Chapter V: Part 5

Mr. Townsend was “out of a position,” a stage of tenuous existence over which self-respecting families draw a decent veil. In the three months of his detachment he had experienced all its usual effects in his relations with a comfortably occupied world—the sympathetic indignation and inefficient, helpful efforts in his behalf, with the haphazard, temporary “jobs,” the gradual subsidence of poignant interest, and, finally, the semi-irritation at his “not having anything yet,” which would really seem to imply a culpable torpidity on his part to all but the wife who alone knew the struggle which he no longer heralded abroad. Her indignation daily burned stronger against the friends who couldn’t seem to do anything for him, but who were themselves successful without half of his talent.

She herself had done what she could, besides looking after the house and the two children. For ten weeks she had secretly given music lessons to the child of a friend, steadily refusing payment until the end of the term, and she now held in the little bag at her belt the princely sum of seven dollars and fifty cents, all her own, and destined for great uses. Mrs. Townsend was, above all things, a woman of action, and to resolve was to dare immediately.

It was with a faint sigh of farewell to a hope barely entertained that she heard the aggressive briskness of her husband’s tread, and she answered the florid cheerfulness of his greeting with the studied carelessness of custom in the well-worn words:

“Nothing new to-day, I suppose?”

“No, nothing new,” said Mr. Townsend heartily. He was a large, attractive-looking man, with the slightly greyish hair which had handicapped him so much in getting a position, though his wife was eagerly ready to tell every one how really young he was.

“Dinner’s about ready, I see; well I’m ready for it.” He relapsed into a chair by the table as he spoke. “Where are the children?”

“They’re spending the evening at the Mays’,” said his wife, bringing in the hot dishes from the kitchen and taking quick note of his unconscious lassitude and the new wrinkles in his broad forehead. “We can have a quiet, little cozy time all by ourselves. Would you mind tying the thread around this rag on my finger? I sliced it when I was peeling the potatoes.”

“You dash at everything so,” remonstrated the husband, accomplishing the thread-tying slowly and painstakingly. “I should think you would learn to be more careful after you had burned yourself so badly. Stand still. Don’t be in such a hurry; the dinner can wait.”

“No, it can’t,” said Mrs. Townsend, escaping to the head of the table. “Have you seen any one to-day?”

“About seven hundred people.”

“Francis! You know what I mean. Have you seen any one I know?”

“No. Yes, I did see Harry Jenkins for a moment.”

“What did he have to say?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, Francis!” Mrs. Townsend looked despairing. “Why do you make me drag things out of you this way? Didn’t he tell you anything about his wife’s return from England——?”

“Not a word.”

“And you didn’t ask——?”

“My dear Polly, I saw him for about two seconds, crossing the street on his way to the tailor’s. If that can give you any satisfaction you’re welcome to it.”

“I wish you could go to the tailor’s,” said Mrs. Townsend deeply, with a sudden moistening of her luminous grey eyes. “I wish—I wish your clothes weren’t getting so—so——”

“It will soon be cold enough for my overcoat,” said her husband consolingly.

“Yes, I know, but—Francis! I’ve been wanting to speak to you for ever so long. Those trousers you have on—really, you know they were always perfectly hideous. I nearly cried when you brought them home. How a man who has always dressed as well as you have could ever have chosen those things! Of course, I know you only bought them because they were so cheap, but there’s always a choice. And now they’re so shabby it makes me positively sick to see you in them. Last Sunday when you passed the plate in church—well, you thought I went out because I was faint, but it was simply because I couldn’t sit there and see you walk up the aisle and stand in front of the whole congregation until that anthem was finished.”

“Let’s change the subject,” said Mr. Townsend. “It’s a fine day.”

“No, I won’t change the subject. Do you know they’re advertising trousers at Brooker’s—such a good place!—for six dollars. Mrs. Bond says her husband got two pairs there yesterday—the very best quality. And—I want you to buy a pair to-morrow. She says they wear forever.”

“Where could I get the six dollars?” asked Mr. Townsend facetiously.

“I knew you’d say that. Oh, Francis! I have the money right here. I earned it myself.” Mrs. Townsend rose and swept her chair down beside her husband. “I never told you a word, but I’ve been giving Alice May music lessons ever since—Francis! Now see here, you’re not going to mind! How perfectly absurd! It’s been a real pleasure. Mrs. May paid me seven dollars and a-half to-day. Now, Francis, I want you to take this money and buy those trousers to-morrow.”

“Well, I’ll see myself—farther,” said Mr. Townsend comprehensively. He half rose, and pushed her gently from him. “I’d like to see myself take—take your little money. Spend it on yourself, now you’ve got it, or on the children if you want to—heaven knows you need things badly enough! I won’t touch a cent of it.”

“But Francis, you must! You never can get a position dressed as you are; you look like—— Clothes make such a difference! Oh, I didn’t want to say it but—Francis, you’ve got to take the money.” She strove to put it in his pocket and he thrust forth her hand with a grip that held her slender wrist like a vise.

“It’s no use, Polly. You don’t know how your having to earn it hurts me; I haven’t the right to forbid it but”—he stopped, and forced down something—“I haven’t come to such a pass that I’ll take your money to buy my clothes.” He fixed her sternly with a masterful eye. “There’s no use in your persisting. I’ll tell you once for all that I won’t do it; and I don’t want to hear any more on the subject.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Townsend soothingly, in the tone of one who bides her time. She added afterwards in protest, “You haven’t half eaten your dinner—and I took such pains with it.”

