid
noticing that Lincoln Todd was not collecting his share of driftwood for
keeping up the fire, nor did I see Mary Mason's pretty face in the
garland of beauties bending with eager interest over the poles bayoneted
with cobs of corn. It may have been fear of spoiling her complexion that
kept her at one side whispering with Link, but it served them both right
that Dolly Martin should choose that very moment for her stage entrance.
She and her mother joined the group of butterers, and I noticed that
Mrs. Martin returned Belle's cordial greeting rather stiffly. Then Miss
Dolly calmly walked over to the pair sitting apart, having evidently
recognized the back of Lincoln's blazer. She pretended to stumble over
one of his feet.
"Oh, excuse me!" said she; and when Link sprang up, Mary Mason had the
pleasure of witnessing the warmest sort of a meeting between the engaged
lovers. They sallied off in the moonlight, his arm around her waist.
No one but me noticed the young girl slipping down on the sand, and
laying her head on the log on which she had been sitting, and even I
pretended not to see that her handkerchief was in action.
"Hello, Mary!" said I, "I'll match you skipping stones. Look at this!"
With that I sent a beautiful flat one skimming along with nearly a dozen
hops in the brilliant track of the moon on the water. She did not pay
any attention to me at first, and I kept skipping away, just as if I
did not see her mopping her eyes. By-and-by a stroke worthy of myself
sent a pebble spinning through the ripples, and Mary's ready laugh rang
out beside me. Within twenty minutes of Dolly Martin's appearance on the
scene, "Mamie" was the center of the corn-roasters, and the gayest of
the gay. Belle told me she kept on that line of conduct during the whole
week that Miss Martin and her mother stayed at the hotel.
"It seemed to me that Dolly took a special pleasure in parading her
happiness before poor Mary, but Mary never showed the white feather."
"There's the making of a fine woman in her."
"That may be," said my wife. "But this last week she has been extremely
wearing on me. Having no particular man on the string, she has followed
me about like a spaniel, wanted to know what I'm reading, and has begun
a book the minute I'm through with it."
"I've seen her carrying 'The Coming Race' about with her lately, but I
notice that the bookmark always stays in the same place."
Mary became fond of solitary rambles back in the pine woods, intersected
by plank walks that made promenading possible. People liked to wander
through there in the evenings, when the camp-lights in the hollows lent
a mysterious charm, and on up to the big Knight Templar's Building,
erected on the highest point of the sandy bluff overlooking Lake
Michigan. Every night that prominent structure blazed with electric
lights, and sometimes a band played on the veranda; but the only
visitors were cottagers and guests from the hotel, who went up there to
walk about and enjoy the prospect.
Our city editor often surprises me with the depth and breadth of his
local information. For example, I opened the _Echo_ one day to be made
aware that "Miss Mamie Gemmell" had outstripped all the lady bicyclists
in town by making the distance between Lake City and Interlaken in
forty-seven minutes. It was also remarked that she was one of the most
graceful lady riders on the road.
I wonder how many generations a man must be removed from Scotland before
he becomes callous to the disposition of the family name. I own that I
squirmed inwardly, but with outward composure asked Belle where Mary got
the "bike."
"Watty's old one. He taught Mary to ride it, and then made her a present
of it, for he's set his heart on a new wheel."
"Confoundedly generous of him!"
"I'm glad you look at it that way. It is so seldom that he does give up
anything for anybody, I thought he ought to be encouraged, and I said he
should have a new bicycle with pneumatic tires and all the latest
improvements at Christmas, if you did not see fit to give it to him
sooner."
In August I took my annual day's fishing, which has come to be rather a
joke in the house, because, in spite of my elaborate preparations the
night before, and the unheard-of hour at which I rise in the morning, I
have never been known to catch anything worth bringing home.
This time my companion was a journalist from Chicago, an ardent young
fellow, who could not keep from "shop" even when off on his holidays,
and who had started a small weekly paper in which were to be recorded
the doings of a certain congress holding a summer session in our grove.
We rowed up the little lake on the edge of the lily-pads, fishing both
sides of it, but caught nothing except a sunfish or two. Then we lit our
pipes and talked.
"What an extremely clever young lady that adopted daughter of yours is.
I heard only the other day that she is not your own."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, sir. No one would believe it to talk to her, but she's got a
surprisingly bright mind for one so young. She can't be more than
seventeen, but her descriptions are good enough for one of the best
magazines, and she has evidently thought a lot on all the leading topics
of the day. Why, she's up in Hypnotism, Evolution, Theosophy--everything!"
"Bless my soul! How did you find all that out?"
Thereupon he fished from his pocket a couple of his tiresome little
publications.
"I asked her to write something for our paper, that's how I know. Want
to see?"
I do not set up to be a literary critic, but I guess I know my own
wife's style of composition when I encounter it. During the two years
that we were engaged she lived in Detroit and I in Indiana, and I missed
her letters so much after we were married that to this day she is in the
habit of letting me read those she writes to other people. I was not
going to give her away to that newspaper man, though, for the name "Mary
Gemmell" stared me in the face from the end of each article; but I
remonstrated with Belle when I reached home.
"How could I help it, Dave? There was the girl teasing me to write
something for her because this fellow had asked her to do it. She said I
could scribble down something just as easy as not, and then she could
copy it for him. Copy it! She took hours to do it, and I considered she
deserved all the praise she got for the articles."
"I wouldn't do it again, if I were you. It sets the girl sailing under
false colors."
"Poor Mary! Her one little accomplishment has been of no use to her
since that professional elocutionist came to the hotel, and I hated to
see her cast altogether into the shade, especially while Dolly Martin
was here."
Still there came another production from the pen of Miss Mary Gemmell.
"Really, Belle," said I, "this is carrying the joke too far."
"Don't you worry about it. Some of the old cats at the hotel began to
suspect that Mary hadn't written those things, and accused me to my face
of doing it myself, so I had to write an account of the picnic up the
little lake, because they all know I wasn't there at all!"
"Let this be the last, then."
"It shall, I assure you, for I am much displeased with Mary. Since Mrs.
Martin and Dolly left, she's been going it just as hard as ever with
Lincoln Todd. If you walk up to the Knight Templar's Building I'll
warrant you'll find them there promenading this very minute."
"No, I won't, because I passed them just a little while ago as I came
through the woods, sitting on a secluded bench, his arm round her waist
and her head on his shoulder."
"Didn't they see you?"
"I dare say, but I never let on I saw them. What's the use? I can't be
expected to leave the _Echo_ to my subs, and come down here to play
special policeman to Mary Mason. I should have thought Todd was more of
a gentleman."
"So should I, but I've spoken to him, quarreled with him indeed, so
that he doesn't come near the house, but I know that he and Mary meet
just the same. Thank Heaven! he will be married soon."
"Have you told Mary that?"
"Yes; but she laughs and shrugs her shoulders; evidently thinks she
knows more about Lincoln Todd's intentions than I do."
In the last week of August Mr. Todd went off for a few days "on
business," and then there came a dreadful morning when the announcement
of his marriage to Dolly Martin appeared in the _Echo_.
Mary would not believe her ears. She took the paper down to the beach,
and spelled out the notice word by word. Then she lay down on the sand
and bawled, kicking and squealing like a year-old infant when Belle
appealed to her self-respect.
"I could have spanked her well," said my wife. The worst of it was that
the whole hotel was "on to the racket," as Watty vulgarly expressed it,
and rather chuckled over Belle's mortification, instead of sympathizing
with her in the trying time she was having with her "adopted daughter."
Our grief, as a family, was not unbearable when the time came in
September for Mary Mason to go back to the convent.
CHAPTER IV.
THE self-assertive sleigh-bells suddenly ceased their tinkling, and the
long covered van, with its four horses, drew up in front of our "House
of Many Gables," in Lake City. Watty, then a tall lad of eighteen,
over-coated, fur-capped, and gloved, went quickly out, banging the front
door after him, while his younger brothers and sisters made holes with
their breath through the frost on the window panes, to watch his
departure with the hilarious load of young folks.
"Why aint you goin', Mame?" asked Joe, our smallest son, of the girl
spending her Christmas holidays with us.
"Wasn't asked," she replied defiantly. "An' what's more, I don't care to
go anywheres, neither, if the girls don't act better to me than they
done at that party the other night."
Belle raised her head from the Treasurer's book of the House of Refuge.
"Perhaps you weren't nice to them, Mary?"
"Yes, I was too. I smiled whenever one of them looked at me, but they
all turned their heads as if they'd never seen me before."
My wife sighed as she bent over her book again. If the difficulty of
befriending Mary rested only with outsiders it might have been patiently
borne, but there was mother, to whom the girl's presence in the house
was a constant grievance.
I had been able to buy a quiet horse and a Mikado cutter for Belle when
the snow came, but she had no pleasure out of them during the vacation.
"I'm going to drive downtown, mother," I heard her say one morning.
"Would you like to go?"
"Is Mary gaun?"
"I thought of taking her."
"Then I'll no' gang. I wadna like to crood Mary."
"Dear mother, there's plenty of room."
"Ay, ay, but ye ken Mary doesna like tae sit wi' her back tae the
horse."
That sort of thing was always happening. One day the old lady came home
from a round of visits, much perturbed in mind and body. The sandy hair
I inherited, and have largely lost, does not show the gray with which it
is mixed, and so light and wiry is she one finds it difficult to
remember my mother's seventy years. She is a small woman, but her
personality is sufficiently large for the ripples to be felt throughout
the household when its surface is disturbed.
"What dae ye think I've been hearin'?" she cried, finding me alone in
the nursery on the sofa, and helpless in her hands.
"I can't imagine, mother. You generally have something spicy to tell us
after you've been calling on the MacTavishes."
"Dae ye ken 'at yon hizzy ye've ta'en intill yer hoose ca's hersel' Mary
_Gemmell_?"
"Oh, well, what's in a name?"
"I wonner tae hear ye, Davvit! What wad yer faither hae thocht aboot it,
or yer gran'faither? Gie'n the femly name, that's come doon unspotted
frae ae generation till anither, tae a funnlin' aff the streets! Ou, ay!
