Three Little Women Part 11

"Yas, honey, Mammy's comin'; comin' wid yo' lolly-pop, kase she want yo' ter step out spry. Yo's gwine enter a pa'tner-ship, yo' know _dat_, Baltie-hawse? Yo' sure _is_. Yo's de silen' pa'tner, yo' is, an' de bline one too. Jis as well ter hab one ob 'em bline mebbe," and Mammy chuckled delightedly at her own joke. "Now come 'long out an' be hitched up, kase we's gwine inter business, yo' an' me' an' we gotter do some hustlin'. Come 'long," and opening the door of the box-stall in which old Baltie now-a-days luxuriated, Mammy dragged him forth by his forelock and in less time than one could have believed it possible, had him harnessed to the old-fashioned basket phaeton which during Mrs. Stuyvesant's early married life had been a most up-to-date equipage, but which now looked as odd and antiquated as the old horse harnessed to it. But in Mammy's eyes they were tangible riches, for Hadyn Stuyvesant had presented her with both phaeton and harness.

Opening wide the stable doors, Mammy clambered into her chariot, and taking up the reins, guided her steed gently forward. Baltie ambled sedately up to the back door where Constance was waiting to hand Mammy the box.

"Mind de do' an' don' let my apples bake all ter cinders," warned Mammy.

"I will. I won't. Good luck," contradicted Constance, as she ran back into the house, and Mammy drove off toward South Riveredge; a section of the town as completely given over to commercial interests as Riveredge proper was to its homes. There a large carpet factory throve and flourished giving employment to many hands. There, also, stood a large building called the Central Arcade in which many business men had their offices. It was about a mile from the heart of Riveredge proper and as Mammy jogged along toward her destination, she had ample time to think, and chuckle to herself at her astuteness in carrying out her own ideas of the fitness of things while apparently fully concurring with Constance's wishes. Mammy had no objections to Constance _making_ all the candy she chose to make; that could be done within the privacy of her own home and shock _no_ one's sensibilities.

But when the girl had announced her intention of going among her friends to secure customers, Mammy had descended upon her with all her powers of opposition. The outcome had been the present compromise.

Very few people in South Riveredge knew the Carruths or Mammy, and this was exactly what the old woman wished.

Driving her "gallumping" steed to the very heart of the busy town she drew up at the curbstone in front of the Arcade just a few moments before the five o'clock whistles blew. Stepping from her vehicle she placed a campstool upon the sidewalk beside it, and lifting her box of candy from the seat established herself upon her stool with the open box upon her lap. Within two minutes of the blowing of the whistles the streets were alive with people who came hurrying from the buildings on every side. Mammy was a novelty and like most novelties took at once, so presently she was doing a thriving business, her tongue going as fast as her packages of candy. People are not unlike sheep; where one leads, all the others follow.

"Home-made candy, sah! Fresh f'om de home-kitchen; jis done mek hit.

Ain' hardly col'. Ten cents a package, sah. Yes _sah_, yo' better is bleeve hit's deleshus. Yo' ain' tas' no pralines lak dem in all yo'

bo'n days," ran on Mammy handing out her packages of candy and dropping her dimes into the little bag at her side.

"Here, Aunty, give me four of those packages of fudge," cried a genial, gray-haired, portly old gentleman with a military bearing.

"Porter, here, has just given me some of his and they're simply great!

Did you make 'em? They touch the spot."

"La, suh, I ain' _got_ four left: I ain', fer a fac'. Tek some of de pralines; deys mighty good, suh," bustled Mammy, offering her dainties.

"Take all you've got. Did _you_ make 'em?" persisted her customer.

"My _pa'tner_ done mak 'em," said Mammy with dignity, as she handed over her last package.

"Well you darkies _can_ cook," cried the gentleman as he took the candy.

For a moment it seemed as though Mammy were about to fly at him, and her customer was not a little astounded at the transformation which came over her old face. Then he concluded that the term "darkie" had been the rock on which they had split, and smiled as he said:

"Better set up business right here in the Arcade. Buy you and your _partner_ out every day. Good-bye, Auntie."

"Good-bye, suh! Good-bye," responded Mammy, her equanimity quite restored, for her good sense told her that no reflections had been cast upon her "pa'tner" in Riveredge, or her ident.i.ty suspected.

Moreover, her late customer had put a new idea into her wise old head which she turned over again and again as she drove back home.

Constance was waiting with the lantern, and hurried out to the stable as Mammy turned in at the gate.

"Oh, Mammy, did you _sell_ some?" she asked eagerly.

"Sell some! What I done druv dar fer? Co'se I sell some; I sell eve'y las' bit an' grain. Tek dat bag an' go count yo' riches, honey. _Sell some!_ Yah! Yah!" laughed Mammy as she descended from her chariot and began to unharness her steed, while Constance hugged the bag and hurried into the house.

"What are you hiding under your cape?" demanded Jean as her sister ran through the hall, and up the stairs. Jean's eyes did not often miss anything.

"My deed to future wealth and greatness," answered Constance merrily, as she slipped into her room and locked the door, where she dumped the contents of the bag, dimes, nickels, and pennies, into the middle of the bed.

"Merciful sakes! Who would have believed it?" she gasped. "Four dollars and eighty cents for one afternoon's work, and at least three-eighty of it clear profit, and Mammy has _got_ to share some of it. Mumsie, dear, I think I can keep the family's feet covered at all events," she concluded in an ecstatic whisper.

