Drusilla with a Million Part 46

"Yes," said Dr. Eaton. "And I have been to see him and I think it is a poor loan unless his business is looked into more closely. Now, Miss Doane, I have an idea. My friend, Frank Stillman, has just started into business as an efficiency engineer."

"What's that?" asked Drusilla, interested at once in anything new.

"He makes it his business to study firms that are going to the wall and locate their trouble and puts them on their feet again, if possible. I took him with me to Mr. Panoff, and I believe he could go there a while and find out what the difficulty is. It used to be a good business when Panoff bought it, but he seems to have lost his grip some way, and he can't see far enough ahead because he is so crowded by the daily troubles. An outsider will be able to see with a better perspective."

"Are we goin' to let this Mr. Panoff have the money?"

"No; not at present. Here is my scheme. I want you to put Frank in there for a time and let him find out if there are any possibilities of getting the business back on its feet. If Frank succeeds, we will let Panoff have the money on his personal note, if he agrees to follow out the suggestions of Frank.

"I have another idea that I have been thinking about. There are a lot of small business ventures that are running to seed, where the owner is getting discouraged, and lacks the broad outlook that would keep him going, and needs some one who is a professional setter-up like Frank, to put him wise, and to readjust his business. I suggest that we hire Frank, for at least a part of his time--he won't be expensive, as he is just starting--to look into the affairs of the men who come to us for money. The owner must agree to allow Frank to readjust things for him, and then when his affairs are prospering again, he will pay a certain sum for Frank's services, taking the expense away from us. It is also a better guarantee for our loan, because Frank is a pretty level-headed business man and if there are any possibilities in the run down business, he will find them, and if there are not he will report to us. What do you think of it?"

"I think it is a good thing; but is there enough things like that to keep him busy?"

"Well, we need take only a part of his time; but I can think of half a dozen little manufacturers who would welcome the chance to find out what is wrong. That publishing house I was telling you about. The manager is impractical, is paying too much out in salaries, hasn't any method in his establishment, and has a dozen leaks that he can't find, but which could easily be located by a professional leak finder. There are a lot of men in business who are honest and willing to work, but who are in a rut and can't see the new things coming, and who could be put on their feet by an injection of a little outside ginger and a readjustment of their business on more modern methods. They are the ones who need help and who will be good for their loans; and that's one thing we are going to try to make sure of, because we aren't going to give any money away if we know it.

It's going to be a real service too, Miss Doane. I don't think there is anything more pitiful than a man, who has been in business for himself, to have to give up and say he is a failure. It hurts to be compelled to go into some one's shop as a clerk or mechanic when you've once been your own master. It'll put jasm into a lot of men that have lost their nerve and only need some one to set them straight. You won't lose by it, Miss Doane; I am sure of that."

"I ain't thinkin' about that. Yet I ain't makin' a charity; it's a business, and I don't want a lot of salaried people to eat up everything. That's too much like most of them charities we looked into. I want this a business that'll sound sensible and that'll be sensible, and I don't want a lot of failures to think they can work us. I want 'em to find that they got the wrong pig by the ear if they try to do the Doane fund.

"Bring that young man Frank to me and let me look him over. I ain't very worldly, but I like to look a man in the eye if he's going to do something for me. I want the men who's goin' to be with us, ambitious, upright young men that's willin' to work. I hate a lazy man--I can tell one a mile off. A lazy man's worse'n a dead one, 'cause a dead one's put away and can't do no harm while a lazy one's always around, spoilin' the ambitious one's work.

"Now, we won't talk business no more. Let's go into the yard. Daphne is there with some of the babies. Let's go out to her."

Dr. Eaton hesitated.

"I think I had better be going on to the hospital. I--I--"

Drusilla looked up at him quickly.

"Dr. Eaton, what's the matter with you? I don't understand young men of to-day nohow. Here I been for more'n a year tryin' to have you and Daphne see somethin' of each other, riskin' her father takin' my head off, and now you shy off as if you thought she would bite you. Don't you like my little girl?"

Dr. Eaton flushed under the clear brown of his tan.

"It isn't that, Miss Doane. You must know what I think of Daphne."

"Well, what is it, then? You're clear beyond me."

"Well--well--" and the doctor hesitated.

"Well, go on. Tell me all about it."

"It's this way, Miss Doane. I'm only a poor doctor without much of a practise, and it'll take me several years to work into a good one.

And Daphne--you know how she has been brought up--and the kind of things she is used to having--and the crowd she goes with--"

"What's that got to do with it?"

"I--you must see, Miss Doane--that I can't give Daphne the things she is used to and that she'd quite likely expect as a matter of course--not that she is any more mercenary than any of the rest of the girls of her set, but she doesn't understand not being rich--she has never known anything else--"

"Oh, stuff and nonsense! I know Daphne."

"Yes, but her people; her father--and, O Lord, Miss Doane--her mother--"

"I confess she is some pill to take; but there's one consolation-- you don't have to live with your mother-in-law in these times, and you ain't marryin' the hull family. Is that all?"

"No--but, then--"

"But then _what?_ There is somethin' else?"

