CHAPTER XI
"Come down here--we're down by the river!" called Mrs. Burgoyne, fromthe shade of the river bank, where she and Mrs. Lloyd were busy withtheir sewing. "The American History section is entertaining the club."
"You look studious!" laughed Mrs. Brown, coming across the grass, toput the Brown baby upon his own sturdy legs from her tired arms, andsink into a deep lawn chair. The June afternoon was warm, but it wasdelightfully cool by the water. "Is that the club?" she asked, wavingtoward the group of children who were wading and splashing in theshallows of the loitering river.
"That's the American History Club," responded Mrs. Burgoyne, as sheflung her sewing aside and snatched the baby. "Paul," said she, kissinghis warm, moist neck, "do you truly love me a little bit?"
"Boy ge' down," said Paul, struggling violently.
"Yes, you shall, darling. But listen, do you want to hear thetick-tock? Oh, Paul, sit still just one minute!"
"Awn ge' DOWN," said Paul, distinctly, every fibre of his small beingheaded, as it were, for the pebbly shingle where it was daily hisdelight to dig.
"But say 'deck' first, sweetheart, say 'Deck, I love you,'" besoughtthe mistress of the Hall.
"Deck!" shouted Paul obediently, eyes on the river.
"And a sweet kiss!" further stipulated Mrs. Burgoyne, and grabbed itfrom his small, red, unresponsive mouth before she let him toddle away."Yes," she resumed, going on with the tucking of a small skirt, "Joannaand Jeanette and the Adams boy have to write an essay this week aboutthe Battle of Bunker Hill, so I read them Holmes' poem, and they actedit all out. You never saw anything so delicious. Mrs. Lloyd came upjust in time to see Mabel limping about as the old Corporal! The cherrytree was the steeple, of course, and both your sons, you'll be ashamedto hear, were redcoats. Next week they expect to do Paul Revere, and Idaresay we'll have the entire war, before we're through. You are bothcordially invited."
"I'll come," said the doctor's wife, smiling. "I love this garden. Andto take care of the boys and have a good time myself is more than Iever thought I'd do in this life!"
"I live on this bank," said Mrs. Burgoyne, leaning back luxuriously inher big chair, to stare idly up through the apple-tree to the blue sky."I'm going to teach the children all their history and poetry andmyths, out here. It makes it so real to them, to act it. Jo and Ellenand I read Barbara Frietchie out here a few weeks ago, and they'vewanted it every day or two, since."
"We won't leave anything for the schools to do," said little Mrs. Brown.
"All the better," Mrs. Burgoyne said, cheerfully.
"Well, excuse me!" Mrs. Lloyd, holding the linen cuff she wasembroidering at arm's length, and studying it between half-closed lids."I am only too glad to turn Mabel over to somebody else part of thetime. You don't know what she is when she begins to ask questions!"
"I don't know anything more tiring than being with children day in andday out," said Mrs. Brown, "it gets frightfully on your nerves!"
"Oh, I'd like about twelve!" said Mrs. Burgoyne.
"Oh, Mrs. Burgoyne! You WOULDN'T!"
"Yes, I would, granted a moderately secure income, and a rather roomycountry home. Although," added Mrs. Burgoyne, temperately, "I dohonestly think twelve children is too big a family. However, one may begreedy in wishes!"
"Would you want a child of yours to go without proper advantages," saidMrs. Lloyd, a little severely, "would you want more than one or two, ifyou honestly felt you couldn't give them all that other children have?Would you be perfectly willing to have your children feel at adisadvantage with all the children of your friends? I wouldn't," sheanswered herself positively, "I want to do the best by Mabel, I wanther to have everything, as she grows up, that a girl ought to have.That's why all this nonsense about the size of the American familymakes me so tired! What's the use of bringing a lot of children intothe world that are going to suffer all sorts of privations when theyget here?"
"Privations wouldn't hurt them," said Mrs. Burgoyne, sturdily, "if itwas only a question of patched boots and made-over clothes and plainfood. They could even have everything in the world that's worth while."
"How do you mean?" said Mrs. Lloyd, promptly defensive.
"I'd gather them about me," mused Sidney Burgoyne, dreamily, her eyeson the sky, a whimsical smile playing about her mouth, "I'd gather allseven together--"
"Oh, you've come down to seven?" chuckled Mrs. Brown.
