Stories of a Western Town Part 11

She ran a few steps in half a dozen ways, then fluttered back to her bag and her cage.

"Well," said Mrs. Louder, drawing herself up to her full height, "you SHALL go if you want to."

"Solon will find me, he'll know the bird-cage! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

Then a most unexpected helper stepped upon the stage. What is the mysterious instinct of rebellion to authority that, nine cases out of ten, sends us to the aid of a fugitive? Tilly, the unconscious despot of her own mother, promptly aided and abetted Solon's rebel mother in her flight.

"Not if _I_ carry it," said she, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the bird-cage; "run inside that den where they sell refreshments; he'll see ME and go somewhere else."

It fell out precisely as she planned. They heard Solon demanding a lady with a bird-cage of the agent; they heard the agent's reply, given with official indifference, "There she is, inside." Directly, Solon, a small man with an anxious mien, ran into the waiting-room, flung a glance of disappointment at Tilly, and ran out again.

Tilly went to her client. "Did he look like he was anxious?" was the mother's greeting. "Oh, I just know he and Minnie will be hunting me everywhere. Maybe I had better go home, 'stead of to Baxter."

"No, you hadn't," said Tilly, with decision. "Mother's going to Baxter, too, and if you like, minnit you're safely off, I'll go tell your folks."

"You're real kind, I'd be ever so much obliged. And you don't mind your ma travelling alone? ain't that nice for her!" She seemed much cheered by the prospect of company and warmed into confidences.

"I am kinder lonesome, sometimes, that's a fact," said she, "and I kinder wish I lived in a block or a flat like your ma. You see, Minnie teaches in the public school and she's away all day, and she don't like to have me make company of the hired girl, though she's a real nice girl. And there ain't nothing for me to do, and I feel like I wasn't no use any more in the world. I remember that's what our old minister in Ohio said once. He was a real nice old man; and they HAD thought everything of him in the parish; but he got old and his sermons were long; and so they got a young man for a.s.sistant; and they made HIM a _pastor americus_, they called it--some sort of Latin. Folks did say the young feller was stuck up and snubbed the old man; anyhow, he never preached after young Lisbon come; and only made the first prayers. But when the old folks would ask him to preach some of the old sermons they had liked, he only would say, 'No, friends, I know more about my sermons, now.' He didn't live very long, and I always kinder fancied being a AMERICUS killed him. And some days I git to feeling like I was a kinder AMERICUS myself."

"That ain't fair to your children," said Tilly; "you ought to let them know how you feel. Then they'd act different."

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know. You see, miss, they're so sure they know better'n me. Say, Mrs. Louder, be you going to visit relatives in Baxter?"

"No, ma'am, I'm going to take care of a sick lady," said Jane, "it's kinder queer. Her name's Ferguson, her----"

"For the land's sake!" screamed Mrs. Higbee, "why, that's my 'Liza!" She was in a flutter of surprise and delight, and so absorbed was Tilly in getting her and her unwieldy luggage into the car, that Jane's daughter forgot to kiss her mother good-by.

"Put your arm in QUICK," she yelled, as Jane essayed to kiss her hand through the window; "don't EVER put your arm or your head out of a train!"--the train moved away--"I do hope she'll remember what I told her, and not lend anybody money, or come home lugging somebody else's baby!"

With such reflections, and an ugly sensation of loneliness creeping over her, Tilly went to a.s.sure Miss Minnie Higbee of her mother's safety. She described her reception to Harry Lossing and Alma, later. "She really seemed kinder mad at me," says Tilly, "seemed to think I was interfering somehow. And she hadn't any business to feel that way, for SHE didn't know how I'd fooled her brother with that bird-cage. I guess the poor old lady daren't call her soul her own. I'd hate to have my mother that way--so 'fraid of me. MY mother shall go where she pleases, and stay where she pleases, and DO as she pleases."

"That makes me think," says Alma, "I heard you were going to move."

"Yes, we are. Mother is working too hard. She knows everybody in the building, and they call on her all the time; and I think the easiest way out is just to move."

Alma and Mr. Lossing exchanged glances. There is an Arabian legend of an angel whose trade it is to decipher the language of faces. This angel must have perceived that Alma's eyes said, with the courage of a second in a duel, "Go on, now is the time!" and that Harry's answered, with masculine pusillanimity, "I don't like to!"

But he spoke. "Very likely your mother does sometimes work too hard,"

said he. "But don't you think it would be harder for her not to work?

Why, she must have been in the building ever since my father bought it; and she's been a janitor and a fire inspector and a doctor and a ministering angel combined! That is why we never raised the rent to you when we improved the building, and raised it on the others. My father told me your mother was the best paying tenant he ever had. And don't you remember how, when I used to come with him, when I was a little boy, she used to take me in her room while he went the rounds? She was always doing good to everybody, the same way. She has a heart as big as the Mississippi, and I a.s.sure you, Miss Louder, you won't make her happy, but miserable, if you try to dam up its channel. She has often told me that she loved the building and all the people in it. They all love her.

I HOPE, Miss Louder, you'll think of those things before you decide. She is so unselfish that she would go in a minute if she thought it would make you happier." The angel aforesaid, during this speech (which Harry delivered with great energy and feeling), must have had all his wits busy on Tilly's impa.s.sive features; but he could read ardent approval, succeeded by indignation, on Alma's countenance, at his first glance.

