Martha By-the-Day

by Julie M. Lippmann

"There's the Livingstons," she mused, "but they ain't any childern. Only a childish brother-in-law. He's not quite all there, as you might say. It'd be no use tryin' to learn him nothin', seein' he's so odd—seventy-odd—an' his habits like to be fixed. Then, there's the Farrands. But the girls goes to Miss Spenny's school, an' the son's at Columbia. It might upset their plans, if I was to suggest their givin' up where they're at, an' havin' you. Then there's the Grays, an' the Granvilles, an' the Thornes. Addin' 'em all together for childern, they'd come to about half a child a pair. Talk about your race suicide! They say they 'can't afford to have childern.' You can take it from me, it's the poor people are rich nowadays. We can afford to have childern, all right, all right. Then there's Mrs. Sherman—She's got one boy, but he—Radcliffe Sherman—well, he's a limb! A reg'lar young villain. You couldn't manage him. Only Lord Ronald can manage Radcliffe Sherman, an' he—"

"Lord Ronald?" questioned Claire, when Mrs. Slawson's meditation threatened to become static.

"Why, he's Mrs. Sherman's brother, Mr. Frank Ronald, an' no real lord could be handsomer-lookin', or grander-behavin', or richer than him. Mrs. Sherman is a widder, or a divorcy, or somethin' stylish like that. Anyhow, I worked for her this eight years an' more—almost ever since Radcliffe was born, an' I ain't seen hide nor hair o' any Mr. Sherman yet, an' they never speak o' him, so I guess he was either too good or too bad to mention. Mr. Frank an' his mother lives with Mrs. Sherman, an' what Mr. Frank says goes. His word is law. She thinks the world of'm, an' well she may, for he's a thorerbred. The way he treats me, for instants. You'd think I was the grandest lady in the land. He never sees me but it's, 'How d'do, Martha?' or, 'How's the childern an' Mr. Slawson these days?' He certainly has got grand ways with'm, Mr. Frank has. An' yet, he's never free. You wouldn't dare make bold with'm. His eyes has a sort o' keep-off-the-grass look gener'ly, but when he smiles down at you, friendly-like, why, you wouldn't call the queen your cousin. Radcliffe knows he can't monkey with his uncle Frank, an' when he's by, butter wouldn't melt in that young un's mouth. But other times—my! You see, Mrs. Sherman is dead easy. She told me oncet, childern ought to be brought up 'scientifically.' Lord! She said they'd ought to be let express their souls, whatever she means by that. I told her I thought it was safer not to trust too much to the childern's souls, but to help along some occasional with your own—the sole of your slipper. It was then she said she 'abserlootly forbid' any one to touch Radcliffe. She wanted him 'guided by love alone.' Well, that's what he's been guided with, an', you can take it from me, love's made a hash of it, as it ushally does when it ain't mixed with a little common sense. You'd oughta see that fella's anticks when his mother, an' Lord Ronald, ain't by. He'd raise the hair offn your head, if you hadn't a spear of it there to begin with. He speaks to the help as if they was dirt under his feet, an' he'd as lief lie as look at you, an' always up to some new devilment. It'd take your time to think fast enough to keep up with'm. But he ain't all bad—I don't believe no child is, not on your life, an' my idea is, he'd turn out O.K. if only he'd the right sort o' handlin'. Mr. Frank could do it—but when Lord Ronald is by, Radcliffe is a pet lamb—a little woolly wonder. You ast me why I call Mr. Frank Lord Ronald. I never thought of it till one time when Cora said a piece at a Sund'-School ent'tainment. I can't tell you what the piece was, for, to be perfectly honest, I was too took up, at the time, watchin' Cora's stockin', which was comin' down, right before the whole churchful. It reely didn't, but I seen the garter hangin', an' I thought it would, any minute. I remember it was somethin' about a fella called Lord Ronald, who was a reel thorerbred, just like Mr. Frank is. I recklect one of the verses went:

"'Lord Ronald had the lily-white dough—'

(to my way o' thinkin' it's no matter about the color, white or gold or just plain, green paper-money, so long's you've got it), anyhow, that's what it said in the piece—

"'Lord Ronald had the lily-white dough,
Which he gave to his cousin, Lady Clare.'

Say, wasn't he generous?—'give to his cousin—Lady Clare'—an'—good gracious! O, excuse me! I didn't mean to jolt your tray like that, but I just couldn't help flyin' up, for I got an idea! True as you live, I got an idea!"

CHAPTER IV

It did not take long, once Claire was fairly on her feet again, to adjust herself to her new surroundings, to find her place and part in the social economy of the little family-group where she was never for a moment made to feel an alien. She appropriated a share in the work of the household at once, insisting, to Martha's dismay, upon lending a hand mornings with the older children, who were to be got off to school, and with the three-year-old Sabina, who was to stay at home. She assisted with the breakfast preparations, and then, when the busy swarm had flown for the day, she "turned to," to Ma's delight, and got the place "rid up" so it was "clean as a whistle an' neat as a pin."

Ma was not what Martha approvingly called "a hustler."