CHAPTER III
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY
IT was eight o’clock on a warm morning in June, a few days after Barbara’s return. She rose from the table, where she had been breakfasting in solitude, and sought her mother.
It was not easy to find her. The girl looked into the kitchen, passed through her father’s office, and ran upstairs to Mrs. Grafton’s chamber—all without result.
“Jack!” she called, stopping at the door of her brother’s room, and severely regarding the recumbent figure in bed. “Jack! I’d be ashamed of lying in bed so late! Where’s mother?”
A muffled groan, a tossing of the long swathed figure—and silence.
“Jack! Tell me at least, if you know where she is.”
The swathed figure rose up in majesty, and a pair of half-open, sleepy eyes became visible in a yawning face.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” said Jack. “If you didn’t actually wake me up to ask where mother is. What do you think I am! A supernatural dreamer, with visions of everything mother does floating around my bed? Think I can see all over the house with my eyes shut?”
Jack flounced back, and recomposed his long limbs for slumber.
“You ought to be up, anyway, by this time,” declared Barbara, eyeing him with cold disapproval. “There are plenty of things that you could do to help.”
She walked down the stairs, puzzling over the strange lack of system that she saw everywhere about her. There was Jack, lying at his ease in his room, with a superb disregard of responsibilities. She caught a glimpse of Gassy sitting in the dusty, disorderly library, reading the story from which she had been forcibly separated the evening before at bedtime. And finally, as she reëntered the dining-room, she stumbled over the Kid, who was arranging plates, taken from the uncleared dining-table, in a neat line on the carpet.
“Don’t upset my ships!” he roared, as Barbara unconsciously crunched a butter-plate under her erring tread.
She stared in horror at the débris; then, sweeping the plates up, to the accompaniment of shrieks from the youngest Grafton, she sat down on a chair and took her struggling little brother on her lap.
“Charles Grafton, listen to me!” she said firmly but not angrily, remembering the pedagogic articles on “Anger and the Child,” and the extracts which had filled a large college note-book. “Charles! What do you mean by doing such a dreadful thing as this? Answer, immediately.”
It was while she was trying to understand his stormy articulations that Mrs. Grafton appeared, and sank down wearily in a chair near the door. The Kid immediately wriggled from his sister and ran to his mother, weeping.
“Just see what this boy has done!” cried Barbara. “I picked up half these plates from the floor. I never saw such a child! This table ought to have been cleared long ago, anyway.”
“Ellen can’t clear the table until breakfast is over,” said Mrs. Grafton, soothing the little boy in her arms. “Your father, Cecilia, Charles, and I had our breakfast as usual at quarter after seven. I imagine that Ellen was waiting for you to finish. Moreover, the gas-man came to look at the meter in the cellar, and she and I both went down with him. I just came up from there.”
Mrs. Grafton’s face settled into weary lines, and she sighed heavily. But Barbara did not notice. She was looking at the new egg-stain on the Wilton rug.
“Mother,” she said, in her fresh, energetic voice, “I really do think things might be managed more systematically here than they actually are. You know that, if there is one thing that we learn at college, it is the need of system. Now see here!” Barbara rose, and began to pace back and forth over the egg-stain. “We rise at six-thirty, an absurdly early hour, though perhaps necessitated by the work of a large family—”
“Yes,” interposed her mother, smiling through her pallor. “We all rise at half-past six.”
Barbara flushed. “Now, mother!” she said. “I know I haven’t done it these few days since I came home, but that was accidental. It shall not happen again. And Jack is dreadful about getting up!”
“Well,” said Mrs. Grafton, “this ‘system’?”
“Oh, yes. We should rise and finish breakfast by quarter-past eight. Then let Ellen do the dishes, of course, and all the work in the kitchen. Then make Jack get up and do the outside work, the lawns, sweeping the porches, and so forth, to get it out of the way early. Cecilia,—how I hate that nickname Gassy!—Cecilia ought to do her share. She should be taught to keep her room in order, and the library too, I think.”
“I won’t!” shouted an excitable little voice from the next room.
“Don’t talk that way, Cecilia,” called Barbara. “You’ll never improve, if you don’t do something in this world.”
“Why don’t you do something, then?” retorted the voice, “instead of telling mother how to run the house?”
A smile flickered upon Mrs. Grafton’s pale face, and died in another sigh. Barbara rose and shut the dining-room door.
