Part 10 (1/2)
”We ought not to have been idle so much,” said Barbara. ”We've been a family of gra.s.shoppers all summer.”
”Well, the gra.s.shopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it,”
said Mrs. Holabird. ”Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be busy.”
”If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!” said Rosamond.
”Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right into the kitchen with the other servants.”
”I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her,”
said Barbara. ”There's always such a crowd in our kitchen.”
”Barbara, you're a plague!”
”Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office.”
”In the way we live,” said Mrs. Holabird, ”it is really more convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with 'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies, and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her 'crowd.'”
”But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind _without_ the common. I think they ought to begin such things.”
”But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient for them; and not the same good either, because it _would_ be, or seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content to be the step we are.”
”It's the other thing with us,--con-_as_cension,--isn't it, mother? A step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Ingleside does it,” Ruth added.
”O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has _that_ sort of position. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high social can do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful.”
”What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of the world!” cried Barbara. ”Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless--and I wonder if maybe that isn't it?--we just do two or three rather right things in a no-particular sort of a way.”
”Barbara, how nice you are!” cried Ruth.
”No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me.”
”We never have company when we are having sewing done,” said Mrs.
Holabird. ”We can always manage that.”
”I don't want to play Box and c.o.x,” said Rosamond.
”That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!” said Barbara, warmly. ”You don't want to _play_ anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clear and diamond bright!”
CHAPTER V.
THE ”BACK YETT AJEE.”
Those who do not like common people need not read this chapter.
We had Delia Waite the next week. It happened well, in a sort of Box-and-c.o.x fas.h.i.+on; for Mrs. Van Alstyne went off with some friends to the Isles of Shoals, and Alice and Adelaide Marchbanks went with her; so that we knew we should see nothing of the two great families for a good many days; and when Leslie came, or the Haddens, we did not so much mind; besides, they knew that we were busy, and they did not expect any ”coil” got up for them. Leslie came right up stairs, when she was alone; if Harry or Mr. Thayne were with her, one of us would take a wristband or a bit of ruffling, and go down. Somehow, if it happened to be Harry, Barbara was always tumultuously busy, and never offered to receive: but it always ended in Rosamond's making her. It seemed to be one of the things that people wait to be overcome in their objections to.
We always had a snug, cosey time when Delia was with us; we were all simple and busy, and the work was getting on; that was such an under-satisfaction; and Delia was having such a good time. She hardly ever failed to come to us when we wanted her; she could always make some arrangement.
Ruth was artful; she tucked in Lucilla Waters, after all; she said it would be such a nice chance to have her; she knew she would rather come when we were by ourselves, and especially when we had our work and patterns about. Lucilla brought a sack and an overskirt to make; she could hardly have been spared if she had had to bring mere idle work. She sewed in gathers upon the s.h.i.+rts for mother, while Delia cut out her pretty material in a style she had not seen. If we had had gra.s.shopper parties all summer before, this was certainly a bee, and I think we all really liked it just as well as the other.