Hope Mills - Amanda Minnie Douglas (icecream ebook reader .txt) 📗

in the whir and clatter, that spoke of food and warmth and raiment. Good feeling and sympathy had been touched; and though some of the workmen, who were harassed by back debts, looked rather ruefully at their small weekly pittance, still it was so much better than no money and no employment.

At the Darcys they held what Sylvie laughingly called "symposiums." The churches were organizing their winter work, for there would be need enough. The few who had found employment merely made a ripple on the surface. Some who had stretched out their scanty means the past year now found themselves penniless. Others had tramped about the neighboring towns and cities, getting a few weeks' work here and there, but had no fancy for facing winter in this precarious manner. The hopeful feeling animating so many in the early autumn died out again. It was feared that we had not seen the worst of the panic.

To Sylvie, who the preceding winter had been engrossed in art-studies and delightful social life, the want and misery were appalling. She and Miss Morgan did organize a visiting-society according to an idea of Dr. Maverick's; and though they alleviated many cases of distress, and were the better able to distinguish who were worthy, still they increased upon their hands.

"I begin to realize that poor people do not make the best of their money," she said. "They do not know how to prepare dishes that shall be cheap and palatable. And, worst of all, many of them cannot cook a potato so that it shall be fit to eat."

"The weak point of this world, Miss Sylvie," said Dr. Maverick. "When women learn to make good bread and cook potatoes, there will be a decrease of one-half in dyspepsia. Now, what is the secret of the potatoes? Come, air your ideas! Give me a recipe, and I will take it around among my patients. I advise them pretty generally to bake them, but I find some soggy and watery even then."

"Overdone," said Miss Morgan briefly.

"Well, state the exact time."

The women looked at each other, and laughed.

"From twenty minutes to half an hour," said Mrs. Darcy. "Some kinds boil easier than others. For baking, three-quarters to an hour."

"But the infallible test?"

"Watchfulness," said Jane.

"I must admit that you seem to understand it thoroughly, judging from the specimens I have seen and eaten. But are you not a little chary in your information?" and he glanced from one to another.

"Miss Morgan shall be first spokeswoman," declared Sylvie gayly.

"If it is a boiled potato," began Jane sententiously, as if she were a child speaking a piece, "I put mine in the saucepan, and pour hot water over them, as they come to a boil sooner, taking care that they shall be as nearly of a size as possible. In about twenty minutes I try an average potato. If I can stick a fork through it nicely, it is done. Then I pour off the water, letting it drain until every drop is gone, when I shake up the lot two or three times rather hard and quick, stand them on the back of the stove with the cover partly off, so that the steam may escape; and you have a dry, light, flaky potato, unless it was irremediably bad to begin with. I have sometimes boiled new and rather small potatoes in twelve minutes over a good fire. But cooking, like liberty, has the same high price, eternal vigilance."

Maverick laughed. "I shall remember this," he exclaimed. "You will yet hear of me teaching some of my poor patients to cook potatoes. Heaven knows there is enough need of it. Wasn't there some talk of a school for useful arts?"

"Yes," answered Sylvie, "only there was no money to start with, and we have all been so busy."

"What would be needed?"

"_Imprimis_: a room, a cooking-stove, a fire, a cook, and some materials," replied Sylvie with merry audacity.

How pretty and bright she was! He liked to watch her in these changeful moods. One great charm of this place was finding her here so frequently.

"And Mr. Darcy has been so much engrossed with weightier matters," she continued in a half apology.

"I really think I ought to be more interested in this question than Mr. Darcy. It supplements my work. While cheap living is an imperative necessity in times of depression and low wages, I cannot see why we do not make it more of a study. While we are so ready to copy the vices of our French neighbors, perhaps their virtues would do us no harm. A doctor often finds himself quite nonplussed by something in the preparation of the patient's diet. The old doctrine preached years ago, on St. Paul's text of 'keeping the body under,' has worked as much damage as the asceticism of the middle ages. A good healthy body is the first requisite everywhere; and to keep it so, every one's first duty. When men began to consider the body a poor, vile thing, to be treated with contumely, and fed with what would just sustain life, they offered an outrage to the highest work of God. When people think it is no matter what they eat, and that no pains need be taken in the preparation, they have made a big lapse toward heathenism. Confusion of the physical senses leads to confusion of the moral sense; and weak, miserable bodies with hysterical nerves, though they may dream dreams, and see visions, cannot do good healthy work in this world. And your poor people need a good deal of training on this subject. It must be made an honorable, not a despised, business. If I were to build houses, I should make the kitchens large, light, and pretty; and, if any room had to be small and uninviting, it should be that for the storage of the best furniture," laughing humorously.

