Mrs. Harding

“ Vernon Avenue afforded quite a lengthy drive before one reached the end of the paved road. When we drove past the Harding residence I observed with rapid heart beats my hero sitting on the front porch. Mrs. Harding was with him. Would I dare to suggest to Elizabeth? ... no, I’d better not divulge my thoughts to her ... she didn’t care anything about Mr. Harding and probably wouldn’t want to waste the time to call upon them. We were passing the house. Mr. and Mrs. Harding smiled and waved to us. My heart pounded madly and I felt the heat in my cheeks. ”

“ Timothy brought home nearly every day some little delicacy for her, which none of the rest thought of sharing. While Mrs. Harding, far enough from vanity, always dressed with extreme plainness, Ida's attire was always of good material and made up tastefully.
Sometimes the little girl asked: "Mother, why don't you buy yourself some of the pretty things you get for me?"
Mrs. Harding would answer, smiling: "Oh, I'm an old woman, Ida. Plain things are best for me."
"No, I'm sure you're not old, mother. You don't wear a cap. Aunt Rachel is a good deal older than you." ”

“ There were few limits to her belief in Harding. But it was not her habit to flatter her sons.
"What makes one so mad," she said, as she sailed towards the door in a stiff rustle of Sunday brocade, "is the way in which the people who admire her talk of her. When one thinks that all this 'slumming,' and all this stuff about the poor, only means keeping her husband in office and surrounding herself with a court of young men, it turns one sick!"
"My dear mother, we keep all our little hypocrisies," said Harding, indulgently. "Don't forget that Lady Maxwell provides me with a deal of good copy." ”

“ Harding or any of the Hardings that evening, and it seemed an uncanny thing to have her express the heartache I was experiencing those days from contemplation of the attitude the Votaws had assumed. It has often seemed to me that Mr. Harding has even spoken to me through our daughter, and, as I took her in my arms that night and talked to her, it was not to depart from the subject of Mr. Harding but rather to promise him, through my words to her, that she and I would not forsake him. As Elizabeth Ann herself put it, “We’ll always love our dear Mr. Harding, won’t we, Nan?” ”

“ Harding was a good, sensible, reliable woman, capable in every way—and she would engage her and a trained nurse, if necessary, to take care of the invalid. John should have every possible chance for his life that she could give him, and perhaps this would blot out that dreadful suspicion he had voiced that she had wished him out of the way.
She unfolded this plan to Doctor Wing when she went to Mrs. Harding's to meet him, at six o'clock, and, the physician cordially approving it, in less than three hours the sick man was transferred to Helen's cheerful, well-ventilated rooms, with good Mrs. ”

“ And he cast a troubled glance at the pale face and slender form of his wife.
"Well, how shall we get help, then?" asked Mrs. Harding, half laughing in the midst of her vexation. "The days are gone by when girls apply for places."
"Yes, there is no way but to go after them. If my troublesome rheumatism would just leave me for a few days, you should have two girls. But as it is, wife, I see no way but for you to go yourself with Walter for driver."
Mrs. Harding laughed to think how she would look driving about the country for "help," and would almost have preferred to try her hand alone ”

“ Harding! But so it is; you never know people until you find them out."
"No, indeed, Mrs. Johns. You never spoke a truer word in your life," replied Mrs. Little, emphatically.
On the day following, after seeing the poor widow, ministering to some of her immediate wants, and encouraging her to expect more substantial relief, Mrs. Harding called, as she had promised to do, on Mrs. Miller. A little to her surprise, that lady received her with unusual coldness ”

“ In her rising wrath it seemed to quiver like a lion's mane.
"Miss Harding," she said, in the chest-tones she reserved for critical moments, "has a nature impossible to deceive, because itself incapable of deception. Miss Harding and I first met—on this present plane—in an atmosphere unusually favorable to soul-revelation. I knew at once that here was the appointed comrade, while in Miss Harding there was the immediate recognition of a complementary spiritual force."
"It's perfectly true, Virginia," exclaimed Aunt Jane, beginning to cry. ”

