A Modern Madonna

by Caroline Abbot Stanley

Mammy Cely had never thought any of these things about the room, but the next morning she spoke to Mr. De Jarnette as he was starting to town.

"Marse Richard, is it ever occurred to yo' mind that Philip's room ain't no fittin' place fur him to stay?"

"No," said Mr. De Jarnette, in surprise. "What is the matter with it?"

"That room's too sorrowful lookin' fur a chile, Marse Richard. Hit ought to have some sort of hilarious paper on the walls, and tarletan curtains or somethin' that will let in the sunshine. Yaas, sir. Chil'n needs light, jes' like plants."

Mr. De Jarnette listened without replying, but he turned back and went to Philip's room.

It certainly was rather a gloomy place, he reflected, though he had never thought of it before. The Brussels carpet was big-figured and dark and worn, the moths having consumed a yard or so around the edge. Loving darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil they had found here a congenial home. Mammy had seen to it that the curtains were closely drawn. He groped his way across the room and shook them impatiently, remembering that a child needed light. They gave out a musty smell. Then he looked at the walls. The paper certainly could not be called hilarious.

He looked around the room with a growing discontent and uncertainty of himself. Strange that an old negro should have thought of all this. He could see now that it was no place for a child. But he had been into that room time and again and it had never occurred to him. Women seemed to have a sort of instinct for these things.

He made no comment when he came down, nor did Mammy Cely. Being wise in her generation she left her seed to germinate. But he said to her one morning a week or two later, "Get the things moved out of Philip's room. I am going to have some work done in it. The men will be out to-day."

The painters and paper-hangers were hardly through when a load of furniture came out from Washington. Mr. De Jarnette being in doubt as to the exact amount of hilarity that the good of a child demanded, had gone to a decorator and put the matter in his hands; then to a furniture store, telling the proprietor that he wanted suitable furniture and drapery for a child's room which must be light and cheerful. The bedroom suit already in it was solid mahogany and almost priceless as an antique, but Mr. De Jarnette gave him carte blanche, and the dealer naturally made the most of his opportunity.

There was a scurrying around at Elmhurst that last day as there had not been since the advent of the second Mrs. De Jarnette. Mammy Cely was bent upon having all in readiness by the time Philip's mother came. Mr. De Jarnette apparently did not know that Philip had a mother. He had never asked any questions about her comings or her goings. What he was doing was for Philip.