Spice Box (15 page)

“Anything you want I should do?” he asked innocently, and Martha suddenly gave him a radiant smile.

“No, that’s all right. I just wanted to make sure you sent her. You might stop over in the morning if you have time. Good night!”

The boy whistled cheerily as he turned back to the house and murmured happily, “She’s all right. I thought she’d be game.” Then he slammed the back door and went joyously up to his bed.

Martha heated a bowl of delicious soup, toasted several slices of bread delicately, made a cup of fragrant tea with plenty of cream, and took them into the other room on a small tray. But as she entered the door Aunt Abigail and Uncle Jonathan seemed to have accusing eyes fixed upon her. She could almost hear their voices.

“
Do you mean to say that at the instigation of a mere wild boy you intend to take in and encourage a girl from the streets? A girl about whose reputation you know nothing except that she is hungry? Remember your family has always been r-r-r-respectable!
” She could even hear the way Uncle Jonathan used to roll his r’s.

“Don’t mind him,” purred Ernestine, winding furrily around her feet. “He always meant well but never quite understood.” Then she trucked herself down cozily at the stranger’s feet with an eye to a possible midnight repast. She didn’t mind having her rest broken on a special occasion like this. A bit of toast was one of her favorites.

But Ernestine had reckoned this time without knowledge. The girl was fairly starved. Not a crumb was left!

“There’s no use trying to tell you how grateful I am,” said the girl. “I don’t suppose you ever got that near to starving and wouldn’t know how it feels, but now I’m made over new. I feel as if I could go out and try again to find something. And I’m sure I will. Always I’ve been taken care of, and you have been so wonderful to me! I can see what that boy meant. He seemed so sure you would help. I can’t thank you enough for just being kind to me, and after I get a job I’ll be able to repay your kindness somehow. I shall not forget what you’ve done for me, letting me come in, speaking pleasantly to me when I was so downhearted. And your food was wonderful. Just real home food. That soup was so heartening. And now, I must be getting on out of your way, for I know I must have kept you up beyond your regular bedtime.”

The girl rose, holding the back of the chair to steady herself. Martha rose so suddenly that Ernestine had to scuttle hastily out of her way to escape personal damage.

“But—my dear! Where are you going? Have you a room somewhere?”

The girl drew a breath and tried to laugh, but it was a sorry little mockery of laughter.

“Oh,” she said, “I’ll find a place. There are always railroad stations, and they let you sit there all night. I shall be all right and rested in the morning.” She gave a brave little imitation of a smile.

Suddenly Martha came close to the girl and flung her unaccustomed arms around her.

“You poor, dear little girl!” she said compassionately. “Did you suppose I would let you go out again in the streets tonight? You are going to stay right here with me. I’ve got a spare bed upstairs in the room next to mine, and it won’t take a minute to put clean sheets on and make it nice and comfortable. The bathroom is right next, and there is plenty of hot water. You take a good bath, and that will rest you a lot, and then in the morning you may sleep as late as you want to, all day perhaps. If you will. Come, let’s go up. You are all worn out and ought to be in bed this minute!”

Martha Spicer stalked upstairs, head up triumphantly, leading her strange guest of unknown reputation, and perhaps it was at that time that the shades of Aunt Abigail and Uncle Jonathan slunk away ashamed, for they seemed not to trouble her again.

And Ernestine followed apathetically upstairs with her head bowed dejectedly. Things hadn’t turned out the way she had hoped, and she still felt in need of a little sustenance. It didn’t seem fair when she had encouraged the whole thing.

An hour later, Martha, arrayed for the night, stepped into the next room and stood for an instant bending over the bed, listening to the gentle breathing of her guest. The bath had indeed rested the girl and taken some of the hard lines out of her sweet face. Arrayed in one of Martha’s immaculate night robes—(it was strange but Martha had
had
to give her one of her best ones, the one with embroidery and pink ribbons run in, which she had always kept put away “in case of anything happening”)—Janice lay with her gold hair like a soft cloud over her pillow, the long lashes dark on the white cheeks. One girlish arm was thrown over the counterpane.

