Chapter VII: Part 7

Martha went on defiantly: "I've got its name and everything. I'm going to call it 'Blistered Women'--like 'Flaming Youth,' you know, or else, 'Vomiting Love'!"

"Oh, Martha!"

"Yes, you'll say 'Oh, Martha!' all right, when you read it! They used to sit and lecture us about Romance and Realism by the hour! It took them hours! Idiots! Why couldn't they just say: Romance is what men think about 'affairs,' the pigs; and Realism is what women know. Mine's going to be a realistic novel!"

Emily looked at her and repressed her sighs. She had on that racoon coat and that small rosy hat. She strode along with her chin up, defying anyone to stop her.

After that morning Emily was free to do whatever she might fancy. She might sit in the sun on the veranda and knit, or she might sit on the end of the pier and watch the waves. She might walk oyster-shell roads or sandy paths through turpentine groves. No plan of hers could entice Martha away from that writing table. She rose early, and she sat there day after day from nine till one-o'clock lunch. When Emily ventured occasionally to go into her room, she would see her writing away, and often her mouth was screwed up into hatred. Her face seemed to say that if scribbling could kill, there would be wide slaughter--not of innocents. And sometimes she would be writing savagely, with tears running down her cheeks.

Emily might like this novel-writing--and sometimes she thought it would do Martha good to get this resentment all out of her mind, expressed in words--of she might disapprove--for certainly Martha was working as she had never worked before to Emily's knowledge--which couldn't be good for her shattered nerves. But she was helpless. She knew if she commanded Martha to stop it, Martha would refuse. She had a call now; she had a mission in life. Somebody had to tell the truth. And men, of course, didn't even know what truth was, and they wouldn't tell it if they did know. Oh, they did make her sick at her stomach! Emily had to register her protest at times against Martha's description of what she was writing.

"It's NOT a nice novel, I know that. I never intended it should be; but I'll tell you right now, it's a lot nicer than things are in this world, mammie!"

In February Bob began writing of their coming home. He threatened--that was the word Martha used--to come down and see them. Emily would have welcomed him; she was lonely and unhappy. She said miserably to herself more than once that what she needed was some wise and sympathetic person with whom she might talk over Martha's plight. If Bob was neither wise nor sympathetic, he was always solicitous and tender at heart. And Martha was often irritable and unreasonable, and sometimes unconsciously cruel. She seemed at times to look upon her mother as one of the wrongs life had done her. One afternoon they were standing together at the end of the pier, looking at the opalescent sea and the flowery clouds about the sunset.

She had begun, apropos of nothing but her constant musings, "Mother, wasn't there something funny about Grandma Kenworthy?"

"Funny? No. What do you mean?"

"But she was terribly religious, wasn't she?"

"She was--religious, certainly."

"But wasn't she sort of fanatical?"

"No, she wasn't! Don't you remember her? She was the dearest old thing that I ever knew--the most companionable woman."

"But somebody told me--or, anyway, I heard she used to pray, when she was poor, and she used to believe her prayers were answered, too."

"Well, that doesn't prove she was--funny. You meant--not quite right in her mind, didn't you?"

"Yes. And people say--it's all sort of the same thing, being too religious--or--you know--like me, mammie."

"Martha! She was as sane as any woman! What could she do but pray? She hadn't any health. She hadn't any money for her little boys. All that woman went through--if she hadn't had a strong mind, she would have gone crazy! She must have been far better balanced than most women, let me tell you. And look here, child----"

"Well?"

"Why do you go on thinking about insanity? Don't you see you only did what every woman does? After all, every woman who ever bore a child submitted to the preliminaries. Didn't she, now?"

"Preliminaries! My God, mother! How you do talk! You're so high and holy you never know what I mean! Sometimes I feel as if there was a gulf between us--a great wide ocean!"

"Oh, Martha!"

"I do. You can't understand, mammie, you're so good. I don't know how you could have had a child like me!"

That statement explained a good deal of Martha's conduct. She had been acting exactly as if she had been acutely and unhappily conscious of her separation from her mother, and Emily tried to reason her out of it.

"We are infinitely nearer each other than we were last summer, child!"

But that was an unfortunate way of putting it. "Oh, don't say last summer to me, _please_!" Martha cried.

A day or two later she announced, dryly: "There's no use of my writing away at that novel. I don't know how. But I'm going to learn how. It isn't so easy as I thought. I'm going to start in at the University of Chicago the first of April. I'm going to study English."

She plainly wasn't asking permission; she wasn't going to tolerate advice; she had made up her mind. And Emily, who had been wondering what in the world to suggest for the immediate future, was relieved. It might be a very good thing. It would be so great a change of life; it would supply new food for thought. She had not the vaguest idea that the novel would ever come to completion.

She said, "Well, that's an idea. But you must come home for a few days, child! To get your things, at least."

"No, I don't want to. You can send them to me, if I need anything. I never want to go back to that house again as long as I live!"

"Well, if you feel that way----"

"You mean I ought to go back, so people won't talk, so they won't suspect anything?"

"I didn't mean any such thing! People don't suspect you of anything. Get that idea out of your head!"

