“Henny, don’t eat all that sauce,” said Hassie, “in your condition, you know, you’ll be ill.”
“All her life she’s lived on gherkins and chilies and Worcestershire sauce; it won’t kill her. She preferred pickled walnuts at school to candy. Ugh! I kicked myself on the leg of this darn table. Why don’t you take it, Henny? I’ve got no use for it. I eat my breakfast in the upper kitchen. It’s sunny. You take it, Henny. You know what I’d like to do? Give all the furniture away before next time He comes! Ha-ha! Some joke! I’ll bet my bottom dollar it’s mortgaged. Will you take it, Hassie, then?”
“I’ll probably need it,” said Henny dryly, “she doesn’t. Pete eats in the garage as far as I can make out. He never ate in the house that I saw.”
“He’s always in the refrigeration plant; it’s his mania,” Hassie exploded. “I don’t mind: when he’s at home, he gabs so much my jaws ache.”
Old Ellen began to laugh healthily, “It’s dangerous not to talk to your husband. Now Samuel didn’t talk to Henny for four years and more—”
“I didn’t talk to him; do you think anything on earth would stop the Great Mouthpiece from talking?”
“—and your Dad didn’t talk to me for twenty-two years, and I had fourteen youngsters as a result.”
“It isn’t necessary to talk,” said Henny bitterly. “Can’t we get some more to eat? This is old and cold.”
Louie heard the bell ringing. The young maid Nellie, sloppy and cheerful, came in suddenly from the kitchen. She went to the room and got their order for new toast, but on the way back she swerved into the pantry room and said in a fresh, childish voice to Louie,
“Why don’t you come out into the kitchen? I’ll give you a bit of cake.”
“All right.” Flustered, grinning, the child followed her. The windows were open on the lawns. Tea roses grew unpruned outside and sometimes dropped in to see them. While waiting for the kettle to boil, the new little maid sat down again in her chair by the window and took up a sock on which she was turning the heel. She pointed to a chair at the table and said to Louie, “Pull it over by me.”
Louie hurried to obey and sat opposite the blond, lank-haired girl, much pleased.
“Can you knit?”
“No.” Louie writhed.
“Can you talk French?”
“No.” Louie looked blank.
“Say, parlayvoo fraongsay.”
“What did you say?”
“That’s French. Parlayvoo fraongsay. Say it.” The little girl blurted it out, with blind eyes: powloo frossay. Very severely, the little maid repeated her French and made Louie repeat it.
“That means, can you speak French. Then you say, wee, wee. Go on.”
“Uh?”
“Wee wee.”
With much giggling and blushing they got it right; and then the toast was burning.
Putting on a new slice, Nellie continued, “Voozett jolly.”
Louie stared meekly at her, blushing to ear lobes.
“Say, voozett jolly.”
“What does it mean?” asked Louie cautiously, for there had been a rash of dirty sayings lately; e.g., Polly, polish it in the corner.
“You are pretty.”
Louie turned scarlet and gaped at the girl, eyes popping from their sockets.
“That’s what it means,” said the girl in a practical tone, after cocking half an eye at her. To cover her embarrassment, Louie got out quickly, “Fazette jolly!”
“Very good, very good: you could speak good French,” the girl approved her. Louie was much encouraged. The girl went away, stayed some time, and when she came back Louie was fumbling with the needles trying to work out the how of a stitch.
“I’ll show you,” offered the obliging creature, “then you can knit your own tennis socks; wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Yes.”
“See, come and sit by me.”
A long interval followed during which Louie learned to make one clumsy great hole of a plain stitch.
“And now I must undo it and do it myself,” said the girl. “See, this is for Mr. Barry. He will only wear handmade socks.”
“Uncle Barry will?”
“Yes, they’re the best. He isn’t your Uncle Barry, you know.”
“Yes, he is,” Louie assured her, thinking she was a stranger to the place.
“No; he’s your little brothers’ uncle and Evie’s uncle, but not your uncle.”
“No,” confessed Louie.
“Well, don’t say he’s your uncle.”
