That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Now we'll build a gray stone mansion," said Helen._]

Eliza took her st.i.tches slowly. Beth must be dreaming. Surely, the woman in gowns with long trains and fluffy, fussy hair in which flowers were fastened were tricks of the child's imagination. Eliza had a picture in her mind of the big, fair woman, shabbily dressed, whom she had found along the roadside. This woman's hair had been braided and coiled tight about her head. It had been beautiful, but it was not fussy, and it was straight as hair could be.

It was a question in Eliza's mind, whether she should change the subject, or whether it would be wiser to encourage the child in these remembrances or fits of fancy, whichever they were. She concluded that anything was better than uncertainty.

"What about the big woman with blue eyes and long braids of yellow hair?

She used to have it wrapped close to her head. There were no curls anywhere. She wore very plain dresses-black skirts-"

"And big white ap.r.o.ns," cried Beth, sitting up suddenly and clapping her hands. Then she laughed joyously. "That was Bena, Adee. Wasn't Bena funny? She had such funny words." Then suddenly a new mood came to the child. Getting down quickly from the davenport, she crossed the room and, standing directly in front of Eliza, asked with direct tenseness:

"Where is Bena, Adee? What has become of her? What did you ever do to Bena? She hasn't been here since I was a little bit of a baby. Where is Bena?"

Eliza shook her head. "I do not know, Beth. I am sorry, but I do not know."

CHAPTER VII.

There were no playmates at Shintown. The nearest neighbor, Burtsch by name, was nearly a mile away. The family consisted of the father and mother, and Rose who was a year older than Beth was supposed to be.

There had been half a dozen children before Rose came, but they had died when mere babies.

Mrs. Burtsch frequently referred to the loss of her children as "the strange working of Providence." She had a thin, high-pitched voice. She was angular, long-limbed. She wore basques and straight, narrow skirts.

Her hair was in a k.n.o.b behind and drawn so tight that the muscles of her forehead and temple had a habitual upward tendency. As though to maintain an even balance, she always directed her glances toward the earth, and the lines of her mouth went downward. She was ingratiating, self-depreciating, and presumably humble. She was always declaring that she was just as good as Mrs. Somebody-or-other, if she was poor. It was no disgrace to be poor. But it was in her case. Poverty was her shame, for had she and her husband been up and about their work, making the most of their farm in place of trying to sustain themselves with the maxim, 'Poverty is no disgrace,' they would have had all the comforts desirable and might have been able to help others. Mrs. Burtsch had a whining voice that got upon one's nerves after a time. She made a point of coming in to see Eliza, and in an insinuating way found out all she could, suggested where she dared and criticised in her exasperating way.

She brought Rose with her. While Mrs. Burtsch talked, the children played, or presumably did so; but Rose's ears and eyes were wide open.

She never missed a word that her elders said. She was a skinny, owlish-looking child who could sit for hours and listen, but whose tongue could run as long and as easily as a ball-bearing machine. She knew every bit of gossip of the country-side, and repeated it with all the insinuating humility which was characteristic of her mother.

Rose and Beth were cutting out paper dolls. Eliza kept at her sewing while Mrs. Burtsch, rocking slowly, slowly, kept the conversation going.

"Beth looks stout, Miss Eliza. I've noticed frequently how stout she looks. But then that hain't no sign that she is going to live. Her own folks might have had consumption. You can never tell. Like mother, like child, you know. Her mother couldn't have had a const.i.tution to brag on when a little thing like falling on a stone killed her quick like it did. If I were in your place, I'd be mighty careful of her. Don't let her breathe no night air, and keep her housed up well."

Eliza had long since pa.s.sed this stage in child-rearing. When she realized that Beth might be with her always, she set about at once to learn something of bringing up a little girl, just as she had learned all she could about feeding chickens. She had long since discovered the futility of discussing any question with Mrs. Burtsch when the latter had the other view of the case. It was always a harangue and nothing else.

"She's healthy enough. She's never had a cold. I'm not at all concerned about her."

"You never can be sure. She's got a dreadful color in her cheeks, and her eyes are too bright for health. I'd worry considerable about her."

"What good would that do? It would not improve her condition even if she was in the last stage of consumption."

Eliza smiled to herself. Beth, the picture of health! Her bright cheeks and dancing eyes were more the result of good, plain food, quiet, happy home life and fresh air and sunshine. She looked all she had been breathing in.

"You never can be sure. My William Henry was as strong a baby as you'd see in a day's travel, but he went off like a flash with pneumonia. You remember, Miss Eliza?"

She did remember. She knew how a sick child had been left to drag about in wet gra.s.s, and left lying at home, sick with rising fever, while the mother dilly-dallied over the fields looking for a weed that the Indians had found infallible for colds.

Mrs. Burtsch was now well launched on the subject. She discussed in detail the taking away of each one of her children. She called their early death "strange and mysterious workings of Providence." It was far from just to put the blame on Providence when each death had been the direct result of careless, ignorant mothering, or lack of mothering.

Miss Eliza listened. She had heard the story all her life. It had been a quarter of a century since William Henry had died. There was nothing to do but listen. One could not have turned Mrs. Burtsch from the beaten path of her conversation. The only thing to do was to let her go on until she had run herself out.

