That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's Part 9

"Lem did bring me in some, but I couldn't eat," she said.

"A man's cooking! It wouldn't be expected of you. I'll get something for you."

The kitchen was not the sight to please the eye of a housekeeper. Lemuel and Rose had made a shift at cooking but had made no attempt at cleaning up. Dishes were piled high on every available s.p.a.ce of the table. The floor was slippery with grease. The frying pan with bits of what had been intended for the patient's breakfast was on the back of the stove.

Eliza sniffed at it. Salt pork! Scarcely a tempting breakfast for an invalid.

She prepared toast with an egg and a cup of tea. The neighboring women had been kind, but they had their families and households to see to, and had not been able to accomplish all they wished.

When the breakfast was disposed of, Eliza cleared away the acc.u.mulation of dishes. She pressed Rose into service. She put the house into some semblance of order in the very few hours she had and prepared dinner for Lemuel Burtsch. She knew what his meals must have been if he had had the preparation of them himself. She was a slow, deliberate worker. She could not rush about and do much in a little time. But she was not irritating in her efforts. Her serene, calm way soothed Olivia.

Rose was of little help. She whined and cried when matters went askew.

Mrs. Burtsch worried about the child's doing without her meals.

Altogether Rose was of little value in the house.

"Does Rose help you? Is there anything she can do?" Eliza asked Lemuel as he sat at the dinner table. He looked about bewildered. He had never been the head of his own house, and now with his wife sick, he was like a canoe with the paddle gone.

"She hain't much good. She's not very old yet Miss Eliza, and her mother always calculated not to make her work until she was considerable older."

"She's really too much of a baby yet to help anyone. If she is no help, I'll take her home with me and take care of her until Olivia gets around, or until you can find a good woman."

"That's powerful good, Miss Liza. Your folks was always great hands for helping other folks out and you're a chip from the old block. I'll be relieved a heap if you'll sort of look after her."

It was evident that the child's mother was quite as relieved as Lemuel himself.

It was long after the dinner hour when Eliza set forth with Rose. Mrs.

Houston had come over to "set" for a spell and promised to see to the patient until the evening when some one else would relieve her.

Beth was watching at the window. When she saw Eliza and Rose coming, she ran from the house and down to the gate to meet them. She flung her arms about Adee's neck and then hugged Rose who stood as stiff and irresponsive as an iron post.

"I'm dreadful glad, Rose. Now, we can play. Helen and I made about a million hats. They're up in the attic. We'll play millinery store."

"Run along and play until I call you to supper. We'll have it early.

Beth has had only a bowl of milk since breakfast. Run along; I'll call you."

They needed no encouragement. Eliza went to the kitchen and began her preparation. Meanwhile the girls had examined the hats in the attic and commented on the grace and elegance of several. Rose's tongue was going clickety-clack. She talked more freely when her elders were not present.

"Mrs. Kilgore got a new hat before the church supper. She thought she wouldn't get it at first. It cost an awful lot," and so on and so on, petty details of other people's affairs which she had heard her elders discuss, and which was really no business of hers, or theirs either.

"Let's play store. You be selling hats and I'll be the Queen of Sheba come to buy," suggested Beth. She had learned this particular "stunt"

from Helen Reed who would have no dealings with anybody but royalty when she played make-believe.

"I'll have a train. This one is too short and don't rustle." Beth proceeded to pin a half of a curtain to the tail of her gown. Then she pranced forward where the gable was highest and trailed her gown after her.

"You'll be the shop-keeper and I'll be the Queen," said Rose.

"No, I'll be the Queen first. You've never played the game and you don't know how a queen is supposed to act. They don't act like just common, every-day people." Beth paraded up and down, spreading her train and looking back over her shoulder to see the effect. So the discussion continued for several minutes.

"Much you know about queens. You'd better play like you was a tramp."

There was more than childish teasing in the speaker's voice. There was the keen cutting desire to hurt which marked her mother's conversation.

"I don't know nothing about tramps. I never saw one in all my life. Oh, ain't this train perfectly 'kertish'?" and she cavorted about to show off to the best advantage.

"You don't! You never saw one! Then you'd better look in the looking-gla.s.s. For you're a tramp yourself. You were found-"

Eliza had come to bring the little girls to supper. She caught the last remark. Quick as a flash, she stepped into the room and, seizing Rose by the arm, silenced her. She held her thus while she turned to Beth.

