Spice Box (6 page)

Now, however, she felt sudden sympathy for the injured cat, a sort of fellow feeling. They were strays and lonely ones together, with no one to protect and care for them. Her heart smote her for her cold unfriendliness toward the dumb creature. She would never be one to pamper an animal, but her heart was warming toward Ernestine, and she felt quite distressed when she opened the door to find no cat crouching on the steps.

“Kitty, kitty, kitty!” she called, softening her voice uncharacteristically.

A sudden stealthy movement at her feet attracted her attention, and two great green eyes peered fearsomely out at her from under the steps.

“Poor kitty! Poor Ernestine!” she said tenderly, using the hateful name for the first time and without being aware of it.

Ernestine’s head came a little farther out from her hiding place, showing a gaunt look in the furry face.

“Come kitty, poor kitty,” went on Miss Spicer, stooping down in earnest now to soothe the frightened beast.

Ernestine suddenly projected herself like a stealthy shadow out from under the step and slid past her benefactor into the kitchen, taking a hasty surveillance of her environment and making sure of her safety by gliding under the high dining room dresser, from where her green eyes shone balefully out like two green lamps.

Martha closed and locked the kitchen door with a reassuring click and set about preparing their supper. Nice, appetizing milk toast and poached eggs—a whole egg for Ernestine. The smell of the browning toast presently tempted the cat, and her mistress was able to draw her forth from her hiding place and remove the fragment of rope still attached to her tail. The cat seemed grateful for this and set up a broken rumbling in her chest intended to indicate gratitude. The lady suddenly realized that it was pleasant to have even a cat grateful and friendly to her.

Perhaps under the circumstances Aunt Abigail might have given Ernestine a seat at the table with a high chair and a bib, but her niece would never go so far as that. She did, however, find real comfort in setting Ernestine’s saucer of toast and egg quite near to her side as she ate her own supper.

Of her own free will she stooped and patted the cat when they were done, and perhaps the wise animal drew as much comfort from the touch as she might have done from more elaborate pity.

After the supper things were washed and put away, Martha turned on the light and sat down with her paper once more. Ernestine tucked close to her skirts unreproved, rumbling away her content. Somehow Martha felt shaken from her beaten path and seemed to have a sweeter, more wholesome view of the world. A boy, a simple unregenerate boy, had gone out of his way to be kind to a dumb animal, and had incidentally smiled at her, and the whole universe seemed changed.

She read her paper conscientiously through, reading over again the article about how to help boys, and this time it did not seem to anger her so much. A kindly freckled face seemed to be smiling at her between the lines and saying in a fascinating drawl, “
They’re only kids. They’ll get some sense bimeby
,” and the good-natured appeal in his eyes seemed to warm her heart and cool her anger toward boys in general. When she finally turned out the lights for the night, she allowed Ernestine to go upstairs with her. Every night so far the cat had attempted it but had been firmly put back in the kitchen on a cushion in a soapbox. Tonight, however, she looked down hesitatingly as the great creature purred wistfully about her feet, and then said, “Well, come on, I suppose you’re used to it!” And when Ernestine happily jumped on the foot of the bed and curled in a furry mound close to the footboard, Martha did not shove her off, and she absently smiled and patted her as she passed to turn out the light. She was thinking of a freckled, blue-eyed face turned up to the window, and a pleasant, saucy voice saying, “
Ma’am
?”

During the hours that she lay awake that night thinking new thoughts, she was dimly conscious of the purring of the cat and strangely comforted by it. Why hadn’t she known before how lonely it was in the world without even a cat? Why, even a cat was company.

Bits of sentences from that article about boys floated through her mind now and then, and stayed with her in the morning when she awoke. She tried to forget them, but they would return at the most unexpected moments and confuse her thoughts. She half resented and half courted the suggestions that article seemed to bring to her.

Monday and Tuesday she got through quite contentedly by going from room to room and burning up or otherwise discarding a few more ancient landmarks in the house. It had to be done one item at a time, for as yet her conscience was tender with regard to Aunt Abigail’s treasured household furnishings. But after
Wide Awake
and
Fast Asleep
had been used for kindling fire in the old-fashioned coal stove, and several doilies and antimacassars had followed suit, she felt better, and a spirit of revolution entered into her. If the house was hers, why shouldn’t she have it to please her?