"Well, seven's a good Biblical number," Mrs. Burgoyne said serenely,"--and I'd say 'Children, all music is yours, all art is yours, allliterature is yours, all history and all philosophy is waiting to proveto you that in starting poor, healthy, and born of intelligent anddevoted parents, you have a long head-start in the race of life. Alllife is ahead of you, friendships, work, play, tramps through the greencountry in the spring, fires in winter, nights under the summer stars.Choose what you like, and work for it, your father and I can keep youwarm and fed through your childhoods, and after that, nothing can stopyou if you are willing to work and wait."
"And then suppose your son asks you why he can't go camping with theother boys in summer school, and your daughter wants to join thecotillion?" asked Mrs. Lloyd.
"Why, it wouldn't hurt them to hear me say no," said Mrs. Burgoyne, insurprise. "I never can understand why parents, who practise everyimaginable self-denial themselves, are always afraid the firstrenunciation will kill their child. Sooner or later they are going tolearn what life is. I know a little girl whose parents aremulti-millionaires, and who is going to be told some day soon that hertwo older sisters aren't living abroad, as she thinks, but shut up forlife, within a few miles of her. What worse blow could life give to thepoorest girl?"
"Horrors!" murmured Mrs. Brown.
"And those are common cases," Mrs. Burgoyne said eagerly, "I knew of somany! Pretty little girls at European watering-places whose mothers arespending thousands, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get out oftheir blood what no earthly power can do away with. Sons of richfathers whose valets themselves wouldn't change places with them! Andthen the fine, clean, industrious middle-classes--or upper classes,really, for the blood in their veins is the finest in the world--areafraid to bring children into the world because of dancing cotillionsand motor-cars!"
"Well, of course I have only four," said Mrs. Brown, "but I've beenmarried only seven years--"
Mrs. Burgoyne laughed, came to a full stop, and reddened a little asshe went back busily to her sewing.
"Why do you let me run on at such a rate; you know my hobbies now!" shereproached them. "I am not quite sane on the subject of what ought tobe done--and isn't--in that good old institution called woman's sphere."
"That sounds vaguely familiar," said Mrs. Lloyd.
"Woman's sphere? Yes, we hate the sound of it," said Mrs. Burgoyne,"just as a man who has left his family hates to talk of home ties, andjust as a deserter hates the conversation to come around to the army.But it's true. Our business is children, and kitchens, and husbands,and meals, and we detest it all--"
"I like my husband a little," said Mrs. Brown, in a meek little voice.
They all laughed. Then said Mrs. Lloyd, gazing sentimentally toward theriver bank, where her small daughter's twisted curls were tossing madlyin a game of "tag":
"I shall henceforth regard Mabel as a possible Joan of Arc."
"One of those boys MAY be a Lincoln, or a Thomas Edison, or a MarkTwain," Sidney Burgoyne added, half-laughing, "and then we'll feel justa little ashamed for having turned him complacently over to a nurse ora boarding school. Of course, it leaves us free to go to the club andhear a paper on the childhood of Napoleon, carefully compiled yearsafter his death. Why, men take heavy chances in their work, they followup the slightest opening, but we women throw away opportunities to begreat, every day of our lives! Scientists and theorists are spendingyears of their lives pondering over every separate phase of thedevelopment of children, but we, who have the actual material in ourhands, turn it over to nursemaids!"
"Yes, but lots of children disappoint their parents bitterly," saidMrs. Brown, "and lots of good mothers have bad children!"
"I never knew a good mother to have a bad child--" began Mrs. Burgoyne.
"Well, I have. Thousands," Mrs. Lloyd said promptly.
"Oh, no! Not a BAD child," her hostess said, quickly. "A disappointingchild perhaps, or a strong-willed child, you mean. But no goodmother--and that doesn't mean merely a good woman, or a church-goingwoman!--could possibly have a really bad child. 'By their fruits,' youknow. And then of course we haven't a perfect system of nurserytraining yet; we expect angels. We judge by little, inessential things,we're exacting about unimportant trifles. We don't want our sons tomarry little fluffy-headed dolls, although the dolls may make them verygood wives. We don't want them to make a success of real estate, if thetradition of the house is for the bar or the practice of medicine. Andwe lose heart at the first suspicion of bad company, or of drinking;although the best men in the world had those temptations to fight! But,anyway, I would rather try at that and fail, than do anything else inthe world. My failures at least might save some other woman's children.And it's just that much more done for the world than guarding thevaluable life of a Pomeranian, or going to New York for new furs!" Theyall laughed, for Mrs. Willard White's latest announcement of her planshad awakened some comment among them.
"Mother, am I interrupting you?" said a patient voice at this point.Ellen Burgoyne, rosy, dishevelled, panting, stood some ten feet away,waiting patiently a chance to enter the conversation.