"I don't see why they shouldn't!" she retorted, cynically. She was so unhappy, so abrupt and almost brutal, that Emily forgot her good resolutions, after she was in bed that night, and just wept. She had to go home without her child. In spite of all that she had planned to prevent such a climax, Martha hated that house now more vindictively than her mother had ever hated it. It wasn't Bob, either, that had driven her away from it; it wasn't Bob that had alienated her from her mother; it was just luck, it was fate. There was no appeal. "It's because I stood by her through all this that she can't stand the sight of me now!" Emily wept. "She's left me. She's going to a hotel in Chicago alone, to get away from me."

The day of their departure Martha was all but intolerably irritable. Emily's patience was almost at an end. She wasn't sure but that her daughter needed at this late date a thoroughly good spanking; but she held her peace. It was fortunate indeed that Emily had cultivated a good grasp on the peace of her mind, for that day she clung to it desperately. And then it nearly got away from her, more than once. However, as they were getting into their train at New Orleans, Martha began, abruptly:

"Look here, mother, it does make me sore to have you act as if I couldn't go to a hotel and take care of myself without you. Don't you think I've learned my lesson yet? Do you think I'm as much of a fool yet as I was last summer? What can hurt a girl alone in a hotel but men? I'm as safe as if I was in a desert, or locked in a cell. If all the men in Chicago were on the bridge, and I got a chance, I'd push them into the river, filthy little rats! I'd watch them sink. I should think you'd understand that by now. But you've been good to me, I know that. And if it will make you any happier, I'll go to the Y.W.C.A. and stay there till I get a flat. Does that satisfy you?"

It was so magnificent a concession that Emily blinked. "Oh yes, I think that would be much better. I'd like that, Martha."

"All right, then. _I_ won't like it; lots of old cats there; but I don't want you to be worrying about me. I can take care of myself, I should hope."

_Chapter Eight_

Wherever Emily went, at home again, she was beset by loquacious pilgrims returned from a winter in the South or in the West. At every gathering of women, the hum and babble held to that subject.

"Well, my brothers have cleared three hundred thousand on their Florida deals. And we're selling our house and leaving in October. After all, as I said to John, what's the use of slaving at housework in Illinois when you can get colored girls in Florida to do your work?"

"Well, I'd rather freeze scrubbing floors in Illinois than have those horrid black women slopping around my house. Do you know, Emily, what one of them actually said to me? There were no knobs or handles or anything on the bureau drawers in my room. Shiftless things! And when I protested, the maid said: 'Well, you don't need no handles. Leave a stocking hanging out, and give it a jerk and the drawer will come open.' I wouldn't stay in that hotel a day longer. I just told Peter I'd stood enough. That's why we went to Daytona."

"I can tell you a place where everything isn't swimming in cold grease. They have a Northern cook. Deliver me from Southern fried cooking."

"And I found that all the cream that was to be had was shipped in from Kentucky. That's three or four hundred miles. Imagine a town that has to ship in cream! They have to paint their cows, or something, and it don't agree with them."

"Well, if you'd gone to California in the first place. We've got our rooms reserved for next year. The view is superb. It scarcely rains at all there."

"I never was so sick of glare in my life. I just thought, let me get back to Illinois. That's good enough for me."

"The trouble with them is, they won't tip enough. It pays to hand out money, on the coast, to be comfortable."

And then they would turn upon Emily, to insist gluttonously upon details of Martha's health. She had acquired a skill in suave evasion that surprised her continually. It had all worked out very well, she would tell them. Martha was much better. She hadn't her color back, but that would come. Of course, Emily had thought it would have been better for her not to go back into college so soon; but she was so ambitious. After she had fallen behind her classmates in her college, she thought she would stay nearer home, in Chicago. So lucky that they had the quarter system in the university there. And if Martha didn't seem able to do the work, Emily would take her out at once. It was easier to keep an eye on her health if she studied in Chicago, and she was living just now at the Y.W.C.A. No one could detect a flaw in the Kenworthy respectability. "Why should I suppose anyone suspects us of anything?" Emily asked herself. "I've just got that habit from Martha!"

She wanted every single passing day that spring to go and see her daughter. And every day she had to remind herself that her daughter was not anxious to be reminded of her folly. Her letters were short and not frequent. And then she wrote briefly that she had taken a room in an apartment of May Bissel's. Emily pondered that information dejectedly. Martha must be a very lonely girl if she had been forced back on to May Bissel for comradeship, for certainly at home she would have scorned her.

She abased herself to seek out Mrs. Bissel, to make inquiry about the news. Mrs. Bissel gushed and reassured her. May hadn't an apartment alone. No, indeed! Her mother wouldn't allow that, not for a moment. She and two other girls had a sitting room and two bedrooms which they rented by the month in the apartment of a grammar-school teacher. This Miss Curtis used her kitchen from six-thirty until seven-thirty in the morning, and allowed the girls to use it for their breakfast for an hour after seven-thirty. They had their lunches and their dinners out. Miss Curtis kept an eye on May. Not that May tolerated any real chaperonage, of course, but Mrs. Bissel felt always that, if May really got sick, or anything happened to her, Miss Curtis would be there to let her mother know. Miss Curtis was a thoroughly dependable woman, and she came from a town in western Iowa where Mrs. Bissel's sister lived.

