Martha By the Day by Julie M. Lippmann

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MARTHA BY-THE-DAY

By JULIE M. LIPPMANN

1912

CHAPTER I

If you are one of the favored few, privileged to ride in chaises, you
may find the combination of Broadway during the evening rush-hour, in a
late November storm, stimulating--you may, that is, provided you have a
reliable driver. If, contrariwise, you happen to be of the class whose
fate it is to travel in public conveyances (and lucky if you have the
price!) and the car, say, won't stop for you--why--

Claire Lang had been standing in the drenching wet at the
street-crossing for fully ten minutes. The badgering crowd had been
shouldering her one way, pushing her the other, until, being a stranger
and not very big, she had become so bewildered that she lost her head
completely, and, with the blind impulse of a hen with paresis, darted
straight out, in amidst the crush of traffic, with all the chances
strong in favor of her being instantly trampled under foot, or ground
under wheel, and never a one to know how it had happened.

An instant, and she was back again in her old place upon the curbstone.
Something like the firm iron grip of a steam-derrick had fastened on her
person, hoisted her neatly up, and set her as precisely down, exactly
where she had started from.

It took her a full second to realize what had happened. Then, quick as a
flash, anger flamed up in her pale cheeks, blazed in her tired eyes.
For, of course, this was an instance of "insult" described by "the
family at home" as common to the experience of unprotected girls in New
York City. She groped about in her mind for the formula to be applied in
such cases, as recommended by Aunt Amelia. "Sir, you are no gentleman!
If you were a gentleman, you would not offer an affront to a young,
defenseless girl who--" The rest eluded her; she could not recall it,
try as she would. In desperate resolve to do her duty anyway, she tilted
back her umbrella, whereat a fine stream of water poured from the tip
directly over her upturned face, and trickled cheerily down the bridge
of her short nose.

"Sir--" she shouted resolutely, and then she stopped, for, plainly, her
oration was, in the premises, a misfit--the person beside her--the one
of the mortal effrontery and immortal grip, being a--woman. A woman of
masculine proportions, towering, deep-chested, large-limbed, but with a
face which belied all these, for in it her sex shone forth in a
motherliness unmistakable, as if the world at large were her family, and
it was her business to see that it was generously provided for, along
the pleasantest possible lines for all concerned.

"What car?" the woman trumpeted, gazing down serenely into Claire's
little wet, anxious, upturned face at her elbow.

"Columbus Avenue."

The stranger nodded, peering down the glistening, wet way, as if she
were a skipper sighting a ship.

"My car, too! First's Lexin'ton--next Broadway--then--here's ours!"
Again that derrick-grip, and they stood in the heart of the maelstrom,
but apparently perfectly safe, unassailable.

"They won't stop," Claire wailed plaintively. "I've been waiting for
ages. The car'll go by! You see if it won't!"

It did, indeed, seem on the point of sliding past, as all the rest had
done, but of a sudden the motorman vehemently shut off his power, and
put on his brake. By some hidden, mysterious force that was in her, or
the mere commanding dimensions of her frame, Claire's companion had
brought him to a halt.

She lifted her charge gently up on to the step, pausing herself, before
she should mount the platform, to close the girl's umbrella.

"Step lively! Step lively!" the conductor urged insistently, reaching
for his signal-strap.

The retort came calmly, deliberately, but with perfect good nature. "Not
on your life, young man. I been steppin' lively all day, an' for so
long's it's goin' to take this car to get to One-hundred-an'-sixteenth
Street, my time ain't worth no more'n a settin' hen's."

The conductor grinned in spite of himself. "Well, mine _is_," he
declared, while with an authoritative finger he indicated the box into
which Claire was to drop her fare.

"So all the other roosters think," the woman let fall with a tolerant
smile, while she diligently searched in her shabby purse for five cents.

Claire, in the doorway, lingered.

"Step right along in, my dear! Don't wait for me," her friend advised,
closing her teeth on a dime, as she still pursued an elusive nickel.
"Step right along in, and sit down anywheres, an' if there ain't
nowheres to sit, why, just take a waltz-step or two in the direction o'
some of them elegant gen'lemen's feet, occupyin' the places meant for
ladies, an' if they don't get up for love of _you_, they'll get up for
love of their shins."

Still the girl did not pass on.

"Fare, please!" There was a decided touch of asperity in the
conductor's tone. He glared at Claire almost menacingly.

Her lip trembled, the quick tears sprang to her eyes. She hesitated,
swallowed hard, and then brought it out with a piteous gulp.