CHAPTER XII

Another Shoulder is Added

Thanksgiving and Christmas had come and pa.s.sed. Constance's "candy business" as she called it, throve and flourished spasmodically. Could she have carried out her wishes concerning it, the venture might have been more profitable, but Mammy, the autocrat, insisted that it should be kept a secret, and the habit of obedience to the old woman's dictates was deeply rooted in the Carruth family, even Mrs. Carruth yielding to it far more than she realized.

So Constance made her candy during her free hours after school and Mammy carried it into South Riveredge when opportunity offered. This was sometimes twice, but more often only once, a week, for the faithful old soul had manifold duties and was too conscientious to neglect one. Sometimes all the packages were sold off as quickly as they had been on that first red-letter day, but at other times a good many were left over. Could they again have been offered for sale upon the following day they might easily have been disposed of, but Mammy could not go to South Riveredge two days in succession and, consequently, the candy grew stale before another sale's day arrived, was a loss to its anxious manufacturer, and caused her profits to shrink very seriously. Things had been going on in this rather unsatisfactory manner for about six weeks when one Sat.u.r.day morning little Miss Paulina Pry, as Constance sometimes called Jean, owing to her propensity to get to the bottom of things in spite of all efforts to circ.u.mvent her, came into her sister's room to ask in the most innocent manner imaginable:

"Connie, who does Mammy know in South Riveredge?"

"n.o.body, that I know of," answered Constance unsuspectingly.

"I thought she had a cousin living there," was the next leader.

"A cousin, child! Why Mammy hasn't a relative this side of Raleigh and I don't believe she has two to her name down there. If she has, she hasn't seen them since mother brought her north before we were born."

"I knew it!" was the triumphant retort, "and _now_ I'll get even with her for telling me fibs."

"Jean, what do you mean?" cried Constance now fully alive to the fact that she had fallen into a trap.

"I mean just this: I've been watching Mammy drive off to South Riveredge every solitary week since before Thanksgiving, and I've asked her ever so many times to take me with her; she lets me go everywhere else with her and Baltie. But she wouldn't take me there and when I asked her why not, she always said because she was going to visit with her cousins in-the-Lord, and 'twan't no fit place for white folks. I _knew_ she was telling a fib, and _now_ I'm going right down stairs to tell her so," and Jean whirled about to run from the room.

Constance made a wild dive and caught her by her sleeve.

"Jean, stop! Listen to me. You are not to bother Mammy with questions.

She has a perfect right to do or go as she chooses," said Constance with some warmth, and instantly realized that she had taken the wrong tack, for the little pepper-pot began to liven up. Jerking herself free she struck an att.i.tude, saying:

"You are just as bad as Mammy! _You_ know where she goes, and what she goes for, but you won't tell me. Keep your old secrets if you want to, but I'll find out, see if I don't. And I'll get even too. You and Mammy think I'm nothing but a baby, but you'll see. I'm most eleven years old, and if I can't be told the truth about things now, I'd like to know why," and with a final vigorous wrench Jean freed herself from her sister's grasp and fled down the stairs, Constance murmuring to herself as the little whirlwind disappeared: "I wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to let her into the secret after all? In the first place it is all nonsense to _keep_ it a secret, and just one of Mammy's high-falutin ideas of what's right and proper for a Blairsdale.

Fiddlesticks for the Blairsdales say I, when certain things should be done. I'm going to tell that child anyway. She is ten times easier to deal with when she knows the truth, and she can keep a secret far better than some older people I might mention. Jean; Jean; come back; I want to tell you something."

But Jean had gone beyond hearing. "Never mind; I'll tell her by-and-by," resolved Constance and soon forgot all about the matter while completing her English theme for Monday. Could she have followed her small sister her state of mind would have been less serene.

Jean's first reconnoiter was the dining-room. All serene; nothing doing; mother up in her room. Eleanor gone out. Mammy in the kitchen stirring quietly about. Jean slipped into the butler's pantry. There on a shelf stood a big white box marked "Lord & Taylor, Ladies' Suit Dept." Jean's nose rose a degree higher in the air as she drew near it and carefully raised the lid. "Ah-hah! Didn't I know it! I guess her cousins-in-the-Lord must like candy pretty well, for she has taken that box with her every single time she's gone to South Riveredge,"

whispered this astute young person.

Now it so happened that as Mammy had advanced in years, she had grown somewhat hard of hearing, and had also developed a habit quite common to her race; that of communing aloud with herself when alone.

Jean was quite alive to this and more than once had caused the old woman to regard her with considerable awe by casually mentioning facts of which Mammy believed her to be entirely in ignorance, and, indeed, preferred she _should_ be, little guessing that her own monologues had given the child her cue.

Clambering softly upon the broad shelf which ran along one side of the pantry, Jean gently pushed back the sliding door made to pa.s.s the dishes to and from the kitchen, and watched Mammy's movements. The kitchen was immaculate and Mammy was just preparing to set forth for her Sat.u.r.day morning's marketing, a task she would not permit any one else to undertake, declaring that "dese hyer Norf butcher-men stood ready fer ter beat folks outen dey eyesight ef dey git er chance."

As usual Mammy was indulging in a soliloquy.

"Dar now. Dat's all fix an' right, an' de minit I gits back I kin clap it inter de oven," she murmured as she set her panfuls of bread over the range for their second rising. "I gotter git all dis hyer wo'k off my han's befo' free 'clock terday ef I gwine get ter Souf Riveredge in time fer ter sell all dat mes o' candy."

Behind the window a small body's head gave a satisfied nod.

"'Taint lak week days. De sto'es tu'n out mighty early on Sattidays.

Hopes I kin sell eve'y bit and grain _dis_ time. I hates ter tote any home agin, an' dat chile tryin' so hard ter holp her ma."