“Now I”—she resumed—“I will guarantee to keep the lower floor looking fresh and clean,—not doing the sweeping, of course; and I will take care of my own room and Jack’s also. That will probably occupy me until half-past nine, after which I must spend my time until twelve in writing every minute, undisturbed. In this way, you see, we shall each have our own individual work,—David and the Kid being allowed to play,—and your burden will be considerably lessened. And all through a little application of system.”
“System!” echoed her mother, mechanically allowing Charles to slip from her lap.
“Yes,” said Barbara. “That leaves your room and David’s and the ordering for you.”
“My room, and David’s, and the ordering,” repeated Mrs. Grafton.
“Why, yes,” Barbara responded, looking curiously at her mother. “What is the matter, dear? You look so queer and white. Aren’t you well?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Mrs. Grafton. “Here is Susan coming to see you. Keep her out on the porch, Barbara, there is so much to do in the house.”
Left alone, Mrs. Grafton’s eyes filled, and her lips began to twitch nervously. “So much to do!” she repeated. She put her handkerchief up to her shaking lips. “What am I crying for?” she asked herself sternly. “I never used to be so foolish.” But her eyes kept filling and her lips twitching. She had a feeling that she was allowing herself to be weak. Then a sense of hopelessness in a domestic universe seemed to rise up and overwhelm her, and she wept again.
Suddenly she rose and hurried from the room, as she caught the sound of Jack’s boots on the stairs.
“I’m so glad to see you!” cried Barbara, pushing forward the best porch-chair to receive her guest. “And I’m especially glad that you came so early, for I shall be inaccessible after ten o’clock. My literary hours begin then.”
Susan fanned herself. “I just stopped a minute on my way to get some sewing-silk,” she said, “but I couldn’t help trying to get a glimpse of you again. How fresh and at leisure you look, Babbie. All your work done so soon?”
“No-o,” answered Barbara, a slight blush making her confession charming. “The fact is, Sue, I got up later than usual this morning, for some reason, and mother and I have been taking our time in discussing a new system of housekeeping, by which I am to lighten mother’s labors considerably.”
Susan looked wistful as she rocked back and forth. “I suppose your college training makes you accommodate yourself to all circumstances,” she said. “It must be hard to have to come to every-day living like this, after all the advantages you have had. I believe you know enough theory to fit into any situation.”
“Oh, no,” interposed Barbara, “not every one.”
“And all these four years,” went on Susan, her sweet face sobering, “I have just been doing housework, and trying to take dear mother’s place. My life has been bounded by dishpans and darning-cotton, and my associates have been housemaids and dressmakers. I haven’t improved at all.”
“Now you are fishing!” rejoined Barbara. “I must say, Susan, that as for not being a college girl, you show it less than any other girl I ever saw.”
“You flatter me,” declared Susan. “And oh, Barbara, I want to say that it’s awfully sweet of you to be willing to read with me an hour every day. It will help me ever so much, to get your trained point of view about things. I am so immature in my mental judgments, I know.”
“I am only too glad to help you,” said Barbara, heartily. “And really, Sue, you are a godsend to me, for you are the only girl in town that is congenial to me at all.”
Susan looked pleased. “That’s kind of you,” she answered. “Well, I must not keep you from helping your mother. By the way, how is she to-day? Everybody is saying how tired and worn out she looks, and is glad that you have come to share her burdens.”
“Why, mother’s all right,” replied Barbara. “How people will talk and gossip about nothing! Good-by, Sue dear. Take some roses on the way out. And let’s begin reading to-morrow.”
She paused a moment on the porch, looking with appreciative eyes at the pretty lawn, with its wealth of gay-colored nasturtiums and roses. As she passed through the hall, her eyes fell upon Gassy, still curled up in the chair, and absorbed in her book.
“Cecilia!” called Barbara, with all the authority of an elder sister. “You have done nothing all morning. Take the duster and dust the living-room immediately.”
The little girl’s legs kicked convulsively in protest. “Oh-h, how I hate you, Barbara!” she cried abstractedly. “I’ve only eight pages more.”
“Nearly ten o’clock!” sighed the girl, as she mounted the stairs to her room. “I shan’t get much done to-day.”
She made her bed with resigned patience, pinned an “Engaged” sign on her door, and fell to work. But even through the closed door came the busy sounds of an active household. A thump, thump, thump of the furniture downstairs in the living-room proclaimed that a vigorous sweeping was going on; the maddening click-click-clash outside drew her to the window to behold Jack sulkily guiding the lawn-mower. Just below her came the measured hum of the sewing-machine, and Barbara remembered, with a guilty start, that she had promised to finish those sheets herself, the day before. Finally, the sound of a toy drum and the martial tramp of little feet in the hall outside her door nerved her to action.
