Threads of Grey and Gold Part 20

As I could, without seeming to make a point of it, I sent things to the sister and the children--partially worn curtains, bits of ribbons, little toys, and the like. I made her room as pretty and dainty as my own, though the furnishings were not so expensive, and gave her a potted plant in a bra.s.s jar. When flowers were sent to me, I gave her a few for the vase in her room. She began to say "we" instead of "you." She spoke of "our" spoons, or "our" table linen. She asked, what shall "we" do about this or that? what shall "we" have for dinner? instead of "what do _you_ want?" She began to laugh when she played with the kitten, and even to sing at her work.

When she did well, I praised her, as I had all along, but instead of saying, "Iss dat so?" when I remarked that the m.u.f.fins were delicious or the dessert a great success, her face began to light up, and a smile take the place of the impersonal comment. The furious temper began to wane, or, at least, to be under better control. Guests occasionally inquired, "What have you done to that maid of yours?"

Five times we have left her, for one or two months at a time, on full salary, with unlimited credit at the grocery, and with from fifty to one hundred dollars in cash. During the intervals we heard nothing from her. We have returned each time to an immaculate house, a smiling maid, a perfectly cooked and nicely served meal, and an account correct to a penny, with vouchers to show for it, of the sum with which she had been intrusted.

I noticed each time a vast pride in the fact that she had been so trusted, and from this developed a gratifying loyalty to the establishment. I had told her once to ask her sister and children to spend the day with her while we were gone. It seems that the children were noisy, and the lady in the apartment below us came up to object.

An altercation ensued, ending with a threat from the lady downstairs to "tell Mrs. M. when she came home." Annie told me herself, with flashing eyes and shaking hands. I said, calmly: "The children must have been noisy, or she would not have complained. You are used to them, and besides it would sound worse downstairs than up here. But it doesn't amount to anything, for I had told you you could have the children here, and if I hadn't been able to trust you I wouldn't have left you." Thus the troubled waters were calmed.

The crucial test of her qualities came when I entered upon a long period of exhaustive effort. The first day, we both had a hard time, as her highly specialised Baptist conscience would not permit her to say I was "not at home," when I was merely writing a book. After she thoroughly understood that I was not to be disturbed unless the house took fire, further quiet being insured by disconnecting the doorbell and m.u.f.fling the telephone, things went swimmingly.

"Annie," I said, "I want you to run this house until I get through with my book. Here is a hundred dollars to start with. Don't let anybody disturb me." She took it with a smile, and a cheerful "all right."

From that moment to the end, I had even less care than I should have had in a well-equipped hotel. Not a sound penetrated my solitude. If I went out for a drink of water, she did not speak to me. We had delicious dinners and dainty breakfasts which might have waited for us, but we never waited a moment for them. She paid herself regularly every Monday morning, kept all receipts, sent out my husband's laundry, kept a strict list of it, mended our clothes, managed our household as economically as I myself could have done it, and, best of all, insured me from any sort of interruption with a sort of fierce loyalty which is beyond any money value.

Once I overheard a colloquy at my front door, which was briefly and decisively terminated thus: "Ay already tell you dat you _not see her_! She says to me, 'Annie, you keep dose peoples off from me,' and Ay _keep dem off_!" I never have known what dear friend was thus turned away from my inhospitable door.

Fully appreciating my blessings, the night I finished my work I went into the kitchen with a crisp, new, five-dollar bill. "Annie," I said, "here is a little extra money for you. You've been so nice about the house while I've been busy."

She opened her eyes wide, and stared. "You don't have to do dat," she said.

"I know I don't," I laughed, "but I like to do it."

"You don't have to do dat," she repeated. "Ay like to do de housekeeping."

"I know," I said again, "and I like to do this. You've done lots of things for me you didn't have to do. Why shouldn't I do something for you?"

At that she took it, offering me a rough wet hand, which I took gravely. "Tank you," she said, and the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"You've earned it," I a.s.sured her, "and you deserve it, and I'm very glad I can give it to you."

From that hour she has been welded to me in a bond which I fondly hope is indestructible. She laughs and sings at her work, pets her beloved kitten, and diffuses through my six rooms the atmosphere of good cheer. She "looks after me," antic.i.p.ates my wishes, and dedicates to me a continual loyal service which has no equivalent in dollars and cents. She asked me, hesitatingly, if she might not get some one to fill her place for three months while she went back to Sweden. I didn't like the idea, but I recognised her well-defined right.

"Ay not go," she said, "if you not want me to. Ay tell my sister dat I want to stay wid Mrs. M. until she send me away."

I knew she would have to go some time before she settled down to perpetual residence in an alien land, so I bade her G.o.d-speed. She secured the subst.i.tute and instructed her, arranged the matter of wages, and vouched for her honesty, but not for her work.

Before she left the city, I found that the subst.i.tute was hopelessly incompetent and stupid. When Annie came to say "good-bye" to me, I told her about the new girl. She broke down and wept. "Ay sorry Ay try to go," she sobbed. "Ay tell my sister dere iss n.o.body what can take care of Mrs. M. lak Ay do!"

I was quite willing to agree with her, but I managed to dry her tears.

Discovering that she expected to spend two nights in a day coach, and remembering one dreadful night when I could get no berth, I gave her the money for a sleeping-car ticket both ways, as a farewell gift. The tears broke forth afresh. "You been so good to me and to my sister,"

she sobbed. "Ay can't never forget dat!"

"Cheer up," I answered, wiping the mist from my own eyes. "Go on, and have the best time you ever had in your life, and don't worry about me--I'll get along somehow. And if you need money while you are away, write to me, and I'll send you whatever you need. We'll fix it up afterward."