And that was all the comfort Emily had. Every day she said to herself time and again: "No, I must not go. She doesn't want to see me; she told me so flatly." Finally--it seemed finally--though it was only six low-spirited weeks after they had parted in Chicago, Martha wrote and asked her mother to come and see her. The letter was not affectionate; it was scarcely cordial. Either Martha was ashamed of the way she was treating her mother, or she was intolerably lonely. Emily didn't know which.

When she saw the place her daughter of the painted room was living in, she marveled at her endurance. It was an apartment building which had been got ready hastily and cheaply for the Columbian Exposition. On the second floor front was a muddily tempestuous living room which Martha shared with the two girls. She showed it to her mother contemptuously. "Imagine sitting in a place like this. The art student did it--the one whose place I took. When they offer anybody a chair, they dump its contents out on to the floor. They're simply pigs." Out of this front room a tiny front bedroom opened, which was Martha's. It was the most comfortable room in the house. "I bought those curtains and the bedspread; but feel them, mammie. They've been up three weeks now, and they're grimy. That smoke comes in from across the street." She spoke dispiritedly. Behind the living room was a bedroom with one window which the two girls shared; behind that, off a dark hall, another bedroom, rented to a "medic"; behind that, the dining room where Miss Curtis lived; behind that, the kitchen. It was only at second sight that the bathroom seemed disgusting. It was all dark, smoke discolored, meager.

Her work in the university wasn't bad, she said. She wrote a theme every day, and it was good practice. She had to read a lot of trash in her literature courses. "I have to read every day a novel some silly flea or other wrote." (Males had been pigs a few months ago in her estimation. They had shrunk to rats, and now what less could they become than fleas? Emily wondered.) "I don't finish them. I get too sick. They revolt me. I tabulate them. Look, mammie!" She showed Emily a large notebook. "Here's seventeen what they call great novelists, and only two of them know anything, really. If they show any signs of knowing the difference between men and women, I put them in this column. 'Brass-tackers' I call them. Funny they're both Russian, isn't it? All the rest of the idiots are here." She had labeled them "Preliminaries," because they think that's all there is to it. "Oh, mammie, you must read _Crime and Punishment_. Dostoieffsky knew. That poor little Sonia, mother! I'll lend you this. She just covered herself up with a green shawl and shuddered when she came in. You could just see her shudder, if you were in that room." But in that room on Fifty-seventh Street no one saw Emily Kenworthy shuddering. "And that!" Martha pointed scornfully to a volume of Wells. "They make me read even _that_ sort of stuff. You wait till people read my novel; I'll bet you they'll begin to see through those men. Why does Wells have all his maternal women sort of freaks, or something, and all his heroines not maternal? There's a reason, believe me!"

"Are you still working on the novel?"

Martha turned on her indignantly. "Well, I like _that_! What did you think I was putting up with this filthy place for?"

Emily suggested timidly at least occasional week-ends at home.

"Don't talk to me about that!" Martha pleaded.

Emily went back thoroughly discouraged. Was that any place of healing for the child? It was no change, if Martha was to go on working on that volume of hate. She was as hard as ever; she was thinner and she was yellow. All the comfort Emily found was in saying over and over to herself a line which had no connection in her mind with anything. She thought vaguely perhaps it came from the Bible. "What wound did ever heal but by degrees?" She tried often to think of what followed; of another wording for it. It was that line, which she felt she was not saying correctly, that she lived by. And sometimes, there in her living room, she thought of Mr. Fairbanks' unfortunate daughter. Her wound, he said, had never healed; it had corrupted and poisoned her. "I spoiled her," Emily would muse. "She's been taken away from me; I've got to stand aside." And then she would say again, because she couldn't help it, "What wound did ever heal but by degrees?"

She went on despising life. She would not desist from protesting against it. She said, "If only Martha had quarreled with Bob, I could go to her, sometimes. I could live with her in Chicago. I don't suppose she will come back to this house now, if I should die. I never thought she would hate both me and the house. I must do something now, to keep from thinking. I better adopt a child for a while. I ought to write and ask somebody to come and stay with me this summer. There's that old Miss Jenson; but Bob would never stand her. Or we might do over all the rooms downstairs. If Martha would only come and help me. But if she would come and help me, I wouldn't need to do it! I believe I'll try hybridizing hemorocalis. Or what in the world will I do? If only I had had a house full of children! If Bob would only take an hour or two off, now and then! I've got to settle down to this. I mustn't fuss because Martha can't endure the sight of me. It's my own fault. I spoiled her, some way. But I never meant to! ... Thank God, it's time to clean house!"

But now, as always, she entered that festival with no high-hearted challenge to mess and accumulation. She followed Maggie from room to room loyally but without enthusiasm. The idea of leaving the abandoned painted room stagnant never entered the head of the old servant. She attacked it so furiously that Emily hadn't the heart to say to her that all her burnishings would be futile. She shut its door at last with the feeling of spineless hope she had when she looked, for some justifiable reason, at the baby clothes she had folded away. There they were, all ready at hand, in case she ever by some good luck might need them again--not that there was much hope, of course. She loitered along after Maggie into the next battlefield.