I micht 'a' kent what wad happen when I h'ard tell o' ye bein' merrit
till an Amerrican."
"Hold up there, mother. You're just twenty years too late in raking up
that story. If it suits me and Belle to have that girl called 'Mary
Gemmell,' Mary Gemmell she shall be, if it turns all Scotland head over
heels into the North Sea."
So seldom do I break out that an eruption of mine never fails to clear
the air of an unwelcome topic.
Our boys have grown up on a sort of an "every-man-for himself"
principle, and when it came to a fight for the favorite corner of the
sofa, the favorite game, or picture-book, "Mamie" was in the thick of it
every time.
"What else can you expect?" said I to Belle, consolingly. "She's been
fighting the world on her own account ever since she can remember, and
our house represents to her only a change of battle ground."
"I think her father must have been a gentleman."
"He certainly had one gentlemanly peculiarity."
"Don't be a brute, Dave. I mean that Mary's ancestors must have been
wealthy people, she has such a taste for luxury."
"That doesn't follow. I'm sure you've seen plenty of poor folks go
without the necessaries of life in order to get the luxuries."
"She is shiftless enough. To-day I took her into a store to buy her some
stockings, and she refused to have any but the very best quality. 'The
second best are what I get for myself, Mary,' said I; 'they wear much
longer than the others.' 'I don't care,' she said. 'If I can't have the
best, I don't want any.' 'Then do without,' said I, and we left the
place. The fun of it is that she won't even darn her old ones! I can't
always be so firm with her. I'm amazed at myself sometimes, the things
she gets out of me. What do you suppose she wants now?"
I gave a warning cough to signify that my mother had come into the
nursery, but Belle gazed straight ahead into the wood fire, and seesawed
in the rattan rocker--a tuneful symphony in a mauve tea-gown.
"A cornet, if you please."
"A cornet!" said I. "Whatever put that into her head?"
"I can't tell. She says the music professor at the convent can teach her
to play it, and she thinks if she learned she might be able to lead the
singing in a church with one."
"Perhaps somebody played the cornet in that concert company she was
with."
"Na, na. It's nearer hame than that," mother struck in. "She has a
notion o' ane o' thae cratur's 'at pl'y at the Opera Hoose. I hae seen
her gang by the window wi' him, an' spiered at Watty wha he was."
"I don't like Wat's telling tales of Mary."
"He dinna, Davvit, till I pit it tae him. He canna bear the tawpie, and
doesna like to hae her p'inted oot as his sister. A body canna blame the
laddie. It's a heap better than his fa'in' in luv wi' her."
"Perhaps it is," groaned Isabel.
When mother had gone to bed my wife said:
"Mrs. Wade has been here to-day to ask Watty and Mary to a young
people's dance on Friday night."
"What did you say?"
"I told her I wasn't going to dress that girl up and send her out to
parties to be snubbed and slighted by the other girls, as she was at the
dancing school ball. She said that if I let Mary go she'd see that she
had a good time. For her part, she admired the way I'd stuck up for the
girl in spite of everything; and if she was good enough to live with us
as a daughter, it would surely not contaminate anybody else to meet her
out of an evening."
Saturday night I inquired of Belle how Mary got on at the party.
"First rate. Mrs. Wade met her at the door of the drawing room and
kissed her. 'How you've grown, Mary!' said she, and then she took her
round and introduced her to all the girls in the room, including some of
those who've been cutting her right and left, as well as to every boy
she didn't know already. Of course she danced every dance, and had the
best time going."
"And, of course, she put it all down to her own superior attractions?"
"Just exactly. This morning she didn't want to help me make the beds!"
Mary's Christmas present had been a beautiful silver-plated cornet, and
of course she must learn to play it when she went back to the convent.
Word came shortly that the music master employed there could not
undertake to teach her to play the instrument, but that a "professor"
could be secured to go out from Detroit twice a week--if desired. We
seemed to be in for it, so the lessons were desired, and we comforted
ourselves with the assurance that if Mary did not turn out to be a
tiptop reciter she would surely prove a tiptop cornet player. Her
unusual talent would justify my wife in her unusual step, and the
society of Lake City would forgive her for attempting to thrust the girl
into its midst as an equal. Many of our acquaintances seemed to take
mother's view of the case,--"Matter out of place becomes _dirrt_!"--and
Belle was put on her mettle to convince the majority that she had done
exactly the right thing in thus disclassing people. Disclassing
people? In a free republic!
We received glowing accounts of the cornet lessons.
"Dear girl!" said Belle enthusiastically. "She must have the real
artistic temperament to be so determined to excel in one or other of the
arts."
"She's dramatic, anyway," said I, and I was confirmed in my opinion
along in the spring, when the cornet, and aught else, appeared to have
palled upon the versatile Mary. She wrote that she had serious thoughts
of taking the veil.
"Bah!" said I; "what's she after now? She wants to scare us into
something."
Belle wrote privately to the Lady Superior, telling her that if she
considered Mary would be a desirable acquisition to their ranks she had
no sort of objection to her joining them.
The good sister replied that Miss Gemmell had not a grain of the stuff
of which nuns are made, that her leanings were all in a worldly
direction.
"No hope in that quarter!" laughed I, but Belle chided me for making fun
of Mary in her absence.
When "Miss Mamie Gemmell" joined us at Interlaken for the summer her
convent manners lasted for about two weeks, and then gave place to those
of a spoiled and pampered daughter of the house.
We in America are accustomed to disrespectfulness and waywardness in our
own children, but to notice the same attitude in a little nobody from
nowhere we have taken in out of charity, makes a man or woman stand
aghast.
"I don't believe she cares a straw for me personally," Belle would say
sometimes, "but I must confess I like her better than the cringing,
fawning variety. She's outspoken in her impertinent demands."
* * * * *
After a very hot week in July I joyfully took the train on Saturday
afternoon for the five miles' ride to Interlaken, and went to sleep that
night with my ears full of the sound of waves and pine trees; my heart
filled with the satisfaction of knowing that I had a whole round day
ahead of me--a sunrise and a sunset at either end.
I omitted the sunrise part of the programme, but between ten and eleven
I was ready for a walk down the pier to watch the bathers. American
women are seldom plump enough to stand the undress uniform of a bathing
costume. They run to extremes--become very stout indeed, or else very
thin, but in girlhood the tendency is to over-slimness.
I was thinking what a contrast our summer girls would present to a
group of Scotch lasses, though, to be sure, I was never privileged to
see any of the latter in bathing-dress, when a well-rounded apparition
in sky blue luster and no bathing cap emerged from one of the disrobing
houses. This damsel betook herself boldly to the pier, instead of
splashing around the edge of the sand as the others were doing, and,
coming near the end, took a run and then a beautiful header into the
deep blue water.
She had passed me too quickly to be recognized, but as her face appeared
above the surface I saw it belonged to no other than our adopted
daughter, for as such, at the moment, was I pleased to own her. She
shook the water out of her ears, gave her knob of hair an extra twist,
brushed back the ringlets that threatened her eyes, and looked as much
at home as if there were eighteen feet of land, instead of eighteen feet
of water below her.
There were several young men swimming about at the end of the wharf, and
they declared with gusto that a springboard must be erected for "Miss
Gemmell" at once. I declined to assist in breaking the Sabbath over any
such pranks, but a couple of scantily clad, dripping youths arose from
the deep and succeeded in loosening a heavy three-inch plank from the
flooring of the wharf. This was projected well out over the water, and
the fair Mary was induced to ascend and exhibit therefrom. I did not
approve at all, but thought it my duty to remain as chaperon until Belle
and another lady, whom I perceived walking leisurely out the pier,
should arrive.
The young men sprang back into the water to be on the reception
committee, and Mary teetered on the far end of the plank. There was
heard a loud, suggestive _crack_, and she leaped into space in a most
graceful semicircle before touching the water; but that awful board, the
instant her weight was removed, rose straight up in the air, nearly
knocked me off the dock, and with a groan slid through the opening
whence it had been raised, into the depths below.
Belle rushed to my rescue, while the other woman stood still and
shrieked.
"Nobody hurt!" called out from the water a nice-looking lad who was
swimming beside Mary, and apparently daring her to further exploits.
"Who is the young man?" I asked my wife, being ready to change the
subject from my own narrow escape.
"You mean the one with the Burne Jones head and the sleepy blue eyes
that's round with Mary all the time? His name's Flaker, and he's a
medical student from Chicago. That's all I know about him." But she was
destined to hear more, as we sat on the hotel veranda that night, from
two old ladies inside the open window and closed blind.
"Isn't it scandalous," said one, "the way Mrs. Gemmell tries to shove
that girl forward on every occasion?"
"Yes," said the other. "The old friendship between her and Mrs. Martin
is all broken up since she tried so hard to get Lincoln Todd entangled
with her last summer, and now she's doing her best to catch young
Flaker."
"I don't believe he has any idea who the girl is, or rather who she is
not."
"No, indeed, and his people would be in a great state if they knew the
sort of company he was keeping."
"Who are they?"
"Don't you know? His father is Dr. Flaker, who has that fine mansion on
the Grand Boulevard, and his mother belongs to one of the best New York
families. They're all as proud as Lucifer."
"I think it is time we went home, David. Listeners never hear any good
of themselves," said Belle, loudly enough to arrest the attention of the
two dames.
Walking over the dried-up moonlit grass to our cottage, I threatened to
go back and give them a piece of my mind, but my wife said:
"Maybe I did need a slight reminder. I haven't paid much attention to
Mary's goings-on this summer. I must talk to Mr. Flaker the first
chance."
The opportunity came before the Evening was over, while I was in my pet
hammock round the corner of the cottage, and Belle in a rocking-chair at
the front.
"Good-evening, Mr. Flaker," I heard her say. "I don't think you've ever
seen the inside of our cottage. Won't you step in for a moment, now that
it is lighted up?"
The moment satisfied him, for he speedily returned to the veranda.
