Stories from Everybody's Magazine Part 9

"And then if somebody saw it through the window, and went and told young Emery Ford or Mr. Hyatt, I don't know what on earth I should do," reflected the careworn matron.

"Mamma, do come and look at these lovely postals," Ellen cried effusively a little later, as her mother, plainly ill at ease, pa.s.sed through the room. "I'm going to pull out those that Cousin Rob sent me from Texas, and put these in right after the California ones. See here, mamma; isn't this one beautiful?

Ma'Lou was there a week. She's put a little cross over the hotel where they stayed."

Mrs. Kendrick looked at the strong, well-developed figure of her guest, and a certain dull anger arose in her mind. Why did health and money both go to this inferior creature, when they were lacking in higher quarters? Perhaps this prompted her query; "That hotel? It's a big one, isn't it? Did they--could you----?"

She broke off, and Mary Louise supplied, innocently enough: "Oh, they didn't let us travel during school term. This was a vacation trip."

She had been long away from the South; in the protective conditions of Oberlin she had been measurably free from the wounding of race prejudice; and now she failed to realize that Mrs. Kendrick's curiosity was as to whether she had been permitted to go to a hotel with white people.

Old Dicey's place in the kitchen had long been supplied by a negress of the newer generation--"the worst gossip and tattler in town," if you might take her mistress's word for it. Mrs.

Kendrick now made her way thither, ostensibly to superintend the preparation of the evening's refreshments, but in reality to try to fix up an explanation of why Ezra Jackson's daughter sat visiting in the dining room with the young lady of the house.

"Because if Penny goes out and tells her friends, every darky in town'll be retailing the story to the folks that hire them, and it'll soon be all over the place."

She came back into the dining room to find Ellen glowing with enthusiasm. Yes, her mind was still that of a sick child; she had dropped back into her old-time att.i.tude toward Mary Louise.

"Mamma, Ma'Lou says that they used to give lunches at the college, and fix the floral centerpiece so it would all come apart, and each guest could draw a bunch of it with a ribbon. Oh, I don't understand very well, but she can tell you--it's just beautiful, and we could make it out of the chrysanthemums in the side yard, she says."

Mrs. Kendrick looked uneasy. But there was no window in the dining room which commanded the street except the side light of the bay, and at it Ellen herself sat. n.o.body pa.s.sing would be apt to see Mary Louise over in the room.

"I reckon we can't go into those things," she objected, a little irritably. "I suppose Ma'Lou has seen a heap of fine doings up North that we couldn't possibly attempt."

"But she's promised to make me a lot of cute little candies--like potatoes, and put them in paper baskets--to go at each plate,"

put in Ellen, jealously.

The brown-faced girl nodded and laughed, with a quick flash of white teeth. It was plain she was taking the att.i.tude of an older person talking to a child about a juvenile party to which there could be no question of invitation, and Mrs. Kendrick's fears rather subsided. She was safe, if only Ellen would show some sense and judgment.

"Well, I must go on home, now, if I'm to make those candies and have them ready by this evening," said Ezra Jackson's daughter, getting to her feet. "They take a good while to harden properly."

Ellen went with her to the side door, clinging to her arm and insisting on some last remark. Mrs. Kendrick, in an agony of apprehension, hovered in the background.

"Oh, well," said the daughter of the house finally, "I won't bother you any more about it now, Ma'Lou. It's hard for you to explain just how to fix it, but you can show me when you come over this evening. I'll have the chrysanthemums ready. You come a little early--won't you, please?"

Mary Louise, in the doorway, glanced from mother to daughter in some confusion. Would this do? Her own mother had cautioned her to be certain to go to the side door.

"I--I don't know," she hesitated doubtfully. "I'll bring the candies over, if you like, and I might be able to show you a little about the table then." And again she looked from the face of the girl who had been her childhood's most intimate friend and a.s.sociate to that of the woman who had accepted so much at her childish hands.

"Why, I supposed you'd be here when I was giving the party, Ma'Lou," argued Ellen petulantly. "I don't see why not! Isn't it all right, mother?" she appealed sharply. "Shouldn't Ma'Lou come over this evening?"

