Suzanna Stirs the Fire Part 9

Mrs. Reynolds had no children and in that deplorable fact lay her keenest unhappiness.

She greeted Suzanna cordially.

"Come in, Suzanna, come in," she said. "I've been using vinegar and red pepper all morning," she continued, as she went her way to the pantry with Suzanna's cup. "I've one of my old headaches."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Suzanna, with immediate sympathy. "Have you been worrying?"

"Not more than usual, Suzanna," said Mrs. Reynolds with a sigh. "Here's your vinegar. Hold it steady. Vinegar's a bad thing to spill."

"Thank you," said Suzanna, politely, as she received the cup. And then: "I don't see why you should worry. You have no children. It's mother's many children that sometimes give her worry."

"Your mother'd have worries even without you all," returned Mrs.

Reynolds. "Won't you sit down a spell, Suzanna?"

"No, I can't, mother's waiting." Suzanna walked toward the door, pausing on her way to glance about her. "My, but you're very clean here," she said, appreciatively. "Your cleanness is different from ours. Ours doesn't show so."

"There's no little hands to clutter things up," said Mrs. Reynolds, but her voice wasn't glad.

Suzanna, intuitively sensing the real trouble, said: "Reynolds slammed the door this morning, Mrs. Reynolds. We heard the slam in our dining-room and my mother jumped." Suzanna quite innocently borrowed Mrs. Reynolds' way of referring to her husband.

Mrs. Reynolds' face darkened. "Yes, I know he did. That man is getting more like a bear every day."

"He liked our twin that went away, Mrs. Reynolds. He wasn't like a bear when he played with her."

At this statement Mrs. Reynolds suddenly threw her ap.r.o.n over her head and sobbed: "That's just it, Suzanna, that's just it; there aren't any little cluttering fingers about."

Suzanna set the vinegar cup carefully down on the table, the while her keenly sensitive mind worked rapidly. Those gifts which by dint of their frequency in her own home seemed rather overdone were actually missed here! A strong, deep sympathy for Mrs. Reynolds' disappointment grew within her, but did not entirely crowd out the thought that through this very disappointment her own burning desire might be brought to pa.s.s. She now went swiftly and touched the weeping woman.

"Mrs. Reynolds," she began, "will you tell me how you feel about cutting pink goods away from under lace. Can you afford to do that?"

Mrs. Reynolds' ap.r.o.n came down with a jerk, and for a second she stared her perplexity at the upturned, earnest little face. Then with quick understanding which revealed her real mother-spirit, she answered: "Why land, Honey-Girl, Reynolds makes pretty good money at times. I guess we can do about as we please in most simple ways."

"Well, then, keep your ap.r.o.n down," advised Suzanna; "and just think this thought over and over: 'Reynolds is not going to be cross any more!' Thank you again for the vinegar, I must be going now."

It was not without misgiving that Suzanna started immediately to put her secret plan into execution. And her judicious side urged the completion of all details before she said anything to those most nearly concerned in her new move. Only to Maizie, whose constant attendance she skillfully managed to elude while she made her simple preparations, did she at last give any confidence, and it was in this manner she spoke:

"There's going to be a great change, Maizie; and tonight you must manage to stay awake to do something for me."

Maizie, at once interested, grew wildly expectant. Though she could send up no airs.h.i.+ps of her own, she loved to contemplate Suzanna's daring flights.

"I'll do anything, Suzanna," she promised.

So Suzanna gave Maizie her news. Hearing it, Maizie's lips quivered, but she kept back the tears by the exercise of great control. They were upstairs in their own room. It was late afternoon. Peter was out playing. Mrs. Procter, the baby with her, was downtown ordering groceries.

"Now, you mustn't cry, Maizie," said Suzanna; "it all had to be, and what is to be is for the best." Suzanna quoted from Mrs. Reynolds. "Go downstairs and get father's dictionary."

Maizie obeyed, returning quickly with the desired book.

"And now stand at the window so as to tell me when you see mother coming."

