Martha By the Day by Julie M. Lippmann

J >> Julie M. Lippmann >> Martha By the Day

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

She put into Martha's hand a thin, flat, dull-gold locket.

Mrs. Slawson opened it, and gave a quick gasp of delight--the sound of
triumph escaping one who, having diligently sought, has satisfactorily
found. "Like it!" Martha ejaculated.

Claire deliberated a moment, watching the play of expression on Martha's
mobile face. "If you like it as much as all that," she said at last, "I
wish you'd take it and keep it. It seems conceited--priggish--to suppose
you'd care to own it, but if you really _would_ care to--"

Mrs. Slawson closed one great, finely-formed, work-hardened fist over
the delicate treasure, with a sort of ecstatic grab of appropriation.
"Care to own it! You betcher life! There's nothin' you could give me I'd
care to own better," she said with honest feeling, then and there tying
its slender ribbon about her neck, and slipping the locket inside her
dress, as if it had been a precious amulet.

The day following saw her started bright and early for work at the
Shermans'. When she arrived at the area-gate and rang, there was no
response, and though she waited a reasonable time, and then rang and
rang again, nobody answered the bell.

"They must be up," she said, settling down to business with a steady
thumb on the electric button. "What ails the bunch o' them in the
kitchen, I should like to know. It'd be a pity to disturb Eliza. She
might be busy, gettin' herself an extry cup o' coffee, an' couple o'
fried hams-an'-eggs, to break her fast before breakfast. But that gay
young sprig of a kitchen-maid, _she_ might answer the bell an' open the
door to an honest woman."

The _gay young sprig_ still failing of her duty, and Martha's patience
giving out at last, the _honest woman_ began to tamper with the
spring-lock of the iron gate. For any one else, it would never have
yielded, but it opened to Martha's hand, as with the dull submission of
the conquered.

Mrs. Slawson closed the gate after her with care. "I'll just step
light," she said to herself, "an' steal in on 'em unbeknownst, an' give
'em as good a scare as ever they had in their lives--the whole lazy lot
of 'em."

But, like Mother Hubbard's cupboard, the kitchen was bare, and no soul
was to be found in the laundry, the pantry or, in fact, anywhere
throughout the basement region. Softly, and with some real misgiving
now, Martha made her way upstairs. Here, for the first time, she
distinguished the sound of a human voice breaking the early morning hush
of the silent house. It was Radcliffe's voice issuing, evidently, from
the dining-room, in which imposing apartment he chose to have his
breakfast served in solitary grandeur every morning, what time the rest
of his family still slept.

Martha, pausing on her way up, peeped around the edge of the half-closed
door, and then stopped short.

Along the wall, ranged up in line, like soldiers facing their captain,
or victims of a hold-up their captor, stood the household
servants--portly Shaw the butler, Beatrice the parlor-maid, Eliza the
"chef-cook"--all, down to the gay young sprig, aforesaid, who, as Martha
had explained to her family in strong disapproval, "was engaged to do
scullerywork, an' then didn't even know how to scull." Before them, in
an attitude of command, not to say menace, stood Radcliffe, brandishing
a carving-knife which, in his cruelly mischievous little hand, became a
weapon full of dangerous possibilities.

"Don't dare to budge, any one of you," he breathed masterfully to his
cowed regiment. "Get back there, you Shaw! An', Beetrice, if you don't
mind me, I'll carve your ear off. You better be afraid of me, all of
you, an' mind what I say, or I'll take this dagger, an' dag the life
out of you! You're all my servants--you're all my slaves! D'you hear
me!"

Evidently they did, and not one of them cared or dared to stir.

For a second Radcliffe faced them in silence, before beginning to march
Napoleonically back and forth, his savage young eye alert, his naughty
hand brandishing the knife threateningly. A second, and then, suddenly,
without warning, the scene changed, and Radcliffe was a squirming,
wriggling little boy, shorn of his power, grasped firmly in a grip from
which there was no chance of escape.