"I never saw such a beautiful swimmer as Miss Gemmell," said the mannish
voice, and Belle replied impressively:
"I believe you are not aware, Mr. Flaker, that the young lady you call
Miss Gemmell is not my own daughter."
"Your stepchild is she, or your husband's niece?"
"Neither. She is no relation at all--just a poor girl whom I have taken
up to educate. She can barely read or write. I felt that I ought to tell
you this because you have been paying her a good deal of attention."
"Indeed, Mrs. Gemmell, I admire Miss Gemmell very much; but I assure
you I never regarded her as anything else than a pleasant summer
acquaintance."
And Mary was dropped forthwith.
CHAPTER V.
THE winter of 1892-93 Mary spent at home with us. Her first expressed
wish, when the family returned from Interlaken, was to be confirmed, and
the Rev. Mr. Armstrong of the church we do not attend was duly notified.
"He says I must be christened first," said Mary. "Would you mind if he
called me 'Mary Gemmell'? There aint any name that I've a right to, and
I don't want to be called 'Mason,' because that's the name of the woman
that abused me when I was little. I'd rather have yours."
She was such a pathetic-looking young person, standing there before
Belle in her fresh and innocent loveliness, that my wife had not the
heart to refuse her anything.
When I came home that same evening there was a _tableau vivant_ in front
of the parlor fire. Dressed in white, Mary sat on a low stool at the
feet of the Rev. Walter Armstrong, her hands clasped in her lap, gazing
up into the clean-shaven clerical face, with that which passed for her
soul in her eyes. In spite of his stiff round collar and long black coat
the rector is a young man, and I saw that he was impressed.
"You understand, do you, Mary," he said tenderly, "that when you are
received into the Church you have God for your Father and Christ for
your Elder Brother?"
"Yes, I understand, Mr. Armstrong," replied the girl earnestly. "And
that's just what I always wanted--was to have _'folks.'_"
I retired in haste to the dining room, where Isabel was brimming over
with a new scheme.
"I've always found the housekeeping a drag, and it becomes more so every
year as my outlook broadens. I want to keep up to the times, but I never
have any leisure for reading, and our four eldest being boys, there
seemed to be no hope for years of having any one to relieve me."
"Mary's a godsend," said I.
"I wish you really thought that, as I do. She's quick and adaptable, and
I'm going to hand over to her a weekly allowance and let her keep the
house on it."
"What about her accomplishments--the elocution and the cornet?"
"They can stand in the meantime. Do you know, Davie," hesitatingly, "I'm
beginning to be afraid she hasn't a good ear for music."
"Why?"
"The other night when the Mortons were in she sat and talked to Frank
Wade the whole time Eva was playing."
"That's nothing. Everyone else did the same."
"But for a girl who is trying to pose as a cornet player, who thinks she
might earn her living leading a church choir with one, it's bad policy,
to say the least of it."
"Earn her living! I asked Joe Mitchell, when he was listening to her
practicing out in the summer-house, what he thought of her playing, and
he said she'd better keep to a penny whistle."
"Very rude of him!"
"No, it wasn't. I asked him point blank if I should be justified in
paying for the more lessons she wants, and he said decidedly I should
not."
"Well," said Belle wearily, "we'll try the housekeeping. That's a
woman's true vocation, according to orthodox ideas. I shouldn't have set
my heart on Mary turning out to be anything extraordinary. If she'll
only be kind of half decent, and help me out with the housework, I'll be
more than satisfied."
The sense of power gave new brightness to Mary's fair face, and her step
through the house was of the lightest during the next week or two, but
the boys rebelled in turn.
"_Mam_ma! Mary's locked the pantry. Must we go to her for the key
whenever we want anything?"
"I call it a mean shame!" from Joe.
"What were you doing?"
"We didn't do nothin', on'y eat up the pie she meant for dessert. I'm
sure Margaret wouldn't mind makin' another."
"Mary's perfectly right, boys; I've indulged you too much."
Then it was Watty who complained:
"Mary says she won't have us mussing up the parlor after she's tidied
it, and that we've got to change our boots when we come into the house."
Or Chrissie:
"Mary says I'm big enough now to keep my own room in order, and she aint
going to do it any more. She's wors'en grandma!"
To their grandma did they go with their woes when they found their
mother so unaccountably obdurate, but they did not get much comfort
there. Detest Mary as she might, my poor mother is always loyal to the
powers that be, and she told the children:
"Yer mither kens fine what she's aboot, an' ye needna fash yer heids tae
come cryin' tae me."
She even went so far as to back Mary up in her suggestion that the boys
should eat what was set before them, asking no questions.
"That's the w'y yer faither was brocht up. If he didna finish his
parritch in the mornin', they were warmed up for him again at nicht. Ye
tak' but a spinfu' 'at ye could hardly ca' parritch, for they're jist
puzhioned wi' sugar."
Mary was not naturally fond of children, and, having entered our family
full-grown, she found it hard to put up with the freaks of our six,
there being no foundation of sisterly love upon which to build
toleration.
Belle's housekeeping had always been lavish. She ordered her groceries
wholesale, and when they were done never inquired what had become of
them.
"I decline to go into details--life is too short! I don't know where my
patience ends and my laziness begins, but I'd rather be cheated than
lock things up, or try to keep track of what Margaret wastes. She's not
an ideal 'general,' but it's only one in a hundred that would stand the
children pottering about in the kitchen so much."
After the time-worn custom of new brooms, Mary made a bold attempt to
record each item of expenditure, and ordered what she wanted from day to
day; but there was no calculating the appetites of four growing boys,
especially when, as Mary affirmed, they sometimes over-ate themselves
just to spite her.
"We're living from hand to mouth, _pa_pa," they would say, when an
unwonted scarcity occurred.
Truth to tell, I began to sympathize with my revolting sons when I
brought an old friend home with me to dinner one day, and went to
announce the fact to our "housekeeper."
"I just wish that Bob Mansell would quit coming here so much when he's
not expected. There's only enough pudding for ourselves."
"Mary," said I sternly, "Mr. Mansell's been coming to this house before
you were here, and he'll keep on coming after you're gone, if you're not
careful."
It was the first time I had ever spoken sharply to her, and I flattered
myself that I had done some good, though she held her head high and left
the room.
Belle came to the conclusion that the housekeeping scheme did not work
smoothly, and she resumed the reins of government. Mary was still
supposed to do the work of a second maid, but it was evident that her
heart was not in it.
"What does Mary want now?" I asked my wife when she took her usual seat
beside me, as I lay on the sofa with my pipe.
"She thinks she'd like to go to the Boston School of Oratory to prepare
herself to be a public reader."
"Is it necessary that she should be before the public in one way or
another?"
"She doesn't seem to be much of a success in private life."
"In that respect she's no worse than half the girls in town. None of
them dote on housework."
"But, considering that this girl has no earthly claim on us, you'd think
she might be different."
"Don't be angry, Belle, at my saying so, but you've only yourself to
thank for that. You've been most anxious that Mary should be just like
one of ourselves--should not feel that she was accepting charity, and
you've succeeded only too well. The girl takes everything you do for her
as her right, and asks for more."
"Well, what about Boston?"
"I think it would be arrant folly to send her there. How do we know she
has any more talent for elocution than for music?"
"She has the desire to learn. I suppose that's a sign of the ability."
"She has an intense desire for admiration, that's about the size of it.
To be the center of all eyes, giving a recitation in a drawing room,
pleases her down to the ground, but it doesn't follow that she would be
a success professionally."
"I dare say we've spent about as much on her education as you care to do
just now."
"We have indeed!"
My wife and I are much in demand at all the social functions of our
town, and, though I accompany her under protest, I confess that, once
the affair is in full swing, I enjoy as much as anybody a hand at
"Pedro" or a dance.
The houses of our city are mostly wooden and mostly new, for an annual
conflagration keeps building brisk. Hardwood floors and mantels are the
order of the day, and if some of our lumbermen and their wives have not
a command of English grammar in keeping with their horses, their
sealskins, and their diamonds, they have a heartier than an English
welcome--except, of course, for guests of such questionable antecedents
as our Mary.
Mrs. David Gemmell is a bright and witty woman, though I say it, who
should not. But why should I not? She did not inherit her wits from me.
Mrs. David Gemmell let the leading ladies of the town understand that
unless Mary was invited to everything that was going on, we stayed away
ourselves. Lake City society could not proceed without Isabel, so the
"white elephant" was received in her train, and truly she did us credit
in company, if nowhere else. She was always stylishly dressed, and her
dancing was a joy forever. We did not marvel when Will Axworthy, the
most eligible young man about, took it into his head to introduce the
german to our benighted citizens, that he chose Mary for his partner to
lead it with him. She had private lessons from himself, as well as from
the dancing master, and proud and happy were Belle and I to sit at the
side of the ballroom and watch her going through the figures and
bestowing her favors with all the grace and dignity of one of the four
hundred.
"She shall go to Boston to-morrow, if she wants to," said I, but this
time Belle demurred.
"I think she seems likely to have a good time here this winter, and we
may as well let her have her fling."
The prophecy was fulfilled. In spite of the supreme jealousy of the
other girls, who could not say mean enough things about her, Mary
became quite the rage with the young men.
One Sunday afternoon Will Axworthy called. He is short and broad, has
reddish hair and a chronic blush hardly to be looked for in the Ward
McAllister of Lake City. Too nervously did he plant himself in my frisky
spring rocker, and therefore involuntarily did he present the soles of
his boots to the assembled family, while his head bumped the wall, to
the huge delight of our boys!
Undaunted by that inauspicious beginning, he came again the next Sunday,
smoked my best cigars, and talked lumber, the one subject upon which he
is posted, for he was the manager of a mill here.
He stayed to supper that evening and went with Mary to church afterward.
Then he called for her with a cutter the first bright day, and took her
sleigh riding. The embryo wrinkle left Belle's forehead.
"Do you really think he means anything?" said she.
"Don't be too sanguine about it. Nowadays, young men pay a girl a great
deal of attention with nothing in their heads but a good time."
