Chapter II: Part 2

"Ballard! I know the tribe. Leave him alone, and see he leaves _you_ alone."

"Please don't excite yourself, grandmother. I'm sure the doctor wouldn't want you to."

"Where's that woman?"

"You mean Mrs. Slawson? Gone home. She has a family to see to. She told you, didn't she, she's the wife of Mr. Ronald's new superintendent?"

"How much'll she charge?"

"Us, you mean? For what she did last night, and this morning?"

"Uh-huh."

"Nothing, grandmother."

"Nonsense! Compel her to set price. If she won't, it's because she hopes you'll pay more than's the custom. I know the trick. Don't be caught. Pay her regular price, and say she mustn't come, 'less we send. Won't pay, when we don't send."

Katherine felt herself flushing furiously from neck to forehead. "I wouldn't dare offer Mrs. Slawson money, grandmother. I can't imagine what she'd do, if I did. She came to help us out of pure friendliness. She did more than we could ever pay her for. She's put me under deep obligation."

"Pooh! Obligation! One in that class! When you've paid her, you've paid her."

Katherine turned her face away. "Let's not discuss it, grandmother. You oughtn't to talk much, just yet. Let's see! First, I'll get a basin and warm water, and give you a lovely bath, and afterwards, you can have your breakfast. I'll go down myself and prepare it, as soon as----"

Madam Crewe gave vent to a sound Katherine was painfully familiar with--something between a sneer, a snort, and a groan of exasperation.

"How many _lovely baths_ d'you calculate I can stand in twelve hours? One last night. Another five A.M. and, now, _you_ want to give me a third!"

"Mrs. Slawson bathed you before she went?" Katherine demanded incredulously.

"Yes, and what's more, gave me breakfast. _Good_ breakfast! Better than _you_ can p'pare."

"She couldn't have slept a wink all night," the girl mused self-reproachfully.

Madam Crewe made no rejoinder. Apparently, she did not consider it necessary for one in Mrs. Slawson's class to sleep a wink all night.

Katherine turned away, pretending to busy herself with setting the room in order. In reality, she was very differently employed. Her stern young mind had constituted itself court, counsel, and jury, to sit in judgment upon her grandmother, and, according to the findings, convict her without privilege of appeal. She could see nothing that was not contemptible in the old woman's mode of living, her view of life. If she were poor, it would be different. There might be some excuse then, for this paltry measuring of everything by the standard of a copper cent. But, her grandmother had plenty, and more than plenty. If she stinted, it was merely to add more to an already ample fortune. And, meanwhile, youth, hope, dreams, all were vanishing. The best of life was being wilfully sacrificed to a mean whim. She knew the people 'round about, the "natives," turned up their noses at "ol' lady Crewe," and pitied her, Katherine, for being the granddaughter of a "tight-wad." It made her shrink from meeting the commonest acquaintance, when she considered how odious her position was, and how well every one knew it.

The doctor came early, while she was still smarting with a sense of her wrongs.

"I've brought a battery," he explained, indicating the instrument Sam Slawson was assisting him to unearth from the bowels of the runabout. "It's not my own. Dr. Driggs kindly lent it. I had a chat with him over the 'phone last night, after I got home, and he agrees with me that electricity will be----

"If Dr. Driggs is back, why didn't he come himself?" Katherine interrupted, so sensitively on edge that the most innocent suggestion jarred.

The young man before her looked blank for a moment. Then a tolerant smile stole into his fine, wholesome face.

"Precisely the question I put to him. But, he said he'd thank me kindly if I'd go on with the case."

Katherine winced. She knew why Dr. Driggs was not keen on coming to Crewesmere.

Dr. Ballard noticed the painful twitching of her brows, and instantly regretted his reply. To mend matters he began, at once, to explain why he was obliged to borrow of a fellow-practitioner, and to call upon Sam Slawson to be his charioteer.

"You see, I'm not here in the village in my official capacity. I only came for--well, on a sort of venture. But I like it, and I've sent for my--I mean, I've sent for a machine to get about in, by myself. I was feeling a bit seedy. I'm here for repairs. I belong in Boston--my office is there, and my heavy artillery's in it. But if electric treatment seems to agree with Madam Crewe, I'll send, and have my portable battery shipped on with the motor. It's quite at her service, as _I_ am. It's rather more modern than this, and--more--effective."

As Sam Slawson remarked to his wife later, he was surprised at the manner in which Miss Crewe received the doctor's friendly advance.

"She gave him a look, like he'd trod on her toes, and hurt her bad, besides taking the shine off her patent leather."

Martha smiled. "Anybody'd know you'd been a strap-hanger, Sam Slawson. You give yourself dead away."

"Well, she gave him the look, and said she: 'Thanks, but please don't send. My grandmother is much improved. She may not require the services of _any_ doctor, very long.'"

Mrs. Slawson nodded. "She's sore on the subjec' of her gran'ma. She knows her peculiar-rarities, an' she knows she's got to stand by the ol' lady, but it kinda gives her a turn, every time she thinks anybody's noticin' her doin' it. If Dr. Ballard wasn't such a great innercent of a fella, he wouldn't 'a' give it away that Dr. Driggs is _on to_ the little madam, and just as lief dodge her, if convenient. A party with more tack to'm than Dr. Ballard would 'a' kep' that dark. But there's where you can't have everything at oncet, in human bein's. If a fella's got a lotta tack, an' the kind o' light fantastic toe that, every time he opens his mouth, he don't put his foot into it, he's more than like to be the kind that thinks twicet before he speaks, which, it may be wise, but ain't as hearty, an' uncalkerlatin' as _I'd_ like in a husband. On the other hand, a fella that speaks, without stoppin' to count the costs, why, it's ten to one, a woman'll have to pay 'em, in the end, but anyhow she'll have the comfort o' knowin' his heart's in the right place, which, it ain't forever takin' the elevator up to the top floor, to consult with his brains. I'm sorry them two young things _got in_ wrong as regards each other. But it won't stop the course o' human events, so far as they're concerned, even if it does delay it some. I'm not a bit worried."

