The Black Creek Stopping-House, and Other Stories Part 12

"I just asked along the road until I found you," she said, untying her bonnet strings; "I knew this lonesome little house must be the place.

No trees, no flowers, no curtains, no washing on the line--I could tell there was no woman around." She was fixing her hair at his little gla.s.s as she spoke. "Now, son, run out and get a few chips for the fire, and we'll have a bite of supper in a few minutes."

Shaw brought the chips.

"Now, what do you say to pancakes for supper?"

Shaw declared that nothing would suit him so well as pancakes.

The fire crackled merrily under the kettle, and soon the two of them were sitting down to an appetizing meal of pancakes and syrup, boiled eggs and tea.

"Land sakes, George, you must have had your own time with those housekeepers of yours! Some of them drank, eh? I could tell that by the piece you put in the paper. But never mind them now; I'll soon have you feeling fine as silk. How's your socks? Toes out, I'll bet. Well, I'll hunt you up a pair, if there's any to be found. If I can't find any you can go to bed when you get your ch.o.r.es done, and I'll wash out them you've on--I can't bear my men folks to have their toes out; a hole in the heel ain't so bad, it's behind you and you can forget it, but a hole in the toe is always in your way no matter which way you're going."

After supper, when Shaw was out doing his ch.o.r.es, he could see her bustling in and out of the house; now she was beating his bedclothes on the line; in another minute she was leaning far out of a bedroom window dusting a pillow.

When he came into the house she reported that her search for stockings, though vigorous, had been vain. He protested a little about having to go to bed when the sun was shining, but she insisted.

"I'm sorry, George," she said, "to have to make you go to bed, but it's the only thing we can do. You'll find your bed feels a lot better since I took the horse collar and the pair of rubber boots out from under the mattress. That's a poor place to keep things. Good-night now--don't read lying down."

When he went upstairs Shaw noticed with dismay that his lamp had gone from the box beside his bed. So he was not likely to disobey her last injunction--at least, not for any length of time.

Just at daylight the next morning there came a knock at his door.

"Come, George--time to get up!"

When he came in from feeding his horses a splendid breakfast was on the table.

"Here's your basin, George; go out and have a good wash. Here's your comb; it's been lost for quite awhile. I put a towel out there for you, too. Hurry up now and get your vittles while they are nice!"

When Shaw came to the table she regarded him with pleasure.

"You're a fine-looking boy, George, when you're slicked up," she said.

"Now bow your head until we say grace! There, now pitch in and tell me how you like grandma's cooking."

Shaw ate heartily and praised everything.

A few days afterwards she said, "Now, George, I guess I'll have to ask you to go to town and get some things we need for the house."

Shaw readily agreed, and took out his paper and pencil.

"Soap, starch, ten yards of cheesecloth--that's for curtains," she said. "I'll knit lace for them, and they'll look real dressy; toilet soap, sponge and nailbrush--that's for your bath, George; you haven't been taking them as often as you should, or the hoops wouldn't have come off your tub. You can't cheat Nature, George; she always tells on you. Ten yards flannelette--that's for night-shirts; ten yards sheeting--that's for your bed--and your white shirts are pretty far gone."

"How do you know?" he asked in surprise; "they are all in my trunk."

"Yes, I know, and the key is in that old cup on the stand, and I know how to unlock a trunk, don't I?" she replied with dignity. "You need new shirts all right, but just get one. I never could abear them boughten shirts, they are so skimpy in the skirt; I'll make you some lovely ones, with blue and pink flossin' down the front."

He looked up alarmed.

"Then about collars," she went on serenely. "You have three, but they're not in very good shape, though, of course, you couldn't expect anything better of them, kept in that box with the nails--oh, I found them, George, you needn't look so surprised. You see I know something about boys--I have three of my own." A shadow pa.s.sed over her face and she sighed. "Well, I guess that is all for to-day. Be sure to get your mail and hurry home."

"Shall I tell the postmaster to put your mail in my box?" he asked.

"Oh, no, never mind--I ain't expectin' any," she said, and Shaw drove away wondering.

A few nights after she said, "Well, George, I suppose you are wonderin'

now who this old lady is, though I am not to say real old either."

"Indeed you are not old," Shaw declared with considerable gallantry; "you are just in your prime."

She regarded him gratefully. "You're a real nice boy, George," she said, "and there ain't going to be no secrets between us. If you wet your feet, or tear your clothes, don't try to hide it. Don't keep nothing from me and I won't keep nothing from you. Now I'll tell you who I am and all about it. I am Mrs. Peter Harris, of Owen Sound, Ontario, and I have three sons here in the West. They've all done well, fur as money goes. I came up to visit them. I came from Bert's here. I couldn't stand the way Bert's folks live. Mind you, they burn their lights all night, and they told me it doesn't cost a cent more. Land o'

