Oh, Money! Money! Part 44

"But I can't," choked Mrs. Hattie. "I--I'm going away."

"Away? Where? What do you mean?" cried Miss Maggie. "Not to--live!"

"Yes. That's what I came to tell you."

"Why, Hattie Blaisdell, where are you going?"

"To Plainville--next month."

"Plainville? Oh, well, cheer up! That's only forty miles from here. I guess we can still see each other. Now, tell me, what does all this mean?"

"Well, of course, it began with Fred--his trouble, you know."

"But I thought Jim fixed that all up, dear."

"Oh, he did. He paid the money, and n.o.body there at college knew a thing about it. But there were--other things. Fred told us some of them night before last. He says he's ashamed of himself, but that he believes there's enough left in him to make a man of him yet. But he says he can't do it--there."

"You mean--he doesn't want to go back to college?" Miss Maggie's voice showed her disappointment.

"Oh, he wants to go to college--but not there."

"Oh," nodded Miss Maggie. "I see."

"He says he's had too much money to spend--and that 't wouldn't be easy not to spend it--if he was back there, in the old crowd. So he wants to go somewhere else."

"Well, that's all right, isn't it?"

"Y-yes, oh, yes. Jim says it is. He's awfully happy over it, and--and I guess I am."

"Of course you are! But now, what is this about Plainville?" "Oh, that grew out of it--all this. Mr. Hammond is going to open a new office in Plainville and he's offered Jim--James--no, JIM--I'm not going to call him 'James' any more!--the chance to manage it."

"Well, that's fine, I'm sure."

"Yes, of course that part is fine--splendid. He'll get a bigger salary, and all that, and--and I guess I'm glad to go, anyway--I don't like Hillerton any more. I haven't got any friends here, Maggie. Of course, I wouldn't have anything to do with the g.a.y.l.o.r.ds now, after what's happened,--that boy getting my boy to drink and gamble, and--and everything. And yet--YOU know how I've strained every nerve for years, and worked and worked to get where my children could--COULD be with them!"

"It didn't pay, did it, Hattie?"

"I guess it didn't! They're perfectly horrid--every one of them, and I hate them!"

"Oh, Hattie, Hattie!"

"Well, I do. Look at what they've done to Fred, and Bessie, too! I shan't let HER be with them any more, either. There aren't any folks here we can be with now. That's why I don't mind going away. All our friends that we used to know don't like us any more, they're so jealous on account of the money. Oh, yes, I know you think I'm to blame for that," she went on aggrievedly. "I can see you do, by your face. Jim says so, too. And maybe I am. But it was just so I could get ahead. I did so want to BE somebody!"

"I know, Hattie." Miss Maggie looked as if she would like to say something more--but she did not say it.

Over at the bookcase Mr. Smith was abstractedly opening and shutting the book in his hand. His gaze was out the window near him. He had not touched the books on the shelves for some time.

"And look at how I've tried and see what it has come to--Bessie so high-headed and airy she makes fun of us, and Fred a gambler and a drunkard, and 'most a thief. And it's all that horrid hundred thousand dollars!"

The book in Mr. Smith's hand slipped to the floor with a bang; but no one was noticing Mr. Smith.

"Oh, Hattie, don't blame the hundred thousand dollars," cried Miss Maggie.

"Jim says it was, and Fred does, too. They talked awfully. Fred said it was all just the same kind of a way that I'd tried to make folks call Jim 'James.' He said I'd been trying to make every single 'Jim' we had into a 'James,' until I'd taken away all the fun of living. And I suppose maybe he's right, too." Mrs. Hattie sighed profoundly. "Well, anyhow, I'm not going to do it any more. There isn't any fun in it, anyway. It doesn't make any difference how hard I tried to get ahead, I always found somebody else a little 'aheader' as Benny calls it. So what's the use?"

"There isn't any use--in that kind of trying, Hattie."

