_ Chapter XXI. The Perils of the City
"Roger," remarked Miss Mattie, laying aside her paper, "I don't know as I'm in favour of havin' you go to the city. Can't you get the Judge another dog?"
"Why not, Mother?" asked Roger, ignoring her question.
"Because it seems to me, from all I've been readin' and hearin' lately, that the city ain't a proper place for a young person. Take that minister, now, that those folks brought down for Ambrose North's funeral. I never heard anything like it in all my life. You was there and you heard what he said, so there ain't no need of dwellin' on it, but it wasn't what I'm accustomed to in the way of funerals." Miss Mattie's militant hairpins bristled as she spoke.
"I thought it was all right, Mother. What was wrong with it?"
[Sidenote: Everything Wrong]
"Wrong!" repeated Miss Mattie, in astonishment. "Everything was wrong with it! Ambrose North wasn't a church-member and he never went more'n once or twice that I know of, even after the Lord chastened him with blindness for not goin'. There was no power to the sermon and no cryin' except Barbara and that Miss Wynne that sang that outlandish piece instead of a hymn.
"Why, Roger, I was to a funeral once over to the Ridge where the corpse was an unbaptized infant, and you ought to have heard that preacher describin' the abode of the lost! The child's mother fainted dead away and had to be carried out of the church, it was that powerful and movin'. That was somethin' like!"
It was in Roger's mind to say he was glad that the minister had not made Barbara faint, but he wisely kept silent.
[Sidenote: Life in the City]
"That's only one thing," Miss Mattie went on. "What with religion bein' in that condition in the city, and the life folks live there, I don't think it's any fit place for a person that ain't strong in the faith, and you know you ain't, Roger. You take after your pa.
"I was readin' in
The Metropolitan Weekly only last week a story about a lovely young orphan that was caught one night by a rejected suitor and tied to the railroad track. Just as the train was goin' to run over her, the man she wanted to marry come along on the dead run with a knife and cut her bonds. She got off the track just as the night express come around the curve, goin' ninety-five miles an hour.
[Sidenote: Miss Mattie's Fears]
"This man says to her, 'Genevieve, will you come to me now, and let me put you out of this dread villain's power forever?' Then he opened his arms and the beautiful Genevieve fled to them as to some ark of safety and laid her pale and weary face upon his lovin' and forgivin' heart. That's the exact endin' of it, and I must say it's written beautiful, but when I wake up in the night and think about it, I get scared to have you go.
"You ain't so bad lookin', Roger, and you're gettin' to the age where you might be expected to take notice, and what if some designing female should tie you to the railroad track? I declare, it makes me nervous to think of it."
Roger did not like to shake his mother's faith in
The Metropolitan Weekly, but he longed to set her fears at rest. "Those things aren't true, Mother," he said, kindly. "They not only haven't happened, but they couldn't happen--it's impossible."
"Roger, what do you mean by sayin' such things. Of course it's true, or it wouldn't be in the paper. Ain't it right there in print, as plain as the nose on your face? You can see for yourself. I hope studyin' law ain't goin' to make an infidel of you."
"I don't think it will," temporised Roger. "I'll keep a close watch for designing females, and will avoid railroad tracks at night."
Miss Mattie shook her head doubtfully. "That ain't a goin' to do no good, Roger, if they once get set after you. I've noticed that the villain always triumphs."
"But only for a little while, Mother. Surely you must have seen that?"
[Sidenote: The Villain Foiled]
She settled her steel-bowed spectacles firmly on the wart and gazed at him. "I believe you're right," she said, after a few moments of reflection. "I can't recall no story now where the villain was not foiled at last. Let me see--there was
Lovely Lulu, or the Doctor's Darling, and
Margaret Merriman, or the Maiden's Mad Marriage, and
True Gold, or Pretty Crystal's Love, and
The American Countess, or Hearts Aflame, and this one I was just speakin' of,
Genevieve Carleton, or the Brakeman's Bride. In every one of 'em, the villain got his just deserts, though sometimes they was disjointed owin' to the story bein' broke off at the most interestin' point and continued the followin' week."
"Well, if the villain is always foiled, you're surely not afraid, are you?"
"I don't know's I'm afraid in the long run, but I don't like to have you go through such things and be exposed to the temptations of a great city."
"Why don't you come with me, Mother, and keep house for me? We can find a little flat somewhere, and----"
"What on earth is that?"
[Sidenote: Apartments and Flats]
"I've never been in one myself, but Miss Wynne said that, if you wanted to come, she would find us a flat, or an apartment."
