Making Over Martha

by Julie M. Lippmann

"You remember the day grandmother had me bring her her linen-chest? It all dates from that day, I mean my trouble. I thought I knew before, what trouble was, but real trouble is only what one has to account for to one's own conscience."

Martha pretended not to notice the sobbing breath, on which the last syllables caught, and were choked out.

"Grandmother never took her eyes off the chest while I unpacked it," Katherine labored on gallantly. "Never, except once. She said she knew everything that was in it. But she didn't. There was something she didn't mention. I came on it, lying almost at the bottom of the chest. An odd, old-fashioned pocket, hung on a strap, as if it had been suspended from a belt or a sash, and the strap was snapped—torn. A tiny bit of a shred was caught in the lock of the chest. I saw it, as soon as I opened the lid. As my fingers touched the pocket, something inside it crackled. My heart fairly leaped, for I thought 'twas money. And—oh, Mrs. Slawson, I need money! You mayn't believe it, but I do. I never have a cent I can call my own, and I'm not allowed to try to earn anything. You know—my father had plenty, and I ought to have plenty, if I had my rights. I've sat here evening after evening, thinking, thinking, what I could do in case of need—in case a time came, when I couldn't endure it any longer. And when I felt what was inside that pocket, when I felt it crackle, I thought it was money, and—it was like a gleam of hope. I watched for my chance. It came at last—the one time when grandmother glanced away. I grabbed the pocket, and hid it in my dress. I didn't stop to think what I was doing. But if I had, I don't believe it would have made any difference. I didn't care if I was stealing. I just wanted that money! It's shameful to sit here, and face you, and tell about it, but—I guess I'm past shame. And then she gave me the mull, and was kind. I'd have put the money back then, but it was too late. She never took her eyes off me again, nor the chest. And then—later—after you'd gone, I stole away to my room, and—what was in the pocket wasn't money at all, but letters! Old, useless, miserable letters!"

"Did you read'm?" asked Martha to cover the painful effort the girl was making at self-control.

"No, I didn't read them. After I'd taken the pocket, believing it held money, and found only letters, I was too honorable to read the letters."

She spoke with bitterest self-contempt.

"I carried them in my dress, because I didn't dare leave them anywhere else. And to-day I—I—lost them. I know they were letters written by my grandmother, when she was a girl. Her handwriting hasn't changed much, and I know if she dreamed they were lying about loose, lost, perhaps had been found by some busybody, who would publish them all over town, she'd——"

"That's just what I come to tell you," Mrs. Slawson announced with a breath of relief. "Thanks be! 'twas my girl, Cora, found the letters, an' she brought'm home to me. Not a soul besides us two has laid eyes on'm. Cora don't know any more than the angels above, that the one wrote'm ain't dead an' gone, with a antapsie held over her remains, this many a year. So, for all I see, your troubles are over, you poor child, an' you can lay your head on your pilla, an' sleep sound this night, if the heat, which it certaintly is prosteratin', don't pervent. Here's the letters."

Katherine smiled faintly as she took the little packet.

"If I may make so bold, did you mean to be givin' the letters to Dr. Ballard?" Martha inquired, after a thoughtful pause. "I own up to you, I ain't been so fussy as not to read the name on the envelopes."