Sam paused in the act of pulling off a boot.

"Say, Martha, you don't mean you're at it again?"

"'At it'! Me? No! What I mean is, Nature's bound to get in her fine work, no matter what kinda mater'al's handed out to her. You remember Miss Claire an' Lord Ronald? They started in complercatin' the pattren, as hard as they could, but 'twas no use. They couldn't get the best o' Nature, an' the consequence is, we're lookin' for 'em home from their weddin' tour any time now, an' if we don't get busy, the decorations won't be ready for my celebration proceeding."

The morning of the great day on which the Ronalds were expected to arrive, Martha was astir at sunrise, summoning her brood with the call: "Miss Claire's comin' home! Miss Claire's comin' home!"

"I'd call her _Missis_, considering," suggested Sam, yawning as he tucked his pillow more comfortably beneath his rough cheek.

"All right, call her it, if it's a comfort to you. Only get a move on," his wife replied, plucking the pillow unceremoniously out from under, giving it a mighty shake, and setting it across the sleeping-porch rail to air.

"You can take it from me, my hands is full this day. I've no time to parley, fussin' over my articles of speech. Besides, Miss Claire knows me an' my ways. If I was any diff'rent from what she's used to, she'd be disappointed."

"I thought Mrs. Peckett was making you over. To say nothing of Cora, and Ma. Perhaps Mrs. Ronald will take a hand at it, too. You never can tell."

"True for you, you never can," Martha admitted. "Who'd 'a' thought, now, ol' lady Crewe would ever be troublin' her head about me, an' yet one o' the first things she said, when she got her power back, an' could pronunciate clearly, was--'You'd oughta keep a cow!' Knowin' the risks run by those that does, from the effects o' hoofs an' horns, an' simular attachments, I mighta thought she wanted to see my finish, because o' the way I lit in, an' give her a rub-down against her will, the night she was took sick. But she didn't. She don't bear no ill will. It was just she thought keepin' a cow would be cheaper for our fam'ly, than keepin' the milkman. She wants to turn me into a farmer, an' who knows! You never can tell, as you say. That's what I may turn into before I'm done. But what I'm occupied with at the present moment is--did you get that la'nch fixed up good last night, like I told you to? As soon as the breakfast dishes is washed, I wanta take the childern, an' go acrost the lake to get laurel for my decorations."

Sam paused in the act of shaving, to turn his lathered cheek toward her.

"The launch is O.K., but I'm uneasy every time you take her out on the water alone, mother. I'm not sure you understand the motor. And if a squall blew up sudden----"

"Now, don't you worry your head over me, that's a good fella. I understand that la'nch, an' the auta, as good as if all three of us hada been born an' brought up by the same mother. The things I can't seem to get a line on is animals. Hens, an' cows, an' so forth. _They_ take my time! O' course, to look at 'em, you'd know hens ain't very brainy.--Look at the way they behave in front o' autas, or anythin' drivin' up! They're as undecided as a woman at a bargain-counter, thinkin' will she buy a remlet o' baby-blue ribbon, or go to Huyler's an' get a chocolate ice-cream soda. They're hippin' an' hawin', till it'd be a _pleasure_ to run 'em down. Cows ain't got that trick, but they're queer in their own way, an' the both o' them is too, what Mrs. Sherman calls, _temper-mental_ to suit me. Now, who'd 'a' thought all them chicks woulda died on me, just because they got damped down some, that cold, wet spell we had along in March? If they'd 'a' told me they wanted to come in outa the wet, I'd 'a' fetched 'em indoors, or I'd 'a' went out an' held their hands. Anythin' to oblige. But not on your life! They was mum as oysters. They just up an' died on me, without so much as a _beg to be excused_--the whole bloomin' lot o' them. The Lord tempers the cold to the shorn lamb, but I notice it aint reggerlated much of any in the case o' chickens. An' talkin' o' chickens, I wonda if that same Sammy done what I told'm an' whitewashed the henhouse thora inside. Mrs. Peckett says you gotta do it every oncet in a while, to keep the vermin down. The quicklime kills 'em."

Breakfast well under way, Mrs. Slawson went out on a tour of inspection. Evidently what she found did not satisfy her, for, when the family had had its meal, and was about to rise and disperse, she held Sammy back with a detaining hand.

"Say, young fella, how about that henhouse you was to fresco with whitewash yesterday?"

"I did it, mother."

"Well, you let the brush kinda lick down the walls, but what I call a thora coat you did not give it! Now, I like my jobs done thora. There's a good pail o' whitewash waitin' for you outside, to say nothin' o' the brush to lay it on with. An', while the girls an' me goes over to the other side o' the lake to get laurel, you get busy on the inter'or o' that hen-residence, my son. An'----"

"Oh--oh, mother-r!" Sammy's wail came from a stricken heart.

It failed to make the slightest impression apparently.

"You knew you was botchin' all the time," Martha pulled him up short. "After a while, you'll get on to it that you can't palm off careless work on me--I know too much about it."

"I did what you told me, mother," the boy managed to bring out, between heavy sobs.

"What did I tell you?"