"I _had_ my fare--'twas in my glove. It must have slipped out. It's
gone--lost--and--"

A tug at the signal-strap was the conductor's only comment. He was
stopping the car to put her off, but before he could carry out his
purpose the woman had dropped her dime into the box with a sounding
click.

"Fare for two!" she said, "an' if I had time, an' a place to sit, I'd
turn you over acrost my knee, an' give you two, for fair, young man, for
the sake of your mother who didn't learn you better manners when you was
a boy!" With which she laid a kind hand upon Claire's heaving shoulder,
and impelled her gently into the body of the car, already full to
overflowing.

For a few moments the girl had a hard struggle to control her rising
sobs, but happily no one saw her working face and twitching lips, for
her companion had planted herself like a great bulwark between her and
the world, shutting her off, walling her 'round. Then, suddenly, she
found herself placed in a hurriedly vacated seat, from which she could
look up into the benevolent face inclined toward her, and say, without
too much danger of breaking down in the effort:

"I really _did_ have it--the money, you know. Truly, I'm not a--"

"O, pooh! Don't you worry your head over a little thing like that. Such
accidents is liable to occur in the best-reggerlated fam'lies. They do
in mine, shoor!"

"But, you see," quavered the uncertain voice, "I haven't any more.
That's all I had, so I can't pay you back, and--"

It was curious, but just here another passenger hastily rose, vacating
the seat next Claire's, and leaving it free, whereat her companion
compressed her bulky frame into it with a sigh, as of well-earned rest,
and remarked comfortably, "_Now_ we can talk. You was sayin'--what was
it? About that change, you know. It was all you had. You mean _by_ you,
of course."

Claire's pale, pinched face flushed hotly. "No, I don't," she confessed,
without lifting her downcast eyes.

Her companion appeared to ponder this for a moment, then quite abruptly
she let it drop.

"My name's Slawson," she observed. "Martha 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. "My father was judge of the Supreme Court, but he had losses, and
then he died, and there wasn't much of anything left, and so--"

"You come to New York to make your everlastin' fortune, an' you--"

Claire Lang shook her head, completing the unfinished sentence. "No, I
haven't made it, that is, not yet. But I'm not discouraged. I don't mean
to give up. Things look pretty dark just now, but I'm not going to let
that discourage me--No, indeed! I'm going to be brave and courageous,
and never say die, even if--even if--"

"Turn 'round, an' pertend you're lookin' out of the winder," suggested
Mrs. Slawson confidentially. "The way folks stare, you'd think the world
was full of nothin' but laughin' hyeenyas. Dontcher care, my dear! Well
for some of 'em, if they could shed an honest tear or two themselves,
oncet in a while, instead of bein' that brazen; 'twouldn't be water at
all, but Putzes Pomady it'd take to make an impression on 'em, an'
don't you forget it. There! That's right! Now, no one can observe what's
occurrin' in your face, an' I can talk straight into your ear, see? What
I was goin' to say _is_, that bein' a mother myself an' havin' children
of my own to look out for, I couldn't recommend any lady, let alone one
so young an' pretty as you, to take up with strangers, here in New York
City, be they male or be they female. No, certaintly not! But in this
case, you can take it from me, I'm O.K. I can give the highest
references. I worked for the best fam'lies in this town, ever since I
was a child. You needn't be a mite afraid. I'm just a plain mother of a
fam'ly an', believe _me_, you can trust me as you would trust one of
your own relations, though I do say it as shouldn't, knowin' how queer
_own relations_ can be and _is_, when put to it at times. So, if you
happen to be in a hole, my dear, without friends or such things in the
city, you feel free to turn to, or if you seem to stand in need of a
word of advice, or--anything else, why, dontcher hesitate a minute. It'd
be a pretty deep hole Martha Slawson couldn't see over the edge of, be
sure of that, even if she did have to stand on her toes to do it. Holes
is my specialty, havin' been in an' out, as you might say, all my
life--particularly _in_."

Judicious or not, Claire told her story. It was not a long one. Just
the everyday experience of a young girl coming to a strange city,
without influence, friends, or money, expecting to make her way, and
finding that way beset with difficulties, blocked by obstacles.