So Maizie took her stand while Suzanna labored hard with the pen. An hour pa.s.sed. Once Suzanna flew downstairs to the kitchen, then returned to her work. At last, Maizie in excited tones announced that her mother and the baby had turned the corner. Suzanna laid down her pen.

"Well, it's all finished," she said.

Maizie looked at her sister. Now the tears came, blurring the big gray eyes.

"You mustn't cry, Maizie," said Suzanna, trying to subdue her own emotions.

"Couldn't you just wear the dress as it is?" asked Maizie in a small voice, touching the crux of the whole matter, the cause of the great change.

"I just couldn't," Suzanna returned. "It wouldn't be a rose blossom, you see, Maizie, _when it could just as well be one_."

Maizie nodded. Perhaps she understood Suzanna's sense of waste.

Undoubtedly her grief at Suzanna's contemplated step had sharpened her sensibilities. Vague stirrings told her that the artist in Suzanna had been desperately hurt; and for the once her imagination thrilled as did her sister's to the dress as a Rose Blossom. She knew with pa.s.sion that it could not remain simply pink lawn cut and slashed into a mere garment.

So she went softly to Suzanna and touched her gently.

"I'll help you all I can, sister," she said.

So it was that just as the clock was striking nine, little Maizie stole from her room--shared as long as she remembered with Suzanna--crept down the stairs and into the parlor where her father sat studying, as always, a formidable book, the while her mother sat sewing, her chair drawn close to his. Maizie went straight to the quiet figure.

"Mother," she said, "Suzanna told me to stay awake till the clock struck nine and then to give you this."

"This" was a note folded into the shape of a c.o.c.ked hat, which Suzanna thought very elegant. Mrs. Procter, accustomed to Suzanna's ways, unfolded the note, smiled at the large printed letters, sighed a little at the thought of the great effort put into their forming, read once, twice, then sat up very straight. The note thus told its own story:

My Loving Mother:

I have given myself to the Reynolds for there own.

Mrs. Reynolds is not happy with Reynolds' slams of doors and crossness be cause they have no child.

They will be pretty sprised to see me to night and glad with my big s.h.i.+ny bag witch I have borrowed from my once very loved father. I have my pink dress witch will soon be a rose in it and my other things. I wore my hat and coat even if it is warm.

You will not miss me much because the last baby went away and a baby always makes more work. And anyway one little girl out of a big family wont make any difrunce. But if you want any fine errands ran, you can borrow Mrs. Reynolds new child. Tell father I am loving my naybor as myself. It hurt me till something stopped inside to see Mrs. Reynolds put her ap.r.o.n over her head at Reynolds slams. Perhaps the mother angel that stops at our house all the time will pause at Mrs.

Reynolds' next time and leave a bundle, thinking when I'm there a family don't have to be started which is always hard, I suppose. Mother, please don't forget about borrowing. It is not polite to come 2 often even to borrow me for some thing big.

It took me an hour and twenty minutes to write this while you were at the butshers and grosers and Maizie at the window. I had to stop too, to watch the beans on the stove. I have labored over some of the big spelling with fathers dicsionary on my knee, remembering to make all my i's big I's.

Farewell forever, Suzanna _Reynolds_.

P. S. Mrs. Reynolds can afford to cut away the goods from under all lace, which makes my heart jump! Perhaps tho even tho I'm sorry for her, if she hadn't promised to cut away the goods from under the lace in my pink dress, I wouldn't have adopted myself out to her. So I shall see you when I recite "The Little Martyr of Smyrna" with the green showing through the windows of my many yards of lace. O, Mother, I couldn't bare to ware that dress which is just a _dress_ when it could be a _rose_.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Procter, attracted by the strange, almost solemn silence. "What's the trouble, Jane?"

She handed the note to him, waited while he read it through not once, but many times, as she had.

He pa.s.sed it back to her. "Shall we go for her?" he asked.

But she shook her head. "Sometimes I don't know just how to act where Suzanna's concerned," she said. She folded the note. "No, sometimes I feel just helpless."