The sheets smelled of lavender flowers, and the girl looked a different creature. She was really startlingly beautiful. The heart of her hostess went out to her. Even there in the semidarkness of that room, she felt that she was entertaining an angel unawares. The breathing was so quiet that Martha stooped above the face and listened to make sure it had not stopped entirely, and drawn by a sudden impulse came closer and softly kissed her in the darkness.

The girl did not stir, but the warmth of her face and the softness of her cheek reached into the lonely heart of the woman and almost frightened her with a new kind of joy.

She fled to her own room and knelt for her usual formal prayer, but somehow the cold words that she had used since childhood failed her, and her heart gushed forth new expressions, ending with, “Our Father, bless that dear boy, and this little, lonely girl, and show me how to be different.”

As she lay in the darkness afterward for an hour, staring wide-eyed at the things that had come to pass, she seemed again to feel that there was a Presence in her room and that a radiance glowed above her. Once more she heard the quaint old word, “
Inasmuch!
”

The feeling of awe remained with her the next morning, and she arose and tiptoed around her room getting ready for the day’s campaign. A strange sense of having become an employee in a new firm, under orders the most holy and sacred, possessed her.

She had in her house a stranger, drifted in from the wide world, in need and alone, and she felt she had been distinctly commanded to attend to her needs as though a voice from heaven had spoken audibly to her soul. And though she had never been a woman of deep religious fervor, nor given to more than formal worship, she had no question of demurring. Indeed, a kind of elation had come upon her and a light shone in her eyes, a smile hovered about her lips.

The half-open door revealed the quiet form on the bed in the guest room, but the hostess would not go in and disturb her now. Let her sleep as long as she would. She had been utterly exhausted. When she had prepared a dainty breakfast it would be time enough to awaken her.

As she went downstairs she was conscious of a longing for those windows in the wide wall that they had been talking about the night before. If there were only a flood of sunshine pouring in, how pleasant it would be for that poor little white child in the guest room to waken to. All sense of hesitation and rebuke with regard to the changes had departed from her. She felt no doubt that it was quite the right thing for her to do. She was only anxious to have the work begin. She remembered what a radiance had overspread the face of the young man when she told him he might count on a job. Where was all her caution and good sense? How was it she no longer felt that she had done a dreadful thing to engage a man to do so important a job, about whom she knew nothing, and whose only recommendation was that a strange boy had brought him to her and she liked his face? Well, and wasn’t that enough after all? What was that old legend she had heard once in a lecture, about a man who was born a King and people didn’t recognize Him? The story gave this rule to follow: “Whom children love, whom animals follow.” And she thought of Ronald and Ernestine. It floated through her mind now as she put the teakettle on. Somehow she felt sure her intuition had not deceived her and that her chosen architect was all right. Besides, he needed the work. So what if he was young and inexperienced? He looked as if he had good sense, and she would always be there to watch. She might not understand carpentering, but she would risk that she could see if anything really went wrong. And, too, she couldn’t help feeling glad that she was going to give that little child a chance to go to the seashore and get well, and his tired young mother, too. They ought to get off at once. Couldn’t she manage somehow to suggest that to the father?

She was still thinking about it when she heard the back door of the next house fly open, and just for company, she set her own door ajar, smiling to herself to think how strange it was that she should actually have reached the place where she liked to hear a boy whistle.

But there was no whistling this morning; instead there were angry, bitter words.

“You oughtta know better than to anger your dad that way when you could see he was in a bad humor. You’re always getting up some fool thing you wanta do, spending money when we got all we can do to keep the clothes on your back. What’s a picnic when you ain’t got shoes good enough to wear to school? You’d oughtta be thankful you don’t haveta quit school and go to work the way Johnny Mason has. The idea of your wanting to go traipsing off to the seashore and spending a whole dollar and a half in carfare. I don’t see what you’re thinking of!”