Wednesday morning she swept the parlor mantel free from several cheap imitation Dresden shepherdesses and a purple vase decorated with hideous green roses and carried them to the back kitchen, where she mashed them in the trash can. But she left Ernestine asleep in Aunt Abigail’s rocker while she did it. She could not quite have done it in the presence of Ernestine.

She felt better after smashing the ancient bric-a-brac, and washed the mantel with vigor and Old Dutch Cleanser, but when it was done it looked bare and empty and she had nothing to put on it. So she went over the house from room to room and finally found an old pair of brass candlesticks rolled in flannel in the upper drawer of a bureau. These she brought down and polished till they shone and then placed them on the mantel, where they made one spot of light in the dullness of the room. The dingy old wallpaper of faded maroon with tarnished gilt flowers seemed shabbier than ever, though she tried not to notice it. But presently she put on her hat and went down the street to a little art store on Eighth Street and bought a shopworn copy of the Roman Colosseum, framed simply, and came home triumphant. It was her first attempt in all the years to satisfy the love of the beautiful that had been bottled up in her soul, and she felt almost wicked at the happiness it gave her when the picture was finally hung over the mantel. It really did go wonderfully well with the candlesticks, and covered a great deal of the ugly wallpaper.

Ernestine seemed to take kindly to the changes and sat beneath the mantel contentedly, with a furtive suggestion in her attitude of how nice it would be to have a fireplace there with an open fire on a cold day.

It was Thursday morning that the dining room shutter stuck and refused to open even with a blow from a hammer. It had rained all night, and doubtless the wood was swollen. What a bother it was to be a woman and not know what to do in a case like that! If this had happened in the store she would have sent for the store carpenter, but she had no carpenter.

She went to the kitchen door and threw it wide open to let in more light and air, for the room seemed stuffy. As the door swung wide she heard the sound of voices in the next yard and the ring of an ax.

“If you want money for any such nonsense, get to work and earn it. You’ll get none from me!” said a man’s voice angrily, and a door slammed loudly.

“I ain’t got any way to earn money,” said the sullen voice of Ronald. “Oh blame it! I ain’t got any way to earn money! I can’t ever do anything the other fellows do!” And the ax was slung viciously across the tiny yard.

Something in the boy’s tone appealed to the woman. It set a heartstring vibrating that had been touched on Sunday with invisible fingers, and the thrill of it had not been forgotten.

Martha paused in her kitchen doorway, her brows drawn thoughtfully. She stepped down hesitantly to the brick pavement and over to the fence, then realized she was not tall enough to see over the fence and went back to the house again. In a moment she reappeared with Ernestine’s soapbox and a look of determination on her face, planted the box firmly by the fence, and mounted it.

The boy had resumed his ax and was bringing it down fiercely on a stubborn stick of wood. His face was dark and dejected. She did not need a prophet to tell that the boy was bitterly disappointed. Martha’s heart gave a keen jerk of sympathy.

“Boy!” she said sharply. It was the way they addressed the cash boys in the store. She knew no other.

The boy looked up, frowning. He did not wish intrusion in his bitterness.

Martha tried to smile with her strangely palpitating heart in her throat. The effect was curious. The boy forgot his bitterness in studying her. What was “Spice Box” going to charge him with now?

“Ma’am?” said the boy, his voice still sullen.

She was surprised to find how disappointed she was that he had no smiling response for her, but she tried another smile. She wasn’t so used to smiling.

“Why, I thought perhaps you would help me just a minute,” she began apologetically. “I can’t get my dining room shutter open. I don’t know what’s the matter.”

“Sure!” said the boy disinterestedly, flinging his ax down with relief and vaulting over the fence before she knew what he was going to do. His suddenness quite took her breath away. She turned cautiously on her box and started to get down, but the boy stepped up and put out his arm. He didn’t say, “Let me help,” but it amounted to that, and she fairly trembled over the pleasure it gave her. Somehow chivalry had come her way at last!

She led him to the dining room, and Ernestine arose in haste and arched her back when she saw him. Ronald stooped and smoothed her fur, rubbed her under her chin, and spoke in gentle tones.

