Mother: A Story

sunlight, Pottsville, with children wading and shouting, under th

ed. She sighed partly because her head ached, partly because the hot tri

she had written Mother for her birthday in June, and enclosed an exquisite bit of lace in the letter; but although Victoria's illness had brought her to America nearly three months ago, it

of the long summer day. Margaret carried her heavy suit-case slowly up Main Street. Shop windows were spotted and dusty, and shopkeepers, standing idle in their doorways, looked spotted

came out of the shop with a bang of the wire-nettin

rritation evident in her

, delightedly. "Say, great to s

always quite simply kissed each other when they

imply. "Mother doesn't care

horrid cart, Ted?" protested Marg

ome out of it, Marg'ret! He doesn't pay me anything. Don't yo

n't!" Margaret

eparting, he pulled up to add cheerf

Margaret,

tchers' carts. Margaret, changing her heavy suit-case to the rested arm, was still vexedly watching it, when two girls, laughing in the open doorway of the expres

from her rowdyish little hat to her openwork hose, represented a battle with Mrs. Paget's preconceived ideas as to propriety in dress, with the honors largely for Rebecca. Reb

We all thought you were coming on the six. Crazy about your

, heavy-featured, complacent Miss Pratt was a standin

er, as they walked along. Margaret raised her eyebrows. "Rebel and I," Maudie went on,-Rebecca was at the age that seeks

ening, then beat furiously. What-how-who on earth had told them any

"he's not dead. He sent a teleg

ealing an agony of impatience, a

e," continued Rebecca; "and wants you to wire h

breath. There was time

, sis?" as

ed Mrs. Carr-Boldt and asked to call, or he would not have known that she was at home this week end,-surely that was significant, surely that meant something! The thought was all pleasure, so great a joy and pride indeed that Margaret was conscious of wanting to lay it aside, to think of, dream of, ponder over, when she was alone. But, on the other hand, there was instantly the miserable convicti

e-is he old and fussy?" as

wered vaguely. "No, he's

her with a coolness worthy of Mrs. Carr-Boldt he

Mother,

ly in her turn. When Maudie left them

ee where we were

fice-? Yes," Marga

nything to Mother about it, will you? She thinks thos

ou oughtn't!" Ma

tably. "We went to see if Maudie's rack

her plaited hair, the assured pose of the pretty head. Victoria Carr-Boldt, just Rebecca's age, as a big schoolgirl still, self-conscious and inarticulate, her

, the promise exacted, a

his raise-isn't

-peeled, the lawn trampled and bare. A bulging wire netting door gave on the shabby old hall Margaret knew so well; she went on into the familiar rooms, acutely conscious, as she always was for the first hour or two at ho

g face, and big teeth missing when he smiled, stood in the bay window, twisting the already limp net curtains into a tight rope. Each boy gave Margaret

rein was in place, and not an available inch of tables or chairs unused, before her eyes reached the tall figure of the woman in a gown of chocolate percale, who

spoon, lovey," she added immediately, giving the girl a g

he process of frosting, salad vegetables in the process of cooling, soup in the process of getting strained, great

r!" Margaret

rotested, "can't that wait?" for the old negress had begun to crack ice with deafening smashes. But Blanche did not hear, so Mrs. Paget contin

nd linen coat, brushed her hair back from her face, flinging her head back and shutting her eyes the better to fight tears, as she did so, and began to assort the collars and shirts and put them away. For Dad's bureau-

s and the scattered small possessions that seem to ooze from the pores of little boys, Margaret set her lips distastefully as she brought order out of chaos. It was all wrong, somehow,

rgaret's mother met this statement with an anxious solicitude that was very soothing to the sufferer. She made Mark get Daddy his slippers and loose coat, and suggested that Rebecca shake up the dining

ld be too much trouble to have "somebody" make him just a little milk toast for his dinner. He smiled at Margaret w

oper soothing tone, "Don't talk that way, Dad darling!" She had to listen to a long account of the "raise," wincing every time her father emphasized the difference between her own position and that of her emp

of milk toast, "Joe Redman gave a picnic last month, and he came here with his mother, in

social and business things that

the foot, and Bruce the chair between Margaret and his mother. Like the younger boys, whose almost confluent freckles had been brought into unusual prominence by violently applied soap and water, and whose hair dripped on their collars, he had brushed up for dinner, but his negligee shirt

