Martha By the Day by Julie M. Lippmann

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Their chauffeur drew up beside the curbstone in front of Martha's door,
then sprang down from his seat to prove to his lordly-looking "fare"
that he knew his business, and was deserving of as large a tip as a
correct estimate of his merit might suggest.

Francis Ronald took Claire's key from her, fitted it into the lock of
the outer door, and opened it for her.

"And you will stand by Radcliffe? You won't desert him?" he asked, as
she was about to pass into the house.

"I'll show you that, at least, I'm not a quitter, even if I _am_ a
hopeless proposition, as you say."

A faint shadow of a smile flitted across his face as, with head held
proudly erect, she turned and left him.

"No, you're not a quitter," he muttered to himself, "but--neither am I!"

The determined set of his jaw would have rekindled that inner rebellious
fire in Claire, if she had seen it. But she was seeing nothing just at
that moment, save Martha, who, to her amazement, stood ready to receive
her in the inner hall.

"Ain't it just grand?" inquired Mrs. Slawson. "They told me yesterday,
'all things bein' equal,' they'd maybe leave us back soon, but I didn't
put no stock in it, knowin' they never _is_ equal. So I just held me
tongue an' waited, an' this mornin', like a bolster outer a blue sky,
come the word that at noon we could go. Believe _me_, I didn't wait for
no old shoes or rice to be threw after me. I got into their old
amberlance-carriage, as happy as a blushin' bride bein' led to the
halter, an' Francie an' me come away reji'cin'. Say, but what ails
_you?_ You look sorter--sorter like a--strained relation or somethin'.
What you been doin' to yourself to get so white an' holler-eyed? What
kep' you so late?"

"I had a tussle with Radcliffe."

"Who won out?"

"I did, but it took me all day."

"Never mind. It'd been cheap at the price, if it had 'a' took you all
week. How come the madam to give you a free hand?"

"She was away."

"Anybody else know what was goin' on? Any of the fam'ly?"

"Yes, Mr. Ronald. He brought me home. I didn't want him to, but he did.
He just _made_ me let him, and--O, Martha--I can't bear--I can't bear--"

"You mean you can't bear _him?"_

Claire nodded, choking back her tears.

"Now, what do you think o' that!" ejaculated Mrs. Slawson pensively.
"An' he so _pop'lar_ with the ladies! Why, you'd oughter hear them
stylish lady-friends o' Mrs. Sherman praisin' 'm to her face. It'd make
you blush for their modesty, which they don't seem to have none, an'
that's a fac'. You can take it from me, you're the only one he ever come
in contract with, has such a hate on'm. I wouldn't 'a' believed it,
unless I'd 'a' had it from off of your own lips. But there's no use
tryin' to argue such things. Taste is different. What pleases one,
pizens another. In the mean time--an' it _is_ a mean time for you, you
poor, wore-out child--I've some things here, hot an' tasty, that'll
encourage your stummick, no matter how it's turned on some other things.
As I says to Sammy, it's a poor stummick won't warm its own bit, but all
the same, there's times when somethin' steamin' does your heart as much
good as it does your stummick, which, the two o' them bein' such near
neighbors, no wonder we get 'em mixed up sometimes, an' think the one is
starved when it's only the other."

CHAPTER XII

It proved altogether easier for Martha, now Francie was at home again.

"You see, I can tend her an' sandwich in some work besides," Mrs.
Slawson explained cheerfully. "An' Ma's a whizz at settin' by bedsides
helpin' patients get up their appetites. Says she, 'Now drink this nice
glass o' egg-nog, Francie, me child,' she says. 'An' if you'll drink it,
I'll take one just like it meself.' An' true for you, she does. The
goodness o' Ma is astonishin'."

Then one day Sam Slawson came home with a tragic face.

"I've lost my job, Martha!" he stated baldly.