“I think—you make it so nicely—but I think I’m just a little tired of stew,” said Mr. Townsend apologetically.

Later she found him rummaging in his closet, appearing as he heard her step to say explanatorily:

“I want to see if I can’t find another pair of trousers to wear to-morrow. I guess I’d better leave these I have on for you to fix up a little. The fact is—I didn’t tell you before, for I don’t want you to raise your hopes in any way—but I’ve at last got an appointment for the day after to-morrow to see Mr. Effingham.”

“An appointment with Mr. Effingham! Oh, Francis!”

“Cartwright’s letter was what did it. Cartwright says Effingham is the kind of a fellow who either likes you or doesn’t like you, straight off the bat. I tell you, I think a lot of Cartwright’s writing all the way from Chicago about this, taking so much pains for a man that’s almost a stranger to him.”

“Oh, you never do anything for people yourself!” said his wife sarcastically.

“I never did anything for Cartwright—except put his wife once on the right train,” said Mr. Townsend. “Now, what’s the matter with these trousers?” He held up a pair for inspection. “They look all right.”

“Oh, nothing’s the matter, nothing whatever,” said his wife scornfully, “except that they’re full of moth holes. Those are the winter trousers—the only good pair you had—that you left at your sister’s—you said you could get them any time—and she had them stuffed into a dark closet this summer while she was away in the country; she just sent them over Monday.”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Mr. Townsend hastily. “You’d better get rid of them. Now, here’s a pair—I didn’t know I had any so good.”

“Those are the ones you painted the attic in last spring,” said Mrs. Townsend, “and the pair next are what you keep for fishing. Those belong to your dress-suit, and the ones beyond are too short, and worn all over so that you were afraid to put them on.”

Mr. Townsend surveyed the last named with raised eyebrows and a consenting, cornerwise glance at his wife. “Yes, they are pretty bad—but I guess I’d better wear them to-morrow while you fix up these.”

“Francis, if you’re going to see Mr. Effingham you’ll just have to buy a pair of trousers.”

He turned on her sternly as he said: “Didn’t I tell you not to speak of it?”

“Yes, but I will speak of it!” Mrs. Townsend hurled herself into the fray. “Francis, I can’t help it! When I think of all you’ve suffered, and all you’ve done, and how much depends now on—oh, my dearest!” she tried to put her head on an eluding shoulder as she followed him around the room, flushed with her eloquence—“please take this money. If you knew how happy I’d been all the time to think that I was working for you, and how I had set my heart on it, you wouldn’t be so unkind. I know I told you my shoes were bad, but they do quite well as they are, and the children do not need warm underwear yet. It was very stupid of me to talk of it, and it will make all the difference how you are dressed when you go to see Mr. Effingham. You’ve often said what a difference a person’s appearance made—and it’s so unlike you to look shabby! You ought to do everything to try and get that position; you can’t afford to lose the ghost of a chance. You are so foolish, you won’t listen to reason! Oh, Francis, won’t you stand still and answer me?”

“Yes, I’ll answer you,” said Mr. Townsend deliberately. “You can ‘reason,’ as you call it, until you’re blind. Once for all, I will never take that money.”

“You will.”

“I will not. Now, Polly not another word; do you hear? Not another word!”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Townsend, as before with conventional obedience, and followed the words with a reckless flash of her grey eyes as she left the room, murmuring with quick breath: “But I give you fair warning, I’ll make you take that money yet; I don’t care whether you’re angry or not. You’ll see, you’ll see!”

If the subject was dropped from speech afterwards it was nevertheless present in thought. Mr. Townsend rose late in the morning, as is the habit of the man “out of a position,” who has no place on the early trains into town with his customary confrères, the workers, or in their busy offices. The heads of departments whom he goes in to see are only accessible in the later hours, and a delayed breakfast obviates the necessity for luncheon. When husband and wife parted, he in the trousers that were a good deal too short and a good deal too worn, she, indeed, broke through the ice with temerity to adjure him for goodness sake not to let any one see him to-day with those on, and he had retorted grimly that he would endeavour to keep his hundred and eighty pounds entirely invisible to oblige her.

During the course of the morning Mrs. Townsend went around with knitted brows, pondering deeply over the vexed question. Her back ached and her feet were weary long before her household labours were ended. She wasn’t accustomed to doing her own work, and, though she was willing, experience, that time-saver, was not hers. Mrs. Townsend knew that ladies were popularly supposed to bring a deftness and daintiness to kitchen work that was lacking in the efforts of a rougher class, but for herself it was just the opposite. The scalding kettles and saucepans she carried would perform a tremolo movement with the shaking of her slight wrists that sent greasy splashes of the contents over the kitchen floor; the beef-steak she broiled took in not only the fire but the whole top of the range in its sputterings, and plates and dishes, whether empty or filled with food for the table, slipped from her tired fingers and broke with ruinous celerity. After all the ceaseless effort of her heroic incapacity she was forced to long for the look of shining cleanliness accomplished easily by the strong, accustomed arms of an ordinary “girl.”

