Drusilla with a Million Part 11

Two more calls of the same kind were made and as they were turning into another gate, Drusilla leaned forward and said to the chauffeur: "Joseph, go straight ahead." Then, turning to Daphne, Drusilla said: "We're goin' for a ride now; we ain't goin' to spoil this lovely day with no more calls."

Drusilla would not listen to Daphne's remonstrances, and the motor flew along the beautiful drive overlooking the Hudson. Drusilla did not speak for a time, simply enjoying the ride. Then she turned to the girl.

"Daphne, what does subsidize mean."

Daphne frowned for a moment.

"I wonder if I can tell. I know what it means but it is hard to say it. It means to pay a certain sum of money to some one or some thing.

For instance, the ships that carry the mails for some governments are subsidized; or if the government wants to aid some project, to enable it to start, it subsidizes it--that is, gives it a certain sum per year like a salary. Have I made myself clear? Father could tell you better than I can."

"I guess I see what it is," Drusilla said.

"Why do you want to know?" queried Daphne.

"Well, I got a little mixed up in what it meant. I got a letter this morning from some man--some poet I guess he is--who said that I should leave my money to subsidize struggling poets, who had a great message to give the world, but who had to work so hard making a livin' that they didn't git no chance to give the message. I'm afraid I got kind of mixed up--I could think of nothin' but etherize. I guess it was the strugglin' that confused my mind, and I been wondering why I could etherize a lot of struggling young poets. But now I understand."

"Well, of all the impertinence--"

"I don't know, Daphne; there's some truth in what he said. He said that nations needed great thoughts as well as they needed great inventions--them's his words not mine--and often rich men subsidized a poor inventor or a poor scientist so's they could have time to make their inventions and not have to worry over their daily bread; so why shouldn't it be done for the poets who would then have time to give great thoughts to the people, thoughts that would inspire them to n.o.ble deeds and works. There's a lot of sense in what he says."

"But you would never _think_ of doing such a thing--"

"No, of course not; but I like to hear about it. And I been a studyin' a lot about that young man,--I am sure he was young or he wouldn't have had the courage to write me; it's only the young who have the courage to _try_."

"I call it _nerve_," said Daphne scornfully; "plain _nerve_."

"Yes, perhaps it is. But I was thinkin' about this young man who has got a feelin' inside of him that he could say somethin' that would make the world better, and he tries, then he's got to go to an office or somewhere and perhaps count rolls of cloth, or he may be a newspaper man who has to write stories of murders and divorces and-- and--things like that, when beautiful things is just a chokin' him."

She was silent for a moment.

"It's an awful thing to be poor, Daphne--real poor. Yet--" she said musingly, "even when you're real poor you can always find somethin'

to give. Like Mis' Sweet. Did I ever tell you about Mis' Sweet? She lived in our village and she was mortal poor all her life. When her husband lived he didn't do no more work than he had to and she had to git along as best she could, and then when he died she lived with her son, who was so mean and stingy that he made her go to bed at dark so's she wouldn't burn kerosene. She was so poor that she never had cookies or cakes to send her neighbors, and it kind o' cut her, because in the country we was always sendin' some little thing we'd been bakin' to each other, because that's about the only kind of presents country women can make to each other, somethin' they make themselves.

"So Mis' Sweet felt kind o' bad that she couldn't make no return.

But, as I says, one ain't never too poor but that they kin give something. Now Mis' Sweet and nothin' pretty in her house, and never saw much that was beautiful, but she had beautiful thoughts inside, and she loved the flowers and things that grew around her.

"Mis' Sweet made paper flowers trying to say the beautiful things she felt inside, jest like that poet. She couldn't buy none of the pretty crinkled papers that we see nowadays; she never saw none of those; but she saved all the little pieces of tissue paper, and any sc.r.a.p of silk, and the neighbors saved 'em for her too, and they saved their broom wire; and no one ever thought of throwin' away an old green window shade--it was sent to Mis' Sweet for her leaves. She twisted the broom wires with any piece of green paper that she could git hold of, and she cut the papers into flowers, the white ones into daisies and the little pieces of silk was colored with dyes that the neighbors give her that they had left over, and she made roses and apple blossoms and begonias and geraniums, and all the flowers that she knowed. If some were peculiar and didn't look like much o'

anything she called them jest wild flowers. She made them all into bouquets. And there wasn't a new baby born in the village but that the mother found by her bedside a bouquet of Mis' Sweet's, and no bride went to the altar but she had a little piece o' orange blossom on her that had been lovingly pinned on by Mis' Sweet, and before the lid was closed over our dead--they had slipped in their fingers a little flower from their old neighbor. And do you think that we laughed at her stiff little bouquets? No! We all loved 'em and we understood, 'cause with each leaf made out of our old window shades and from each wire from our wore out brooms, there was a little love mixed in with the coverin'."

She was silent for a few moments; then she added:

"And I think that this young poet will find a way to give something to the world, if he really loves it and wants to give, same as Mis'

Sweet did."

They were returning home along the drive.

"We haven't made half the calls that we should," Daphne said. "We must go another day."

Drusilla shook her head decisively.

"No; I won't make no more calls."

"Oh, but, Miss Doane, you _must_. You must return your calls."

"Oh, but I mustn't, and I won't," said Drusilla, shaking her head obstinately. "I most froze at some of them places, and I won't risk it again. I won't make calls. They can come to me, Miss Thornton, but I won't go back."

"But they won't come to see you if you don't return the calls."

"Well, they can stay at home then--it ain't much loss on either side."

"But what will you do?"

"I'll send William to know when they are out, and he can leave my cards jest as well as I can. I won't go into them rooms and drink tea out of my lap and eat with my gloves on, and talk about things I don't know nothin' about and don't care even if I did. I'm too old to begin such foolishness."

"But what will I tell them when they ask why you don't return their calls?"

"You can tell them anything you want to. I _won't_ go."

Daphne said mischievously: "I'll say you are a _very_ old lady, and _feeble_, and cannot take the exertion of making calls."

Drusilla sat up very straight and a slight flush appeared on her cheeks.

"You'll say _no_ such thing, Daphne Thornton. You say the truth, that I don't see no sense in it. Old indeed! I'm not so old; and as to being feeble--"

Daphne snuggled her face against the arm near her.

"Oh, you are a dear, Miss Doane. I love to see you get angry. But _you_ say you are old!"

"That's different. I say it with my own meanin', and generally to pet out of doin' somethin' I don't want to do. But I'm growin'

younger each minute. Perhaps"--she chuckled softly to herself--"it's my second childhood."

They came to the door, and it was opened by James--stiff, correct, funereal.

"No," almost groaned Drusilla; "there's James. Now I know I'm dead and only waitin' for the buryin'."

CHAPTER V

Drusilla grew more and more to feel that she was a part of her little world, where everything revolved around her and her wishes were law. It was only natural that she gained confidence in herself.

She lost her awe of the servants, and even found courage to speak shortly to James, who, she learned from Jeanne, was relegating most of his duties to William, thinking Miss Doane would not know the difference.

But after the excitement of the first few weeks was past she found the time heavy on her hands. She had no duties, she did not read, there was no sewing nor mending for her, and she could not always work in the conservatories among the flowers; consequently she began to long for something with which to occupy her thoughts and, above all, her hands.

One morning when she was wandering aimlessly around the house she went into the pastry room. There she looked in delight at all the shining pans and the bowls arranged in graduated sizes on their shelves.

"My, ain't it nice, and everything so handy!"