Mame

“ But what we all meant was what Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss said, as she sat flushed and smiling behind the coffee-cups:—
"I declare, I feel something like I ain't felt since I don't know when!"
And Calliope nodded at her.
"I guess that's your soul, Mame Bliss," she said. "You can always feel it if you go to work an' act as if you got one. I'll take my coffee clear." ”

“ It was one night after a lucky plunge on a 20-to-1 horse had brought him in an unexpected fortune of eighteen hundred dollars that Durkin, driving up Fifth avenue through the waning afternoon of the early Winter with Mame at his side, allowed his thoughts to wander back to his thin and empty existence as a Postal Union operator. As he gazed out on the carriages and the women and the lights, and felt the warmth of the girl at his side, he wondered how he had ever endured that old, colorless life. ”

“ The street door itself was open. Already halfway in through that door was a dark, stoutly-built man. He stood struggling in the arms of a determined and desperate young woman. That woman, Durkin, could see was Mame. ”

“ Omar Ben had never seen a lady-cat, and his ideal of the sex was something modest and retiring. Miss Mame was not retiring. She greeted her friend's friend without the courtesy of a "Mr.," looked in open admiration at the handsome gentleman, and asked if he were single.
The aristocrat murmured a commonplace and edged away. At the slight the lady took umbrage, spat warningly, and showed her claws, till Ringtail averted trouble by a generous display of tact. ”

“ Mame laughed in her throat, smoothed her frizzed blonde hair, sold a paper of pins and an emery heart.
"Like fun you'll tell Angie! I got it all fixed to tell her I'm going to the picture-show with you and George to-night."
"Before I'd let a old grouch like her lord it over me! It ain't like she was your sister or relation, or something—but just because you live together. Nix on that for mine."
"She don't think a girl's got a right to be young or nothin'! Look at me—a regular stick-at-home. Gee! a girl's got to have something." ”

“ He looked up quickly as Mame drew her little table out from the wall and lifted the transmitter up on the empty electric-fan shelf. “Er—before I forget it,” he said, absently, his eyes still on his widely-strewn apparatus, “have you got everything you want away from here?”
She had; though she hated to leave her show-case, she said. Some day she might like to take up fancy-sewing again. “But before we do another thing,” she insisted, “we have got to have dinner. Breakfast this morning was our last meal, I know!”
And to his utter astonishment Durkin remembered that he was famished! ”

“ Wild cries of joy came from all the girls at once. Secretly they had all been dreading the ready-made suits that the scouts wore, but this offer would make their troop the smartest in the city. Before they could even express their thanks, Lily took out six order blanks, signed by her mother, and gave them to the girls. Even Gertie and Mame, who had heretofore shown little interest in the proceedings, looked on in frank envy.
Then, while the excitement was still high, they adjourned to the gymnasium, to receive their first instructions in basket-ball. ”

“ Mr. McClosky's face beamed. “You was allers a good girl, Jinny,” he said, dropping on one knee the better to imprint a respectful kiss on her forehead. But Jenny caught him by the wrists, and for a moment held him captive. “Father,” said she, trying to fix his shy eyes with the clear, steady glance of her own, “all the girls that were there to-night had some one with them. Mame Robinson had her aunt; Lucy Rance had her mother; Kate Pierson had her sister—all, except me, had some other woman. Father dear,” her lip trembled just a little, “I wish mother hadn't died when I was so small. ”

“ He's also a sort of day-watchman, I find. He's a pretty intelligent and trusty old fellow, absolutely unapproachable, from our standpoint. Another thing, too, the place is webbed with burglar-alarm apparatus. It would take another hour or so to get the right wires cut safely off. I hate to feel squeamish, at this time of the game—but that Ottenheimer safe does look uninviting!”
Mame walked up and down, with the little watch-case receiver and its hand-kerchief still crowning her heavy mass of dark hair, like a coronet, and green wires trailing behind her, like the outline of a bridal veil. ”

“ Hastening to the door, she peered into the hall. Not a ‘noble Senior’ was in sight. The girls flitting through the dormitories were Middlers and Freshmen. Confident that she was safe from interference, Elizabeth, her white gown trailing after her, started forth for the chapel. Nancy Eckdahl and Mame Welch joined her at the foot of the stairway.
“Don’t I look like a boiled lobster?” cried Nancy. “But this was the only dress anywhere near my size. It’s Nora O’Day’s. Isn’t it handsome? It is unfortunate that she is so dark and I so fair. ”

