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CHAPTER VII

There were no playmates at Shintown. The nearest neighbor, Burtsch by name, was nearly a mile away. The family consisted of the father and mother, and Rose who was a year older than Beth was supposed to be. There had been half a dozen children before Rose came, but they had died when mere babies.

Mrs. Burtsch frequently referred to the loss of her children as “the strange working of Providence.” She had a thin, high-pitched voice. She was angular, long-limbed. She wore basques and straight, narrow skirts. Her hair was in a knob behind and drawn so tight that the muscles of her forehead and temple had a habitual upward tendency. As though to maintain an even balance, she always directed her glances toward the earth, and the lines of her mouth went downward. She was ingratiating, self-depreciating, and presumably humble. She was always declaring that she was just as good as Mrs. Somebody-or-other, if she was poor. It was no disgrace to be poor. But it was in her case. Poverty was her shame, for had she and her husband been up and about their work, making the most of their farm in place of trying to sustain themselves with the maxim, ‘Poverty is no disgrace,’ they would have had all the comforts desirable and might have been able to help others. Mrs. Burtsch had a whining voice that got upon one’s nerves after a time. She made a point of coming in to see Eliza, and in an insinuating way found out all she could, suggested where she dared and criticised in her exasperating way. She brought Rose with her. While Mrs. Burtsch talked, the children played, or presumably did so; but Rose’s ears and eyes were wide open. She never missed a word that her elders said. She was a skinny, owlish-looking child who could sit for hours and listen, but whose tongue could run as long and as easily as a ball-bearing machine. She knew every bit of gossip of the country-side, and repeated it with all the insinuating humility which was characteristic of her mother.

Rose and Beth were cutting out paper dolls. Eliza kept at her sewing while Mrs. Burtsch, rocking slowly, slowly, kept the conversation going.

“Beth looks stout, Miss Eliza. I’ve noticed frequently how stout she looks. But then that hain’t no sign that she is going to live. Her own folks might have had consumption. You can never tell. Like mother, like child, you know. Her mother couldn’t have had a constitution to brag on when a little thing like falling on a stone killed her quick like it did. If I were in your place, I’d be mighty careful of her. Don’t let her breathe no night air, and keep her housed up well.”

Eliza had long since passed this stage in child-rearing. When she realized that Beth might be with her always, she set about at once to learn something of bringing up a little girl, just as she had learned all she could about feeding chickens. She had long since discovered the futility of discussing any question with Mrs. Burtsch when the latter had the other view of the case. It was always a harangue and nothing else.

“She’s healthy enough. She’s never had a cold. I’m not at all concerned about her.”

“You never can be sure. She’s got a dreadful color in her cheeks, and her eyes are too bright for health. I’d worry considerable about her.”

“What good would that do? It would not improve her condition even if she was in the last stage of consumption.”

Eliza smiled to herself. Beth, the picture of health! Her bright cheeks and dancing eyes were more the result of good, plain food, quiet, happy home life and fresh air and sunshine. She looked all she had been breathing in.

“You never can be sure. My William Henry was as strong a baby as you’d see in a day’s travel, but he went off like a flash with pneumonia. You remember, Miss Eliza?”

She did remember. She knew how a sick child had been left to drag about in wet grass, and left lying at home, sick with rising fever, while the mother dilly-dallied over the fields looking for a weed that the Indians had found infallible for colds.

Mrs. Burtsch was now well launched on the subject. She discussed in detail the taking away of each one of her children. She called their early death “strange and mysterious workings of Providence.” It was far from just to put the blame on Providence when each death had been the direct result of careless, ignorant mothering, or lack of mothering.

Miss Eliza listened. She had heard the story all her life. It had been a quarter of a century since William Henry had died. There was nothing to do but listen. One could not have turned Mrs. Burtsch from the beaten path of her conversation. The only thing to do was to let her go on until she had run herself out.

