Mrs. Brown

“ They went on talking. It appeared that they were arguing, coaxing, urging something. Mrs. Brown's voice put them off. There was a crash and laughter. She gathered that they were scuffing playfully. Later she heard Mrs. Brown's voice at the head of the back stairs, calling down to some one to send up some beer.
Her tenseness relaxed. She felt herself falling into bottomless depths of depression. The bantering argument was going on again. Meaningless scraps of it came to her while she undressed in the dark and crept into bed.
"Aw, come on, Kittie, be a sport! ”

“ Good order and discipline were the rule in her department, and her governing ability led in time to her appointment as principal, a post which she relinquished to become the wife of Frank E. Brown, a gentleman well known in business circles, whose name may be found on the list of officers of many benevolent enterprises. During the quiet of domestic life succeeding her marriage, Mrs. Brown's active mind prepared itself for new fields of thought and research, and she eagerly seized upon the social problems which began to thrust themselves upon the notice of all thinking people. ”

“ Neither seemed much hurt, and both were broadly grinning.
"You mustn't fight!" declared Mrs. Brown.
"Oh, we was only in fun, lady," laughed the one who had first tripped the other.
"Have you seen a little boy and girl?" went on Mrs. Brown. [169]
"White chilluns?" asked one of the black boys.
"Co'se she done mean white chilluns!" exclaimed another. "I done seen 'em get offen de train!"
"Have you seen them since?" asked Mrs. Brown. "We had lunch, and my husband went uptown. I sat down on the bench, and Bunny and Sue walked down the street. I haven't seen them since, and they aren't in sight. ”

“ Brown calculates her company; and thinking there is enough for a quadrille in either room, she commences to form them—pouncing, from time to time, upon timid young men by the door, who are led forward, like lambs from a flock, to sacrifice,—until the sets are completed—all but one couple—Mrs. Brown stating herself “distressed for ladies;”—a combination of suffering by no means acute, for she stood up herself, having engaged the amiable young Slowcoach to fill the gap. ”

“ Brown’s last lengthy and rapid speech, “I never allows no payments to be more than a week in arrears.”
What could she mean by that? It really sounded as if she were familiar with transactions of the kind, but surely no respectable married woman, so nice in appearance too, even though her grammar was not faultless, would need more than one child to adopt; so, telling herself she had misunderstood, Prudence paid down the twenty pounds, kissed Augusta, saw Mrs. Brown and that infant into the train, and then relieved, yet with many cares on her mind, made her way back to Beaconsfield Gardens. ”

“ Brown.
"I was going to speak of that," replied the father of Bunny and Sue. "One of the young men in my office is going on leave, and I could hire you in his place. The wages aren't very big," he said, "but it would be enough for you to live on and take care of your sister."
"I suppose I could board here in Bellemere," suggested Mart.
"You can stay right here—you and Lucile!" cried Mrs. Brown. "Our house is plenty large enough, and there's lots of room. Do stay here—at least until you locate your uncle and your aunt." ”

“ Brown flushed, a peculiar dull red creeping up under his dark skin. He smothered the retort on his lips, however, and when he did speak it was with entire control, though there was, nevertheless, an uncompromising quality in his inflection which for the moment silenced his sister as if he had laid his hand upon her mouth.
"Understand me, once for all, Sue—if you can. I am going into no monastery. To such a man as I naturally am, I am going out of what has been a sheltered life into one in the open. You think of me as retiring from the world. ”

“ Brown. "I'll ask the proprietor of the medicine wagon if I can get a chance. But I'll have to do it when the banjo player can't hear, for in case he should be Fred—which I hardly think can be true—but if it should be he, and he heard me asking, he'd run away again."
"Yes, I suppose he would," said Mrs. Brown with a sigh. "Oh, how foolish boys are sometimes. They don't know what is good for them," and she looked at Bunny, as if wondering if the time would ever come when he would not be a "mother's boy." ”