And the children were going half-clothed, she had so little time to sew! If this sort of thing didn’t stop soon she didn’t know what would become of them all. Depression had grown to be her usual frame of mind in the morning when there was no one to look at her. She had known that Francis couldn’t get a place when he was so shabby. People were afraid of men who looked poor; it seemed as if they couldn’t be capable. In spite of himself she must save him, though he hurled javelins at her afterwards. She would have gone and bought him the trousers out of hand if remembrance had not brought uncomfortably to mind a time when she had tried to demonstrate how economically she could regulate his smoking by purchasing an advertized box of cigars from a department store. To Polly Townsend, if you did a certain thing one certain effect ought to follow—that, instead, it ramified off into all sorts of different ways was the mean advantage life took over theory. She felt now that if she could only make her Francis buy those trousers he couldn’t help realizing gratefully afterwards how wise and good she’d been, and her heart glowed at the prospect.

But Mr. Effingham! He was a man whose old-fashioned punctiliousness was notably affected by externals: by suitable dress, by polish of manner, by a certain air in addition to more solid requirements. It was bad enough for Francis to hand the plate in those hideous, old, faded, mended trousers, but to go supplicantly in them to Mr. Effingham would be suicidal. She could have wept at the thought.

Yet later in the day Mrs. Townsend might have been seen with a face lightened by a persistent smile—a jimpy, sly, inwardly-lurking, swiftly-flashing, three-cornered gleam that took in two reckless eyes and a demure mouth, and brought forth curious comment from Mrs. Whymer, a friend whom she met in the street.

“How well you do look! No one would think you had a girl of ten—but you always did have colour. I feel all dragged out; the doctor says I’m just going on my nerves. My husband has been home all day. No, there’s nothing really the matter with him, just one of his attacks, but he always gets so worried about himself. I often tell him, when he sits there looking so depressed, if he only knew all I go through without saying a word! Having a man around the house is so upsetting, but I suppose you’re used to it. Mr. Townsend hasn’t anything yet, I believe?”

“He has several positions in view,” said Mrs. Townsend with elegant indefiniteness, and a quick, hot resentment at the implied reproach, which was answerable for the expenditure of twenty-five cents of her little hoard for peaches to be used in the manufacture of the deep peach pie which her Francis loved.

She derived an exquisite satisfaction from outwitting him in this way, forcing her money thus secretly down his throat, watching him eat each mouthful, and meeting his raised eyebrows and the “Isn’t this a little extravagant?” with the reassuring answer:

“Now, it’s all right; I just want you to enjoy it. No, Frankie, no more; you had a large plateful.”

“You made papa be helped three times,” said Frankie.

Her husband put an affectionate arm around her when she came up-stairs afterwards. “Fixed those trousers for me to-day, dear?”

“Yes, I fixed them,” said Mrs. Townsend.

“That’s a good girl. These I have on now—I don’t believe they’d last over another day.”

“You see Mr. Effingham to-morrow, don’t you?”

“Why, yes, I believe I do,” said Mr. Townsend with an effect of carelessness. Heaven only knew how their two thoughts travelled together in that long hopefulness that must have an end somewhere in something tangible. Yet even as they sat there Mr. Townsend became conscious of a not unknown quantity.

“What do you want to keep kissing my hand for? What have you been doing? You haven’t lamed your back again moving the flour-barrel, I hope. See here,” his tone suddenly stiffened, “you haven’t been spending that money of yours for——”

“No,” said Mrs. Townsend hurriedly. “Not a penny; well, just a few cents for peaches.”

“Oh, I knew you bought them,” said Mr. Townsend indulgently. “Well, that pie was awfully good, but don’t do so any more. I don’t like it, Polly; it hurts.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Townsend in an odd voice. She faced him with gleaming eyes. “I’ll never do anything that doesn’t please you, no matter how foolish it is. If you say the sky is pea-green I’ll say it is pea-green, too. And if you want to kill yourself I’ll bring the carbolic acid. Oh, yes, I’m to be just too sweet for anything and never say boo when you want to go out looking like a tramp and ruin every chance you have just because it ‘hurts you’ to take this money from me, from your own wife. Haven’t I a right to earn money for you, and love and help you, and work my fingers off for you, if I want to?” Her voice trembled. “Wouldn’t I rather go barefoot than see the way you’ve looked this last month?” She refused to quail before his gaze as she went on piteously: “Oh, you’re so exactly like a man. I know you just hate to hear me talk like this. I know I’ll never convince you in this wide world, but some things hurt _me_! Francis——”

“Well,” said Mr. Townsend as she stopped short. He had withdrawn his arm from around her.

“I want you to take that money.”

“I think I’ll go down and read for a while if you don’t mind,” said Mr. Townsend dryly.

Francis Townsend was always a punctilious man as to his toilette, but the next morning he made it a sort of continuous performance. Mrs. Townsend down-stairs, “redding up” the place after the children, and keeping his breakfast hot, felt her heart thump and sink alternately as she heard his footstep advance and retreat interminably on the floor above. Her coat and hat lay upon a chair, in furtherance of her morning journey to market, but no matter what she was doing her eyes turned, in spite of herself, to the place set for Francis at the end of the table, where there was a fringed napkin, a plate, a knife and fork, and a coffee-cup with the unusual addition of a little roll of greenbacks sticking up in it. Prepared as she was for some commotion she involuntarily clutched a chair back as she caught the sound of a quick and angry stride across the room above to the hall, and heard the tone of towering wrath:

“Polly!”

“Yes, Francis.”

“Did you cut off the leg of this pair of trousers?”