"No, my darling." Her mother held out a welcoming hand. "Oh, I see,"she added, glancing at her watch. "It's half-past four. Yes, you can goup for the gingerbread now. You mustn't carry the milk, you know,Ellen."
"Mother," said Ellen, flashing into radiance at the slightestencouragement, "have you told them about our Flower Festibul plans?"
"Oh, not yet!" Mrs. Burgoyne heaved a great sigh. "I'm afraid I'vecommitted myself to an entry for the parade," she told the othersruefully.
"Oh, don't tell me you're going to compete!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown.
"Well, we're rather afraid we are!" Mrs. Burgoyne's voice, if fearful,was hopeful too, for Ellen's face was a study. "Why, is it such aterrible effort?"
"Oh, yes, it's an appalling amount of struggle and fuss, there's allsorts of red tape, and the flowers are so messy," answered the doctor'swife warningly, "and this year will be worse than ever. The Women'sClub of Apple Creek is going to enter a carriage, and you know our clubis to have the White's motor; it will be perfectly exquisite! It's tobe all pink carnations, and Mr. White's nephew, a Berkeley boy, andsome of his friends, all in white flannels, are going to run it. Doctorsays there'll be a hundred entries this year."
"Well, I'm afraid I'm in for it," said Mrs. Burgoyne, with a sigh. "Ihaven't the least idea in the world what I'm going to do. It isn't asif we even had a surrey. But I really was involved before I had time tothink. You know I've been trying, with some of my spare time," her eyestwinkled, "to get hold of these little factory and cannery girls overin Old Paloma."
"You told me," said Mrs. Brown, "but I don't see how that--"
"Well, you see, their ringleader has been particularly ungracious tome. A fine, superb, big creature she is, named Alice Carter. This Alicecame up to the children and me in the street the other day, and toldme, in the gruffest manner, that she was interested in a littlecrippled girl over there, and had promised to take her to see theFlower Festival. But it seems the child's mother was afraid to trusther to Alice in the crowd and heat. Quite simply she asked me if Icould manage it. I was tremendously touched, and we went to see thechild. She's a poor, brave little scrap--twelve years old, did she say,Baby?"
"Going on thirteen," said Ellen rapidly; "and her father is dead, andher mother works, and she takes care of such a fat baby, and she isvery gen-tul with him, isn't she, Mother? And she cried when Mothergave her books, and she can't eat her lunch because her back aches, butshe gave the baby his lunch, and Mother asked her if she would let adoctor fix her back, and she said, 'Oh, no!'--didn't she, Mother? Shejust twisted and twisted her hands, and said, 'I can't.' And Mothersaid, 'Mary, if you will be a brave girl about the doctor, I will makeyou a pink dress and a wreath of roses, and you shall ride with theothers in the Flower Festibul!' And she just said, 'Oo-oo!'--didn'tshe, Mother? And she said she thought God sent you, didn't she, Mother?"
"She did." Mrs. Burgoyne smiled through wet lashes. Mrs. Brown wipedher own eyes against the baby's fluffy mop. "She's a most patheticlittle creature, this Mary Scott," went on the other woman when Ellenhad dashed away, "and I'm afraid she's not the only one. There's myMiss Davids' little sister; if I took her in, Miss Davids would be freefor the day; and there's a little deaf-mute whose mother runs thebakery. And I told Mary we'd manage the baby, too, and that if she knewany other children who positively couldn't come any other way, she mustlet me know. Of course the school children are cared for, they willhave seats right near the grand stand, and sing, and so on. But I amreally terrified about it, you'll have to help me out."
"I'll do anything," Mrs. Brown promised.
"I'll do anything I CAN," said Mrs. Lloyd, modestly, "I loathe andabominate children unless they're decently dressed and smell ofsoap--but I'll run a machine, if some one'll see that they don't swarmover me."
"I'll put a barbed wire fence around you!" promised Mrs. Burgoyne,gaily.
Mrs. Carew, coming up, as she expressed it, "to gather up somechildren," was decidedly optimistic about the plan. "Nobody ever useshydrangeas, because you can't make artificial ones to fill in with,"she said, "so you can get barrels of them." Mrs. Burgoyne wasenthusiastic over hydrangeas, "But it's not the fancy touches thatscare me," she confessed; "it's the awful practical side."
"What does Barry think?" Mrs. Carew presently asked innocently. Mrs.Burgoyne's suddenly rosy face was not unobserved by any of the others.
"I haven't seen him for several days, not since the night of mydinner," she admitted; "I've been lazy, sending my work down to theoffice. But I will see him right away."
"He's the one really to have ideas," Mrs. Brown assured her.
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