Mable Riley

by Marthe Jocelyn

  “As we have two ears and but one tongue, we should hear much more than we speak.”

  That word tongue holds such a trick that none of the children can grasp it.

  I looked at the clock above Viola's desk when Frank began his turn to-day and counted four minutes and a half for him to read this poem, with grubby fingers scratching at his flea-bitten ankles in accompaniment.

  “Our ears were made to hear.

  Our tongues were made to talk.

  Our eyes were made to see.

  Our feet were made to walk.”

  It was no surprise to find Peter's eyelids flopping down like window shades at noon. Seized with inspiration, I took up my slate and wrote upon it my own poem, using words from Lesson 3.

  “Here, Ellen,” I said, passing the slate to her. She is the best reader of the four and began without hesitation.

  “One flea I see by my left eye.

  One flea is sat upon my knee.

  One flea is near my ear, I fear.

  The fleas on me add up to three!”

  The children began to giggle without restraint. Viola was swift to wonder what could cause such merriment during a reading lesson. I begged the children to take their turns quietly, feeling that my rhyme should remain our little secret.

  My satisfaction dissolved, however, when the spelling bee took place.

  I made no error. Tommy made no error. Even Ellen and Peter made no error. It was Cathy Forrest, spelling poured without the u or the e and Dottie, who started copper with a k, who helped the Happy Hyphens win again. They have accrued thirty-two points to our twenty-four. This is dismal!

  PART THE THIRD

  {THE TRAIN JOURNEY}

  For Helena and James, the journey continued. Unable to rest, Helena found her gaze wandering to the carriage window with the black of midnight behind, reflecting nearly as clear a picture of herself as if it were the gilt-framed mirror in her bedchamber at the earl's mansion.

  It showed her pale face, worry-smudged eyes, and rosy lips. It also showed her traveling cloak of green velvet trimmed with white rabbit fur and, faintly, the glinting of a brooch pinned above her heart.

  But Helena had no patience to examine her own reflection and peered into the darkness beyond, pondering the lives lived in these farms and towns away from her own familiar valley.

  Chugging through a village, Helena espied a small house with a candle burning in an upstairs window. Despite the lateness of the hour, the shadow of a woman was clearly outlined through the curtain.

  Oh! thought Helena. There stands a house disturbed by sorrow this night! Her tender heart wondered what caused a light to flicker near to dawn. Perhaps the woman cries to have lost her loving sister, not to illness or insanity but worse even than that! Lost to an immoral misstep, abandoned by a thoughtless, selfish act whose consequences will rain down more heavily than tears!

  “No!” Helena stumbled to her feet but fell back at once, flung by the motion of the train into her seat beside James, the slumbering scoundrel.

  “I have acted in haste!” she cried, looking upon James's features, which were abhorrent to her now. “Can it be too late to be forgiven?” She reached out a hand to wake him, to confess the strain upon her heart, but at that moment felt the train struggle to make an unexpected stop. Shouts of confusion, ladies screaming, and gunshots combined to produce a most alarming clamour. James came awake at last, his lips making a noisy smacking sound.

  “What is the matter?” he called most un-manfully, not hiding the fear in his voice.

  “I cannot tell for certain,” replied Helena. “But it would appear that this train has been apprehended by bandits!”

  To be continued …

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

  Mrs. Forrest made an announcement after the service this morning. The Harvest Social will be held in the cellar hall of the church on Saturday night, October 26. From the very youngest girls up to those who might have an eye to courting, there was much excitement and fluttering, mostly on the subject of which dresses will be worn and which of the young men will deign to attend.

  The sermon was “God Is Best Worshiped in His Own Home.” I think perhaps that Mrs. Forrest and the Reverend Mr. Scott have discussed the topic. He was insistent that church is the place for hymns and prayers; otherwise they may go misdirected and not to God's heart. No, thought I, but fly instead to the fleshy ears of a busybody down the lane.