"Shame on you!" exclaimed Martha indignantly, addressing the spellbound
line, staring at her blankly. "Shame on you! To stand there gawkin', an'
never raisin' a finger to this poor little fella, an' him just perishin'
for the touch of a real mother's hand. Get out of this--the whole crowd
o' you," and before the force of her righteous wrath they fled as chaff
before the wind. Then, quick as the automatic click of a monstrous
spring, the hitherto unknown--the supposed-to-be-impossible--befell
Radcliffe Sherman. He was treated as if he had been an iron girder on
which the massive clutch of a steam-lift had fastened. He was raised,
lowered, laid across what seemed to be two moveless iron trestles, and
then the weight as of a mighty, relentless paddle, beat down upon him
once, twice, thrice--and he knew what it was to suffer.

The whole thing was so utterly novel, so absolutely unexpected, that for
the first instant he was positively stunned with surprise. Then the
knowledge that he was being spanked, that an unspeakable indignity was
happening him, made him clinch his teeth against the sobs that rose in
his throat, and he bore his punishment in white-faced, shivering
silence.

When it was over, Martha stood him down in front of her, holding him
firmly against her knees, and looked him squarely in the eyes. His
colorless, quivering lips gave out no sound.

"You've got off easy," observed Mrs. Slawson benevolently. "If you'd
been my boy Sammy, you'd a got about twict as much an' three times as
thora. As it is, I just kinder favored you--give you a lick an' a
promise, as you might say, seein' it's you and you ain't used to
it--_yet_. Besides, I reely like you, an' want you to be a good boy.
But, if you should need any more at any other time, why, you can take it
from me, I keep my hand in on Sammy, an' practice makes perfect."

She released the two small, trembling hands, rose to her feet, and made
as if to leave the room. Then for the first time Radcliffe spoke.

"S-say," he breathed with difficulty, "s-say--are you--are you goin' to
_t-tell?_"

Martha paused, regarding him and his question with due concern. "Tell?"

"Are y-you going to--t-tell on me, t-to ev-everybody? Are y-you going to
t-tell--S-Sammy?"

"Shoor I'm not! I'm a perfect lady! I always keep such little affairs
with my gen'lemen friends strickly confidential. Besides--Sammy has
troubles of his own."

CHAPTER V

All that day, Martha held herself in readiness to answer at headquarters
for what she had done.

"He'll shoor tell his mother, the young villyan," said Eliza. "An' then
it'll be Mrs. Slawson for the grand bounce."

But Mrs. Slawson did not worry. She went about her work as usual, and
when, in the course of her travels, she met Radcliffe, she greeted him
as if nothing had happened.

"Say, did you know that Sammy has a dog?"

No answer.

"It's a funny kind o' dog. If you begged your head off, I'd never tell
you where he come from."

"Where did he come from?"

"Didn't you hear me say I'd never tell you? I do' know. He just picked
Sammy's father up on the street, an' follered him home, for all the
world the same's he'd been a Christian."

"What kind of dog is he?"

"Cur-dog."

"What kind's that?"

"Well, a full-blooded cur-dog is somethin' rare in these parts. You
wouldn't find him at an ordinary dog-show, like your mother goes to.
Now, Sammy's dog is full-blooded--leastways, he will be, when he's fed
up."

"My mother's dog is a _pedigree-dog_. Is Sammy's that kind?"

"I ain't ast him, but I shouldn't wonder."

"My mother's got a paper tells all about where Fifi came from. It's in a
frame."

"Fifi is?"

"No, the paper is. The paper says Fifi is out of a deller, sired by
Star. I heard her read it off to a lady that came to see her one day.
Say, Martha, what's a _deller?_"

"I do' know."

"Fifi has awful long ears. What kind of ears has Sammy's dog got?"