For a moment his wife stood silent under the blow, and all it entailed.
Then, with an almost imperceptible squaring of her broad shoulders, she
braced herself to meet it, as she herself would say, like a soldier.
"Well, it's kinder hard on _you_, lad," she answered. "But there's no
use grievin'. If it had to happen, it couldn't 'a' happened at a better
time, for you bein' home, an' able to look after Francie, will give me a
chance to go out reg'lar to my work again. An' before you know it,
Francie, she'll be running about as good as new, an' you'll have
another job, an' we'll be on the top o' the wave. Here's Miss Claire,
bless her, payin' me seven dollars a week board, which she doesn't eat
no more than a bird, an' Sammy singin' in the surplus choir, an' gettin'
fifty cents a week for it, an' extra for funer'ls (it'd take your time
to hear'm lamentin' because business ain't brisker in the funer'l
line!). Why, _we_ ain't no call to be discouraged. You can take it from
me, Sammy Slawson, when things seem to be kinder shuttin' down on ye,
an' gettin' black-like, same's they lately been doin' on us, that ain't
no time to be chicken-hearted. Anybody could fall down when they're
knocked. That's too dead-easy! No, what we want, is buck up an' have
some style about us. When things shuts down an' gets dark at the
movin'-picture show, then it's time to sit up an' take notice. That
means somethin's doin'--you're goin' to be showed somethin' interestin'.
Well, it's the same with us. But if you lose your sand at the first
go-off, an' sag down an' hide your face in your hands, well, you'll miss
the show. You won't see a bloomin' thing."

And Martha, sleeves rolled up, enveloped in an enormous blue-checked
apron, returned to her assault on the dough she was kneading, with
redoubled zeal.

"Bread, mother?" asked Sam dully, letting himself down wearily into a
chair by the drop-table, staring indifferently before him out of blank
eyes.

"Shoor! An' I put some currants in, to please the little fella. I give
in, my bread is what you might call a holy terror. Ain't it the caution
how I can't ever make bread fit to be eat, the best I can do? An' yet, I
can't quit tryin'. You see, home-made bread, _if it's good_, is cheaper
than store. Perhaps some day I'll be hittin' it right, so's when you ask
me for bread I won't be givin' you a stone."

She broke off abruptly, gazed a moment at her husband, then stepped to
his side, and put a floury hand on his shoulder. "Say, Sam, what you
lookin' so for? You ain't lost your sand just because they fired you?
What's come to you, lad? Tell Martha."

For a second there was no sound in the room, then the man looked up,
gulped, choked down a mighty sob, and laid his head against her breast.

"Martha--there's somethin' wrong with my lung. That's why they thrown me
down. They had their doctor from the main office examine me--they'd
noticed me coughin'--and he said I'd a spot on my lung or--something. I
shouldn't stay here in the city, he said. I must go up in the mountains,
away from this, where there's the good air and a chance for my lung to
heal, otherwise--"

Martha stroked the damp hair away from his temples with her powdery
hand.

"Well, well!" she said reflectively. "Now, what do you think o' that!"

"O, Martha--I can't stand it! You an' the children! It's more than I can
bear!"

Mrs. Slawson gave the head against her breast a final pat that, to
another than her husband, might have felt like a blow.

"More'n you can bear? Don't flatter yourself, Sammy my lad! Not by no
means it ain't. I wouldn't like to have to stand up to all I could
ackchelly bear. It's God, not us, knows how much we can stand, an' when
He gets in the good licks on us, He always leaves us with a little
stren'th to spare--to last over for the next time. Now, I'm not a bit
broke down by what you've told me. I s'pose you thought you'd have me
sobbin' on your shoulder--to give you a chanct to play up, an' do the
strong-husband act, comfortin' his little tremblin' wife. Well, my lad,
if you ain't got on to it by now, that I'm no little, tremblin' wife,
you never will. Those kind has nerves. I only got nerve. That's where
I'm _singular_, see? A joke, Sammy! I made it up myself. Out of my own
head, just now. But to go back to what I was sayin'--why should I sob on
your shoulder? There ain't no reason for't. In the first place, even if
you _have_ got a spot on your lung, what's a spot! It ain't the whole
lung! An' _one_ lung ain't _both_ lungs, an' there you are! As I make it
out, even grantin' the worst, you're a lung-an'-then-some to the good,
so where's the use gettin' blue? There's always a way out, somehow. If
we can't do one way, we'll do another. Now you just cheer up, an' don't
let Ma an' the childern see you kinder got a knock-outer in the solar
plexus, like Jeffries, an' before you know it, there'll be a suddent
turn, an' we'll be atop o' our worries, 'stead o' their bein' atop o'
us. See! Say, just you cast your eye on them loaves! Ain't they grand?
Appearances may be deceitful, but if I do say it as shouldn't, my bread
certainly looks elegant this time. Now, Sammy, get busy like a good
fella! Go in an' amuse Francie. The poor child is perishin' for
somethin' to distrack her. What with Cora an' Sammy at school, an' Miss
Claire havin' the Shermans so bewitched, they keep her there all day,
an' lucky for us if they leave her come home nights at all, the house is
too still for a sick person. Give Francie a drink o' Hygee water to cool
her lips, an' tell her a yarn-like. An', Sammy, I wisht you'd be good to
yourself, an' have a shave. Them prickles o' beard reminds me o' the
insides o' Mrs. Sherman's big music-box. I wonder what tune you'd play
if I run your chin in. Go on, now, an' attend to Francie, like I told
you to. She needs to have her mind took off'n herself."