"Go down and eat your supper, Beth, dear. Rose and I will have a little talk."

Sending Beth ahead, Eliza held Rose, cringing and shaking, by the arm and led her to a bedroom on the second floor, where she took her in and sat down with her and tried to show how contemptible and mean her act was.

CHAPTER IX.

Two serious questions concerning Beth's rearing presented themselves to Eliza. After her experience with Rose, she knew that her foster-child would be forced to bear the insults and unkind remarks of every ill-bred person who chose to express themselves.

As for Rose, Eliza felt that she had quieted her only for such time as she was a visitor at the Wells home. The child was a sort of leader after a fashion of her own, and what she did the half dozen children near her age would do.

It meant simply this. Beth would be the subject of the caprice, ill-temper or ill-breeding of the children. The best thing was to put her with those who had kindness in their heart. She would be able to teach her for a year more. Then she would enter her in the schools at Farwell.

So far the matter was settled. The next question was one of finance.

There were several dollars monthly tuition for pupils who did not reside in the borough. Eliza had so little to go on. She determined that she would be ready for the expense when it came. She would not deny Beth, but she could and would make sacrifices for herself. All winter, not a cent was spent needlessly. She sold her b.u.t.ter close, and studied her chicken manual and fed her hens so scientifically and kept the coops so warm and comfortable that the fowls were under the impression that spring had come and took to laying at once; this when eggs were forty cents a dozen.

When Beth was ten years old, she entered the B grammar grade at Farwell.

So far Eliza had kept in touch with her work and had taught her all she knew. She had a tug at her heart strings that first morning in September when she walked into town with Beth. It seemed to her that there had come a parting of the ways when each must walk a little more alone.

Beth was radiant with new tan shoes and stockings. Her white dress was fresh from the iron. Eliza felt not a little conscience-stricken whenever she bade her little girl wear this particular dress. It had been made from the linen sheets which Eliza's grandmother had woven and bleached. Eliza loved family traditions. She had thought a long time before she put her shears into these heirlooms. But she concluded at last that the welfare and advancement of the living were to be considered before the traditions of the past.

It was a beautiful morning when they started forth on the road to knowledge. The way from the Wells homestead led down a gradual slope.

Here one could go by way of the public road, or take a little foot-path which wound in and out through the woods and at length came in just at the edge of Farwell.

Eliza and Beth had given themselves plenty of time. The foot-path was enticing. They took it. Eliza walked slowly, pausing now and then to look at the scene about her, or to pluck a bit of golden-rod or wild aster. Beth was flitting from flower to flower like a b.u.t.terfly. Yet in the midst of her excitement and haste, she stepped carefully on the tips of her shoes so that she would not scuff them. Tan shoes were not to be had for the asking.

The slope of the hill stretched to a ravine through which ran a little stream. In spring, it was something worth while; but the heat of summer had dried it up, so that now there was barely enough of it to make a gurgling sound. Once there had been fields along the stream. An apple orchard had stretched over the hillside. The trees were still there, to be sure, but they had degenerated until the fruit was hard, small and bitter.

Portions of an old rail fence were to be seen, and close under the one solitary forest-oak which some generous hand had left standing, was a small house built of square timbers. Wild ampelopsis were clambering over it everywhere. A broad stone chimney built for an outlet to the grate within was standing as intact as the day its rough stones were laid.

No one had ever lived here since Eliza could remember. The windows and doors had been boarded up for years. Nature had softened the colors and vines and bending branches of oak had made it a beautiful place. The Oliver place, people called it; but nothing remained of the Oliver family but the name of this place. They had come and gone, and that was all the Shintown folk could tell of them.

Eliza stopped and looked at the place, as she did every time she pa.s.sed it. It had always been attractive to her, even when she was a child. It was mellowed in color; it stood aloof from all life, and suggested sentiment and romance.

Beth had run on ahead. Seeing that Eliza was not following, she ran back and stood beside her. There was a moment's silence, until her mind grasped what was holding her companion's attention.

"Isn't it simply lovely?" she exclaimed. "It would be simply 'kertish'

for a play-house. When Helen brings her cousin over to spend Sat.u.r.day, I'll bring them down here to make a play-house."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Eliza. "The place may be full of snakes. Old houses like that are often dens of rattlers."