A Daily Rate (19 page)

Mamie looked disappointed. She drew them off slowly. “I thought they were pretty,” she said, the least bit of dismay in her voice. “Don’t you like any rings?”

“Not for young girls,—unless they mean something. Have you any that have tender associations?”

“Some,” simpered Mamie looking conscious.

Celia ignored or did not understand this answer. “Which one?” she asked. “Did your mother, or father, or brother, or sister give it to you?”

Mamie blushed. “Well, yes, I have got one ma give me, but it isn’t any of them. It’s a little plain gold thing, looks kind of out of style now. I don’t wear it anymore.”

“I’d wear that one,” said the oracle, “and put the others all away. You’re too young to have rings given you to wear by strangers. Now about training those hands, I can give you some little exercises that they gave me when I was taking music lessons, which I think help the hands to be graceful. First, if I were you, I would go into the bathroom and give them a good washing in hot soap suds, finishing off with cold water. That will make them more pliable. Have you a nail brush? You ought to have one. There is nothing like it for making the nails look rosy. I suppose you find great trouble in keeping them clean, working all day, don’t you? I do. But a nail brush makes the work much easier. I would cut the nails more in this shape if I were you, see?” Celia held out one seashell tipped hand to be inspected.

When the hands were duly scrubbed, Celia gave her a short lesson in Delsarte, an exercise for each joint of the finger and hand. Mamie’s eyes sparkled and she proved herself an apt pupil. “Now,” said Celia, “practice that, but be sure you never do it where anyone can see you. It will have its effect on your movements in time, but never practice in public. Don’t think about your hands. That’s the best way to do. If they are clean they will take care of themselves, and the more you think about them and think how awkward they are, the more awkward they become. Did you never try making people stop staring at you by looking hard at their feet in the street cars? Well, try it some time. It is very funny. I have been annoyed once or twice by somebody staring at me till I was very uncomfortable. I remembered what I had read somewhere, and looked down at their feet as if I was very much interested in them. They very soon took their eyes from me and began to draw their feet back out of sight and to fidget around and wonder what was the matter with their shoes.”

Mamie laughed and looked at her new teacher with admiration. She began to think she had made a mistake in saying Celia was not pretty.

“Now the complexion,” began Celia again in a business-like tone. “Your general health will affect that. You ought not to eat much fat or sweets for one thing, and you ought to bathe all over every day and rub your skin till it’s all in a glow. That will make a great difference in the complexion. How often do you bathe?”

“Oh my!” gasped Mamie, “I do hate to take a bath. Why, ma used always to scrub us children all around once a week, and I s’pose I’d ought to keep that up, but sometimes I do skip a week, it’s so dreadful cold in the morning.”

“Well, if I were you I would bathe every day, for a while anyway. You don’t know what a lot of good it will do you, and after a while you will get to love it. Once a week you ought to have a thorough wash with warm water and plenty of soap, and finish off with a cold dash, and a good hard rub, and then every morning take a sponge off in cool water and a good rubbing. That you will find will make your complexion very different. Then I would give the face some treatment of hot and cold water. Wash it in water just as hot as you can stand it every morning and then in very cold. That will make your cheeks have some color, too, I think. As for your teeth, let me see them. Oh, Mamie, it’s too bad to let such nice even teeth get into such a condition. They are hopelessly black, and you can’t get them white yourself. Do you brush them every day, after every meal?”

“My land, no!” exclaimed Mamie. “What an awful nuisance that would be! I never had a tooth brush but once, and then Carrie used it to scrub the ink off her fingers when she was going to the theatre.”

Celia could scarcely express the exclamation of disgust that rose to her lips on this announcement, but Mamie was luckily too interested in her own words to hear.

“Don’t you think I could ever do anything with my teeth?”

“Why yes, you must go to a dentist at once and have them attended to. They need a good cleaning, and while you arc there you ought to have him go over your teeth and put them in first-class order. It doesn’t pay to let your teeth go before you are a woman yet. He will tell you how to take care of them. You ought not to eat much candy or to chew gum. That injures the teeth.”