"Still, Axworthy's no boy. He's thirty if he's a day, and he has a good
salary, and can afford to marry whenever the mood takes him."
"Let us hope and pray that it may take him soon!"
"Amen!" said Belle solemnly.
The daily friction with her _protégée_ was becoming too much for the
good-natured patience even of my better half. Acting upon generous
impulses is all very fine, but they need to be backed up by a large
amount of endurance and tolerance if the results are to be successfully
dealt with.
From my vantage-ground on the nursery sofa, behind my screen of
newspaper, I frequently hear more than is suspected by the family.
"Mary, you're not going to the rink to-night!" in Belle's most imploring
tone.
"Yes, mawm, I am. Lend me your wrench, Watty."
"Mary, I positively forbid you to go to the rink!"
"Well, I do think that's just too mean for anything. Every girl in town
goes."
"Every girl in town doesn't skate with barber, or bandsman, or anybody
who comes along, as you do."
"Watty's been telling!"
"Watty hasn't been telling!" broke in our eldest son in indignant
protest, which he further emphasized by going out and banging the door
after him.
"And, Mary," Belle continued, "are you engaged to Mr. Axworthy?"
"No!" sullenly.
"Then if I were you I wouldn't let him kiss me when he says
'Good-night' at the door after bringing you home from a party."
"You're old-fashioned. All the girls do it!"
"No _lady_ would permit a man to take such a liberty. You're spoiling
your chances with Mr. Axworthy, I can tell you. I never knew a man yet
that would bind himself to a girl when he could have all the privileges
of an engaged man, and none of the responsibilities."
"I don't care anything at all about him. I don't want to marry him. He's
just giving me a good time."
A good time he undoubtedly did give her throughout the winter. To the
smartest balls and parties he was her escort, and she always wore the
roses he never neglected to send. Every Sunday about dusk he would come
round to our house, and, martyrs to a good cause, Isabel, mother, and I
vacated the cozy parlor with its easy chairs and blazing fire for the
nursery--always uproarious with children on that day.
"I wonder what those two find to talk about," speculated Belle. "Mary
has no conversation at all, and Axworthy hasn't much more."
"Perhaps he takes it out in looking at her. By the way, Belle, when are
you going to appear in the new dress I gave you that fifty dollars to
buy? I am quite tired of the mauve tea gown."
My wife glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Grandma was out of
hearing.
"The truth is, Dave, I thought I must wait to see how much of it I had
left after getting Mary rigged up for the Robinsons' dance. She goes out
so often that she needs a change of evening dress."
"Did she ask for it?"
"Not directly, but she remarked that she didn't see what I wanted with
a new black silk, that I had plenty of clothes, and that when she was my
age she didn't think she'd bother about what she had to wear."
I sprang up from the sofa, prepared to shove Mary out of the house, neck
and crop, but Belle's outburst of laughter calmed me.
"Her cheek is so great that it passes from the ridiculous to the
sublime!"
"Why do you stand it, Belle? You wouldn't from anybody else."
"I can't very well go back on her at this stage, and send her about her
business. She's shrewd enough to know that."
"People would laugh; that's so!"
"Besides, if she marries Axworthy, she'll be our social equal here in
this town, and it must never be in her power to say that we did not
treat her well."
"What is the prospect with Axworthy?"
"Good, I think. He is thoroughly kind to her, and he has given me plenty
of hints about the state of his affections, hopes by another winter that
Mary will have somebody else to look after her, and so on. He is always
most particular in seeing that she is well wrapped up, and that is
highly necessary, for she is extremely careless about how she goes out.
In spite of a certain amount of physical dash, she isn't a bit strong;
has no staying power."
"It won't be much fun for Axworthy to be saddled with a delicate wife."
"Well, I guess he needs some discipline, just as much as I do. I've had
my share out of Miss Mary for the last three years, and I am quite
willing to let somebody else have a turn. He walks into this thing with
his eyes open. He knows her history."
"But does he know her disposition?"
"Let him find that out--if he can. Most mothers don't think it necessary
to tell their daughters' suitors how the girls get on with them in the
house."
"You say she has no constitution. Supposing he does marry her, how about
the possible children? What have they done that they should have Mary
for a mother?"
"That's exactly the right way to put it--what have they done? We don't
know, but they must have gone far astray last time, if they are given
such a bad start this incarnation."
Will Axworthy left town in the spring. Lumber was done in our part of
Michigan and he had to follow it further south. He and Mary
corresponded, for I caught Belle in the act of correcting one of her
letters.
"Do you think that's quite fair to Axworthy? If they become engaged, the
first unedited letter he gets from Mary will be considerable of a
surprise to him."
"Don't you bother your old head, Dave! I'm running this thing! He's
arranging to meet us in Chicago, and hopes to have the pleasure of
showing Mary the Columbian Exhibition. Something is sure to happen while
we're there!"
CHAPTER VI.
ALL winter we had been talking about the Fair, reading up about the
Fair, making plans for the Fair; and Belle declared that even if she
never saw the Fair she would be glad it had been, on account of the
amount of preparatory information she had laid up.
We did get off at last in the end of June, the whole of us, including
Mary, of course--my first experience of traveling in her company. We
went to Chicago by boat,--a night's crossing,--and a rare time I had
securing berths for the family in the overcrowded propeller. I was
thankful for an "extension," a sort of shell run out between two
staterooms and partitioned off by curtains and poles. The boys had to
sleep on sofas, floor, anywhere, which to them was but the beginning of
the fun.
The first of my Herculean labors at an end, I was enjoying my smoke aft
in the cool of the evening, when Belle came back to me, her brow drawn
up into what I had begun to call the "Mary wrinkle."
"David, I'm afraid you'll have to talk to that girl. She's sitting up in
the bow there flirting with one of the waiters, and though I've sent
Watty twice after her, she won't stir."
As majestically as my five feet four would permit, I moved to the front
of the boat.
"Mary, Mrs. Gemmell wants you right away."
She took time to exchange a laughing farewell with the good-looking
waiter, and explained to me _en route_:
"That's Bill Moreland. I knew him quite well in Lake City. I've met him
at balls."
In the morning before we reached Chicago, she managed to get in a long
confabulation with another waiter, whom I am sure she had never met in
Lake City, nor anywhere else.
"See here, Mary! If this is the way you're going to behave, you go
straight back to Lake City on that boat, and don't see one bit of the
Fair."
Her manners were mended till we were actually in Jackson Park, but then:
"She's a philanthropist, Belle, a lover of _man_kind--Columbian Guard,
Gospel Charioteer, Turk in the bazaar. The creed or the color doesn't
matter so long as he calls himself a man."
I am afraid I was cross, for it did not take one day to realize what an
undertaking it was going to be to keep track of my family, who had never
before seemed too numerous. Daily at 10 A. M., in the Michigan Building,
did I hand over to Will Axworthy the most troublesome of the lot, and
daily did I wish he would keep her for better or worse.
On the Fourth of July cannonading began at daybreak, and for once I
sympathized in my mother's objection to the license accorded to young
Americans. They set off firecrackers, not by the bunch but by the
bushel; kerosene and dynamite were their ambrosia and nectar. What with
fighting for lunch in overcrowded restaurants, and then retaliating by
stealing chairs out of the same, hunting through the various booths in
the Midway to collect my three younger sons when it was time to send
them home, and rescuing my two little girls from an over-supply of ice
cream sodas and chocolate drops, I did not specially enjoy the glorious
Fourth.
Toward evening there was not a foot of Fair ground undecorated by a
banana skin, a crust of bread, or a flying paper. Belle considered the
signs "Keep off the Grass" quite superfluous, and pulling one up by the
roots she sat down on it, thereby keeping the letter, if not the spirit
of the law.
"Now, Dave," said she, "the family are all safe off the grounds, and you
can go and get a gondola to come and take us for a sail before dark.
Everybody is moving toward the lake front to wait for the fireworks, and
the lagoons are not so crowded as they were. Let's pretend we're on our
honeymoon."
So seldom does Belle wax sentimental over me, I hailed her proposition
with outward indifference but inward joy. Securing a gondola to
ourselves, in it we were gently swayed through canal and under bridge in
the mystical evening light.
The distant rumble of a train on the Intramural, or a quack from a
sleepy duck among the rushes, alone broke the stillness.
"This is where I belong!" exclaimed Belle. "I've seen before those
Eastern-looking towers and minarets, with the sunset glow on the cloud
masses behind them. Look! there's a Turk and a Hindoo crossing the
bridge. This is the region, this the soil, the clime. I always knew I
wasn't meant for Western America."
"You must have been very naughty _last time_ to have been raised in
Michigan this trip. Still this is only Chicago!"
"It's not Chicago! It's the world! Listen to that now--the music of the
spheres!"
We approached another gondola that had withdrawn itself from the center
of the channel close in to a small island. The man at the stern was
doing nothing very picturesquely, but the man at the bow, a swarthy
Venetian, was pouring out his soul in an aria from "Cavalleria
Rusticana." His voice might not have passed muster at Covent Garden, but
in the unique stage setting, which included a group of eager listeners
on abridge behind him, one could forgive a break on a high note or two.
The singer threw himself into the spirit of the composition, cast his
eyes upward with hand on his heart, and bent them to earth again for the
approval of his passengers. There were but two, a young man and a young
lady, and to the latter was the hero in costume directing his amorous
glances.
"There's romance for you!" said I to Belle, who is notoriously on the
lookout for it. I directed our gondolier to draw nearer to his
enamoured compatriot. My wife replied uneasily:
"I don't know the man, or boy, for that's all he is, but if that isn't
Mary's hat----"
"Mary! Phew! What's become of Axworthy?"
As we approached the comfortable-looking pair, Mary bowed to us
smilingly, and called the attention of her companion to her "father and
mother"--darn her impudence!
The boat ride was spoiled for Belle and me, our white elephant having
arisen to haunt us once more. We landed and walked over to the lake
front, where the whole slope was packed with people waiting for the
fireworks to begin.