And then, when it was all done, when on the newly painted veranda every summer chair had its freshest garments tied on, Emily, being finished with dust, washed her hair one day and dried it in the sun in the garden, remembering how Martha always protested against the waste of time which so much long thick hair took for drying. It seemed almost as if the spring and weather, pleased with the way the brown hair rippled in its dampness, laid a trap to catch the little girl who had played in that garden. For then a shower came up, after noon, and passed over, and the sun came out with a dazzling soft afternoon brilliance. In the blossoming apple trees orioles were calling, and robins were hopping about in the wet petals below them. The grass was all young, and heavenly green, and the air had a soft and glittering cleanness. It was an afternoon to make even the dull feel that to forget its very quality was to have lived in vain. Emily had played about in the garden all the afternoon. She came into the house to get some labels stowed away in a drawer in her desk. She sat down and began sorting them----

And into the living room, bareheaded, laden with coats and bags, walked Miss Martha.

She came in quietly, as if it had been an ordinary coming. She was bringing some one to her mother.

"This is Miss Curtis, mother," she explained. "We drove out. It was such a nice day. I suppose you can put us up? Gee! It smells good here! How long till supper? We're starved, mammie. Sit down, Miss Curtis, I'll bring the things in myself!"

Emily saw a large and flabby-looking woman, in a nondescript tan-colored coat and a small black hat, who might have been fifty. She pulled off her hat and apologized for the untidiness of her stringy hair, and good reason she had for apologizing. She had a rather fine square face; she had kindly eyes. But the most impressive thing about her was her utter weariness.

And Martha came in again, with more bags and parcels.

"Can't we have asparagus for supper, if I go out and cut it?" she asked.

Miss Curtis was eager to get out into the garden. There was not a moment to be lost. The immortal afternoon was wearing away. They would only run up to their rooms.

"Can I have the little guest room, mammie?" Martha had asked. "I want her to have the big one."

And presently there she was, just as if nothing had happened, coming out of the house and down the path towards her mother and Miss Curtis, under the willow tree, bareheaded and carrying the very old colander and the very old knife she had used for cutting asparagus ever since, as a little girl, she had been allowed that privilege.

"You've never eaten asparagus unless you've cut it," she was explaining to her guest. "Ten minutes from the garden to the kettle, that's when it's good, really."

She was better, Emily said to herself. She was subdued; she was thoughtful of her guest. She had ceased, for the moment, to rail. She was showing Miss Curtis all the garden. The asparagus had already been cut once that day, for Bob was fond of it. But there was enough just for two. And this warm rain would bring more on by to-morrow. And she took what she had found into the house, and returned to show her wild-flower bed.

"Look what a little cultivation does for violets here. They aren't really modest, under mossy stones. They're only starved. They get swanky enough when you give them a place to grow," she said. "And look at the Dutchman's breeches! And here's my old jack-in-the-pulpit. And look at the peonies! Gee, mammie! Mrs. Benton will be budding all over the county before long." She made Miss Curtis admire her willow tree, and the clear water gurgling along beneath it.

"You're a glutton for education, Martha," Miss Curtis sighed, "to be living with me in the city when you might be out here at home!" And she went in to get ready for supper.

Left alone for a moment with her mother, Martha stood sniffling.

"I had forgotten it smelled so good, so clean!" she said, wistfully. "I simply hate Chicago. It's just sickening when spring comes. Everybody goes out of town for week-ends. All the teachers go down to the dunes, and bring nice little mossy things back with them, mammie. That's why I came out here. They wanted Miss Curtis to go with them; and she wanted to, too. But she can't afford it; it costs two or three dollars, she says. It would cost me ten!--to go away for a week-end. She's such a good old dear, isn't she, mammie? I tried to get her to go some place with me for the week-end. But she wouldn't hear of me paying the bills. I did want her to get away. And then she said I could come down and visit her school; and I did. My God! mammie! If you could see that room of hers on a spring afternoon. Close is no word for it. Smelling of all the dirty little wops that have never been bathed in their lives. All wiggling and squirming and wanting to get out of doors, of course. I tell you I could hardly stand it for an hour. And to see her sticking shut up in there, day after day, for six years! It made me so mad! I just made up my mind to bring her out here for the week-ends. That wouldn't cost her even the price of a bed. I went and bought a car, and she hadn't an excuse left. I'm going to put her to bed after supper. She's ready to collapse. She had a chill the other evening, she was so done up. We had to get the doctor. If you'd seen that room, you'd wonder why she isn't dead. Isn't she a sort of nice old thing, mammie?"

"It is for this woman's sake she has come home," Emily was trying not to think. "She never realizes _I'm_ lonely. I'm only her mother, after all!"

"I'm sure she needs a change, Martha. Are you still getting her suppers?"

"You wait till you see what a good cook I'm getting to be! There is stuff you can get to eat for thirty cents, if you hunt round. Oh!" exclaimed Martha Kenworthy. "There's dad home. I heard the car stop," she sighed.

In the living room she confronted him.

