Spice Box (18 page)

“
You’re a fool, Martha Spicer! Do you know what you’ve done now? Let yourself in for a whole family! Put your charge account at the store at their disposal and turned your home into a day nursery! At this rate you’ll have to go to work again. What do you think folks will think of you if they knew? The folks at the store? Your own friends and relatives? They’ll think you’ve gone crazy. You’ve taken a wild, sick girl from the streets, a thief perhaps, or worse. You’ve made yourself a companion of a common little street urchin who is going to bring all sorts of creatures down upon you, and all very unworthy or they wouldn’t need the help. You’ve agreed to pull down this fine substantial house your relatives left to you, and fill it with all sorts of newfangled knickknacks. Nobody ever did the like for you, Martha Spicer, did they? Send those people to the seashore? Why, you never could afford to go yourself when you were earning a good salary. Nobody ever looked out for you to nurse when you were sick, or send you to the seashore. You’ve just gotten enough to be comfortable, and now you’re sending a lot of good-for-nothings off for a holiday! Why, the money it costs to send those Robertses off would pay your way at a fine hotel for several weeks, and you really need the rest, you know you do! Think how you’ve slaved for years! Like as not, they’ll never pay you back for what they owe you either. Then where will you be?
”

“Get
out
!” said Martha Spicer, springing to her feet and speaking so emphatically that Ernestine picked up her astonished tail and scuttled under the new respectable owner who was losing her mind. She bristled her fur up around her eyes and turned on the green baleful lights in her eyes to be ready for an emergency. Really, this is too much, with all the goings-on the last few days! And just when she thought she was going to like Miss Spicer! And a
baby
, too. What would a baby be like in the old house?

Martha went into the kitchen and got ready the beef broth for the girl upstairs and then hurried around getting her house in order. She had suddenly remembered that the baby would be back in a few minutes, and she must be free to look after it. A baby was a great responsibility. She began to plan how she could make a sort of pen for it on her bed, putting chairs and pillows around so it couldn’t roll off. The Adversary for the time was vanquished. She felt suddenly like a child with a first doll, and eagerly looked forward to its return.

The baby was in his stroller, fast asleep, when he finally arrived. The father and mother were flushed with excitement. They hadn’t been shopping together since they bought their first housekeeping things just after they were married.

They had found the washerwoman ready and willing. She had promised the wash by six that evening. The baby’s bottles were neatly packed in a tin pail, ready to be put in the refrigerator. The process for heating and administering the food seemed simple enough. The mother’s white blouse, linen skirt, and worn serge jacket looked neat, although the broken black straw hat she wore showed plainly she needed the new felt Martha had advised.

Armed with advance-payment money, several addresses, and a couple of letters of introduction to tradespeople, the young couple left in high excitement. Then Martha went into the parlor and stood beside the little stroller, looking down on the sweet baby face, taking in the waxlike transparency of the delicate flesh, the long sweeping bronze lashes, the gold curl that strayed out over the white forehead. A little living soul in a tiny body! And someday, if he lived, this flowerlike baby would grow into a great boy like Ronald. How wonderful! And Ronald had been little like that once, too! Yes, he would grow into a fine boy like Ronald. With such good parents he would never be a bad boy like the ones who had tied poor Ernestine to the doorknob.

There were still things, of course, that Martha had to learn about boys in general, and Ronald in particular, but of course she didn’t know it. She thought that in perceiving some good in Ronald, she had arrived at the ultimate conclusion concerning boys.

“Meow!” said Ernestine softly, not to waken the baby. She was accustomed to children, but she showed a human interest in this one and was willing to let bygones be bygones for the sake of the baby.

Martha spent much time that day standing by the baby stroller, watching the baby. It came to her that once
she
was a baby lying on a pillow, with her mother and father watching over her. She recalled the glances of the Robertses as they were leaving this child. Such looks of utter devotion. Strange new thoughts. It gave her a different view of life, of herself, of her father and mother.