When he was gone, Martha set her loaves aside under cover to rise, never
pausing a moment to take breath, before giving the kitchen a
"scrub-down" that left no corner or cranny harboring a particle of dust.
It was twilight when she finished, and "time to turn to an' get the
dinner."

Cora and Sammy had long since returned from school. Sammy had gone out
again to play, and had just come back to find his mother taking her
bread-pans from the oven. She regarded them with doleful gaze.

"I fairly broke my own record this time for a bum bread-maker!" she
muttered beneath her breath. "This batch is the worst yet."

"Say--mother!" said Sammy.

"Well?"

"Say, mother, may I have a slice of bread? I'm awfully hungry."

"Shoor you may! This here's just fresh from the oven, an' it has
currants in it."

"Say, mother, a feller I play with, Joe Eagan, _his_ mother's hands
ain't clean. Would you think he'd like to eat the bread she makes?"

"Can she make _good_ bread?"

"I dunno. She give me a piece oncet, but I couldn't eat it, 'count o'
seein' her fingers. I'm glad your hands are so clean, mother. Say, this
bread tastes awful good!"

Martha chuckled. "Well, I'm glad you like it. It might be worse, if I do
say it! Only," she added to herself, "it'd have a tough time managin'
it."

"Say, mother, may I have another slice with butter on, an' sugar
sprinkled on top, like this is, to give it to Joe Eagan? He's
downstairs. I want to show him how _my_ mother can make the boss bread!"

"Certainly," said Martha heartily. "By all means, give Joe Eagan a
slice. I like to see you thoughtful an' generous, my son. Willin' to
share your good things with your friends," and as Sammy bounded out,
clutching his treasures, she winked solemnly across at her husband, who
had just re-entered.

"Now do you know what'll happen?" she inquired. "Sammy'll always have
the notion I make the best bread ever. An' when he grows up an' marries,
if his wife is a chef-cook straight out of the toniest kitchen in town,
at fifty dollars a month, he'll tell her she ain't a patch on me. An'
he'll say to her: 'Susan, or whatever-her-name-is, them biscuits is all
right in their way, but I wisht I had a mouthful o' bread like mother
used to make.' An' the poor creature'll wear the life out o' her, tryin'
to please'm, an' reach my top-notch, an' never succeed, an' all the
time--Say, Sammy, gather up the rest o' the stuff, like a good fella,
an' shove it onto the dumb-waiter, so's it can go down with the
sw--There's the whistle now! That's him callin' for the garbage."

CHAPTER XIII

"Hullo, Martha!" said Radcliffe.

Mrs. Slawson bowed profoundly. "Hullo yourself! I ain't had the pleasure
of meetin' you for quite some time past, an' yet I notice my absents
ain't made no serious alteration for the worst in your appearance. You
ain't fell away none, on account of my not bein' here."

"Fell away from what?" asked Radcliffe.

"Fell away from nothin'. That's what they call a figger o' speech. Means
you ain't got thin."

"Well, _you've_ got thin, haven't you, Martha? I don't 'member your
cheeks had those two long lines in 'em before."