“ His daughter liked Brown, too, and 'twas easy enough to see that Brown liked her. She was a mighty pretty girl, the kind Peter called a “queen,” and the active manager took to her like a cat to a fish. They was together more'n half the time, gitting up sailing parties, or playing croquet, or setting up on the “Lover's Nest,” which was a kind of slab summer-house Brown had rigged up on the bluff where Aunt Sophrony's pig-pens used to be in the old days. ”

“ While Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were traveling in the freight car with the pussy and with Nutty, the tramp, Mrs. Brown was left alone on the station platform, where she had sat down to rest after lunch and to wait for her husband. Mr. Brown had some business to attend to uptown, and he had to see not one man, as he thought at first, but several. ”

“ H.K. Brown, the wife of our ablest sculptor of that day. Mrs. Brown was, apart from the peculiar powers she possessed, one of the most remarkable women I have ever known, both morally and intellectually, and the peculiar mental powers she manifested were well known to all the large and thoughtful circle of friends which gathered round her. No physical "manifestation" took place in her presence, and we never "sat" as a "circle," but her telepathic and thought-reading powers in ordinary social intercourse were most surprising. ”

“ They tore off to the kitchen and arrived panting. Mrs. Brown was sitting in calm state on the kitchen verandah, and greeted them with a wide, expansive smile. Norah explained their need.
Mrs. Brown pursed up her lips.
“I haven’t anythink fancy, my dear,” she said slowly. “Only plum cake and scones, and there’s a nice cold tongue, and an apple pie. I’d like you to have tarts, but the fire’s out. Do you think you could manage?”
Jim laughed.
“I guess that’ll do, Mrs. Brown,” he said. “We’ll live like fighting cocks, and bring you home any amount of fish for breakfast. ”

“ Otherwise he is unchanged—except, perhaps, there are moments when, alert and full of feminine unselfishness as the major is by nature, he falls into a trance of abstraction. Then his wife recognizes with a concealed smile, by the blind look in his blue eyes, that he is wondering what were the title-deeds, and why he was not allowed to mention jackals. But, like so many old soldiers, Brown is religious, and believes that he will realize the rest of those purple adventures in a better world. ”

“ No wonder the baker sang the praises of Mr. James, and was surprised that Mrs. Brown did not agree with him in so doing.
The little woman was better off than many of her neighbours. She and her husband had been industrious, striving folks, and had started their married life with "something at their backs." They owned the cottage in which they lived and some six acres of land. These had been bequeathed to Mrs. Brown by the uncle who took her an orphan girl to keep house for him, after the death of her parents. Her husband went out to work when employment was to be had, and Mrs. ”

“ Brown, wringing her hands, “I really should not know what to do without him. So occupied as I am with this heavenly work, there is great necessity that some trustworthy person should be at home and see to things there. Ah, yes! Mr. Brown is invaluable.”
Mr. Brown put one hand on his heart and bent nearly double in the humility of his gratitude.
“See her! hear her!” he said; “always depreciating herself and exalting others. If ever there was a pattern, Mrs. Judson, a pattern,—well, my dear, I forbear; the blushes on that cheek shall always be sacred to your husband. ”

“ Its contrast with the beech woods we have just passed is about as great as that between Mrs. Brown and her sister, Mrs. Clay, who, with all due respect, is as rocky as this strip of barren land and as unattractive. She is the only person of whom I have ever heard Miss Molly and her 163 brother Kent say anything unkind, and they cannot conceal their feeling against her. It seems that Mrs. Clay had the settling of her father’s estate, and arranged matters so well for herself that Mrs. Brown’s share turned out to be this stony strip. ”

“ Holding the hands of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, Ben, the strange boy, who had been so queerly found under the straw in the tent, walked toward grandpa's house.
"Well land sakes! Where'd you come from?" asked Grandma Brown, as she saw him. "And such a looking sight! You look as if you'd slept in a barn all night!"
"I did—almost," said Ben, smiling.
"Well, come in and get that clown suit off you," said Mrs. Brown. "Then tell us all about it. What made you run away?"
"I was afraid that man would get me," said Ben. ”