Eliza listened and threw in a “yes”, an “indeed”, at the proper place; but for the most part her attention was given to her sewing. It had required close accounting to make her income provide for herself and Beth. Each year the expenses would be greater; Eliza tried to lay a few dollars of her interest money aside. She believed in being ready for emergencies. Her trunk had, hidden in its capacious depth, all the odd pennies which came her way.

Now, she was reducing her own wardrobe to fit Beth out. When her shirt-waists were worn at the collar and cuffs, she took the fronts and backs and made guimpes for Beth.

Mrs. Burtsch had ultimately spun her story to a finish. Rose and Beth were yet intent upon cutting out ladies from a magazine. The former paid little attention to what her mother was saying. She had heard it so often that its charm had worn off. As far as Rose was concerned, it fell on dull ears.

Suddenly, Mrs. Burtsch leaned forward and, seizing an end of Eliza’s sewing, took it up critically. “What do you mean to do with it?” she asked. “The tucks hain’t so bad, though the rest does look like it went through the mill. It’s a sin and a shame to throw it away, ‘Liza. I do hope you hain’t going to be wasteful. It always cuts me up to see anything throwed away.”

Her own yard was a waste of weeds. Her household a waste in every way. Hours and hours of each day were spent as she was spending these, at a harangue that did no one any good, which sapped the energy and left no gain whatever.

“I don’t think I’ll grow recklessly extravagant;” replied Eliza. “I’ve worn this white dress for three summers. It’s out at a good many places and I’ve put on just enough flesh to make it too tight over the hips. I’m making it over for Beth. I can get quite a nice little dress for her. The ruffles are just as good as new.” She held up the skirt and looked it over. “There’s plenty of material to make her a nice little dress. I’m relieved at the thought of it. She does need one badly enough, and I could not see my way clear to get her something nice and fine.”

Mrs. Burtsch had been fingering the dress with a hypercritical air. At Eliza’s words, she leaned back in her chair and sighed. That sigh spoke volumes.

“You’re very foolish, Miss Liza. Everyone is saying so and has been saying so ever since Old Prince got away from you. I don’t like to tell you what folks are saying. I never was no hand at carrying news; but I feel that it’s my duty to let you know. That’s what a friend’s for, to set us right when we go wrong. I feel it my duty to tell you.”

“Don’t put yourself out,” said Eliza, biting off a thread closely, and with just a little touch of vindictiveness. “I’ll not treasure it up against you.” She was not angry. Amused came nearest to express her state of mind.

“I wouldn’t be doing right,” continued the visitor in her meek, whining, apologetic voice. “I never set up to be much. I know I hain’t educated, and me and John are poor, but that hain’t anything against us. Being poor hain’t any disgrace, I’ve always tried to do my duty, as I saw it. If I’ve failed it hain’t because I hain’t tried. It hain’t no matter to me how I hate to do a thing or how disagreeable it is, if it’s my duty, I do it. That’s the way I feel about telling you. I hain’t going to shirk my duty by you living alone as you are.”

The meeker Mrs. Burtsch tried to be, the more “hain’ts” she made use of. They were the negative expression of herself and her thoughts. Eliza said nothing at all, but picked her stitches carefully.

“Folks think that you are clean gone crazy about keeping this little girl. It hain’t as though you was a married woman with a man to provide for you. Of course you’ve got money, put out on interest, but moths corrupt and thieves might break in and steal. That means not to count too much on what you’ve laid by.

“Now, folks say that you have no call to keep this child and treat her just like she was of your own family. You’re bringing her up just as fine as a lady.”

“Why not?” asked Eliza. “She’s a little lady now and I hope she’ll be a big lady by and by. That’s what I’m raising her for.”

Rose’s shears had not missed a snip; but her sharp little eyes narrowed down to slits and her ears pricked themselves up. This was a new subject to her. Wasn’t Beth really Miss Eliza’s little girl after all? The wonder of it was that she had never found out before. Her mouth fairly watered for this morsel of news. Yet she never so much as turned her head or lost one snip with her shears.