"Lines?" repeated Martha, regarding herself in the mirror of an etagere
she was polishing. "Them ain't _lines_. Them's dimples."

Radcliffe scrutinized her critically for a moment. "They're not like
Miss Lang's dimples," he observed at last. "Miss Lang's dimples look
like when you blow in your milk to cool it--they're there, an' then they
ain't there. She vanishes 'em in, an' she vanishes 'em out, but those
lines in your face, they just stay. Only they weren't there before,
when you were here."

"The secret is, my dimples is the kind that takes longer to vanish 'em
out when you once vanished 'em in. Mine's way-train dimples. Miss Lang's
is express. But you can take it from me, dimples is faskinatin',
whatever specie they are."

"What's _faskinatin'?"_

"It's the thing in some things that, when it ain't in other things, you
don't care a thing about 'em."

"Are _you_ faskinatin'?"

"That's not for me to say," said Martha, feigning coyness. "But this
much I will confess, that some folks which shall be nameless, considers
me so. An' they'd oughter know."

"Is Miss Lang faskinatin'?"

"Ask your Uncle Frank."

"Why must I ask him?"

"If you wanter know."

"Does he know?"

"Prob'ly. He's a very well-informed gen'l-man on most subjecks."

"I do' want to ask my Uncle Frank anything about Miss Lang. Once I asked
him somethin' about her, an' he didn't like it."

"What'd you ask him?"

"I asked him if she wasn't his best girl."

"What'd he say?"

"He said 'No!' quick, just like that--'No!' I guess he was cross with
me, an' I know he didn't like it. When I asked my mother why he didn't
like it, she said because Miss Lang's only my governess. An' when I told
Miss Lang what my mother, she told me, Miss Lang, she didn't like it
either."

"Now, what do you think o' that?" ejaculated Martha. "Nobody didn't seem
to like nothin' in that combination, did they? You was the only one in
the whole outfit that showed any tack."

"What means that--_tack?"_

"It's a little thing that you use when you want to keep things in
place--keep 'em from fallin' down. There's two kinds. One you must
hammer in, an' the other you mustn't."

"I wisht Miss Lang _was_ my Uncle Frank's best girl. But I guess she's
somebody else's."

"Eh?" said Martha sharply, sitting back on her heels and twisting her
polishing-cloth into a rope, as if she were wringing it out. "Now, whose
best girl do you think she is, if I may make so bold?"

Radcliffe settled down to business.

"Yesterday Miss Lang an' me was comin' home from the Tippydrome, an' my
mother she had comp'ny in the drawin'-room. An' I didn't know there was
comp'ny first-off, coz Shaw he didn't tell us, an' I guess I talked
kinder loud in the hall, an' my mother she heard me, an' she wasn't
cross or anythin', she just called to me to come along in, an' see the
comp'ny. An' I said, 'No, I won't! Not less Miss Lang comes too.' An' my
mother, she said, 'Miss Lang, come too.' An' Miss Lang, she didn't
wanter, but she hadter. An' the comp'ny was a gen'l'man an' a lady, an'
the minit the gen'l'man, he saw Miss Lang, he jumped up outer his chair
like a jumpin'-jack, an' his eyes got all kinder sparkly, an' he held
out both of his hands to her, an' sorter shook her hands, till you'd
think he'd shake 'em off. An' my mother, she said, 'I see you an' Miss
Lang are already 'quainted, Mr. Van Brandt.' An' he laughed a lot, the
way you do when you're just tickled to death, an' he said, ''Quainted?
Well, I should say so! Miss Lang an' I are old, old friends!' An' he
kep' lookin' at her, an' lookin' at her, the way you feel when there's
somethin' on the table you like, an' you're fearful 'fraid it will be
gone before it's passed to you. An' my mother she said to the other
comp'ny, 'Miss Pelham, this is Radcliffe.' An' Miss Pelham, she was
lookin' sideways at Miss Lang an' Mr. What's-his-name, but she pertended
she was lookin' at me, an' she said (she's a Smarty-Smarty-gave-a-party,
Miss Pelham is), she said, 'Radcliffe, Radcliffe? I wonder if you're
any relation to Radcliffe College?' An' I said, 'No. I wonder if you are
any relation to Pelham Manor?' An' while they was laughin', an' my
mother she was tellin' how percoshus I am, my Uncle Frank he came in. He
came in kinder quiet, like he always does, an' he stood in the door, an'
Mr. What's-his-name was talkin' to Miss Lang so fast, an' lookin' at her
so hard, they didn't neither of 'em notice. An' when my Uncle Frank, he
noticed they didn't notice, coz they was havin' such fun by themselves,
he put his mouth together like this--like when your tooth hurts, an' you
bite on it to make it hurt some more, an' then he talked a lot to Miss
Pelham, an' didn't smile pleasant an' happy at Mr. What's-his-name an'
Miss Lang, when my mother, she interdooced 'em. An' soon Miss Lang, she
took me upstairs an' she didn't look near so tickled to death as Mr. Van
Brandt, he looked. An' when I asked her if she wasn't, she said: 'O'
course I am. Mr. Van Brandt was a friend o' mine when I was a little
girl. An' when you're a stranger in a strange land, anybody you knew
when you was at home seems dear to you.' But she didn't look near so
pleased as he did. She looked more like my Uncle Frank, he did before he
got talkin' so much to Miss Pelham. An' now I guess the way of it is,
Miss Pelham's my Uncle Frank's best girl an' Miss Lang's Mr.
What's-his-name's."