Upstairs, there was no appreciable change in the patient. Still that quiet, steady sleeping, that utter apathy to food or anything outside herself. It filled Martha with awe. Each time she entered the room it seemed as if Death stood there in the offing, waiting to claim the girl who had almost gone with him before. Each time she approached the bed she cautiously watched to see if the breath was still there. Yet the girl kept breathing steadily on, and sometimes it seemed that she was growing a little stronger.

It was an exciting moment when the baby at last stirred in his warm nest and turned a sleep-flushed cheek away from the pillow. He opened bewildered eyes to the strange room and the gray-haired woman who stood over him with a bottle carefully wrapped in flannel to keep it warm. He gazed with troubled eyes and puckered his lip but at last succumbed to the first taste of the bottle, stopping now and then to murmur, “Mam-mam-mam—” and the word went to Martha’s heart like a stab, so that she put forth her best efforts, gathering the little stranger into her arms comfortingly and adjusting the bottle to his convenience. So they sat in comfort and conversed in an unknown tongue about the deep things of life, and Martha found she was learning a lot she hadn’t dreamed of before. The cat, not to be impolite, hopped velvetly up on the chair nearby and tucked herself into compactness within vision of the baby, who stared at her with round, astonished eyes and finally consented to smile.

At four o’clock Ronald breezed in and took up the baby, who gurgled happily at his coming, proving that he was an old acquaintance.

And at last the father and mother arrived, laden with bundles and boxes galore, and after exhibiting some of their purchases, took the baby and went home to pack.

The girl upstairs on the bed opened her eyes as usual that night when Martha fed her the chicken broth, but when it was finished, she sighed and nestled against the pillow and murmured softly, “Thank you!”

On sudden impulse Martha stooped over and kissed her tenderly on her little white hand. Such a pretty, frail little girl she was, to be floating all alone through the world!

But there was no further motion, no more words, and Martha went down to make all tidy for the night and to reflect on how empty the downstairs seemed without the baby. A baby! She had always thought of babies as burdens and troubles, nuisances! And behold they were heavenly blessings!

The Robertses stopped on their way to the bus to say good-bye and show her how well everything fitted. Mrs. Roberts looked so pretty in her new suit and new hat. She had gathered her little son into his blue blanket, and he was already sleeping soundly. The father had folded up the little stroller and carried it and the two suitcases. They poured out a lot of eager thanks, both talking at once, and then rushed for their bus, and Martha stood on the front steps and watched them out of sight with a smile on her lips. She caught the last flutter of the mother’s hand from the bus window at the corner, and she saw the father swing himself aboard as the bus started. And then she realized that her first big benevolence was launched.

“
Well, fool woman, what are you going to do next?
” said the Adversary, standing in the doorway behind her.

“Meow! I hope you’re going to have a little time to pay attention to me now,” complained Ernestine, arching her back petulantly under Martha’s feet. “I’m so faint I can hardly stand on my paws.”

“You poor cat!” said Martha with compunction, picking up the furry creature, but she swept by the Adversary and slammed the door in his face. She had no time to listen to his advice just then.

D
r. Sterling started out on his self-arranged vacation with high hopes. He had spent the night thinking about a plan of campaign. He had tried to guess where the girl would have taken refuge. It hurt him terribly to think that she had not come to him for help when she might so easily have done so. And yet he knew her proud nature, her fear of making any trouble in the institution. Besides, though she had for a time seemed to enjoy the warm, friendly fellowship they had had together, he had never been able to understand why she afterward held herself so aloof. If he only knew the secret of her sudden coolness, he would be better able to answer that question of “why” to his own satisfaction.

However, though for some reason she had decided to be less friendly with him, that did not make him less anxious to find her and help her. Indeed, as the days went by and no word came from her, his heart was in anguish. Every little movement and habit of her lovely face, every expression, every turn of speech, seemed to return and to grow upon him, until it sometimes became almost a torment to him, and he went more feverishly to work than ever on his almost hopeless task of trying to get a clue.

