Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 18

"It's a wonder the wonderful Jim Clay didn't say it," muttered the irreverent representative of the degenerate rising generation _sotto voce_.

"'If that's the way you wash a table,' says she, 'no blind man would choose you for his wife,' for that was the way they told if their sweetheart was a good housekeeper, by feelin' along the table w'en they was done was.h.i.+n' up."

"An' what did you say?" interestedly inquired Andrew.

"I didn't say nothink. In them days young people didn't be gabbing back to their elders w'en they was spoke to, but held their mag an'

done their work proper," she crus.h.i.+ngly replied.

"But I was thinkin'," said Andrew quite unabashed, "that you was a terrible fool to be took in with that yarn. For who'd want to be married by a blind man, an' I reckon that blind men oughtn't be let to marry at all, and I think anyhow he ought to have been glad to get any woman, without sneakin' around an' putting on airs about being particular," he earnestly contended.

"But that ain't the point, anyhow," said she.

"Well, what did you tell it to me for, grandma?"

"Hold your tongue," said the old lady irately; "sometimes you might argue with me, but there's reason in everythink, an' if you don't have that table scrubbed and cleaned proper by the next time I come round you'll hear about it."

With this she walked farther on towards the pig-sty and cow-bails, and considering this a good opportunity for private conversation I went with her, remarking in a casual manner--

"Your granddaughter has a very good voice."

"Yes; a good deal better than _some people_ that think they can sing like Patti, and set theirselves up about it."

"Yes; but she badly needs training."

"She sings twice as well as some that has been trained and fussed with."

"Probably; but she requires training to preserve the voice. She produces it unnaturally, and in a few years the voice will be cracked and spoilt."

"All the better, an' then she'll give up wanting to go on the stage with it."

"Is there anything frightful in that?" I said gently. "A great many mothers would give all they possessed to get their daughters on the stage. It is an exploded idea to think the stage a bad place."

"A lot is always tellin' me that, an' I believed them till I went to see for meself, and the facts was too much of a eye-opener for me.

I'll keep to me own opinions for the future. It will be three years ago this month, Dawn prevailed upon me to go to a play there was a lot of blow about, an' I was never so ashamed in me life. I didn't expect much considerin' the way I was rared regardin' theayters, but it beat all I ever see."

"What was it?"

"I don't know the name, but it was a character of a play. There was women in it must have been forty by the figure of them, and they had all their bosoms bare, and showed their knees in little short skirts.

They stood in rows and grinned--the hussies! They ought to have set down an' hid theirselves for shame! I thought we must have made a mistake and got into a fast show, but we read in the paper after that among the audience was all the big bugs, an' they seemed to be enjoyin' theirselves an' laughing as if it was a intellectual, respectable entertainment. I wanted to get up an' leave, but Dawn coaxed me an' I give in, an' thought the next might be better, but it was worse. I give you my word for it, there was hussies there on that stage, before respectable people's eyes, trying all they knew to make men be bad. They was fast pure and simple, just the same as some Jim Clay told me about once when he went to Sydney on his own. The way he described their carryin's on was just like them actresses on the stage, an' me a respectable married woman who's rared a family, havin'

paid to look at them! I was ashamed to hold me head up after it for a long time. 'It's only actin', grandma,' says Dawn, but to think that people would act things like that; no good modest woman would ever do it, an' the Bible strictly warns us to abstain from the appearance of evil. An' even that wasn't all; they come out an' kissed one another--married women supposed to be kissing other men. What sort of a example was that to be setting other men an' women? It was the lowerin'est thing I ever see. I told Dawn she was not to breathe where we had been, an' from that day to this I never would have a actor or a actress in my house. I'd just as soon have a _real_ loud woman as one who gets out on a stage where every one is lookin' at her and pretends to be one. She'd have no shame to stand between her and the bad. Oh no! there must be reason in everythink. I was prepared for a terrible lot of fools and rot, but that I should be so lowered was a eye-opener."

"I feel exactly the same in regard to the stage, Mrs Clay, but I like concerts, when the singers just come out and sing--do you not?"

"That ain't so bad, I admit."

"You would not object to Dawn singing on a platform, would you?"

"No; doesn't she often sing on the platform in Noonoon? They're always after her for some concert or another. It's a bad plan to sing too much for them. They don't thank you for it. They'd only say we're tired of him or her, and the one who'd be sour an' wouldn't sing often would be considered great."