For one desperate moment Mrs. Kendrick sought to shape a policy; Ellen's words sounded frightfully like an invitation to the party. Would Mary Louise accept them so? Her worried, resentful glance traveled over the tall, dignified figure, the correct, quiet costume. Oh, it had no business to be as hard as this! But she must make the girl understand; she could not run the risk of injury to Ellen's belated social opportunities.

"Why--you see--we--" she began, in an agony of embarra.s.sment, "we can't--we can't--" Her voice failed her. She looked fleetingly at Mary Louise, who returned the gaze with a look hurt, accusing, difficult to meet. She drew her breath sharply, and began again with more resolution. "We'll have an extra maid in to help with the serving. If you don't mind staying in the dining room with her--" She ceased and waited hopefully, to see if the girl understood. There was an uncertain silence. She must finish.

"Ma'Lou, if you'd stay in the dining room with Tillie, and wouldn't mind wearing a--cap--and ap.r.o.n like she does, why you could come over and look on."

Ellen Kendrick had seen somebody coming down the street. It was Emory Ford, and she flushed and dimpled and smiled as she bowed to him, forgetting everything else, including the departing Mary Louise, who, after one mute look at Mrs. Kendrick's flushed, disturbed face, turned and walked with hanging head toward the house on the corner.

Arrived at home, she went methodically to work upon the promised candies and the little baskets that were to contain them. Ezra Jackson's wife, noting the face of set misery, forbore long to question her as she brought out the novel materials and pursued her work.

The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Jackson was at work at her sewing-machine in the front hall; but she could not keep out of the kitchen, she made continual futile errands through it, giving anxious, sidelong glances at the child over whom her heart yearned.

Finally, when she could bear it no more, "Did--did something hurt your feelings over there, Ma'Lou?" she asked huskily.

She spoke behind her daughter's shoulder. The girl set the last finished basket in its place in the row before she turned to answer. Then she showed a face so much more cheerful and composed than the elder woman had dared hope for that the relief was almost revulsion.

"Sit down, mother," said Mary Lou, pushing a chair with her foot.

"Sit there while I fill the baskets, and I'll tell you about it."

The mother sat and watched the deft brown fingers, and marveled at the girl's collected manner, her quiet, even voice. For Ezra Jackson's wife was shaken by alternate gusts of anger and hurt pride, of shame and fear, as, with a judicial fairness extraordinary in one of her years and s.e.x, the girl went over the details of that unhappy visit. The old teamster had given his child a heritage of rare good sense. Early in the recital the woman broke in bitterly with:

"And yet you're making candies for her party? Such as that is all they want of you. I wouldn't do it. And I'd never step foot in their house again!"

"Why, mother, I'd certainly make these. I promised them," said Mary Louise mildly. She put the last tiny candy potato in place, pushed back the basket, wiped her hands, and turned fully to her mother. "But you're exactly right about not entering Judge Kendrick's house again," she said, with increasing emphasis. "I can't go in at the front door as a friend--that's true; I can't.

I certainly sha'n't go in at the back door as a servant--and--I've thought it all out now--I see it plain--our people make a great mistake when they hang around the side doors of white folks. There's no way but----"

"Don't say it, honey!" gasped the mother "Wait a minute." This was the end, and she could not quite face it. She was to lose her youngest and dearest. Mary Lou was going back North to live among the white people. Her head went down on the table the convulsed face hidden in her arms. Then broke forth the cry of the blood:

"Oh, Lord! I reckon I'm just another fool n.i.g.g.e.r woman that's raised a child too good for her own color. I wish I was dead--I wish I was dead!"

"Mother--mother!" The girl flung herself on her knees beside the chair, and caught at the other's dress. "Don't take on that way.

You don't understand. I'm--look around here--I'm glad of what happened over there to-day. It's shown me the truth about a good many things. We're all black people together. It's the only way for us now. I'm not going back to be Professor Sheridan's secretary--a black woman among white people. I'm going to marry Grant--he's everything to me; these people are nothing--and settle right down here in Watauga with him--and be happy and useful. Mother, you didn't make any mistake in the way you brought me up. I'll be a credit and a comfort to you yet."