"Hello, kiddo!" he cried. "You here?" He looked at Emily, and then he grew cordial. He knew _he_ couldn't have made his wife's face shine so. "It's pretty good to see you again!" He kissed her. "You drove down? Did you borrow the car from the fire department? Whose is it?"

"It's mine," said Martha.

"No!"

"Yes, it's mine."

"Huh! I'd have given you one at wholesale."

Emily knew Bob felt brutally slighted. If there was one subject on which he might expect a daughter to ask his advice, surely it was on the purchase of a car. Emily felt that, but Bob never uttered one word of complaint. It was unexpected nobleness of him. She knew why: he had been worried by her dejection and loneliness. If having that girl at home made Emily gay again, he was determined not to antagonize her.

So peace reigned over the asparagus at the supper table. Emily got the candles out, because Martha loved them. And when the fragrant dusk deepened, it was Martha who rose to light them, as usual.

"Don't they make just a sweet light here?" she asked Miss Curtis. She sat looking at them flickering; she watched the shadows of them, and the way they lit up the apple-blossom bouquet she had brought in.

She studied the room wistfully. "I'd forgotten the dining room was so large," she remarked. She seemed reluctant to leave the candle-light when supper was over. So the three women sat on; Martha sat with her elbows on the table, dreaming towards the little flames, as she had always done, but taking her part in the conversation thoughtfully. Her one thought seemed to be for Miss Curtis's enjoyment.

Miss Curtis was interested in Mrs. Benton, and Martha rehearsed the history of the swimming park, with now and then a twinkling comment, not spontaneous, a remark calculated to entertain her guest, who questioned her. Emily occasionally took her eyes from Martha's face long enough to glance at Miss Curtis. Even dusk and twilight failed to make her interesting. She looked now only like complete fag. But Martha was mysterious, tantalizing to maternal interest. She was thin, still. She was hushed; but she was steady. She was safe. Miss Curtis wasn't sitting apprehensively waiting for outbursts of bitterness.

Martha had planned to drive Miss Curtis and her mother on Saturday some distance down the river, and have a picnic. The day was fine enough, but Miss Curtis found herself extremely tired from her ride of the day before; besides, as she said, the garden itself was a picnic for her; she would be content to stay there for months. Martha had come downstairs that morning dressed for the day, as soon as Bob had left the house, and had proceeded to the kitchen, where she had got a tray daintily ready for her guest; and she had carried it up to her as if she had always been in the habit of preparing early breakfast for people. Then she had carried an easy chair and cushions and rugs out almost to the river; and in the sun she had prepared a sleeping-place for their morning, where they could all three watch the orioles in the apple trees, and Martha could lie about on the grass, now and then exerting herself to dig up a dandelion. In the afternoon Miss Curtis, with a book, slept there, while Martha, putting in the later "glads" with her mother, watched the untidy head nodding towards rest with obvious satisfaction. When she woke, after a few minutes, she recalled her duty.

"Really, I ought to 'phone Mrs. Bissel that I'm here," she told Martha.

But Martha said: "We should worry. You can call her up--next week--or the next time we're down."

Emily heard that with satisfaction. She had known all the day that Martha avoided even the front garden, where the neighbors would the more surely learn of her return. It was lucky, the way everyone happened to be too busy to "run in" that Saturday or Sunday.

When the unworthy red car drove away on Sunday afternoon, both its passengers declared it had been a most successful week-end. Emily understood why Martha could say that truthfully. She had wanted Miss Curtis to enjoy it, and Miss Curtis had enjoyed it, and that was enough justification for it. It had been, in a way, a triumph for the house. Martha had said she never wanted to see it again as long as she lived, and she had seen it, not unhappily. She had even acknowledged its dearness, she had stayed in the house with her father, and she must have seen that when they both tried to, they could get along without disagreement. She had promised, moreover, chuckling over her success, to bring Miss Curtis back just as soon as possible. Miss Curtis had asked her to, cunningly. For Emily had taken Miss Curtis aside, and begged her, some way, to get Martha out again soon for a week-end. Martha needed the change so much, Emily had pleaded. Miss Curtis had agreed to that.

"And she won't leave that work of hers for a day, as you know, unless she thinks she's doing you a great favor," Emily had insisted.

Miss Curtis was eager to do Mrs. Kenworthy whatever favor she could.

"Only get Martha to bring you down; bring her home some way!" Emily had pleaded, not adding, "That's more than I can do!"

So for four week-ends the unequal pair arrived. Martha brought all sorts of treats out for her guest, thick steaks and expensive chocolates. "I'm not going to have you doing it all, mammie!" she had answered to Emily's protests. She was always in the kitchen now, helping Maggie. Emily understood that the kitchen was the part of the house least tainted by memories. She was still rising to take breakfast up to Miss Curtis. Emily scarcely ever got her to stay late in bed, although she was herself distressingly thin and yellow.

