Julie M. Lippmann

“ Your performance of the determined lover is really most convincing."
Francis Ronald smiled. "A man who's succeeded in convincing a woman has not lived in vain," he said. "Well, I must be off, Catherine. Good luck to you and to Miss Pelham—but bad luck if either of you dares stick her mischievous finger in other people's pies."
He strode out of the room and the house.
Meanwhile, Martha, industriously engaged in brushing Miss Lang's hair, was gradually, delicately feeling her way toward what was, in reality, the same subject.
"Well, of course, you can have Cora if you want her. ”

“ Claire twisted her ring in silence, gazing down at it the while as if the operation was, of all others, the most important and absorbing.
"We may not agree, Martha dear," she said at last, "but anyway I know you're good, good, good, and I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world."
"Shoor! I know you wouldn't! An' they ain't hurt. Not in the least. You got one kinder conscience an' I got another, that's all. Consciences is like hats. One that suits one party would make another look like a guy. You got to have your own style. You got to know what's best for you, an' then stick to it!" ”

“ She felt as might one who, moved by a great purpose, had rashly usurped the prerogative of fate and set in motion mighty forces that, if they did not make for success, might easily make for disaster. She had very definitely stuck her thumb into somebody else's pie, and if her laudable intention was to draw forth a plum, not for herself but for the other, why, that was no proof that, in the end, she might not get smartly scorched for her pains. ”

“ That's why we look to them to keep up the moral standard. That's why we feel it to be unworthy of her when a girl makes a mercenary marriage."
The indignant blood sprang to Claire's cheeks. What business had he to interfere in her affairs, to warn her against marrying Bob Van Brandt, assuming that, if she did marry him, it would be only for money. She was glad that Radcliffe bounded in just then, throwing himself upon her in his eagerness to tell her all that had befallen him during their long separation of two hours, when he had been playing on the Mall under Beetrice's unwatchful eye. ”

“ What do you do when you go out working every day?" It was Cora speaking.
"I work."
"Pooh, you know what I mean. What kinder work do you do?"
For a moment there was no answer, then Claire recognized Martha's voice, with what was, undeniably, a chuckle tucked away in its mellow depths, where no mere, literal child would be apt to discern it.
"Stenography an' typewritin'!"
"Are you a stenographer an' typewriter, mother? Honest?" ”

“ You can bet on one thing, shoor, whatever ain't dead waste in your past is, somehow, goin' to get dished up to you in your present, or your future. You ain't goin' to get rid of it, till you've worked it into your system for health, as our dear old friend, Lydia Pinkham, says. As to the future, the future's like a flea—when you can put your finger on the future, it's time enough to think what you'll do with it. Folkes futures'd be all right, if they'd just pin down a little tighter to to-day, an' make that square up, the best they can, with what they'd oughter do. ”

“ Claire persisted, "I'm living on you. Eating food for which I haven't the money to pay, having loving care for which I couldn't pay, if I had all the money in the world. I guess I know how you settled my account with Mrs. Daggett. You gave her money you had been saving for the rent, and now you are working, slaving overtime, at four o'clock mornings, sweeping down the stairs, and late nights, making shirtwaists for Mrs. Snyder, to help supply what's lacking."
"Just you wait till I see that Cora," observed Mrs. Slawson irrelevantly. ”

“ You'd be foolish to make a decision in a hurry that you might regret later. Write to your husband. Talk it over with him. He might prefer to choose a job for himself. And remember—it's 'way out in the country. The children would have to walk some distance to school."
"Give 'em exercise, along of their exercises," said Martha.
"The church in the village is certainly three miles off."
"My husband don't go to church as reg'lar as I might wish," Mrs. Slawson observed. "I tell'm, the reason men don't be going to church so much these days, is for fear they might hear something they believe." ”