"Well, let her have lessons, so she could sing with greater ease at these concerts."

"She can sing well enough for that. It would be throwing away money for nothink."

"But if trained she could sometimes command a fee."

"I've got plenty to keep her without that," said the old lady, bridling, "and it might give her stronger notions for the stage."

I was thankful that I had never published my calling.

"I had me own ideas of them before--walkin' about, and everythink they do or say they're wonderin' what people is thinkin' of them, and if they're observin' what great bein's they are. An' I've seen 'em here--goin' in fer drink an' all bad practices, and w'en I remonstrate with 'em, 'It's me temperament,' says they, an' led me to believe by the airs of them that this temperament makes 'em superior to the likes of ordinary human bein's like me an' you; an' this temperament that makes 'em not fit to do honest common work, but is makin' 'em low crawlers, is the thing that at the same time makes 'em superior. I don't see meself how the two things can be reconciled. There must be reason in everythink."

"If you want to turn your granddaughter from the stage, let her start vocal training. You'll see that before twelve months she'll have enough of it. It would keep her content for the present, and in the meantime she might marry," I contended.

"If I could be sure she wouldn't come in contact with them actin' and writin' fools; if she was to marry one of them it would be all up with her. Do you know anythink about teachers?"

"Yes; I would be only too pleased to see to that part of it. Your granddaughter is a great pleasure to me. She gives me some interest in life which, having no relations and being unfit for permanent occupation, I would otherwise lack."

"Well, I'm sure Dawn would interest anybody, and I think you're a good companion for her. She seems to have took up with you, and you've evidently been a person that's seen somethink, an' can tell her this, that, an' the other, but as for that she don't want no tellin' to be better than most. _Some people!_--" Grandma always worked herself up to a pitch of congested choler when these unworthy individuals were mentioned.

"I'll think about the singin' lessons if they ain't beyond reason.

She's been terrible good lately, and deserves somethink. Here's Larry Witcom arrove, an' there's Carry gone out to him. I want to see him meself; he's been a little too strong with his prices lately, but he's the obliginest feller in many ways. I don't hear anythink about it not bein' Carry's week in the kitchen w'en Larry comes. She's always ready to give Dawn a hand then. But we was all young once; I can remember w'en I worked a point, whether it was me turn or not, to get near Jim Clay."

"Dawn, I think the battle for the singing lessons is half won," I said to that individual when I met her privately a few minutes later.

"Really, it can't be true!" said the girl with an intonation of delight, as she drew a tea-towel she had been was.h.i.+ng through her shapely hands and wrung it dry.

Uncle Jake then entered, and cut short further private discussion.

"There, Dawn!" he said, tossing a pair of trousers on the kitchen-table, "the seat of them is out, an' I want to put 'em on to do a little blacksmithin'--they're dirty."

"That's easy to be seen and known too, as some people's things are always dirty," said she. "When do you want them?"

"At once."

"At once! You'd come in the middle of cooking some pastry and want a woman to put patches on a dirty old pair of trousers, and then want to know why the dinner wasn't up to tick; and besides, it's Carry's week in the house."

For Dawn's sake I would have offered to do the patching, but feared Uncle Jake might suspect me of matrimonial designs upon him, such being the conceit of old men.

"I never go to Carry," he snapped, "an' it's a pity your mother wasn't alive instead of you, she could put a patch on in five minutes any time you asked her, but she never spent her time in roarin' and bellerin' round after a vote;" and so saying Uncle Jake disappeared, leaving his grandniece with her pretty pink cheeks deepened to scarlet, and a spark in her blue eyes.

"The old dog! if he wasn't grandma's brother I'd hate him. It's always these crawling old things who can do nothing themselves, and have to be kept by a woman, who are always the worst at trying to make women's position lower, and talk about them as inferior. He's always after a woman to do this and to do that, and comparing her--I'd like to see the woman, mother or father--who could put a patch on those pants in five minutes."

"There's one way it could be done in the time," I said, calling to mind a prank related by a gay little friend--"clap it on with cobbler's wax."

Dawn's eyes danced, and the irritation receded from the corners of the pretty mouth as, procuring a piece of cloth and a lump of cobbler's wax, she did the deed in less than five minutes, and Uncle Jake contentedly received his trousers, while I departed to put in some more time with my friend Andrew, without telling her there might be a sequel to patching trousers with cobbler's wax.

"Well, Andrew, how goes the scrubbing?"