CHAPTER VIII
The new mistress of the Hall, in her vigorous young interest in allthings, included naturally a keen enjoyment of the village loveaffairs, she liked to hear the histories of the old families all about,she wanted to know the occupants of every shabby old surrey that drewup at the post-office while the mail was being "sorted." But if theconversation turned to mere idle talk and speculation, she wasconspicuously silent. And upon an occasion when Mrs. Adams casuallyreferred to a favorite little piece of scandal, Mrs. Burgoyne gave theconversation a sudden twist that, as Mrs. White, who was present, saidlater, "made you afraid to call your soul your own."
"Do you tell me that that pretty little Thorne girl is actually meetingthis young man, whoever he is, while her mother thinks she is taking amusic lesson?" demanded Mrs. Burgoyne, suddenly entering into theconversation. "There's nothing against him, I suppose? She COULD seehim at home."
"Oh, no, he's a nice enough little fellow," Mrs. White said, "but she'sa silly little thing, and I imagine her people are very severe withher; she never goes to dances or seems to have any fun."
"I wonder if we couldn't go see the mother, and hint that there isbeginning to be a little talk about Katherine," mused Mrs. Burgoyne."Don't you think so, Mrs. Adams?"
"Oh, my goodness!" Mrs. Adams said nervously, "I don't KNOW anythingabout it! I wouldn't for the world--I never dreamed--one would hate tostart trouble--Mr. Adams is very fond of the Thornes--"
"But we ought to save her if we can, we married women who know howmischievous that sort of thing is," Mrs. Burgoyne urged.
"Why, probably they've not met but once or twice!" Mrs. White said,annoyed, but with a comfortable air of closing the subject, and no morewas said at the time. But both she and Mrs. Adams were a little uneasytwo or three days later, when, returning from a motor trip, they sawMrs. Burgoyne standing at the Thornes' gate, in laughing conversationwith pretty little Katherine and her angular, tall mother.
"And there is nothing in that story at all," said Mrs. Burgoyne later,to Mrs. Carew.
"I suppose you walked up and said, 'If you are Miss Thorne, you areclandestinely meeting Joe Turner down by the old mill every week!'"laughed Mrs. Carew.
"I managed it very nicely," Mrs. Burgoyne said, "I admired their yellowrose one day, as I passed the gate. Mrs. Thorne was standing there, andI asked if it wasn't a Banksia. Then the little girl came out of thehouse, and she happened to know who I am--"
"Astonishingly bright child!" said Mrs. Carew.
"Well, and then we talked roses, and the father came home--a nice oldman. And I asked him if he'd lend me Miss Thorne now and then to playduets--and he agreed. So the child's been up to the Hall once or twice,and she's a nice little thing. She doesn't care tuppence for the Turnerboy, but he's musical, and she's quite music-mad, and now and then they'accidentally' meet. Her father won't let anyone see her at the house.She wants to study abroad, but they can't afford it, I imagine, so I'vewritten to see if I can interest a friend of mine in Berlin--But why doyou smile?" she broke off to ask innocently.
"At the thought of your friend in Berlin!" said Mrs. Carew audaciously.For she was not at all awed by Mrs. Burgoyne now.