Vol. XXIII No. 1 JULY 1910

THE TRIAL BALANCE {pages 83-94}

By MAXIMILIAN FOSTER

Author of "Corrie Who?" etc.

Like so many others of her cla.s.s, Stella Willoughby was a satisfied, confident woman, placidly aware of the station her husband's money a.s.sured to her. For Willoughby was accounted wealthy even in this lake town, where riches were so much in evidence; and if the wife betrayed a cool superiority because of his money, it was only natural, perhaps, since she and most of her a.s.sociates knew no other means of gauging success, or worth, or the individual's place in life. Looking over her shoulder now, she glanced nonchalantly across the club dining-room.

"You mean those people--the Severances, Mrs. Kinsman?" There was a bland indifference in her tone that made the guest beside Mrs.

Willoughby look at her curiously, for she knew that Severance had once been a suitor for Mrs. Willoughby's hand. "I believe we did know them before they dropped out. He lost everything, didn't he?--went to smash, as I vaguely remember."

Still with the same air of unconcern, she dipped the tips of her fingers in the finger-bowl, and prepared to rise. "Queer they should come back here, isn't it?" she commented idly; and then, as if the subject had pa.s.sed from her mind with the observation, Mrs. Willoughby pushed back her chair in signal to her guests, and led the way from the room. In the hall, while the maid was putting on her wraps, she turned and looked back, still idly as before. Her eyes, traveling about, rested a moment on the man sitting at the distant table, and then, when he half rose from his place as if to bow, they journeyed on again, coolly unconcerned. A moment later, smiling gayly, she walked down the steps to her carriage, and, with her guests, was driven away to the theatre.

Yet, somehow, in spite of this sureness of speech and manner, the sight of her old-time suitor had wakened in Mrs. Willoughby the subtle discontent that occasionally affected her--the discontent of women who have only themselves to think about. One might have said that at these times she was subconsciously wearied of her form of life; that, in so many words, though ignorant of the fact, though, consciously, her vacuous life immensely satisfied her, she was BORED. But to-day, bluntly speaking, it was about her husband that her vague dissatisfaction centered; and when she had glanced coolly at her former suitor, it was for the purpose of comparison.

Willoughby was a fair type of the money-getter. Furthermore, what he had built had been raised by his own hands unaided; he was a self-made man, whose one boast was that he owed nothing to any one, not even so little as a debt of grat.i.tude. One realized the fact, too, in the way he carried on his affairs; for in his business he was alert and determined, implacably pursuing his money-making as if it were a warfare, and considerate of none but those joined with him in the moment's harvesting venture. Perhaps his reasons were sufficient--who knows? Perhaps Willoughby was as well aware as they that the friends of to-day might reasonably become the enemies of to-morrow.

But at home the money gathered so ruthlessly elsewhere was thrown about with a lavish hand. Nothing that wealth could provide was denied Mrs. Willoughby or her boy; and though she had been poor when she married, money, in the mere crudity of having it to spend, had long since lost its novelty. To-day, beyond the pride of having it, and beyond the luxury and ostentation it could buy, money possessed for her a far greater significance in its power to make one powerful. In that she had already tasted the illogical enjoyment of one that can obtain power in no other way.

And it was because of this place that his money had bought her that Mrs. Willoughby began to look on her husband with a critical eye.

For she was an ambitious woman, though one with definite limitations. Among different surroundings and in an atmosphere less sordidly striving and commonplace, she was fitted to have become, with some encouragement, an admirable and utterly inconspicuous wife and mother. But here, in this narrow, money-getting environment, many things prevented; among them, primarily, the way in which she had been brought up. For her father, too, had been driven by this l.u.s.t for riches; and though he had failed, to the last he had been goaded on by his one eager, grasping hope. He had drummed into her head the single lesson that without money one is nothing.

In itself it suggested to the few a plausible reason why she had married Willoughby. There had been nothing openly unhappy in their life together. Still, as others saw, Willoughby was much older than his wife, radically without her social instincts, and, furthermore, when she had accepted him, it had been pretty generally understood that Severance had won her heart.