“I don’t care! I think it’s mean!” That was Ronald’s voice now. “I never can go anywhere. Every other boy in this block is going, and I don’t see why I can’t go, too. I didn’t ask Dad to
give
me a dollar and a half. I just asked him to
lend
it to me. I got a job for the winter tending furnaces, and I could pay it back. Besides, it don’t cost a dollar and a half, it only costs a dollar for carfare. I want the half dollar to spend. When I go off with the fellows I gotta have
something
to spend. There’s movies and all sorts of amusements, and I wantta hire a suit and go in bathing. If Dad was like other men, he’d take you and me and Teena and go, too. Most every man on this street is going.”

“Well, it’ll be a long time before your dad ever does a fool thing like that with his money. And I advise you to keep your mouth shut about your picnics if you don’t want him to give you a good whipping. He wants you to quit school and get a job—” There was a plaintive, wistful sound to the woman’s voice, in spite of her harsh words.

But a man’s voice calling angrily from within drew the woman away, and there was only left the low mutterings of the boy as he set about his morning’s work.

So that was what the boy had been wanting to do! Go on a community picnic to the shore! A harmless enough thing, of course, and little enough money to spend on an outing for a good boy who seemed to be well intentioned and kindly. What an ugly father and an unnatural mother to refuse him! But then, perhaps the mother was harassed with cares and didn’t know how to get along.

And to think the boy wanted money so badly as that and yet had refused her proffered quarter! What a fine sense of honor. Well, he was surely a boy to be proud of! She felt a thrill of pride and pleasure in his friendship. And then she fell to planning. How could she help that boy get to that picnic? Wasn’t there any way? Perhaps she ought not to try, but somehow it hurt her dreadfully to have him disappointed. If she had only known sooner, perhaps she could have found a way to help him. But this was Saturday, and Monday would be the day of the picnic. A half-formed plan came flickering to her mind, how she might concoct some work for him to do for her. But there was hardly time now for him to earn enough in anything she could ask him to do.

She was still pondering it as she took the tray upstairs. A delicate piece of toast on which reposed a beautifully poached egg, a cup of coffee, a glass of milk, and a bunch of grapes with the bloom on them. It looked like Martha was glad as she set it down softly on the little mahogany table by the bed.

The little girl on the bed had not stirred, did not stir now. Indeed she lay so white and still Martha could not tell if she was breathing. The little lace ruffles and cheerful pink ribbons over her chest did not seem to rise or fall, nor flutter with a palpitating heart. Could it be that the child had slipped away out of an unfriendly world into the light and warmth of the Father’s house of many mansions?

Martha had had all kinds of experiences with living human beings, but very little with the dead. Since her parents had died, she had lived so much in the world of business that the possibility of death seemed remote and unreal. With awe she knelt and laid an unaccustomed hand, trembling, on the girl’s chest, put her ear down and listened, then threw up the window shade to get more light, but her own pulses bounded so frantically that she was unable to tell whether the girl was breathing or not. She even held a mirror before her lips but was so excited she couldn’t be sure whether it was dimmed with vapor. She remembered suddenly that if the girl died here in her home, they had no means of knowing who she was or where she came from.

As a last resort she laid her lips upon the lips and forehead of the sleeping girl, and they seemed to strike a chill through her very soul.

Thoroughly frightened now, she fled downstairs, out the kitchen door to the fence and called, “Ronald! Ronald! Come quick!”

The boy threw down his ax hastily, and his dark head appeared over the fence.

“What’s wrong?” he asked capably.

“Can you get a doctor quick? I’m afraid that girl is dying!” said Martha.

“Sure, I’ll get him in three jerks of a lamb’s tail,” said the boy. “He’s the doctor of that architect’s little kid. Doc Blackwell. He’s swell.” And Ronald was off like a flash.

M
artha turned helplessly back to her kitchen. The kettle was singing cheerily. She stopped to put on the large canning kettle full of water. It might be needed. Then she hurried back upstairs. What else could she do? Smelling salts? Yes, she had some. She wet a handkerchief and waved it in front of the girl’s face. She put a few drops in water and tried to get a little down between those closed lips, but most of it ran down her white chin and was lost on the pillow. She tried camphor on a handkerchief, but there was no change in the white face. A terrible, desperate fear was taking possession of her. Suppose Ronald couldn’t find the doctor. Would he get another one?