"I've done everything I could think of, honestly I have," she concluded
apologetically. "I began by trying for big things; art-work in editorial
offices (everybody liked my art-work in Grand Rapids!). But 'twas no
use. Then I took up commercial drawing. I got what looked like a good
job, but the man gave me one week's pay, and that's all I could ever
collect, though I worked for him over a month. Then I tried real estate.
One firm told me about a woman selling for them who cleared, oh, I don't
know how-much-a-week, in commissions. Something queer must be the matter
with me, I guess, for I never got rid of a single lot, though I walked
my feet off. I've tried writing ads., and I've directed envelopes. I've
read the Wants columns, till it seems as if everybody in the world was
looking for a _job_. But I can't get anything to do. I guess God doesn't
mean me to die of starvation, for you wouldn't believe how little I've
had to eat all summer and fall, and yet I'm almost as strong and hearty
as ever. But lately I haven't been able to make any money at all, not
five cents, so I couldn't pay my board, and they--they told me at the
house where I live, that I'd have to square up to-night, or I couldn't
keep my room any longer. They took my trunk a week ago. I haven't had
anything to wear except these clothes I have on, since, and they're
pretty wet now--and--and--I've nowhere to go, and it _is_ pouring so
hard, and I should have been put off the car if you hadn't--"

Mrs. Slawson checked the labored flow with a hand upon the girl's knee.
"Where did you say your boardin'-house is?" she inquired abruptly.

"Ninety-fifth Street--West--Two-hundred-and-eighty-five-and-a-half."

"Good gracious! An' we're only three blocks off there now!"

"But you said," expostulated Claire helplessly, feeling herself
propelled as by the hand of fate through the crowd toward the door. "You
said you live on One-hundred-and-sixteenth Street."

"So I do, my dear, so I do! But I've got some business
to transack with a lady livin' in Ninety-fifth
Street--West--Two-hunderd-an'-eighty-five-an'-a-half. Come along.
'Step lively,' as my friend, _this nice young man out here on the
rear platform_, says."

CHAPTER II

They plodded along the flooded street in silence, Claire following after
Martha Slawson like a small child, almost clutching at her skirts. It
was not easy to keep pace with the long, even strides that covered so
much ground, and Claire fell into a steady pony-trot that made her
breath come short and quick, her heart beat fast. She dimly wondered
what was going to happen, but she did not dare, or care, to ask. It was
comfort enough just to feel this great embodiment of human sympathy and
strength beside her, to know she was no longer alone.

Before the house Martha paused a moment.

"Now, my dear, there ain't goin' to be nothin' for you to do but just
sit tight," she vouchsafed reassuringly. "Don't you start to butt in (if
you'll pardon the liberty), no matter what I say. I'm goin' to be a
perfect lady, never fear. I know my place, an' I know my dooty, an' if
your boardin'-house lady knows hers, there'll be no trouble
whatsomedever, so dontcher worry."

She descended the three steps leading from the street-level down into
the little paved courtyard below, and rang the basement bell. A moment
and an inner door was unlocked, flung open, and a voice from just
within the grating of the closed iron area-gate asked curtly, "Well,
what's wanted?"

"Is this Mrs.----? I should say, is this the lady of the house?" Martha
Slawson's voice was deep, bland, prepossessing.

"I'm Mrs. Daggett, yes, if that's what you mean."

"That's what I mean. My name's Slawson. Mrs. Sammy Slawson, an' I come
to see you on a little matter of business connected with a young lady
who's been lodgin' in your house--Miss Lang."

Mrs. Daggett stepped forward, and unlatched the iron gate. "Come in,"
she said, in a changed voice, endeavoring to infuse into her acrid
manner the grace of a belated hospitality.

Claire, completely hidden from view behind Martha Slawson's heroic
proportions, followed in her wake like a wee, foreshortened shadow as,
at Mrs. Daggett's invitation, Mrs. Slawson passed through the area
gateway into the malodorous basement hall, and so to the dingy
dining-room beyond. Here a group of grimy-clothed tables seemed to have
alighted in sudden confusion, reminding one of a flock of pigeons
huddled together in fear of the vultures soon to descend on them with
greedy, all-devouring appetites.

"We can just as well talk here as anywhere," announced Mrs. Daggett.
"It's quarter of an hour before dinnertime, but if you'd rather go up to
the parlor we can."

"O, dear, no!" said Martha Slawson suavely. "_Any_ place is good enough
for me. Don't trouble yourself. I'm not particular _where_ I am."
Unbidden, she drew out a chair from its place beside one of the
uninviting tables, and sat down on it deliberately. It creaked beneath
her weight.

"O--oh! Miss Lang!" said Mrs. Daggett, surprised, seeing her young
lodger now, for the first time.

Martha nodded. "Yes, it's Miss Lang, an' I brought her with me, through
the turrbl storm, Mrs.--a--?"

"Daggett," supplied the owner of the name promptly.

