The Iron Woman

in the Maitland orchard, and sat there, swinging her white-stockinged legs so recklessly that the three children whom she had summo

prospect of any unpleasantness. "It would be too bad if I got mad, wouldn't it?" she said thoughtfully. The others looked at one another in constern

d," if you wouldn't say you'd do it, too; got mad, and then repented, and hugged you and kissed you, and actually cried (or got mad again), if you refused to accept as a sign of your forgiveness her new slate-pencil, decorated with strips of red-and-white paper just like a little barber's pole! No wonder Nannie, timid and good-natured, was helpless before such a sweet, furiou

your old Indians! I'll never speak t

y new pants,"

s no knowing what might have happened if th

ut-of-doors; and Miss Whit

dear David! If you'll play house in the tree, I'll give you a piece of my taffy." She took a little sticky package out of her pocket and licked her lips to indic

uatted on the ground content to m

e smiled placidly; it never occurred to her to deny such an obviously truthful title. "Blair," she said, continuing a conversation interrupted by Elizabeth's

-of-all-work, adored him to the point of letting him make candy on the kitchen stove-probably the greatest expression of affection possible to the kitchen; in fact, little Elizabeth Ferguson was the only person in his world who did not knuckle down to this pleasant and lovable child. But then, Elizabeth never knuckled down to anybody! Certainly not to kind old Cherry-pie, whose timid upper lip quivered like a rabbit's when she was obliged to repeat to her darling some new rule of Robert Ferguson's for his niece's upbringing; nor did she knuckle down to her uncle;-she even declared she was not at all afraid of him! Thi

r best; but David's m

's mo

aid David, surveying his new trousers c

agreed with unoffended candor. "'Course s

ings like that out of the

ll you children a lot of money. Jimmy Sullivan-he's a friend of mine; I got acquainted with him yesterday, and he's the biggest puddl

m a loud kiss on his left ear. David sighed. "You may kiss me," he said patie

is cap up to him, "Blair can stand on

ery red, then exploded: "I-I-I've had mumps, and I have two warts, and Bl

You haven't got a real mothe

avid said, angrily; "yo

a mother," Elizabeth said,

r house." He paused to bend over and touch with an ecstatic finger a flake of lichen covering with

hings about our house,"

en he grew up, "Nann

t our house. They've got real dining-rooms at their ho

k mud. The house stood a little back from the badly paved sidewalk; its meager dooryard was inclosed by an iron fence-a row of black and rusted spears, spotted under their tines with innumerable gray cocoons. (Blair and David made constant and furtive attempts to lift these spears, socketed in crumbling lead in the granite base, for of course there could be nothing better for fighting Indians than a real iron spear.) The orchard behind the house had been cut in two by a spur track, which brought jolting gondola cars piled with red ore down to the furnace. The half dozen apple-trees that were left stretched gaunt arms over sour, grassles

ng-room?" he said once; "why d

ng at him over her newspaper, which was propped against a silver coffee-urn tha

ble up at David's house," the little bo

wers," Mrs. Mait

id not know; it was one of the many things she did not know in relation to her son; for at that time she loved him with her mind rather than her body, so she had none of those soft

souls of her workmen-all for the sake of the little, shrinking boy, who wanted a bunch of flowers on the table. Poor mother! Poor son! And poor little proper, perplexed half-sister, looking on, and trying to make peace. Nannie's perplexities had begun very far back. Of course she was too young when her father married his second wife to puzzle ov

; and everybody thought Miss Molly was willing to smile upon him. Be that as it may, he suddenly found himself the husband of his late partner's daughter, a woman eight years older than he, and at least four

admiration for John Blair. When he came to die he confided his son's interests to his partner with absolute confidence that they would be safe. "Herbert has no gumption, John," he said; "he wants to be an 'artist.' You've got to look after him." "I will, Mr. Maitland, I will," said John Blair, snuffling

And if I didn't, you could scratch gravel for yourself. Bu

nk; as Mrs. Maitland's religion had never been more than church-going and contributions to foreign missions, it was, of course, no help under the strain of grief; and as her temperament did not dictate the other means of consolation, she turned to work. She worked herself numb; very likely she had hours when she did not feel her loss. But she did not feel anything else. Not even her baby's little clinging hands, or his milky lips at her breast. She did her duty by him; she hired a reliable woman to take charge of him, and she was careful to appear at regular hours to nurse him. She ordered toys for him, and as she shared the naive conviction of her day that church-going and religion were synonymous, she began, when he was four years old, to take him to church. In her shiny, shabby black silk, which had been her Sunday costume ever since it had been purchased as part of her curiously limited trousseau she sat in a front pew, between the two children, and felt that she was doing her duty to both of them. A sense of duty without maternal instinct is not, perhaps, as baleful a thing as maternal instinct without a sense of duty, but it is sterile; and in the first few years of her bereavement, the big, suffering woman seemed to have nothing but duty to offer to her child. Nannie's puzzles began then. "Why do