“ Ottenheimer!”
“Slower—slower, Jim!” moaned Mame, behind him.
“Combination's slipped my mind, Phipps. Yes; after dinner; want to run down and look over the books. Louder, please; I can't hear. Yes, that's better. To the right three times, to seventy-four—back thirty—on eighty-two—back one hundred and eight—and on seven. Yes. It's the second last figure slipped me. Better close up now. Better close up, I say. All right. Good-bye.”
The bell tinkled and grew still. The last minute vibration ebbed out of the transmitter's tingling diaphragm; but still neither the listening man nor woman moved. ”

“ She lingered long upon the hearth. "I could stay here
always," she exclaimed in a low voice, but loud enough to awaken the wary maiden from her slumbers on the bed. But the mutual vocabulary of the twain did not admit of satisfactory conversation, and the Indian girl sank back into unconsciousness.
As she sat there thinking, a pair of kindly eyes seemed watching her every movement with a tender devotion that made her heart beat wildly. "I wish I'd never teased or laughed at Mame," she sighed, as the Reverend Thomas Rogers flitted past her inner vision. "What is Life but Love? ”

“ One thing, Hester, if you play a match game, you'll look better than I do. [Pg 168] My basket-ball suit was a fright; but then, I never do have anything that looks like other girls."
Hester was about to express herself contrary to this sentiment, when an audacious remark from Erma caused her to fall back in silence.
"You see how it is, Hester," explained Erma later as the two walked arm in arm down the hall. "Mame is the best dresser in school. She has the best-made clothes and the best taste about choosing them, and you never see a pin or hook loose. ”

“ Fred had noticed the way the other looked, at the time they were leaving Buck and his shipwrecked crew down the river. And perhaps he had made the same discovery that Bristles had.
Flo Temple, about that time, declared she must be running home, and left, accompanied by some of the other girls, her chum, Cissy Anderson, whom Sid liked; and Mame Wells, the little hoyden sister of Sid, who seemed to be more than, half boy, because she dearly loved to play baseball, ice hockey, go fishing, and even aspired to go hunting when she got older, and her father would buy her a gun. ”

“ Somehow I always think of flowers when I see a group of girls together. Do people never make you think of flowers? Some seem to me like lilies, others like shy, modest violets."
"Oh, cut it out!" said Emma, disregarding the rules in the use of language. "Just at present they make me think of a lot of empty vessels which will be emptier if they are not out of these duds and into dresses before the ten-minute bell rings for dinner."
Emma strode on down the hall, in company with Mame Cross and Edna Bucher. ”

“ I’m abandoning the conflict, Jeff; I’m deserting to the enemy. You’ll find Miss Dugan inside contemplating the only living mummy and the informed hog. She’s a fine girl, Jeff. I’d have beat you out if I could have kept up the grubless habit a little while longer. You’ll have to admit that the fasting dodge was aces-up for a while. I figured it out that way. But say, Jeff, it’s said that love makes the world go around. Let me tell you, the announcement lacks verification. It’s the wind from the dinner horn that does it. I love that Mame Dugan. ”

“ We've got them this time!”
“Not until we know that combination, though,” qualified the colder-thoughted woman in the wicker rocker, still not quite understanding how the other had found so potent and so unexpected an ally.
V
In the paling afternoon, with a pearl-mist of fine rain thinly shrouding the city, Mame waited for Durkin impatiently with her watch open before her. As the frail steel hand, implacable as fate, sank away toward the half-hour mark, her own spirits sank with it. It was not often Durkin was late. Another ten minutes would make him forever too late. ”

“ Her words, except those last ones fixed by the solemnity of death, she did not so much remember, but the tenor of her mother’s teachings, her influence, her personality, were indelibly stamped on her mind. In every grief her first impulsive thought was, “Oh, my mamma!” as though even that mute appeal was a consolation; while the reflection, “Would Mamma like to have me?” influenced her actions more than the actual presence of many a living mother. Never a night did she omit to kneel and repeat the prayer she had learned at her knee. ”