"That's right, Daggett," repeated Martha. "I brought Miss Lang with me,
Mrs. Daggett, because I couldn't believe my ears when she told me she
was goin' to be--to be _turned out_, if she didn't pay up to-night,
_weather_ or no. I wanted to hear the real truth of it from you, ma'am,
straight, with her by."

Mrs. Daggett coughed. "Well, business is business. I'm not a capitalist.
I'm not keeping a boarding-house for my health, you know. I can't
afford to give credit when I have to pay cash."

"But, of course, you don't mean you'd ackchelly refuse the young lady
shelter a night like this, if she come to you, open an' honest, an' said
she hadn't the price by her just at present, but she would have it
sooner or later, an' then you'd be squared every cent. You wouldn't turn
her down if she said that, would you?"

"Say, Mrs. Slawson, or whatever your name is," broke in Mrs. Daggett
sharply, "I'm not here to be cross-questioned. When you told me you'd
come on business for Miss Lang, I thought 'twas to settle what she owes.
If it ain't--I'm a busy woman. I'm needed in the kitchen this minute, to
see to the dishing-up. Have the goodness to come to the point. Is Miss
Lang going to pay? If she is, well and good. She can keep her room. If
she isn't--" The accompanying gesture was eloquent.

Mrs. Slawson's chair gave forth another whine of reproach as she settled
down on it with a sort of inflexible determination that defied argument.

"So that's your ultomato?" she inquired calmly. "I understand you to say
that if this young lady (who any one with a blind eye can see she's
_quality_), I understand you to say, that if she don't pay down every
cent she owes you, here an' now, you'll put her out, bag an' baggage?"

"No, not bag and baggage, Mrs. Slawson," interposed the boarding-house
keeper with a wry smile, bridling with the sense that she was about to
say something she considered rather neat, "I am, as you might say,
holding her bag and baggage--as security."

"Now what do you think o' that!" ejaculated Martha Slawson.

"It's quite immaterial to me what anybody thinks of it," Mrs. Daggett
snapped. "And now, if that's all you've got to suggest, why, I'm sure
it's all I have, and so, the sooner we end this, the sooner I'll be at
liberty to attend to my dinner."

Still Mrs. Slawson did not stir.

"I suppose you think you're a lady," she observed without the faintest
suggestion of heat. "I suppose you think you're a lady, but you
certainly ain't workin' at it now. What takes my time, though, is the
way you ackchelly seem to be meanin' what you say! Why, I wouldn't turn
a dog out a night like this, an' you'd let a delicate young girl go into
the drivin' storm, a stranger, without a place to lay her head--that is,
for all _you_ know. I could bet my life, without knowin' a thing about
it, that the good Lord never let you have a daughter of your own. He
wouldn't trust the keepin' of a child's body, not to speak of her soul,
to such as you. That is, He wouldn't if He could help Himself. But,
thanks be! Miss Lang ain't dependent. She's well an' able to pay all she
owes. Supposin' she _has_ been kinder strapped for a little while back,
an' had to economize by comin' to such a place as this! I've knowed
others, compelled to economize with three trunks alongside a
hall-bedroom wall, for a while, too, an' by an' by their circumstances
was such that they had money to burn. It's not for the likes of Miss
Lang to try to transack business with your sort. It would soil her lips
to bandy words, so I, an old fam'ly servant, an' proud of it! am
settlin' up her affairs for her. Be kind enough to say how much it is
you are ready to sell your claim to Christian charity for? How much is
it you ain't willin' to lend to the Lord on Miss Lang's account?" She
plucked up her skirts, thrust her hand, unembarrassed, into her
stocking-leg, and brought forth from that safe depository a roll of
well-worn _greenbacks_.

Mrs. Daggett named the amount of Claire's indebtedness, and Martha
Slawson proceeded to count it out in slow, deliberate syllables. She did
not, however, surrender the bills at once.

"I'll take a receipt," she quietly observed, and then sat back with an
air of perfect imperturbability, while the boarding-house keeper
nervously fussed about, searching for a scrap of paper, hunting for a
pen, trying to unearth, from the most impossible hiding-places, a bottle
of ink, her indignation at Martha's _cheek_ escaping her in audible
mumblings.

"Impudence! What right have you to come here, holding me to account?
I've my own way of doing good--"

Mrs. Slawson shrugged. "Your own way? I warrant you have! Nobody else'd
recognize it. I'd like to bet, you don't give a penny to charity oncet
in five years. Come now, do you?"

"God doesn't take into account the amount one gives," announced Mrs.
Daggett authoritatively.

