Josephine Daskam Bacon

“ He was at her side instantly.
“Take my arm—and pardon me!” he said with an irresistible grace. “It is only my fear for your comfort, you know, Miss Gould. I cannot bear that you should be at the mercy of every drunken fellow that wishes to impose on you!”
As she crossed the hall that separated her territory from his, her fine, full figure erect, her dark head high in the air, a whimsical regret came over him that they were not younger and more foolish.
“I should certainly marry her to reform her,” he said to the birch log that spluttered on his inimitable colonial fire-dogs. ”

“ Miss Gould was looking her best in a crisp lavender dimity, upon whose frills Mrs. Waters had bestowed the grateful exercise of her highest art. Her sleek, dark coils of hair, from which no one stray lock escaped, framed her fresh cheeks most admirably; her strong white hands appeared and disappeared with an absolute regularity through the dark-green wool out of which she was evolving a hideous and useful shawl. ”

“ Am I to provide myself with an occupation, perhaps, for the sake of Tom Waters's principles? Or am I—”
“Yes. That is just it. You know what I have always felt, Mr. Welles, about it. But I never seemed to be able to make you see. Now, as I say, things have come to a point. You must do something.”
“But this is absurd, Miss Gould! I am not a child, and surely nobody can dream of holding you in any way responsible—”
“I hold myself responsible,” she replied simply, “and I have never approved of it—never!” ”

“ Half-way down the whitewashed steps he paused, viewing the remarkable scene below him with interest and amazement. The cemented floor was literally covered with neatly chopped kindling-wood, which rose as in a tide under the efforts of a large red-faced man who, with the regularity of a machine, stooped, grasped a billet in either hand, shook them in the face of Miss Gould, who cowered upon a soap-box at his side, and flung them on the floor. From the woodhouse near the cellar muffled shouts were heard through a storm of blows on the door. ”

“ Waters's ideals are so high—and—shall we say—so elusive?” proceeded the director smoothly. “It is so difficult—so well-nigh impossible—to satisfy him. One devotes one's energies—I may say one slaves night and day—to win some slight mark of approval; and just as one is about to reap the well-earned reward—a smile, a word of appreciation—all is forfeited! It is hard indeed! Would you suggest the rearrangement of the Rooms under Mr. Waters's direction? Thompson is at his service—”
“Oh, Mr. Welles!” ”

“ Kitty Waters attentively filled his empty cup, beaming the while, and the once errant Annabel, sitting on a low stool at his feet, with a red bow in her pretty hair, and her great brown eyes fixed adoringly on his face as he directed the fascinating incomprehensible little song straight at her charming self, was obviously in no present danger of running the streets.
“Good morning, Miss Gould!” he said cheerfully, rising and handing the guitar to the abashed Annabel. “And you are really quite recovered? C'est bien! Business is dull, and we are amusing each other, you see. ”

“ Welles,” she said, bending upon him that direct and placid regard that rendered evasion difficult and paltering impossible, “things have come to a point;” and she narrated the scene of the morning.
“It is indeed a problem,” observed her lodger gravely, “but what is one to do? It is just such questions as this that illustrate the futility—”
“There is no question about it, Mr. Welles,” she interrupted gravely. “Tom was right and I was wrong. There is no use in my talking to him or anybody while I—while you—while things are as they are. You must make up your mind, Mr. Welles.” ”

“ Her lodger checked a rising smile, and leaned solicitously toward her, regarding her firm, fine-featured face with flattering attention.
“Are you growing stronger? Can I bring you anything?” he inquired.
Miss Gould's color rose, half with anger at her weakness of body, half with a vexed consciousness of his amusement.
“Thank you, no,” she returned coldly, “I am ashamed to have been so weak-minded. I must go now and tell Henry to pile the wood again in the east corner. There will probably come another tramp very soon—they are very prevalent this month, I hear.” ”

