Apron-Strings Part 1

Ap.r.o.n-Strings.

by Eleanor Gates.

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 (to the disparagement of the latter), 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.

Ap.r.o.n-STRINGS

CHAPTER I

"I tell you, there's something funny about it, Steve,--having the wedding out on that sc.r.a.p 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 fas.h.i.+on, carpeted the drawing-room floor, and proceeded to select and cut off the end of a cigar.

"Something wrong," a.s.sented 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?"

"English," explained the florist. "--Well, I pointed out that _this_ room would be a good place for the ceremony. I could hang the wedding-bell right in the bay-window. But at that, _click_ come the old lady's teeth together. 'The wedding will be in the Close,' she says again, and so I shut my mouth."

"Temper."

"Exactly. And why? What's the matter with the Church? and what's the matter with this room?--that they have to go outdoors to marry up the poor youngsters. What's worse, that Close hasn't got the best reputation. For there stands that orphan basket, in plain sight----"

"It's _no_ place for a wedding!"

"Of course not!--a yard where of a night poor things come sneaking in----"

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 s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, he s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sing through--to the lawn."

"Do not pa.s.s through again."

"Well, I'd like to know about that," returned the florist, argumentatively. "When I mentioned pa.s.sing through the Church, why, the Rector, he says to me----"

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."

"True," a.s.sented the florist. "But I was talking with Miss Susan about pa.s.sing through the Church, and Miss Susan----"

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 (again that sorrowful intonation), "are not ladies."

The florist was highly pleased with results. "That may be so," he went on, with renewed boldness; "but for my ladders, and my plants, the little white door is too small, and so----" He stopped short. His jaw dropped.

His eyes widened, and fixed themselves in undisguised admiration upon a young woman who had entered the room behind Mrs. Milo--a lankish, but graceful young woman, radiant in a gown of s.h.i.+mmering satin, her fair hair haloed by carefully carried lengths of misty tulle. "And so,"

resumed the florist, absent-mindedly, "and so--and so----"

Mrs. Milo moved across the carpet to a sofa, adjusted a velvet cus.h.i.+on, 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 cus.h.i.+oned corner of her favorite sofa. She settled her slender shoulders against the velvet.