Eliza listened and threw in a "yes", an "indeed", at the proper place; but for the most part her attention was given to her sewing. It had required close accounting to make her income provide for herself and Beth. Each year the expenses would be greater; Eliza tried to lay a few dollars of her interest money aside. She believed in being ready for emergencies. Her trunk had, hidden in its capacious depth, all the odd pennies which came her way.

Now, she was reducing her own wardrobe to fit Beth out. When her shirt-waists were worn at the collar and cuffs, she took the fronts and backs and made guimpes for Beth.

Mrs. Burtsch had ultimately spun her story to a finish. Rose and Beth were yet intent upon cutting out ladies from a magazine. The former paid little attention to what her mother was saying. She had heard it so often that its charm had worn off. As far as Rose was concerned, it fell on dull ears.

Suddenly, Mrs. Burtsch leaned forward and, seizing an end of Eliza's sewing, took it up critically. "What do you mean to do with it?" she asked. "The tucks hain't so bad, though the rest does look like it went through the mill. It's a sin and a shame to throw it away, 'Liza. I do hope you hain't going to be wasteful. It always cuts me up to see anything throwed away."

Her own yard was a waste of weeds. Her household a waste in every way.

Hours and hours of each day were spent as she was spending these, at a harangue that did no one any good, which sapped the energy and left no gain whatever.

"I don't think I'll grow recklessly extravagant;" replied Eliza. "I've worn this white dress for three summers. It's out at a good many places and I've put on just enough flesh to make it too tight over the hips.

I'm making it over for Beth. I can get quite a nice little dress for her. The ruffles are just as good as new." She held up the skirt and looked it over. "There's plenty of material to make her a nice little dress. I'm relieved at the thought of it. She does need one badly enough, and I could not see my way clear to get her something nice and fine."

Mrs. Burtsch had been fingering the dress with a hypercritical air. At Eliza's words, she leaned back in her chair and sighed. That sigh spoke volumes.

"You're very foolish, Miss Liza. Everyone is saying so and has been saying so ever since Old Prince got away from you. I don't like to tell you what folks are saying. I never was no hand at carrying news; but I feel that it's my duty to let you know. That's what a friend's for, to set us right when we go wrong. I feel it my duty to tell you."

"Don't put yourself out," said Eliza, biting off a thread closely, and with just a little touch of vindictiveness. "I'll not treasure it up against you." She was not angry. Amused came nearest to express her state of mind.

"I wouldn't be doing right," continued the visitor in her meek, whining, apologetic voice. "I never set up to be much. I know I hain't educated, and me and John are poor, but that hain't anything against us. Being poor hain't any disgrace, I've always tried to do my duty, as I saw it.

If I've failed it hain't because I hain't tried. It hain't no matter to me how I hate to do a thing or how disagreeable it is, if it's my duty, I do it. That's the way I feel about telling you. I hain't going to shirk my duty by you living alone as you are."

The meeker Mrs. Burtsch tried to be, the more "hain'ts" she made use of.

They were the negative expression of herself and her thoughts. Eliza said nothing at all, but picked her st.i.tches carefully.

"Folks think that you are clean gone crazy about keeping this little girl. It hain't as though you was a married woman with a man to provide for you. Of course you've got money, put out on interest, but moths corrupt and thieves might break in and steal. That means not to count too much on what you've laid by.

"Now, folks say that you have no call to keep this child and treat her just like she was of your own family. You're bringing her up just as fine as a lady."

"Why not?" asked Eliza. "She's a little lady now and I hope she'll be a big lady by and by. That's what I'm raising her for."

Rose's shears had not missed a snip; but her sharp little eyes narrowed down to slits and her ears p.r.i.c.ked themselves up. This was a new subject to her. Wasn't Beth really Miss Eliza's little girl after all? The wonder of it was that she had never found out before. Her mouth fairly watered for this morsel of news. Yet she never so much as turned her head or lost one snip with her shears.

"Well, to my way of thinking it hain't right. Every one I've spoke to says the same thing. It hain't right to take a tramp child and bring her up as though she was somebody. If you'd train her so she's be handy for working out, folks wouldn't have so much to say, but you're spoiling her so that she won't make even a good hired girl."

"I don't want her to be that, Liza Burtsch. She's just a baby yet. I really haven't thought much what I'd like her to be. All I think about now is to keep her sweet and wholesome and teach her all that other little girls learn in schools. There's time enough to think about other things when ten years more have gone.

"There's something else, Livia Burtsch, that we'll settle right here.

Beth is no tramp child and never was. You have no right to call her that, and I will not allow it."

"Seems to me that I've got a good bit of right. Folks hain't as blind as you're suspicioning them, Liza Wells. Tramp child, now what else could she be called but tramp. Maybe she's worse for all I know. You can't tell me things, Liza Wells. I've lived too long to have the wool pulled over my eyes. You know and I know that no decent self-respecting woman what has a home or any folks is tramping on foot through the country with a baby. No woman that thinks anything of herself is walking through a strange country and taking naps under bushes by the roadside. You can't tell me. The child's mother was nothing but a worthless scal-."

"Stop! Not another word." Eliza's voice was low-too low for peace. It was as clear cut and metallic as a blade of steel. Mrs. Burtsch was awed by it. For an instant she looked at Eliza with wide-open eyes and hanging jaw, but she soon recovered her rigidity of feature and posture.

"Well, I guess I'll say what I see fit to say when it's the truth.

That's what cuts you, Eliza. It's the truth and you know it. Tut, tut, what's the world coming to if folks can't speak what's in their mind.