“Your breakfast’s in the oven,” said Mrs. Townsend glibly, “and the coffee’s on the stove. I’ve got to go to market.” She flung herself into her jacket and hat as she spoke, jabbing in the hatpins viciously. The triumph was exciting, but she didn’t know she was going to be quite so scared. She hesitated a moment, and then called back: “Good-bye, dearest!” as she closed the hall door and then ran down the steps into the street.

* * * * *

“Seventy-five cents for each dancing lesson, but if there are two in the family she makes a reduction.”

Mrs. Whymer sat rocking idly while she watched Mrs. Townsend basting seams on a dark piece of cloth, in her little sewing-room.

“I’ll see about it to-morrow when I’m in town,” said Mrs. Townsend.

“Going shopping? If you want that skirt pattern I’ll get it for you.”

“Thank you, I would like it,” said Mrs. Townsend, “though I’m not going shopping exactly; I have to take Pinky to the dentist’s—it’s so long since she’s been—but I may get some material for myself on the way home.”

Her husband had been for several months with Mr. Effingham, and they were just about beginning to get their feet on the first rungs of the ladder which leads to the plateau of Living Like Other People.

“Why on earth did you cut up those trousers to make knickerbockers for Frankie?” said the other, taking up the end of Mrs. Townsend’s work. “They look just like new, and the cloth doesn’t seem worn at all.”

“It isn’t,” said Mrs. Townsend briefly; “Mr. Townsend only had them on a few times. They are the best material, they were bought at Brooker’s, and I thought he’d get such good wear out of them, but he says there’s something wrong with the cut.”

“Well, it’s no use to try and make a man wear anything he doesn’t want to,” said Mrs. Whymer. She yawned as she rose. “You don’t say I’ve been here over an hour! I do get so lonesome at home all day, and Mr. Whymer is working until eleven o’clock every night. I’m thinking of going to that new sanitarium at Westly for a while. I really haven’t been able to do a thing for the last six weeks. I get so tired out ordering the meals, and the doctor thinks I had better try a rest cure. Your husband likes it with Mr. Effingham, I hear. He was very fortunate in getting the position. Mr. Butts tried for it, but he always looked so—well, not up-to-date, you know. Clothes do make such a difference.”

“That’s what I always say,” returned Mrs. Townsend demurely, with a queer little hazy, retrospective smile, that was somehow wistful, too. Her wisdom had certainly been vindicated, yet there were results that, as usual, eluded theory. She was never quite sure whether her rebellion had been a success or not. The time might come when she and her Francis would laugh over it together in company—but it hadn’t come yet.

The Mother of Emily

The Mother of Emily

“If I had only the foundation, but I haven’t that, or the trimming, either; nothing but this old, tumbled _chiffon_ and these faded flowers.”

Mrs. Briarley looked dejectedly at the mass of frippery in her lap. Five dollars for a new hat such as she wanted would leave only one dollar from her own private purse for the Easter collection, and the sermon last Sunday had been a plea for religious enthusiasm in giving at this season.

Mrs. Briarley was a fair, pretty little thing, although slight almost to meagreness in her immaturity of outline. She was foolishly young to be the wife of a man of thirty and the mother of a two-year-old child.

In spite of this she had an earnest soul, and pondered deeply over each perplexing question of her married life as it arose. The mere fact of having to decide anything enveloped her in a sort of confusion which obscured every guide-post which experience had erected, the more so that, as her husband travelled, she could not have recourse to him. It was as if each occasion had been evolved whole from space to have its merits decided upon, whether it were a question of little Emily’s going out to play in the damp, or the quantity of material for a new skirt, or which kind of breakfast food to order.

Just now it was the question of the hat. There was indeed no question as to whether she needed it or not, but her husband’s means kept her within certain limits.

To make a whole hat would cost very nearly five dollars; if other people did it for less, she wasn’t able to. And Mr. Beatoun, the clergyman, had said that he wanted to make an appeal to each one personally. Each one must judge for himself if he were doing all he could to pay off that debt on the church for which he urged the special effort now.

To Mrs. Briarley the question seemed to have relation to those deep places of decision which govern the current of one’s life. If she refused this appeal she would not be quite what the mother of Emily ought to be.

She was painfully anxious that Emily should have every advantage. She herself had been a neglected orphan, brought up in helter-skelter fashion, and she longed above all things that her baby should have the maternal ideal she had lacked. She was glad that Mr. Beatoun’s sermon had come after she had bought little Emily’s hat, for she felt secretly that no appeal could have been strong enough to have denied that sweet white ribbon and the daisies to her child.

“If I had _any_ trimming that could be used!” she murmured for the third time, and turned as the servant came into the room. “What is it, Ellen?”

“There’s a lady down-stairs, ma’am—Mrs. Stebbins.”

“Oh, Mrs. _Stebbins_!” Mrs. Briarley’s tone was one of doubtful welcome.

This was one of the ladies of the parish in which Mrs. Briarley was a newcomer, and in which she still felt herself wistfully an outsider, in spite of the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Beatoun had formally called upon her, and Mrs. Stebbins had conscientiously shaken hands with her at the church door.

But Mrs. Stebbins had also once come to collect, and to collect now, in addition to an appeal, would be futile as far as Mrs. Briarley was concerned.

She nerved herself to meet the words that followed after the first greetings were over.

“I want to know if you won’t give something to our church sale.”