“Hullo, Old Top! Had a hard time the other day, didn’t you? Binny Twinning’s got a ripper all down one cheek. You just missed his eye. And Chuck Frisbie’s lost the hide off his nose. Some class to you!”

And wonder of wonders, Ernestine the conservative rubbed her sides against the boy’s trousers and arched her head coyly up to his knees, rumbling her affection in no uncertain terms.

Then the boy stalked to the window, gave it one look, grasped hold of the iron ring, and gave it a mighty jolt, and behold it opened meekly, as if nothing had been the matter. Martha sighed in relief and wonder. The boy had accomplished the impossible so easily.

She handed forth a bright quarter from the little dish of change she kept on the sideboard for incidentals, but the boy straightened up from giving Ernestine a parting touch of affection and she suddenly realized she had made a mistake, for he flushed and frowned and drew back.

“Naw, I don’t want nothin’,” he said. “What do you think I am? Take money for just a little thing like that? I guess not! I ain’t a gyp. That’s all right. Glad to do it for you.”

She drew the money back, embarrassed before his generous spirit. He was in need of money for some desire of his heart, for she had just heard him say so, yet he would not take it. He had shattered at a blow one of her fixed ideas about boys. She had thought they were all selfish mercenary little animals, and here he wouldn’t accept her money! Indeed, she had rather enjoyed the prospect of giving him something to help in the big desire of his heart, and now he wouldn’t let her help him! She shrank from his clear eyes and his high-handed way of distributing his favors. She felt ashamed that she had offered him money, and as if she ought to apologize.

“But if you hadn’t come in, I should have had to send for a carpenter,” she faltered, “and you know that would have cost me a great deal more.”

“You wouldn’t need a carpenter for a little thing like that,” he said patronizingly. “It wasn’t anything.”

He started to go back to the fence to return the way he had come. Martha stood uncertainly in her kitchen door and watched him place his hard young hands on the fence preparatory to vaulting over.

“I’ll tell you,” she said with sudden inspiration. “Do you like gingerbread?”

“I sure do!” said the boy, with shining eyes.

“Well, I’m going to bake gingerbread today. What time do you get home from school? You go to school, don’t you?”

“Sure I go. I get home about four o’clock when I don’t get kept in.”

“Well, don’t get kept in today, and I’ll have some hot gingerbread for you at four o’clock.”

There was a smile in her eyes that looked unaccustomed. But the boy understood, and his eyes answered.

“Some class!” he answered. “I’ll be here!” And he vaulted the fence and was soon heard chopping and whistling cheerily. Martha wondered why she felt all at once so interested in life.

Ernestine came to the door and purred lovingly around her feet, and somehow Martha knew why the cat had not seemed shy of the boy, and was at once convinced that there must be something unusual about him. He didn’t seem a bit like what she thought other boys were. She was sure she never thought before that a boy could be so likable.

She took pleasure in hunting up her mother’s old recipe for gingerbread and getting everything prepared for baking so that it might be ready by four o’clock. She took a pint more milk and some cream to whip, so that there would be plenty to offer along with the gingerbread.

At four o’clock the boy arrived promptly, walking in the side gate and tapping at the kitchen door with an air of delightful secrecy.

He looked half ashamed as he dragged off his cap and entered. He had been thinking about the gingerbread all day, but he wouldn’t have her know it for the world.

“I just thought I’d stop in and see if that shutter’s working all right yet,” he mumbled, his cheeks growing red. He wasn’t embarrassed, of course, not a bit, but he had to make some kind of bluff to carry off the situation.

She led him into the front room where the reconstructed mantel gave an air of newness to the place and seated him in a comfortable chair near the round center table. The cat rose with a welcoming yawn and rubbed her back lazily against the boy’s foot as if to say, “Well, this is cozy of you!”

Martha came in bearing a tray on which was a great plate of steaming squares of hot gingerbread, a glass of foamy milk, and a dish of velvety whipped cream. She set it down on the table beside him and bade him eat as much as he wanted to, offering a dish if he wanted to put whipped cream on the cake. She took a piece of gingerbread herself just to keep him company and sat in the rocker to eat it sociably. The boy was not slow in accepting her invitation.