"You told me--_do the inside o' the henhouse, an' I done it!_"

"Yes, but how about the roosts? You never touched brush to the roosts. It's a pity if a child o' mine's gotta be told do every last thing, when he knows better. You can take it from me, I ain't bringin' you childern up to be the kind o' household pets servants is, nowadays. I wanta learn you to think for yourselves, sometimes, an' do a thing the right way, because it's right to do it that way. Never mind if anybody sees it, or not. Now, you listen to me, since you're so partic'lar: You go into that hen-house, with your pail, an' your brush, an' you whitewash down every last thing in it, roosts an' all. Don't you leave a thing go free. Do you understand me?"

Sammy's pitiful face moved his father to raise a voice in his behalf.

"Say, mother, Sammy knows he's been a bad boy an' he's got to take his punishment. He's got to do the henhouse over. There's no doubt about that. But suppose he passes his word of honor to you, as man to man, that he'll do it thorough next time, will you be easy on him, for this once, and let him go across the lake with you and his sisters, and do the whitewashing later?"

Martha shook her head.

"Sorry I can't accommodate you, but when anythin's to do, there's no time like the present. If Sammy learns his lesson this trip, he won't have it to learn again, on another occasion, when p'raps he'd miss more than goin' acrost the lake. Besides, he's got some other little trifles hangin' over'm, I let him off easy on, at the time. We'll just settle up his account now, for them _an'_ the henhouse, all together, an' call it square."

There was a terrible finality in his mother's words and aspect, that dried Sammy's tears, quenched his sobs. Where was the good of struggling? Sammy was a small boy, but he had sagacity enough to realize he was face to face with fate. He turned away mournfully, and disappeared in the direction of the henhouse.

Mrs. Slawson's severity fell from her, as if it had been a mantle.

"The poor fella," she said commiseratingly. "I'd give a lot to leave'm go along. But with childern, you got to strike while the iron is hot, or you'll be forever warmin' their poor little hides, which constant naggin' is death to their dispositions. But if I'd 'a' had my choice, I'd 'a' selected a differnt way to punish'm. For, firstoff, I won't enjoy the fun, knowin' he's left behind, an', second, I really need his help with the laurel _and_ with the la'nch. But p'raps I need a punishment on my own account, for leavin'm grow to this age without knowin' he can't string his mother. If I do, you can take it from me, _I got it_."

*CHAPTER IV*

Miss Claire's entry into her new domain was triumphal.

As the motor approached the lodge-gate, she plucked impulsively at her husband's sleeve.

"Look, Frank, look! See! An arch of pink laurel! Flags! And--and--what's this?"

A quartette of children's voices singing brought the motor to a halt on the hither side of a wonderful, lettered strip, stretched, like an unrolled scroll, to span the driveway, from the tips of two lofty uprights. Mr. Ronald bent forward attentively. Immediately his firm jaw began to twitch, and, as he spoke, his lowered voice betrayed a treacherous tremolo.

"They're singing _Hail to the Chief_. But its own mother wouldn't know it."

Claire threw him a reproachful glance, as, to the consternation of the new footman, she flung open the door of the car herself, alighted unaided, and impetuously clung about Martha Slawson's neck.

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" she cried.

There were tears of joy in Martha's eyes.

"God bless you, Miss Claire, ma'am! God bless you, dear."

"I say, Martha, which of us are you hailing? Which of us is _Chief_?" broke in Mr. Ronald lightly, nodding a salutation toward Sam, Ma, and the children drawn up by the driveway in martial array.

Martha laughed. "Between youse be it, sir. Time'll tell. Sam didn't want me put it up, but I says to him, you both started in with a fair field, an' no favor, an' let the best man win. Guessin' which of you'll come out ahead, maybe'll relieve the monoterny of married life for you some."

If Sam Slawson had been a boy, he could not have felt more eager to "show the boss" what he had made of the place during his absence. While the two of them were exploring, the children and Ma busy with the treasures their fairy princess had brought home to them from the other side of the world, Martha devoted herself to "mothering" Miss Claire.

"My! To be brushin' your hair like this takes me back to a Hunderd-an'-sixteenth Street, an' no mistake!"

Mrs. Ronald's eyes, peering through her bright veil, met Mrs. Slawson's in the mirror.

"Tell me, Martha, you miss the city sometimes, don't you? Would you like to go back?"

Martha's reply was prompt. "I _am_ goin' back, for a day or two, with Sam, when Mr. Ronald sends'm down on business next month. That is, I'm goin', if I can raise the price o' my ticket. We're goin' on a spree. Just us two, all alone by ourselves."

Mrs. Ronald clapped her hands. "Good!" she cried enthusiastically. "But you haven't answered my question. I'll put it another way. Do you feel quite contented up here? Does the country suit you?"

This time Mrs. Slawson paused to consider. "I like the country first-rate," she brought out at last. "I like it first-rate, notwithstandin' it ain' just exackly the kinda pure white, Easter-card effect it's gener'ly cracked up to be. When you think o' the country, you naturally think o' daisies, an' new-mown hay, an' meddas, an' grass which it don't have signs all 'round to keep off of it, an' blue skies you ain't gotta break your neck peekin' out o' the air-shaft ground-floor winda to see. Well, true for you, the whole outfit's here all right, all right, but so's more or less o' human bein's, an' whenever you get human bein's picnicking 'round, complercations 's sure to set in. Human bein's, if they ain't careful, clutters up the landscape dretful. An' they do it in the country, same as down home. You're goin' to slip up on it fierce, if you think the city's got a corner on all the rottenness there is. There's a whole lot o' news ain't fit to print is happenin' right up here in this innercent-lookin' little village. You wouldn't believe it, unless you _knew_. There's parties bein' bad, an' other parties bein' good. Folks doin' mean tricks, an' folks doin' the other kind. It's all just about the same's in the city, when you get right down to it. Only, there ain't so much _of_ it. But it makes me tired to hear Mrs. Peckett behavin' as if the country was the whole thing, an' New York wasn't in it. New York _is_ bad in spots, but it's good in spots too, an' don't you forget it!"