“Oh!” said Mamie, in a sort of despair. “You don’t have much fun, do you, if you try to do all the things? But I don’t mind, for I do want to look pretty, an’ I’m willin’ for it all, if it’ll do any good.”

Celia’s pulses quickened, for she thought if this girl would do so much for the outward adorning, perhaps she might be able some time to persuade her to do as much for the beautiful inward adorning of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God a great price.

“Then your hair,” went on Celia, “needs to be washed often. I would wash it first with powdered borax in the water. It isn’t good to use borax often, for it makes the hair so brittle it breaks, but it will take out the extra oil now, and that is what you need. Then it will need to be thoroughly rinsed, and dried and combed. After that you can do almost anything you want to with it. I’ll let you watch me do mine once, and then you will see how it is done. That is the best way to learn. And then about your dress, why that is a long subject. You will need to take a lot of time for that. You’ll have to decide things one at a time. One rule I go by, in buying. I never buy a thing that is in the very extreme of fashion, because for one reason it will look queer very soon, and for another it is sure to be poor material, or else it is very expensive. It is always best to get good material. The plainer things are the better, you can be sure, as a general rule. Then you ought to study your complexion and eyes and buy things to become you. You will excuse me, if I mention the necktie you have on. I don’t think you ought ever to wear that color. Cerise may be becoming to some people with dark eyes and a very clear complexion, but it ought not to be worn by blue-eyed people with light brown hair. Dark blue would be more becoming to you. Then too, I think a necktie is an unbecoming thing on you anyway. You would look much better in a close, round collar.”

Mamie looked down at her cherished silk scarf, to be able to buy which she had gone without new stockings for some time. Her mind was something akin to the maiden’s about whom our grandmothers used to tell, who said: “I ken wear my palm-leaf and go bare-footed, but I must have a buzzom pin.”

Celia’s zeal was perhaps on the eve of getting the better of her wisdom. She was growing interested in making over this girl as her aunt was interested in making over Mrs. Morris’ boarding-house, and she forgot that there were probably a long line of prejudices to be overcome before the girl would be willing to walk in the way laid out for her, even though she had asked to be directed in that path. It would look thorny to her at first.

“Mamie,” she said, seeing the downcast expression on the young girl’s face, “don’t get discouraged with all these new things. You can’t do every one of them right at first, but, do you know, I think it makes a great difference when people try to be and look the best that is in them. You must not think you are a homely looking girl. You are not. You were meant to be a pretty one, and I think you can make yourself look ever so much prettier, I do indeed. Now I wonder if you would be willing to do something just to please me.”

“Why of course I would!” said Mamie, readily enough and brightening up at the encouraging words. “What is it? You’ve been awful kind to me and I sha’n’t forget it, Miss Murray,” she added.

“Well then, it is this. You see out in Cloverdale, where I used to live, I belonged to a little society of girls. We were each pledged to read one verse of the Bible every day, and to pray every day, and when some of us left the home and the society, we each promised to try and get up another band where we were going, even if we could get but one other person to join it. Now I was wondering if you wouldn’t join it to start my new circle? We call ourselves the Bible Band. I believe there are a good many such bands all over the country. We have this little gold badge. Isn’t it pretty?” and Celia held out a tiny .scarf pin with a pendant gold heart, on which were the letters engraved B. B. “If you will join us, I’ll give you this pin of mine, and I can send and get another.”

Mamie grew interested as soon as she saw the pin. Jewelry of all sorts was attractive to her. It would be quite delightful to appear in the store with a new pin on, engraved with mysterious letters, and let the girls and the young men there try to guess what they meant. Of course she didn’t need to tell them if she didn’t want to. She asked again what would be required of her, though Mamie belonged to the class, from which are derived so many untrue members of the Christian Endeavor societies, and, sad to say, also of the church; that class who are eager and willing to join anything, and care very little what obligations they thus take upon themselves; as little as they care when they break these solemn vows. To such, indeed, might apply the many and various arguments against pledge taking, not because pledge taking is bad, but because the pledgers themselves are not made to understand the solemnity of the pledge they take. Mamie cared very little what pledge she took, so long as the performing of it might be done in private and at her own discretion. She did not stop to think long, but accepted the pledge card and donned the pin with pride, thanking Celia.