“ Mamma, who has a simple nature, has instituted, for the satisfying of that feeling, a weekly evening at which we, who are related by blood but not by interest, meet out of deference for an old woman whom we do not want to grieve, whom we wish to leave in her illusion. ”

“ It is so sweet to enshrine you in such a pure romance, mamma. Though you have been married sixteen years—ah, how old I am!—I see you sit and look at papa sometimes, for a long, long time without speaking, and though you do not smile, I think, 'She is dreaming of the days when life was pure joy, because it was pure love,' and I long to ask you to tell me about those days, because I am sure, if you did, you would tell me the sweetest story of mutual love and devotion. ”

“ It isn't fair," said Rosemary, with a little difficulty. "Not only Dad and Bess and the maids, but you and I, too, we can't help idolizing mamma. And sometimes we never think of mother—our own mother!—except as tired and sick and struggling—that's all I remember, anyway. And mamma is all strength and sweetness and health." ”

“ He turned upon the child with admiration, for to him nothing in nature could better be likened unto his lost and lovely Alice.
“Yes, darling,” he said, kissing her again and again, “mamma was just like the twilight—sweet, tender, and soothing.”
“Then I am not at all like mamma?” she remarked, a little sadly.
“And why?”
“Because I am strong and full of life. I always feel as though it was just daylight. I never feel tired, papa, I only feel hushed.” ”

“ Meta sobbed on. “I want mamma! I want mamma, who talked to me and nursed me. Mamma loved us.”
“Yes, she loved us,” he said, his heart wrung with the recollection of the past: “we shall never find any one else to love us as she loved. Meta, child, listen! Mamma lives still; she is looking down from heaven now, and sees and hears us; she loves us, and will love us for ever. ”

“ But what has this to do with Mammy? you ask. A great deal, I can assure you; for I began to fear that it was not the old nurse who had returned to us, but some strange being, who, having assumed her appearance, had not been able altogether to imitate her manner. So I kept myself aloof, and felt afraid to venture too close; but she grew thinner and paler, and my mother relieved her from all care of the children.
I slept in a small closet that opened into the nursery; and calling me very softly one night, she said, "Miss Amy, will you bring me a pitcher of water? ”

“ Besides, I felt that no one, however kind, could be quite the same as mamma when one was ill; so I am afraid I must have seemed very ungrateful to poor Henrietta, when I murmured fretfully, "Oh dear! oh dear! why doesn't my mother come? No one can nurse me as well as she can. I am sure I shall die if she won't come soon. Oh, mamma, mamma, I do want you so very much!" ”

“ In tenderest rallying one day of the child who trotted after her everywhere, content to sit, or stand, or wait, if only she might touch hand or dress of "mamma," she said: "Little one (the name by which she always called me) , if you cling to mamma in this way, I must really get a string and tie you to my apron, and how will you like that?" "O mamma darling," came the fervent answer, "do let it be in a knot." ”

“ FATHER and Mother have both given us their full permission. We had expected storms, thunder-claps, and lightning flashes. I cannot yet fully realize it. I had hoped that Father would consent, but I had not dared to dream that Mamma would stand by him. We have never been estranged from one another but things are clearer now between Mamma and us, this has brought us nearer together. ”

“ MAMMA'S LITTLE HOUSEMAID
I am mamma's little housemaid, don't you see?
They couldn't get along so well if it were not for me;
For every Friday morning I take my little broom,
And sweep and sweep the pretty rugs that lie in mamma's room.
And then I sweep the door-steps off, and do not leave a crumb,
And wipe the dishes, too, and oh, it is the bestest fun!
And then, when mamma starts to bake, she says that maybe I
Can make all by my very self a cunning little pie. ”

“ She was back again in Amherst with Mamma, in the garden of the sumptuous 'villa.' Mamma was pulling up plants by the roots. The roots were hair. She jerked up out of the clotting earth a succession of writhing human bodies.
'Oh, Mamma, stop, please stop! I can't bear it, expecially those purplish ones without any legs!'
Mamma leered at her. Usually the heads were half out of the ground like turnips. Sometimes there was only a head. The most ghastly of all had but a leg and a splay foot. ”