“The church sale? Oh, no, I—I don’t think I care to be connected with anything of the kind—at least—I mean, this year,” said Mrs. Briarley, hurriedly.

The last time she had taken part in a fair, before moving to this place, her sympathy had run unwarrantably ahead of her purse. She had indulged in that specious form of charity which consists of buying goods on credit and then presenting them to the church. She had a vivid remembrance of a box of soap which another woman had bought for half price at the fair, “because it was given, and whatever was made on it was clear gain.”

Mrs. Briarley had had to pay the full price at the grocer’s a month later, when the bill was already too large. Her husband had not liked it, and she felt wary of fairs.

“A fair! Oh, no, indeed, this isn’t a fair!” Mrs. Stebbins, a sallow, greyish, compactly solid lady in a short walking-skirt and a small, tight hat, smiled intelligently at her hostess. “It’s a sale—a rummage sale. I’m surprised that you haven’t heard of it; it’s been in progress two weeks already. Of course, though, you don’t belong to the Guild. There are only three days more for the sale, and we _do_ want them to be a success. The proceeds go to the church debt. A rummage sale—you know what that is. You send any old things you have—_any_thing; it doesn’t make any difference what it is, and we sell them to the poor for a few cents. We hired an empty store at the other end of the town—64 Herkimer Street. Some of our ladies take charge of it in turn.”

“And do you sell much?” asked Mrs. Briarley.

Mrs. Stebbins laughed. “Do we sell much? We have made fifteen hundred dollars already. You know it’s really an accommodation to the poor—many of them will buy things when they wouldn’t beg for them. They get good warm clothing and stores for a song. And quite a number of us pick up odds and ends there—really! You don’t know what fascinating things we take in now and then; nobody knows where half of them come from. Some of them are quite new. There was a lovely jacket sent in last week; Mr. Stebbins’s sister said she would have bought it herself—she doesn’t live here—if the sleeves had been a little longer. And there was a white satin lambrequin, embroidered in gold thread,—one end had oil spilled over it,—and Minnie Ware bought it for a quarter, and she’s made the most fetching collar and vest front that you ever saw. Of course, Minnie Ware can do _anything_—she doesn’t care a snap who knows. Have you met Miss Ware? She belongs to the Guild.”

“No,” said Mrs. Briarley, with the pang of the outsider.

“Well, I bought a colonial chair myself there yesterday; there’s a rung gone, but it can easily be put in. You _will_ send something, won’t you? Some of our ladies are in charge from nine until six.”

“Why, I’ll try to,” said Mrs. Briarley, hesitatingly. “We got rid of most of our rubbish when we moved here. Is Mrs. Beatoun at the sale?”

She had a reverential admiration for the rector’s wife, as a person who in that position must be superhumanly good. She longed to know her as other people did. She had been sensitively quick to feel the alteration from the conventional politeness of Mrs. Beatoun’s manner to her to the intimate interchange of laughing remarks with a party of friends afterwards. Mrs. Briarley had indeed been asked to join the Guild, but she could not get up her courage to face so many strangers alone.

“No, Mrs. Beatoun will not be at the sale to-day,” said Mrs. Stebbins, rising to go. “I’ve just come from the rectory now. She had such a pleasant surprise—the present of a lovely hat from her cousin. She had to go into mourning for her mother-in-law, and so she sent this hat to Mrs. Beatoun, it was made in Paris, and I don’t believe it was ever worn more than twice. It’s a perfect beauty!”

“That must have been very nice,” said Mrs. Briarley, with the thought of the hat for which she longed.

“Well, I should think so! To get a hat like that without paying a cent! And if ever anybody needed one it was Mrs. Beatoun. She’s worn that old black straw for five years; but after all, you’d hardly know it. She’s got that sort of an air about her—almost too much for a clergyman’s wife, some people think—that makes you feel as if she _was_ dressed up when she isn’t. Is this your little girl?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Briarley, with the tremulous flush that always came into her cheek when little, dark-curled, lustrous-eyed Emily suddenly appeared in her dainty white frock and little slippers. She looked at her visitor with an expression which said, “Did you ever see anything as beautiful as this?”

But Mrs. Stebbins only remarked, “She favours her papa, doesn’t she? I don’t see much resemblance to you,” patted the child’s head, shook hands with Mrs. Briarley, and was gone, with a parting injunction not to forget the rummage sale.

Mrs. Briarley knelt down on the floor by Emily that she might gather the plump little standing form more fully into her thin young arms. She loved and respected her husband greatly, but her humble soul magnified the Lord daily for this wonder and joy of being the mother of Emily. She had a way of pressing the little soft cheek to hers, as now, and saying, “Baby _dear_,” in a tone of ineffable love, that at once embodied her bliss and a prayer that she might be worthy of it. When she left the child now she knew that there was only one path to choose. She must go without her hat. She _must_ respond to the appeal.

She thought of it all the time she was selecting her slender dole of rubbish for the sale—a vase that had been mended and a couple of books. As she was walking to Herkimer Street she imagined herself in a ninety-eight-cent, ready-trimmed straw turban. One could hardly realize how earnestly solemn the sacrifice was to her.

Dress was a very serious matter. She had a natural daintiness, a touch that was almost genius. It was a feminine charm which even her husband recognized, and she liked to see him like to look at her. Perhaps he would not now. If she could only have a hat given her, like fortunate Mrs. Beatoun!