Someone started to sing "Way Down upon the Swanee Ribber," and everybody
joined in. "Nearer, my God, to Thee" was also most impressive from the
vast impromptu chorus. In the foreground Lake Michigan lay darkly
expectant, with a large black cloud upon its horizon, though the stars
shone overhead. A half-circle of boats extended from the long Exhibition
Wharf on the right, round to the warship _Illinois_ on the left, and
from the latter a search light, an omnipresent eye, swept the crowd with
rapidly veering glance, till it concentrated its gaze on the dark
balloon which rose so mysteriously from the water. Suddenly from this
balloon was suspended the Stars and Stripes in colored lights. The crowd
cheered like mad, the boats whistled, and sent up rockets galore.
On went the programme. Bombs tested the strength of our wearied
ear-drums, fiery snakes sizzled through the air, big wheels spurted
brilliant marvels, and along the very edge of the lake, to the great
discomfort of the front rows of the stalls, a line of combustibles
behaved like gigantic footlights on a spree.
"David, who do you suppose that was with Mary?"
I had been up in the air with George Washington, surrounded by "First in
War, First in Peace, etc.," in letters of fire, and I was unwillingly
recalled to earth.
"Haven't the remotest idea. Hope she hasn't given Axworthy the slip."
"I'm only hoping that he has not given her the slip. I'd never have
brought her to the Fair if he hadn't agreed to look after her."
At that moment there was a surging of the mighty crowd, caused by a band
of college students pushing their way through, shoulder to shoulder,
singing one of their rousing ditties. Some people who had been standing
on their hired rolling chairs had narrow escapes from being flung upon
the shoulders of those in front. Some did not escape--Mary for
instance, who landed between us as if shot from a catapult.
"I knew I was going to fall, so I just jumped to where I seen you two,"
said she, with her customary calmness, and then she turned to assure her
escort of the gondola, who was anxiously elbowing his way to her, that
she was entirely unhurt.
Blushing prettily, she introduced the lad as "Mr. Tom Axworthy--cousin
of the Mr. Axworthy you know."
Mr. Tom talked to Mrs. Gemmell with the ease and assurance of ninety
rather than nineteen, while I exchanged a few words aside with the
maiden:
"Where is the Mr. Axworthy that we know?"
"He had some business to do in town to-night, so he left me in charge of
this cousin of his--just a lovely fellow!"
"Humph! Introduced you to any more of his relations?"
"Oh, yes--an uncle; quite an old bachelor, but lovely too!"
"And I suppose you've been round with the uncle as well."
"Not very much. He was to have taken me up in the balloon yesterday, but
the cyclone burst it."
"We're going home now, and I think you'd better say 'Good-night' to Mr.
Tom Axworthy and come with us."
After waiting two hours and a half for standing room on a suburban
train, we reached the hotel at an early hour on July the 5th, dusty,
smoke-stained, and powder-scented, like veterans from a field of battle.
That was not by any means the last of Mr. Tom Axworthy. During the
remainder of our stay in Chicago it was he quite as frequently as his
more mature and eligible cousin who exchanged a lingering farewell with
Mary at the ladies' entrance to our hotel, and a great fear arose in the
heart of Belle that the young woman was fooling away her time with this
impecunious boy, instead of making the most of her opportunities to come
to a satisfactory understanding with his cousin. Every morning did she
gaze pathetically into my face, saying:
"I do hope Axworthy will propose to-day!" and once she added:
"I cannot face another winter in the same house with that girl and your
mother. Grandma has taken it into her head that Mary is my pet lamb, the
idol of my heart, for whom she, and you too, have been set aside. She
doesn't see that it worries me half to death to have Mary tagging round
after me the whole time, and overrunning the house with her beaux.
Neither of our own girls is old enough yet, thank goodness, to consider
herself my companion and equal, to wear my gloves, my boots, my best
hairpins, and to use my favorite perfume; to come and plant herself down
beside me whenever I'm talking confidentially to anyone, to be
determined to have her finger into every pie, to know what I'm reading
or thinking about. She'll insist on knowing my dreams next!"
"Perhaps you mesmerize her."
"If I did, I'd make her keep away from me! I could stand it all better
if I thought she really cared a straw for me, but I have the feeling
that she regards me merely as a basis for supplies."
"We can only trust, then, that the basis may be speedily transferred to
Axworthy!"
On our return from the World's Fair, the family stopped off at
Interlaken, but I had to go on into town to the _Echo_ office. To my
surprise, Mary joined me at my solitary dinner at the "House of the
Seven Gables," where Margaret, as usual, was in charge, and she remained
there for the rest of the week.
"Where's Mary?" was Belle's greeting, when I joined her on Saturday.
"She's in town."
"Why didn't you bring her out with you?"
"Didn't know you wanted her. She said she'd like to stay in Lake City
over Sunday, to take the Communion."
"Take the Communion indeed! She wants to be left there alone with
Margaret, so that she'll have a chance to flirt with every man in town.
I thought you had more sense, David."
I pulled my soft felt hat further over my diminished head.
"Did she get any letters?"
"One or two."
"Wretch! I told her to come out here with you to-night for certain."
Monday morning, mother, who had been spending the summer with my married
sister in Lake City, came out to stay for a week with us at Interlaken.
She could hardly wait till the youngsters were out of hearing to pour
her story into my ears. I had to take back to town the train by which
she had come out, but she made the most of her time.
"There's been great doin's in yer hoose in yer absence. Marg'et 's been
tellin' yer sister's servant a' aboot Mary's luv affairs. Mary tell't
her 'at Eesabelle bade her write Willum Axworthy an' spier his
intentions; that if she didna, Mrs. Davvit said she'd d'it hersel'. An'
a' the time she's correspondin' wi' a yunger ane, an Axworthy tae, 'at
she tells Marg'et she likes a hape better. Yer sister's sair affronted
to think o' the w'y the fem'ly name's bein' cairted thro' the mire."
Belle came out on the veranda, her broad hat in her hand, ready to walk
down to the train with me.
"So Axworthy didn't propose at the Fair?" said I, when we were out of
earshot of the cottage.
"No; and I think it's a crying shame, too, after the way he appropriated
the girl all last winter, and in Chicago too."
"A great relief to you! Well, I guess the whole town knows by this time
that you made Mary write and ask his intentions."
"This is too much! Has your mother----"
"Mary's been making a _confidante_ of Margaret, that's all. That
inestimable domestic is so much one of ourselves, it was hard for the
unsophisticated mind to know exactly where to draw the line."
"I hope she has drawn the line at showing Margaret his reply. I haven't
seen that myself."
"What can you expect it to be? If he had wanted to marry the girl there
was nothing to prevent him asking her, and if he did not, no letter of
yours would make him want to."
"She wrote it herself, and all she said was that she would like to know
definitely how she stood with him. I did nothing but correct the
spelling."
"Better if you had written in your own name, and without her knowledge.
No daughter of the house would ever have been put in such a position. So
far as I can judge, Mary and Mr. Will Axworthy are quits. If he has had
a good time in her society, she has had an equally good time in his, and
he does not enjoy her letters so much as he did her propinquity."
"He's a cold-hearted, cowardly----"
"Tut! tut! my dear!"
By this time we were on the platform, and the engine was backing its one
car down to receive me and the other unhappy toilers compelled to go
away and leave that sapphire-blue lake behind.
"Don't you think, Isabel, that it's about time you quit trying to play
Providence and gave God a chance?"
"Dave! you're blasphemous!"
"No, I'm not. I only wish to remark that in your schemes for the welfare
of one particular person, you are apt to overlook the comfort and
happiness of everyone else concerned. That's the worst of not being
omniscient. You're only an amateur sort of a deity after all."
"Send that girl out here by the very next train." And I obeyed.
CHAPTER VII.
ANOTHER week of night work, and then the sunniest of Sundays on the
shore of old Lake Michigan.
I noticed that Mary was in deep disgrace with my wife, who would hardly
speak to her, and I judged therefore that Mr. Will Axworthy had not been
brought to time.
I am not a venturesome boatman, and generally confine my aquatic outings
to the smaller lake, but that Saturday night there was not a breath of
wind, and the water was placidity personified, so I drifted in my small
skiff through the channel that connects the smaller with the larger body
of water. On the sandy point jutting out at the mouth, upon an old
stump, sat a solitary maiden, the picture of woe.
"Hello, Mary!" said I, ignoring the tears; "want to go for a boat ride?"
"I don't care if I do," she replied, seating herself in the stern, which
I turned toward her.
Silently I pulled out into the big lake, where the copper-colored sun
going down in a haze near the horizon bade us beware of a hot day on the
morrow. Out of the lake to the right rose the full moon, failing as yet
to make her gentle influence felt against the radiant glow the sun was
leaving behind him.
"So Axworthy's gone back on you, Mary?"
The fountains played again.
"Yes; and it aint the first time I've got left, neither."
With Mrs. Mason, the Ferguson Family, Lincoln Todd, and young Flaker on
the tablets of my mind, I could truthfully assent to that remark.
"Still, it may be just the making of you in the long run."
"I'm not breakin' my heart over Will Axworthy; didn't care nothing 'tall
'bout him, on'y I'd got used havin' him round, and I'd have married him
if he asked me. I think a sight more of his cousin."
"The boy we saw at the Fair?"
"Yes. He's written me a lovely letter. Would you mind reading it aloud
to me? Some of the big words I couldn't make out, and neither could
Margaret. I wrote him all myself!"
Never before had it fallen to my lot to play father confessor to a lady
in love difficulties, but the editorial mind is equal to any emergency,
so I let my oars slide and adjusted my reading-glasses to peruse Mary's
precious epistle.
When I had read on to the signature. "Your devoted lover 'Tom,'" Mary's
face was radiant.
"Aint he smart? You know he was at the Fair, reporting for a newspaper."
"That explains his glibness. Don't have anything to do with him, Mary.
He's just trying to draw you on. The burnt dog should dread the fire."
"But he admires me, don't he?"
"He says so, but he is much more anxious that you should admire him.