Louie was irritated and said nothing.
“That’s a lie,” said the girl, “because your mother is dead.”
Louie studied her with a puzzled expression.
“If you lie you are a bastard,” said the girl.
“I’m not a bastard.”
“Yes, you are. A bastard has no father or mother.”
“I have a father,” said Louie angrily.
“He’s gone away and left you,” the girl said calmly, “and you’re a norphan. A bastard is a norphan.”
“You’re not telling the truth.”
“Yes, I am; you ask Miss Hassie. You ask Old Mrs. Collyer. That ain’t your mother, that’s your stepmother. You’ve got a stepmother. So that proves you’re a bastard.”
Louie was silent.
“And no one likes you,” said the girl, without malice, “that’s because you’re a norphan. Nobody likes you.”
“Yes, they do,” said Louie.
“Who?”
“Everyone; a lot of people.”
“Who?” continued the maid, calm in her demonstration.
Louie hesitated. “My father and my mother.”
“Your brothers and Evie have a mother, but you are a norphan. And your father doesn’t like you because he beats you. I know. I heard. A little bird told me. I know. You’re a bastard. You get beaten.”
Louie was perplexed and ashamed.
“Your father doesn’t want you; he sends you to your uncle’s at Harpers Ferry. They’re poor. Someone told me,” the young girl said with conviction. “I know; you can’t fool me. You’re just a norphan. They send you away. You’re no good. They’re going to send you to work soon.”
“I’m going to high school this month,” Louie said.
“You’re going to the reform school for children,” Nellie said sharply. “That’s where they send bastards. You see. Someone told me. You stole a cooky at the grocer’s.”
“I’m not, I’m not,” Louie said, very stormy. “That’s not true.”
“You stole some cookies. The grocer sent a note to your mother and she told that other maid, Hazel, and she told Mrs. Collyer. You’re a thief.” Louie was silent. The girl pounced, “You’re a thief; you stole.”
“I had a right to,” said Louie angrily, “he gave it to me: I had a right to.”
“You’re a liar,” said the girl happily. “He wrote to your stepmother. And you stole flowers from Mrs. Bolton’s.”
Louie was thunderstruck. One day she had picked some flowers through the fence, in fact, and then taken them inside and offered them to Mrs. Bolton to conciliate her. But how did anyone know it?
“You steal everything and they’ll send you to reform school. I’m a norphan and I know all about it,” said the little maid calmly. “You’re a norphan too: they’re going to make you go out and work like me.”
Louie stared at her glumly and rebelliously. The little maid ran on cheerfully,
“Near where my folks live there’s a family with two pianos. When they moved, I seen two pianos in the street. And the girls moved them out themselves. They’re strong. They’ve got big iron muscles like men. They moved everything out themselves.”
Narrowing her eyes, Louie watched her with distrust.
“You don’t believe me?” said the girl sharply.
“No.”
“That’s calling me a liar. You called me a liar; I’ll tell your stepmother on you.”
“No, I believe you,” sa
id Louie hastily. The girl rattled on at once, “And they don’t wear any stockings, or anything under their dresses, just bare skin, pink. One time I thought they had on pink pants, then I saw they had nothing. And they were doing high kicking on the front porch.”
Louie was silent, disbelieving her.
“You heard what I said? They wore nothing on under their skirts. Nothing.”
“What about it?” said Louie with contempt. At home the children ran about naked, or with only overalls on.
“It ain’t right. It’s wrong. You take it from me. They’re fast,” said the girl solemnly to Louie. “They go dancing naked with boys, you know that.”
Louie was silent.
“Eh?” the girl nudged her. “Eh? What do you say to that?”
“Let them if they want to,” said Louie, embarrassed.
“They go for a swim and take off their things as soon as they get in,” said the young girl, very mysteriously. “What do you think of that? Is that right? I bet that makes you blush.”
“No,” said Louie, “why shouldn’t they? If no one sees them.”