The window of the temporary shop was filled with a heterogeneous mass of clothing, before which stood a group of hatless women and a few children. Mrs. Briarley nervously pushed her way past them, for she was always afraid of contagion on account of Emily. She became still more nervous on her entrance into the shop.

It was filled with a swarm of Italian women, bright-shawled, earringed, swarthy and voluble, fingering the piles of cast-off clothing and chaffering over them. The air was bad, and the two young girls behind the counter looked singularly helpless and distracted. One was sitting down with her head upon her hand, but the other responded to Mrs. Briarley’s proffer of her gifts.

“Oh, yes—thank you! _Would_ you please put the price on them yourself? Here are tags and a pencil. Mark them _anything_. I can’t leave this corner for a minute. I never was in such a place! I really don’t know what to do. The young lady who _was_ waiting here—Miss Morley—_fainted_ a few minutes ago,—it’s the air, you know, and the window won’t open,—and Mrs. Whitaker has just taken her home. They say she’s the _second_ one that’s fainted to-day.”

“How dreadful!” said Mrs. Briarley, with admiring pity. These were indeed martyrs to the cause.

“_Isn’t_ it? Mrs. Whitaker just asked me to come in and stay with Gladys till she got back, and now Gladys has such a headache she isn’t the slightest good, and it all comes on me. I’m only visiting here, and I’ve got to take the three o’clock train home. It puts me in an awful position.”

She turned to a couple of wildly gesticulating women.

“Yes, you can have that dress for ten cents. No, _no_! Not you; the other one. No, you _didn’t_ speak first! I’ll send for the police if you claw each other.”

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Mrs. Briarley.

“If you wouldn’t mind unwrapping some of those things over there, and marking them,” said the girl. “I haven’t had time to see to them since they came in. Mark them anything.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Briarley, going deftly about the work. There was a waist and some boys’ clothing, and there was a box, which she left for the last. It looked as if it might contain a hat.

It _was_ a hat. A dark hat, yet not too dark, elegant, yet not noticeable, with a chaste outline, a temperate, subdued richness of effect that spoke volumes to the initiated. No wonder that Mrs. Briarley’s eyes were glued to it as she held it in her hand. It was a hat that could rise to the occasion of state garments or impart “style” to one’s ordinary garb. It was a hat, in short, that could be Worn with Anything.

Mrs. Briarley turned it round and inspected it with a growing wonder. The white satin lining looked new, and the structure itself showed no sign of wear but two holes through which a hatpin had been thrust.

There _were_ people who gave away things as little used as this. Mrs. Stebbins had spoken of it. If she herself had ever possessed a hat like this,—her thought went in leaps,—if it were not a rummage hat! But what if it were? Would any one know? There were many hats made on the same order. With a slight change in the front trimming—of course you didn’t know who had worn it before, but there was a subtle odour of violet about it that was reassuring.

“How much is this hat?” asked Mrs. Briarley, suddenly, in an odd voice.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the girl who had spoken before, looking around to catch a glimpse of it. “I sold a hat for fifteen cents just before you came in.”

“This is _very_ good,” said Mrs. Briarley.

“Ask a quarter for it, then. For goodness’ sake, Gladys, don’t you get faint!”

“I’ll take it myself,” said Mrs. Briarley, hastily. “My—my cook might like it.” She put it back in the box and tied the string around it. “The atmosphere in here _is_ dreadful, isn’t it? Can’t I help you open that window? Here’s the money. Good-bye!”

She had done it! She could hardly believe in the miracle. Not only would she have the happy thrill of responding to the appeal with her own precious and individual five dollars, but the very price she had paid for the hat went to the cause also, and she had money left over besides! And she had the hat!

She felt awestricken at so much reward of virtue. It was like seek ye first the kingdom of righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. If she had said her cook might like the hat, that was no lie; her cook well might. And she was so glad that she had enough humility herself to wear a rummage hat! Underneath all the simplicity of her vanity lay an earnest and tremulous joy in being more what the mother of Emily should be.

It has been stated that Mrs. Briarley did not belong to the Guild. She passed a delegation from it, indeed, the next day, all busily talking together; but there was nobody in it whom she even knew to bow to. She was perhaps the only woman in the parish who did not know of the exciting incident at present disturbing it, the facts of which were being now recounted once again.

“Yes, the hat was almost new; it was a present to Mrs. Beatoun from her cousin. It was a beauty. Mrs. Beatoun was going out to lunch, and she sent the Peters boy back to the parsonage to get some bundles for the rummage sale, and that stupid new girl of hers gave him the box with the hat in it with the other things from her room. She had left it on the bed. So off it went to the sale. The only one who remembers anything about it is Gladys Tucker, and she doesn’t remember much, she had such a headache. She says a lady—she thinks it was a lady—came in and bought one for a quarter; she heard her talking to Nannie Leduc. Gladys didn’t even see it; the place was full of Italians. Of course the woman took advantage.”

“Those girls are so scatter-brained! But no lady would have bought a hat there.”

“That’s just what I say. If she did, she must have known it was a mistake. That hat cost thirty dollars, and it had been worn twice. And to pay only a quarter for it! It was as bad as _stealing_. You know how reserved Mrs. Beatoun is, but she’s decided, very. Well, she did say that if she saw any woman with it on she thought she would really walk up to her and speak about it. It’s the effrontery of the thing that’s so maddening.”

“Mrs. Beatoun never seemed to care much for clothes,” said one lady.