"I didn't notice partic'lar, I must say. But he's got two of 'em, an'
they can stand up, an' lay down, real natural-like, accordin' to
taste--the dog's taste, which wouldn't be noways remarkable, if it was
his tongue, but is what _I_ call extraordinary, seein' it's his _ears_.
An' his tail's the same, exceptin' it has even more education still. It
can wag, besides standin' up an' layin' down. Ain't that pretty smart
for a pup, that prob'ly didn't have no raisin' to speak of, 'less you
count raisin' on the toe of somebody's boot?"

"D'you mean anybody kicked him?"

"Well, he ain't said so, in so many words, but I draw my own
conclusions. He's an honorable, gentlemanlike dog. He keeps his own
counsel. If it so happened that he'd needed to be punished at any time,
he'd bear it like a little man, an' hold his tongue. You don't catch a
reel thorerbred whinin'."

"I wish I could see Sammy's dog."

"Well, p'raps you can. But I'll tell you confidential, I wouldn't like
Flicker to 'sociate with none but the best class o' boys. I'm goin' to
see he has a fine line of friends from this time on, an' if Sammy ain't
what he'd oughter be, why, he just can't mix with Flicker, that's all
there is _to_ it!"

"Who gave him that name?"

"'His sponsers in baptism--' Ho! Hear me! Recitin' the Catechism! I'm
such a good 'Piscopalian I just can't help it! A little lady-friend of
mine gave him that name, 'cause he flickers round so--so like a little
yeller flame. Did I mention his color was yeller? That alone would show
he's a true-breed cur-dog."

"Say, I forgot--my mother she--she sent me down to tell you she wants to
see you right away up in her sittin'-room. I guess you better go quick."

Mrs. Slawson ceased plying her polishing-cloth upon the hardwood floor,
sat back upon her heels, and calmly gathered her utensils together.

"Say, my mother she said tell you she wanted to see you right off, for
something particular. Ain't you goin' to hurry?"

"Shoor I am. Certaintly."

"You don't look as if you was hurrying."

"When you get to be a big boy, and have a teacher to learn you
knowledge, you'll find that large bodies moves slowly. I didn't have as
much schoolin' as I'd like, but what I learned I remember, an' I put it
into practice. That's where the use of books comes in--to be put in
practice. Now, I'm a large body, an' if I tried to move fast I'd be
goin' against what's printed in the books, which would be wrong. Still,
if a lady sends for me post-haste, why, of course, I makes an exception
an' answers in the same spirit. So long! See you later!"

Radcliffe had no mind to remain behind. Something subtly fascinating in
Martha seemed to draw him after her, and he followed on upstairs,
swinging himself athletically along, hand over hand, upon the
baluster-rail, almost at her heels.

"Say, don't you wonder what it is my mother's goin' to say to you?" he
demanded disingenuously.

Mrs. Slawson shook her head. "Wonderin' is a habit I broke myself off
of, when I wasn't knee-high to a grasshopper," she replied. "I take
things as they come, not to mention as they go. Either way suits me,
an' annyhow I don't wonder about 'em. If it's somethin' good, why, it'll
keep. An' if it's somethin' bad, wonderin' won't make it any better. So
what's the use?"

"Guess I'll go on up, an' see my grandmother in her room," observed
Radcliffe casually, as they reached Mrs. Sherman's door. "I won't go in
here with you."

"Dear me, how sorry I am!" Martha returned with feeling. "I'd kinder
counted on you for--for what they calls moral support, that bein' the
kind the male gender is mainly good for, these days. But, of course, if
you ain't been invited, it wouldn't be genteel for you to press
yourself. I can understand your feelin's. They does credit to your head
an' to your heart. As I said before--so long! See you later."

The door having closed her in, Radcliffe lingered aimlessly about,
outside. Without, of course, being able to analyze it, he felt as if
some rare source of entertainment had been withdrawn from him, leaving
life flat and tasteless. He felt like being, what his mother called,
"fractious," but--he remembered, as in a flash, "you never catch a
thorerbred whinin'," and he snapped his jaws together with manly
determination.