From Sunday till Friday Emily spent every free moment thinking over all that her daughter had said, all the expressions of her face; all the gestures of her significant little hands. It had been impossible, of course, for Martha to avoid her old friends altogether. She received them patiently, gravely. "That poor old thing's got to have these days in the country," her manner seemed to her mother to say, "so I just have to put up with these silly, giggling girls for her sake." She felt separated from them by a great distance; she got on better with people of Miss Curtis's age, even with Mrs. Benton. That neighbor was showing Martha unusual attention. Emily couldn't help wondering if Mrs. Benton was coming to wish Martha would marry her boy. Why should she have made a point of showing Martha's guest such kindness? She had a little lunch in her honor. Emily marveled to see how Martha seemed to belong to that tableful of women in their forties. Mrs. Benton wanted Miss Curtis to come out for the annual opening of the beach. She suggested that Martha take a class of little girls who wanted to learn dancing during the summer.

At that suggestion Martha announced flatly that she wasn't going to be home for the summer. She had decided to go on studying during the summer quarter. "I lost such a lot of time last winter, when I wasn't well, that I've got to make it up," she announced, seriously, looking straight and frankly at Mrs. Benton.

This zeal for education led Cora Benton to say later to Emily, "You ought to be thankful Martha wants to study all summer." And she gave such a sigh that Emily said, quietly:

"What's the news from Johnnie? When's he to be home?"

"He's flunked. He isn't going to get his degree. He's not coming home!"

"Oh, Cora, that's too bad!"

"Oh, I was prepared for it. Charles Fenton got a traveling scholarship. I wish you'd spread the news, Emily. I don't enjoy announcing it, especially."

"Oh, well, Cora."

"I knew you'd say that."

"What else can I say?" retorted Emily.

"I know it. There isn't anything to be said; but people will find enough to talk about, you know that."

"Has he got a job?"

"Yes; that is--a sort of a job." Her voice forbade even friendly inquiry.

Martha said, when Emily told her of it, "I bet he's gone into the movies."

Emily was annoyed by her cynical comment.

"Why should you think Johnnie's gone into the movies!"

"Well, it would be just like him; and he's got such lovely ears. People who can move their ears the way he can never have nice ones, really. Or else he's playing baseball, or rubbing them down, or something."

Later Emily ventured timidly to protest against Martha's plan for the summer. Although in Miss Curtis's quieting presence Martha never railed, still, when she was with her mother alone, there came forth at times spurtings of molten resentment and red-hot bitterness against the nature of things in general, and her nature in particular, so that Emily was never sure what the effect of her words might be. On this occasion Martha turned upon her quickly, in a manner which cried, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"

"I suppose you want me to give up my novel altogether! It's not so easy as I thought. I've started to do it all over. I didn't even know what form was, when I began. It's all out of proportion! And you want me just to loaf. If I don't tell the truth about things, who's going to, I'd like to know? Do you think I'm going to let all these idiots that call themselves realists just go on spoofing girls, and never say a word to them? I'm going to have it all done by Christmas, and send it to some publisher."

One day the second week of July she called Emily up from Chicago by 'phone. Could she bring Miss Curtis and a little niece down for a week or two? Could she, indeed! When Emily told Bob about that 'phone message, he looked at her. She thought it pitiful that he should say with exaggerated eagerness:

"Good! That's fine, Emily."

Emily thought at first sight that Saturday morning, that the child was quite as commonplace as her aunt. She was inclined to be fat; she was shy; she had a featureless little soft face, and blue eyes, and brown bobbed hair and a husky voice; but by noon Emily loved her. Her disposition evoked admiration. She had a way of going suddenly to her aunt and kissing her heartily, that was very spontaneous and endearing. Without warning, as they all sat at the dinner table, she rose from her place and went and threw her fat arms about Miss Curtis's neck and gave her a resounding kiss, as though it was the only thing to do, and then quietly went back to her chair. Bob was amused by her lack of self-consciousness; and, during dessert, he acquired quite suddenly an admiration that was all but awe for Miss Curtis.

She had happened to say that she had never, as a matter of fact, been so well at the end of a school year.

"But of course I was never so well taken care of in my life." She was speaking towards Emily. "Never in my life, before, Mrs. Kenworthy, have I happened to--be living--so that anybody brought my breakfast to me in bed. That's never happened to me before." It wasn't a complaint; it was merely a fact, stated impersonally.

Emily knew perfectly what she meant, but she had to ask the question to enlighten Bob.

"Your colored girl comes early, then, now?" she asked.

"Not the colored girl; this little white girl," she said, indicating Martha affectionately. "This girl simply bosses me about I don't dare to get up and get my breakfast, in my own house."

Martha said: "Oh, that's nothing. Mother always did that for me."

Emily saw that Bob was on the point of crying, "My God!" She blessed him for refraining.

But afterwards he said to her: "Well, you wouldn't think it, to look at her, but there's something in that woman, Emily; she's a great woman! I didn't suppose anybody in the world could get that girl up in the morning. Don't you think the kid's sort of different?"

"Improved, you mean?"

"Well, yes, I guess so."

"She's found somebody who needs her help. She always was a tender-hearted child, and she's sorry for Miss Curtis. She just about runs her flat for her."

"Well, I hope she'll stick around awhile. She'll do the kid good."

