“Now, old silent partner, I must run away and look after my forewoman and get busy myself. Goodness, how the Carruth family is developing! Eleanor already offered a position at Sunnymeade for next fall, my humble self a full-fledged business woman with a flourishing trade; Jean junior partner with a private following of her own, and you, you dear, blind, faithful old creature, setting us all an example of faithfulness and devotion; Mammy and Charles the biggest hit of the whole establishment with their lunch counter, and yonder the little girl whom Mother has made over brand new! No wonder I’m proud; no wonder I’m sometimes afraid my head will be turned by all our good fortune and success. Keep me headed right, Baltie. If you, without sight, can steer a straight course, surely I, with both my eyes to the good, ought to be able to. Good-bye, dear,” and clasping her arms around the sleek, warm neck, Constance stood perfectly still for a moment or two, her head pillowed upon the silky mane, her thoughts traveling rapidly back across the intervening years—years so full of effort, anxiety, hope, disappointment, love and faith. The one which was beginning with this October—for it was in October that she had begun her work four years before—was bidding fair to prove a crisis in all their lives. Instinctively the girl felt this. Girl in years, yes, but a little woman in executive ability, foresight and execution, withal, still sweet and true, and retaining her faith in her fellow-beings. Never had she looked lovelier than at this moment standing there in the glorious October sunlight, her arms clasped about the big bay horse, her eyes shining with hope, health, courage, her cheeks glowing. She was dressed for her morning’s work, her gown a simple tan-colored linen with white collar, cuffs and belt, a soft tie of brown silk at her throat. She was good to look at this girl of nineteen, as she stood with such unstudied grace, the very personification of hope. Presently, with a little start, she came back to a realization of things around her, and with a parting caress for the blind horse ran lightly from the paddock across the lawn to the little candy kitchen, and entered with a cheery greeting.
[CHAPTER III—The Bee-hive.]
When three years before, Hadyn Stuyvesant, the owner of the property rented by the Carruths, had followed out Constance Carruth’s plans for a model kitchen in which she could make her candy, he was not a little surprised at the sixteen-year-old girl’s practical ideas. She asked him to build an extension to the little cottage at the end of the grounds occupied by Mammy and Charles, and had drawn the plans and specifications herself. The result was a marvel to him.
The extension consisted of three rooms on the first floor and two on the second. Upon entering the door one found one’s self in a good-sized room, with rubber-tiled floor all blue and white, the walls snowy in alabasterine. Here on numberless white enameled shelves were placed the boxes of candy ready for shipment. From this attractive room opened the packing room, floor, walls and ceiling scrupulous. Long zinc-covered tables ready for the pans of candy, little portable stands at hand to hold the boxes in which the candy was to be packed. Perhaps the most practical feature of this packing room was the height of the tables, or more correctly their lack of height. Constance had reason to know that one can be foot-weary after several hours spent in candy-making. Consequently these packing tables were made low enough to enable those working at them to sit upon the comfortable bent-wood chairs while doing the work, which often required several hours, for not only had the candy to be packed in its pretty boxes, but the boxes had to be wrapped and tied with dainty ribbons. Nothing must fall short of perfection.
But the crowning point of Constance’s practicability was shown in the actual kitchen itself. This was also tiled, but the tiles were of shining porcelain, washable, scrubable, scourable to the very limit. A big gas range stood at one side, near it hung pans, pots and kettles of every size and possible need, all of white enamel ware. A big porcelain sink and draining tray stood next. Close at hand was a large table, its top of white marble warranted to withstand the hottest candy which could be poured upon it, to chill it quickly for handling or cutting, and to come forth from its boiling baptism immaculate under the alchemy of hot soapsuds.
On the walls were great hooks, upon which to pull long ropes of molasses or cream candy. Along another side of the kitchen were shelves to hold the hundred and one ingredients which were to be transformed into the most toothsome of dainties, and these were too numerous to name. A spacious closet held aprons, caps, towels, dish-cloths and what not, needed in the work.
On the floor overhead, and reached by a quaint little stairway from the shipping room, was the stock room, where boxes, labels, wrapping paper, twine, and a hundred other needfuls were kept. In one corner a business-like roll-top desk, with still more business-like ledgers, told of the ability of this little lady to keep track of her finances. And room number five? Ah, the eternal feminine! Who says she must waive all claim to her womanly instincts, merge them in the coarser, less refined ones of the hurrying, struggling world around her when she sets out to be a bread-winner among her masculine contemporaries? If some do this, Constance Carruth was not to be numbered among them, and no better proof of it could have been offered than the “fifth wheel to her business wagon,” as she laughingly called room number five. That little room is worthy of minute description.
To begin with, the walls were tinted a soft ivory white, with a delft blue frieze running around the top. The floor was of hard wood, with a pretty blue and white rug spread in the center. On this stood a white enameled table, with snowy linen cover, a reading lamp, the several books and magazines testifying to its primal use. Four or five comfortable wicker chairs, with cushions of pretty figured Japanese crepe, stood about. In one corner a couch with a delft blue and white cover and enough pillows to spell luxury, invited weary bodies to rest when labors were ended, and yet never once hinted that by removing the cover and pillows a bed stood ready for a guest if extra space were needed. Book shelves of white enameled wood filled half one side of the room, and held every sort of cook-book ever published, as well as many of Constance’s favorite authors. A white chiffonnier held many necessary articles, for after one has spent several hours over a boiling kettle one longs for a tub and fresh garments; and all these were at hand in the big closet. Opening from this restful room was a perfectly appointed bathroom. Could plans have been more perfect?
Certainly the girl, bending over the big saucepan, stirring its boiling contents, felt that her little paradise had been gained when she changed from the bustling, rushing Arcade to the peace, tranquillity and refinement of her present surroundings. The accident which short-circuited the switchboard wires in the telephone booth that eventful Labor Day had brought to Mary Willing, even at the cost of a good deal of physical suffering, present advantages and an outlook for the future such as she had never pictured. Indeed, her horizon had been much too circumscribed for her imagination to reach so far. It needed the influence and environment of the past three years to make her fully appreciate the vast difference between the acquisitions which mere dollars can command, and those which true refinement of heart, mind, soul and body hold as invaluable and indeprivable heritages. Possibly the best proof that she had taken the lesson to heart lay in the fact that “Pearl” Willing had completely dropped out of the world’s ken, and in her stead, quiet, dignified Mary Willing moved and had her being. Unconsciously Mrs. Carruth had undertaken to solve a knotty, sociological problem, but the results already obtained seemed to justify her belief that she was right in her estimate of this girl. At all events she had reason to be sanguine of ultimate success in bending a hitherto neglected twig. It needed courage, however, upon Mrs. Carruth’s part to undertake this reformation. From her childhood, to her nineteenth year Mary Willing’s environment had been, if not demoralizing, certainly detrimental to a higher development in any girl. Her associates were coarse, boisterous, heedless girls, without the faintest sense of the fitness of things, or the first rudiments of refinement. To earn enough money to clothe themselves in shoddy finery, to contribute as small a percentage of their earnings to the family purse as possible, and to have as much “fun,” never mind at whose expense, or at what sacrifice of their own dignity, bounded their aims and ambitions. And Mary Willing had seen no reason for not following in their footsteps. Handsomer than any of her companions, and holding a position where her personal charms were conspicuous for all who passed to comment upon them, she had used them to attract the attention of those whom she thought likely to contribute to her pleasure.
To make her more self-conscious, and senselessly pave the way to greater evil, her mother had continually urged her to make the most of her good looks while she had them, assuring her that unless she managed to “catch a rich husband with her handsome face she needn’t hope to get one at all.”