Making Over Martha

by Julie M. Lippmann

"Why, yes—and no," he replied. "Of course all the neighborhood knows about Madam Crewe. I used to hear my father talk about her. But she is rather a formidable little person. She is not to be approached lightly. I doubt if any one knows her. She was Idea Stryker. An only child. 'Very beautiful,' the governor said,—'a great match.' Her father was exceedingly high and mighty. An English younger son, with feudalistic notions. Nobody over here was good enough for him, except my father, with whom he was uncommonly friendly. Stryker was difficult, a choleric, fiery-tongued individual, much disliked in the state, though, my father always said, he meant well."

"Somehow, I ain't no use for folks that mean well," observed Mrs. Slawson. "That is, o' course, I don't mean I ain't no use for'm, but I think they're kinda nuisances. When you have to explain that a fella means well, you can take it from me, he ain't makin' himself very clear on his own account."

Mr. Ronald laughed. "Well, perhaps that's true. In any event, Squire Stryker made himself so cordially disliked that when, one day, he and his bailiff, as he called him, had a big scene, and Ballard, the bailiff, was turned out, neck and crop, public sympathy was all on his side, though no one knew anything about the facts in the case. My father said Squire Stryker spoke of the man as 'scamp' and rapscallion,' but, he never really openly accused him of misdemeanor. There was the scene, and the next day Stryker closed his place, and took himself and his girl off, to parts unknown. The dismissed bailiff, a handsome, prepossessing chap, my father said, disappeared, and nothing more was heard of him. Idea married, and came back Mrs. Crewe. Young Mrs. Crewe, in those days. 'Ol' lady Crewe up-the-road-a-ways,' now."

"Well, what do you think of that!" ejaculated Martha. "So that's the reason why, when she hears it, the name Ballard's like a rag to a red bull! Now, what do you think of that!"

"What do you mean?" Mr. Ronald asked.

"Why, the ol' lady was took sick suddently a few weeks ago, an' Sam, he couldn't get Dr. Driggs, who was out at the time, an', besides, wasn't achin' to go to the poor ol' body, anyhow, to have his head snapped off, an' then haggle over the bill, into the bargain. So he took the best he could get, meanin' Sam did, which was Dr. Ballard, a fine young fella from Boston. The minute the ol' lady clapped eye to'm, an' heard his name, she up an' had a kinda Dutch fit. Wouldn't see'm. It was all I could do, what with talkin' an' contrivin', to make her, an' then she set about layin' down the law to Miss Katherine, forbiddin' her parley with'm, or see'm at all, which is as good as sayin', 'Bless you, my childern!' over their married heads, if she but knew it!"

Frank Ronald laughed. "The wisdom of Socrates! I tell you what it is, Martha, we'll make a philosopher of you, yet!"

"Anything you like, sir. Sever'l has lately mentioned wantin' to make things outa me. The more the merrier. An' if, in the end, I ain't good for nothin' else, maybe they'll hire me in a circus, for a side-show freak.—THE MADE OVER LADY. WHICH, SHE WAS ONCET JUST PLAIN MARTHA SLAWSON. BUT IS NOW SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS, IT'D MAKE YOU DIZZY TO LOOK AT HER. But I must be goin'. Them childern o' mine will 'a' turned the house upside down with their rapchers over the presents you brought'm."

Mrs. Ronald laid a hand upon her husband's shoulder. "I'd like to take a walk, Frank. Won't you come?"

"An' on the way I'll show you my new hen-house," promised Martha. "One o' the things I'm learnin' to be, is a chicken-raiser. I'm learnin' hard, an', you might say, the chicks is learnin' harder. But it'll all come out right in the end, if both parties hang on, an' keep a stiff upper lip. The first time a brood died on me, I 'most fretted myself sick. But now I learned not to hitch my heart to no hen. I do the best I can by 'em, an' leave the rest to proverdence, an' the inkerbater. Only, you can take it from me, them inkerbaters may be a improvement on the old way, but they certaintly is death to the mother-instinc' in hens. Hens is like women. The less they have to do, the less they do, especially if they keep well. The minute you begin turnin' your offsprings over to other parties, to be brought up, that's the time your sect is goin' to run down. An' the chicks don't grow up with no more feelin' o' reverence for their elders, an' them that bore'm, then the childern we're raisin' nowadays. It's all wrong, these modren contrivances is. We think we're smart, shovin' our ways in, ahead o' nature's, but just you wait, an' see what comes o' this generation o' kids, give'm time to grow up to be men, an' women, an' so forth. You can take it from me, George Washin'ton an' Abraham Linco'n wasn't brought up in cotton-wool, so that every time somebody crossed'm, an' they got red in the face with temper, there'd be a trained nurse to pop a the'mometer under their tongues, to see if they had a 'temperachure.' What kep' their childish fevers down was a good fannin' with mother's slipper, an' they grew up to tell the truth an' fear the devil, along with the other grown-up members of the fam'ly. But, these days, everything's for the kids, an' they know it. Believe me, my heart bleeds for my grandchildern. An', talkin' o' grandchildern, here's the model henhouse o' New England. Internal decoratin' done by Mr. Sammy Slawson's son, junior."