"No, I suppose there isn't. Jim said I was like the little boy that they asked what would make him the happiest of anything in the world, and he answered, 'Everything that I haven't got.' And I suppose I have been something like that. But I don't see as I'm any worse than other folks. Everybody goes for money; but I'm sure I don't see why--if it doesn't make them any happier than it has me! Well, I must be going."

Mrs. Hattie rose wearily. "We shall begin to pack the first of the month. It looks like a mountain to me, but Jim and Fred say they'll help, and--"

Mr. Smith did not hear any more, for Miss Maggie and her guest had reached the hall and had closed the door behind them. But when Miss Maggie returned, Mr. Smith was pacing up and down the room nervously.

"Well," he demanded with visible irritation, as soon as she appeared, "will you kindly tell me if there is anything--desirable--that that confounded money has done?"

Miss Maggie looked up in surprise.

"You mean--Jim Blaisdell's money?" she asked.

"I mean all the money--I mean the three hundred thousand dollars that those three people received. Has it ever brought any good or happiness--anywhere?"

"Oh, yes, I know," smiled Miss Maggie, a little sadly. "But--" Her countenance changed abruptly. A pa.s.sionate earnestness came to her eyes. "Don't blame the money--blame the SPENDING of it! The money isn't to blame. The dollar that will buy tickets to the movies will just as quickly buy a good book; and if you're hungry, it's up to you whether you put your money into chocolate eclairs or roast beef. Is the MONEY to blame that goes for a whiskey bill or a gambling debt instead of for shoes and stockings for the family?"

"Why, n-no." Mr. Smith had apparently lost his own irritation in his amazement at hers. "Why, Miss Maggie, you--you seem worked up over this matter."

"I am worked up. I'm always worked up--over money. It's been money, money, money, ever since I could remember! We're all after it, and we all want it, and we strain every nerve to get it. We think it's going to bring us happiness. But it won't--unless we do our part. And there are some things that even money can't buy. Besides, it isn't the money that does the things, anyway,--it's the man behind the money. What do you think money is good for, Mr. Smith?"

Mr. Smith, now thoroughly dazed, actually blinked his eyes at the question, and at the vehemence with which it was hurled into his face.

"Why, Miss Maggie, it--it--I--I--"

"It isn't good for anything unless we can exchange it for something we want, is it?"

"Why, I--I suppose we can GIVE it--"

"But even then we're exchanging it for something we want, aren't we? We want to make the other fellow happy, don't we?"

"Well, yes, we do." Mr. Smith spoke with sudden fervor. "But it doesn't always work that way. Look at the case right here. Now, very likely this--er--Mr. Fulton thought those three hundred thousand dollars were going to make these people happy. Personification of happiness--that woman was, a few minutes ago, wasn't she?" Mr. Smith had regained his air of aggrieved irritation.

"No, she wasn't. But that wasn't the money's fault. It was her own. She didn't know how to spend it. And that's just what I mean when I say we've got to do our part--money won't buy happiness, unless we exchange it for the things that will bring happiness. If we don't know how to get any happiness out of five dollars, we won't know how to get it out of five hundred, or five thousand, or five hundred thousand, Mr. Smith.

I don't mean that we'll get the same amount out of five dollars, of course,--though I've seen even that happen sometimes!--but I mean that we've got to know how to spend five dollars--and to make the most of it."

"I reckon--you're right, Miss Maggie."

"I know I'm right, and 't isn't the money's fault when things go wrong.

Money's all right. I love money. Oh, yes, I know--we're taught that the love of money is the root of all evil. But I don't think it should be so--necessarily. I think money's one of the most wonderful things in the world. It's more than a trust and a gift--it's an opportunity, and a test. It brings out what's strongest in us, every time. And it does that whether it's five dollars or five hundred thousand dollars. If--if we love chocolate eclairs and the movies better than roast beef and good books, we're going to buy them, whether they're chocolate eclairs and movies on five dollars, or or--champagne suppers and Paris gowns on five hundred thousand dollars!"

"Well, by--by Jove!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Smith, rather feebly.