At Martha's entrance, Mrs. Sherman glanced up languidly from the book
she was reading, and inquired with pointed irony, "You didn't find it
convenient to come to me directly I sent for you, did you, Martha?"

Mrs. Slawson closed the door behind her gently, then stood planted like
some massive caryatid supporting the frame. Something monumental in the
effect of her presence made the question just flung at her seem petty,
impudent, and Mrs. Sherman hastened to add more considerately, "But I
sent Radcliffe with my message. No doubt he delayed."

"No'm," admitted Martha, "he told me all right enough, but I was in the
middle o' polishin'. It took me a minute or two to get my things
collected, an' then it took me a couple more to get _me_ collected,
but--better late than never, as the sayin' goes, which, by the same
token, I don't believe it's always true."

There was not the faintest trace of apology or extenuation in her tone
or manner. If she had any misgivings as to the possibility of
Radcliffe's having complained, she gave no evidence of it.

"What I want to say is this," announced Mrs. Sherman autocratically,
making straight for the point. "I absolutely forbid any one in my
household to touch--"

Martha settled herself more firmly on her feet and crossed her arms with
unconscious dignity upon her bosom, bracing herself against the coming
blow.

"I absolutely forbid any one in my household to touch the new marble
slabs and nickel fittings in my dressing-rooms with cleaning stuffs
containing acids, after this. I have gone to great expense to have the
house remodeled this summer, and the bathrooms have all been tiled and
fitted up afresh, from beginning to end. I know that, in the past, you
have used acid, gritty soaps on the basins and tubs, Martha, and my
plumber tells me you mustn't do it. He says it's ruinous. He recommends
kerosene oil for the bath-tubs and marble slabs. He says it will take
any stain out, and is much safer than the soaps. So please use kerosene
to remove the stains--"

Mrs. Slawson relaxed. Without the slightest hint of incivility she
interrupted cheerfully, "An' does your plumber mention what'll remove
the stink--I _should_ say, _odor_, of the karrysene?"

Mrs. Sherman laughed. "Dear me, no. I'm afraid that's _up to_ you, as
Radcliffe says."

"O, I ain't no doubt it can be done, an' even if it can't, the smell o'
karrysene is healthy, an' you wouldn't mind a faint whifft of it now an'
then, clingin' to you, comin' outer your bath, would you? Or if you did,
you might set over against the oil-smell one o' them strong bath-powders
that's like the perfumery-counter in a department-store broke loose,
an' let 'em fight it out between 'em. To my way o' thinkin', it'd be a
_tie_, an' no thanks to your nose."

"Well, I only follow the plumber's directions. He guarantees his work
and materials, but he says acids will roughen the surface of
anything--enamel or marble or whatever it may be. I'm sure you'll be
careful in the future, now I have spoken, and--er--how are you getting
on these days? How are you and your husband and the children?"

"Tolerable, thank you. Sammy, my husband, he ain't been earnin' as much
as usual lately, but I says to him, when he's downhearted-like because
he can't hand out the price o' the rent, 'Say, you ain't fished up much
of anythin' certaintly, but count your blessin's. You ain't fell in the
river either.' An' be this an' be that, we make out to get along. We
never died a winter yet."

"Dear me, I should think a great, strapping man ought to be able to
support his family without having to depend on his wife to go out by the
day."

"My husband does his best," said Martha with simple dignity. "He does
his best, but things goes contrairy with some, no doubt o' that."

"O, the thought of the day would not bear you out there, I assure you!"
Mrs. Sherman took her up quickly. "Science teaches us that our
condition in life reflects our character. We get the results of what we
are in our environment. You understand? In other words, each receives
his desert. I hope I am clear? I mean, what he deserves."