Indeed, she and Mrs. Brown were growing genuinely fond of their newneighbor, and the occupants of the Hall supplied them with constantamusement and interest. Great lady and great heiress Sidney Burgoynemight be, but she lived a life far simpler than their own, and loved tohave them come in for a few minutes' talk even if she were cutting outcookies, with Joanna and Ellen leaning on the table, or feeding thechickens whose individual careers interested her so deeply. She walkedwith the little girls to school every morning, and met them near theschool at one o'clock. In the meantime she made a visit to the Mailoffice, and perhaps spent an hour or two there, or in the markets; butat least three times a week she wandered over to Old Paloma, and spentthe forenoon in the dingy streets across the river. What she did there,perhaps no one but Doctor Brown, who came to have a real affection andrespect for her, fully appreciated. Mrs. Burgoyne would tell him, whenthey met in some hour of life or death, that she was "making friends."It was quite true. She was the type of woman who cannot pass a smallchild in the street. She must stop, and ask questions, decide disputesand give advice. And through the children she won the big brothers andsisters and fathers and mothers of Old Paloma. Even a deep-rootedprejudice against the women of her class and their method of dealingwith the less fortunate could not prevail against her disarming,friendly manner, her simple gown and hat, her eagerness to get the newbaby into her arms; all these told in her favor, and she became verypopular in the shabby little settlement across the bridge. She wouldsit at a sewing-machine and show old Mrs. Goodspeed how to turn acertain hem, she would prescribe barley-water and whey for the Barnesbaby, she would explain to Mrs. Ryan the French manner of cooking toughmeat, it is true; but, on the other hand, she let pale littlediscouraged Mrs. Weber, of the Bakery, show her how to make a Germanpotato pie, and when Mrs. Ryan's mother, old Mrs. Lynch, knitted her ashawl, with clean, thin old work-worn hands, the tears came into herbright eyes as she accepted the gift. So it was no more than aneighborly give-and-take after all. Mrs. Burgoyne would fall into stepbeside a factory girl, walking home at sunset. "How was it today,Nellie? Did you speak to the foreman about an opening for your sister?"the rich, interested voice would ask. Or perhaps some factory lad wouldfind her facing him in a lane. "Tell me, Joe, what's all this talk oftrouble between you and the Lacy boys at the rink?"
"I'm a widow, too," she reminded poor little Mrs. Peevy, one day, "Iunderstand." "Do let me send you the port wine I used to take afterEllen was born," she begged one little sickly mother, and when sheloaned George Manning four hundred dollars to finish his new house, andget his wife and babies up from San Francisco, the transaction was madepalatable to George by her encouraging: "Everyone borrows money forbuilding, I assure you. I know my father did repeatedly."
When more subtle means were required, she was still equal to theoccasion. It was while Viola Peet was in the hospital for a burnedwrist that Mrs. Burgoyne made a final and effective attempt to movepoor little Mrs. Peet out of the bedroom where she had laincomplaining, ever since the accident that had crippled her and killedher husband five years before. Mrs. Burgoyne put it as a "surprise forViola," and Mrs. Peet, whose one surviving spark of interest in lifecentred in her three children, finally permitted carpenters to come andbuild a porch outside her dining-room, and was actually transferred,one warm June afternoon, to the wide, delicious hammock-bed that Mrs.Burgoyne had hung there. Her eyes, dulled with staring at a chocolatewall-paper, and a closet door, for five years, roved almost angrilyover the stretch of village street visible from the porch; theperspective of tree-smothered roofs and feathery elm and locust trees.
"'Tisn't a bit more than I'd do for you if I was rich and you poor,"said Mrs. Peet, rebelliously.
"Oh, I know that!" said Mrs. Burgoyne, busily punching pillows.
"An', as you say, Viola deserves all I c'n do for her," pursued theinvalid. "But remember, every cent of this you git back."
"Every cent, just as soon as Lyman is old enough to take a job," agreedMrs. Burgoyne. "There, how's that? That's the way Colonel Burgoyneliked to be fixed."
"You're to make a note of just what it costs," persisted Mrs. Peet,"this wrapper, and the pillers, and all."
"Oh, let the wrapper be my present to you, Mrs. Peet!"
"No, MA'AM!" said Mrs. Peet, firmly. And she told the neighbors, later,in the delightfully exciting afternoon and evening that followed herinstallation on the porch, that she wasn't an object of charity, andshe and Mrs. Burgoyne both knew it. Mrs. Burgoyne would not stay to seeViola's face, when she came home from the hospital to find her motherwatching the summer stars prick through the warm darkness, but Violacame up to the Hall that same evening, and tried to thank Mrs.Burgoyne, and laughed and cried at once, and had to be consoled withcookies and milk until the smiles had the upper hand, and she could gohome, with occasiona
l reminiscent sobs still shaking her bony littlechest.
"What are you trying to do over there?" asked Dr. Brown, coming in withhis wife for a rubber of bridge, as Viola departed. "Whereever I go, Icome across your trail. Are we nursing a socialist in our bosom?"