"Well, now! Who'd believed you could 'a' seen so much? Why, you're a
reg'ler Old Sleuth the Detective, or Sherlock Holmes, or somebody like
that, for discoverin' things, ain't you?"

"I don't want Miss Pelham to be my Uncle Frank's best girl, an' I don't
see why that other man he don't have her for his, like she was
first-off, an' leave my Miss Lang alone."

"It all is certainly very dark an' mysterious," said Mrs. Slawson,
shaking her head. "You don't know where you're at, at all. Like when you
wake up in the black night, an' hear the clock give one strike. You
couldn't tell, if your life hung in the ballast, if it's half-past
twelve, or one, or half-past."

Radcliffe pondered this for a space, but was evidently unable to fathom
its depth, for presently he let it go with a sigh, and swung off to
another topic.

"Say, do you know our cook, 'Liza--the one we uster have--has gone
away?"

"So I gathered from not havin' saw her fairy-figger hoverin' round the
kitchen as I come in, an' meetin' another lady in her place--name of
Augusta, Beetrice said."

"Yes, sir! Augusta's the new one. I guess Augusta don't drink."

"Which, you are suggesting 'Liza does?"

"Well, my mother, she don't know I know, but I do. I heard Shaw tellin'
'bout it. It was 'Liza's day out, an' she went an' got 'toxicated, an' a
p'liceman he took her up, an' nex' mornin' my Uncle Frank, they sent to
him out of the station-house to have him _bail her out_."

"My, my! She was as full as that?"

"What's bail her out?" inquired Radcliffe.

Mrs. Slawson considered. "When a boat gets full of water, because o'
leakin' sides or heavy rains or shippin' seas, or whatever they calls
it, you bail her out with a tin can or a sponge or anythin' you have by
you."

"Was Liza full of water?"

"I was describin' _boats_," said Martha. "An' talkin' o' boats, did I
tell you we got a new kitten to our house? He's a gray Maltee. His name
is Nixcomeraus."

"Why is his name Nix--why is his name _that_?"

"Nixcomeraus? His name's Nixcomeraus because he's from the Dutchman's
house. If you listen good, you'll see that's poetry--

"'Nixcomeraus from the Dutchman's house!'

"I didn't make it up, but it's poetry all the same. A Dutchman gen'l'man
who lives nex' door to me, made him a present to our fam'ly."

"Do you like him?"

"The Dutchman gen'l'man?"

"No, the--the Nix--the _cat_?"

"Certaintly we like him. He's a decent, self-respectin' little fella
that 'tends to his own business, an' keeps good hours. An' you'd oughter
see how grand him an' Flicker gets along! Talk o' a cat-and-dog
existence! Why, if all the married parties I know, not to speak o' some
others that ain't, hit it off as good as Flicker an' Nixcomeraus, there
wouldn't be no occasion for so many ladies takin' the rest-cure at
Reno."

