Rudder Grange Part 4

"Look here!" said he.

I looked, but there was nothing unusual to see.

"What is it?" I asked.

He turned around and seeing Euphemia, said:

"Nothing."

It would be a very stupid person who could not take such a hint as that, and so, after a walk around the garden, Euphemia took occasion to go below to look at the kitchen fire.

As soon as she had gone, the boarder turned to me and said:

"I'll tell you what it is. She's working herself sick."

"Sick?" said I. "Nonsense!"

"No nonsense about it," he replied.

The truth was, that the boarder was right and I was wrong. We had spent several months at Rudder Grange, and during this time Euphemia had been working very hard, and she really did begin to look pale and thin. Indeed, it would be very wearying for any woman of culture and refinement, unused to house-work, to cook and care for two men, and to do all the work of a ca.n.a.l-boat besides.

But I saw Euphemia so constantly, and thought so much of her, and had her image so continually in my heart, that I did not notice this until our boarder now called my attention to it. I was sorry that he had to do it.

"If I were in your place," said he, "I would get her a servant."

"If you were in my place," I replied, somewhat cuttingly, "you would probably suggest a lot of little things which would make everything very easy for her."

"I'd try to," he answered, without getting in the least angry.

Although I felt annoyed that he had suggested it, still I made up my mind that Euphemia must have a servant.

She agreed quite readily when I proposed the plan, and she urged me to go and see the carpenter that very day, and get him to come and part.i.tion off a little room for the girl.

It was some time, of course, before the room was made (for who ever heard of a carpenter coming at the very time he was wanted?) and, when it was finished, Euphemia occupied all her spare moments in getting it in nice order for the servant when she should come. I thought she was taking too much trouble, but she had her own ideas about such things.

"If a girl is lodged like a pig, you must expect her to behave like a pig, and I don't want that kind."

So she put up pretty curtains at the girl's window, and with a box that she stood on end, and some old muslin and a lot of tacks, she made a toilet-table so neat and convenient that I thought she ought to take it into our room and give the servant our wash-stand.

But all this time we had no girl, and as I had made up my mind about the matter, I naturally grew impatient, and at last I determined to go and get a girl myself.

So, one day at lunch-time, I went to an intelligence office in the city.

There I found a large room on the second floor, and some ladies, and one or two men, sitting about, and a small room, back of it, crowded with girls from eighteen to sixty-eight years old. There were also girls upon the stairs, and girls in the hall below, besides some girls standing on the sidewalk before the door.

When I made known my business and had paid my fee, one of the several proprietors who were wandering about the front room went into the back apartment and soon returned with a tall Irishwoman with a bony weather-beaten face and a large weather-beaten shawl. This woman was told to take a chair by my side. Down sat the huge creature and stared at me. I did not feel very easy under her scrutinizing gaze, but I bore it as best I could, and immediately began to ask her all the appropriate questions that I could think of. Some she answered satisfactorily, and some she didn't answer at all; but as soon as I made a pause, she began to put questions herself.

"How many servants do you kape?" she asked.

I answered that we intended to get along with one, and if she understood her business, I thought she would find her work very easy, and the place a good one.

She turned sharp upon me and said:

"Have ye stationary wash-tubs?"

I hesitated. I knew our wash-tubs were not stationary, for I had helped to carry them about. But they might be screwed fast and made stationary if that was an important object. But, before making this answer, I thought of the great conveniences for washing presented by our residence, surrounded as it was, at high tide, by water.

"Why, we live in a stationary wash-tub," I said, smiling.

The woman looked at me steadfastly for a minute, and then she rose to her feet. Then she called out, as if she were crying fish or strawberries:

"Mrs. Blaine!"

The female keeper of the intelligence office, and the male keeper, and a thin clerk, and all the women in the back room, and all the patrons in the front room, jumped up and gathered around us.

Astonished and somewhat disconcerted, I rose to my feet and confronted the tall Irishwoman, and stood smiling in an uncertain sort of a way, as if it were all very funny; but I couldn't see the point. I think I must have impressed the people with the idea that I wished I hadn't come.

"He says," exclaimed the woman, as if some other huckster were crying fish on the other side of the street--"he says he lives in a wash-toob."

"He's crazy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Blaine, with an air that indicated "policeman" as plainly as if she had put her thought into words.

A low murmur ran through the crowd of women, while the thin clerk edged toward the door.

I saw there was no time to lose. I stepped back a little from the tall savage, who was breathing like a hot-air engine in front of me, and made my explanations to the company. I told the tale of "Rudder Grange," and showed them how it was like to a stationary wash-tub--at certain stages of the tide.

I was listened to with great attention. When I had finished, the tall woman turned around and faced the a.s.semblage.

"An' he wants a cook to make soup! In a ca.n.a.l-boat!" said she, and off she marched into the back-room, followed closely by all the other women.

"I don't think we have any one here who would suit you," said Mrs.

Blaine.

I didn't think so either. What on earth would Euphemia have done with that volcanic Irishwoman in her little kitchen! I took up my hat and bade Mrs. Blaine good morning.

"Good morning," said she, with a distressing smile.

She had one of those mouths that look exactly like a gash in the face.

I went home without a girl. In a day or two Euphemia came to town and got one. Apparently she got her without any trouble, but I am not sure.

She went to a "Home"--Saint Somebody's Home--a place where they keep orphans to let, so to speak. Here Euphemia selected a light-haired, medium-sized orphan, and brought her home.

The girl's name was Pomona. Whether or not her parents gave her this name is doubtful. At any rate, she did not seem quite decided in her mind about it herself, for she had not been with us more than two weeks before she expressed a desire to be called Clare. This longing of her heart, however, was denied her. So Euphemia, who was always correct, called her Pomona. I did the same whenever I could think not to say Bologna--which seemed to come very pat for some reason or other.

As for the boarder, he generally called her Altoona, connecting her in some way with the process of stopping for refreshments, in which she was an adept.

She was an earnest, hearty girl. She was always in a good humor, and when I asked her to do anything, she a.s.sented in a bright, cheerful way, and in a loud tone full of good-fellowship, as though she would say:

"Certainly, my high old c.o.c.k! To be sure I will. Don't worry about it--give your mind no more uneasiness on that subject. I'll bring the hot water."