Read Ebook: Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings by Donnell Annie Hamilton

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Ebook has 869 lines and 31623 words, and 18 pages

"Yes," answered Miss Theodosia.

Stefana whirled, at the risk of Elihu Launcelot.

"Oh--oh, what? You mean I can do you up, honest? Starch you, and iron you, too--of course, I could wash you. Oh, if I could drop Elly Precious I'd get right up and dance!"

"Give Elly Precious to me, and go ahead, my dear," said the White Lady with a smile.

But Stefana shook her head. She was covertly studying the white dress once more. It was very white--she could detect no promising spots or creases, and she drew a sigh even in the midst of her rejoicing. If a person only sat on porches, in chairs, how often did white dresses need doing up? Miss Theodosia interpreted the sigh and look.

"Oh, I've three of them rolled up in my trunk; aren't three enough to begin on? And shirtwaists--I'm sure I don't know how many of those. I'll go and get them now."

In the hall she stopped at the mirror, jibing at the image confronting her. "You've done it this time, Theodosia Baxter! When you can't bear a wrinkle! But, there, don't look so scared--daughters inherit their mothers' talents, plenty of times. And you need only try it once, of course."

After Stefana had gone away, doubly laden with clothes and bulky baby, Miss Theodosia remained on her porch. She found herself leaning over and parting her porch-vines, to get a glimpse of the little house next door. She had always loathed that little house with its barefaced poverties and uglinesses, and it had been a great relief to her to have it stand vacant in past years. She had left it vacant when she started upon her last globe-trotting. Now here it was teeming with life, and here she was aiding and abetting it! What new manner of Theodosia Baxter was this?

"You'd better get up and globe-trot again, Woman, and not unpack," she uttered, with a lone woman's habit of talking to herself. "You were never made to live in a house like other people--to sit on porches and rock. And certainly, Theodosia Baxter, you were never made to live next to that little dry-goods box. It will turn you gray, poor thing." She felt a gentle pity for herself, then gentle wrath seized her. Why had she come home, anyway? Already she was lonely and restless. Why--could anybody tell her why--had she weakly yielded to two small girls? Her dear-beloved white dresses! And she could not go back on her promise--not on a Baxter promise! There was, indeed, the release of going away again, back to her globe-trotting--

"I might write to Cornelia Dunlap," Miss Theodosia thought. "Maybe she is sorry she came home, too."

Cornelia Dunlap had been her recent comrade of the road. They had traveled to many far places together. What would Cornelia say to that little conference of three--and a baby--on the front porch?

"My dear," wrote Miss Theodosia, "you will think I have been swapped in my cradle since I left you! 'That is no fellow tramp of mine,' you will say, 'That woman being victimized by children in knee-high dresses! Theodosia Baxter nothing!'"--for Cornelia Dunlap in moments of surprise resorted sometimes to slang, which she claimed was a sturdy vehicle of speech. "You will set down your teacup hard," wrote on Miss Theodosia,--"I know you are drinking tea!--when I tell you the little story of the Whitewashing of Theodosia Baxter. But shall I tell it? Why expose Theodosia Baxter's weaknesses when hitherto she has posed as strong? Soberly, Cornelia, I am as much surprised at myself as you will be . Do you remember your Mother Goose? The little astonished old lady who took a nap beside the road and woke to find her petticoats cut off at her knees? 'Oh, lawk-a-daisy me, can this be I!' cried she. I'm not sure those were just her words, but they will do. Oh, lawk-a-daisy me, can this be Theodosia Baxter! The Astonished Little Old Lady, if I remember my Mother Goose, resorted to the simple expedient of going home and letting her little dog decide if she were she. But I have no little dog.

Miss Theodosia was having a good time. Her sober mood had passed. She wrote on enjoyingly, describing the whole little episode to Cornelia Dunlap. The freshening of it in her memory was pleasant. Again she felt the tug of those eager little pleadings. She kept remembering other things about little Elihu Launcelot besides his name and his toes. She remembered how gravely he had looked at her, how tiny and soft his hands were.

She had not thought of it as sociable and friendly before. The thought seemed just to have come to her. She was quite cheerful-minded when she finished her letter to Cornelia Dunlap and neatly folded it. If she had but known, she was sorry for Cornelia who was not next door to a friendly little box.

She made tea and sipped it, made golden toast and opened a foreign-looking box of some sort of jelly. While she ate slowly, she slowly made plans. No, she would not have a stay-all-the-time maid--yes, she would move her things into the room facing the next-door house. Until she got tired of watching the sociable thread of smoke, anyway.