“ Annabel blushed, cast down her eyes, lifted them, showed her dimples, and replied in the words, if not in the accents, of Thompson: “Yes, sir!”
“It's really going to be an education in itself, don't you think so?” he continued. “It's amazing how the people like it—it's really quite gratifying. Perhaps it may be my mission to abolish the chromo and the tidy from off the face of New England! We have had crowds here—just to look at the pictures.”
“I don't doubt it!” replied Miss Gould briefly. ”

“ I thought of such a good plan, and one that would be the best possible answer to Tom—”
“Oh, good heavens!” murmured her lodger, but she went on quickly: “You know I was going to open the soup-kitchen in October. Well, I've just thought, Why not get the Rooms all ready, and the reading-room moved over there, and have lemonade and sandwiches and sarsaparilla, and Kitty Waters to begin to serve right away, as she's beginning to run the streets again, and Annabel Riley with her? Then the Civic Club can have its headquarters there, and people will begin to be used to it before cold weather.” ”

“ Waters was a laundress, and the summer boarders, together with Mr. Welles, who alone went far toward establishing the fortunes of the family, had combined to place the head of the house in his present condition of elegant leisure. “I wonder at you, Tom Waters, after all the interest we've taken in you \ Are you not horribly ashamed to depend on your wife in this lazy way?” Miss Gould demanded of the once member of the Reformed Drunkards' League. “How many times have I explained to you that nothing—absolutely nothing—is so disgraceful as a man who will not work? ”

“ I think Tom Waters must be tremendously impressed—”
“That's the trouble; he is,” said Miss Gould simply.
“Trouble? trouble? Is his impression unfavorable? Heavens, how unfortunate!” exclaimed the director airily. “Surely, my application—Does the room fail to meet his approval, or—”
“Yes, it does,” she interrupted. “He says it's no place for a man to be in; and he says the pictures are—are—well, he says they are improper!” glancing at the Venus.
“Ah!” responded the director with a suspicious sweetness. “He does not care for the nude, then?”
She sighed deeply. “Oh, Mr. Welles!” ”

“ He cast a baffled glance at Miss Gould and a triumphant smile at Henry before replying. Then, disdaining the lady's righteous indignation and the hired man's threatening gestures, he faced the gentleman in the scarlet robe and spoke as man to man. ”

“ That a man of easy means, fine education, sufficient health, and gray hair should have nothing better to do than collect willow-ware and fire-irons, read the magazines, play the piano, and stroll about in the sun seemed to her nothing less than horrible. ”

“ Beats all I ever see, the way that man answers back!”
An almost unprecedented headache, brought on by her unremitting labor in effecting the change in the Rooms, kept Miss Gould in the house for two days after the new headquarters had been satisfactorily arranged; and as Mr. Welles had refused to open his office for inspection till it was completely furnished, she did not enter that characteristic apartment till the third day of its official existence. ”

“ After a cautious introduction of the subject by asking his advice as to the minimum of hours in the week one could conscientiously allow a doubtful member of the Weekly Culture Club to spend upon Browning, she endeavored to get his idea of that poet. Her famous theory as to her ability to place any one satisfactorily in the scale of culture according to his degree of appreciation of “Rabbi ben Ezra” was unfortunately known to her lodger before she could with any verisimilitude produce the book, and he was wary of committing himself. ”

“ An' cups and sassers, with a tea-pot 'n' kittle; an' he makes tea himself an' drinks it—I swear it's so. An' a guitar, an', Lord, the pictures! You can't see no wall for 'em!
“'It's a mighty lucky thing, havin' this room, Thompson,' says he to that hired man, 'the things was spillin' over. We'll make it a bower o' beauty, Thompson,' says he. 'Yes, sir,' says the man. That's all he ever says, you might say. I never see nothin' like it, never, the way that hired man talks to him ”

“ An' that ol' black secr'tary he got fr'm Lord knows where, an' brakes growin' in colored pots standin' right up there, an' statyers o' men an' women—no heads onto 'em, some ain't got; it's all one to him—he'd buy any ol' thing so's 'twas broke, you might say. An' them ol' straight chairs—no upholsterin' on 'em, an' some o' them wicker kind that bends any way, with piliers in 'em. ”