"Yes, there is, Miss Doane. I guess--I--I am old-fashioned, but I want a home-wife--a woman who'll love babies, and have them and not feel that they are an impediment to her career. I--I'm--a little dippy on children--I guess--"

He laughed a little shamefacedly. "I want babies in my home--babies that'll climb around me when I come from work--boys and girls that I can love and do for and see grow up into men and women, that'll make me feel that I have really done something for the world--and--and the way Daphne's been brought up--well, her set don't believe in babies-- and--rather think motherhood is degrading--and--"

They had came to a corner of the veranda overlooking the part of the lawn where a merry group of little children were playing ring-a-round-a-rosy, and a tall, laughing girl was standing in the middle of the ring, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, as the clear young voice sang the simple play song. The doctor's face softened and he forgot what he was saying. They stood there a while, watching the happy group. Then, the children becoming tired of the game, Daphne sat down in a rocking-chair under a tree, and they grouped themselves around her feet. She took one of the tiniest into her lap and, cuddling it against her breast, began to rock slowly backward and forward. The words of the old lullaby came softly:

"Rock-a-bye, baby, On the tree-top, When the wind blows The cradle will rock--"

Drusilla looked up at Dr. Eaton and her face broke into tiny little love wrinkles as she saw the look on his face. She put her faded old hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes for a long moment; then she said softly:

"Go on, my boy; and G.o.d bless you!"

And the doctor went.

CHAPTER XVIII

At three o'clock on July 16th, there met in the Doane library Mr.

Carrington, Mr. Raydon--the multi-millionaire and great friend of Drusilla's--Mr. Thornton, Dr. Eaton, and half a dozen of the residents of Brookvale.

"Gentlemen," Drusilla began when the men were seated, "I suppose you wonder why you are all here. I'm goin' to tell you, because you are all my neighbors and I have heard that you are worryin' about what I am goin' to do. We've all got a right to expect happiness in Heaven, but I believe we git what we give, and I want to give as much happiness here as I kin, so's I'll be sure to have somethin' to my account on the other side. I been lookin' around fer two years, tryin' to find a way to leave my million dollars so's to give as much happiness and joy to them that hasn't their share, or so's to benefit the most people in the most lastin' way, and I haven't found it yet.

But I have found a way to invest my income, and a little of the money that's come in through the good business head and investments of Mr.

Thornton.

"I've always loved babies, and I've always wanted to be a mother; but it didn't seem to fit in with G.o.d's plans fer me. Perhaps He knowed that I'd have a chance to mother a bigger family than I could raise myself, no matter how hard I tried, and he sent me these babies. Now, these are my plans fer them. I ain't goin' to start an orphan asylum, nor a house of refuge, nor no kind of a 'home.' I ain't goin' to take more'n I kin git along comfortable with and make a real home fer, not an inst.i.tution. I'm goin' to educate 'em and make 'em men and women you'll be proud of, but I ain't goin' to try to make ladies and gentlemen of 'em, whether they're born fer that or not. If a boy has a head that'll make him an architect, then we'll make him an architect, but if he was jest intended fer a good carpenter then he'll be a good carpenter; and if a girl has it in her to be a school-teacher, she'll have a chance at it--if not, she kin always make a good livin' as a dressmaker or a milliner. They're goin' to be made into good middle-cla.s.s men and women; and when they git their education, I'll have 'em sent out into the world with a trained brain but empty hands, and if they've got the right stuff in 'em, they will soon fill their hands.

"I know there's been lots of objections to the mothers of some of my babies comin' to the neighborhood; but the ones that's willin' to come are the ones who's wantin' a chance to become self-supportin', self-respectin' women; and that's what most women want--jest a chance. They'll be learnt a trade, somethin' that they have leanin's to, and they'll go out in the world agin able to take care of themselves, without help from no one.

"I got a lot of spare rooms in the house that's doin' no good to no one, and I'm goin' to ask some mothers and their little ones to spend a few days with me in the hot weather. I've been to see 'em, and I'll always know the ones I ask. They'll be friends of mine, jest like you ask your friends to visit you fer a few days. It won't be a mothers'

home nor a summer home nor nothin' charitable. I'm jest goin' to give a little sunlight to some of my friends in the hot tenements, whose sack of happiness ain't been full to overflowin'.

"Now, that disposes of my income and the new money saved, but it ain't done nothin' with the million dollars. I been visitin'

inst.i.tutions and charities, I've talked with every one who's got an idee about it. Dr. Eaton wants me to endow a home fer children and mothers; but I won't do that, as I can't live always to watch it. I know that I could make Dr. Eaton manager of it, and you gentlemen directors and my idees would be carried out as long as you was alive; but you all got to die sometime, and it'd git to be a business thing, payin' a lot of officials, and it'd drift into an inst.i.tution like lots I've seen, with no heart in it. I've thought a lot about them foundations that leaves the money to be used as the times sees fit, and they seem kind of sensible, because times change and what I'd leave it fer now might not be needed in fifty years. New things would come up with the new generations, and my fund'd be way behind the times and not fit in. I'm a little leanin' towards that kind of leavin' the money, yet--yet--I don't know. I'd like to git something new, something different, that'd go on and on in the right way doin'

good.

"Mr. Raydon kind of has leanin's towards a people's bank, lending money to poor people who ain't got nothin' but their honesty and reputation--but he's goin' to figger that out by himself and in the meantime he's waitin' to see what I find out, as he's got more money than he kin take with him. He says he's only interested 'cause he likes me and I make him laugh, but way down deep inside of him he's got the biggest kind of heart; but he don't want his money to be wasted when he's gone, no more'n I do.

"Gentlemen, I want you to think it over, ask every one, the same's I'm doin', git some new idees about the way to spend a million dollars and spend it right."