"Yes," responded Jane Morgan, "I like to go into an old-fashioned country kitchen, with a nice painted floor, and braided rag rugs laid down here and there: with a grandmother's corner by a sunny window, and a father's chair by the wide, cheerful chimney-piece, and a place for the children to play, with plenty of room to get about. Apples and nuts always taste so good in such a place! Instead, we have a stuffy little kitchen and a cheerless dining-room, that no one wants to sit in, and every member of the family goes to his or her room, and sociability is at an end. Then we must go to theatres, lectures, and concerts, just to catch a glimpse of the members of our own family."

"There is a good deal of truth in that," and the doctor nodded sagaciously. "And now I shall take steps for that school. I may count on you, Miss Morgan, may I not, and Miss Barry?"

They both promised.


CHAPTER XV.

MEANWHILE what had befallen Fred Lawrence?

He had been greatly shocked at his father's death. True, the tender, intense affection that had so sweetened childhood seemed to have died out; when they might have attained to an enduring friendship, they had gone separate ways, missing the exquisite sympathy that should have existed between them. Whether the distance was any disappointment to his father, he had never thought. He was the only son of the house, and his slightest wish had always been gratified. There had been no wretched vices that sap body and soul, nothing to bring dishonor on the old pure, family name; and, if David Lawrence missed something that he had hardly longed for, he still felt proud of his son.

But his son, bending over the coffined face, was stunned, paralyzed. Of this death he had never thought. Was it not rather a frightful dream?

The sharp reality followed fast enough. He listened, still bewildered by the horrible visions that crowded upon him. Hope Mills closed, notes going to protest, workmen clamoring for pay, Mr. Eastman quite out of reach, indeed, no one knew just where.

Mr. Minor did not spare his father-in-law. How could he trust every thing to Horace Eastman! How could he allow George to go on unchecked in such a career of wild speculation! forgetting that he had speculated quite as wildly. And now all the property was covered with mortgages, and not a dollar to be squeezed out of any thing. As for the bank business, that he sneered at. Let them look to the Eastmans. They might have known that a small manufacturing town like Yerbury could not stand such galloping progress. In his heart of hearts he thought George and Horace rather clever fellows to get away before the crash began. And if David Lawrence had only managed to provide well for his family,--his manifest duty,--the rest might have gone without a sigh, such trifles as notes and wages.

Fred Lawrence he looked upon as a baby. Indeed, Fred was of but little use in settling the business, much more plague than profit, since he stood up stoutly for his father's honor and integrity. He had that much of a son's love. And he characterized Horace Eastman's villany as it deserved: his education had not quite done away with his moral sense in such matters.

"Here for five years your father has given him a clean sweep with every thing! If you thrust temptation right in a man's way, what can you expect?"

"His honesty would not be of a very high order if it could withstand no temptation," Fred answered rather scornfully. "It was necessary for father to travel in the interests of the business. He surely could not stay here to watch him. And you thought well of Eastman."

"No man would play _me_ such rascally tricks! There is no telling what he has done! Books can be doctored to look very fair."

But they found enough. Pay-rolls for men kept up long after they had been discharged, and many who had never been at all; systematic falsifications that could not be brought to light without a rigid inspection and comparison by an expert. But Hamilton Minor felt, with the world's wisdom, that bringing the Eastmans back as criminals would not be likely to lead to any restoration; while it would prove a family disgrace, and perhaps add Gertrude to the list of dependent ones.

"It makes me heart-sick!" declared Fred. "There is nothing but selfishness and hollowness and greed. Are truth and honor quite dead?"

"Very fine talk, my young friend," said Minor in a sneering tone; "but the question that more nearly concerns you is how you are all going to live, granting even that there may be enough to pay the debts. Of course this great house cannot be kept afloat. You had better discharge some of the servants, and retrench while you do remain in it."

Then had followed the talk with Agatha, when matrimony was proposed as a certain and sure remedy for these present ills: a cure the young man disdained with anger.

Mrs. Lawrence kept to her room, and was too ill to listen to business details, even if she could have helped in any way, which she could not. She fancied now, like many another woman, that her husband had been her only delight in life, and that there was nothing left. When Agatha suggested that she had been very short-sighted to consent to mortgaging Hope Terrace, she cried, and said "she would have given up every thing for him, and now that he was gone she wanted no fortune,--she should never leave her room again until she was carried."