It had not occurred yet to Theodosia Baxter that she had not said a word to Cornelia Dunlap about going on their travels again. When it did occur, she suddenly laughed out aloud, but softly.

Of course there was the promise to let those funny kiddies whitewash her--

"It's a Baxter promise; don't try to get out of it, Theodosia Baxter," she said.

The next noon she saw her dresses dangling from the neighboring clothesline. They were not successfully dangled; Miss Theodosia liked to see them hung with symmetry, all alike in a seemly row. The shirtwaists dangled also in unseemly attitudes. One hung by a single sleeve. But that was not all--a certain faint suggestion of something worse than lack of symmetry persisted in Miss Theodosia's mind. They had been especially travel-stained, soiled; they had still an air of soil and travel-stain. They didn't look clean!

Miss Theodosia groaned. "It may be blueing streaks," she said, but there was little comfort in blueing streaks. She got her opera glasses and peered through them at her beloved dresses. Brought up at close range, they were certainly blue-streaked, and there was plain lack of the snowy whiteness her stern washing-creed demanded.

At intervals, small figures issued from the house and circled about the clotheslines, inspecting their contents critically. Miss Theodosia saw one of them--it was the child of her doorstep--lay questionable hold upon a delicate garment and examine a portion of it excitedly. She saw the child dart back to the house and again issue forth, dragging the slender young washerwoman. Together they examined. Miss Theodosia caught up her glasses and brought the little pair into the near field of her vision; she saw both anxious young faces. The face of Stefana was strained and careworn.

Miss Theodosia was thirty-six years old, and all of the years had been comfortable, carefree ones. In the natural order of her pleasantly migratory, luxurious life, she had rarely come into close contact with careworn or strained faces; this contact through the small, clear lenses seemed startlingly close. Stefana's lean and anxious face, the child's baby-bent little back, like the back of an old woman--it was at these Miss Theodosia looked through her pearl glasses. She forgot to look at the garment the children examined so troubledly. Suddenly, Miss Theodosia Baxter--traveler, fortune-favored one--found herself as anxious for the success of Stefana's stout little project as the two young people within her field of view, but, suddenly and unaccountably, from a new motive. The slim, worn-looking little creature,--and that tinier, tired little creature--must not fail! The stout project should succeed!

Stefana carried the disputed garment back into the house and rewashed it; it was dripping wet when she again dangled it beside the others. Several times during the afternoon this process was repeated, until, at nightfall, the entire wash dripped, rewashed and soggy. Miss Theodosia nodded her head approvingly; she had her reasons for being glad that the wash was to remain out overnight.

It was a starless, moonless night--a night to prowl successfully about clotheslines.

Miss Theodosia prowled. The little dry-goods box full of children was a small, vague blur, a little darker than the darkness. The children slept the profound sleep of childhood and childhood's unbelonging toil. Sleep was smoothing Stefana's roughened little nerves with gentle hand and fortifying her courage for yet more strenuous toils to come. Evangeline's weary little arm--and tongue--were resting.

Miss Theodosia prowled softly, to avoid disturbing the little box-house. She had the guilty conscience of the prowler that sent her heart into her mouth at the crackling of a twig under her feet. She found herself listening, holding her breath in a small panic. No sound of wakened sleepers, but there must be no more twigs.

Safe in her own house once more, Miss Theodosia breathed a sigh of relief. Saved! But there was another trip yet to be made to that region behind the vague little blur of a box. It was too soon to be relieved.

"What I've done once I can do twice," boasted Miss Theodosia, undaunted, though at the approach of her second prowling expedition, her courage waned unexpectedly. "I mean if I have a cup of tea--strong," she weakly appended to her boast. It would take her longer out there the second time. She really needed tea.

Miss Theodosia retired at eleven, tired but contented. She even smiled at her sodden fingers--when had Miss Theodosia Baxter's fingers been sodden before!

The next morning, the child and the childlier child appeared at her porch, where she rocked contentedly.

"She's ironin' 'em!--Stefana's ironin' 'em! No, I can't sit down; she said not to. She's ironed one dress three times. It's funny how irons stick, isn't it? No, not funny--mercy gracious! You oughter see Stefana's cheeks, an' she's burnt both thumbs--I'm keepin' Elly Precious out o' the way, an' she's forbid Carruthers comin' in a step. She'll get 'em ironed, Stefana will. You can't discourage Stefana! Last night I kind of thought you could, but the clo'es whitened out beautiful in the night. Stefana said it was the night air. There wasn't a single streak left this mornin'. We're goin' to keep your money in Mother's weddin' sugar-bowl, an' when she comes back, we're goin' to ask her if she don't want some sugar!"