“I suppose she’s human, like the rest of us,” said the first, grimly. “She’s worn that black straw of hers five summers.”

“I do believe she’d rather go without than not have just the right thing,” said yet another. “Her family always thought a great deal of themselves, I’ve been told.”

“Well, they have a right to,” said the first speaker again. “Mrs. Beatoun’s a good woman, but I didn’t blame her for being angry to-day. When she’s worked as hard as she has for the church, to be cheated in this way! And Gladys Tucker says she’s sure it was a lady. Well, I told Mrs. Beatoun one thing. I said, ‘Be sure we’ll all look out for her!’”

Through all the week in which the disappearance of Mrs. Beatoun’s Paris hat was canvassed Mrs. Briarley remained happily unconscious.

The excitement had reached fever-heat on Easter Sunday, that Sunday on which Mrs. Briarley’s precious five-dollar bill was solemnly laid in the contribution plate. She, all her little lone self, was actually paying off part of the church debt! It seemed to her as she left the church that several women looked at her rather oddly—or was it at her hat? She had changed the trimming a little in the front. Perhaps they were admiring it.

She had expected to take little Emily to the children’s service in the afternoon, and when the child fell asleep instead, she went by herself. The service was pretty; it was full of flowers and music and children’s voices. When it was ended she stood in the vestibule, lingering, with her eyes fixed on a group of women talking to Mrs. Beatoun.

Suddenly Mrs. Beatoun detached herself from the group and came forward, with tall figure held erect. There was a breathless pause. Those who were there knew that the wearer of the hat and the owner of the hat had met at last.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Briarley, “I’m so glad you came to speak to me! I’ve been just hoping that you would!”

“Indeed!” said Mrs. Beatoun.

“I wanted to tell you—I’ve never enjoyed going to church as I have to-day.” Mrs. Briarley raised her rapt eyes to those of the rector’s wife, who wore a little half-cynical smile. “I think your husband preaches such beautiful sermons. I never heard any that made me feel so much like—like wanting to be good.” Her voice dropped shyly.

“That is very nice, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Beatoun, politely. “May I ask where you got your hat?”

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked!” said Mrs. Briarley. She was so full of her own earnestness of purpose that she kept on, oblivious to the chill in Mrs. Beatoun’s tone. Her cheeks became pink, her eyes suffused. “I bought it at the rummage sale. Of course it must have been worn before, although it doesn’t look it. I bought it because—I’ve been wanting to tell you that after Mr. Beatoun’s appeal I _couldn’t_ spend the five dollars I had meant to on a hat, although I needed one. I just bought this at the sale, and gave the money to the church. I thought Mr. Beatoun might like to know he had made somebody feel that way. I never have thought of—things—before, and I wanted to thank him. I have been saying to myself, as I stood here, that if you came forward to speak to me, I’d take it as a—sign that I was to tell you this.”

She paused a moment, and then went on. (While you were unburdening your heart, why not tell all?)

“I have a dear little girl at home, and I do so want to learn to be better—for her sake. And I’ve thought if I could know you—I’ve been sort of afraid of you before, but I’m not now. And I love my little girl so _very_ much——” She stopped again.

Something passed from one to the other as they stood there—Mrs. Briarley did not know what. There was a wonderful and sweet gentleness in the face of the older woman as it bent to the simple earnestness of the other. Mrs. Briarley’s one little thought of truth had unerringly met and rounded its circle. It is not only at the sacramental table that we are partakers together of the Bread of Life.

“I’m so glad you told me!” said Mrs. Beatoun. She was not a demonstrative woman, but in that pause she had put her arms round Mrs. Briarley and kissed her, under the very shade of the rummage hat.

“And Mr. Beatoun will be glad, too. No, indeed, you must never be afraid of me again; and you must bring your little girl to see us. It was just sweet of you to think of telling me about the hat.”

“I’ve noticed people looking at it,” said Mrs. Briarley, all in a glow. “I never thought until to-day that it might be a mistake about its being sent to the sale. But you don’t think so?”

“No, it’s not a mistake,” said Mrs. Beatoun, with a sudden smile, as she added “and I’m in a position to know.”

* * * * *

“Yes, I’ve joined the Guild,” said Mrs. Briarley, with pride in her tone. “They’ve made me secretary already.” She did not know how cordially that position was made the portion of the stranger. She was talking to her husband the evening of his return.

“Mrs. Beatoun couldn’t have been more interested about that five dollars if she had given it herself. You’ve no idea how nice everybody in the Guild is to me; they seem to take pains to be kind. But Mrs. Beatoun—there’s something about Mrs. Beatoun I can’t explain!”

“Well?” said her husband, enjoyingly. Mrs. Briarley was in a washed white muslin, with ribbons the exact blue of her innocent eyes. She did not look as if she could be the mother of an Emily.

“I believe Mrs. Beatoun is really—fond of me!”

“That’s very strange,” said Mrs. Briarley’s husband.

Madonna of the Toys: A Christmas Story

Madonna of the Toys: A Christmas Story

“I don’t know what to give him for Christmas!”

Mrs. Tom looked tragically at the group consulting over their father-in-law in the old-fashioned library. Miss Clara, the unmarried daughter, had left the room.

“We have a picture,” announced Mrs. Andrew complacently; “a cathedral interior, beautifully dark and perspective. Little Mary has a cup and saucer, and Francis a whisk broom.”