“ Slawson, turning to the wife, "you've had your last lickin' so long as you live in this house. Believe me! I'm a hard-workin' woman, but I'm never too tired or too busy to come in an' take a round out of your old man, if he should ever dare lay finger to you again. I don't mind a friendly scrap oncet in a while with a neighbor. My muscles is good for more than your fat, beer-drinkin' Dutchman's any day. Let him up an' try 'em oncet, an' he'll see. Why don't you have some style about you an' land him one, where it'll do the most good, or else—leave him? ”

“ We've always managed to hit it off pretty well, the kiddies and I, but, of course, I can't guarantee anything definite in connection with your little boy, because, you see, I've never been a governess before. I've only had to do with youngsters who've come a-visiting, or else the small, lower East-siders at the Settlement. But I'll promise to do my best."
"'Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly. Angles could no more,' as I wrote in my sister's autograph-album when I was a boy," announced Mr. Ronald gravely.
Claire smiled over at him with appreciation. ”

“ Of course, I'd no idea he and Miss Lang had ever met before, and when I innocently ordered her in, I did it simply because Radcliffe was refractory and refused to come without her, and I couldn't have a scene before guests."
"Well?"
"I didn't know Mr. Van Brandt came from Grand Rapids. How should I? One never thinks of those little, provincial towns as having any society."
"You dear insular, insolent New Yorker."
"Well, you may jeer as much as you like, but that's the way one feels. I didn't know that, as Martha says, he was 'formerly born' in Michigan. ”

“ Sherman took her up quickly. "Science teaches us that our condition in life reflects our character. We get the results of what we are in our environment. You understand? In other words, each receives his desert. I hope I am clear? I mean, what he deserves."
Martha smiled, a slow, calm, tolerant smile. ”

“ Martha had tried, in a sort of casual, matter-of-course way, to prepare her little lady for the trial, by dropping hints every now and then, as to the best methods of dealing with employers—the proper way to carry oneself, when one "went to live out in private fam'lies."
"You see, you always been the private fam'ly yourself, Miss Claire, so it'll come kinder strange to you first-off, to look at things the other way. But it won't be so bad after you oncet get used to it. There's one thing it's good to remember. ”

“ Sammy, my husband, he ain't been earnin' as much as usual lately, but I says to him, when he's downhearted-like because he can't hand out the price o' the rent, 'Say, you ain't fished up much of anythin' certaintly, but count your blessin's. You ain't fell in the river either.' An' be this an' be that, we make out to get along. We never died a winter yet."
"Dear me, I should think a great, strapping man ought to be able to support his family without having to depend on his wife to go out by the day."
"My husband does his best," said Martha with simple dignity. ”

“ Martha dear! It wasn't Cora! She's not to blame. I'd have known sooner or later anyway. I always reason things out for myself. Please promise not to scold Cora."
"Scold Cora? Not on your life, my dear; I won't scold Cora. I'm old-fashioned in my ways with childern. I don't believe in scoldin'. It spoils their tempers, but a good lickin' oncet in a while, helps 'em to remember, besides bein' good for the circulation."
Claire was ready to cry. "It's all my fault," she lamented. "I was clumsy. I was tactless. And now Cora will be punished for it, and—I make nothing but trouble for you all." ”

“ An' it's bad for the childern—all this is—it's bad for Cora an' Francie. What idea'll they get o' the holy estate o' matrimony, I should like to know? That the man has the upper hand? That's a nice notion for a girl to grow up with, nowadays. Hark! My, but he's givin' it to her good an' plenty this time! Sammy Slawson, shame on ye, man! to let a poor woman be beat like that, an' never raise a hand to save your own childern from bein' old maids. Another scream outer her, an' I'll go in myself, in the face of you."
"Now, Martha, be sensible!" pleaded Sam Slawson. ”

“ I go out by the day. Laundry-work, housecleaning, general chores. I got a husband an' four children, to say nothing of a mother-in-law who lives with us, an' keeps an eye on things while me an' Sammy (that's Mr. Slawson) is out workin', an' lucky if it's an eye itself, for it's not a hand, I can tell you that. What's your name, if I may make so bold?"
"Claire Lang. My people live in Grand Rapids—where the furniture and carpet-sweepers come from," with a wistful, faint little attempt at a smile. ”

