Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings Part 2

CHAPTER II

Miss Theodosia saw pink. Near-anger surged up within her at this ruinous, this piteous result of Stefana's toil. The result dangled creaksomely from her hands, revealing new wrinkles and smooches and leprous patches of starch at every motion. What was in this bundle would be in the rest--there was no hope.

In Theodosia Baxter's little girlhood, she had played there were two "'Dosies," a good one and a bad one. The Good 'Dosie was often away from home, but was sometimes apt to appear at unexpected moments, to the embarra.s.sment of the Bad 'Dosie. Stamp her foot as she would, Bad 'Dosie could not always drive the unwelcome intruder away.

"I don't like her!" the small sinner had once been heard to say.

"She--she p'eaches at me!"

The Good 'Dosie was preaching now.

"Wait! Count ten!" she preached. "Don't get any angrier, or you'll see red instead of pink. Think of that poor child's burned thumbs--think of her having to take to her bed when she got through--"

"I don't wonder!" snapped Bad 'Dosie.

"Wait--wait! Aren't you going to be good? Do you remember what you used to do, to help out? Well?"

Miss Theodosia dropped the starchy ma.s.s on top of the other newspaper bundles and rather suddenly sat down in a chair. She saw a little child, preached to and penitent, on her knees, with folded hands, saying "Now I lame me down to sleep."

It was very still in the room. Miss Theodosia's eyes closed and opened again. It was as if she had said "Now I lame me." A little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She no longer saw even pink.

She got up briskly and began turning back her cuffs. First, she would build the kitchen fire; it must roar and snap, with all the work it had to do to-night. She would heat a lot of water, for only boiling water could take out Stefana's awful starch. While the water was heating, she would eat her supper.

"A good, big supper, it will have to be," smiled this gentled Miss Theodosia. "I've got to get up my strength! No tea-and-toast-and-jam supper to-night." She heated her gridiron smoking hot and broiled a bit of steak. She tossed together little feathery biscuit and made coffee, fragrant and strong. Momently, Miss Theodosia's strength "got up." She moved about the kitchen briskly--when had she launched out upon a night's work like this? Adventure!--call it adventure.

Work to Miss Theodosia had always meant something that other people did,--the Stefanas and their mothers and brothers and fathers. What she herself did, a gentle, dilatory playing at work, hardly merited the name. A bit of dusting, tea-and-toasting, making her own bed, cooking for sheer love of cooking, what did they count in Miss Theodosia's summing up of tasks?

Always there had been some one to do her heavy things. She had put her washings out and taken her dinners in; three times a week she was swept and scrubbed and made immaculate.

But to-night--to-night was different. This was to be no playing at work.

Miss Theodosia rose to the occasion gallantly--indeed, exultantly.

Thrills of enthusiasm ran up, ran down her spine. She prepared for a night of it.

The dresses immersed in steaming hot water and her supper eaten, she stretched drying-lines, with considerable difficulty, from corner to corner of her kitchen, prepared an ironing-board, and got out long-idle irons. At eight o'clock she stopped for breath. Stefana's starch still resisted all inducements to part with Miss Theodosia's dresses; more hot water was required. After another steamy bath, they were cooled and wrung and draped over the crisscross clotheslines in the hot kitchen.

Then Miss Theodosia temporarily retired from the field of battle.

Theodosia Baxter had come back from her travelings to this small ancestral town with a mildly disturbing taste in her mouth. "Settling down" at thirty-six was not at all to her mind; she would not settle down!

"If I catch you doing it, Theodosia Baxter!" she said. "If I catch you growing old! The minute you feel it coming on, you pack up and start for Rome! Or Paris! Or Turkistan! Start for Anywhere! Keep going!"

But, already, did she feel it coming on even before all her trunks were unpacked? She was a little frightened at certain signs. Now, when she sat down heavily--why did she sit down heavily? If some one had called upon her for scores of little services, so that she must hop up again, immediately--little piping voices: "Mother, where's my cap?" "Mother, make Johnnie stop plaguing me!" "Mother, come quick!" If a big John had come home to her, demanding her time or sympathy or service--

"No little Johns--no big one!" She sighed. "Is that the matter with you, Theodosia Baxter? Well, for Heaven's sake, don't tell anybody! Keep a bold front."

She dozed a little in her rocker while she waited. Her plaintive reveries took the shape of a sober little dream wherein one Theodosia Baxter tottered on a cane and another walked briskly and youngly among Johns. Both Theodosias were thirty-six.

"Mercy!" she exclaimed, waking up. "Where's my cane? I must go and iron Stefana's dresses!" She felt oddly refreshed. Queer dream to refresh one! She found herself thinking kindly of Stefana.

"I hope she's sound asleep, and a pitying little girl angel with a nurse's cap under her halo will slip down and cure her thumbs before she wakes up."

