Part 35 (1/2)

They entered the house and went into a small room at the left of the wide hall. It was lovely, Suzanna decided, done all in soft gray, except the curtains at the window, which were of amber silk, hanging in heavy folds. Yes, very charming, Suzanna emphasized to herself. She liked particularly the one picture on the wall, showing a group of horses, heads high in the air, full of fire. Suzanna could see them move, she believed.

”Sit down there, Suzanna, in that high-backed chair and tell us what you have to say that's so important,” suggested Mr. Bartlett.

”I'm crazy to hear all about it, Suzanna,” supplemented Graham. He settled himself in antic.i.p.ation, for Suzanna was always intensely interesting.

Suzanna seated herself. A quaint little figure she was, her fine head thrown in relief against the gray satin of the chair. ”You know,” she began, ”there's been a fire.”

”A bully big one,” said Graham.

Suzanna turned her dark eyes upon the boy. ”It was a big one, and maybe fun to watch,” she said, ”but it burned all the people's homes. We've got two little children, at our house. We could never find their father and mother.”

Mr. Bartlett, occupying the corner of a lounge, s.h.i.+fted uneasily.

Evidently to put forth truths so baldly was inartistic.

”My mother says it was--I can't think of the word--but she meant it was lucky those cottages were burned down; they were so dirty.” Suzanna went on: ”And babies played in the yards in ashes and old papers. I always hurried past when I went that way because something stopped inside of me, I felt so sorry for those babies.” Suzanna paused. ”I just thought as we walked up your front path how different everything is here; your front yard is so clean, and there's so much room!”

She stopped again. She wished Mr. Bartlett would speak. He must guess now all that she meant to convey to him; all she would ask of him.

But still he didn't answer. ”The Eagle Man owned those houses,” she said at last.

”The Eagle Man?” Mr. Bartlett roused himself at last. ”Who is the Eagle Man?”

”Mr. Ma.s.sey other people call him. The Eagle Man's my own private name for him.”

Graham knew his father was heavily interested in the Ma.s.sey Steel Mills.

But he did not speak.

”You know, it's an awful fine feeling you get when you're doing something for strangers,” Suzanna pressed on. ”Some way you don't feel so excited when you're doing something for your very own family.”

But she was doomed to disappointment. A continued silence still greeted her words. ”When people work for you isn't it as though you were their father or their big brother and had to help them when they needed it?”

she asked, at length.

”Well, it's a new thought that you owe anything to the men who work for you except their wages,” said Mr. Bartlett at last.

”Why, Drusilla told me that everyone in the world has a little silver chain running from his wrist to his next friend's wrist; it stretches when you run--a fellows.h.i.+p link my father named it when I told him. And the chain runs from my wrist to your wrist and from yours to every other wrist in the world.” She leaned closer, finis.h.i.+ng earnestly. ”And Drusilla says if you break your chain you're really a slave.”

”Very interesting,” commented Mr. Bartlett.

”Yes, isn't it?” agreed Suzanna. She returned tenaciously to her subject. ”There are many homeless families who weren't welcome where they had to go after the fire. Mary Holmes says her mother took in four people and she says as long as they stay there'll have to be stews, for in that way a pound of meat goes further, and Mary just hates stews.”

”Well, what is your suggestion of a remedy, Suzanna?” asked Mr.

Bartlett. At which question, though put in words beyond her, Suzanna's eyes brightened. She caught the sense unerringly and answered promptly.

”Why, I thought _you_ could do something. You have so much room.” And then the solution came, out of the sky as often answers came when you didn't expect them. ”Why, you could put tents up in your big yards for the homeless people, till their own homes are built again.”

Mr. Bartlett was greatly amused. ”You ask such a little thing, Suzanna.”

”Yes, isn't it, seeing it'll help out so much?” Suzanna returned innocently.