"No-o-o, I don't think I'm that," said Sidney laughing, and pushing theporch-chairs into comfortable relation. "Let's sit out here until Mr.Valentine comes. No, I'm not a socialist. But I can't help feeling thatthere's SOME solution for a wretched problem like that over there," awave of the hand indicated Old Paloma, "and perhaps, dabbling aimlesslyabout in all sorts of places, one of us may hit upon it."
"But I thought the modern theory was against dabbling," said Mrs.Brown, a little timidly, for she held a theory that she was not"smart." "I thought everything was being done by institutions, and bylaws--by legislation."
"Nothing will ever be done by legislation, to my thinking at least,"Mrs. Burgoyne said. "A few years ago we legislated some thousands ofnew babies into magnificent institutions. Nurses mixed their bottles,doctors inspected them, nurses turned them and washed them and watchedthem. Do you know what percentage survived?"
"Doesn't work very well," said the doctor, shaking a thoughtful headover his pipe.
"Just one hundred per cent didn't survive!" said Mrs. Burgoyne. "Nowthey take a foundling or an otherwise unfortunate baby, and give it toa real live mother. She nurses it if she can, she keeps near to it andcuddles it, and loves it. And so it lives. In all the asylums, it's thesame way. Groups are getting smaller and smaller, a dozen girls with amatron in a cottage, and hundreds of girls 'farmed out' with good,responsible women, instead of enormous refectories and dormitories andschoolrooms. And the ideal solution will be when every individual womanin the world extends her mothering to include every young thing shecomes in contact with; one doll for her own child and another doll forthe ashman's little girl, one dimity for her own debutante, and anotherjust as dainty for the seventeen-year-old who brings home the laundryevery week."
"Yes, but that's puttering here and there," asserted Mrs. Brown,"wouldn't laws for a working wage do all that, and more, too?"
"In the first place, a working wage doesn't solve it," Mrs. Burgoyneanswered vigorously, "because in fully half the mismanaged and dirtyhomes, the working people HAVE a working wage, have an amount of moneythat would amaze you! Who buys the willow plumes, and the phonographs,and the enlarged pictures, and the hair combs and the white shoes thatare sold by the million every year? The poor people, girls in shops,and women whose babies are always dirty, and always broken out withskin trouble, and whose homes are hot and dirty and miserable andmismanaged."
"Well, make some laws to educate 'em then, if it's education they allneed," suggested the doctor, who had been auditing every clause of thelast remark with a thoughtful nod.
"No, wages aren't the question," Mrs. Burgoyne reiterated. "Why, I knewa little Swedish woman once, who raised three children on three hundreddollars a year."
"She COULDN'T!" ejaculated Mrs. Brown.
"Oh, but she did! She paid one dollar a week for rent, too. One son isa civil engineer, now, and the daughter is a nurse. The youngest isstudying medicine."
"But what did they EAT, do you suppose?"
"Oh, I don't know. Potatoes, I suppose, and oatmeal and baked cabbage,and soup. I know she got a quart of buttermilk every day, for threecents. They were beautiful children. They went to free schools, andlectures, and galleries, and park concerts, and free dispensaries, whenthey needed them. Laws could do no more for her, she knew her business."
"Well, education WOULD solve it then," concluded Mrs. Brown.
"I don't know." Mrs. Burgoyne answered, reflectively, "Book educationwon't certainly. But example might, I believe example would."
"You mean for people of a better class to go and live among them?"suggested the doctor.
"No, but I mean for people of a better class to show them that whatthey are striving for isn't vital, after all. I mean for us to so orderour lives that they will begin to value cleanliness, and simplicity,and the comforts they can afford. You know, Mary Brown," said Mrs.Burgoyne, turning suddenly to the doctor's wife, with her gay,characteristic vehemence, "it's all our fault, all the misery andsuffering and sin of it, everywhere!"
"Our fault! You and me!" cried Mrs. Brown, aghast.
"No, all the fault of women, I mean!" Mrs. Burgoyne laughed too as Mrs.Brown settled back in her chair with a relieved sigh. "We women," shewent on vigorously, "have mismanaged every separate work that was everput into our hands! We ought to be ashamed to live. We cumber--"
"Here!" said the doctor, smiling in lazy comfort over his pipe, "that'sheresy! I refuse to listen to it. My wife is a woman, my mother, unlessI am misinformed, was another--"
"Don't mind him!" said Mrs. Brown, "but go on! What have we all done?We manage our houses, and dress our children, and feed our husbands, itseems to me."
