Part 11 (1/2)

”'Incidentally, it will help me to reduce,' she added.

”'An' it promises to reduce Bill,' I said. 'It will kill Bill, I fear, but it will pay. You might change your plan a little--Just a little--an' save poor Bill. Think of eating biscuit an' flapjacks from the hand of a social leader! Between the millstones of duty and indigestion he will be sadly ground, but with the axe he may, if he will, defend his const.i.tution.'

”'Well, what's a const.i.tution between husband and wife?' she asked.

”'Nothin'.' I says. 'Bear in mind I wouldn't discourage you. With the aid of the axe his ancestors were able to withstand the a.s.saults of pork an' beans an' pie. If he uses it freely, he is safe.'

”'You see, I shall have him in a position where he must work or die,' said Mrs. Bill.

”'He'll die,' said a guest.

”'I call it a worthy enterprise whatever the expense,' I said. 'It will set a fas.h.i.+on here an' a very good one. In this community there are so many dear ladies who are prisoners of gravitation.

They rely almost exclusively on hired hands an' feet, an' are losin' the use o' their own. What confusion will spread among them when they learn that Mrs. William Henry Warburton, the richest woman in Fairfield County, and the daughter of a bishop, has been doin' her own work! What consternation! What dismay! What female profanity! What a revision of habits an' resolutions! Why, there's been nothin' like it since the descent of Lizzie.'

”'I think it's terrible,' said a fat lady from Louisville, distinguished for her appet.i.te, an' often surrept.i.tiously referred to as 'The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.' 'The idea of trying to make it fas.h.i.+onable to endure drudgery! I think we women have all we can do now.'

”'To be respectable,' said Mrs. Bill; 'but let's try to do something else.'

”'Why don't you form a Ladies' Protective Union,' Bill suggested, 'an' choose the tiara for a symbol, an' strike for no hours a day an' all your husbands can earn?'

”'And the employment of skilled idlers only,' Mrs. Bill put in.

'They must all know how to do nothing in the modern way--by discussing the rights of women and the novel of l.u.s.t, and the divorces past and prospective, by playing at bridge and benevolence. How absurd it all is! I'm not going to be an overgrown child any longer.'

”I saw that Mrs. Bill was makin' progress, an' with her a.s.sistance I began to hope for better things in that neighborhood.

”You've got to reach the women somehow, you see, before you can improve the social conditions of a community. I love them, but many are overgrown children, as Mrs. Bill had put it, an' doin'

nothing with singular skill an' determination an' often with appalling energy.

”Our pretty hostess had been helping a butler, as this talk went on, an' presently one of the other ladies joined her, an' never was any company so picturesquely an' amusingly served.

”'I've quite fallen in love with that three-year-old boy,' said Mrs. Bill, as we rose from the table. 'I had a good romp with him to-day.'

”'I wish you'd go over to the old farm-house with me; I want to show you something,' I said.

”In a moment we were in wraps an' making our way across the lawn.

”'I was glad to get a rap at that Mrs. Barrow,' she whispered, as we walked along. 'She's just got back her jewels that were stolen, and has begun to go out again. She's the vainest, proudest fool of a woman, and her husband is always borrowing money. Did you know it?'

”'Some--that is, fairly well,' I said, with bitterness.

”'So does Bill, and she goes about with the airs of a grand lady and the silliest notions. Really, it was for her benefit that I helped the butler.'

”'If it weren't for Bill I'd call you an angel,' I said. 'You have it in your power to redeem the skilled idlers of this community.'

”We reached the little house so unlike the big, baronial thing we had left. It was a home. Mrs. Hammond sat by the reading-lamp in its cozy sitting-room before an open fire. She led us into the bedroom with the lamp in her hand. There lay the boy as I had left him, still smiling with a lovelier, softer red in his cheeks than that of roses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She led us into the bedroom.]

”'See the color and the dimples,' I said.