“What are you doing, children?” she cried, putting her head out through the door in despair.
David and the Kid stopped marching simultaneously, and eyed their big sister. “I’m Teddy Roosevelt,” said David, mildly, “and the Kid is all my Rough Riders.”
“Well, you must not ride here,” declared Barbara. “You are disturbing me and I can’t write. Go downstairs and play,—right away. You must not annoy me again.”
She shut her door, cutting a yell from the Kid into two sections. The martial sounds died away, and she was free to resume her thoughts. Their continuity seemed broken, however. It was some time before she took up her work again.
About an hour afterwards, as Barbara, with pleased expression and a flying pen, was half way through an enthusiastically philosophic peroration, she was disturbed by a sudden jar, as if some heavy weight had fallen, shaking her chair considerably. In a minute, footsteps sounded outside again, and some one timidly opened her door. It was David.
“Mother—” he began.
“I cannot be disturbed!” cried Barbara, frantically, waving her pen. “Run away, David; I simply must not be talked to!”
The little fellow, with a scared look, obeyed, and Barbara was once more left alone. It was not the conglomeration of sounds which now annoyed her,—it was the utter absence of the noises to which she had grown accustomed. The hum of the sewing-machine had abruptly ceased, and a sudden cry of “Jack, come here, quick!” had stopped the teasing whir of the grass-cutter. To Barbara there was something ominous in the sudden cessation.
“Well, it’s nearly twelve, anyway,” she exclaimed, shutting up her desk. “I’ll give up for this morning.”
She opened her door and went downstairs. No one in the halls; no one in the living-room. She turned toward the kitchen, but was arrested by the sound of her father’s voice coming from the sewing-room,—his voice, but strange, low, unnatural.
“There, Jack! That’s enough water. Slowly, Ellen. Stop crying, Charles. Mother’s all right.”
Barbara reached the door in one bound. “What—” she began, and stopped, while her shocked eyes took in the scene before her.
In a frightened, huddled group near her stood Gassy, David, and the Kid, staring at their mother, who lay on the floor perfectly quiet. Jack and Ellen stood by, with water and cloths, and the doctor was gently sponging away the blood from a cut on Mrs. Grafton’s temple. No one spoke to Barbara or noticed her.
As she crossed over, brushing the children from her path, her father looked up and saw the alarmed look on her face. “Your mother fainted, that’s all,” he said reassuringly. “She fell from the sewing-machine and cut herself. But she will be all right soon!”
Mrs. Grafton opened her eyes and faintly smiled.
“O mother dear!” cried Barbara. “O mother! It is my fault! I said I would do those sheets yesterday.”
Mrs. Grafton began to cry. “I don’t want to hear about sheets,” she sobbed weakly.
“No, dear, no, dear, you needn’t,” soothed the doctor, motioning Barbara away.
It was a new sensation to Barbara to stand back, while the doctor carried Mrs. Grafton upstairs to her room, and, aided only slightly, put her to bed. Mechanically she did as ordered, and followed her father out of the room, when her mother had fallen asleep, with a feeling that the end of the world had come, and that “system” had deserted the universe.
“Yes, it is a nervous break-down,” said the doctor, throwing himself into an easy-chair in the living-room. “I might have known that it would come, with the crushing weight of this household on her delicate shoulders. But your mother is so brave and bright that I didn’t realize what she has been doing.”
“And of course I’ve been away,” sighed Barbara.
“Well, she must go away now,” said Dr. Grafton, with determination. “A complete rest and change she must have, as soon as possible. And Barbara, my girl, you’ll have to take the helm.”
“Oh, I will,” she cried confidently. “I can and will gladly. I won’t let it crush me. I’ll reduce it all to a science.”
“H’m,” said her father. “This science is not taught at Vassar. However, I don’t see what else we can do. And your mother must go at once.”
Barbara lost her sense of the logical continuity of events during the next few days. Packing, planning, consoling small brothers, encouraging her mother, who was inclined to rebellion,—the minutes and hours flew. Before she realized, she stood one morning on the front porch with her arms around the sobbing Kid, resolutely forcing a smile, while she waved a cheerful farewell to the departing phaeton, containing a very pale mother and a very determined-looking father.
“Good-by, mother dear!” called little David, winking away his tears. “Come back soon.”
“Come back well!” added Barbara, cheerfully.