A new name

by Grace Livingston Hill

The griddle was sending up blue smoke, and she quickly turned down her lights and mopped off the burning grease with an old dishcloth, promptly subduing her griddle back to its smooth steady heat again. The batter hissed and sputtered and flowed out on the black griddle, shaping itself into a smooth round cake and puffing at once into lovely lightness, with even little bubbles all over its gray-white surface. Her practised eye watched it rise, and knew that the cake was just right, just enough soda, just light enough, and just milk enough to give it a crisp brownness. She slid a deft turner under its curling edges, flopped it over exactly in its own spot, its surface evenly browned. Then she turned her attention to the amber syrup bubbling slowly to just the right consistency of limpid clearness. She shoved the coffee pot to the back of the stove, lifted the cake to a hot plate on the top of the oven, tore a bit out of it and tasted it to make sure it was perfect, and then looked at the clock. Why, it was a quarter to eight! Was it possible? What had become of Bessie? How could she stay out so late? She knew her mother would worry! What should she do?

Often she had rehearsed in her mind through the years what she would do if anything happened ever that Bessie did not come home some evening. She would go about it in a most systematic way. She would phone to the office to see if she was there. She would ask the janitor if he knew when she left the building, and who she was with? She would phone to the other girls in the office. She had carefully gleaned their addresses one by one from her unsuspecting daughter to be prepared for such a time of trouble. Failing in getting any help from the girls or their employer, she would phone to the nearest police station, and to the big radio stations, and ask for help.

All this carefully planned program began to rush before her mind now as if a scroll with it written thereon had been unfolded. How many mothers have been through such a season of anxiety, and had a like plan present itself, and say, “Here, now, is the time to use me?” and yet the mother hesitates. So this mother waited and hesitated. Bessie was so careful and so sensible. Bessie had so much common sense. Terrible things did not happen in the world very often. There was some little simple explanation to this delay, and Bessie would surely walk in in five minutes more. Bessie would hate so to have her make a fuss, as if she could not take care of herself. Yet she might have telephoned if she had to stay.

So the mother reasoned, and shoved back the griddle, turned the gas very low, lighted the oven, and put the rest of the meal to keep hot; finally abandoning clock, griddle, oven, and all, she went into the little dark front room to sit at the window, as mothers will, and look out and watch the passers-by, waiting for the loved one.

The clock struck eight, and Bessie did not come. There lay those two strange boxes. They could have no connection, of course, with Bessie’s being late, and yet they annoyed her. Bessie would be annoyed, too, when she came and found them. Perhaps she would not tell about them till her daughter had eaten her supper. Of course, she would soon come and they would be eating griddle cakes and syrup, and she could take a deep breath again, and know that all was well.

Was that the clock striking the half-hour? Oh, what could have happened to Bessie? Never had she stayed away like this before without telephoning. Of course it was not late for a grown girl to be out in the bright city streets, but Bessie always let her know where she was. There had not been anything planned for this evening. She had been going to the library. Perhaps somehow she had got locked in the library through lingering too long. How could she find out? Would there be a night watchman who would go and search for her? What was the name of the library Bessie went to? She searched her brain for the right name, as she strained her eyes to the street, which seemed full of strangers passing, but no sign of her girl. She made an errand to the kitchen, warm and cosey and safe, with the batter waiting in a yellow bowl on the tiny old-fashioned marble-topped table beside the stove. The first buckwheats of the season, and Bessie loved them so! She looked in a panic at the clock, which was nearing a quarter to nine, and went hurriedly for the telephone book to look up a number. She really could not remain longer inactive. She had set nine o’clock as her limit to wait, but she must be ready with numbers to call when the first stroke rang. Bessie would not let her go later than nine without phoning. There was a kind of compact between them that she would not get anxious nor do anything foolish till after nine.

She had written out the numbers of three libraries and the police station, and it was three minutes to nine when she heard the front door open. She was so frightened she was trembling, and for a moment her voice went down in her throat somehow, and she could not call. She could hear a voice. Was it Bessie’s?

“I’m quite all right now, thank you—” it sounded weak and tired. She got to her feet and stood as the kitchen door opened and Bessie walked in.

“I’m so sorry, mother! You were frightened. But I couldn’t help it. Have you had supper? I’m nearly famished. Couldn’t we have supper first and let me tell you all about it afterwards?”

Bessie sat down by the table and began to take off her hat. Her face looked white and tired, whiter than her mother had ever seen her look before, but she was smiling. Her mother rushed over and clasped her in her arms.