Mrs. Ronald smiled. "You're a loyal soul, Martha. But you'll love the country better, when you know more about the birds, and the insects, and the flowers. I'm going to set about directly teaching you. I'm going to make a naturalist of you, do you know it?"

Mrs. Slawson's smile was large, benign. "Certaintly. I'd like to be a nateralist. Mrs. Peckett's goin' to make a New England housekeeper outa me, an' ol' lady Crewe is tryin' to turn me into a farmer. If I get all that's comin' to me, it looks as if I'd be goin' some, before I get through."

"'Old lady Crewe'?"

"Why, don't you remember? That little ol' party looks like a china figga you'd get at Macy's, down in the basement. They have'm leanin' against tree-stumps, for match-boxes, an' suchlike. White hair, an' dressed to beat the band, in looped-up silk, with flowers painted onto the pattren. Ol' lady Crewe reminds you of one o' those. She was 'born a Stryker,' they tell me--whatever _that_ is--an' her folks owned about all the land in these parts Lord Ronald's folks didn't, in the ol' days. She's got no end o' money, but----" Martha hesitated.

"Oh, I recollect now. She's the one they say is a miser."

"Now, I wouldn't call her that," said Mrs. Slawson slowly. "I kinda hate to clap a label onto a body. It's bound to stick to'm, no matter what. It's like a bottle. Oncet it's had POISON marked on it, it's under suspicion, an' you wouldn't make free with it, no matter how careful it's been washed. Ol' lady Crewe certaintly _is_ savin', that no one can deny, an' I'm sorry for Miss Katherine, but----"

Again Mrs. Ronald let her curiosity escape in the repetition of the name Martha had just mentioned. "Miss Katherine?"

"Miss Katherine's the ol' lady's granddaughter, an' you can take it from me, you wouldn't see a han'somer in a day's travel."

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" cried Miss Claire, pretending jealousy, "I've got a rival. I see it! I know it! You don't like me best any more."

Mrs. Slawson laughed. "'Like you best'! Well, I guess you won't have to lose no sleep on that account, Miss Claire. But Miss Katherine's certaintly good-lookin', I'll say that for her. When I come home the next mornin', after seein' her firstoff, Cora says to me, 'What did she look like? was she anything like Miss Claire?' An' I told her: 'Miss Katherine's the han'somest appearin', but Miss Claire is the delicatest. Miss Claire's the most refinder-lookin'. An' that's God's truth. Miss Katherine's tall. The sorta grand, proud-lookin', I-would-n't-call-the-queen-my-cousin kind. An' _you_----! Well, you'll know how a body feels about _you_, when the blessed lamb comes home in August, which, believe _me_, the news of it is the joyfulest ever I heard in my life. You'll know how a body feels about _you_, by the way you feel about _it_. Like pertectin' it, an' caressin' it, an'--an'--keepin' harm away from the innercent heart of it. If you don't believe me, ask Lord Ronald."

"'Ask Lord Ronald,' _what_?"

Mrs. Slawson turned composedly to face the master of the house, as if his appearance in the doorway, just at that precise moment, had been "according to specifications." "I was tellin' Miss Claire--beggin' your pardon, _Mrs. Ronald_--about ol' lady Crewe, up-the-road-a-ways."

Mr. Ronald disposed of his long person in a cretonne-covered lounging chair.

"Do you know her, Frank?" As Claire spoke she slipped into her adjoining dressing-room, to arrange her hair and put on a fresh frock.

"Why, yes--and no," he replied. "Of course all the neighborhood knows about Madam Crewe. I used to hear my father talk about her. But she is rather a formidable little person. She is not to be approached lightly. I doubt if any one _knows_ her. She was Idea Stryker. An only child. 'Very beautiful,' the governor said,--'a great match.' Her father was exceedingly high and mighty. An English _younger son_, with feudalistic notions. Nobody over here was good enough for him, except my father, with whom he was uncommonly friendly. Stryker was difficult, a choleric, fiery-tongued individual, much disliked in the state, though, my father always said, he meant well."

"Somehow, I ain't no use for folks that mean well," observed Mrs. Slawson. "That is, o' course, I don't mean I ain't no use for'm, but I think they're kinda nuisances. When you have to explain that a fella _means well_, you can take it from me, he ain't makin' himself very clear on his own account."

Mr. Ronald laughed. "Well, perhaps that's true. In any event, Squire Stryker made himself so cordially disliked that when, one day, he and his bailiff, as he called him, had a big scene, and Ballard, the bailiff, was turned out, neck and crop, public sympathy was all on his side, though no one knew anything about the facts in the case. My father said Squire Stryker spoke of the man as 'scamp' and rapscallion,' but, he never really openly accused him of misdemeanor. There was the scene, and the next day Stryker closed his place, and took himself and his girl off, to parts unknown. The dismissed bailiff, a handsome, prepossessing chap, my father said, disappeared, and nothing more was heard of him. Idea married, and came back Mrs. Crewe. Young Mrs. Crewe, in those days. 'Ol' lady Crewe up-the-road-a-ways,' now."

"Well, what do you think of that!" ejaculated Martha. "So that's the reason why, when she hears it, the name Ballard's like a rag to a red bull! Now, what do you think of that!"

"What do you mean?" Mr. Ronald asked.

