The Little Grey House

by Marion Ames Taggart

"Julius has abdicated, and Augustus reigns in his stead," remarked Prue, as she tore off the leaf of her calendar, which marked the first day of the eighth month. Prue was fond of making what she considered neatly erudite allusions.

Matters had not been going well in the little grey house. Mrs. Grey found herself looking forward to the winter with dread, a dread she tried to stifle, for it was contrary to this brave woman's temperament and principles to look apprehensively toward the future.

Mr. Grey was working feverishly on his bricquette machine, more than ever absorbed in it; it seemed to his anxious wife as if he were putting into it his own vitality, that it was consuming something far more precious than its inventor had ever dreamed would feed it. But, since she could not prevent the harm—if harm were being done—Mrs. Grey strove to drive the thought of it from her, and bear her immediate burden, which was not too light.

It was a humid, sultry day, and many trying household tasks loomed ahead threateningly on the morning when Prue made her classic allusion as she tore off her calendar-leaf. Oswyth looked pale and tired. She was an expert little needle-woman and had been sewing hard through the heat to make old as good as new—which it never was and never will be—for Prue's return to school. Prue was very particular as to her raiment; poor child, it was hard to be the prettiest girl, and at the same time the poorest one, in the school. Wythie sympathetically thought and wrought to make her gowns as pretty and becoming as possible to offset their many reappearances, and the hardship of wearing the clothes one's elders had outgrown. Even Rob, though she scoffed at Prue's little vanities, in her heart was sorry for the child who alone of the three was forced out among her contemporaries, and could not hide her deficiencies within the friendly walls of the little grey house.

Mrs. Grey had been waiting an opportunity to cover the two big arm-chairs in the parlor. There was nothing that this energetic woman could not do with her hands, and Rob said: "Give Mardy a package of dyes, a paper of tacks, and a hammer, and you may look for anything, from a wedding-gown to a coach-and-four."

A certain faded poplin gown, in many pieces, and an old silk with brocaded stripes had long haunted Mrs. Grey as a hopeful source of new chair-covers. All the previous afternoon she had spent dipping the poplin into a big iron pot bubbling over the fire and bringing it up on the end of her "witch stick," as the girls called it, dripping and dark, to be hung out to dry.

Here appeared Mrs. Grey's generalship, for though the poplin had turned out a fine, uniform green, the pieces were much too narrow for upholstery. So she had cut out the brocade stripes from the old silk; the ancient sewing-machine, which made such a dreadful clatter and was one of the Greys' grievances, yet which was still capable of good service, rattled and hummed under Mrs. Grey's feet, as she stitched the brocade bands at regular intervals on the dyed poplin, covering its many joinings. And behold, the result was a fine upholsterer's tapestry of wool, with a silken stripe, and not a piecing to be seen!

"There's glory for you!" cried Rob. "Anyone would believe that we paid any amount a yard for that beautiful stuff."

"Put up your sewing, Wythie, and you and Rob stretch it and hold it in place for me while I tack," said Mrs. Grey. "I flatter myself these chairs are going to radiate splendor over the entire room."

"Come, then, Mardy; we'll help it radiate," said Rob. "Mercy, how dreadful it is to-day—worse than hot—so sticky and horrid! Cat days are nicer than dog days, aren't they, Kiku-san? Now look at that catlet!" she added. Kiku-san had sprung from the table to the top of the door, on the narrow space of which he sat, head on one side, in his usual bird-like attitude, his white fur all streaks of dust. He was quite unable to get down as he had got up, and Rob said with a sigh: "Oh, dear; this means going to fetch a kitchen-chair to take him down! I wonder how many times a day we do this? And a grasshopper's a burden to-day, not to mention a heavy wooden chair. I never saw such a mischievous cat! And only look at him! Regular stained-glass expression; doesn't look as if he ever thought of anything but Watts's hymns! He does this just to keep us trotting, the demure villain!" And Rob shook a forefinger at Kiku, who only tipped his head a little more to one side, and puckered his mouth a little tighter, knowing perfectly that he was about to be rescued.