“ He never sees me but it's, 'How d'do, Martha?' or, 'How's the childern an' Mr. Slawson these days?' He certainly has got grand ways with'm, Mr. Frank has. An' yet, he's never free. You wouldn't dare make bold with'm. His eyes has a sort o' keep-off-the-grass look gener'ly, but when he smiles down at you, friendly-like, why, you wouldn't call the queen your cousin. Radcliffe knows he can't monkey with his uncle Frank, an' when he's by, butter wouldn't melt in that young un's mouth. But other times—my! You see, Mrs. Sherman is dead easy. ”

“ They're all good enough ways in their own time an' place, an' you foller them accordin' to your disposition or, if you're nacherelly particular, accordin' to the other things you got to do, in the time you got to do 'em in. Now, I'm particular. I'm the nacherelly thora kind, but if I'm pressed, an' there's more important things up to me than the dustin', I give it a lick an' a promise, same as the next one, an' let it go at that, till the time comes I can do better. Life's too short to fuss an' fidget your soul out over trifles. It ain't always what you want, but what you must. ”

“ Martha thought that perhaps she had been a little hard on Cora, "the time she give her the tongue-lashin' for stumblin' over the first lines of her piece, that evenin' of the Sund'-School ent'tainment. It wasn't so dead easy as a body might think, to stand up to a whole churchful o' people, or even one person, when he was the kind that's as good (or as bad) as a whole churchful." ”

“ The world is certaintly small, an' the way things happen is a caution. Now, who'd ever have thought that you'd 'a' seen my Miss Claire, but I truly believe you have. For after her father died she come to New York, the poor lamb! for to seek her fortune, an' her as innercent an' unsuspectin' as my Sabina, who's only three this minit. She tried her hand at a lot o' things, an' thank God an' her garden-angel for keepin' her from harm, for as delicate an' pretty as she is, she can't help attractin' attention, an' you know what notions some as calls themselves gen'lemen has, in this town. ”

“ Daggett is out o' your body an' soul. You can take it from me, that woman is worse than any line-storm I ever struck for dampenin'-down purposes, an' freeze-out, an' generl cussedness. Your business to-day—now—is to get well an' strong. Then the future'll take care of itself. ”

“ Ronald who seemed to be considering. "Right!" he announced presently. "I notice you go into things rather deep, Martha."
Mrs. Slawson smiled. "Well, when things is deep, that's the way you got to go into them. What's on your plate you got to chew, an' if you don't like it, you can lump it, an' if you don't like to lump it, you can cut it up finer. But there it is, an' there it stays, till you swaller it, somehow."
"Do you enjoy or resent the good things that are, or seem to be, heaped on other people's plates?" ”

“ I can tell the judge a thing or two which, bein' prob'ly a mother himself, he'll see the sense of. Do you think I want Sammy growin' up under my very eyes, a beer-drinkin' wife-beater?—because he seen the eggsample of it set before'm by a Dutchman, when he was a boy? Such things makes an impression on the young—which they ain't sense enough to know the difference between a eggsample an' a warnin'. An' the girls, too! As I told you las' night, it's bad for the country when matrimony ain't made to look like a prize-package, no matter what it reely is. ”

“ Why, you're a reg'ler Old Sleuth the Detective, or Sherlock Holmes, or somebody like that, for discoverin' things, ain't you?"
"I don't want Miss Pelham to be my Uncle Frank's best girl, an' I don't see why that other man he don't have her for his, like she was first-off, an' leave my Miss Lang alone."
"It all is certainly very dark an' mysterious," said Mrs. Slawson, shaking her head. "You don't know where you're at, at all. Like when you wake up in the black night, an' hear the clock give one strike. ”

“ Now what, if I may make so bold, is wrong with your gettin' a first-class offer from a well-off, good-lookin' gen'l'man-friend, that's been keepin' comp'ny with you, off an' on, as you might say, ever since you was a child, which shows that his heart's in the right place an' his intentions is honorable. You know, you mustn't let the percession get by you. Life's like standin' on the curbstone watching the parade—at least, that's how it seems to young folks. They hear the music an' they see the banners an' the floats an' they think it's goin' to be a continuous performance. ”