Emily was on the point of retorting, "She does you good yourself!" for Bob's somewhat tentative forebearance was in part due to the stranger's presence. When there had been young girls at the table, Bob could "roast" Martha and them all together in one breath. And Martha, who had established herself as a protector and commander of a woman like Miss Curtis, couldn't act like a baby before her when she was with her father. Emily was beginning to see that Miss Curtis, pretending to be so docile, managed Martha by means of the slightest little hints of ridicule. By one smile she could take all the wind out of Martha's naughty sails.

Emily was moved by the grave and tender manner in which Martha took charge of the child, to relieve the aunt. She had told her on the way down that there was in her mother's house a rainbow room prepared for little girls, so that the child went into it eagerly, and accepted it as gravely as Martha gave it to her. Its builder and maker opened all its drawers and cupboards, displayed the electric stove and the fudge-making dishes.

Miss Curtis was on the point of expressing surprise that she hadn't seen the room before.

"Oh, we keep it locked; we never show it to anybody. It's too awful. Mother let me have it done over to suit myself, and I can't endure the sight of it!"

"Well, I don't know; I think it's--rather--a nice room--after you've looked at it a little."

Emily was there. She felt Martha was annoyed for the moment by her presence.

She said, "It's a lovely room; it grows on you."

"If I was you I'd have it papered, mammie. Make it into a good guest room."

"I will not!" said Emily, emphatically. Did Martha suppose she would just agree to the idea that there should be no daughter's room any longer in the house?

"I'm afraid Ruth might spoil something, Martha. You don't mean to let her turn your stove on. Ruth, don't do that!"

"She can't hurt anything. The first day it rains I'll show her how to make candy up here, or maybe we'll cook a little supper up here and invite your aunt and my mammie." And Martha smiled gravely at the happy child. "Nice days like this it's better to play out in the yard. I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful kind of a playhouse out there."

They were running in and out of the house, collecting their house-building material. They were up in the tree. Emily could have imagined that Jim Kenworthy was playing there in the garden with his little niece. For, after a little, four pieces of rope came dangling down from certain limbs of that tree. Presently they were weighted down taut by four bricks tied to them, just missing the grass. These ropes were the four corners of the house. In a few minutes the walls of old sheets were being safety-pinned into place. And a fifth taut rope came down for the side of the door. And the rag rugs were being spread on the grass inside. "And where are those old little chairs, mammie? Where are my old things? Where's my little table been put?" They were running up and down from the attic, dustily. At dinner time Ruth was more talkative than ever before. Nobody else knew how to build as nice playhouses as Uncle Jim, she told her auntie as they sat down. He had invented that kind of playhouse.

"Uncle Jim who?" asked Bob, suddenly.

Ruth looked blank. "I don't know Uncle Jim who," she said. "I just mean Martha's Uncle Jim."

"Oh," said Bob. He looked at her keenly. He looked at Emily. "Funny," his face seemed to say, "to hear this child of a stranger talking about Jim."

Ruth babbled on. She seemed to know a surprising lot about Uncle Jim. She had appropriated him along with the painted room and the playhouse. After lunch she took Bob by the hand and led him out to see it.

Emily hoped Martha saw the two of them walking down the path together. The sight some way made her think of Bob in the graveyard on Decoration Day--standing looking at the tombstone he had erected there for his beloved brother. In spite of Emily's protest he had engraved on it: "In memory also of his son James Kenworthy, 1903-1918--who died an unnecessary death, alone and unafraid."

Mrs. Benton, of course, had been in and seen Ruth. At once she had given orders to the guard that the child was to have special swimming lessons. And she was at the beach with her aunt, the fourth day of their visit, when Martha, having driven Emily about the town on some errands, turned the car towards the country.

"I want to tell you something, mammie!" she had said.

Emily was gratified that Martha cared to talk to her alone, for although she had been polite, always when Miss Curtis was there, she had been distant. Now she chose a road little traveled, and, settling down to drive slowly, she burst abruptly into intimacy.

"Mother, I want to tell you something! It's the most surprising thing you ever heard in your life! You won't believe it!"

"Of course I will."

"Well, guess who Ruth _is_! _Guess_, mammie!"

"Why? Isn't she Miss Curtis's brother's child?"

"She's Miss Curtis's own child. She's her mother, mammie!"

Emily was dazed. She murmured her incredulity.

"I _told_ you you wouldn't believe it! You could have knocked me down with a feather when she told me. Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life? It's too funny, mother. Why did we take so to each other, in the first place? Why did she understand me so? Because she'd been through the same hell herself! It's too strange!"

"Why Martha! How old is she?"

"I don't know how old she is, exactly. I don't think she's more than thirty-five. She kept the child with her for four years; then she had to have more money, and she came to Chicago to teach, and left her there, not at her own house, but in Iowa. She was a very delicate child, and she couldn't leave her and go teaching, with just anybody. She has an awfully good home for her, and she's going to bring her to Chicago when she starts high school, if she keeps well. Imagine, mammie! It makes me boiling mad when I think of that woman slaving away to support that child, and some damned man running around not caring. Isn't she magnificent, mammie? Being good to all those dirty kids in her school! That's why she never has a cent to spend; that's why she eats thirty-cent suppers. And when I think how I came along, and just took care of her and helped her all I could, not knowing, I could just sing! You see those dresses Ruth has got? I bought them all for her; she had only--sort of plain little things, and not enough. They had to be washed out. Makes me so mad to think about it."