Why, it's part of his business to keep his hand in by being in love, or
rather by having some silly little fool of a girl in love with him.
You'll just get left again if you encourage this young scamp."
April showers once more.
"I think the best thing I can do is to jump overboard here into Lake
Michigan. It don't seem to me I'm wanted anywheres."
"That might do very well, but you're too good a swimmer to drown
easily, and you'd catch on to my boat and upset me. I can't swim a
stroke, and there'd be five--six young Gemmells and a widow and a mother
cast upon the world. No, we'll have to think of something better than
that."
Mary's laughter was always quick an the heels of her tears.
"What do you think I'm good for, anyhow?"
"I can testify that you're not a success as a housekeeper."
"Nor a nursemaid."
"And as a lady's companion you're not all that could be desired, even if
there were a demand for the article in West Michigan."
"As a gentleman's companion I am all right," and the girl showed her
perfect teeth in a smile.
"It's no joking matter, Mary. You're not very happy in our house, and
things will be worse for you next winter, with no Will Axworthy coming
to see you, and no engagement to him in prospect. What do you think
yourself that you're fit for--putting reciting and cornet playing out of
the question?"
The young lady rested her chin on the palm of her hand and composed her
face into a bewitching expression of profound meditation.
"I can't teach, and I can't sew, and I can't cook. I couldn't bear
sitting still all day at a typewriter, and there's no room in the
telephone office. You know quite well that there aint a thing for girls
like me to do but to get married. That's why God made us pretty, so's
we'd have a good chance."
"Don't be flippant, miss. How do you think you'd like to be an hospital
nurse?"
"I dunno; I wouldn't mind trying. I'm generally good to folks--when
they're sick--and I aint a bit scared of dirty nor of dead ones. I laid
out an old woman that died in the Refuge."
"You're not particularly thin-skinned, that's a fact; but it's the
educational qualification I'd be afraid of. There's some sort of an
examination to be passed before you can get into any of these Training
Schools nowadays. I'll write for some forms of application, and we'll
see. If once you were able to support yourself, you'd think very
differently about marrying anybody that turned up, just for the sake of
a home. Ours mayn't be much of a one for you, but marry to get out of
it, and you'll perhaps find yourself out of the frying-pan into the
fire."
"I think it would be just lovely to be a nurse! There was one came down
from Chicago when Mrs. Wade was sick, and the uniform was awfully
pretty. I'm sure it would suit me."
"It would be very becoming, I haven't any doubt of that; and when it's
all settled that you are going to an hospital you can write in reply to
Will Axworthy's last letter."
"He wanted me to keep on writing to him just the same; said he'd like
always to be good friends with me."
"I wouldn't write him but once again, and do it all by yourself. Just
say that the reason you wrote the other letter, asking how you stood
with him, was that you had been thinking of leaving us altogether, but
before taking the decided step of entering an hospital, you had thought
it only fair to him to give him the chance to object, if he really had
the objections he had led you to take for granted."
We heard a shouting and a blowing of tin horns upon the beach at this
juncture. I took the oars and pulled in, seeing Belle and the boys
waving their hats in the bright moonlight. My wife's face expressed the
blankest astonishment when she saw who was my shipmate.
"We thought you must have fallen asleep out there. Didn't know you had
company!"
Mary was still in the black books when I came down the next Saturday.
Belle had a bitter complaint.
"She sat there the whole afternoon yesterday and part of the evening,
writing and rewriting a letter before my very eyes. 'Are you replying to
Will Axworthy?' I asked quite cordially, for I did want to have a hand
in answering that letter--had some cutting sentences all ready for him.
'Yes, mawm,' said she very shortly; 'but I guess I can manage to get
along by myself.'"
I did not dare own up to the advice I had given, but I saw that matters
must be hastened. Having business in Chicago about that time, I visited
almost every hospital in the city, telling Mary's story in my most
dramatic newspaper style. I made it understood that it was very noble
and self-sacrificing of the young woman, when she might live in the lap
of luxury,--for thus did I unblushingly describe my own modest
establishment,--to embrace a nurse's vocation and labor for the good of
humanity, including herself, of course. The education--or the lack of
it--was the drawback everywhere, and also the youth of the applicant,
twenty-five being a more acceptable age than barely twenty-one.
But my perseverance was at last rewarded by finding the superintendent
of a training school who still had some imagination left, and who became
deeply interested in Mary's "tale of woe."
"Make her study her reading, spelling, and arithmetic as hard as she
can for the next few months, and I'll get her in the very first
opening."
The prospect roused Belle's old-time vigor, and she had spelling matches
for Mary's benefit, made the girl read aloud to her, gave her dictation
to write, and heard her the multiplication tables every forenoon--when
she did not forget.
One delightful morning in October I had the honor of taking our
_protégée_ into Chicago and delivering her up to the lady
superintendent. If she could only stand the month of probation, we
flattered ourselves that she would be safe.
Three weeks later I met the Rev. Mr. Armstrong on the street.
"I think it is only right to tell you what people are saying," said he.
"It's my business to know," I replied.
"I mean about your adopted daughter. I have just been told by two
reputable parties, one after the other, that she has been dismissed from
the hospital for flirting, and that you and Mrs. Gemmell are hushing the
matter up as well as you can, but that you don't know at all where she
is."
When I reached home my first question was:
"Have you heard from Mary lately, Belle?"
"Not for a week, and I'm quite worried about her. Before that, she wrote
to me dutifully every two or three days, telling me all about her work.
I've kept on writing to her just the same, making excuses for her to
herself, and never doubting her for a minute; but to tell you the truth,
Dave, I'm getting dreadfully anxious."
Then I told her what I had heard.
"Don't you believe it, David! I never shall till I hear it from
herself. I know now for a certainty that I love that girl! I'll believe
her before all the world! I'll stick by her through thick and thin! I'll
not insult her by writing to the Hospital! What now matters the little
inconveniences of living with her? What have a few clothes and toilet
articles, more or less, to do with it? If she has failed, she shall come
_home_, and we'll begin the three years' fight all over again. I'll sit
down now and write her the nicest letter I can write."
That sounded very brave, but inwardly I knew that my wife suffered
agonies the next few days.
"Perhaps if I had done this," she would say, "or if I had done that--it
seems precisely like a death, and I've killed her."
Tuesday morning, two letters came from Mary. They were hurriedly and
excitedly written.
"My dear good mother, I am accepted! It is the happiest day of my life;
it will be a red letter day for you! I love you. I have tried so hard
for your sake; I have tried to make my life hear one long prayer and the
dear Lord helps me. I did not write because the exam. was delaid, and I
wanted to wait untill I had something _good_ to tell you. I look nice in
the unniform. It is pink and a white cap, apron and cuffs. Oh I am so
contented; this work is so filling. I never get lonely or homesick. _We_
nurses had a party, and we danced and served ice cream, and there was
some lovely doctors here, and the Princippal is so kind to us we have
lots of fun"--and so the letters ran on.
* * * * *
The reaction was too much for Belle. She cried, then she laughed, then
she fell on her knees and thanked God, and she told me she added that,
for pity's sake, He _must_ set His angels to guard Mary, for she was a
poor, frail child, who had got lost in coming this time, and many
persecuted her because she was pretty, and might find a resting place
and get a little of what rightfully (?) belonged to them.
After a while she went down to see Mr. Armstrong, and read him the
letters. He turned very white.
"Oh, the pity of it!" said he.
"I wish I could gather her slanderers into one room and read them these
letters," said Belle.
For days afterward she button-holed people in the street to tell them
about Mary, or to read them scraps of her letters. If they had said she
was vain and idle, and selfish and incompetent, just like the half of
their own daughters, Belle could have forgiven them. It was their
determination to shove her into the gutter which made my wife her
valiant champion.
"Whatever that girl amounts to, Dave, will be born of our faith in her,
and we must never go back on her. She writes me that whenever she has a
hard task, such as attending fits, there I stand at her back and help."
"Just between ourselves, though, you must confess that it is a great
relief to have her away."
"You can't begin to feel that as I do. I live again! I read my own
books, think my own thoughts. I belong to myself. No one says, 'What's
the matter?' 'Where are you going?' 'What makes you grave--or gay?' I
sit and chat with my 'odd-fish.' I go to all kinds of meetings and
discuss all kinds of 'isms, and have no tag-tail constantly asking
'Why?' 'Why?' or 'Tell me!' It's the little things that grind. The next
time I try to help a young girl, I'll not risk losing my influence with
her by taking her into my house. Do you know, Dave, I sometimes feel
that Mary must have been my own child in a previous incarnation, and I
neglected and abused her; that's why she was thrust back upon me this
time, whether I liked it or not."
After Christmas Isabel decided that she must go up to Chicago to see
Mary, and on her return thrilling was the account she gave of her
experiences, which included an attendance at an autopsy--but upon that I
shall not enlarge.
Introducing herself to the Superintendent of the School, she said:
"Can I have Miss Gemmell for two days at my hotel?"
"Indeed, no, madam. We are short of help, and it would be entirely
against the rules."
"Then I'll stay here with her."
The Lady Superintendent looked distressed.
"Don't think us inhospitable, but there is absolutely no provision for
guests in all this great building."
"Oh!" said Belle, unabashed. "I seem to be unfortunate in breaking, or
wanting to break, the rules of this house. Now, will you kindly tell me
what I can do? How can I see the very most of my Mary while I am in
Chicago?"
After some thought the answer came:
"You may have Miss Gemmell to-morrow afternoon, and two hours on
Sunday."
"That will not suit me at all! Now, please forget all that has been
said, and I will tell you that I Mrs. David Gemmell of Lake City,
Michigan, am a poor tired woman, threatened with nervous prostration,
have already chills of apprehension running down my back, coupled with
flushes of expectation to my head." By this time Mary, the Lady
Superintendent, and two other nurses present were all attention, and
Belle added gravely:
"I want one of your best private rooms on Corridor B, where Miss Gemmell
is on duty, and I should like to see the House Surgeon at once."
