Making Over Martha

by Julie M. Lippmann

"My! To be brushin' your hair like this takes me back to a Hunderd-an'-sixteenth Street, an' no mistake!"

Mrs. Ronald's eyes, peering through her bright veil, met Mrs. Slawson's in the mirror.

"Tell me, Martha, you miss the city sometimes, don't you? Would you like to go back?"

Martha's reply was prompt. "I am goin' back, for a day or two, with Sam, when Mr. Ronald sends'm down on business next month. That is, I'm goin', if I can raise the price o' my ticket. We're goin' on a spree. Just us two, all alone by ourselves."

Mrs. Ronald clapped her hands. "Good!" she cried enthusiastically. "But you haven't answered my question. I'll put it another way. Do you feel quite contented up here? Does the country suit you?"

This time Mrs. Slawson paused to consider. "I like the country first-rate," she brought out at last. "I like it first-rate, notwithstandin' it ain' just exackly the kinda pure white, Easter-card effect it's gener'ly cracked up to be. When you think o' the country, you naturally think o' daisies, an' new-mown hay, an' meddas, an' grass which it don't have signs all 'round to keep off of it, an' blue skies you ain't gotta break your neck peekin' out o' the air-shaft ground-floor winda to see. Well, true for you, the whole outfit's here all right, all right, but so's more or less o' human bein's, an' whenever you get human bein's picnicking 'round, complercations 's sure to set in. Human bein's, if they ain't careful, clutters up the landscape dretful. An' they do it in the country, same as down home. You're goin' to slip up on it fierce, if you think the city's got a corner on all the rottenness there is. There's a whole lot o' news ain't fit to print is happenin' right up here in this innercent-lookin' little village. You wouldn't believe it, unless you knew. There's parties bein' bad, an' other parties bein' good. Folks doin' mean tricks, an' folks doin' the other kind. It's all just about the same's in the city, when you get right down to it. Only, there ain't so much of it. But it makes me tired to hear Mrs. Peckett behavin' as if the country was the whole thing, an' New York wasn't in it. New York is bad in spots, but it's good in spots too, an' don't you forget it!"

Mrs. Ronald smiled. "You're a loyal soul, Martha. But you'll love the country better, when you know more about the birds, and the insects, and the flowers. I'm going to set about directly teaching you. I'm going to make a naturalist of you, do you know it?"

Mrs. Slawson's smile was large, benign. "Certaintly. I'd like to be a nateralist. Mrs. Peckett's goin' to make a New England housekeeper outa me, an' ol' lady Crewe is tryin' to turn me into a farmer. If I get all that's comin' to me, it looks as if I'd be goin' some, before I get through."

"'Old lady Crewe'?"

"Why, don't you remember? That little ol' party looks like a china figga you'd get at Macy's, down in the basement. They have'm leanin' against tree-stumps, for match-boxes, an' suchlike. White hair, an' dressed to beat the band, in looped-up silk, with flowers painted onto the pattren. Ol' lady Crewe reminds you of one o' those. She was 'born a Stryker,' they tell me—whatever that is—an' her folks owned about all the land in these parts Lord Ronald's folks didn't, in the ol' days. She's got no end o' money, but——" Martha hesitated.