The Iron Woman

by Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

"Oh, you bet old Ferguson has told her," Blair said, gloomily. "Say, Nannie, if Elizabeth doesn't look out she'll get into awful hot water one of these days with her devil of a temper—and she'll get other people into it, too," he ended resentfully. Blair hated hot water, as he hated everything that was unbeautiful. "Mother is going to take my head off, of course," he said.

But Sarah Maitland, entirely ignorant of what had happened, had no such intention; she had gone over to her office in a glow of personal pleasure that warmed up the details of business. She intended to take Blair that morning through the Works,—not as he had often gone before, tagging after her, a frightened child, a reluctant boy—but as the prince, formally looking over the kingdom into which he was so soon to come! He was in love: therefore he would wish to be married; therefore he would be impatient to get to work! It was all a matter of logical and satisfactory deduction. How many times in this hot summer, when very literally she was earning her son's bread by the sweat of her brow, had she looked at Elizabeth and Blair, and found enjoyment in these deductions! Nobody would have imagined it, but the big, ungainly woman dreamed! Dreamed of her boy, of his business success, of his love, of his wife,—and, who knows? perhaps those grimy pink baby socks began to mean something more personal than the missionary barrel. It was her purpose, on this particular morning, to tell him, after they had gone through the Works, just where, when he graduated, he was to begin. Not at the bottom!—that was Ferguson's idea. "He ought to start at the bottom, if he is ever to get to the top," Ferguson had barked. No, Blair need not start at the bottom; he could begin pretty well up at the top; and he should have a salary. What an incentive that would be! First she would tell him that now, when he was going to college, she meant to increase his allowance; then she would tell him about the salary he would have when he got to work. How happy he would be! For a boy to be in love, and have all the pocket-money he wanted, and a great business to look forward to; to have work—work! the finest thing in the world!—all ready to his hand,—what more could a human being desire? At the office, she swept through the morning business with a speed that took her people off their feet. Once or twice she glanced at the clock; Blair was always unpunctual. "He'll get that knocked out of him when he gets into business," she thought, grimly.

It was eleven before he came loitering across the Yards. His mother, lifting her head for a moment from her desk, and glancing impatiently out of the dirt-begrimed office window, saw him coming, and caught the gleam of his patent-leather shoes as he skirted a puddle just outside the door. "Well, Master Blair," she said to herself, flinging down her pen, "you'll forget those pretty boots when you get to walking around your Works!"

Blair, dawdling through the outer office, found his way to her sanctum, and sat down in a chair beside her desk. He glanced at her shrinkingly, and looked away. Her bonnet was crooked; her hair was hanging in wisps at the back of her neck; her short skirt showed the big, broad-soled foot twisted round the leg of her chair. Blair saw the muddy sole of that shoe, and half closed his eyes. Then remembering Elizabeth, he felt a little sick; "she's going to row about it!" he thought, and quailed.

"You're late," she said; then, without stopping for his excuses, she proceeded with the business in hand. "I'm going to increase your allowance."

Blair sat up in astonishment.

"I mean while you're at college. After that I shall stop the allowance entirely, and you will go to work. You will go on a salary, like any other man." Her mouth clicked shut in a tight line of satisfaction.

The color flew into Blair's face. "Why!" he said. "You are awfully good, Mother. Really, I—"

"I know all about this business of your engagement to Elizabeth," Mrs. Maitland broke in, "though you didn't see fit to tell me about it yourself." There was something in her voice that would have betrayed her to any other hearer; but Blair, who was sensitive to Mrs. Richie's slightest wish, and careful of old Cherry-pie's comfort, and generously thoughtful even of Harris—Blair, absorbed in his own apprehensions, heard no pain in his mother's voice. "I know all about it," Mrs. Maitland went on. "I won't have you call yourselves engaged until you are out of college, of course. But I have no objection to your looking forward to being engaged, and married, too. It's a good thing for a young man to expect to be married; keeps him clean."

Blair was struck dumb. Evidently, though she did not know what had happened, she did know that he had been engaged. Yet she was not going to take his head off! Instead she was going to increase his allowance because, apparently, she approved of him!