"P'raps not, but you can take it from _me_, He keeps a pretty close
watch on what we have left--or I miss my guess. An' now, Miss Claire
darlin', if you'll go an' get what belongin's you have, that this
generous lady ain't stripped off'n you, to hold for _security_, as she
calls it, we'll be goin'. An expressman will be 'round here the first
thing in the mornin' for Miss Lang's trunk, an' it's up to you, Mrs.
Daggett, to see it's ready for'm when he comes. Good-night to you,
ma'am, an' I wish you luck."

Never after could Claire recall in detail what followed. She had a dim
vision of glistening pavements on which the rain dashed furiously, only
to rebound with resentful force, saturating one to the skin. Of fierce
blasts that seemed to lurk around every corner. Of street-lamps gleaming
meaninglessly out of the murk, curiously suggesting blinking eyes set in
a vacant face, and at last--at last--in blessed contrast--an open door,
the sound of cheery voices, the feel of warmth and welcome, the sight of
a plain, wholesome haven--rest.

Martha Slawson checked her children's vociferous clamor with a word.
Then her orders fell thick and fast, causing feet to run and hands to
fly, causing curiosity to give instant way before the pressure of
busy-ness, and a sense of cooperation to make genial the task of each.

"Hush, everybody! Cora, you go make up the bed in the boarder's room.
Turn the mattress, mind! An' stretch the sheets good an' smooth, like I
learned you to do. Francie, you get the hot-water bottle, quick, so's I
can fill it! Sammy, you go down to the cellar, an' tell Mr. Snyder your
mother will be much obliged if he'll turn on a' extra spark o'
steam-heat. Tell'm, Mrs. Slawson has a lady come to board with her for a
spell, that's fixin' for chills or somethin', onless she can be kep'
warm an' comfortable, an' the radianator in the boarder's room don't
send out much heat to speak of. Talk up polite, Sammy; d'you hear me?
An' be sure you don't let on Snyder might be keepin' a better fire in
his furnace if he didn't begrutch the coal so. It's gospel truth, o'
course, but landlords is _supposed_ to have feelin's, same as the rest
of us, an' a gentle word turneth aside wrath. Sabina, now show what a
big girl you are, an' fetch mother Cora's nicest nightie out o' the
drawer in my beaurer--the nightie Mrs. Granville sent Cora last
Christmas. Mother wants to hang it in front of the kitchen-range, so's
the pretty lady can go by-bye all warm an' comfy, after she's took her
supper off'n the tray, like Sabina did when she had the measles."

Huge Sam Slawson, senior, overtopping his wife by fully half a head,
gazed down upon his little hive, from shaggy-browed, benevolent eyes. He
uttered no complaint because his dinner was delayed, and he, hungry as a
bear, was made to wait till a stranger was served and fed. Instead, he
wandered over to where Martha was supplementing "Ma's" ministrations at
the range, and patted her approvingly on the shoulder.

"Another stray lamb, mother?" he asked casually.

Martha nodded. "Wait till the rush is over, an' the young uns abed an'
asleep, an' I'll tell you all about it. Stray lamb! I should say as
much! A little white corset-lamb, used to eat out o' your hand, with a
blue ribbon round its neck. Goin' to be sent out to her death--or
worse, by a sharp-fangled wolf of a boardin'-house keeper, who'd gnaw
the skin off'n your bones, an' then crack the bones to get at the
marrer, if you give her the chanct. I'll tell you all about it later,
Sammy."

CHAPTER III

For days Claire lay in a state of drowsy quiet.

She hardly realized the fact of her changed condition, that she was
being cared for, ministered to, looked after. She had brief, waking
moments when she seemed to be aware that Martha was bringing in her
breakfast, or sitting beside her while she ate her dinner, but the
intervening spaces, when "Ma" or Cora served, were dim, indistinct
adumbrations of no more substantial quality than the vagrant dreams that
ranged mistily across her relaxed brain.

The thin walls of the cheaply-built flat did not protect her from the
noise of the children's prattling tongues and boisterous laughter, but
the walls of her consciousness closed her about, as in a muffled
security, and she slept on and on, until the exhausted body was
reinforced, the overtaxed nerves infused with new strength.

Then, one evening, when the room in which she lay was dusky with
twilight shadows, she realized that she was awake, that she was alive.
She had gradually groped her way through the dim stretches lying between
the region of visions and that of the actual, but the step into a full
sense of reality was abrupt. She heard the sound of children's voices in
the next room. So clear they were, she could distinguish every syllable.

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