The irons she had set to heating were much too hot. Should she run out-of-doors while one of them cooled, and lie in wait to catch the little nurse-angel on the wing or perhaps darting thrillingly down to Stefana on a shooting star, breaking all speed limits! This was a night for adventure. The wild ride of a becapped and haloed little celestial in goggles would be an adventure! Miss Theodosia laughed out girlishly, not at all a tottery laugh on a cane, and the pleasant sound broke the midnight stillness.

The dresses were dry enough to roll into tight bundles. One she essayed to iron as it was. She began as soon as the iron was cool enough.

Miss Theodosia toiled--adventured--through the long hours into the short. It was unaccustomed toiling, and, like Stefana, she burned her thumbs. She had judgment and the skill that age kindly lends, in her favor, and slowly her delicate fingers undid the ravages of Stefana's patient endeavors and brought beauteous perfection out of apparent ruin.

But the process was wearying and long. It would have been but half the labor to have begun at the beginning instead of at Stefana's poor little end.

At midnight, Miss Theodosia made herself cups of tea and sipped them thirstily. A wrist, both thumbs, and her testing forefinger smarted; she was tired and disheveled. But the spirit of adventure refused to die.

The fire burned red-hot and the irons must cool again. Miss Theodosia slipped out this time into the soft darkness.

"Let us hope Aunt Sarah will 'knit fast,'" she was thinking, with whimsical eyes. "But if she doesn't--Theodosia Baxter, dear, if Aunt Sarah is a slow knitter, you are in for it! I've no idea of letting you off. Baxters that begin, end."

It was dim starshine out-of-doors. Miss Theodosia was too late to see the nurse-angel riding on her star, her little cap and halo awry with the downhill glide through s.p.a.ce. She was too late to see her go into the dark little House of Children--but she saw her come out. Distinctly, a misty little blur of white against the velvet background. Miss Theodosia started a very little--did she need pinching to wake her?

For the s.p.a.ce of a clock-tick the little celestial appeared to hesitate, as though waiting for her star-steed to come within her hail. Then, floatingly, not walking, it seemed to Miss Theodosia, the mist of blurry white drew nearer. It came near to Miss Theodosia, and it was not the nurse-angel in cap and shining halo. It was Stefana!

The child was in her nightgown. One look into her wide, unseeing eyes was enough; Stefana was asleep. In a chattering little voice she was talking to herself. It was like a soft wail of sound.

"I must get them back! Quick, before she sees; I must iron them over.

Perhaps if I starched them again--another coat of starch might hide the smooches. She mustn't see the smooches! If Mother should lose the chance--oh, I must get 'em back and starch 'em another coat! Mother mustn't lose her! My thumbs ache so!"

Was she coming straight toward the door? No, a fortunate whiff of breeze seemed to blow her aside like a little seed-puff, and she went drifting by. She was apparently searching anxiously.

"I must find them! Quick, before she sees! Oh, there are the smooches. I see some of the smooches! But I can't find the rest of them--"

Miss Theodosia sprang forward in the direction of the pathetic little figure, but almost as quickly caught herself up. Sleepwalkers were not to be awakened suddenly. What then was to be done?

"I must get her back to bed without letting her wake," thought Miss Theodosia. A plan suggested itself. She caught of her large ap.r.o.n, rolled it into a bulky ma.s.s, and swiftly followed the small nightgowned figure. Her steps made no sound over the gra.s.s. It was but the work of an instant to lay the roll of ap.r.o.n in Stefana's arms. Instantly, at the feel of starched cloth in her hands, the tense little face relaxed.

"I've got 'em back!" Stefana muttered, and, as if from the relief of it, the troubled sleep seemed to calm and quiet down into deep oblivion to all troubles. To Miss Theodosia's dismay Stefana slid quietly to the ground and dreamlessly slept. Here, indeed, was adventure! Even at twelve years and Stefana small, the child was too heavy to carry home.

"I don't dare to wake her," Miss Theodosia cried aloud, but softly, as if in fear of doing so.

"You needn't--hush! I'll carry her for you."

The voice seemed to materialize out of the gloom into something big and high and unexpectedly close at hand that rightly should have startled Miss Theodosia but failed to do so. Afterward, in the house again, among her irons, she was startled.

"I was going by and saw her--you can tell a sleepwalker by the way one walks. Glides. Now, when I lift her, gently support her head--that's it.

Forward, march!"

"This way," Miss Theodosia directed in a whisper, though he was already moving this way. Shadow Man that he was, he stepped earthily, with thuds of his feet on the gra.s.s. Miss Theodosia's footsteps were soft echoes.

So they came to the little House of Flaggs.

"There's a light in that inside room, and I can see a bed. I'll lay her down, and you can go in afterward--and--er--smooth her out."

"Yes--yes, I'll wait out here," whispered Miss Theodosia with a curious solemnity in her face. Rome, nor Paris, nor Anywhere had offered adventure like this--not like this. Miss Theodosia had an odd feeling that this, too, was a dream--and a John. Would they all wake up together?

"Sound as a nut--never knew what hit her! But she wants straightening.