The indignation came when Tilly spoke. She said: "Thank you, Mr.

Lossing, you're very kind, I'm sure"--Harry softly kicked the wastebasket under the desk--"but I guess it's best for us to go. I've been thinking about it for six months, and I know it will be a hard struggle for mother to go; but in a little while she will be glad she went. It's only for her sake I am doing it; it ain't an easy or a pleasant thing for me to do, either----" As Tilly stopped her voice was unsteady, and the rare tears shone in her eyes.

"What's best for her is the only question, of course," said Alma, helping Harry off the field.

In a few days Tilly received a long letter from her mother. Mr. Ferguson was doing wonders for the Russians; the family were all very kind to her and "nice folks" and easily pleased. ("Of COURSE they're pleased with mother's cooking; what would they be made of if they weren't!" cried Tilly.) It was wonderful how much help Mrs. Higbee was about the house, and how happy it made her. Mrs. Ferguson had seemed real glad to see her, and that made her happy. And then, maybe it helped a little, her (Jane Louder's) telling Mrs. Ferguson ("accidental like") how Tilly treated her, never trying to boss her, and letting her travel alone.

Perhaps, if Mrs. Ferguson kept on improving, they might let her come home next week. And the letter ended:

"I will be so glad if they do, for I want to see you so bad, dear daughter, and I want to see the old home once more before we leave. I guess the house you tell me about will be very nice and convenient. I do thank you, dear daughter, for being so nice and considerate about the Russians. Give my love to Mrs. Carleton and all of them; and if little Bobby Green hasn't missed school since I left, give him a nickel, please; and please give that medical student on the fifth floor--I forget his name--the stockings I mended. They are in the first drawer of the walnut bureau. Good-by, my dear, good daughter.

"MOTHER, JANE M. LOUDER."

When Tilly read the letter she was surrounded by wall-paper and carpet samples. Her eyes grew moist before she laid it down; but she set her mouth more firmly.

"It is an awful short time, but I've just got to hurry and have it over before she comes," said she.

Next week Jane returned. She was on the train, waiting in her seat in the car, when Captain Ferguson handed her Tilly's last letter, which had lain in the post-office for three days.

It was very short:

"DEAR MOTHER: I shall be very glad indeed to see you. I have a surprise which I hope will be pleasant for you; anyhow, I truly have meant it for your happiness.

"Your affectionate daughter,

"M. E. LOUDER."

There must have been, despite her shrewd sense, an obtuse streak in Tilly, else she would never have written that letter. Jane read it twice. The paper rattled in her hands. "Tilly has moved while I was gone," she said; "I never shall live in the block again." She dropped her veil over her face. She sat very quietly in her seat; but the conductor who came for her ticket watched her sharply, she seemed so dazed by his demand and was so long in finding the ticket.

The train rumbled and hissed through darkening cornfields, into scattered yellow lights of low houses, into angles of white light of street-arcs and shop-windows, into the red and blue lights dancing before the engines in the station.

"Mother!" cried Tilly's voice.

Jane let her and Harry Lossing take all her bundles and lift her out of the car. Whether she spoke a word she could not tell. She did rouse a little at the vision of the Lossing carriage glittering at the street corner; but she had not the sense to thank Harry Lossing, who placed her in the carriage and lifted his hat in farewell.

"What's he doing all that for, Tilly?" cried she; "there ain't--there ain't n.o.body dead--Maria Carleton------" She stared at Tilly wildly.

Tilly was oddly moved, though she tried to speak lightly. "No, no, there ain't nothing wrong, at all. It's because you've done so much for the Russians--and other folks! Now, ma, I'm going to be mysterious. You must shut your eyes and shut your mouth until I tell you. That's a dear ma."

It was vaguely comforting to have Tilly so affectionate. "I'm a wicked, ungrateful woman to be so wretched," thought Jane; "I'll never let Tilly know how I felt."

In a surprisingly short time the carriage stopped. "Now, ma," said Tilly.

A great blaze of light seemed all about Jane Louder. There were the dear familiar windows of the Lossing block.

"Come up-stairs, ma," said Tilly.

She followed like one in a dream; and like one in a dream she was pushed into her own old parlor. The old parlor, but not quite the old parlor; hung with new wall-paper, s.h.i.+ning with new paint, soft under her feet with a new carpet, it looked to Jane Louder like fairyland.

"Oh, Tilly," she gasped; "oh, Tilly, ain't you moved?"

"No, nor we ain't going to move, ma--that's the surprise! I took the money I'd saved for moving, for the new carpet and new dishes; and the Lossings they papered and painted. I was SO 'fraid we couldn't get done in time. Alma and all the boarders are coming in pretty soon to welcome you, and they've all chipped in for a little banquet at Mrs.

Carleton's--why, mother, you're crying! Mother, you didn't really think I'd move when it made you feel so bad? I know I'm set and stubborn, and I didn't take it well when Mr. Lossing talked to me; but the more I thought it over, the more I seemed to myself like that hateful Minnie.

Oh, mother, I ain't, am I? You shall do just exactly as you like all the days of your life!"