Martha smiled, a slow, calm, tolerant smile. "You are perfeckly clear,"
she said reassuringly. "Only I ain't been educated up to seein' things
that way. Seems to me, if everybody got their dessert, as you calls it,
some o' them that's feedin' so expensive now at the grand hotels
wouldn't have a square meal. It's the ones that ain't _earned_ 'em,
_havin'_ the square meal _and_ the dessert, that puts a good man, like
my Sammy, out o' a job. But that's neither here nor there. It's all
bound to come right some day--only meanwhiles, I wish livin' wasn't so
high. What with good steak twenty-eight cents a pound, an' its bein' as
much as your life is worth to even ast the price o' fresh vegetables, it
takes some contrivin' to get along. Not to speak o' potatas twenty-five
cents the half-peck, an' every last one o' my fam'ly as fond of 'em as
if they was fresh from Ireland, instead o' skippin' a generation on both
sides."

"But, my good woman!" exclaimed Mrs. Sherman, shocked, "what _do_ you
mean by talking of porterhouse steak and fresh vegetables this time of
year? Oughtn't you to economize? Isn't it extravagant for you to use
such expensive cuts of meat? I'm sure there are others that are
cheaper--more suited to your--your income."

"Certaintly there is. Chuck steak is cheap. Chuck steak's so cheap that
about all it costs you is a few cents to the butcher, an' the price of
the store teeth you need, after you've broke your own tryin' to chew it.
But, you see, my notion is, to try to give my fam'ly the sort o' stuff
that's nourishin'. Not just somethin' to _eat_, but _food_. I don't
believe their stummicks realize they belong to poor folks. I'm not
envyin' the rich, mind you. Dear no! I wouldn't be hired to clutter up
my insides with the messes I see goin' up to the tables of some I work
for. Cocktails, an' entrys, an' foody-de-gra-gra, an' suchlike. No! I
believe in reel, straight nourishment. The things that builds up your
bones, an' gives you red blood, an' good muscle, so's you can hold down
your job, an' hold up your head. I believe in payin' for that kind o'
food, if I _do_ have to work for it."

Mrs. Sherman took up the book she had dropped at Martha's entrance.

"You certainly are a character," she observed.

"Thank you, 'm," said Martha.

"O, and by the way, before you go--I want you to see that Mr. Ronald's
rooms are put in perfect order to-day. I don't care to trust it to the
girls, but you can have one of them to help you, if you like, provided
you are sure to oversee her. You know how particular I am about my
brother Frank's rooms. Be sure nothing is neglected."

"Yes'm," said Martha.

CHAPTER VI

The next morning Eliza met her at the area-gate, showing a face of
ominous sympathy, wagging a doleful head.

"What'd I tell you?" she exclaimed before she had even unlatched the
spring-lock. "That young villyan has a head on him old enough to be his
father's, if so be he ever had one. He's deep as a well. He didn't tell
his mother on ye yesterday mornin', but he done worse--the little fox!
He told his uncle Frank when he got home last night. Leastways, Mr. Shaw
got a message late in the evenin' from upstairs, which was, to tell Mrs.
Slawson, Mr. Ronald wanted to see her after his breakfast this mornin',
an' be sure she didn't forget."

Mrs. Slawson received the news with a smile as of such actual welcome,
that Eliza, who flattered herself she knew a thing or two about human
nature, was rather upset in her calculations.

"You look like you _relish_ bein' bounced," she observed tartly.

"Well, if I'm goin' to get my walkin'-papers, I'd rather get 'em from
Mr. Frank than from anybody else. There's never any great loss without
some small gain. At least, if Mr. Frank is dischargin' me, he's noticin'
I'm alive, an' that's somethin' to be thankful for."

"That's _as_ you look at it!" snapped Eliza. "Mr. Frank is all right
enough, but I must say I'd rather keep my place than have even him kick
me out. An' you look as if his sendin' for you was to say you'd come in
for a fortune."

"P'raps it is," said Martha. "You never can tell."

"Well, if _I_ was makin' tracks for fortunes, I wouldn't start in on Mr.
Frank Ronald," Eliza observed cuttingly.

"Which might be exackly where you'd slip up on it," Martha returned with
a bland smile.