“ It was still snowing, and the ground was now quite white, when the automobile drew up at the Opera House, which was where all sorts of shows and entertainments were given in Bellemere, the home of the Brown family.
"We can have a lot more fun in the snow to-morrow!" whispered Sue, as she and her brother passed in, Uncle Tad handing the tickets to Mrs. Gordon, who smiled at them. She was one of the committee of ladies who, like Mrs. Brown, were helping with the entertainment. ”

“ Mrs. Brown asked her to stay with her a day or two. Mrs. Brown has her faults, but nobody can't deny as she's got a good heart,—in fact, sometimes I think Mrs. Brown's good heart is about the worst fault she's got. I've knowed it lead her to do very foolish things time an' again—things as I thank my star I'd never think o' doin'—not in this world."
Mrs. Lathrop shifted her elbows a little; Susan withdrew at once from the fence.
"I must go in," she said, "to-morrow is goin' to be a more 'n full day. There's Polly's weddin' an' then in the evenin' Mr. Weskin is comin' up. ”

“ Brown. "It does children good to learn to be kind and thoughtful toward others. And, from what I hear, Mrs. Golden needs help. Her son works, but does not earn much, and she can't make a very good living from so small a store. We must buy what we can from her."
"Trust the children for that!" laughed Mary. "They'd run there all the while if we'd let them. Bunny was telling me Mrs. [124] Golden had something the matter with one of her legs."
"Oh, no. He said she expected a legacy," explained Mrs. Brown. "That means she hopes to get a little property or some money from a relative who has died." ”

“ And, of course, Mr. Brown was very willing to let the [65] colored man have any reward there might be.
Putting on a pair of heavy gloves he used when he did rough work in cleaning the Pullman car, the porter reached under the seat and dragged forth the growling, snapping little white poodle.
By this time Mrs. Brown, hearing the loud talking out in the smoking room, thought something serious had happened. She hastened to that end of the car, followed by Bunny and Sue, who did not want to be left behind. They arrived in time to see the porter handing the woman her pet.
"Oh, Dickie!" ”

“ There she sits in the corner of the carriage—that carriage which is travelling, not from Richmond to Waterloo, but from one age of English literature to the next, for Mrs. Brown is eternal, Mrs. Brown is human nature, Mrs. Brown changes only on the surface, it is the novelists who get in and out—there she sits and not one of the Edwardian writers has so much as looked at her. They have looked very powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window; at factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the carriage; ”

“ If Mrs. Brown could have seen Bunny and his sister then, I think she would have been surprised. But she did not see them, and, for a little while, she gave them no further thought, as she was so [15] busy straightening the room, after Uncle Tad and Bunker Blue had moved the sideboard to its new place. ”

“ Twitchel looked up from her knitting, with apologetic giggle at Mrs. Brown.
‘Law, now, there’s Miss Brown, she don’t know nothin’ about it, ’cause she’s got her servants to every turn. I s’pose she thinks it queer to hear us talkin’ about our work. Miss Brown must have her time all to herself. I was tellin’ the Deacon the other day that she was a privileged woman.’
‘I’m sure, those that have servants find work enough following ’em ’round,’ said Mrs. Brown,—who, like all other human beings, resented the implication of not having as many trials in life as her neighbours. ”

“ Brown. "Bunker, if you'll get out your cot, I'll make it for you, and then you can slide it under the automobile."
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Brown," replied the big boy, "but I can make my own bunk. I'm used to it."
Mrs. Brown looked through the ice box, and in the cupboard. She wanted to see if she had everything she needed for breakfast. And, as soon as she opened the ice box she exclaimed:
"There! The milk! We won't have any for the children. There's only a little bit left. Where can we get any?" ”

“ Brown. [Pg 172]
"Yes, I guess we will," said her husband. "We'll eat while the garage men are getting ropes and chains around our car to pull it out of the ditch."
And so they ate their dinner under the shade of a big tree beside the road. Two men had come in the auto truck to work for Mr. Brown, and they went about it quickly, putting strong ropes and chains on the "Ark."
"And now I have a little surprise for you," said Mrs. Brown as she poured tea for herself, Mr. Brown and Uncle Tad, and set milk before the children.
"Oh, goodie!" cried Sue.
"Fine!" exclaimed Bunny. ”