dy in an incredibly short time for a second cutlet, and Robert begging for corn syrup, immediately after the soup, and spilling it from his bread. Mrs. Paget wa

eterson's," suggested Mrs. Paget, inter

argaret said. "There's so many of us, and such confusion

r," she went on with vivacity. "Daddy and I had dinner with them Tuesday. Bruce said Rebecca was lovely with the boys,-we're going to Juli

d, Mother," Margaret

r to-morrow-and your friend I hope, too, Mark," she added hospitably. "You had better let him come, dear. There's a big dinner,

nothing to do,"

talk on the porch, and then you could go driving or walking. I wish there was something cool and pleasan

would be better," said Margaret, slowly.

e boys off before dinner, and have things all nice and quiet. In October, say, when t

-should radiate so definite an atmosphere of content, as she sat back a little breathless, after the flurry of serving. She herself felt injured and sore, not at the

r?" she hazarded, entering with an

ve Ju coming to-morrow," she said. "I just wish Daddy could build a house for each one of you, as you marry and settle down, right

garet said hopelessly, but

as it is! I look at other women, and I wonder, I wonder-what I have done to be so blessed! Mark-" her face s

s met in

ly?" Margare

with glistening eyes. "Now, not a word to

" Margaret said,

t echoed, her fac

little uncertainly; "and she's been so free,-and they're ju

," she went on thoughtfully,-"I don't know but what I was happiest when you were all tiny, tumbling about me, and climbing into

ot the one maid, and I don't suppose they can have anothe

fair to Charlie to divide my time between them that way. Well, then when my third baby was coming, I didn't dare tell her. Dad kept telling me to, and I couldn't, because I knew what a calamity a third would seem to her! Finally she went to visit Aunt Rebecca out West, and it was the very day she got back that the baby came. She came upstairs-she'd come right up from the train, and not seen any one but Dad; and he wasn't very intelligible, I guess-and she

and Dad were both so ill, she and I agreed that you-you were just talking and trying to walk-were the only comfort

w the arguments she had used so plausibly did not utter themselves easily to Mother, whose children wou

it to an eight-year-old child. "Be my sweet girl! Why, marriage isn't marriage without children, Mar

er would never feel as she did about these things, and what was the use o

said. Margaret forgot her own grievance, and looked up. The boys looked resentful and

d dance," Mrs. Paget interpreted hastily. "But now

e a good show, Te

atterson is going to do a monologue,-he's as good as a professional!-and George is going to send up a bunch of carrot

et me take them, Dad," she pleaded, "if it's going to

ing!" burst from th

ly!" Theodore warned them, finishing

Paget said graciously, "of course

" Margaret promised; "and if she so much as dares to

light-hearted juniors, and Rebecca, seeing her artless admission too late, turned scarlet while she laugh

hours would see her speeding back to the world of cool, awninged interiors, uniformed maids, the clink of iced glasses, the flash of white sails on blue water. She could sure

reciatively. "I was going to ask Brucie. But he's

eerfully,-powdering the tip of her pretty nose, her eyes almost c

her?" sai

em are going to Honolulu, just for this month, and

he left the house with the rioting youngsters, she ran upstairs to his room. Bruce, surrounded by scient

nd talk, Ma

explained

about the room with its shabby dresser and wor

ncert?" he ask

us talking at dinner

it was to-night," he said, with his lazy smi

ca ever did. "It's early, Bruce, come on! You d

rapped on the floor, and Margaret had barely shut the

, and the smaller boys tickled her ear with their whispered comments. Margaret had sent a telegram to Professor Tenison, and felt

it. The Paget family was slow to settle down. Robert became tearful and whining before he was finally bumped protesting into bed. Theodore and Duncan prolonged their ablutions until the noise of shouting, splashing, and thumping in the bathroom brought Mother to the foot of the stairs. Rebecca was conversational. She lay with her s

s crazy if she asked the family not to be in evidence when the crowd came to the house for the salad course? And Rebecca wanted to write to Bruce's chum, not regularly

g my old books and my skates! So I wrote, and Maudie and I decided... And Mark, if it wasn't a perfectly gorgeous box o

he room cooler. Rebecca was asleep. Hands, hands she knew well, were drawing

ointed about your friend not coming t

ret, hardily. "Mother-

nche forgot to put the oatmeal into the cooker, and I

she had so many hundred times before,