"Why, the ol' lady was took sick suddently a few weeks ago, an' Sam, he couldn't get Dr. Driggs, who was out at the time, an', besides, wasn't achin' to go to the poor ol' body, anyhow, to have his head snapped off, an' then haggle over the bill, into the bargain. So he took the best he could get, meanin' Sam did, which was Dr. Ballard, a fine young fella from Boston. The minute the ol' lady clapped eye to'm, an' heard his name, she up an' had a kinda Dutch fit. Wouldn't see'm. It was all I could do, what with talkin' an' contrivin', to make her, an' _then_ she set about layin' down the law to Miss Katherine, forbiddin' her parley with'm, or see'm at all, which is as good as sayin', 'Bless you, my childern!' over their married heads, if she but knew it!"

Frank Ronald laughed. "The wisdom of Socrates! I tell you what it is, Martha, we'll make a philosopher of you, yet!"

"Anything you like, sir. Sever'l has lately mentioned wantin' to make things outa me. The more the merrier. An' if, in the end, I ain't good for nothin' else, maybe they'll hire me in a circus, for a side-show freak.--THE MADE OVER LADY. WHICH, SHE WAS ONCET JUST PLAIN MARTHA SLAWSON. BUT IS NOW SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS, IT'D MAKE YOU DIZZY TO LOOK AT HER. But I must be goin'. Them childern o' mine will 'a' turned the house upside down with their rapchers over the presents you brought'm."

Mrs. Ronald laid a hand upon her husband's shoulder. "I'd like to take a walk, Frank. Won't you come?"

"An' on the way I'll show you my new hen-house," promised Martha. "One o' the things I'm learnin' to be, is a chicken-raiser. I'm learnin' hard, an', you might say, the chicks is learnin' harder. But it'll all come out right in the end, if both parties hang on, an' keep a stiff upper lip. The first time a brood died on me, I 'most fretted myself sick. But now I learned not to hitch my heart to no hen. I do the best I can by 'em, an' leave the rest to proverdence, an' the inkerbater. Only, you can take it from me, them inkerbaters may be a improvement on the old way, but they certaintly is death to the mother-instinc' in hens. Hens is like women. The less they have to do, the less they do, especially if they keep well. The minute you begin turnin' your offsprings over to other parties, to be brought up, that's the time your sect is goin' to run down. An' the chicks don't grow up with no more feelin' o' reverence for their elders, an' them that bore'm, then the childern we're raisin' nowadays. It's all wrong, these modren contrivances is. We think we're smart, shovin' our ways in, ahead o' nature's, but just you wait, an' see what comes o' this generation o' kids, give'm time to grow up to be men, an' women, an' so forth. You can take it from me, George Washin'ton an' Abraham Linco'n wasn't brought up in cotton-wool, so that every time somebody crossed'm, an' they got red in the face with temper, there'd be a trained nurse to pop a the'mometer under their tongues, to see if they had a 'temperachure.' What kep' their childish fevers down was a good fannin' with mother's slipper, an' they grew up to tell the truth an' fear the devil, along with the other grown-up members of the fam'ly. But, these days, everything's for the kids, an' they know it. Believe me, my heart bleeds for my grandchildern. An', talkin' o' grandchildern, here's the model henhouse o' New England. Internal decoratin' done by Mr. Sammy Slawson's son, junior."

Martha held her little party back long enough to relate the tale of Sammy and the whitewashing.

"An' I told'm," she concluded, "he could walk his little self back, with his little pail o' whitewash, an' his little brush, an' get busy an' _keep_ busy, till every last thing in the place got a good coat. I told'm, 'Don't you leave a thing go free, young man!' so I guess we'll see a thora job _this_ time, or I'm mistaken."

A spotless interior, gleaming, white, proved her surmise correct. Sammy had evidently made "a thora job" of it this time.

Claire would have been satisfied with a brief glance, but her husband detained her.

"I say, Martha," he addressed Mrs. Slawson, "what is it you told young Sam? 'Not to let a thing go free'?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, he's a model boy. He has obeyed you to the letter. Look here!"

Martha, looking in the direction indicated, saw a bunch of animate white, huddled disconsolately against a far corner of the white wall.

"What is it?" she asked.

Mr. Ronald made a clucking sound, and the bunch separated sluggishly, proving itself to be two very thoroughly whitewashed hens.

Martha stared a moment aghast. Then gradually, as the truth dawned upon her, her broad shoulders began to shake.

"The joke's on you, Martha!" Mr. Ronald said, smiling quizzically.

Martha turned grave in a moment. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," she returned, "I'm afraid it's on the _hens_. But, what'll I do to Sammy? He's a young villain, o' course, only I ain't a leg to stand on, for to punish'm. He's just been mindin' his mother."

"'And the moral of that is,' as Alice would say, that even obedience can sometimes be too complete," observed Mr. Ronald with relish.

Whatever misgivings young Sam might have entertained, nothing in his mother's demeanor, when she, Miss Claire, and Lord Ronald arrived at the Lodge a little while later, seemed to justify them.

Perhaps she hadn't seen the hens. Perhaps the hens had licked or lapped the whitewash off, an inspiration derived from his experience with Flicker, the dog, and Nixcomeraus, the cat. In any case, Mrs. Slawson was apparently undisturbed, standing by (young Sam noticed his mother never sat in the presence of ladies and gentlemen "like Mr. and Mrs. Ronald, Dr. Ballard, or Miss Katherine") as Miss Claire inquired after Ma's health.

"Fair-rly, fair-rly, thank you kindly," the old woman was responding, "I'm thryin' a new remidy, now, an' I think it's goin' to help me. Ol' Mis' Harris says, 'no matther who ye a-are, or what ails ye, if ye get a nutmeg, an' bore a hole through't, an' string it on a white-silk t'read, an' a black-silk t'read, an' hang't 'round your neck, ye'll be surprised,' ol' Mis' Harris says."