  The sermon seemed three hours long and lunch quite the same, so eager was I to see Mrs. Rattle once more. When I finally arrived at Silver Lining, I knew not what to expect. What I discovered was Mrs. Rattle, standing beside her shed, swinging an ax.

  “Aha!” she cried. “Just the person I need! You've probably seen this done before, have you not?”

  Mrs. Rattle felt warned, she said, by the temperature dipping these past few nights and had decided to chop a supply of firewood in preparation for winter. However, she explained, she is a city girl and knew not how to begin.

  “Could you not hire someone?” I asked. “This is a man's chore, surely.”

  Her face shadowed and she turned to me quite sharply. “There should be no such thing as a man's chore, Mable Riley If women are so reliant upon men, even to the fire beneath their teakettles, how are we ever to speak out using our own voices?”

  This seemed an answer beyond the question, but I saw that she was determined to do the work herself.

  “Allow me to show you how to hold the ax,” I said. From watching my brother a thousand hours I knew that much, at least. I needed also to set up her chopping block, for she had the large piece lying on the ground at an awkward angle.

  “Freddy Abell at the blacksmith's delivered this to me,” she said, indicating the pile of wood that blocked the entrance to the shed. “I was wondering aloud where I might find some, and he said I could have a tree that fell on his lot last year. I have quite used up the supply that was put here by the owner of the cottage when I moved in.”

  She sighed and then grinned. Her smile makes me think of a clever cat. She prodded a log with the toe of her boot (which was green and laced to the top with silk ribbons). “It is quite dry enough to split, Freddy said. But I did not think the pieces would come so large. They need to fit into the stove.

  “That Freddy Abell thinks he has earned a place in Heaven for helping me. Usually men assume I am a demented suffragist for wearing bloomers, or else yearning for a husband. Trust me, that is the furthest wish from my heart!”

  Whatever does that mean? I wonder.

  As much as she wished to appear self-sufficient, she did look a helpless lamb in the face of such a woodpile. She was a quick learner, however, handling the ax as I instructed and even grunting faintly with each swing. We became so absorbed that many minutes passed before she spoke again.

  “Tell me, Mable Riley, what are your dreams?”

  I jumped, as if she were tickling me with a feather.

  “I – well – I – I suppose I will be a teacher,” I stammered. “Until I marry, of course.”

  “Marry? Surely it is too soon to think of marrying?” She tipped her head to one side and beamed her gray eyes straight at me. “What about a little deeper, hmmm? In your heart, Mable? What do you wish for?”

  Mrs. Rattle does not conform to the usual code of manners, and yet she cannot truly be called rude. She steps over the threshold and into the parlour without awaiting an invitation. But she seems to know already that her company is welcome.

  I told her what I have not told to anyone (except Viola, and only then to hear the words spoken aloud. I could rely on her not believing in me).

  “I want to be a writer,” I whispered.

  She smiled the most beautiful smile. “I knew when I first saw you that we would like each other,” she said. “I am a writer too.”

  “You are? Have you been?”

  “Published? Yes, my dear. But not books. I write for newspapers.” A shadow fell across her face. “Or rather, I did write for
newspapers until I began too often to write the truth. Now, I am … well … considering what may next be suitable for me.”

  “You wrote for newspapers? You were a reporter? Like Nellie Bly?”

  Mrs. Rattle laughed. “Why, yes! Nellie Bly is a heroine to me. Her life is partly why I chose mine.”

  “Nellie Bly went on her voyage around the world during the year that I was two,” I told her, “in 1889. When I was a little girl, Viola and Arthur used to load my cradle with provisions and then climb in with me and rock it wildly until we nearly tipped into the shark-infested ocean. They called it Playing Nellie Bly It was our best game, all squeezed in and laughing till our breath was ragged.”

  “That's a lovely memory!” she said. “There was only me at home. I always wished for sisters.”

  “Sisters are not always so lovely,” I said.

  It was not until our hands were rubbed sore and our faces moist with perspiration that Mrs. Rattle decided we had done enough for one afternoon and said to please come inside for a glass of lemonade.