"Well, there's the big business of motherhood," began Mrs. Burgoyne,"the holiest and highest thing God ever let a mortal do. We evade itand ignore it to such an extent that the nation--and othernations--grows actually alarmed, and men begin to frame laws to coax usback to the bearing of children. Then, if we have them, we turn theentire responsibility over to other people. A raw little foreigner ofsome sort answers the first questions our boys and girls ask, untilthey are old enough to be put under some nice, inexperienced young girljust out of normal school, who has fifty or sixty of them to manage,and of whose ideas upon the big questions of life we know absolutelynothing. We say lightheartedly that 'girls always go through a tryingage,' and that we suppose boys 'have to come in contact with things,'and we let it go at that! We 'suppose there has always been vice, andalways will be,' but we never stop to think that we ourselves aresetting the poor girls of the other world such an example in theclothes we wear, and the pleasures we take, that they will sell eventhemselves for pretty gowns and theatre suppers. We regret sweat-shops,even while we patronize the stores that support them, and we bemoanchild-labor, although I suppose the simplest thing in the world wouldbe to find out where the cotton goes that is worked by babies, andrefuse to buy those brands of cotton, and make our merchants tell uswhere they DO get their supply! We have managed our household problemso badly that we simply can't get help--"
"You CANNOT do your own work, with children," said Mrs. Brown firmly.
"Of course you can't. But why is it that our nice young American girlswon't come into our homes? Why do we have to depend upon the mostignorant and untrained of our foreign people? Our girls pour into thefactories, although our husbands don't have any trouble in gettingtheir brothers for office positions. There is always a line of boyswaiting for a possible job at five dollars a week."
"Because they can sleep at home," submitted the doctor.
"You know that, other things being equal, young people would muchrather not sleep at home," said Mrs. Burgoyne, "it's the migrating age.They love the novelty of being away at night."
"Well, when a boy comes into my office," the doctor reasoned slowly,"he knows that he has certain unimportant things to do, but he sees metaking all the real responsibility, he knows that I work harder than hedoes."
"Exactly," said Mrs. Burgoyne. "Men do their own work, with help. Wedon't do ours. Not only that, but every improvement that comes to ourscomes from men. They invent our conveniences, they design our stovesand arrange our sinks. Not because they know anything about it, butbecause we're not interested."
"One would think you had done your own work for twenty years!" saidMrs. Brown.
"I never did it," Mrs. Burgoyne answered smiling, "but I sometimes wishI could. I sometimes envy those busy women who have small houses, newbabies, money cares--it must be glorious to rise to fresh emergenciesevery hour of your life. A person like myself is handicapped. I can'tdemonstrate that I believe what I say. Everyone thinks me merely alittle affected about it. If I were such a woman, I'd glory in clippingmy life of everything but the things I needed, and l
iving like one ofmy own children, as simply as a lot of peasants!"
"And no one would ever be any the wiser," said Mrs. Brown.
"I don't know. Quiet little isolated lives have a funny way of gettingout into the light. There was that little peasant girl at Domremy, forinstance; there was that gentle saint who preached poverty to thebirds; there was Eugenie Guerin, and the Cure of Ars, and the fewobscure little English weavers--and there was the President who split--"
"I thought we'd come to him!" chuckled the doctor.
"Well," Mrs. Burgoyne smiled, a little confused at having betrayedhero-worship. "Well, and there was one more, the greatest of all, whodidn't found any asylums, or lead any crusade--" She paused.
"Surely," said the doctor, quietly. "Surely. I suppose that curing thelame here, and the blind there, and giving the people their fill ofwine one day, and of bread and fishes the next, might be called'dabbling' in these days. But the love that went with those things iswarming the world yet!"
"Well, but what can we DO?" demanded Mrs. Brown after a short silence.
"That's for us to find out," said Mrs. Burgoyne, cheerfully.
"A correct diagnosis is half a cure," ended the doctor, hopefully.
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