Anyhow, the Forges refurnished their house and Milly’s pride in its altered appearance was such that she put down her foot on all her relatives treating it like their personal ash box. Thereupon the Richards family, individually and collectively, turned up their noses and averred that Mildred was trying to be tony and put on style and be a snob. Her mother “just ran up” one spring day and asked to borrow ten dollars. For the first time in their lives Milly demanded to know what the money was wanted for. When Mother Richards announced that as usual Popper was out of work and Sarah wanted a new dress to wear to the Knights of Columbus Dance on St. Patrick’s day, Milly told her mother that if Sarah wanted a new dress let her stick to her job in the Bon Ton and earn it, not get peeved at Miss Morgan and quit whenever the proprietress wanted her to work overtime. Mother Richards departed, fully persuaded that in her case also, no serpent’s tooth is sharper than an ungrateful child.
The fact of the matter was, Milly had found some House Beautiful magazines with “classy interiors” illustrated therein and was straining Nathan’s pay envelope to get the wherewithal to buy a set of Hepplewhite furniture for her dining room. It was no especial consideration for her husband that made her turn down her mother. Her motive was entirely selfish. Also I learned later that whereas I had lately taken unto myself a wife, Milly wanted to awe me with the “class” in her home and prove to Nathan he had annexed a more aristocratic helpmate than had been acquired by his lifelong friend.
II
Anna Forge, as usual, had not found life any bed of roses. She had managed to retain the property on Vermont Avenue but at a disturbing price. For she discovered that whereas property was property and the house was appraised on the tax list at ten thousand dollars, yet even a ten-thousand-dollar house did not stand for the epitome of worldly wealth and affluence when there were no funds forthcoming to pay those taxes, keep up repairs, heat the place and give her the wherewithal to feel and clothe herself so she could reside therein. She had to sell the house and furnishings, retaining only enough of the latter to make two rooms livable in the top of the Norwalk block where she finally sat down in her loneliness and meditated darkly on the ingratitude of all flesh.
In July an alluring oil prospectus fell into her hands. Without consulting her son, fully expectant of realizing a fortune within three months—the prospectus inferred that she would—she gave up all but a few hundreds of dollars for some sheets of beautifully lithographed paper delivered by a well-dressed young man who had “a nice face.”
Edith in Montreal had presented her husband with triplets! The husband had seen no advantage in triplets, however, and had been inclined to act peevish. Anna sent Edith five hundred of the remaining nine hundred dollars “to help out dear daughter.” And dear daughter’s husband had commandeered the money, played a bucket shop and taken a better job down in Pennsylvania.
In September Anna Forge was reduced to seventy-nine dollars. Where the balance had gone the Lord only knew. Thereupon her thoughts turned to her better half who had “skun out and left her to starve” and she brought her troubles to Nathan, the idea being that Nathan should get the law after his father and have him brought back and made to support his wife.
But threescore wrathful stockholders and two national banks had also voted that Johnathan should be apprehended and brought back, quite a time before. The difficulty in both cases had been that neither knew exactly where to go to apprehend Johnathan and bring him back. So Johnathan had not been brought back and the matter languished.
By October, unbeknown to Milly, Nathan was mailing his mother a few dollars a week for her food and room rent. When he came in off the road he occasionally brought her new clothes. Mrs. Forge was grateful for the clothing but felt it would have been “nicer” in Nathan to give her the money and let her buy her clothes herself. But Nathan wanted the money to go for clothes.
She talked quite a lot about it, and not within the immediate family circle, either.