  It would take half the night to tell of the wonders inside Silver Lining. As soon as I stepped in the front door, I felt a rush of excitement from my scalp to my toes and knew not which way to look first.

  “Come into the kitchen,” she said, leading me too quickly through a large parlour, where I saw a dancing woman wearing only a gauzy scarf, painted directly on the wall. I must have gasped aloud, for she laughed.

  “Whatever would Mrs. Forrest have to say about my hobby, hmmm?”

  My face grew hot. It was exactly what I had been thinking! I don't suppose I expected a tidy sofa like Mrs. Goodhand's or a plain kitchen like my mother's, but nothing could have prepared me for these rooms!

  The kitchen was painted pink like the inside of a new peony. Her pretty crockery I recognized from the T. Eaton Company catalogue. It has pink-and-green decoration, set with heavy gold lines the king cannot have nicer, I am certain.

  She opened her icebox and chipped chunks of ice off the block with an awl kept handy on a leather cord. She put the chips into crystal glasses, which she filled with lemonade, already prepared and cooled. Never did a drink quench my thirst so deliciously!

  When we returned to the parlour, I forced my eyes to see beyond the naked dancer to the other furnishings. The chairs and occasional tables were all made of wicker, covered with cushions of many lush brocades. There were shelves from the floor to ceiling along one wall, filled with books. There were framed photographs and pictures hanging from the other walls and small toys and figurines standing on every surface.

  Except for one. What did I spy upon the desk?

  “A typewriting machine!” I cried. “That's what it is, am I right?” I touched one of the letter keys with the tip of my fingernail.

  “It will not bite you,” she said, laughing. Though she appears quite melancholy in her quiet moments, she seems always to be laughing when she speaks a warm, gentle laugh, as though every thought amuses her.

  “This is my friend Underwood,” she said with a look of pride. “Underwood, this is Mable Riley. I hope you may become better acquainted.” Mrs. Rattle plucked a piece of paper from the stack on the desktop and rolled it, with a flourish, into the machine.

  “Underwood, say hello to Mable.” She hit several keys firmly with the pads of her fingers. Her nails were torn and dirty from our afternoon in the woodpile. She pulled the paper out and showed me the words she had typed: Hello, Mable.

  “Hello, Underwood,” I said aloud, grateful that Hattie was not there to hear me.

  “I pray that I will not have to sell this,” said Mrs. Rattle. “I will let almost anything else go first.”

  I did not like to hear such a remark. We've been taught that a lady does not discuss money. But I had to know.

  “You don't seem poor,” I said, avoiding her eyes. “You have lovely things.”

  “I certainly hope to avoid the poorhouse,” she said in a bright, chirpy voice that I knew was false. “I am lucky to have paid the year's lease in advance on the cottage, so I do not need to worry about shelter, at the very least.”

  My eye was drawn to a large leather scrapbook lying open on the desk next to the typewriting machine.

  “I've kept copies of all my published pieces,” said Mrs. Rattle, flipping over pages covered with pasted-in newspaper clippings. “My first job was at the Toronto Telegram, with ‘Teatime Trifles, a Ladies Column.’”

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me –”

  “The ladies of the Schubert Quartet enjoy great popularity, not only for their grand voices but because they study to please people …”

  I read, and turned to the next one.

  “In the garden of Mr. Jason Eggles, on Coburg Street, is a peach tree that has yielded over twelve baskets of fruit this year. Let me suggest how his wife might take best advantage of her bounty.”

  Then followed a recipe for peach cobbler.

  “Aren't they ridiculous?” Mrs. Rattle laughed mournfully. “I had to write that foolish drivel for a full year before they let me hint that I possessed a brain. Then I began to find subjects who would add pepper to the picnic.” She turned another page. “Here's one.”

  A SCIENTIST'S GRIM DISCOVERY

  Dr. Casagrandi, in reading a paper before a medical association in Rome, stated that he had employed a number of women wearing long skirts to walk for one hour through the streets of the city. After the promenade, he submitted the skirts to a careful bacteriologic examination. There were found on every skirt large colonies of noxious germs, including those of typhoid fever, consumption, influenza, tetanus (or lockjaw), and numerous other bacilli.