And yet, in reality, she was by no means so composed as she appeared.
She felt as might one who, moved by a great purpose, had rashly usurped
the prerogative of fate and set in motion mighty forces that, if they
did not make for success, might easily make for disaster. She had very
definitely stuck her thumb into somebody else's pie, and if her laudable
intention was to draw forth a plum, not for herself but for the other,
why, that was no proof that, in the end, she might not get smartly
scorched for her pains.

When the summons to the dining-room actually came, Martha felt such an
unsubstantiality in the region of her knee-joints, that for a moment she
almost believed the bones had turned into breadcrumbs. Then
energetically she shook herself into shape, spurning her momentary
weakness from her, with an almost visible gesture, and marched forward
to meet what awaited her.

Shaw had removed the breakfast dishes from the table beside which "Lord
Ronald" sat alone. It was all very imposing, the place, the particular
purpose for which she had been summoned, and which was, as yet,
unrevealed to her, the _person_, most of all.

Martha thought that perhaps she had been a little hard on Cora, "the
time she give her the tongue-lashin' for stumblin' over the first lines
of her piece, that evenin' of the Sund'-School ent'tainment. It wasn't
so dead easy as a body might think, to stand up to a whole churchful o'
people, or even one person, when he was the kind that's as good (or as
bad) as a whole churchful."

Martha could see her now, as she stood then, announcing to the assembled
multitude in a high, unmodulated treble:

_"It was the t-time when l-lilies bub-blow"_

"an' her stockin' fixin' to come down any min'ute!"

"Ah, Martha, good-morning!"

At the first sound of his voice Mrs. Slawson recovered her poise. That
_wouldn't-call-the-queen-your-cousin_ feeling came over her again, and
she was ready to face the music, whatever tune it might play. So
susceptible is the foolish spirit of mortal to those subtle, impalpable
influences of atmosphere that we try to describe, in terms of inexact
science, as personality, vibration, aura, magnetism.

"I asked to see you, Martha, because Radcliffe tells me--"

Martha's heart sank within her. So it was Radcliffe and the _grand
bounce_ after all, and not--Well, it was a pity! After all her thinkin'
it out, an' connivin', an' contrivin', to have nothin' come of it! To be
sent off before she had time to see the thing through!

"Radcliffe tells me," continued the clear, mellow voice, penetrating the
mist of her meditations, "that you own a very rare, a very unusual breed
of dog. I couldn't make out much from Radcliffe's description, but
apparently the dog is a pedigree animal."

Mrs. Slawson's shoulders, in her sudden revulsion of feeling, shook with
soundless mirth.

"Pedigree animal!" she repeated. "Certaintly! Shoor, he's a pedigree
animal. He's had auntsisters as far back as any other dog, an' that's a
fack. What's the way they put it? 'Out of' the gutter, 'sired by'
Kicks. You never see a little yeller, mongol, cur-dog, sir, that's
yellerer or cur-er than him. I'd bet my life his line ain't never been
crossed by anythin' different, since the first pup o' them all set out
to run his legs off tryin' to get rid o' the tin-can tied to his tail.
But Flicker's a winner, for all that, an' he's goin' to keep my boy
Sammy in order, better'n I could ever do it. You see, I just has to hint
to Sammy that if he ain't proper-behaved I won't let Flicker 'sociate
with'm, an' he's as good as pie. I wouldn't be without that dog, sir,
now I got intimately acquainted with him, for--"

"That touches the question I was intending to raise," interposed Mr.
Ronald. "You managed to get Radcliffe's imagination considerably stirred
about Flicker, and the result is, he has asked me to see if I can't come
to an understanding with you. He wants me to buy Flicker."

Martha's genial smile faded. "Why, goodness gracious, Lor--I _should_
say, _Mr._ Ronald, the poor little rascal, dog rather, ain't worth two
cents. He's just a young flagrant pup, you wouldn't be bothered to
notice, 'less you had the particular likin' for such things we got."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10