Part 20 (1/2)
”Never mind,” Hertha answered, ”it's cold for ice cream. Sit down and I'll make some cocoa,” and she started to walk into the kitchen.
Kathleen followed her. ”I'll make the cocoa myself.”
”No you won't,” Hertha declared. ”You got the dinner and it's my turn now.”
She put a big ap.r.o.n over her dress and went quietly about her work.
Kathleen, as she sat watching, felt a little tightening at her throat, so rarely did any one do her a service. She was a strong, capable woman, the eldest in the family, and it had naturally fallen to her to wait upon others. At eight her father had been killed in an accident, and the mill, not satisfied with his life, had dragged the loved school books from her hands and, opening its cruel door, held her from sunrise to sunset amid dirt and turmoil performing stupid, monotonous tasks. She had nursed her mother during her last illness, two weary years of suffering. Brother and sister had accepted her sacrifices, enjoying the education that she had been denied, receiving her ministrations thoughtlessly and as thoughtlessly giving nothing in return. She could never remember when either of them had waited upon her, had made her a cup of tea, had so much as hung up her hat and coat. Feeling herself the stronger, she had always waited upon others, and now for the first time, in this gentle, ladylike girl whom she had known less than a month, she had found a helpmate, one who showed her sympathy and consideration.
The cocoa was hot and foamy and delicious. They drank it sitting each at an end of the table with its white cloth that stood between the two windows.
”You're a smart young lady,” Kathleen announced. ”Who taught you to cook so well?”
”Oh, I just picked it up.”
That was all the answer. Kathleen had already noticed that she received short replies when she questioned Hertha about her past.
”I can't keep that poor woman out of my head,” Kathleen went on after a pause. ”Here am I supping this elegant drink, and she without a crumb in the house.”
”What woman?” Hertha asked. ”Oh, yes, I know,” guiltily. ”You mean the woman the man told us about? But you don't know what may have happened.
Perhaps she has all she wants now.”
”Perhaps she has, in heaven.”
”Oh, you can't tell. Lucky things happen sometimes.”
”Do they? I've mostly seen unlucky ones. But luck is a poor thing for any of us to be counting on.”
”I don't know, I've been lucky, very lucky.”
”Have you? When?”
”Well, once, down South, not so long ago. And I was lucky when I met you.”
”Indeed it was I had the luck then.”
”Indeed, I had. If you could have seen the awful room, Kathleen, that Miss Jones sent me to look at! In a cheap boarding house, and with a landlady who looked as though she would cheat you half the time and scold you the other half.”
”That would have been a happy home to return to when you'd been out at night to see two lovers parted only to meet again! Now, sit where you are. The cook doesn't wash the dishes.”
”No, but she dries them,” Hertha said decisively; and together they cleared away the things.
”I'd give a penny to know your thoughts,” Kathleen remarked as she wrung out the dishcloth and hung it up to dry.
Hertha did not answer. She was pulling a leaf from the geraniums, crus.h.i.+ng it in her fingers. She had left the lovers of the play and was back in an orange grove, her own lover close to her side. ”You are Snowdrop of the fairy tale,” he was saying. It had come true, she was Snowdrop, and yet of her own will she had destroyed the fairy tale. Whom might he not be making love to now? All at once she felt homesick and very tired.
Perhaps Kathleen a little guessed her thoughts. ”It must be slow enough for you here with n.o.body but an old maid around like me. I wish I knew a fine young fellow to ask to dinner on Sunday.”
”Ask Billy,” Hertha said, looking up. ”I'm sure it's time for him to come and look after the flowers.”
CHAPTER XVI
William Applebaum, or Billy, as Kathleen called him, was a short man, stockily built, whose little length of limb and small hands were overtopped by a large head that commanded attention. It was well shaped, with an abundance of blond hair, a straight forehead, clear blue eyes and a fair, healthy skin. His mouth and chin were too small for the rest of his face, but he wisely concealed them with a beard which, as time went on, he kept closely clipped.