Hattie

“ She did not acknowledge, even to her family, that she found such elevated conversation a trifle tedious.
"Why do you stay in the room when Mr. Swain calls?" she would ask Hattie. "You might just as well be amusing yourself in the library."
"Oh, but he amuses me," Hattie would cry. "He's just nuts! He arranges his sentences so beautifully, and his spectacles look so owlish. Do you know, Mattie, he seems a great deal too old and solemn to fall in love." ”

“ Really, Miss Hattie, I consider it one of the most brilliant chances of your young life. You are too well educated, too talented, and, believe me, I say it not in flattery, too beautiful, to drudge your life away in a book-bindery, when you can ornament the highest circles of society. If you ask it as advice, I would say accept this proposition, for it would not have been made by Mr. Legare without he knew it would prove a happiness to his often sad-hearted sister-in-law. ”

“ She liked to feel the flame of her own fairness as she stood there waiting for the audience to guffaw its fill of Hattie's drolleries; a narcissus swaying reedily beside a black crocodile.
She was a new star and her beauty the color of cloth of gold, and Hattie in her lowly comedian way not an undistinguished veteran. So they could kiss in the key of a cat cannot unseat a king.
But, just the same, Miss Robinson's hand flew up automatically against the dark of Hattie's lips.
"I don't fade off, dearie. Your own natural skin is no more color-fast. ”

“ Gracie made no answer: she was too miserable for words or to think of answering Lily's taunts, and she would have given up all thought of having any thing to do with the fair to have had Nellie's mat safely in her possession once more. Oh, if she had never yielded to temptation or to Hattie's persuasions!
"How you do act!" whispered Hattie to Gracie. "If you don't take care they will suspect something." ”

“ She pushed by Sadie, and past Emmy Lou. Hattie was slim as she was strenuous, but not even so slim a little girl as Hattie could push by the stout lady, for she filled the space.
At Hattie's touch she turned. Although she looked good-natured, the size and ponderance of the lady were intimidating. She stared at Hattie; people were looking; it was in church; Hattie's face was red.
"You can't get to the family," said the lady; "you couldn't move in the crowd. Besides I promised to see to you. Now be quiet," she added crossly, when Hattie would have spoken. She turned away. ”

“ As Hattie made no further remark, the usual clatter of knives and forks on slenderly-filled plates was alone heard for a time.
But when Hattie, as usual, arose earliest of all, and went to her room, quite an unusual rush of conversation, and all about her, commenced.
“Such luck! From four dollars a week to ten, and all because she can talk Dutch!” said one—a very plain and a very ignorant girl.
“Ten dollars? How she’ll shine out in silk on Sundays, I’ll bet, and look for a beau as fast as the best of us,” said another. “She couldn’t do it in ten-cent calico. Oh, no, the proud thing!” ”

“ But the bridge seemed to Hattie perfectly interminable. On and on she tramped, with the rain beating upon her shoulders like a hundred hands. Would she never get away from this "dreadful man," keeping pace with her so persistently, and knowing that she knew that he had said those horrible, those insulting words. For what was it but an insult to tell her that he loved her, when she knew it was just because he had been so stupidly conceited as to think she was in earnest when she wrote that wretched valentine. ”

“ Mummy, dear, you must let me tell my story my own way. As I was saying, Hattie and I were shopping. You know Hattie simply won’t have anything else but the latest and Frenchiest, and no trouble’s too much for her so long as she digs it out. We had been to all the likeliest places—to Arnitt’s and Longman’s and Carson’s and many others, when she insisted that we should go to Madame Lucile’s. The great lady herself waited on her, and Hattie tried on almost everything there was in the place—hats, bonnets, laces, plumes, frocks—and could not be suited. ”

“ The visitor's name was Angelica. Where had I heard—oh, yes, Niblo and Hattie had been speaking of her only a few days before, and when Hattie had said, "Do you think she and Teapot would enjoy each other?" my brother had rejoined, "Indeed, she wouldn't." She had an exquisite voice. I peered around the corner—by George, a dazzler! I ducked back. "Oh, Hattie," she gasped, "I think I saw something moving over there on the rug."
Hattie got up, replying, "I certainly smell something, my dear, and I'm afraid it's a cigarette. Oh! Oh, my heavens! There's a man here! Who—why, it's you again, Teapot. ”

