The kitchen wasn't redd up that day nor the next. It remained, indeed, a sight to make a good housekeeper weep, and closets, cupboards, clothes-presses, and the celebrated servants' parlor remained untidy conglomerations of rubbish; but the general appearance of the place continued to improve. Kate's gratitude for the regular receipt of her wages was continual and practical. A chance visitor now could enter any room in the front of the house at any hour, and there was much comment among the people upon the change.
It was generally agreed that Elsie Moss must have been very carefully trained by her stepmother to bring about such a marvel. And presently some of the creditors of the household began to wonder if her influence couldn't be extended. One and another began to drop hints to Elsie which became so broad that even one quite unaccustomed to any such thing could not fail to understand. The butcher's wife, the grocer's sister, and the draper's head bookkeeper had all but informed her in so many words that unless their respective relatives or patrons were paid in full by the 1st of November, they would present their bills to Mr. Middleton, if they had to do so in the vestibule of the church.
And they were only three out of a number that seemed legion. Others spoke more plainly to Kate, and Elsie began to dread seeing certain people enter the library during her hours there. The days being shorter, the Howe baby went to bed at five o'clock, and little Mattie, who had taken a violent fancy to Elsie, used to run to the library the moment he was off her hands, remaining until six to walk home with her. And Elsie, who was devoted to the child and never tired of her company, was also relieved because her presence protected her from any but veiled hints.
The situation wore upon her, and finally she decided to have a frank talk with Mrs. Middleton. She wasn't, it is true, on terms of frankness with her, and in a sense it wasn't her place to interfere. But she knew that Mrs. Middleton wouldn't want the bills presented to her husband any more than Kate did—nor, indeed, than Elsie herself. Not that she would have cared, except for Mr. Middleton's sake. It would serve Mrs. Middleton right to be brought up short, but she dreaded the thought of his being so distressed; she didn't want him to give up the few little comforts he allowed himself, and she knew it would hurt him cruelly to have to retrench in his giving.
She wrote to Mr. Bliss, her lawyer, asking him to send her five hundred dollars, mailing the letter to the other Elsie to be forwarded from New York. That seemed to her inexperience a large sum and able to work wonders. But before her letter had reached New York she began to feel as if it wouldn't be sufficient to make everything straight for a new start; and before there was time for an answer from San Francisco, she was sadly convinced that it would be only a drop in the bucket. Whereupon she decided that if Mr. Bliss sent it to her without comment, and didn't evidently consider it a very large sum, she would ask him to duplicate it.
With a certain relief, she put off the frank talk with Mrs. Middleton until she should have received the money. It did not arrive so soon as she expected it, and she was still waiting when Kate came to her in excitement one morning saying that the iceman wouldn't leave any ice unless he were paid cash. Elsie produced her portemonnaie.
"Oh, Miss Elsie, I hate to take your money," protested Kate with tears in her eyes. "I wouldn't 'a' come to you only I'm strapped myself, what with buyin' the hat with all them plumes, and the missus after borrowin' my last five-dollar bill."
"Katy Flanagan, what made you let her have it?" cried the girl almost fiercely.
"Well, Miss Elsie, the truth is, I couldn't resist her. There's something about her, you know—a-askin' so airy like, and forgettin' how—goodness, the man'll clear out with his ice if I don't fly."
Thereafter, Elsie paid also for the ice and the milk, leaving, out of her allowance and the money she received for the library work, barely enough for postage. But she didn't mind that; it was really a slight sacrifice. She cared so much for the work at the library that she would have paid for the privilege of doing it; and she had come so well provided with all the accessories of clothing that she hadn't even to buy gloves for another year.