Half a Dozen Girls

by Anna Chapin Ray

"Bridget has improved in your hands," said the doctor. "You girls, without knowing it, have been doing the best kind of mission work, and the Bridget who goes home will be a much more attractive Bridget than the one who came here, for she has learned that there is something a little beyond her old life of drudgery that she can hope for and, in the end, gain."

"Hark! What's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Adams abruptly.

There was a sudden commotion in the parlor, the sound of excited voices, mingled with inarticulate cries; then Aunt Jane called, in a tone of agony,—

"Isabel! Polly! John! Quick, quick!"

Springing up, the doctor and his wife, followed by Polly and Alan, ran to the parlor door where they looked in upon a strange scene, for a full understanding of which it is necessary to go back a little, to see what had been passing inside the room, while the others had been talking on the piazza.

For the past two or three months, it had been Mr. Baxter's regular habit to spend every Wednesday evening with the woman of his choice, when he either talked of his children and their peculiarities, or his servants and their vices, or, on the other hand, Miss Roberts attempted to form his mind, as she called it, by improving and instructive conversation. Their interviews, it must be confessed, were never of the nature of a duet. Either Mr. Baxter prattled about trifles, and Aunt Jane was politely indifferent; or else Miss Roberts conversed learnedly, and Mr. Baxter dozed off into little "cat-naps," waked again with an apologetic start, and immediately assumed a look of owlish wisdom, as if to convey the idea that he listened to the best advantage with his eyes shut. Such a beginning, when they spent but one evening a week together, did not hold out very brilliant prospects of enlivening domestic intercourse; but the parties most nearly concerned appeared to be satisfied, so no one else needed to complain.

On this particular Wednesday evening, Mr. Baxter was unusually drowsy. His youngest child, he fretfully explained, had been ill all the night before, and his own rest had been badly broken. But in spite of this warning. Miss Roberts had taken up from the table a pamphlet on prison reform, and announced her intention of reading it aloud. In vain Mr. Baxter looked about for some way of escape. Seeing none, he seated himself in the darkest corner of the room, with a lingering hope that his lapses into dreamland might pass unnoticed. He was not disappointed. In a few moments, Aunt Jane had become so absorbed in her subject that she read on and on, quite unconscious of the fact that her guest, from yawning behind his hand, and nodding now forward, now backward, and now sideways, had passed on into a quiet slumber, unbroken by dreams of restless children and hardened criminals.

But Polly's sudden entrance had roused him, and he propped himself up anew, with a manful resolve to hold his eyes open, or die. Unfortunately it was by no means so easy for Mr. Baxter to hold his mouth shut, and yawn followed yawn, wider and still more wide, until his hand could no longer cover the opening. And yet Miss Roberts read on endlessly, remorselessly. Suddenly she was interrupted by Mr. Baxter who sprang up wildly and, with his body bent forward, his eyes distended and his mouth wide open, began plunging distractedly about the room, with both hands to his face, as if in mortal anguish.

"Oh, Solomon! What is it?" And Miss Roberts sprang up, in her turn.

But Mr. Solomon Baxter only paused to clasp his face more closely and groan, and then resumed his former antics. Miss Roberts was seriously alarmed. Had the man suddenly gone mad? Was he dying?