"But, Martha, how--how did you find this out?"

"She _told_ me herself. You see--she wouldn't say what she was going to do when her school was out, at first. She sort of hung off--she wouldn't say who was coming into the flat, or when she'd rented it for. Then when I insisted on staying--the other girls were leaving--she said she wanted to keep it a few days, because she was having company from the country. I knew she was tired out, so I said I'd help her entertain them. I'd drive them around. But she didn't want me to. I thought, maybe, they were--sort of funny country people, or something. And, anyway, she didn't intend having any real vacation. She said she was going to spend her vacation with her sister, whose husband has T.B. of the bones, and she has a whole family of children, and she does her own washing and everything. Miss Curtis was going to take care of that man sick in bed, and of the kids, and give her sister a rest. That's just like her, mother. And I just put my foot down and said she had to come here and have a few days' rest herself first. And then she hummed and hawed, and said her niece wanted to come and see Chicago. And then, when all the girls were gone, she told me. She said, 'She's my very own child, Martha.' Just like that! I'd begun to suspect something funny by that time; and even then I thought maybe she had adopted her or something. I couldn't believe it. How could I believe that of a woman like Miss Curtis? And then, mammie, I wish you'd have seen those two when Ruth got there. They just sat down together and cried for joy! You know me, mammie; I'm not sentimental, but I went into my room and cried my eyes out when I remembered how they looked at each other!"

"Well, of all things!"

"Yes! To _think_ that I found her! She said once to me that she'd lived in that flat with students for six years, and she'd never let anybody share her meals with her but me. She doesn't make friends easily--naturally. We understood each other; I didn't know why, of course! And I suppose the reason she talked to me about all her relations so much was so I wouldn't suspect she was hiding anything! Think what she's been through, mammie! Ruth doesn't live near her people, you know. They're in Iowa. They must know about her, of course, but apparently she doesn't take Ruth to them. She just goes out there to see her, or takes her some place. And, mammie, that family that keep her, they love her; they want to adopt her; they do everything for her. Miss Curtis won't be jealous of them, but they have her nearly all the time. My God! Mammie, when I think of it! She can always come here, can't she, mammie? We can be friends to her, mammie!" And when Martha turned to her mother her eyes were swimming with tears. "Think of that child's future! Isn't she a sweet little thing? She doesn't do very well in school; she's so happy, she's lazy. Miss Curtis says she absolutely refused to bring her here until I told her Mrs. Bissel and May had gone to the lakes."

"Of course she can come here! We'll make a home for Ruth here!"

"But we can't do much, mammie. Miss Curtis is so independent, I can hardly manage her. You see, she won't accept anything from me, hardly. But she can't refuse to let me get Ruth things. I got her that doll, of course. I'd like to get hold of that child's father a little while! I bet I'd put the fear of God into him! Mammie, I can't tell you how worked up I've been over this, this last week. When I look at that woman, I just sort of shiver with admiration. She breaks me up so. Isn't she sporting? Isn't she a brick? Look what she is and what she's been through! I look at her and wonder if there's anything in the world a woman can't do! And like as not the school board will find it all out, some day, and fire her! I'm never going to lose track of that child; I'm going to keep friends with her! Mammie, I've been--excited all week! I had to tell you! It seems too strange!"

"It does seem too strange," Emily repeated.

"By heck! what a novel I'm going to write! This--sets me up; this eggs me on so! I'm going to change a lot of it; I'm going to make it hotter!"

"Does Miss Curtis know about the novel?"

"Yes. She knows I'm writing it; but she doesn't know why."

Emily marveled; she kept on marveling. She was as excited as Martha was the next few days. She had to keep from looking at Miss Curtis too intently; that woman had become almost too poignantly interesting. It was as if she was living Emily Kenworthy's life and Martha's. It seemed impossible to believe Martha's story. Miss Curtis was unromantic, so dull, so sensible. She seemed almost stupidly passionless--except when the child came running to her. And when Emily saw her draw little Ruth to herself, and push her fringe of hair away from her forehead, and look at her, she had to believe that Martha had stumbled upon the truth of the situation. The woman, undoubtedly, was maternity itself. Had she some way guessed what Martha had been through, and told her this secret for some unselfish purpose? Could she have loved some one beyond all reason? How had she managed to hide her shame? How had she endured the pity and the jeerings of the secure and holy? Emily found herself in Martha's state. She quivered with curiosity and reverence, and a desire to befriend those two. Could that woman be living in fear that some day when her secret would become known, she would be without a means of earning her living? "I must pretend not to be very much interested in her!" Emily kept saying. But she understood why Martha had felt so lifted up by her discovery.

_Chapter Nine_

Mrs. Benton stepped in for a minute one afternoon, on her way home. "Where's Bob?" she asked, cautiously.

"He's gone downtown."

"I just thought I'd tell you about Johnnie. He's going to be home in about three weeks, I think, or maybe four. So it would have to come out, anyway. Do you know what he's doing this summer?"

"No. You didn't tell me."