  Dr. Casagrandi maintained that women, and especially mothers, should at once discontinue wearing trailing skirts. Other members of the Medical Congress unhesitatingly passed resolutions to that effect.

  That women should subject themselves to such filth has long been a wonder to those acquainted with bacteriology. Nevertheless, so long as fashion calls for long skirts, little reform can be expected, for the great majority of women are bound to be in the fashion regardless of any ordinary considerations. There is some encouragement, however, in the fact that many younger women of the present wear bicycle skirts or “bloomers” throughout the day and merely dress for dinner and the evening.

  “Is that true?” I asked.

  “Of course!”

  “May I read more?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, if you're really interested.” Once again her expression darkened. “The Telegram claims that no one else was. That's why they ended my employ. ‘Lack of reader interest.’ They think women don't have time between cooking and sewing to read the newspaper, but they'll discover someday that we do. Isn't that right, Mable Riley? Perhaps the next time Mrs. Goodhand sends her loaf, you can use Underwood to transcribe some of your own stories.”

  “Oh!” I cried. “I have forgotten Mrs. Goodhand! Whatever is the time?” I had been at Silver Lining for hours and hours. I bid Mrs. Rattle a hasty farewell, thanking her over and over as I backed out the door, so that I must have appeared quite silly indeed.

  The family was already at the table when I hurtled through the door. Eight eyes bore into me as I shed my shawl with my cheeks aflame.

  “Dear Mrs. Goodhand, I apologize for being late.” I bobbed a curtsy, not daring a glance at Viola.

  “Punctuality is an acknowledgment of God,” said Mr. Goodhand.

  “Yes, sir” I said.

  “If your attentions to the Widow Rattle have moved beyond charity, perhaps we need to consider how you might better be occupied,” added Mrs. Goodhand.

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Take your seat.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  And so ended my very favourite afternoon. I am tired past writing but will end simply with these words: When I am a grown woman, I vow to follow Mrs. Rattle's example and live every hour surrounded by loveliness and inspiration.

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

 
; I am well pleased with myself this afternoon, for I have penned another rhyme for my scholars. In fact, I have decided to put my natural talent to use and author a special primer of my own.

  Lesson 4 in the reader goes like this:

  The jay cannot sing as well as the lark. The jay is a cross bird. It has a harsh voice. Bad boys and girls, like bad birds, do not like to sing. Good boys and girls like to sing. The hawk and the crow do not sing. Can you sing?

  It made me chuckle to think what a “bad” bird might be.

  Here is my version:

  The worms I bring, you will not eat

  The nest I've made, you won't keep neat

  You caw instead of singing sweet

  You are a bad, bad Jaybird!

  You tease the nestlings in the park

  You fly about when it is dark

  You cannot sing as well as Lark

  You are a bad, bad Jaybird!

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

  Because Wednesday is our “half day,” school is dismissed at two o'clock instead of four. I asked Alfred if I might go to the post office with him in the afternoon. I hoped for another letter from Hattie.

  Alfred is a pleasant young man, not at all frightening or peculiar as are most men of twenty. He asked about school and who was naughty or clever and whether Viola was very strict.

  “The pupils in Miss Riley's classroom must consider themselves very lucky to have such a pretty and charming teacher,” said Alfred.

  “You need spectacles,” I returned.

  “When I was a boy, our teacher was Mr. Tamblyn, and never did you see such a pointed nose or a sharp tongue as that man had. Why, I do believe it were quicker to open letters with his nose than with a knife!”

  We had quite a jolly ride and arrived in town before four o'clock.

  I was impressed with my first real sight of Stratford. Because Viola and I had arrived in the evening, we did not see the town from the railroad station. Alfred claims that nine thousand people live in Stratford. He promised to bring me on a market day so that I may spend some hours looking about.