Mahlon Spellman habitually increased his height by rising on his tiptoes; in extremes he increased it further by running his fingers through his hair to stand it on end. He metaphorically relegated the whole race of Susannas to limbo by flipping wholly imaginary particles from his sleeves and wiping imaginary taint from immaculate fingers with an equally immaculate handkerchief. From this elevation and mental attitude, Mahlon glared accusingly at his wife. This was rather unusual; but the thing had occurred with sufficient frequency for Elizabeth to recognize its portent.
“I am constrained to admit,” she said deliberately, “that there are times, very rare times, when Mahala’s mentality so resembles yours that I am forced to confess myself unequal to the strain of controlling her. At such times I always have made a practice of sending her to you. Your superior judgment, your poise, and strength, will stand your child in good stead at such a time as the present.”
Thereupon Elizabeth courtesied low to her self-ordained lord and master and swept from the room, leaving him a defenseless, a flabbergasted man. In his soul Mahlon knew that he was no more capable of controlling Mahala when she was in that mental attitude which her mother sometimes described as “having her head set,” than was his wife. With hurried steps he began pacing the room. By the time Mahala entered, he was walking in nervous, flatfooted indecision; he had lost all height obtained by any subterfuge. He faced Mahala, and if his wife had been there to observe the interview, she would have been rejoiced to realize that Mahala was tiptoeing, while her father was on his soles. All the lofty attitude he had assumed with Elizabeth, vanished like river mist before an hour of compelling sunshine. Mr. Spellman was so undone that he nearly stuttered.
“Wh—what’s this your mother tells me about this disgusting Susanna business?” he asked as Mahala stood slim and straight before him.
Her lips were curved in their very sweetest smile, but far back in the depths of her eyes there was a cold gray light that Mahlon Spellman did not recall ever having seen there before. He realized with a severe mental shock exactly what his wife had meant when she said that there were times when she did not force matters with Mahala.
But it was the girl’s lips that were speaking, and the lips were sweetly saying: “How right you are, Papa! Isn’t it disgusting and absurd, in a town where there is as much money and as many comfortable people as there are in this town, that any child should be started to school so thinly clad that her teeth are chattering and her hands blue and stiff?”
Mahlon tried to recover some least degree of his lost attitude.
“That girl’s father never did an honest day’s work in his life.”
He tried to thunder it; he did succeed in making it impressive.
“That’s exactly the truth,” agreed Mahala instantly. “He never did, he never will. That’s the reason why every one should make a point of seeing that Susanna has warm and comfortable clothing until she can get enough education so that she will be able to teach or do something that will help out her mother and her little brothers and sisters. I was just coming to you about it when Mother came to my room to suggest that I talk it over with you. I want you to tell about Susanna at the next board meeting of the church. I want you to tell those people plainly how narrow-minded and how selfish they are and what a disgrace it is to the whole town to have a member of their church trying to go to high school so thinly clad that she is stiff and blue—and she is one of the very best scholars in our class, too. Mind, I have to study good and hard to keep ahead of her and once or twice, I wouldn’t have had my problems if she had not held up her slate and let me see how to begin a solution. I owe her that petticoat all right, Father.”