“ The young-lady scholars, so stylish an' rich, as full of airs as a music-box, snubbin' the teacher because they're too ignorant to know how smart she has to be, to get any knowledge into their stupid heads, an' the Principal always eyein' you like a minx, 'less you might be wastin' her precious time an' not earnin' the elegant sal'ry she gives you, includin' your home an' laundry. O my! I know a thing or two about them schools, an' a few other places. No, Miss Claire, dear, it won't do. An' besides, I have you bespoke for Mrs. Sherman. ”

“ What kind of ears has Sammy's dog got?"
"I didn't notice partic'lar, I must say. But he's got two of 'em, an' they can stand up, an' lay down, real natural-like, accordin' to taste—the dog's taste, which wouldn't be noways remarkable, if it was his tongue, but is what I call extraordinary, seein' it's his ears. An' his tail's the same, exceptin' it has even more education still. It can wag, besides standin' up an' layin' down. Ain't that pretty smart for a pup, that prob'ly didn't have no raisin' to speak of, 'less you count raisin' on the toe of somebody's boot?" ”

“ Now, Sammy, get busy like a good fella! Go in an' amuse Francie. The poor child is perishin' for somethin' to distrack her. What with Cora an' Sammy at school, an' Miss Claire havin' the Shermans so bewitched, they keep her there all day, an' lucky for us if they leave her come home nights at all, the house is too still for a sick person. Give Francie a drink o' Hygee water to cool her lips, an' tell her a yarn-like. An', Sammy, I wisht you'd be good to yourself, an' have a shave. Them prickles o' beard reminds me o' the insides o' Mrs. Sherman's big music-box. ”

“ Claire nodded unseeingly to her own reflection in the glass.
"Now my idea is," Martha continued, "my idea is, if you got somethin' loomin', why, don't hide your face an' play it isn't there. There ain't no use standin' on the ragged edge till every tooth in your head chatters with cold an' fright. You don't make nothin' by it. If you love a man like a friend or if you love a friend like a man, my advice is, take your seat in the chair, grip a-holt o' the arms, brace your feet, an'—let'er go, Gallagher! It'll be over in a minit, as the dentists say." ”

“ When your conscience tells you you'd oughter tell, ten to one you'd oughtn't. Give other folks a chance. What they don't know can't worry 'em. Besides, your just tellin' a thing don't let you out. You can't get clear so easy as that. It's up to you to work it out, so what's wrong is made right, an' do it yourself—not trust to nobody else. ”

“ And that's precisely the point!" said Claire. "If Mr. Ronald—if Mrs. Sherman knew the truth, that I was poor, homeless, without a friend in New York the night you picked me up on the street, and carried me home and cared for me without knowing a thing about me, they mightn't—they wouldn't have taken me into their house and given me their little boy to train. And because they wouldn't, I want to tell them. I want to square myself. I ought to have told them long ago. I want—"
"You want 'em to bounce you," observed Mrs. Slawson calmly. "Well, there's always more'n one way of lookin' at things. ”

“ What d'you mean layin' your hand to a woman who hasn't the stren'th or the spirit to turn to, an' lick you back? Why don't you fight a fella your own size an' sect? That's fair play! A fine man you are! A fine neighbor you are! Just let me hear a peep out of you, an' I'll thrash you this minit to within a inch of your life. I don't need no law nor no policeman to keep the peace in any house where I live. I can keep the peace myself, if I have to lick every tenant in the place! ”

“ An' wance, when me son Sammy was sick, an' out av a job entirely, Martha, she run the whole concern herself. She wouldn't let me son Sammy give up, or get down-hearted, like he mighta done. She said it was her right to care for us all, an' him, too, bein' he was down an' out, like he was. It seems to me that's fairrly all the rights anny woman'd want—to look out for four childern, an' a man, an' a mother-in-law. But if Martha wants to vote, too, why, I'm thinkin' she will. ”