The Brimming Cup

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

He pulled out some of the letters from Canada about the Powers case, and fingered them over a little. He had brought them home this evening, and it wasn't the first time either, to try to get a good hour alone with Marise to talk it over with her. He frowned as he reflected that he seemed to have had mighty little chance for talking anything over with Marise since his return. There always seemed to be somebody sticking around; one of the two men next door, who didn't have anything to do but stick around, or Eugenia, who appeared to have settled down entirely on them this time. Well, perhaps it was just as well to wait a little longer and say nothing about it, till he had those last final verifications in his hands.

What in thunder did Eugenia come to visit them for, anyhow? Their way of life must make her sick. Why did she bother? Oh, probably her old affection for Marise. They had been girls together, of course, and Marise had been good to her. Women thought more of those old-time relations than men. Well, he could stand Eugenia if she could stand them, he guessed. But she wasn't one who grew on him with the years.

He had less and less patience with those fussy little ways, found less and less amusing those frequent, small cat-like gestures of hers, picking off an invisible thread from her sleeve, rolling it up to an invisible ball between her white finger and thumb, and casting it delicately away; or settling a ring, or brushing off invisible dust with a flick of a polished finger-nail; all these manoeuvers executed with such leisure and easy deliberation that they didn't make her seem restless, and you knew she calculated that effect. A man who had had years with a real, living woman like Marise, didn't know whether to laugh or swear at such mannerisms and the self-consciousness that underlay them.

There she was coming down the stairs now, when she heard Marise at the piano, with the children, and knew there was no more work to be done. Pshaw! He had meant to go out and join the others, but now he would wait a while, till he had finished his pipe. A pipe beside Eugenia's perfumed cigarettes always seemed so gross. And he wanted to lounge at his ease, stretch out in his arm-chair with his feet on another. Could you do that, with Eugenia fashion-plating herself on the sofa?

He leaned back smoking peacefully, listening to Marise's voice brimming up all around the children's as they romped through "The raggle-taggle gypsies, oh!"

What a mastery of the piano Marise had, subduing it to the slender pipe of those child-voices as long as they sang, and rolling out sumptuous harmonies in the intervals of the song. Lucky kids! Lucky kids! to have childhood memories like that.

He heard Paul say, "Now let's sing 'Massa's in the cold, cold ground,'" and Elly shriek out, "No, Mother, no! It's so terribly sad! I can't stand it!" And Paul answer with that certainty of his always being in the right, "Aw, Elly, it's not fair. Is it, Mother, fair to have Elly keep us from singing one of the nicest songs we have, just because she's so foolish?"

His father frowned. Queer about Paul. He'd do anything for Elly if he thought her in trouble, would stand up for her against the biggest bully of the school-yard. But he couldn't keep himself from . . . it was perhaps because Paul could not understand that . . . now how could Marise meet this little problem in family equity, he wondered? Her solutions of the children's knots always tickled him.

She was saying, "Let's see. Elly, it doesn't look to me as though you had any right to keep Paul from singing a song he likes. And, Paul, it doesn't seem as though you had any right to make Elly listen to a song that makes her cry. Let's settle it this way. We can't move the piano, but we can move Elly. Elly dear, suppose you go 'way out through the kitchen and shut both doors and stand on the back porch. Touclé will probably be there, looking out, the way she does evenings, so you won't be alone. I'll send Mark out to get you when we're through. And because it's not very much fun to stand out in the dark, you can stop and get yourself a piece of cocoanut cake as you go through the pantry."

Neale laughed silently to himself as he heard the doors open and shut and Elly's light tread die away. How perfectly Marise understood her little daughter! It wasn't only over the piano that Marise had a mastery, but over everybody's nature. She played on them as surely, as richly as on any instrument. That's what he called real art-in-life. Why wasn't it creative art, as much as anything, her Blondin-like accuracy of poise among all the conflicting elements of family-life, the warring interests of the different temperaments, ages, sexes, natures? Why wasn't it an artistic creation, the unbroken happiness and harmony she drew out of those elements, as much as the picture the painter drew out of the reds and blues and yellows on his palette? If it gave an actor a high and disinterested pleasure when he had an inspiration, or heard himself give out a true and freshly found intonation, or make exactly the right gesture, whether anybody in the audience applauded him or not, why wouldn't the mother of a family and maker of a home have the same pleasure, and by heck! just as high and disinterested, when she had once more turned the trick, had an inspiration, and found a course that all her charges, young and old, could steer together? Well, there was one, anyhow, of Marise's audience who often gave her a silent hand-clap of admiration.