“ If you praise Hattie’s beauty to the Colonel he will mix for you, with his own hands, one of his choicest drinks; if you swear on your honor that she is destined to become the greatest actress of the century, he will probably crack a bottle. ”

“ Was it wise for me to marry a girl like that? I gave my name to the old policeman, who was saying quite a good deal about what a run he, too, had had for nothing; and I left the park determined to have another and fuller talk with Hattie that very moment.
When I got there, I found that Angelica had preceded me and was marching up and down the flat, rolling her eyes and twitching at her collar. "And I tell you plainly, Hattie," she cried, when I came in, "that I never could marry him, never. He just won't be a hero. I am going to marry Minott Broderick." ”

“ And you had a girl here—or on your call list—till about six months ago, named Marcia something—who's gone to live with Paul—he being the nephew."
Hattie said, "Yes," and waited.
I realized that a dozen years is a long time in which not to see anybody—a time long enough for a change, especially if one has quit drinking, married again, and so on and so on and so on. Hattie was afraid I was up to some sort of Presbyterian nasty-work—and she was ready to be disappointed. Ready not to help me call the cops on Marcia, so to speak, and ready to write off one more guy as a galvanized hypocrite. ”

“ I sighed; "poor Niblo. That call was from Niblo, Hattie. As a direct result of his interfering with me and trying to take Matthew out himself to-day he has thrown the whole park into confusion, and caused the arrest of two men. I hope this will be a lesson to you, Hattie. I am the only fit person to go out with my nephew." ”

“ If you're going to fret and fuss here about it, you'll feel a great deal worse at last when you come to do it."
Hattie's advice on this subject was certainly good in itself, though she did not put it before Gracie in a right light.
"Miss Ashton is so unjust and so awfully [152] partial to Nellie," pouted Gracie, although her resolution was beginning to waver a little for the first time.
"I know it," said Hattie; "but she can't make other people think Nellie is the smartest child. ”

“ Only one village censor dared speak, saying slyly to Young Nick's Hattie: [Pg 268] —
"Ain't no room for grandpa in the new house, is there?"
Hattie opened her eyes wide at this discovery, though now she realized that echoes of a like benevolence had reached her ears before. She went home very early from the quilting, and that night she said to her husband, as they sat on the doorstone, waiting for the milk to cool:—
"Nicholas, little things I've got hold of, first an' last, make me conclude folks pity father. Do you s'pose they do?" ”

“ There wasn't a hat in a grill room from one end of the Crooked Cow-path to the other that was more wildly barbaric than Hattie's, even in these sane and simple days when the bird of paradise has become the national bird. The buyer of suits for a thriving department store in a hustling little Middle-Western town isn't to be neglected. Whenever a show came to River Falls Hattie would look bored, pass a weary hand over her glossy coiffure and say: “Oh, yes. ”

“ Hattie May regained some slight semblance of sanity at this suggestion. “You two go,” she ordered. “I’ll stay here by Hamish. And oh, do hurry, you can’t tell what awful things are down that well—snakes and terrible toads! It must be a mile deep, at least it looks it.”
“I’ll stay with Hattie May,” I said. “You go find Michael, Eve.”
So Eve flew away. Hattie May put her face to the hole—while I took fast hold on what remained of her dress—and called down cheering words to the prisoner. “Eve’s gone for Michael,” she shouted. “He works up the road. What? ”

“ I knew by experience that the best way to treat Hattie May when she began to get hysterical was to scold. If you tried sympathy and kind words, she just got worse.
“Yes,” chimed in Eve, “there’s simply no sense in your going on like this. Nothing has happened to Hamish. I’d be willing to bet my best embroidered slip on it. The thing for you to do is to come along with us right now to Old Beecham to call on a friend of Aunt Cal’s. And by the time you get back, you’ll very likely find Hamish eating his dinner at the Inn—see if you don’t.” Hattie May wiped her eyes on her dress skirt. ”

“ Ben began, immediately. "Hattie's got a surprise for you. She's been having her picture taken again, all dressed up in her Red Riding-hood cape. She looks mighty cute; you just see if she don't."
And Hattie, proud and pleased, exhibited the picture to her admiring elders. The slender, hooded form in the photograph was standing behind the little wicket gate which Aunt Betsy knew so well, and Grandma was much taken with it.
"Well, I never!" she cried. "How cute it is, to be sure! Who but Hattie Pratt would have thought of being taken comin' through a gate?" ”