“Well, to my way of thinking it hain’t right. Every one I’ve spoke to says the same thing. It hain’t right to take a tramp child and bring her up as though she was somebody. If you’d train her so she’s be handy for working out, folks wouldn’t have so much to say, but you’re spoiling her so that she won’t make even a good hired girl.”

“I don’t want her to be that, Liza Burtsch. She’s just a baby yet. I really haven’t thought much what I’d like her to be. All I think about now is to keep her sweet and wholesome and teach her all that other little girls learn in schools. There’s time enough to think about other things when ten years more have gone.

“There’s something else, Livia Burtsch, that we’ll settle right here. Beth is no tramp child and never was. You have no right to call her that, and I will not allow it.”

“Seems to me that I’ve got a good bit of right. Folks hain’t as blind as you’re suspicioning them, Liza Wells. Tramp child, now what else could she be called but tramp. Maybe she’s worse for all I know. You can’t tell me things, Liza Wells. I’ve lived too long to have the wool pulled over my eyes. You know and I know that no decent self-respecting woman what has a home or any folks is tramping on foot through the country with a baby. No woman that thinks anything of herself is walking through a strange country and taking naps under bushes by the roadside. You can’t tell me. The child’s mother was nothing but a worthless scal – .”

“Stop! Not another word.” Eliza’s voice was low – too low for peace. It was as clear cut and metallic as a blade of steel. Mrs. Burtsch was awed by it. For an instant she looked at Eliza with wide-open eyes and hanging jaw, but she soon recovered her rigidity of feature and posture.

“Well, I guess I’ll say what I see fit to say when it’s the truth. That’s what cuts you, Eliza. It’s the truth and you know it. Tut, tut, what’s the world coming to if folks can’t speak what’s in their mind. Beth’s just a tramp – .”

Eliza had risen. She stood like an offended goddess before the woman. “Not another word in my house, Livia Burtsch. Not another word. You always have been a news-carrier, making trouble wherever you go. I’ve borne with you a good many years without saying a word in return. I’ve put up with it too long. Now, we’ll understand each other. If you can come in my home and visit without carrying news, and slandering everyone in the neighborhood, well and good; you may come and I’ll make you welcome. If you can’t be civil and can’t keep from bothering about my affairs – stay away.”

Mrs. Burtsch had also arisen. She was fairly trembling with offended pride. She looked at Eliza as though she had never seen her before. Indeed, she had never seen such an Eliza before. She could not say a word. She made an effort, but it only ended in a clack of her tongue against her false teeth. With what dignity she could command, she turned and, jerking Rose up by the hand, fairly pulled her from the room.

Her tongue was loosened before she reached home. Rose listened to a storm of abuse against Eliza and her fosterchild. She learned all the particulars of Beth’s advent into the Wells home.

When they had gone, Eliza went back to her sewing. Her hand trembled with nervousness. Beth came and stood back of her chair. “Adee, I think I’ll fix your hair like you used to wear it when I was a baby.”

She loosened the smooth bands until the soft chestnut locks fell loosely about the high, broad forehead. The roll of hair was too heavy for the child to manage, so Adee herself coiled it loosely as Beth wished it to be.

The child disappeared for a moment, but soon returned with some sweet peas in a delicate pink.

“This is the way you used to wear them, Adee.” She stuck them in with her light, easy touch.

“Now, look how sweet you look, Adee,” she cried. Eliza viewed herself in the big mirror and smiled. She recognized beauty when she saw it and – well, she was growing to look like her own flowers, and her own heart.

CHAPTER VIII

Mrs. Burtsch remained away all the remainder of the summer and until late in the fall. Rose, of course, was prohibited from visiting Beth. For her own part, Eliza was better pleased than otherwise with the arrangement of affairs. She regretted that Beth was cut off from intimate companionship with those of her own age, yet Rose had never been the most desirable acquaintance. Being alone was preferable to undesirable friends.

