Part 108 (1/2)

”Is that all?” asked Diantha.

”It's all I've found--so far,” gaily retorted Mrs. Weatherstone. ”Don't you see, child, that you can't afford to wait? You have reasons for hastening, you know. I don't doubt you could, in a series of years, work up this business all stark alone. I have every confidence in those qualities I have mentioned! But what's the use? You'll need credit for groceries and furniture. I am profoundly interested in this business.

I am more than willing to advance a little capital, or to ensure your credit. A man would have sense enough to take me up at once.”

”I believe you are right,” Diantha reluctantly agreed. ”And you shan't lose by it!”

Her friends were acutely interested in her progress, and showed it in practical ways. The New Woman's Club furnished five families of patrons for the regular service of cooked food, which soon grew, with satisfaction, to a dozen or so, varying from time to time. The many families with invalids, and lonely invalids without families, were glad to avail themselves of the special delicacies furnished at Union House.

Picnickers found it easier to buy Diantha's marvelous sandwiches than to spend golden morning hours in putting up inferior ones at home; and many who cooked for themselves, or kept servants, were glad to profit by this outside source on Sunday evenings and ”days out.”

There was opposition too; both the natural resistance of inertia and prejudice, and the active malignity of Mrs. Thaddler.

The p.o.r.nes were sympathetic and anxious.

”That place'll cost her all of $10,000 a year, with those twenty-five to feed, and they only pay $4.50 a week--I know that!” said Mr. p.o.r.ne.

”It does look impossible,” his wife agreed, ”but such is my faith in Diantha Bell I'd back her against Rockefeller!”

Mrs. Weatherstone was not alarmed at all. ”If she _should_ fail--which I don't for a moment expect--it wont ruin me,” she told Isabel. ”And if she succeeds, as I firmly believe she will, why, I'd be willing to risk almost anything to prove Mrs. Thaddler in the wrong.”

Mrs. Thaddler was making herself rather disagreeable. She used what power she had to cry down the undertaking, and was so actively malevolent that her husband was moved to covert opposition. He never argued with his wife--she was easily ahead of him in that art, and, if it came to recriminations, had certain controvertible charges to make against him, which mode him angrily silent. He was convinced in a dim way that her ruthless domineering spirit, and the sheer malice she often showed, were more evil things than his own bad habits; and that even in their domestic relation her behavior really caused him more pain and discomfort than he caused her; but he could not convince her of it, naturally.

”That Diantha Bell is a fine girl,” he said to himself. ”A d.a.m.n fine girl, and as straight as a string!”

There had crept out, through the quenchless leak of servants talk, a varicolored version of the incident of Mathew and the transom; and the town had grown so warm for that young gentleman that he had gone to Alaska suddenly, to cool off, as it were. His Grandmother, finding Mrs.

Thaddler invincible with this new weapon, and what she had so long regarded as her home now visibly Mrs. Weatherstone's, had retired in regal dignity to her old Philadelphia establishment, where she upheld the standard of decorum against the weakening habits of a deteriorated world, for many years.

As Mr. Thaddler thought of this sweeping victory, he chuckled for the hundredth time. ”She ought to make good, and she will. Something's got to be done about it,” said he.

Diantha had never liked Mr. Thaddler; she did not like that kind of man in general, nor his manner toward her in particular. Moreover he was the husband of Mrs. Thaddler. She did not know that he was still the largest owner in the town's best grocery store, and when that store offered her special terms for her exclusive trade, she accepted the proposition thankfully.

She told Ross about it, as a matter well within his knowledge, if not his liking, and he was mildly interested. ”I am much alarmed at this new venture,” he wrote, ”but you must get your experience. I wish I could save you. As to the groceries, those are wholesale rates, nearly; they'll make enough on it. Yours is a large order you see, and steady.”

When she opened her ”Business Men's Lunch” Mr. Thaddler had a still better opportunity. He had a reputation as a high flyer, and had really intended to sacrifice himself on the altar of friends.h.i.+p by patronizing and praising this ”undertaking” at any cost to his palate; but no sacrifice was needed.

Diantha's group of day workers had their early breakfast and departed, taking each her neat lunch-pail,--they ate nothing of their employers;--and both kitchen and dining room would have stood idle till supper time. But the young manager knew she must work her plant for all it was worth, and speedily opened the dining room with the side entrance as a ”Caffeteria,” with the larger one as a sort of meeting place; papers and magazines on the tables.

From the counter you took what you liked, and seated yourself, and your friends, at one of the many small tables or in the flat-armed chairs in the big room, or on the broad piazza; and as this gave good food, cheapness, a chance for a comfortable seat and talk and a smoke, if one had time, it was largely patronized.

Mr. Thaddler, as an experienced _bon vivant,_ despised sandwiches.

”Picnicky makes.h.i.+fts” he called them,--”railroad rations”--”bread and leavings,” and when he saw these piles on piles of sandwiches, listed only as ”No. 1,” ”No. 2” ”No. 3,” and so on, his benevolent intention wavered. But he pulled himself together and took a plateful, a.s.sorted.

”Come on, p.o.r.ne,” he said, ”we'll play it's a Sunday school picnic,” and he drew himself a cup of coffee, finding hot milk, cream and sugar crystals at hand. ”I never saw a cheap joint where you could fix it yourself, before,” he said,--and suspiciously tasted the mixture.

”By jing! That's coffee!” he cried in surprise. ”There's no sc.u.m on the milk, and the cream's cream!” Five cents! She won't get rich on this.”

Then he applied himself to his ”No. 1” sandwich, and his determined expression gave way to one of pleasure. ”Why that's bread--real bread!

I believe she made it herself!”