“But people do see them,” said Nellie. “Of course, I’ve never seen them; but I know people,” she nodded at Louie. “I know plenty of things, plenty of things. And what I don’t know won’t hurt me.” She laughed her infantine brittle laugh. “What do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know anything?”
Louie hesitated, “I know—
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbor-stained steel,—
Will they not hear? What ho! you men, you beasts”
Nellie began to smile, “That’s nice. Can you recite?”
“Yes,” said Louie. “That quench the fire of your pernicious rage; but it’s a long one. Do you want to hear it? Besides I don’t know much more.”
“What else do you know, kid?”
“Lars Porsena of Clusium by the nine gods he swore.”
“You say that at school?”
“Yes,” said Louie.
“But you’re a norphan,” said the girl, shaking her head. “You got to go to work.”
Neither of them had heard wistful Evie come pussy-footing into the kitchen. She now stood at the door, staring at them, in their wonderful intercourse. But espied, she came up and proffered herself, “I can dance.”
“You run away, little Evie,” said Nellie.
“I better go,” Louie said hastily. The company of the norphan-obsessed young person was palling and she felt uneasy about the thefts. “Don’t go,” said Nellie quickly, “stay here. I got no one to talk to here from one day’s end to another.”
“You didn’t tell me the truth,” said Louie getting up courage.
“I did so; and they wear pink socks when they go to bed too,” Nellie gabbled, with a sneer. “They do all sorts of things; but I couldn’t tell them to little girls like you.”
With a severe expression, Louie left the kitchen, drawing Evie after her. Louie was deeply puzzled and sin-filled. But at once she began inventing, in the cockles of her heart, a hocus-pocus of denial, and explanation, about the cookies and the flowers. But how, in the name of everything under the sun, did anyone find out about them? She began to feel that the Boltons and Middenways were little better than creeping spies and callous slanderers trying to gnaw away her reputation. She had a right to the cookies and flowers, she calculated; whatever she did for herself, on her own initiative, was right and she would defy the world: but what about the miserable insect souls and minds of adults who spied on children and tattled? Louie was full of righteous indignation, and ready to battle her way through anything. But (mystery added to mystery) no one ever mentioned the strange thefts to her: and in due time she began to think that little Nellie, the norphan, had lied, too.
3 Does Fate avenge Louie?
The two little girls sat side by side on the third step, Evie impatient to get back to her stuffed birds and musical box, but Louie, afraid of her footsteps, and selfishly sinking into a daydream, while her hair mingled with Evie’s chestnut mane.
“Where are those girls, I wonder?”
“They can’t come to any harm here. Give yourself some rest.”
Hassie said, “You know Molly’s poor boy spoke the other day? She heard him calling and couldn’t believe her ears: she flew like the wind. He had his eyes open and seemed to be trying to lift his poor great lolling head. When he saw her, he said, ‘Mother, Mother!’ Then in the night she heard him again and she woke Albert and Albert heard him too. Then he said no more. After twelve years of punishment, poor Molly heard her boy speak to her. I’m sorry for poor Molly.”
“It’s going to die,” Old Ellen declared; “that’s a sign.”
“Better it should die! Only the poor wretch would have nothing in her life. If it died, she would die. Imagine twelve years tied to an idiot lying on its back.” Henny sighed.
“She’s had her punishment on this earth,” said Hassie.
“It’s her own fault,” cried Henny, “leaving a baby on a table while she goes to the door.”
“Only a minute,” sighed Hassie, “just one minute.”
“One minute! I’ll guarantee she was gabbing fifteen minutes.”
“They will never forget that one minute all their lives. I think it’s tragic,” sighed Hassie. “He’s very good to her.”
“Men are always good to fools and perfect idiots,” cried Henny impatiently. “A man will run ten miles from a woman with sense. I wonder where those kids are now. I’ll have to go and look for them.”
“Oh, you’re like a hen with chickens,” said Hassie.