"I'd be surprised anyhow," observed Martha. "I'm always surprised."

"And you like living up here?" Mrs. Ronald gently put to the old woman.

"Well, tolerabl', tolerabl'. I don't mind the livin' in it, as ye might sa', but----"

"Ma means, as long as she lives she'll never die in the country," Martha supplied.

"Well, if it comes to dyin' itself, I'd rather die where there was moar to be folla'in' me. I sa' to me son Sammy's wife, often an' often, 'When I die don't ye go to anny gr'reat expense for me funerll. I should want ye lay me out decent, but plain, an'----'"

Martha shrugged good-naturedly. "An' I always answer back, 'Don't ye trouble yourself. In such cases they ain't accustomed to consult the corpse.'"

"But you're not thinking of dying yet," Claire said. "I'm sure you're not."

The old woman shook her head. "No, I don't wanta die--not while the sun shines so bright, an' the evenin' star's so pretty."

"Of course you don't. And you're not going to die for ever and ever so long. You only feel a little low-spirited sometimes, perhaps. Isn't that it? The country seems strange to you, I have no doubt. Why don't you make some visits to your other sons and daughters?" Mrs. Ronald suggested craftily. "That would be a fine plan, I think. How glad they would be to see you after your long separation. And, oh, Martha, talking of visits--you know the visitor I told you we are expecting in August? I'm thinking of fitting up a little room especially for--for her. I have sent to Grand Rapids for all my dear old things, because I've a fancy they'll help to make her feel as happy as they used to make me, and perhaps then she won't get homesick, and want to slip away from us as--as visitors do, sometimes. My curtains were lovely, but I think they need a stitch here and there. If you will put them in order for me--mend them thoroughly, and launder them in your finest style, I'll give you--let me see! the cleaners in town asked me fifteen dollars. I'll pay you fifteen dollars."

Fifteen dollars! Martha's eyes gleamed. Here was her opportunity to earn the price of her ticket to New York and back.

"You'll do it?"

"You betcher--I'll do it with pleasure, an' thank you for the chance, Miss Claire. An'--my! but if here ain't Dr. Ballard, comin' up the walk!"

Martha performed the act of introduction with dignity, then quietly effaced herself, silently signaling her family to "fade away, an' make room for your betters."

Claire "took" to the newcomer at once, predisposed in his favor by a certain shadow of resemblance she saw, or thought she saw, to a friend of her youth, a certain Bob Van Brandt who, once upon a time, had laid his heart at her feet. There was the same manly frankness, the same touch of boyish impetuosity. She wondered if there were the same fatal lack of determination.

What time she pondered, her husband was harking back to otherwhiles, when a Ballard had lived in the neighborhood.

"My grandfather," the young man said quite simply. "He was bailiff, as they called it in those days, to Squire Stryker."

Frank Ronald liked that. It rang true.

Martha was not listening to the conversation. Her mind was full of the thought that now she could conscientiously go honeymooning with Sam.

"It wouldn'ta been right to take the money outa the little we got saved," she ruminated. "That's gotta stay where it is, no matter what. But if I do the curtain-job, I'll have my own cash. I can go with my own man, an' I wouldn't call the queen my cousin."

When, at length, the Ronalds took leave, Dr. Ballard, lingering, said:

"I'm in a hole, Mrs. Slawson." He paused, hesitated, then colored. "I say I'm in a hole--really it's Miss Crewe. My difficulty is, I want to help her out, and, up to date, haven't been able. Madam Crewe is fretting herself into a fever because the fruit on the place is going to waste. Confound it! She's making Miss Crewe's life miserable, teasing her to 'do it up.' Miss Crewe doesn't know how to do it up, she tells me, and, there you are!"

"What about Eunice Youngs? The girl I got to _accommodate_ for'm, at four dollars per," inquired Mrs. Slawson.

The doctor laughed. "Nothing doing, I gather, else Miss Crewe wouldn't be in so deep. This morning I managed to kidnap her--Miss Crewe, not Eunice. Took her for a drive. She needs fresh air and change. I took her to Mrs. Peckett's, because I knew Mrs. Peckett boasts she's the best housekeeper in New England."

Martha folded her arms across her bosom, and half closed her eyes.

"'If I do say it as shouldn't,'" she repeated in Mrs. Peckett's fat, self-satisfied voice. "'If I do say it as shouldn't, no one can beat me on jells and perserves. My jells and perserves have took first prize at the country fair, as far back as I can remember.' I ran in oncet to ask, would she give me a helpin' hand, or, rather, a helpin' tongue, on the perserve question. 'Why, certaintly,' says she. 'I'm always delighted to oblige, I'm sure. My rule is simple as ABC. There's no art in it at all. It's just _my_ way o' doin', I s'pose, for every time I give my rule to anybody else, it never comes out right.' An' then she give me her rule, an' I knew the reason why.

"'You take what you're goin' to jar, and you wash it, if it's berries, or pare an' cut up if it's pit-fruit. Add water, an' set on the stove in a kettle till you come to a boil. Add sugar an'----'

"'How much sugar?' says I.

"'Accordin' to conscience,' she says.

"'How about if you haven't got a conscience?' I says. Mrs. Peckett looked like she'd drop in her tracks with shock. 'Why, _Mrs. Slawson_!' says she, 'everybody's got a conscience.'

"'Oh,' I says. 'You see, comin' from the city I didn't know. I suppose some keeps theirs just to measure by, when they're puttin' up fruit,' for I was tired o' seein' her dodge from the table to the stove, always tryin' to shut me off from seein' how she done things. As if she couldn't o' refused firstoff, if she didn't want to help. _I_ wouldn't 'a' minded. If she done the same to Miss Katherine, I don't wonder she's just about where she was before--in the same old hole."