liberty! They can't fool me. If lights burn, someone pays--and the amount of hired help they keep is something scandalous. Et, that is Bert's wife, is real smart, and they have two hired girls, besides their own two girls, and they get in a woman to wash besides. I wanted them to let the two girls go while I was there, but no, sir! Et says, 'Grandma, you didn't come here to work, you must just rest.' They wouldn't let me do a thing, and that brazen hired girl--the housemaid, they call her--one day even made my bed; and, mind you, George, she put the narrow hem on the sheet to the top, and she wasn't a bit ashamed when I told her. She said she hoped it didn't make me feel that I was standin' on my head all night; and the way that woman hung out the clothes was a perfect scandal!" Her voice fell to an awed whisper. "She hangs the underwear in plain sight. I ain't never been used to the like of that! I could not stay. Bert is kind enough, so is Et, and they have one girl, Maud, that I really do like. She is twenty-one, but, of course, brought up the way she has been, she is awful ignorant for that age. Mind you, that girl had never turned the heel of a stocking until I got her at it, but Maud can learn. I'd take that girl quick, and bring her up like my own, if Bert would let me. Well, anyway, I could not put up with the way they live, and I just ran away."

"You ran away!" echoed Shaw. "They'll be looking for you!"

"Let 'em look!" said the old lady, grimly. "They won't ever find me here."

"I'll hide you in the haymow, and if they come in here to search for you I'll declare I never knew you--I am prepared to do desperate things," Shaw declared.

"George, if they ever get in here--that is, Et anyway--she'll know who did the fixin' up. There ain't many that know how to do this Rocky Road to Dublin that is on your lounge. Et would know who'd been here."

"That settles it!" declared Shaw. "Et shall not enter. If Et gets in it shall be over my prostrate form, but maybe it would be better for you to take the Rocky Road with you to the hayloft!"

The old lady laughed heartily. "Ain't we happy, George, you and me?

I've tried all my own, and they won't let me have one bit of my own way. Out at Edward's--he's a lawyer at Regina--I tried to get them all to go to bed at half-past ten--late enough, too, for decent people--and didn't Edward's wife get real miffed over it? And then I went to Tom's --he's a doctor down at Winnipeg, but he's all gone to politics; he was out night after night makin' speeches, and he had a young fellow lookin' after his practice who wouldn't know a corn from a gumboil only they grow in different places. Tom's pa and me spent good money on his education, and it's hard for us to see him makin' no use of it. He was nice enough to me, wanted me to stay and be company for Edith, but I told him he should try to be company for Edith himself. Well, he didn't get elected--that's one comfort. I believe it was an answer to prayer.

Maybe he'll settle down to his doctorin' now. Then I went to Bert's, and I soon saw I could not stay there. Just as soon as I saw your little bit in the paper, I says, 'The Lord has opened a door!' I gave Maud a hint that I would clear out some day and go where I would be let work, and the dear child says to me, 'Grandma, if I ever get a house of my own you can come and live with me, and you can do every bit of the work, and everyone will have to do just what you say; they'll have to go to bed at sundown if you say so.' Maud's the best one I have belongin' to me. She'll give them a hint that I'm all right."

But Shaw was apprehensive. He knew who Bert was, and he had uncomfortable visions of Mr. Albert Harris driving up to his door some day and demanding that Mrs. Peter Harris, his mother, immediately come home with him; and the fear and dread of former housekeepers swept over George Shaw's soul. No, he would not give her up! Of course, there were times when he thought she was rather exacting, and when he felt some sympathy for Edward's wife forgetting "miffed."

When she was with him about a week she announced that he must have a daily bath! "It is easier to wash you than the bed-clothes, that's one reason," she said, "and it's good for you besides. That's what's wrong with lots of young boys; they git careless and dirty, and then they take to smoking and drinking just natcherally. A clean hide, mind you, is next to a clean heart. Now go along upstairs; everything is ready for you."

Henceforth there was no danger of the hoops falling off the tub, for it was in daily use, and, indeed, it was not many nights until George Shaw looked forward with pleasure to his nightly wash.

The old lady's face glowed with pleasure as she went about her work, or sat sewing in the shade of the house. At her instigation Shaw had put up a shed for his machinery, which formerly had littered the yard, and put his wood in even piles.

The ground fell away in a steep ravine, just in front of the house, and pink wild roses and columbine hung in profusion over the spring which gushed out of the bank. Away to the east were the sand-hills of the a.s.siniboine--the bad lands of the prairie, their surface peopled with stiff spruce trees that stand like sentries looking, always looking out across the plain!

Mrs. Harris often sat with her work in the shade of the house, on pleasant afternoons, looking at this peaceful scene, and her heart was full of gladness and content.

The summer pa.s.sed pleasantly for George Shaw and his cheery old housekeeper. Not a word did they hear from "Bert's" folks.

"I would like to see Maud," Mrs. Harris said one night to Shaw as she sat knitting a sock for him beside their cheerful fireside. He was reading.

"What is Maud like?" he asked.

"Maud favors my side of the house," she answered. "She's a pretty good- looking girl, very much the hi'th and complexion I used to be when I was her age. You'd like Maud fine if you saw her, George."

"I don't want to see her," Shaw replied, "for I am afraid that the coming of Maud might mean the departure of Grandma, and that would be a bad day for me."

"I ain't goin' to leave you, George, and I believe Maud would be reasonable if she did come! She'd see how happy we are!"