Read Ebook: Social Forces in England and America by Wells H G Herbert George

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 57 lines and 2350 words, and 2 pages

APRON-STRINGS

ELEANOR GATES

First edition, October, 1917 Second edition, October, 1917

DEAR ANN WILDE,--

It seems to me that there are, broadly speaking, three kinds of mothers. First, there is the kind that does not plan for, or want, a child, but, having borne one, invariably takes the high air of martyrdom, feeling that she has rendered the supreme service, and that, henceforth, nothing is too good for her. Second, there is the mother who loves her own children devotedly, and has as many as her health and the family purse will permit, but who is fairly indifferent to other women's children. Last of all, there is the mother who loves anybody's children--everybody's children. Where the first kind of mother finds "young ones" a bother, and the second revels in a contrast of her darlings with her neighbors' little people , the third never fails to see a baby if there is a baby around, never fails to be touched by little woes or joys; belongs, perhaps, to a child-study club, or helps to support a kindergarten, or gives as freely as possible to some orphanage. And often such a woman, finding herself childless, and stirred to her action by a voice that is Nature's, ordering her to fulfill her woman's destiny, makes choice from among those countless little ones who are unclaimed; and if she happens not to be married, nevertheless, like a mateless bird, she sets lovingly about the building of a home nest.

This last kind is the best of all mothers. Not only is the fruit of her body precious to her, but all child-life is precious. She is the super-mother: She is the woman with the universal mother-heart.

You, the "Auntie-Mother" to two lucky little girls, are of this type which I so honor. And that is why I dedicate to you this story--with great affection, and with profound respect.

Your friend, ELEANOR GATES.

New York, 1917.

APRON-STRINGS

"I tell you, there's something funny about it, Steve,--having the wedding out on that scrap of lawn." It was the florist who was speaking. He was a little man, with a brown beard that lent him a professional air. He gave a jerk of the head toward the high bay-window of the Rectory drawing-room, set down his basket of smilax on the well-cared-for Brussels that, after a disappearing fashion, carpeted the drawing-room floor, and proceeded to select and cut off the end of a cigar.

"Something wrong," assented Steve. He found and filled a pipe.

The other now dropped his voice to a whisper. "'Mrs. Milo,' I says to the old lady, 'give me the Church to decorate and I'll make it look like something.' 'My good man,' she come back,--you know the way she talks--'the wedding will be in the Close.'"

"A stylish name for not much of anything," observed Steve. "The Close! Why not call it a yard and be done with it?"

"Temper."

A door at the far end of the long room had opened softly. Now a voice, gentle, well-modulated, and sorrowfully reproving, halted the protesting of the florist, and paralyzed his upraised finger. "That will do," said the voice.

What had frozen the gesture of his employer only accelerated the movements of Steve. Recollecting that he was in his shirt-sleeves, he snatched the pipe from his mouth, seized upon the smilax basket, and sidled swiftly through the door leading to the Close.

"Goo--good-morning, Mrs. Milo," stammered the florist, putting his cigar behind his back with one large motion that included a bow. "Good-afternoon. I've just brought the festoons for the wedding-bower." Once more he jerked his head in the direction of the bay-window, and edged his way toward it a step or two, his fluttering eyelids belieing the smile that divided his beard.

Mrs. Milo, her background the heavy oak door that led to the library, made a charming figure as she looked down the room at him. She was a slender, active woman, who carried her seventy years with grace. Her hair was a silvery white, and so abundant that it often gave rise to justified doubt; now it was dressed with elaborate care. Her eyes were a bright--almost a metallic--blue. Despite her age, her face was silkily smooth, and as fair as a girl's, having none of those sallow spots which so frequently mar the complexions of the old. Her cheeks showed a faint color. Her nose was perhaps too thin, but it was straight and finely cut. Her mouth was small, pretty, and curved by an almost constant smile. Her hands were slender, soft, and young. They were not given to quick movements. Now they hung touching the blue-gray of her morning-dress, which, with ruffles of lace at collar and wrists, had the fresh smartness of a uniform.

"You are smoking?" she inquired. That habitual smile was on her lips, but her eyes were cold.

"Just--just a dry smoke,"--with a note of injured innocence.