Eliza made a point of inviting Helen Reed from Friday until Sunday evening. The two little girls had the best of times. There were bushels of pop-corn and barrels of apples. When the weather was not too cold, they spent hours playing in the attic. Eliza had given them each a play skirt which could trail behind, and they were happy.

There was a box of antiquated hats in the attic. Beth and Helen at once set up a millinery shop and sewed braids and trimmed hats until their fingers were sore. They had quite a fine assortment before they had finished. It was only too bad that they had no customers and were forced to buy their own goods.

Winter months in the country are never propitious for visiting unless one is able to keep a driving horse. The people at Shintown had only the work horses. During the coldest months these were taken to town to haul ice from the river to the big store houses, and so were unavailable. So the folks of Shintown ploughed their own way through the snow to church or Sunday-school which was always held in the school-house.

Eliza caught glimpses of Mrs. Burtsch and tried to speak to her, but the offended lady would accept no overtures. She took her place opposite Eliza and never looked in her direction. When Beth after services would have run after Rose, Mrs. Burtsch drew her offspring away with, “Come, Rose, this instant. Hain’t I told you that I want you to be particular who you are friends with.”

Even at the sauer-kraut supper, which was the annual event for the last week in November, when money was raised to pay the minister’s salary, Mrs. Burtsch ignored her neighbors of the old Wells place. Eliza was washing dishes and Mrs. Burtsch carrying plates heaped with pork, sauer-kraut and mashed potatoes.

After several attempts, Eliza gave up and accepted Mrs. Burtsch’s attitude as a matter of course. Since the day when Beth had fluffed her hair and stuck sweet peas in it, Eliza had kept it so. The garden flowers had all gone. There were plenty of house plants at the Wells place, however. The evening of the supper, Beth stuck a pink geranium in her foster-mother’s hair.

“You’ll be the very sweetest one at the party Adee,” said Beth.

She was a true prophet. Eliza’s work and the overheated room had given her cheeks the same tint as the flower in her hair.

“Eliza Wells haint so bad looking,” said Sam Houston to some one near him. “It’s wonderful how she does keep her looks. She’s thirty-five if she’s a day.”

More than one pair of eyes were attracted toward her. Mrs. Kilgore sighed when she overheard some one mention Eliza’s fine coloring. She shook her head sadly. “I don’t like the looks of it,” she said. “Old Sally Caldwell, her great aunt by marriage on her father’s side, had just such high coloring and she was took off sudden as could be with galloping consumption. You can’t tell me. Such things are inherited. Mark my words, Eliza Wells will be took off before the year is out. It hain’t natural. A woman ought to look a little faded by the time she’s Eliza’s age. It’s only natural that she should.”

“Don’t let that worry you none,” laughed Mrs. Burtsch in her bitter, cynical fashion. “Those red cheeks won’t have nothing to do with Eliza’s going off unless she goes off with just plumb foolishness. We could all be blooming out and looking like young colts if we wanted to spend our money at a drug-store. Pink cheeks! Buy them at twenty-five cents a bottle at Swain’s drug-store.”

Sleet set in before the supper was over. It was almost nine o’clock before the social event of the season was over and the lights in the school-house were ready to be turned off. The weather had moderated and the sleet had become a rain. The walking was bad. Slush with pools of water had filled the road.

Old Squire Stout had come over with his three-seated “carry-all”.

“I’ll carry you and Beth home,” he said to Eliza. “You’uns folks is farthest out and you hain’t got no men folks with you. You’d better ride along.”

“I should like to. Beth’s so tired that she can barely keep on her feet.”

They were ready to start when Mrs. Burtsch came out of the school-house with her basket over her arm. “I most forgot my potato-kettle,” she explained. “I never could get along without that.”

“Oh, is that you, Livia,” cried the squire in his way. “Better climb in and we’ll carry you home. Always room for one more. Crowd in somewhere. Let the youngsters sit on the floor.”