So Belle was comfortably and luxuriously established in the hospital,
and the only drawback was that she had to be served with her meals in
her room.
"What feasts we had--Mary and I," she said. "What fun! Before I left I
had demoralized that whole hospital staff, and broken every rule in the
institution. It did them all good."
"I hope you haven't been indiscreet," said I.
"Indiscreet?"
"You must remember that Mary braced herself up to go to the hospital
when she was 'out' with you. Now you've gone and made so much of her
that she'll think, whenever things become too hot for her, she has only
to march straight back here again."
"She assures me she _will_ graduate."
"There should never be any question of that."
"David, I've only told you the one side. If that girl were my very own I
should pluck her out of that particular fire. I'd get down on my knees
and beg her pardon for having thrown her into it. It burns up their
youth, their bloom, their originality, their modesty. It thrusts the
girls into a charnel house of sin, sickness, and death. It shatters the
nervous system of nine out of ten, or it leaves them calm, steady,
burnt-out women, who have been behind the scenes of life and are
disillusioned. When that little pink and white thing sat there and told
me of some of the awful situations that she'd been placed in, and over
which she was made responsible, the tears rolled down my face. I forgave
her lots of things."
"Plenty of refined, educated women with a very different bringing up
from Mary's go through the same."
"Well, I advised her to go on and finish the course, if only to show her
friends, and enemies, the stuff she's made of. When I think of those
free wards, and the menial, disgusting offices that frail little girl
has to perform! What did she sow that she should reap this fighting in
the thickest of the fight, so poorly equipped?"
"I dare say there are alleviations."
"Oh, yes! She flirts--says she'd die if she didn't--with every man in
the place, from the elevator boy to the head doctor, and, really, I
excused her. The head nurse in Mary's ward is very harsh with her, but
I let her and everyone in the place understand that Miss Gemmell is no
stray waif without influence to back her. Every day I send out
thought-waves--hypnotism--whatever you like to call it--to compel that
Dean woman to think of something else than the making of trained nurses,
and physical wrecks at the same time. People are greater than
institutions."
"The discipline will be the making of Mary."
CHAPTER VIII.
DURING the famous Pullman strike of last summer, duty bade me cross to
Chicago in the interests of the _Echo_. On Saturday afternoon, July the
7th, I was at the pulse of the Anarchist movement, near the corner of
Loomis and Forty-ninth Streets. Taking up my stand in the deep entry of
a "House to Let," I watched the operations of a body of strikers
gathered round a box car close to the Grand Trunk crossing. They had set
it afire, and were trying to overturn it upon the railway track,
encouraged by the cheers of a mob numbering about two thousand men,
women, and children.
The incendiaries were so much engrossed that they did not observe,
backing swiftly down upon them, the wrecking train it was their purpose
to block. While still in motion, the cars disgorged Captain Kelly and
his company, who had been guarding the Pan Handle tracks all day, but
had not yet, it seemed, earned their night's repose.
The crowd greeted the soldiers with stones, brickbats, and pieces of old
iron, but the car burners proceeded with their little job, paying no
attention at all to the approach of the military.
A pistol bullet out of the mob swished in among his men, and then
Captain Kelly gave the order to fire. When the smoke of the volley
cleared away, I saw the people stand still, shocked and dumb with
surprise. A second later, realizing that the worm had had the audacity
to turn, they vented a medley of shrieks and roars, and closed round
the handful of soldiers, to be met by the points of bayonets.
The yelling mass of humanity scattered, took refuge in lanes and houses,
but regaining courage, appeared here and there in sections, to be
assailed once more by soldiers and police. The latter had to fight it
out by themselves after a while, for the military boarded the wrecking
train again, and the engineer, completely "rattled," opened the
throttle, and whisked them away to the West, leaving a dozen
revolver-armed policemen to meet the assaults of a mob that had now
increased to five thousand.
The Press abuses the police on principle, but, seeing that heroic
encounter, I wavered in the keeping of my promise to Belle not to run
into danger. Even as I hesitated, "hurry-up wagons" arrived with
re-enforcements from neighboring police stations, and then the crowd
could not disperse quickly enough. It was a desperate sight--men
knocking each other down in their haste to get away, and the women who
had been spurring them on, now shrieking and groaning like maniacs. One
of the poor creatures was hit on the ankle by a bullet, and her falling
over into the gutter was too much for my virtuous resolution. Even if
she is a dirty, howling Polack, a man does not enjoy seeing a woman
knocked down, so I left my doorstep and went to help the lady up.
Constitutionally I am not a brave man, but I forgot all about the flying
bullets till one took me in the knee, and I toppled over, hitting my
head against the curbstone as I did so. I must have been stunned, for
when I opened my eyes again the street was empty, except for a
thundering vehicle that was bearing straight down upon me.
At first I thought it was a runaway, for the horse was foaming of mouth
and bloodshot of eyeball; but no, there was a man, or fiend, with a
similar wild gleam in his eye, urging the brute upon me, while he
sounded a gong to keep everything out of his way. All this I saw in a
flash, and in a flash too went through my mind the advice given by
President Cleveland in his proclamation to non-combatants to keep out of
harm's way.
I rolled over on my side with the sickening certainty that the next
instant the hoofs and the wheels would be upon me, but the horse pulled
up on his haunches at my very feet, the rattle and clanging ceased, and
a doctor in his shirt sleeves appeared as if by magic.
It was an ambulance, of course.
I fainted when they lifted me, and only came to myself in the
hospital--Mary's hospital, and her ward. Every one in Chicago was
crowded that week and the next, but--the ruling principle strong in
death--I declined to be put away out of eyeshot and earshot into a
private room.
"D'ye want me to send word to Mis' Gemmell to come?" asked Mary, and I
replied drowsily:
"No, don't. She's better to keep out of harm's way. She would be sure to
sympathize with the strikers."
"But she'll wonder where you are."
"She can't get here safely, as things are now, and the mails are all
upset. Don't write. Send a telegram in my name. Date it Chicago, and
tell her I'm detained, but that I'll go home Monday, sure."
That same night I was off in a high fever. It was days and days before I
came to myself, and then I was too weak to ask or to care how everything
was going on at home. My whole interest in life was concentrated upon
that hospital ward, and with half-closed eyes I lay there and took notes
unconsciously.
An ideal life it may seem to outsiders, but there is as much
wire-pulling, as much jealousy and scandal within the walls of one of
those big institutions, as anywhere else on this planet. It is an
epitome of the world battle, and the strugglers meet in hand-to-hand
conflict.
Nurse Dean, the head of our ward, tall and angular in form, stern and
cold in feature, was the dragon Belle had told me about, but she knew
her business, and I, for one, preferred that she should regard me simply
as a machine laid up for repairs. I did not even think her unduly severe
upon Mary, after I heard her giving that damsel "Hail Columbia" for her
carelessness in having administered the wrong medicine one whole
forenoon to Number Nine--which was myself.
If I had not made a feeble protest in her favor, "Nurse Gemmell" would
have been discharged on the spot.
I do not wish to leave the impression that Mary had not in her the
making of a fairly good nurse. She was light of foot, as well as quick
of hand, and I liked to have her do things for me; found her _aura_
agreeable, as Belle would have expressed it. Like many half-educated
people, she was very observant, but, so far as I could judge, she had
one eye on her work and the other on the lookout for flirtations. I
became quite interested in some of them.
There was the German fiddler in the next bed to mine, who could not keep
his eyes off Mary whenever she came into the ward, and once when Nurse
Dean was off duty, and she brought out her silver-plated cornet to
"toot" a little for him, he declared it was the most ravishing music he
had ever heard in his life!
I strongly suspected that the limp young artisan on the other side of me
was perfectly well enough to be discharged, but he could not brace
himself up to part from Mary. Then there was a young doctor whose face I
dimly recognized, but it tired my poor head too much to try to think who
he was. He and Mary had many a talk at my bedside about their own
affairs. One evening I heard the unmistakable sound of a banjo, and
managed to twist myself round far enough to see that this same doctor
was playing an accompaniment to Mary's very fair imitation of a skirt
dance out in the passage.
The sight revived me so much that I laughed aloud, and Mary came hastily
forward, blushing, with finger on her lip. The pink and white uniform
did indeed become her wonderfully well, and I was not surprised to
notice hearty admiration in the sleepy blue eyes of the young house
surgeon. Where had I seen that "Burne Jones' head" before?
"You don't seem to remember me, Mr. Gemmell," said the owner of it,
holding out his hand. "My name's Flaker. I was at Interlaken summer
before last."
"You're a full-fledged M. D. now?"
"Oh, yes, but I'm taking a year's practice in here, before I set up for
myself."
Shades of the hotel matrons! They would probably say, if they heard
this, that Mary had been sent here on purpose to catch him.
Poor Mary! She had her own row to hoe. She came to me in tears one
evening because Nurse Dean had been after her that whole day about one
thing or another.
"I am never particular 'nough to please her. If it wasn't for Dr. Flaker
I wouldn't stay here another day."
"You like him pretty well, eh?"
"Well enough, an' he's all broke up on me; says he was at Interlaken
too, on'y he couldn't say anythin', 'cause he wasn't of age. His folks
are awful high-toned."
"They'll have their discipline," thought I.
"By the way, Mary, how long is it since I was brought here?"
"Two weeks to-day."
I sprang almost out of bed in my surprise. "Why didn't you tell me? Has
no word been sent to Lake City?"
"None since that first telegram. I don't write very often now to your
wife, but when I did, I never said nothin' 'tall about your bein' here,
'cause you told me not to."
"And haven't you had an answer?"
"There's a letter lyin' there from Mis' Gemmell to you. I don't know how
she could have found out your address. Nurse Dean said I wasn't to give
it to you if you was a bit feverish."
"Fetch it this minute, Mary, or I'll get up and walk the floor," and the
girl brought me this remarkable document. It had neither beginning nor
end, but rushed to the point at once.