Once again she looked at me, with the strangest look I have ever seen on the human face.

"Tank you," she said slowly. "Dere iss not many ladies would say dat."

"Perhaps not," I replied, "but, remember, Annie, I can trust you."

"Yes," she cried, her face illumined as by some great inward light, "you can trust me!"

I do not think she loves us yet, but I believe in time she will.

The day the new girl came, I happened to overhear a much valued reference to myself: "Honestly," she said, "Ay been here more dan one year, and Ay never hear a wrong word between her and him, nor between her and me. It's shust wonderful. Ay isn't been see anyting like it since Ay been in diss country."

"Is it so wonderful?" I asked myself, as I stole away, my own heart aglow with the consciousness of a moral victory, "and is the lack of self-control and human kindness at the bottom of the American servant problem? Are we women such children that we cannot deal wisely with our intellectual inferiors?" And more than all I had given her, as I realised then for the first time, was the power of self-discipline and self-control which she, all unknowingly, had developed in me.

I have not ceased the "treatment," even though the patient is nearly well. It costs me nothing to praise her when she deserves it, to take an occasional friend into her immaculate kitchen, and to show the shining white pantry shelves (without papers), while she blushes and smiles with pleasure. It costs me nothing to see that she overhears me while I tell a friend over the telephone how capable she has been during the stress of my work, or how clean the house is when we come home after a long absence. It costs me nothing to send her out for a walk, or a visit to a nearby friend, on the afternoons when her work is finished and I am to be at home--nothing to call her attention to a beautiful sunset or a perfect day, or to tell her some amusing story that her simple mind can appreciate. It costs me nothing to tell her how well she looks in her cap and ap.r.o.n (only I call the cap a "hair-bow"), nor that one of the guests said she made the best cake she had ever eaten in her life.

It costs me little to give her a pretty hatpin, or some other girlish trifle at Easter, to bring her some souvenir of our travels, to give her a fresh ribbon for her belt from my bolt, or some little toy "for de children."

It means only a thought to say when she goes out, "Good-bye! Have a good time!" or to say when I go out, "Good-bye! Be good!" It means little to me to tell her how much my husband or our guests have enjoyed the dinner, or to have him go into the kitchen sometimes, while she is surrounded by a mountain of dishes, with a cheery word and a fifty-cent piece.

It isn't much out of my way to do a bit of shopping for her when I am shopping for myself, and no trouble at all to plan for her new gowns, or to tell her that her new hat is very pretty and becoming.

When her temper gets the better of her these days, I can laugh her out of it. "To think," I said once, "of a fine, capable girl like you flying into a rage because some one has borrowed your clothesline without asking for it!"

The clouds vanished with a smile. "Dat iss funny of me," she said.

When her work goes wrong, as of course it sometimes does, though rarely, and she is worrying for fear I shall be displeased, I say: "Never mind, Annie; things don't always go right for any of us. Don't worry about it, but be careful next time."

It has cost me time and effort and money, and an infinite amount of patience and tact, not to mention steady warfare with myself, but in return, what have I? A housemaid, as nearly perfect, perhaps, as they can ever be on this faulty earth, permanently in my service, as I hope and believe.

If any one offers her higher wages, I shall meet the "bid," for she is worth as much to me as she can be to any one else. Besides giving me superior service, she has done me a vast amount of good in furnishing me the needed material for the development of my character.

On her own ground, she respects my superior knowledge. Once or twice I have heard her say of some friend, "Her's lady, she know nodding at all about de housekeeping--no, nodding at all!"

The airy contempt of the tone is quite impossible to describe.

A neighbour whom she a.s.sisted in a time of domestic stress, during my absence, told me amusedly of her reception in her own kitchen. "You don't have to come all de time to de kitchen to tell me," remarked Annie.

"Doesn't Mrs. M. do that?" queried my neighbour, lightly.

"Ay should say not," returned the capable one, indignantly. "She nefer come in de kitchen, and _she know, too_!"

While that was not literally true, because I do go into my kitchen if I want to, and cook there if I like, I make a point of not intruding.

She knows what she is to do, and I leave her to do it, in peace and comfort.

Briefly summarised, the solution from my point of view is this. _Know her work yourself, down to the last detail_; pay the wages which other people would be glad to pay for the same service; keep your temper, and, in the face of everything, _be kind_! Remember that housework is hard work--that it never stays done--that a meal which it takes half a day to prepare is disposed of in half an hour. Remember, too, that it requires much intelligence and good judgment to be a good cook, and that the daily tasks lack inspiration. The hardest part of housework must be done at a time when many other people are free for rest and enjoyment, and it carries with it a social bar sinister when it is done for money. The woman who does it for her board and clothes, in her own kitchen, does not necessarily lose caste, but doing it for a higher wage, in another's kitchen, makes one almost an outcast.

Strange and unreasonable, but true.

It was at my own suggestion that she began to leave the dishes piled up in the sink until morning. When the room is otherwise immaculate, a tray of neatly piled plates, even if unwashed, does not disturb my aesthetic sense.

Ordinarily, she is free for the evening at half-past seven or a quarter of eight--always by eight. Her evenings are hers, not mine,--unless I pay her extra, as I always do. A dollar or so counts for nothing in the expense of an entertainment, and she both earns and deserves the extra wage.

If I am to entertain twenty or thirty people--the house will hold no more, and I cannot ask more than ten to dinner--I consult with her, decide upon the menu, tell her that she can have all the help she needs, and go my ways in peace. I can order the flowers, decorate the table, put on my best gown, and receive my guests, unwearied, with an easy mind.