"What's Reno?"

"Reno? Why, Reno's short for merino. Like I'd say, Nix for Nixcomeraus,
which is a kinder woolen goods you make dresses out of. There! Did you
hear the schoolroom bell? I thought I heard it ringin' a while ago, but
I wasn't sure. Hurry now, an' don't keep Miss Lang waitin'. She wants
you to come straight along up, so's she can learn you to be a big an'
handsome gen'l'man like your Uncle Frank."

When Radcliffe had left her, Martha went over in her mind the items he
had guilelessly contributed to her general fund of information. Take it
all in all, she was not displeased with what they seemed to indicate.

"Confidence is a good thing to have, but a little wholesome doubt don't
hurt the masculine gender none. I guess, if I was put to it, I could
count on one hand with no fingers, the number o' gen'l'men, no matter
how plain, have died because 'way down in their hearts they believed
they wasn't reel _A-1 Winners._ That's one thing it takes a lot o' hard
usage to convince the sect of. They may feel they ain't gettin' their
doos, that they're misunderstood, an' bein' sold below cost. But that
they're ackchelly shopworn, or what's called 'seconds,' or put on the
_As Is_ counter because they're cracked, or broke, or otherwise slightly
disfigured, but still in the ring--why, _that_ never seems to percolate
through their brains, like those coffee-pots they use nowadays, that
don't make no better coffee than the old kind, if you know how to do it
good, in the first place.

"On the other hand, ladies is dretful tryin'! They act like they're the
discoverers of perpetchal emotion, an' is _on the job_ demonstratin'.
You can't count on 'em for one minit to the next, which they certaintly
was never born to be aromatic cash-registers. An' p'raps that's the
reason, bein' natchelly so poor at figgers, they got to rely to such a
extent on corsets. I'm all for women myself. I believe they're the
comin' man, but I must confess, if I'm to speak the truth, it ain't for
the simple, uninfected, childlike mind o' the male persuasion to foller
their figaries, unless he's some of a trained acrobat.

"Now, the harsh way Miss Claire has toward Mr. Ronald! You'd think he
had give himself dead away to her, an' was down on his knee-pans humble
as a 'Piscerpalian sayin' the Literny in Lent, grubbin' about among the
dust she treads on, to touch the hem o' her garment. Whereas, in some
way unbeknownst to me, an' prob'ly unbeknownst to him, he's touched her
pride, which is why she's so up in arms, not meanin' his--worse luck!
An' it would have all worked out right in the end, an' will yet, _if_
this new party that Radcliffe mentioned ain't Mr. Buttinsky, an' she
don't foller the dictates of her _art_ an' flirt with him too
outrageous, or else marry him to spite herself, which is what I mean to
pervent if I can, but which, of course, it may be I can't."

CHAPTER XIV

"Frank," said Mrs. Sherman one Sunday morning, some weeks later,
stopping her brother on his way to the door, "can you spare me a few
moments? I've something very important I want to discuss with you. I
want you to help me with suggestions and advice in a matter that very
closely concerns some one in whom I'm greatly interested."

Mr. Ronald paused. "Meaning?" he suggested.

"I don't know that I ought to tell you. You see, it's--it's
confidential."

"Suggestions and advice are foolish things to give, Catherine. They are
seldom taken, never thanked for."

"Well, in this case mine have been actually solicited. And I feel I
ought to do something, because, in a way, I'm more or less responsible
for the--the imbroglio."

Slipping her hand through his arm, she led him back into the library.

"You see, it's this way. Perhaps, after all, it will be better, simpler,
if I don't try to beat about the bush. Amy Pelham has been terribly
devoted to Mr. Van Brandt for ever so long--oh, quite six months. And
he has been rather attentive, though I can't say he struck me as very
much in love. You know she asked me out to Tuxedo not long ago. She
wanted me to watch him and tell her if I thought he was _serious._ Well,
I watched him, but I couldn't say I thought he was _serious._ However,
you never can tell. Men are so extraordinary! They sometimes masquerade
so, their own mothers wouldn't know them."

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