"What's the difference between a flat and an apartment?"
"That's what I asked her. She said it was just the rent. You pay more for an apartment than you do for a flat."
"I wouldn't want anything I had to pay more for," observed Miss Mattie, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "You ain't told me what a flat is."
"A few rooms all on one floor, like a cottage. It's like several cottages, all under one roof."
"What do they want to cover the cottages with a roof for? Don't they want light and air?"
"You don't understand, Mother. Suppose that our house here was an apartment house. The stairs would be shut off from these rooms and the hall would be accessible from the street. Instead of having three rooms upstairs, there might be six--one of them a kitchen and the others living-rooms and bedrooms. Don't you see?"
"You mean a kitchen on the same floor with the bedrooms?"
"Yes, all the rooms on one floor."
"Just as if an earthquake was to jolt off the top of the house and shake all the bedrooms down here?"
"Something like that."
"Well, then," said Miss Mattie, firmly, "all I've got to say is that it ain't decent. Think of people sleepin' just off kitchens and washin' their faces and hands in the sink."
"I think some of them must be very nice, Mother. Miss Wynne expects to live in an apartment after she is married and she has a little one of her own now. If you'll come with me we'll find some place that you'll like. I don't want to leave you alone here."
[Sidenote: Under One Roof]
"No," she answered, after due deliberation, "I reckon I'll stay here. You can't transplant an old tree and you can't take a woman who has lived all her life in a house and put her in a place where there are several cottages all under one roof with bedrooms off of kitchens and folks washin' in the sinks. Miss Wynne can do it if she likes, but I was brought up different."
"I'm afraid you'll be lonesome."
"I don't know why I should be any more lonesome than I always have been. All I see of you is at meals and while you're readin' nights. You're just like your pa. If I propped up a book by the lamp, it would be just as sociable as it is to have you settin' here. Readin' is a good thing in its place and I enjoy it myself, but sometimes it's pleasant to hear the human voice sayin' somethin' besides 'What?' and 'Yes' and 'All right' and 'Is supper ready?'
[Sidenote: The Blue Hair Ribbon]
"I've been lookin' over your things to-day and gettin' 'em ready. The moths has ate your Winter flannels and you'll have to get more. I've mended your coat linin's and sewed on buttons, and darned and patched, and I've took Barbara North's blue hair ribbon back to her--the one you found some place and had in your pocket. You mustn't be careless about those things, Roger--she might think you meant to steal it."
"What did Barbara say?" he stammered. The high colour had mounted to his temples.
"She didn't know what to say at first, but she recognised it as her hair ribbon. I told her you hadn't meant to steal it--that you'd just found it somewheres and had forgot to give it to her, and it was all right. She laughed some, but it was a funny laugh. You must be careful, Roger--you won't always have your mother to get you out of scrapes."
Roger wondered if the knot of blue ribbon that had so strangely gone back to Barbara had, by any chance, carried to her its intangible freight of dreams and kisses, with a boyish tear or two, of which he had the grace not to be ashamed.
"Your pa was in the habit of annexin' female belongin's, though the Lord knows where he ever got 'em. I suppose he picked 'em up on the street--he was so dreadful absent-minded. He was systematic about 'em in a way, though. After he died, I found 'em all put away most careful in a box--a handkerchief and one kid glove, and a piece of ribbon about like the one I took back to Barbara. He was flighty sometimes: constant devotion to readin' had unsettled his mind.
"That brings me to what I wanted to say when I first started out. I don't want you should load up your trunk with your pa's books to the exclusion of your clothes, and I don't want you to spend your evenin's readin'."
"I'm not apt to read very much, Mother, if I work in an office in the daytime and go to law school at night."
[Sidenote: Ten Books Only]
"That's so, too, but there's Sundays. You can take any ten of your pa's books that you like, but no more. I'll keep the rest here against the time the train is blocked and the mails don't come through. I may get a taste for your pa's books myself."
Roger did not think it likely, but he was too wise to say so.
"And I didn't tell you this before, but I've made it my business to go and see the Judge and tell him how you saved my life at the expense of Fido's. I don't know when I've seen a man so mad. I was goin' to suggest that we get him another dog from some place, and land sakes! he clean drove it out of my mind.
"I don't know how you've stood it, bein' there in the office with him, and I told him so. He's got a red-headed boy from the Ridge in there now, and I think maybe the Judge will get what's comin' to him before he gets through. I've learned not to trifle with anybody what has red hair, but seemin'ly the Judge ain't. It takes some folks a long time to learn.