“ He was a strong, vigorous-looking man for his years, and larger than the average mountaineer. He walked erect, his brown jeans and homespun clothing fitting loosely, his gray hair falling from under a well-worn broad-brimmed hat to his shoulders.
The Hardings lived on a settlement road at the foot of Bush Mountain, in a weather-beaten old log-house, shaded by a fine chestnut-oak, and a towering spruce pine. The widow Harding sat out on the low piazza shelling seed corn into a small splint basket, and she stared at the approaching visitor with surprise and displeasure. ”

“ Harding at the Bretton Hall Hotel, in which he continued his advices and his wishes that he were going with me. I tried to be happy. Now, at least, he could relax and recuperate. I had retained a very vivid picture of him as he looked in January, and I knew that the strain of Mrs. Harding’s illness had greatly worn him.
In a letter from him, received Tuesday (I sailed on Thursday) , he wrote, “Don’t spend any money in New York, dearie; there will be many things you will see in Paris which you will want to buy.” ”

“ Finally lifting his gaze from the soil he looked into the blue eyes of Betty. With an inarticulate cry of joy he clasped her in his arms. while the tears coursed down his cheeks. He took the girls, one by each hand, and walked into the house. All smiles, he welcomed Mrs. Harding who felt as if they were her own parents. Mrs. Harding said they had better go back to the hotel but Sally's grandmother would not hear of it. "Call up your husband and ask him to send out your clothes by express truck. Mrs. Harding did this and her husband's voice soon came over the telephone. ”

“ As Harding senior, a sensible and hearty Englishman, used to say to his wife, "Thank God, he wasn't literary himself, and to discuss whether the heroine of a play would have behaved like this, or have behaved like that, when one knew that she wasn't a real woman at all, seemed to him the sort of tomfoolishness for young girls in a drawing-room, and not the kind of thing he would have expected a son of his to do for a living, damn it!" ”

“ After she had gone out and closed the door, I said wistfully, “Oh, I wish I could work for you, darling!” Mr. Harding smiled—the old smile of indulgence and love I liked to think he smiled best at me—but shook his head. “It would never do, dearie,” he said. Then he went on to picture in the face of his refusal how he would love to have me, and how, if I were his stenographer he would give me all his dictation just to have me with him, and he feared the nation’s business would suffer! ”

“ Mrs. Harding quickly took the dresses from the radiator. "My, neither of you can wear these dresses any more, on the trip. Leave them in your bags and I'll wash them when we stop tonight. The girls were glad that they had not been scolded. Mrs. Harding kissed them both." Be careful next time." They promised this, and completed dressing. In a half hour they were once again on their way. "Gee, Betty this looks like a regular 'blue' Monday. I don't mean the skies are blue. I mean the day is going to be a rainy one. The skies are as black as the ace of spades." ”

“ Louisa danced and clapped her hands; and Emma felt very happy, sitting beside her mother, and looking up in her face, while she read the letter through tears of pleasure.
Mrs. Harding had written a few lines to the children, which their mother read aloud to them, and then allowed them to look at for themselves. The words were these: "I often think of you, dear Louisa and Emma, and pray for divine blessings upon you both; and I hope to hear that you are giving yourselves to the Saviour, who died upon the cross for you. You know the love of Jesus for the young ”

“ Her head’s as full of nonsense now as an egg is of meat, an’ she wouldn’t know [16] a broom from a clothes-wringer after she’d been philandering round a couple of months with people that are never satisfied unless they’re peeking into something they can’t understand.’
‘But I guess we’ll have to spare Pauline,’ said Mr Harding. ‘She has been a good girl, and she deserves a holiday.’ He patted Pauline’s hand kindly.
‘Oh, of course!’ sniffed Mrs Harding in high dudgeon; ‘some folks must always have what they cry for. ”