“My boys can give black-bordered silk handkerchiefs,” said Mrs. Frank. “Clara suggests that I have that armchair re-covered, the one he never sits in.”

“Malcolm had better get him another dozen cases of mineral water,” said Mrs. Malcolm. “When it’s in the house he drinks it. But that hardly seems enough, father’s so generous to us. I shall buy a small refrigerator for his room—it’s so useful in sickness.”

“What do you think of rubber water-bags in assorted sizes?” suggested Mrs. Walter eagerly. “If he had a pain in two or three places at once they’d be very handy.”

“Ah!” Mrs. Frank lowered her voice. “I dread coming here Christmas afternoon and staying to supper; don’t you? _We_ can get along all right, and the little girls bring their dolls, but boys are so restless—and men, too! It was so different when Kate and her children were living here, but last year——! Clara doesn’t know how to make the house attractive.”

“She worries so now that father has to stay up-stairs,” agreed Mrs. Malcolm feelingly. “The boys love their grandfather, but there’s nothing for them to do. Why, Violet, you’re not going?”

“I must,” answered a girl with reddish hair and pretty, long-lashed eyes, who was Mrs. Arthur. She had risen, and was throwing a white boa around her neck. Her white teeth flashed suddenly in a smile: “I never was of so much importance before. Good-bye, everybody!”

She ran down the hall, looking in at an open doorway to call an audacious “Last tag!” to a tall old man who sat there reading, and receive his quick, amused response before she went swiftly homeward.

Violet’s appointment with the baby was very important indeed. As she sat afterwards in the darkened nursery, with the infant’s little downy head against her warm breast, her thoughts went back to grandfather. Somehow his Christmas prospects depressed her—the dark picture and the mineral water, the re-covered chair, the refrigerator and the rubber bags seemed so unlightsome; there was nothing from which the most willing mind could conjure festivity. Even the perennial handkerchiefs and whisk brooms and cups and saucers failed to cheer her. It seemed dreadful to be so old that you weren’t supposed to want anything anybody else did, to have everything so tiresomely suitable. Violet had an irreverent desire to send her father-in-law a pink necktie or a flippant poster.

There could be no greater contrast to the needs of Age than this softly-curtained place, with its white furniture, and a blue rug in front of the brass andirons on which the pine logs burned aromatically. A blue and white bassinet swung by a gilded rod, and a white willow hamper showed the blue satin-lined tray, filled with miniature ivory toilet articles, and tiny garments, laced and ribboned—all the dainty appanage of a “first” baby.

A silver and mother-of-pearl rattle and a French clown, belled and tinselled, on a white stick, lay upon the blue table-cover, while a large drum, fastened on the wall above, showed that in the pride of welcoming a boy love hadn’t been able to wait for him to grow into his heritage.

Her sisters-in-law characterized Violet fondly as a mere child; in truth she was a jolly little girl, but underneath the jollity were the directness and insight, and the shy, deep feeling of a child, so hidden as to be almost unguessed. Only her husband saw and reverenced that unfathomed sweetness. But even he did not know of those far-off journeys which her spirit took in company with her little new-born son, in the wonder of his soft, warm mouth, his tiny feet, and unconscious, clasping fingers.

The birth of her child had been to Violet also the birth of Thought; she pondered on the mysteries; for the first time she realized the existence of that great chain whose links are composed alternately of life and death, with the coming and the going of generations. In this infant life she saw the time when her own days should be numbered, and grew pale, yet unafraid, as she held him closer, because the goodness of God was so near.

He was such a very little baby that he was not much of anything as yet to any one but his mother, though his father was indeed unmeasurably proud of him as a son and heir, and regarded him with deeply expectant, if amused, affection. But to Violet he was a wellspring not only of the traditional pleasure but of infinitely more. As one who stands with the ear to a sea-shell, rapt with the sound of the mysterious murmurs of the far-off ocean, so Violet, when she sat bending over her baby, felt a deep, tremulous connection with beautiful, unseen things that were holiness unto the Lord. She was so happy that she longed for every one to be happy; her child-heart even yearned maternally over grandfather, who had lived so many years that people couldn’t see that he was still young. She was a partner in the secret; if she called “Last tag” to him it was because she knew he liked it. He was a kind, wise old man, who submitted patiently to Miss Clara’s fusses and restrictions because he saw the love back of them; and he had lived his life so fully and well that it did not seem worth while to strive to live it now. Yet sometimes, as Violet divined, he was contented to dwell in the past because the present was a little lonely now that the house was no longer the rallying-place for the young, as in the time of his daughter Kate, who had children of her own.

“Little blessedest! I want your grandfather to have a Merry Christmas,” said Violet confidingly to the baby in her arms, who raised his tiny lashes as if in response, and looked at her an instant before the lids fell shut again. She pressed him closer in adoration. “Oh, aren’t you sweet, _aren’t_ you sweet!” and fell to kissing him softly, a process from which she found that mothers gain wisdom.

“Did you decide what to get for father yesterday?” asked her husband the next morning. He was a man of noticeably fine appearance, and a lawyer of repute; it was still a wonder in the family how he had ever come to marry Violet, who yet seemed to suit him exactly.

“No,” answered Violet

“Then I think you’d better get that new dictionary I was speaking of; it’s published by Worden. I’ll leave you the money.”

“I thought he had so many dictionaries.”

“My dear child, that’s just the reason for giving him another.”