“To think,” said Henny, after a pause, referring to something else, “that a woman like that will probably get a slice of the estate, and the law allows it. Oh, life is too vile. If it happens, I’ll go and see that woman and show her the six kids I have to feed and clothe and show her ray rags. Even if she throws me downstairs, I’ll give her something to think about; I’d rather scream her house down than let her get away with it. She may be a mistress, but she’s the lowest of the low if she sees my six children starve because of her frills and flounces.”
“I won’t have her discussed in this house,” Old Ellen said violently.
“And she’s taking the bread out of your mouth! Don’t be a fool, Mother; make a scandal. Tell Father you’ll write to his club.”
“I won’t,” said Old Ellen. “I’m through with fighting, I’m through with scolding and shouting, I’m through with thinking I’ll get my rights. I’m through with your father, I’m through with the estate. If they give me a little corner to go and live with Barry when he’s dead, that’s all I ask. Let her get it and enjoy it: she’s got life before her. Let her enjoy life over my old stringy carcass.”
“But can you imagine Archie standing for it?”
“He told me he fought the old man bitterly on that,” said Hassie in a low voice, “but—you know—” she stopped.
“I know,” said Old Ellen suddenly.
“You can’t let a kid starve even if it’s beyond the pale,” grumbled Henny.
“I’m too old for argy-bargying after all these years of not speaking,” said Old Ellen.
“I’d fight for money to my last drop of blood,” said Henny indignantly. “Can you live on air? Father comes smiling at my children, and all with that beau-of-the-nineties air, and smelling of lotion, and I know he’s come from and going to his love nest.”
“And your little tin Jesus,” said Old Ellen suddenly, “what is he doing when your back’s turned. Ha-ha! Your little tin Jesus.”
“Shut up, Mother,” said Henny, “don’t be stupid. I wish to God you were right. I’d get a divorce. No such luck. You know who I saw the other day as large as life? Dunne Legge and his wife. She was hurrying into Woodward, Lothrop’s, and he was meekly sitting there at the wheel. She’s not fat, but beefier than ever in the hips, you know how she was, well ten times
more so and great big shoulders lolloping, but well corseted, and there he sat grinning calfishly like a lap dog after her. She always heckled him and hackled him and that’s what he wanted. I didn’t know that! I took his word for what he wanted. But when I saw her the first time, I knew I’d been a fool to take his word! She bossed him and he took it in big gobs: it got him. It would have been a bad mistake. It’s enough to wave the big stick over the kids without a great big bear of a man. He saw me and I bowed to him very quietly, but he got out of the car and came over to me and stood talking, and I don’t mind telling you he made a sort of gentlemanly pass at me, but I wasn’t having any. I know the fine monsieur. If he thinks I have no memory! It gave me a sort of satisfaction, I tell you, to be so distant with him. Then she bustled up and just ran over, sirupy and saccharine and I skedaddled: I can’t stand such falsity! The last thing I saw her struggling to get that great body of her into the car door. But there she sits, a ton of beef, and has cars and servants and everything. Oh, it all makes me sick. It all makes me sick: what’s the use of struggling? You fall madly in love with one man and nearly break your heart because he throws you over and years later you find out you would have been miserable with him; and you go to a man you don’t care for and it’s just the same with him too. Life is nothing but rags and tags and filthy rags at that. Why was I ever born?”
“It’s too late to ask me that,” said Old Ellen. “But you mightn’t have been.” She began to laugh, “Your old man sent me anonymous letters himself to make me divorce him.” She rippled with he-hes. “I hung on to spite him. I didn’t want him. It’s my only pleasure left.” She laughed. “All I’ve got left is to sit in the sun and watch Barry booze and sometimes give him a kick in the pants. Sit in the sun and watch barflies, huh?”
“I’ll bet that child is hanging around somewhere spying and listening,” Henny worried.
At that Louie got up and pulled Evie silently up after her. The two of them started to tiptoe into the long dining room, but Evie, who didn’t know the reason for this maneuver, broke away and ran to the door of the breakfast room calling,
“Mother, where’s Uncle Barry?”
“Evie, Evie,” Louie called.
“Just as I thought, I was sure,” said Henny.
The Man Who Loved Children Page 23