"That's just where she is," Dr. Ballard admitted. "Have you any suggestions for getting her out?"

Martha pondered a moment. "Well, I never took a prize at no country fair, or city one either, for my jells, or perserves, or anything else. I ain't a boss housekeeper, an' I don't pertend to be, but my suggestion is--bright an' early to-morra mornin', me an' my perservin' kettle will wanda out to Crewesmere, as they call it. I'll bring Sammy with me to pick, an' sort the fruit, an' Cora to wash, an' heat the jars. They're used to it. An'--you just tell Miss Katherine, if you'll be so good, that she can heave the perserve-trouble off'n her chest. Tell her don't worry. Mrs. Peckett ain't the only one's got a 'rule.'"

*CHAPTER V*

The day had been sultry, and sunset brought no relief. Evening fell windstill, breathless.

For once Katherine was glad to obey her little martinet grandmother's arbitrary regulation: Lights out at nine. She sat by her bedroom window looking out over a white, moonlit world, thinking black thoughts. Suddenly she rose, for no better reason, apparently, than that a quick, inner impulse of impatience against herself, must find vent in some outward act.

"It's dreadful! I'm growing bitter, hard, deceitful. I'm living a lie. Acting as if I were obedient, and respectful to her, and--feeling like a rebel every minute in the day. I've got to end it, somehow. I can't go on like this any longer."

Just outside her window a little balcony (the railed-in roof of the porte-cochere) shone like a silver patch against the darker foliage. The shadows of leaves cast an intricate pattern upon the moonlit space, and Katherine gazed at it abstractedly until a moving speck in the motionless night caught her attention, and fixed it. As she watched, the speck became a shape, the shape an automobile moving rapidly, almost noiselessly, toward the house, along the white ribbon of a driveway. Just before her window it stopped.

"Hello!" called Dr. Ballard softly.

Katherine hid a radiant smile in the folds of her shadowy curtain. "Sh!" she cautioned. "You'll wake grandmother."

"Then come down. I've something to tell you."

"No. Too late!"

"Nonsense!"

"I can't."

"Oh, very well."

His instant acceptance of her negative was not altogether agreeable.

One moment, and he was bending over his steering-wheel, busying himself with the gear, probably preparatory to driving on and away. The next, he was out of the car, had scaled the porch-pillar, vaulted the low railing, and was calmly sitting not two feet away from her, Turk-fashion, upon the balcony floor.

Katherine laughed. "I didn't know you could climb like that."

"I can't. That wasn't a climb. 'Twas a scramble. Bad work. But I'm out of practice."

"You mustn't stay. Grandmother wouldn't like it. Remember, she forbade my having anything to do with you."

"Sorry, but I don't feel obliged to conform, on that account. If _you_ don't like it, that's another story."

Katherine was silent.

Dr. Ballard did not press the point.

"You said you had something to tell me."

"On second thought I'll postpone it."

"Why?"

"The moonlight suggests mystery. Let's leave it a mystery."

"I hate mysteries."

"As I diagnose your case, you're by way of 'hating' most things, nowadays. Come. Confess. Aren't you?"

Katherine nodded mutely.

"Don't do it," advised Dr. Ballard.

"I can't help it," she burst out with quite uncharacteristic impetuosity. "So much in life is hateful. Sometimes, I feel one isn't bound to endure things, when they make one so detestable. I was thinking about it just before you came. Thinking about the sort of thing life can make of one. Everything one oughtn't to be. I hate _myself_, along with all the rest."

Dr. Ballard sat with his hands clasped around his knees, and gazed straight up above him into the great stretch of dusky sky, spangled over with constellations.

"I wonder what Mrs. Slawson would say to that?" he ruminated.

Katherine started. "Mrs. Slawson?"

"Yes. I've made it out that she's rather a specialist, when it comes to life, and that sort of thing. Really, I think it might pay you to consult her. By the way, she asked me to say that you 'can heave the perserve trouble off'n your chest.' She is going to see you get a 'rule,' or something."

"Oh, good! That _is_ a load off one's mind. And, speaking of chests, it can't be very good for yours, to be doing heavy gymnastics, such as climbing porch-posts. Can it?"

"Why not? My chest's O.K. Nothing in the least 's the matter with my chest."

"Oh,--I thought----" blundered Katherine awkwardly.

"What?"

"Somebody told me--I don't recollect who--that you had a 'spot' or something, on your lung. I'm so sorry."

Dr. Ballard flung back his head with a low, boyish chuckle.

"Somebody's got hold of the wrong case. My nerves, mixed with another chap's bellows. No, I'm not up here on account of any one _spot_--it's the whole rundown machine that needs repairing. I'm used up. Tired out."

"Tired out--waiting for patients?" asked Katherine mischievously.

Dr. Ballard gave her a quick look. "That's it. Waiting for patients," he quoted with perfect good humor.

"I suppose it's hard work building up a practice in a city as big as Boston."

"Quite hard work."

"Don't you get discouraged?"

"Why should I?"

"Oh, there must be so many obstacles, hindrances. Even if you are clever, there must be so many older men with established reputations. Great physicians, great surgeons."

"Precisely. That's the fun of it. The game wouldn't be worth playing, if 'twas easy to win out. It's hard. That's why I like it."

Katherine rose slowly, and stood in the window embrasure, looking down upon him thoughtfully.

"You've given me something to sleep on," she said. "I'll remember what you've said. 'The game wouldn't be worth playing, if 'twas easy.' And I have been whining because it is hard."

"Katherine!" shrilled a petulant voice, breaking rudely through the soft evening hush.

