It was her first found out the Dillses were letting that twelve-year-old child run the gasoline stove, and she threatened to tell Mr. Lossing, and they begged off; and when it exploded we put it out together, with flour out of her flour-barrel, for the poor, shiftless things hadn't half a sack full of their own; and her and me, we took half the care of that little neglected Ellis baby that was always sitting down in the sticky fly-paper, poor innocent child.
He's took the valedictory at the High School, Tilly, now.
No, Tilly, I couldn't bring myself to leave this building, where I've married them, and buried them, and born them, you may say, being with so many of their mothers; I feel like they was all my children.
Don't ASK me."
Tilly's head went upward and backward with a little dilatation of the nostrils. "Now, mother," said she in a voice of determined gentleness, "just listen to me.
Would I ask you to do anything that wouldn't be for your happiness?
I have found a real pretty house up on Fifteenth Street;and we'll keep house together, just as cosey; and have a woman come to wash and iron and scrub, so it won't be a bit hard;and be right on the street-cars; and you won't have to drudge helping Mrs. Carleton extra times with her restaurant.""But, Tilly," eagerly interrupted Mrs. Louder, "you know I dearly love to cook, and she PAYS me. I couldn't feel right to take any of the pension money, or the little property your father left me, away from the house expenses; but what I earn myself, it is SUCH a comfort to give away out of THAT."Tilly ran over and kissed the agitated face. "You dear, generous mother!"cried she, "I'LL give you all the money you want to spend or give.
I got another rise in my salary of five a month. Don't you worry.""You ain't thinking of doing anything right away, Tilly?""Don't you think it's best done and over with, after we've decided, mother? You have worked so hard all your life I want to give you some ease and peace now.""But, Tilly, I love to work; I wouldn't be happy to do nothing, and I'd get so fleshy!"Tilly only laughed. She did not crave the show of authority.
Let her but have her own way, she would never flaunt her victories.
She was imperious, but she was not arrogant. For months she had been pondering how to give her mother an easier life;and she set the table for supper, in a filial glow of satisfaction, never dreaming that her mother, in the kitchen, was keeping her head turned from the stove lest she should cry into the fried ham and stewed potatoes. But, at a sudden thought, Jane Louder laid her big spoon down to wipe her eyes.
"Here you are, Jane Louder"--thus she addressed herself--"mourning and grieving to leave your friends and be laid aside for a useless old woman, and jist be taken care of, and you clean forgetting the chance the Lord gives you to help more'n you ever helped in your life! For shame!"A smile of exaltation, of lofty resolution, erased the worry lines on her face. "Why, it might be to save twenty lives," said she;but in the very speaking of the words a sharp pain wrenched her heart again, and she caught up the baby from the floor, where he sat in a wall of chairs, and sobbed over him:
"Oh, how can I go away when I got to go for good so soon?
I want every minnit!"
She never thought of disputing Tilly's wishes. "It's only fair,"said Jane. "She's lived here all these years to please me, and now I ought to be willing to go to please her."Neither did she for a moment hope to change Tilly's determination.
"She was the settest baby ever was," thought poor Jane, tossing on her pillow, in the night watches, "and it's grown with every inch of her!"But in the morning she surprised her daughter. "Tilly," said she at the breakfast-table, "Tilly, I got something I must do, and I don't want you to oppose me.""Good gracious, ma!" said Tilly; "as if I ever opposed you!""You know how bad I have been feeling about the poor Russians ------""Well?"
"And how I've wished and wished I could do something--something to COUNT? I never could, Tilly, because I ain't got the money or the intellect; but s'posing I could do it for somebody else, like this Captain Ferguson who could do so much if he just could get a hired girl to take care of his wife.
Well, I do know how to cook and to keep a house neat and to do for the sick ----"Tilly could restrain herself no longer; her voice rose to a shout of dismay--"Mother Louder, you AIN'T thinking of going to be the Ferguson's _hired girl!_""Not their hired girl, Tilly; just their help, so as he can work for those poor starving creatures." Jane strangled a sob in her throat. Tilly, in a kind of stupor of bewilderment, frowned at her plate. Then her clouded face cleared.
If Mrs. Louder had surprised her daughter, her daughter repaid the surprise. "Well, if you feel that way, mother," said she, "I won't say a word; and I'll ask Mr. Lossing to explain to the Fergusons and fix everything. He will.""You're real good, Tilly."
"And while you're gone I guess it will be a good plan to move and git settled ----"For some reason Tilly's throat felt dry, she lifted her cup.
She did not intend to look across the table, but her eyes escaped her.
She set the coffee down untasted. The clock was slow, she muttered;and she left the room.
Jane Louder remained in her place, with the same pale face, staring at the table-cloth.
"It don't seem like I COULD go, now," she thought dully to herself;"the time's so awful short, I don't s'pose Maria Carleton can git up to see me more'n once or twice a month, busy as she is!
I got so to depend on seeing her every day. A sister couldn't be kinder! I don't see how I am going to bear it.
And to go away, beforehand ----"
For a long while she sat, her face hardly changing. At last, when she did push her chair away, her lips were tightly closed.