inner without another word to Blair or any one else. But the next day, as if to purchase the kiss he would not give, she told him he was to have an "allowance." The word had no meaning to the little fellow, until she showed him two bright new dollars and said he could buy candy with them; then his brown eyes smiled, and he held up his lips to her. It was at that moment that money began to mea

in those days Mercer was showing signs of what it was ultimately to become: the apotheosis of materialism and vulgarity. Iron was entering into its soul. It thought extremely well of itself; when

manager, Mr. Robert Ferguson; "and look at our churches! We have

ny town, east or west," Mr

will hold the commerce of the world right here in our mills!" She put out her great open palm, and slowly closed the strong, beautiful fingers i

eglasses, which he had a way of knocking off with disconcerting suddenness. He did not, he declared, trust anybody. "What's the use?" he said; "you

rted; "then you'll know enough to cal

n his back yard, or on winter mornings to feed a flock of Mercer's sooty pigeons; and he had been known to walk all over town to find a particular remedy for a sick child of one of his molders. To be sure he alleged, when M

n," she said, "but when it comes to a bit

rt Ferguson, horr

ew over them carried some sweetness to the hot and tired streets outside. It was a spot of perfume and peace, and it was no wonder that the hard-working, sad-eyed man liked to spend his Sundays in it. But "remembering the Sabbath" was his employer's strong point. Mrs. Maitland kept the Fourth Commandment with passion. Her Sundays, dividing each six days of extraordinary activity, were arid stretches of the unspeakable dullness of idleness. When Blair grew up he used to look back at those Sundays and shudder. There was church and Sunday-school in the morning, then a cold dinner, for cold roast beef was Mrs. Maitland's symbol of Sabbatical holiness. Then an endless, vacant afternoon, spent always indoors. Certain small, pious books were permitted the two children-Little Henry and His Bearer, The Ministering Children, and like moral food; but no games, no walks, no playing in the

s. Even when he went home at night, and, on summer evenings, fell to grubbing in his narrow back yard, where his niece "helped" him by pushing a little wheelbarrow over the mossy flagstones,-even then he did not dismiss Mrs. Maitland's business from his mind. He was scrupulous to say, as

is behaving hers

is a dear,

er, Miss White. And be careful, please, about vanity. I thought I saw her lookin

cle of vanity!" Mis

tal, vivid little creature expressed the rhythm that was in her by dancing without instruction, keeping time with loud, elemental cadences of her own composing, not always melodious, but always in time. Sometimes she danced thus in the school-room; sometimes in Mrs. Todd's "ice-cream parlor" at the farther end of Mercer's old wooden bridge; once-and this was one of the occasions when Mr. Ferguson thought he had detected the vice he dreaded-once sh

in her primitive adornment! He knocked his glasses off with a fierce gesture, and did his duty by barking at her,-as Mrs. Maitland would have expressed it.

ked at Miss White, barked so harshly that Elizabeth flew at him like a little enraged cat. "Stop scolding Cherry-pie! You hurt her feelings; you are a wicked man!" she screamed, and beating him with her right hand, she fastene

but I will not have her vain! Better put some plaster on her arm.

ung lady to retort that the reason that Sarah Maitland was the only woman he liked, was that Sarah Maitland was not a woman! "The only feminine thing about her is her petticoats," said Miss Wharton, daintily. For which mot, Robert Ferguson never forgave her. He certainly did not expect to like this new-comer in Mercer, this Mrs. Richie, but he had gone to see her. He had been obliged to, because she wished to rent a house he owned next door to the one in which he lived. So, being her landlord, he had to see her, if for nothing else, to discourage requests for inside repairs. He saw her, and promised to put up a little glass house at the end of the back parlor for a plant-room. "If she'd asked me for a 'conservatory,'" he said

tched her, proudly. "

. David, unable to think of any possession of his own to

h he talked of greenhouses, and she talked of knocking out an extra window in the nursery so that her little boy could have more sunshine, they slipped after a while into personalities: Mrs. Richie had no immediate family; he

vid. I-I had lost a little boy, and David had lost his mother, so we belonged toge

," sai

play with," Mrs. Richie said, looking down at the little nestling thing, who at that moment stopped nestling, and dropping down on toes and finger-tips, loped up-on very long hind-legs, to the confusion of her elders, who endeavored not to see her peculiar attitude-and, putting a paw into David's pocket, abstracted a marble. There was an instant explosion, in which David, after securing

David," said Mrs. Richi

at once!" At which

. It was my fault. I d

my arm if you

sted her uncle; "I

ctually recoiled before it; Elizabeth, still clamoring, saw that involuntary start of horror. Instantly she was calm; but she shrank away almost out of the room. It seemed as if at that moment s

at the remembrance of that furious little face. "What did she mean about 'biting her arm'?" she aske

years ago. He left her to me." And Mrs. Richie knew instinctively that the bequest had not been welcome. "Miss White looks after her," he said, putting his glasses on again, carefully, with both hands; "she calls her her 'Lamb,' though a more unlamblike person than Elizabeth I never met. She has a little school for her and the two Mait

fices of Mr. Ferguson, the arrangement was made. Mr. Ferguson did not approv

tle lives were thrown together-four threads that