“ I know it is about the hospital, and what they are doing up in London, and what that cruel newspaper has said; but if there be such cause for sorrow, let us be sorrowful together; we are all in all to each other now: dear, dear papa, do speak to me."
Mr. Harding could not well speak now, for the warm tears were running down his cheeks like rain in May, but he held his child close to his heart, and squeezed her hand as a lover might, and she kissed his forehead and his wet cheeks, and lay upon his bosom, and comforted him as a woman only can do. ”

“ Harding which always stood in a silver frame on my bedroom table, as well as pictures of other members of the Harding family, all of which hung on my wall, and my sister Elizabeth’s photograph of Mr. Harding which he had autographed for her early in 1921.
In many ways Elizabeth Ann reflects my own moods, but love for Mr. Harding seems to have developed of itself in her heart with an almost uncannily independent force. When we first moved into the apartment on Lafayette Parkway in Chicago, Elizabeth Ann was about two and one-half years old. ”

“ Mrs. Long, a neighbor who had dropped in to borrow some dye-stuff and to beg a few garden seed, sat near her, rubbing snuff, and retailing the latest gossip circulating through the settlement. At the sight of Mr. Hurd she paused in astonishment.
"Lizy Ann Harding, thar comes Killus Hurd, ez I live!"
"I'm a-seein' him," said Mrs. Harding, her fingers trembling over the yellow corn.
"Good-mornin', Mis' Harding; hope you air well as you wanter be, Mis' Long," he said, walking up to the piazza step. ”

“ As she entered the salon where the little man was fussing about among the packages, their glances met. She saw that Harding had told him—at least in discreet outline—of their conversation. She also saw that if she reopened the subject she would find herself straightway whirled out upon a stormy sea of danger that might easily overwhelm her flimsy boat. She silently and sullenly dropped into her place; she ministered to the general's pleasure in packages of finery. But she did not exclaim, or admire, or respond in any way. The honeymoon was over. Her dream of wifehood was dissipated. ”

“ They’re not cash girls. They’re grown up women and oughtta know their business. All this talk about girls not being able to do as well as men makes me sick.” The cashier pouted, looking rather nettled. “I b’lieve in woman’s rights, I do.”
“Don’t get huffy,” dimpled Miss Welch. “I’m something of a suffragette myself. I was only saying what I thought. This is a free country, ain’t it, Kiddy?” This to Harry Harding, who had stopped before her desk to speak to her. Harry was the bearer of a note from his mother asking Miss Welch to take supper with the Hardings on the next Friday evening. ”

“ Harding said with sudden gruffness.
"Show them to me!"
Reluctantly he obeyed, and brought forth a ring, a circlet, and a girdle of surpassing workmanship, wrought in gold thick-crusted with emeralds. A cry of wonder went up from all the maidens.
"There's something else," said Maudlin; and without waiting thrust her hand into the bottom of the pouch and drew out a mesh of silver. It was so fine that it could be held and hidden in her two hands; yet when it fell apart it was a garment, as supple as rich silk. The four maids touched it softly and looked their longings. ”

“ That was no business of Henry Harding’s, and he was quite contented to pass on without interfering—the more so as the countenance of one of the sober parties of the trio, turned for a moment towards him as he came up, clearly counselled the shunning of its owner.
He was passing on, and had already got beyond the group, when curiosity prompted him to glance back. The face of a man so helplessly intoxicated as the one supported between the other two could not be other than a curious spectacle. ”

“ Harding thanked her informer, and they drove on down the long steep hill, at the foot of which lay the insignificant village of Seccombe Plains.
"We have heard of one girl, mother," said Walter, looking very bright. "Perhaps she will be just the one for us."
"Perhaps so," said Mrs. Harding, doubtfully.
"We shall feel pretty grand if we can carry back a good girl." ”

“ If Henry Harding had been asked why the young man interested him, he, perhaps, could not have told. But it was his well-bred air, coupled with garments that scarce corresponded; and, above all, the idea that he was looking upon a stranger in a strange land, alone, perhaps friendless—a foreshadowing of his own future. These were the thoughts passing in his mind, which at the moment made him look with a friendly eye upon his fellow oyster-eater at the bar. ”