"I know all! You have laughed at my occult tendencies, sneered at my
Theosophy, but I can now, alas! give you convincing proof of the
penetrative power of the one, the sustaining power of the other. I
became so nervous at your continued silence and absence that I did what
I had promised you not to do--went out in my astral to hunt for you--and
I found you! Would to God I had never tried! It is not my health that
is ruined, but my heart and my happiness. To make assurance doubly sure,
I psychometrized the only letter I have received from Mary in weeks. She
was cunning enough not to mention your name, but the unspoken testimony
was the same. To think that you of all men--but I do not blame you! I
have gone down to the _Echo_ office, my heart bursting with despair, and
have told lies to account for your absence, to keep things moving until
you see fit to send your own explanation. I have thrown dust too in the
eyes of the family, till you tell me your will concerning them. No, I
dare not blame you! Did not I myself thrust the girl into your life--and
the best of us are but human. It is Karma! I have deserved this blow for
some previous sin of my own, and I bow my head to the stroke. Your own
harvest will be just as certain, however long delayed. O David, David!
I can look back now and see the very beginning of your interest in
Mary--but that it should end in this--that you should fly from me to
her----'"
Having read so far, I burst into hysterical laughter, and it took Mary
and her lover and Nurse Dean, and how many more I know not, to hold me
in bed. Of course I had a relapse, and my life was despaired of, but I
would not, in my sensible moments, allow Mary to write to, or send for
Isabel. I pictured the streets still full of rioting strikers, and the
mails and trains still disorganized. In waking and in delirium alike,
"Keep her out of harm's way!" I cried, "I'll go home to-morrow, sure,"
but it was a long to-morrow that saw me on the boat bound for Lake City.
Mary wanted to accompany me, for I was still very weak, and had to walk
with a stick on account of my knee, but I said brusquely, "You stay
where you are, and keep an eye on Dr. Flaker, or you'll maybe get left
again."
"No fear of that!" she said, holding up her left hand to show me a broad
gold band with five diamonds in it, adorning her third finger.
"We'll be married as soon as his year is out, for he has plenty of
money."
The stones in her ring caught the evening sunlight as she stood on the
wharf waving her handkerchief to me, while the boat moved slowly out,
and I lay in a steamer chair on the hurricane deck, prepared to enjoy a
smoke and a gossip with my old friend, the captain.
I wished her well with all my heart, but I sincerely hoped that I had
seen the last of Mary.
Judging the family to be at Interlaken as usual, I took the first train
down there, and toiled in the sun from the depot up to the cottages, by
way of the hill, which I had never considered steep before, to find my
own house deserted, windows and doors boarded up, veranda unswept,
hammocks removed. I would not give any of the neighbors the satisfaction
of knowing I was surprised and disappointed, so I kept out of sight till
they had all been to the hotel for dinner and dispersed. Then I went in
for mine, and after it returned to the beach near the station, lay down
on the sand, and waited for the next train.
There was not one back to town until late in the afternoon, and the
evening being cloudy, it was quite dark by the time I left the electric
car at the corner of our street. Even that little bit of a walk
exhausted me, and I had to rest on my stick every few minutes, but what
a relief it was to see, gleaming cheerfully as ever, the windows of the
House of the Seven Gables.
I leaned against our iron railing for a minute or two to collect myself
before making my appearance, and highly necessary was it for me to do
so, because the attitude of the two ladies upon the veranda struck me
dumb with amazement, and their conversation completely floored me. That
sandy-haired little woman in the low rocker must be my mother, but could
that regal figure on the edge of the veranda, with her head in my
mother's lap, possibly be my wife? The light from the nursery window
showed them to me distinctly, but I kept back in the shadow and listened
to the voices.
"My puir lamb! Ye've grat eneugh! Gang awa' tae yer bed; ye're sair
forfoughten."
As she stroked the wavy gray hair of the head on her knee, her tone
changed.
"I canna thole to think 'at son o' mine has brocht a' this trouble upon
ye."
"Not a word against him, mother! He's the best man that ever lived, and
I didn't appreciate him, that's all. I can never think of him but as my
dear, old, solid, yours-to-count-on Dave Gemmell. He was the silent
partner, unpopular, getting no praise, paying all bills, backing me up
in every fad, whether his judgment approved or not. He was just the
square foundation I could lean away out on--could dance jigs on if I
wanted to. Now that he is dead--or dead to me--I can only hope that he
is happy. Oh! if I had but listened to you, mother, had never brought
that girl into the house. My own vineyard have I not kept."
"Let by-ganes be by-ganes--but I wad jest like to hae Davvit by the
lug."
"Lug along, mother! Here I am!" I managed to shout, and then I hung
over that fence and laughed till my specs dropped off in the grass, and
my stick fell away from me. I could not move without it, so I had to
wait till the two women took pity on me and released me from my
impalement.
Between them they got me into the house and on to my old sofa, and
listened to what I had to say.
"I was share there must be some mistak'," said my mother, her
self-respect restored, but, when I saw how affectionately her hand
rested on the bowed head of her weeping daughter-in-law, I did not
regret the bullet in my knee.
"We'll put it all down to your Theosophy, Belle--a collection of
half-truths, more dangerous than lies, when you shove them too far."
"Don't let us talk about that now, David. It breaks my heart to see you
so thin. Your clothes are just hanging on you. Oh! if I had only known
the true state of the case and been there to nurse you!"
"Mary has been very good to me, I assure you."
"I don't want to think about that girl any more. I'm glad she's all
right, but I hope never to lay eyes on her again."
"Oh, yes, she's all right, and when she marries Dr. Flaker she won't
want to '_pa_pa' and '_mam_ma' us, though she may condescend to
patronize us a little."
"I'll be gled o' the day she draps the name o' Gemmell!"
* * * * *
My wife is still a theosophist. If it pleases her to think that she has
ascertained the nature and method of existence, I have nothing to say.
Sometimes I even look with envy upon her cheerful attitude toward the
approach of old age, her conviction that we are to have another
chance--many more chances--to do and to be that which we have failed in
doing and being, _this time_.
To judge of a tree by its fruits, there is, of course, no doubt that
Isabel, because of, or in spite of her Theosophy, has been
THE MAKING OF MARY.
EPILOGUE.
NURSE DEAN walked through the Pest House, adjoining the great hospital,
with the independent mien of the woman who is confident that her skirt
clears the ground. Her keen, light-colored eyes took in at a glance the
condition of every patient, the occupation of every nurse.
There had been a smallpox epidemic in Chicago, and three of the nurses
in ---- Hospital had taken the disease, two of them lightly, one very
heavily; but all were now convalescent. The two had gone home to their
friends to recruit, but the third lay in an invalid chair in a darkened
room, looking as if the desire of life had left her. Nurse Dean came in
with a cheery smile, put on just outside the door, and proceeded to
bathe the girl's eyes with warm water.
"When are you coming out to help me, Mary? I'm sure the light wouldn't
hurt you now. I'm having too much night work, those other nurses being
gone. I thought you might begin to ease me a little with the smallpox
patients through the day."
"I don't know as I care to go on with the business," replied Mary,
sometime called Mason.
"Nonsense! You're low-spirited just now because you're not quite better,
but wait till you're on your feet and going around the wards again.
There's nothing like work of this sort to make a person forget
herself."
Nurse Dean's strong but gentle hands began to rub with oil the patient's
neck and shoulders.
"I wish I could forget myself and everybody else too. I wish I had died
of the smallpox. There aint anybody that cares whether I live or die."
"Hush! Mary, you forget Dr. Flaker."
"Aint it just him I'm thinkin' about? He came in to see me to-day for
the first time. He hates smallpox, and he smelt so of iodoform he nearly
made me sick. About all he had to say was that it was very foolish of me
to meddle with the clothes of them patients, and he could hardly believe
I was so crazy's not to be vaccinated when the other nurses were. Just
as if it wasn't him that admired my lovely arms. Look at them now!"
"They won't be so bad when all these scales are off. There! Doesn't
that feel better?"
"It feels all right enough, but you know I'll be a sight to be seen the
rest of my days. I was glad the room was dark, so's Flaker couldn't get
a good look at me. He'll know soon enough--and hate the sight of me. He
was always so proud of my 'pearance."
"But I'm sure he likes you for something else too, Mary."
"I don't care whether he does or not, he's got to marry me just the
same. I aint goin' to be left again," and the girl tried to make a
blazing diamond ring keep in place upon her thin finger.
"You love him very much?"
"Don't know as I do--no more than lots of other fellows; but I won't
have any more chances now. I didn't ask to be born into this world, and
somebody in it owes me a living."
"See here, Mary!" said the nurse, in a suddenly energetic tone that
made the girl look up at her with startled eyes. "You know, as well as I
do, that you can't make that man marry you. Why not give him back his
ring of your own free will?"
"Why should I? You think I aint in love?"
"Love? You don't know what the word means in any but its very lowest
sense. Suppose you stop loving men, and take to loving women and
children; you'll find them much more grateful, I can tell you."
Mary closed her eyes, but there were no eyelashes to keep the tears from
trickling out upon the scarred face.
"My dear child!" said Nurse Dean, in a voice hardly recognizable, it was
so sympathetic, "you've been fighting for yourself ever since you can
remember, and you haven't made much of it, have you?"
The girl's lips shaped an inaudible "No."
"Wouldn't it be a good idea, then, to try a little fighting for other
people?"
"I haven't any folks."
"Your 'folks' are whoever you can help in any way. What have you done
yet to deserve a foothold on this earth? Instead of seeing how much you
can get out of everybody, turn round and see how much you can do for
them."
* * * * *
There was a long silence. When Nurse Dean thought her charge was falling
asleep, she placed a shawl carefully over her, but Mary, without opening
her eyes, drew something from her left hand to her right.
"You can give him back his ring," she said.
Nurse Dean closed the door softly behind her, and then paused for a
moment to wipe an impertinent tear from her cold gray eye.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if the smallpox were just The Making of
Mary."
THE END.
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Transcriber's Note
Two minor changes were made during the transcription of this book:
* "the malone" was changed to "them alone"
* two instances of "Gemmel" were changed to "Gemmell"
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