Martha By-the-Day

lay in a state

he seemed to be aware that Martha was bringing in her breakfast, or sitting beside her while she ate her dinner, but the intervening spaces, when "Ma"

es and boisterous laughter, but the walls of her consciousness closed her about, as in a muffled security, an

ad gradually groped her way through the dim stretches lying between the region of visions and that of the actual, but the step into a full se

o you do when you go out working

wor

t I mean. What kind

voice, with what was, undeniably, a chuckle tucked away in its mel

hy an' typ

apher an' typewrit

What makes you think there's any doubt o' my being one? Don't I have t

d fro, as she went about her work. Her mother's reply evidently did not carry conv

phy an' typewritin', what makes your apron s

ink I am? To leave my machine dirty, when a good scrub-down, with a pail o' hot wate

ymonds, she's the Principal's seckerterry to our school, an' she sits in the office, sh

should like to know? Been sent up to her for bad behav

last week an', say, mother, I don't believe you're a young lad

' I am. So long's I don't su

w listen

thin' of the temper. Turn to, an' lend a hand with them potatoes. Smash 'em good first, an' then beat 'em with a fork

w listen

el

ng awful funny happen

ellin' wha

k struck four, 'n' then I knew it was mornin'. 'N' I heard a noise, 'n' I thought it wa

el

u, mother, on the

ad a dream,

I did

the stairs for, at four

d like

e you was brus

ent, at the mere possibility, struck Cora, and there was a pause, broken at length by Marth

hisper. "But, mother, what'd you want to go out in the hall

Wheresomedever, an' _wh

ayin'. I heard the knockin' o' your whis'

it? Prayin' an' cleanin', it amounts to the same thing in the

er's stairs before. An' you been making shirtwaists for Mrs. S

ened to a little girl oncet

N

now. It might spoil yo

m me, the end she met w

her hand, tiptoed cautiously in, like a young torch-bearing avant-courrière,

artha whispered. "An' then you, yourself, light

tray, by exclaiming brightly, "Good-evening! I'm wide awake for good! You needn't tiptoe or hush any more. O, I

itle. But Martha's word in her little household was not to be disputed with impunity, and Cora slipped away reluctantly, carrying with her a dazzling

Just as a kind of nacherl percaution, against your settlin' down to a permanent sleepin'-beauty ack, for, you can take it from me, I haven't the business address of any Beast, here in New York City, could be

e lau

I didn't need a Prince

, for I had a good fai

n, I-I

you was my own young lady, an' if you call me Mrs. Slawson, I won't feel so, an' her

the tray. Then Claire said, "I'll be very glad to call you Martha if you'll let me, and there's something I'd like to say right

at's the use? You can bet on one thing, shoor, whatever ain't dead waste in your past is, somehow, goin' to get dished up to you in your present, or your future. You ain't goin' to get rid of it, till you've worked it into your system for health, as our dear old friend, Lydia Pinkham, says. As to the future, the future's like a flea-when you can put your finger on the future, it's time enough to think what you'll do with it. Folkes futures'd be all right, if they'd just pin down a little tighter to to-day, an' make that square u

ll the money in the world. I guess I know how you settled my account with Mrs. Daggett. You gave her money you had been saving for the rent, and now you are wor

ly. "That's the time her past will have slopped over on her present, s

lame. I'd have known sooner or later anyway. I always reaso

ys with childern. I don't believe in scoldin'. It spoils their tempers, but a good lic

d. "I was clumsy. I was tactless. And now Cora will be pu

I promise I'll let Cora go free, if you'll sit back qu

yself, you know, for I'm able-bodied, and not so stupid but that I managed to graduate from college. Once, two summers ago, I tutored-I taught a young girl who was studyi

, you

r some family, I could, maybe, live here with you-re

ammy argued the rent was too high, till I told'm we'd let a room an' make it up that way, but what with this, an' what with that, we ain't had any boarders exceptin' now an' then some friend

ve laid out for me, and more besides, and-In the houses where you work, are there any children w

iberated in sile

' the son's at Columbia. It might upset their plans, if I was to suggest their givin' up where they're at, an' havin' you. Then there's the Grays, an' the Granvilles, an' the Thornes. Addin' 'em all together for childern, they'd come to about half a child a pair. Talk about your race suicide! They say they 'can't afford to h

e, when Mrs. Slawson's meditati

t you, friendly-like, why, you wouldn't call the queen your cousin. Radcliffe knows he can't monkey with his uncle Frank, an' when he's by, butter wouldn't melt in that young un's mouth. But other times-my! You see, Mrs. Sherman is dead easy. She told me oncet, childern ought to be brought up 'scientifically.' Lord! She said they'd ought to be let express their souls, whatever she means by that. I told her I thought it was safer not to trust too much to the childern's souls, but to help along some occasional with your own-the sole of your slipper. It was then she said she 'abserlootly forbid' any one to touch Radcliffe. She wanted him 'guided by love alone.' Well, that's what he's been guided with, an', you can take it from me, love's made a hash of it, as it ushally does when it ain't mixed with a little common sense. You'd oughta see that fella's anticks when his mother, an' Lord Ronald, ain't by. He'd raise the hair offn your head, if you hadn't a spear of it there to begi

had the lily

hite or gold or just plain, green paper-money, so long's

had the lily

to his cousi

s! O, excuse me! I didn't mean to jolt your tray like that, but I just co