"Coming, grandmother."

"_Good_ night!" exclaimed Dr. Ballard with slangy intention.

The next moment, Katherine saw his agile figure disappear over the rim of the balustrade. She turned quickly to answer the imperative call, all the old miserable feelings returning in a rush.

"I want a drink of water."

If Martha Slawson had been in Katherine's place, the mother-heart in her would have understood that childish call at once. But the girl had no experience that would help her to interpret the meaning of it. She supplied the drink with as much promptness, and as little sentiment, as a nickel-in-the-slot machine.

Madam Crewe drained the glass thirstily.

"It's a warm night," she observed socially.

"Very warm."

"Queer the way my head acts," continued the lonely old woman, obviously making conversation to detain Katherine. "Sometimes it seems full of sounds, so I think I hear real voices speaking. A little while ago, I heard a man's laugh, as clear as could be. You weren't downstairs with a caller, were you?"

"I haven't been out of my room since supper-time, grandmother."

The words seemed to Katherine to burn her lips, as she uttered them. She turned abruptly to the door. Her grandmother called her back.

"You know what I've been thinking?"

Katherine stood at attention, but silent, unequal to the task of counterfeiting interest.

"I've been thinking, I'm going to give the cow to Slawson. It bothers me when I can't pay my debts, and the woman won't take a cent for what she's done. Besides, it's expensive keeping live-stock these days, with fodder so high, and labor even worse. We don't need a cow, just you and I. Cheaper to buy milk than feed the creature through the winter, and hire Peter to come and milk. It counts up. Slawson can keep her, and turn an honest penny letting us have milk at lowest price. See?"

"Yes, grandmother."

"You don't like the plan?"

"Giving the cow to Mrs. Slawson is very nice, I think, but I always hate presents with strings to them. Having to supply us with milk takes the cream off the cow."

"Pooh! That's nonsense. You've altogether too big notions. They'll get you into trouble, if you don't take care. I can see you making ducks and drakes of a fortune in no time, if you didn't have some one to hold a tight rein over you. By the way, how about those preserves?"

"I'll put them up to-morrow, grandmother."

"See you do. Else, first thing you know, the fruit will be gone. Rotted on the trees."

"I promise you, I'll put it up to-morrow without fail," Katherine repeated very distinctly.

Back in her own room she laughed bitterly, while two hot tears slipped down her cheeks. "_Promise_! Poor thing! and she believes me! She thinks my word is as good as my bond. So it is--and neither of them is worth a rush," she assailed herself. No, she had forgotten. She was telling the truth about the preserves, at least. Mrs. Stewson was going to let her have a "rule." But the false impression she had deliberately conveyed about the caller still "stuck in her crop," as Martha would have said. And yet, what right had her grandmother or any one else, to tie her hand and foot, so she must resort to subterfuge if she wanted to move a muscle?

It wasn't fair that one life should be crippled to serve the whim of another. If her grandmother insisted on cutting her off from all natural pleasures, let her take the consequences. She fell asleep at last, nursing her sense of injury, brooding over her wrongs.

The next morning, while the casual Eunice was clearing the breakfast table, Katherine heard a sound outside, which caused her to hurry to the window. The sound was familiar, but the time for it unusual. The doctor's car was not due at Crewesmere so early in the day. Yet there it was, and, as Katherine gazed, from it issued, as if in installments, Mrs. Slawson, a small boy, a big girl, and--a huge, granite-ware preserving-kettle.

In less than a minute the _tempo_ of the house was changed. Things moved _vivace_.

"Sammy, you go out with this basket, an' strip them trees as fast as you can put. Cora, you show'm where to go, after Miss Crewe she tells you, that's a good girl. Eunice, get me every one o' them perserve-jars off'n the top pantry-shelf, an' when you wash'm, see the water's good an' hot, but not so's it'll crack the glass. We'll need them scales, Miss Katherine. I knew you had'm, or I'd 'a' brought my own. If you watch me measurin', an' write down what the perportions are, an' how I handle'm, you'll have a 'rule' for future use, which, if it never took a prize like Mrs. Peckett's, certaintly never poisoned anybody yet, that ever et it, so far as _I_ know."

It was wonderful how the load lifted from Katherine's heart.

"I don't know how it is, Mrs. Slawson," she said at length, "but whenever you're here, I feel about twice as strong and brave, as at any other time. It isn't alone that you _do_ so much, but you make me think I can do things too; things I know I'm not equal to, otherwise."

Martha smiled. "Believe _me_, you don't know what you're equal to, an' don't you forget it. No more do I. We ain't done up in bags, like seven pounds o' sugar, we human bein's, so's we know what we're equal to. The heft of us comes out, accordin' to the things in life we got to measure up to. When I was married, firstoff, I thought I wasn't _equal_ to livin' with my mother-in-law, an' puttin' up with her peculiar-rarities. But, laws o' man! I found I was. An', what's more, I found I been equal to one or two other little things since, worse than her, by a good sight. What helped me some, was realizin' I got peculiar-rarities of my own other folks has to be equal to."

Katherine caught her under lip between her teeth, as if to hold back words trying to come out. A minute, and they came.

"But, I don't see why some people have a right to make others unhappy."

"They haven't. No more than a body has a right to make herself unhappy. But they do it, all the same."

"One wouldn't mind making one big sacrifice, or two, or three, in a lifetime, if that were all. But, it seems, nothing is ever enough. You think you've vanquished one thing, and, before you know it, you've got it all to do over again. Has your life been that way, Mrs. Slawson? Does one never get through having to give up one's own wishes and will to the wishes and will of others?"

Mrs. Slawson stirred in silence for a moment the delicious brew simmering on the stove.