All day Stefana toiled and retoiled. It was night when she sent one of the children to Miss Theodosia with her day's work. The one who came was Carruthers, chatty and deaf. Miss Theodosia did not have to do any talking.

"Stefana says there's some smooches, but the worst ones come under your arms an' where they's puckers. The wrinkles Stefana hopes you'll excuse--they'll air 'out, she expects. She was comin' over an' explain, herself, but she's gone to bed. Evangeline's gone, too, to keep the baby quiet. Stefana says you needn't pay as much's you expected to, 'count o' the smooches an' wrink--"

"I always pay the same price for my dresses," Miss Theodosia said, forgetful of the boy's affliction. She put the money into the hard little palm of Carruthers and watched him scamper home with it. Miss Theodosia looked happy. She felt pleasant little tweaks at her heartstrings as if small grimy hands were ringing them, playing a tender little tune. Scorched, blundering young hands--Stefana's. The little tune rang plaintive in her ears. She had a vision of Stefana toiling over the ironing of her dresses and going to bed exhausted, when the toil was over. Miss Theodosia's eyes followed Carruther's retreating little figure till it reached the House of Little Children and disappeared from view. What had she, Theodosia Baxter, to do with houses of little children? Since when had they possessed attractions for her--held her tender, brooding gaze? What was she doing here now, gazing? Theodosia Baxter!

Stefana had folded the dresses painstakingly in separate newspaper bundles and stacked them on Carruther's outstretched arms. They were stacked now on Miss Theodosia's porch. She picked them up and turned with them into the house.

"I'll unfold them," she thought, "and shake them out. I must tell her to send them home without folding next time--or I can go and get them myself."

Unpinning Stefana's many pins, she lifted out one of the dresses. It creaked starchily under her hands; it opened out before Miss Theodosia's horrified vision. She uttered a groan.

Where, now, was that tender little heart-string tune?

Miss Theodosia saw pink. Near-anger surged up within her at this ruinous, this piteous result of Stefana's toil. The result dangled creaksomely from her hands, revealing new wrinkles and smooches and leprous patches of starch at every motion. What was in this bundle would be in the rest--there was no hope.

In Theodosia Baxter's little girlhood, she had played there were two "'Dosies," a good one and a bad one. The Good 'Dosie was often away from home, but was sometimes apt to appear at unexpected moments, to the embarrassment of the Bad 'Dosie. Stamp her foot as she would, Bad 'Dosie could not always drive the unwelcome intruder away.

"I don't like her!" the small sinner had once been heard to say. "She--she p'eaches at me!"

The Good 'Dosie was preaching now.

"Wait! Count ten!" she preached. "Don't get any angrier, or you'll see red instead of pink. Think of that poor child's burned thumbs--think of her having to take to her bed when she got through--"

"I don't wonder!" snapped Bad 'Dosie.

"Wait--wait! Aren't you going to be good? Do you remember what you used to do, to help out? Well?"

Miss Theodosia dropped the starchy mass on top of the other newspaper bundles and rather suddenly sat down in a chair. She saw a little child, preached to and penitent, on her knees, with folded hands, saying "Now I lame me down to sleep."

It was very still in the room. Miss Theodosia's eyes closed and opened again. It was as if she had said "Now I lame me." A little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She no longer saw even pink.

She got up briskly and began turning back her cuffs. First, she would build the kitchen fire; it must roar and snap, with all the work it had to do to-night. She would heat a lot of water, for only boiling water could take out Stefana's awful starch. While the water was heating, she would eat her supper.

"A good, big supper, it will have to be," smiled this gentled Miss Theodosia. "I've got to get up my strength! No tea-and-toast-and-jam supper to-night." She heated her gridiron smoking hot and broiled a bit of steak. She tossed together little feathery biscuit and made coffee, fragrant and strong. Momently, Miss Theodosia's strength "got up." She moved about the kitchen briskly--when had she launched out upon a night's work like this? Adventure!--call it adventure.

Work to Miss Theodosia had always meant something that other people did,--the Stefanas and their mothers and brothers and fathers. What she herself did, a gentle, dilatory playing at work, hardly merited the name. A bit of dusting, tea-and-toasting, making her own bed, cooking for sheer love of cooking, what did they count in Miss Theodosia's summing up of tasks?

Always there had been some one to do her heavy things. She had put her washings out and taken her dinners in; three times a week she was swept and scrubbed and made immaculate.

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