Mrs. Burtsch was about to comply when she saw that the only seat not already crowded to its full capacity, was occupied by Eliza and the squire’s wife. They had moved closer to make room for her.

“Not to-night, but I thank you kindly just the same, squire. I’ll keep to Shank’s mare yet awhile. I’ll trot on alone and I’ll be sure to be in good company.”

“Suit yourself, Livia,” said the squire, touching his whip to the flanks of the off horse. “It’s a right fool thing to walk two miles on a night like this when you could just as well ride. But I hain’t no way responsible for your foolishness. You always was plumb set in your ways.”

Later events proved that Mrs. Burtsch was foolish. Sam Houston brought the news to Eliza. Sam and his wife had the best intentions in the world. They were “chock-full” to the throat with fine theories about how to run a farm and anything else that came up for discussion. They meant to put their theories into practice, but somehow they never got around to it. He knew when sauer-kraut should be made and just how it should be made. He got as far in working it out as to have his cabbage piled on the back porch with bran sacks over it to keep it from freezing. His “working germ” took a vacation there. The week following the sauer-kraut supper, he came around to Eliza’s back door. He was careful to “stomp” the snow from his boots before he entered the kitchen.

“Why – you, Sam?” exclaimed Eliza. “I hope nothing has happened to Mary Jane.” Sam was not one to make early calls.

“No, the missis is all right. She just sent me over to get the lend of your kraut-cutter. You hain’t using it, I calculate.”

“Mercy, no. I’ve got mine made long ago. The cutter’s out in the wash-house. You’ll find it hanging up behind the door.”

“We’re a little slow somehow about making ours. ‘Pears to be so much to do. There’s chores, and then I had some carpenter work to do on the chicken-coop. But last night, the cold nipped the top layer of the cabbage heads, so Mary Jane said we’d better make the kraut right off or it would all be spoiled. She spoke to set up with Livia Burtsch to-night.”

“Livia Burtsch?” exclaimed Eliza. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Got water-soaked the night of the church-supper and took ‘monia’. They’ve had the doctor from the Bend. The parson’s been to see her. She’s right bad. Somebody’s had to set up with her every night now for three days. She gets out of her head.”

Sam moved on to get the sauer-kraut cutter. There was no question in Eliza’s mind as to her duty.

“I’m going over to see Mrs. Burtsch, Beth,” she said. “I’m not sure that I’ll be back in time for dinner. You can take some bread and milk. I don’t want you to fuss with the fire and try to cook while I’m away. Mrs. Burtsch is sick and may need me.”

There were more ways than one in which Mrs. Burtsch would need help. Eliza knew that. Olivia was not one to “cook up” anything. She was generally out of bread and never made jelly, or canned what she called “truck”. Eliza knew how she would find matters in the Burtsch household, so she took her biggest basket and filled it with some fresh bread, some jelly and several bottles of home-made grape-juice.

She wasted no time in apology or explaining when she entered the Burtsch household.

“Well Livia, this is too bad that you’re laid up. Have you had any breakfast yet?”

“Lem did bring me in some, but I couldn’t eat,” she said.

“A man’s cooking! It wouldn’t be expected of you. I’ll get something for you.”

The kitchen was not the sight to please the eye of a housekeeper. Lemuel and Rose had made a shift at cooking but had made no attempt at cleaning up. Dishes were piled high on every available space of the table. The floor was slippery with grease. The frying pan with bits of what had been intended for the patient’s breakfast was on the back of the stove. Eliza sniffed at it. Salt pork! Scarcely a tempting breakfast for an invalid.

She prepared toast with an egg and a cup of tea. The neighboring women had been kind, but they had their families and households to see to, and had not been able to accomplish all they wished.

