Cheerful-By Request

s, without once having a man doff his hat to her or a woman bow. You passed her on the street with a surreptitious glance, though she was well worth looking at-in her furs and laces and p

a chain set with flashy imitation stones-or, queerly enough, a doll with yellow hair and blue eyes and very pink cheeks. But, alone or in company, her appearance in the stores of our town was the signal for a sudden jump in the cost of living. The storekeepers mu

ace, in spite of its heaviness, wore an expression of good-humoured intelligence, and her eyeglasses gave her somehow a look of respectability. We do not associate vice with eyeglasses. So in a large city she would have passed for a well-dressed prosperous, comfortable wife and mother, who was in danger of losing he

the husbands in the block, urged on by righteously indignant wives, dropped in on Alderman Mooney after supper to see if the thing could not be stopped. The fourth of the protesting husbands to arrive was the Very Young Husband, who lived next door to the corner cottage that Blanche Devine h

is mouth. Three protesting husbands had just left. As the Very Young Husband, following Mrs. Mooney's directions, cauti

tinkering with this blamed furnace since supper. She don't draw like she ought. 'L

. The Young Husband leaned up against the side of the cistern, his hands in his pockets.

that this evening. I'm expecting the rest of the

nd kicked at a piece of coa

s'll be a fine neighbourhood for Snooky to grow up in! What's a woman like that w

Mooney

the place-paint it, and put in a cellar and a furnace

out of his pockets in order to em

rrace with peacocks on it. You're the alderman of this ward, aren't you? Well, it was up to you to keep her out of thi

the threat. He turned the draft in a pipe overhead and brushed his sooty palm

for it. And it's hers. She's got a right to live in

oung Husba

last! The

the smooth bowl, looking down at it with unseeing eyes. On his face was a queer l

the day Blanche signed for the place. She had to go through a lot of red tape before

Husband exclaim

ids know what she is. If she's got religion or something, and wants to quit and be de

thumb against the smooth pipebo

his: She says she hasn't got religion, or any of that. She says she's no different than she was when she was twenty. She says that for the last ten years the ambition of her life has been to be able to go into a grocery store and ask the price of, say, celery; and, if the clerk charged her ten when it ought to be seven, to be able to sass him with a regular p

er industrious sower of that seed known as wild oats. He knew a thing or two, did the Very Young Husb

id her way and always expected to. Seems her husband left her without a cent when she was eighteen-with a baby.

Young Husband. "I suppose

rted to ascend the cellar stairs. Alderman Mooney laid a detaining finger on his sleeve. "Don't say anything in front of Minnie! She's boiling! Minnie and the kids are going to visit her folk

the Very Youn

e that rose in massive incongruity at the side of the little white cottage. Blanche Devine was trying to make a home for herself. We no

g at plaster and paint with her umbrella or fingertip. One day she brought with her a man with a spade. He spaded up a neat square of ground at the side of the cottage a

orning we gasped when she appeared out-of-doors, carrying a little household ladder, a pail of steaming water and sundry voluminous white cloths. She reared the little ladder against the side of the house mounted it cautiously, and began to wash windows: with housewifely thoroughness. Her stout figure was swathed in a grey sweater and on her head was a battered

er feet. We noticed that her trips down town were rare that spring and summer. She used to come home laden with little bundles; and before supper she would change her street clothes for a neat, washable housedress, as is our thrifty custom. Through her bright windows we could see her moving briskly about from kitchen to sitting room; and from

ext to whom they seated her turned, regarded her stonily for a moment, then rose agitatedly and moved to a pew across the aisle. Blanche Devine's face went a dull red beneath her white powder. She never came again-though we saw the minister visit her

with Puritan disapproval as they smoothed down their own prim, starched gingham skirts. They said it was disgusting-and perhaps it was; but the habit of years is not easily overcome. Blanche Devine-snipping her sweet peas; peering anxiously at the Virginia creeper that clung with such fragile fingers to the trelli

out there until it grows dusk. We call across-lots to our next-door neighbour. The men water the lawns and the flower boxes and get together in little quiet groups to discuss the new street paving. I have even known Mrs. Hines to bring her cherries out there when she had canning to do, and pit them there on the front p

ounds. It is lonely, uphill business at best-this being good. It must have been difficult for her, who had dwelt behind closed shutters

alising, divinely sticky odour that meant raspberry jam. Snooky, from her side of the fence, often used to peer through the pickets, gazing in the direction of the enticing smells next door. Early one September morning there floated out from Blanche Devine's kitchen that clean, fragrant, sweet scent of fresh-baked cookies-cookies with butter in them, and spice, and with nuts on top. Just by the smell of them your mind's eye pictured them coming from the oven-crisp brown circlets, crumbly, toothsome, delectable. Snooky, in her scarlet sweater and cap, sniffed them from afar and straightway deserted her sandpile to take her stand at the fence. She peered through the restraining bars, standing on tiptoe. Blanche Devine, glancing up from her board and r

me here to me this minute! And don't you dare to touch those!" Snooky hesitate

toothsome dainties, turned away aggrieved. The Very Young Wife, her lips set, her eyes flashing, adv

and the three cookies slipped off and fell to the grass. Blanche Devine followed them with her eyes

used to lift our eyebrows significantly. The newspapers and handbills would accumulate in a dusty little heap on the porch; but when she returned there was always a grand cleaning, with the windows open, and Blanc

ter we were asleep in our beds. When she neglected to pull down the shad

ed, telephone and telegraph wires down. It must have been midnight or past when there came a hammering at Blanche Devine's door-a persistent, clamorous rapping. Blanche Devine, sitting

eing wholly awake now-she remembered, and threw up her head and smiled a little bitterly and walked toward the door. The hammering continued, louder than ever. Blanche Devine flicked on the porch light and opened

in a high, hysterical voi

or and shook the Young Wif

" she said quiet

told her, her t

n. I tried to get the doctor. The telephone

at separated the two houses. Blanche Devine was a big woman, but she took the stairs like a girl and found the

anche Devine, an

adequate forces, made up of the half-fainting You

an oilstove? I want a teakettle boiling in the room. She's got to have the steam. If that don't do it we'll raise an um

tefaced and shaking. Once Blanche

are faint!"

s not until the little figure breathed gently in sleep that Blanche Devine sat back satisfied. Then she tucked a cover ever so gentl

he doctor when morning comes-thoug

lanche Devine's side of the be

ve a little inarticulate cry, put her two hands on Blanche De

er be going," sai

her head. Her eyes w

raid. Suppose she should take sick

if you wa

make up your bed

ere there's a light. You get to bed. I'll watch and see that every-thing's all right. Hav

he hall, her stout figure looming grotesque in wall-shadows, sat Blanche Devine pretending to read. Now and then she rose and tipto

e wondered about Snooky; but she knew better than to ask. So she waited. The Young Wife next door had told her husband all about that awful night-had told him with tears and sobs. The Very Young Husband had been very, very angry with her-angry and h

-room window, and she made the excuse of looking in her mailbox in order to go to the door. She stood in the doorway and

r mouth down into an ugly, narrow line, and that made the muscles of her jaw tense and hard. It was the uglie

rugs were rolled. The wagons came and backed up to the house and took those things that had made a home for Blanche Devine. An

wouldn't las

ver do!"