With the help of his detective friend, he combed the country round about Willow Croft and Enderby and then proceeded west, trying his best to find relatives or old friends where she might have gone, or who would have known of her whereabouts.

Several times in his journeys he came into crowds of people hurrying to some train or boat, and he would think he saw her in the distance among them, only to meet with terrible disappointment when he came up with the person he had thought resembled Janice. In his frantic search he visited schools, hospitals, orphanages, and various institutions where she might have sought a job as a nurse, but day after day there came nothing but disappointment. He fell into the habit of studying faces when he entered a train or bus, and with a swift glance he would know at once whether or not she was there.

He had arranged to have his mail and telegrams forwarded to him wherever he went, so that he was never more than two days without definite knowledge whether he had been called on the telephone or whether any mail was awaiting him somewhere, but there came no word.

In the long, lonely watches of some of the nights of his anxiety and disappointment he had come to know that he loved her deeply. That she seemed to be to him the one whom God had sent to his care. And he had let her get away and go into all sorts of perils. He blamed himself continually for having allowed her to wait upon that inebriate. And yet, of course, if there was something in him for her to fear it was well that she should have recognized it in time before the man recognized her.

At last he felt that he would go crazy if he went on this way any longer, and it would be best for him to go back to Enderby. If she ever wanted to communicate with him suddenly, that would be the natural place for her to find him. Anyway, he must go back.

And on the train on the way back he fell asleep and dreamed of the day he and Janice had been out in the open watching the lovely cloud formation and she suddenly exclaimed that God had been so good to her, helping her to find a place where she could go on living. And when he had asked if she really believed that God took notice of His creatures and arranged their lives for them she had said that if she didn’t believe that she wouldn’t have the nerve to go on living. Was the little girl still believing that? Was she still comforted by it? He found himself wishing that he had the same faith in God.

That night he prayed again. He asked God to take care of the girl, to find her and keep her and comfort her, and if it wasn’t His will that he should find her again, wouldn’t He please send somebody else to take care of her and keep her from harm? And someday might he find her and be able to tell her how he loved her?

So he went back to the sanitarium where every turn reminded him of her, and the days were one long torture because she was not there.

The new patient, Herbert Stuart, was supposed to be cured. At least he was gone, and Sterling did not attempt to find out much about him beyond the fact that he had gone to New York. How much farther, no one seemed to know. If the girl whom he loved was in danger from Herbert Stuart, how could he hope to save her? He could only pray that God would do so. And in that growing belief, he got through the days.

“Doctor Sterling doesn’t look well, does he?” said Brynie to Ray. “I wonder why? You don’t suppose that Rose Bradford turned him down, do you? Maybe he’s been off trying to make up to her again and she wouldn’t have him.”

“Well, I wouldn’t blame her much,” said Ray, “the way he ran around and buddied up to that little white-faced scrap we had here for a nurse! My word, the idea of her trying to train for a nurse when she couldn’t stand the sight of a drunken man! Well I’m glad she’s gone, but Doc Sterling has no one to thank for his being turned down by a wealthy girl but himself. He ought to have known a girl like Rose Bradford wouldn’t stand for that!”

By spring, Dr. Sterling had definitely decided to leave the hospital and had handed in his resignation, to take effect early in the fall. He would certainly have applied at once for a position in the army if it had not been that he had a strong feeling that he must be somewhere available if that dear girl needed him. At least he would wait until fall, to give her more opportunity to communicate with him. Also he felt that he owed this to the hospital, to give them time to find the right successor for his work. So many had gone into war work that it was not easy to find just the one for important places at home.

But more and more he was troubled what to do. Had not God put it upon his heart to search out and somehow help this poor child who had wandered away again into a frightening world? Or was this merely a selfish thing, that he wanted to stay here because he loved her and wanted to be the one to help her again as he had helped in the first place?