"Barbara's goin' to the city, too, to spend the Winter with that Miss Wynne in the cottage that's under the same roof with other cottages and the bedrooms off the kitchen. I don't know how Barbara'll take to washin' in the sink, when she's always had that rose-sprigged bowl and pitcher of her ma's, but it's her business, not mine, and if she wants to go, she can.
[Sidenote: "Me and Miriam"]
"Me and Miriam'll set together evenings and keep each other from bein' lonesome. She ain't much more company than a cow, as far as talkin' goes, but there's a feelin,' some way, about another person bein' in the house, when the wind gets to howlin' down the chimney. We may arrange to have supper together, once in a while, and in case of severe weather, put the two fires goin' in one house, which ever's the warmest.
"I don't know what we shall do, for we ain't talked it over much yet, but with church twice on Sunday and prayer-meetin' Wednesday evenings, and the sewin' circle on Friday, and two New York papers every week, and Miriam, and all your pa's books to prop up against the lamp, I don't reckon I'll get so dreadful lonesome. I've thought some of gettin' myself a cat. There's somethin' mighty comfortable and heartenin' about a cup of hot tea and the sound of purrin' close by. And on the Spring excursion to the city, I reckon I'll come up and see you, if I don't have no more pain in my back."
[Sidenote: Dr. Conrad's Automobile]
"I'd love to have you come, Mother, and I'd do all I could to give you a good time. I know the others would, too. Doctor Conrad has an automobile and----"
Miss Mattie became deeply concerned. "Is he treatin' himself for it?" she demanded.
"I don't think so," answered Roger, choking back a laugh.
"It beats all," mused Miss Mattie. "They say the shoemaker's children never have shoes, and it seems that doctors have diseases just like other folks. I disremember of havin' heard of this, but I know from my own experience that a disease with only one word to it can be dreadful painful. Is it catchin'?"
"Not with full speed on," replied Roger. "An automobile is very hard to catch."
"Well, see that you don't take it," cautioned Miss Mattie. The first part of his answer was obscure, but she was not one to pause over an uninteresting detail.
"You've warned me about almost everything now, Mother," he said, smiling. "Is there anything else?"
"Nothing but matrimony, and that's included under the head of designing females. I shouldn't want you to get married."
"Why not?"
[Sidenote: Welded Souls]
"I don't know as I could tell you just why, only it seems to me that a person is just as well off without it. I've been thinking of it a good deal since I've had these New York papers and read so much about two souls bein' welded into one. My soul wasn't never welded with your pa's, nor his with mine, as I know of.
"Marriage wasn't so dreadful different from livin' at home. It reminded me of the Summer ma took a boarder, your pa required so much waitin' on. And when you came, I had a baby to take care of besides. If I was welded I never noticed it--I was too busy."
Roger's heart softened into unspeakable pity. In missing the "welding," Miss Mattie had missed the best that life has to give. Somewhere, doubtless, the man existed who could have stirred the woman's soul beneath the surface shallows and set the sordid tasks of daily living in tune with the music that sways the world.
[Sidenote: "Un-marriage"]
"There's a good deal in the papers about un-marriage, too," resumed Miss Mattie, "and I can't understand it. When you've stood before the altar and said 'till death do us part,' I don't see how another man, who ain't even a minister, can undo it and let you have another chance at it. Maybe you do, bein' as you're up in law, but I don't.
"It looks to me as if the laws were wrong or else the marriage ceremony ought to be written different. If a man said, 'I take thee to be my wedded wife, to love and to cherish until I see somebody else I like better,' I could understand the un-marriage, but I can't now. When you get to be a power in the law, Roger, I think you should try to get that fixed. I never was welded, but after I'd given my word, I stuck to it, even though your pa was dreadful aggravatin' sometimes. He didn't mean to be, but he was. I guess it's the nature of men folks."
Deeply moved, Roger went over and kissed her smooth cheek. "Have I been aggravating, Mother?"
Miss Mattie's eyes grew misty. She took off her spectacles and wiped them briskly on one corner of the table-cover. "No more'n was natural, I guess," she answered. "You've been a good boy, Roger, and I want you should be a good man. When you get away from home, where your mother can't look after you, just remember that she expects you to be good, like your pa. He might have been aggravatin', but he wasn't wicked."
[Sidenote: Remember]
All the best part of the boy's nature rose in answer, and the mist came into his eyes, too. "I'll remember, Mother, and you shall never be disappointed in me--I promise you that." _