“Though I ain’t much of a hand at prayin’, Miss Murray, I never could think of anything to say when I was a little girl, and ma used to make us say our prayers every Saturday night. I guess I could learn a prayer and say the same one every time, if that would do. You write me out one, can’t you? ‘Course I’ll do it to please you, you’ve been so good to me, and I’m awfully obliged for this pin. It’s a beauty, and won’t I have fin to-morrow at the store with it? Say, I don’t mind telling you why I want all this fixin’ up to be pretty, you know. You won’t tell Carrie, will you? I wouldn’t have her know, for the first you’d see her settin’ up to the same thing. Why, you see it’s this way. There’s a new boss to our store. The head of the firm’s going out to Chicago, and he’s put this feller, Mr. Adams, Harold Adams his name is, in at the head. He’s only just nineteen or twenty, though he made them think he was twenty-one, but he’s dreadful smart. His father’s been at the head of a three-cent store in Baltimore for a long time, and he kind of growed up in the business. He’s handsome, too, and everybody likes him, and the girls will just stand on their heads to please him, and you see he’s been payin’ me attention for four weeks now, takin’ me to theatres, and gettin’ me flowers and candy, and all the other girls was hoppin’ mad. They’ve just done everything they could to get him to look at them, but he never did till there come a new girl to the china teacup counter. She has gold hair and I believe she paints her cheeks, and she’s awful stylish, and has the littlest mite of a waist, and he’s just gone clean crazy over her. He’s nice to me yet, but she gets half the flowers now, and I want to get him back. You see, I don’t mind telling you I’m in love with him myself, and of course I ain’t wan’ to just give him up without tryin’, so I made up my mind ill could get to be good lookin’ an’ stylish, maybe I could do something.”

Before Celia had time to collect her thoughts, and say something in response to this startling disclosure, there came a hurried knock at the door, and Molly Poppleton’s strong voice demanded, “Is Miss Celia there? Miss Hannah, she wants her right away bad. That old lady upstairs’s got a fainting spell. She says to come right away.”

Celia dropped everything and ran. She wondered afterward if the heavenly Father arranged that call to her for just that moment on purpose to prevent her saying anything to Mamie, for she felt sure if she had spoken then she would have expressed her mind in what might have proved, for the sake of her influence on the girl, the wrong words.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, 

And scan his work in vain; 

God is his own interpreter,

And he will make it plain.

OLD Mrs. Belden was made comfortable at last. It appeared that she had worked too hard for the last three weeks, sitting up far into the night to finish an order. She was a knitter of fancy hoods, sacques, socks and mittens. Miss Hannah, while she ministered to her, heard a feeble account of the poor soul’s life. Her husband and her children were all dead, except one boy who was a sailor, and who, perhaps, might be dead, too, for she had not heard from him for over four years. She resorted to the only thing she knew how to do to earn her living, and it had been pretty hard work sometimes, though, perhaps, no harder than many another woman had to do. She was very thankful for the good food which had come in with the advent of Miss Grant. She murmured her gratitude in an apologetic way for everything that was done for her, and said she did not see why they made so much trouble, they might just as well have let her slip quietly away, if it had been the Lord’s will. Her life wasn’t worth much anyway, and she was only making a lot of trouble that would all have to be done over again pretty soon, maybe. Miss Hannah and Celia had looked around the room and resolved that there should be more comforts there before another night, and when she was at last ready for sleep, and they felt sure that all she needed to restore her to her usual health was a good rest, they’ left her, with a promise from Molly Poppleton, whose room was next to Mrs. Belden’s, that she would sleep with one ear open and step in occasionally to see that she was all right and give her anything she needed.

Celia sat down on the bed and rested her forehead on the footboard, after she and her aunt had gone to their room for the night.