“ Then he added: “If she loves him she can’t love me. I wish he was dead. Who is she in mourning for?”
“Her mother. I heard her tell Aunt Louisa so a few seconds ago.”
“Poor thing! I wish father would adopt her. No, I don’t either, for then she’d be my sister, and I want her for my wife.”
Hattie now had a hundred questions to answer about the storm, and the steamer, which she did cheerfully.
After dinner Frank had the glory of escorting her home in the family carriage alone—Lizzie pleading a headache, just to give the poor boy a chance to make love to Hattie if he could. ”

“ The two girls now went out, and in a few moments were in the carriage, and on their way up town. They stopped but once, then it was by order of Frank, who went into a florist’s to get four large bouquets for those in the carriage and at home.
“Oh, my Hattie! my Hattie!” cried Jessie Albemarle, when our heroine went into the sitting-room, where, with her mother, and surrounded by busy cutters and sewers, she was being made presentable.
And she showered kisses on the only true friend she had known in her many days of sorrow. ”

“ The guy she married—a smug, sadistic twirp. Getting divorced. Coming to New York. Scrimping along on modeling jobs. Running into Hattie Blaine. Ever heard of her?"
Who hadn't? Hattie was madam to Manhattan's upper set. I gave a nod.
"Hattie sold her on the idea—after quite a campaign. Marcia went to work. That was about three years ago. I took her home that night—placidly enough—and went for the walk that lasts till they put out the sidewalks again. Then I phoned Johann I was sick—and got sick, drinking. For a month or so more, I tried the old Presbyterian anodyne: work. No use." ”

“ As lunch had been kept waiting for the arrival of the carriage and its occupants, the family, as Mr. Legare jovially termed them all, so as to include Hattie, left the sewers and their work, and adjourned to the dining-room.
Jessie, who seemed to come naturally into the [153] ways of a lady, was almost too happy to eat, but Cousin Frank told her she would never grow large, stately, and beautiful like Miss Butler unless she ate heartily.
It was a roundabout way to compliment Hattie, but Frank, in his innocence, didn’t know how else to do it. Some men are so awkward, you know. ”

“ And, best of all, Hattie was a light eater, as Miss Scrimp often said, in hearing of her other boarders, too sensible to hurt her complexion by using too much greasy food.
Some of the homelier girls sometimes used the old “gag,” if I may use a story term, and said “she lived on love;” yet the dozen or more who worked in the same bindery with her never saw her receive attentions from any man—never saw any person approach her in a lover-like way. ”

“ You know Mr. Atherton lavishes his wealth upon his children without bounds, and Hattie says it does not seem very benevolent for her to give away her father’s money, so she devotes the proceeds of her literary labors to purposes of charity. She is very kind to the poor; I wish you could see how their faces brighten at her approach.”
“Well done! that is what I like in a woman. She is really a very sensible girl,” replied my brother.
“Even if she does write her name H-a-t-t-i-e,” said I, with a sly glance. Fred pinched my arm, but said nothing. ”

“ We found Hattie May on the veranda at Wildwood Lodge, waiting, she told us, for Hamish to come out of the barber shop of the hotel next door. “I sent him to get a shampoo,” she said, “his hair was such a mess.”
“How is he feeling?” I inquired. “Fully recovered, I hope.”
“Oh, yes, he’s all right—physically, that is!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I just mean that he’s still acting kind of preoccupied.”
“It’s the shock,” Eve said. “Really you can’t be surprised.”
Hattie May shook her head. “There’s something he wants to do,” she said, “but he won’t tell me what it is. ”

“ We shall have to hurry up if we mean to be back before the others."
"Did you think the cow was Teddie calling you?" laughed Hattie, who, having got her own trial over, could afford to jest at other people's misfortunes.
"You'd have jumped yourself. Oh dear, I spilt most of my snowdrops, though I did tie the basket round my neck!"
"Never mind; you can't fish them out of the stream now. I'll give you some of mine. Here, take these," said Rona. "I've nobody to send them to," she added, half to herself, as she climbed the bank.
"Oh, thanks awfully! I always send Mother a big bunch. ”