"Your cigar is in your mouth," she persisted, "and yet you're not smoking."

At that, the florist took a forward step. "And my teeth are in my mouth," he answered boldly, "but I'm not eating."

Another woman might have shrunk from the impudence of his retort, or replied angrily. Mrs. Milo only advanced, with slow elegance, prepared again to put him on the defensive. "Why do I find you in this room?" she demanded.

"I'm just passing through--to the lawn."

"Do not pass through again."

Mrs. Milo lifted a white hand to check him. "Never mind what Mr. Farvel said," she admonished sharply; then, with quick gentleness, "You know that he has lived here only little more than a year."

"Oh, I know."

"And I have lived here fifteen years."

The blue eyes flashed. And once more Mrs. Milo advanced. "Never mind what my daughter told you," she commanded, but without raising her voice. "I am compelled to make this Rectory my home because Miss Milo does the secretarial work of the parish. And what kind of a home should I have if I allowed the place to be in continual disorder?"

There was a pause, the two facing each other. Then the look of the florist fell. "I'll go in by way of the Church, madam," he announced. And turned away with a stiff bow.

"One moment." The order was curt; but as he brought up, and turned about once more, Mrs. Milo spoke almost confidentially. "As you very well know," she reminded, her face slightly averted, "there is a third entrance to the Close."

The florist saw his opportunity. "Oh, yes," he declared; "--the little white door where the ladies come of a night to leave their orphans."

That brought Mrs. Milo about. And the color deepened in her cheeks. It was the red, not only of anger, but of modesty. "The women who desert their infants in that basket," she replied , "are not ladies."

Mrs. Milo moved across the carpet to a sofa, adjusted a velvet cushion, and seated herself. "Go and do your work," she said sharply. "It must be finished this afternoon. And remember: I don't want to see you in this room again."

"Very well, madam." With a smile and a bow, neither of which was intended for Mrs. Milo, the florist recovered his self-possession, threw wide his hands in a gesture that was an eloquent tribute to the shining apparition at the farther end of the room, and backed out.

"Ha-a-a!" sighed Mrs. Milo--with gratification in her triumph over the decorator, and with a sense of comfort in that cushioned corner of her favorite sofa. She settled her slender shoulders against the velvet.

Now the satin gown crossed the carpet, and its wearer let fall the veiling which she had upborne on her outstretched arms. "Mrs. Milo," she began.

"Oh!" Mrs. Milo straightened, but without turning, and the fear that the other had heard her curt dismissal of the florist showed in the quick shifting of her look. When she spoke again, her voice was all gentleness. "Yes, my dear new daughter?" she inquired.

Hattie Balcome cocked her head to one side, extended a satin-clad foot, threw out her hands with fingers extended, and struck a grotesque pose. "Turn--and behold!" she bade sepulchrally.

Mrs. Milo turned. "A-a-a-ah!" Then having given the wedding-gown a brief scrutiny, "Er--yes--hm! It's quite pretty."

"Quite pretty!" repeated Hattie. She revolved once, slowly. "What's the matter with it?"

"We-e-e-ell," began Mrs. Milo, appraising the gown at more length; "isn't it rather simple, my dear,--for a girl whose father is as wealthy as yours? Somehow I expected at least a little real lace."

Hattie laughed. "What on earth could I do with real lace in the mountains of Peru?"

"Peru!" Instantly Mrs. Milo's face grew long. "Then--then my son has finally decided to accept the position in Peru." Now she took her underlip in her teeth; and her lashes fluttered as if to keep back tears.

"But you won't miss him terribly, will you? As it is you don't have him--you don't see such a lot of him."

"Except of Mr. Farvel."

"It was I who decided on Peru," said the girl, almost defiantly. "The very day he proposed to me he told me about the big silver mine down there that wants a young engineer. And I said Yes on one condition: that Wallace would take me as far away from home as possible."

The elder woman rose, finger on lip. "Sh!" she cautioned, glancing toward the door left open by the florist. "Oh, we don't want any gossip, Hattie!"

Hattie lifted her eyebrows. "We don't want it," she agreed, "but we shall get it. They'll all be asking one another, 'Why not the Church? or the drawing-room? Why the yard?'" She nodded portentously.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet