When I am not expecting guests, I can leave the house immediately after breakfast, without a word about dinner, and return to the right sort of a meal at seven o’clock, bringing a guest or two with me, if I telephone first.
I can work for six weeks or two months in a seclusion as perfect as I could have in the Sahara Desert, and my household, meanwhile, will move as if on greased skids. I can go away for two months and hear nothing from her, and yet know that everything is all right at home. I think no more about it, so far as responsibility is concerned, when I am travelling, than as if I had no home at all. When we leave the apartment alone in the evening, we turn on the most of the lights, being assured by the police that burglars will never molest a brilliantly illuminated house.
The morose countenance of my ugly maid has subtly changed. It radiates, in its own way, beauty and good cheer. Her harsh voice is gentle, her manner is kind, her tastes are becoming refined, her ways are those of a lady.
My friends and neighbours continually allude to the transformation as “a miracle.” The janitor remarked, in a burst of confidence, that he “never saw anybody change so.” He “reckoned,” too, that “it must be the folks she lives with!” Annie herself, conscious of a change, recently said complacently: “Ay guess Ay wass one awful crank when Ay first come here.”
And so it happens that the highest satisfaction is connected with the beautiful theory, triumphantly proven now, against heavy odds. Whatever else I may have done, I have taught one woman the workman’s pride in her work, shown her where true happiness lies, and set her feet firmly on the path of right and joyous living.
To a Violin
(Antonius Stradivarius, 1685.)