When the breakfast was disposed of, Eliza cleared away the accumulation of dishes. She pressed Rose into service. She put the house into some semblance of order in the very few hours she had and prepared dinner for Lemuel Burtsch. She knew what his meals must have been if he had had the preparation of them himself. She was a slow, deliberate worker. She could not rush about and do much in a little time. But she was not irritating in her efforts. Her serene, calm way soothed Olivia.

Rose was of little help. She whined and cried when matters went askew. Mrs. Burtsch worried about the child’s doing without her meals. Altogether Rose was of little value in the house.

“Does Rose help you? Is there anything she can do?” Eliza asked Lemuel as he sat at the dinner table. He looked about bewildered. He had never been the head of his own house, and now with his wife sick, he was like a canoe with the paddle gone.

“She hain’t much good. She’s not very old yet Miss Eliza, and her mother always calculated not to make her work until she was considerable older.”

“She’s really too much of a baby yet to help anyone. If she is no help, I’ll take her home with me and take care of her until Olivia gets around, or until you can find a good woman.”

“That’s powerful good, Miss Liza. Your folks was always great hands for helping other folks out and you’re a chip from the old block. I’ll be relieved a heap if you’ll sort of look after her.”

It was evident that the child’s mother was quite as relieved as Lemuel himself.

It was long after the dinner hour when Eliza set forth with Rose. Mrs. Houston had come over to “set” for a spell and promised to see to the patient until the evening when some one else would relieve her.

Beth was watching at the window. When she saw Eliza and Rose coming, she ran from the house and down to the gate to meet them. She flung her arms about Adee’s neck and then hugged Rose who stood as stiff and irresponsive as an iron post.

“I’m dreadful glad, Rose. Now, we can play. Helen and I made about a million hats. They’re up in the attic. We’ll play millinery store.”

“Run along and play until I call you to supper. We’ll have it early. Beth has had only a bowl of milk since breakfast. Run along; I’ll call you.”

They needed no encouragement. Eliza went to the kitchen and began her preparation. Meanwhile the girls had examined the hats in the attic and commented on the grace and elegance of several. Rose’s tongue was going clickety-clack. She talked more freely when her elders were not present.

“Mrs. Kilgore got a new hat before the church supper. She thought she wouldn’t get it at first. It cost an awful lot,” and so on and so on, petty details of other people’s affairs which she had heard her elders discuss, and which was really no business of hers, or theirs either.

“Let’s play store. You be selling hats and I’ll be the Queen of Sheba come to buy,” suggested Beth. She had learned this particular “stunt” from Helen Reed who would have no dealings with anybody but royalty when she played make-believe.

“I’ll have a train. This one is too short and don’t rustle.” Beth proceeded to pin a half of a curtain to the tail of her gown. Then she pranced forward where the gable was highest and trailed her gown after her.

“You’ll be the shop-keeper and I’ll be the Queen,” said Rose.

“No, I’ll be the Queen first. You’ve never played the game and you don’t know how a queen is supposed to act. They don’t act like just common, every-day people.” Beth paraded up and down, spreading her train and looking back over her shoulder to see the effect. So the discussion continued for several minutes.

“Much you know about queens. You’d better play like you was a tramp.” There was more than childish teasing in the speaker’s voice. There was the keen cutting desire to hurt which marked her mother’s conversation.

“I don’t know nothing about tramps. I never saw one in all my life. Oh, ain’t this train perfectly ‘kertish’?” and she cavorted about to show off to the best advantage.

“You don’t! You never saw one! Then you’d better look in the looking-glass. For you’re a tramp yourself. You were found – ”

Eliza had come to bring the little girls to supper. She caught the last remark. Quick as a flash, she stepped into the room and, seizing Rose by the arm, silenced her. She held her thus while she turned to Beth.

“Go down and eat your supper, Beth, dear. Rose and I will have a little talk.”

Sending Beth ahead, Eliza held Rose, cringing and shaking, by the arm and led her to a bedroom on the second floor, where she took her in and sat down with her and tried to show how contemptible and mean her act was.