Mary Minds Her Business Part 33

"On my way back," he was saying, "I stopped in New York and engaged a firm of accountants to come and look over the books. They are busy now, but I told them there was no hurry--that we only wanted their suggestions--"

"I had forgotten about that," said Mary.

"So had I. What do you suppose reminded me of it?"

She shook her head.

"One of the first men I saw in Was.h.i.+ngton was Burdon Woodward."

"I think it just happened that way," said Mary uneasily. "He told me he was going away for a few days, but I'm sure he only did it to get out of going to Helen's wedding."

"Well, anyhow, no harm done. It was the sight of him down there that reminded me: that's all.... How has everything been running here?

Smoothly, I hope?"

Smoothly, yes. That was the week when Mary sent her letters to the papers, announcing that the women at Spencer & Son's had not only equalled past outputs, but were working within a closer degree of accuracy.

And all that month, and the next month, and the next, the work at Spencer & Son's kept rolling out as smoothly as though it were moving on its own bearings--not only the mechanical, but the welfare work as well.

The dining room was re-modelled, as you will presently see. The band progressed, as you will presently hear. The women were proud and happy in the work they were doing, and Mary was proud because they were proud, happy because they were happy, and all the time she was nursing another secret, no one dreaming what was in her mind.

Along in the third month, Wally and Helen came back from their wedding tour. Mary looked once, and she saw there was something wrong with Wally.

A shadow of depression hung over him--a shadow which he tried to hide with bursts of cheerfulness. But his old air of eagerness was gone--that air with which he had once looked at the future as a child might stare with delighted eyes at a conjurer drawing rabbits and roses out of old hats and empty vases.

In a word, he looked disenchanted, as though he had seen how the illusion was produced, how the trick was done, and was simultaneously abating his applause for the performer and his interest in the show.

"He's found her out," thought Mary, and with that terrible frankness which sometimes comes unbidden to our minds she added with a sigh, "I was always afraid he would."

Wally had taken a house near the country club--one of those brick mansions surrounded by trees and lawns which are somehow reminiscent of t.i.tled society and fox hunters in buckskin and scarlet. There Helen was soon working her way to the leaders.h.i.+p of the younger set.

She seldom called at the house on the hill.

"I'm generally dated up for the evening, and you're never there in the daytime. So I have to drop in and see you here," she said one afternoon, giving Mary a surprise visit at the office. "Do you, know you're getting to be fas.h.i.+onable?" she continued.

"Who? Me?"

"Yes. You. Nearly everywhere we went, they began quizzing us as soon as they found Miss Spencer was a cousin of mine."

Mary noted Helen's self-promotion to the head of the cousins.h.i.+p, but she kept her usual tranquil expression.

"It's because she's Mrs. Cabot now," she thought. "Perhaps she wouldn't have called at all if these people hadn't mentioned me!"

But when Helen arose to go, Mary revised her opinion of the reason for her cousin's call.

"Well, I must be going," said Helen, rising. "I'll drop in and see Burdon for a few minutes on my way out."

"That's it," thought Mary, and her reflections again taking upon themselves that terrible frankness which can seldom be put in words, she added to herself, "Poor Wally.... I was always afraid of it...."

She was still looking out of the window in troubled meditation when the arrival of the afternoon mail turned her thoughts into another track. As Helen had said, the New Bethel experiment had become fas.h.i.+onable. Taking it as their text, the women's clubs throughout the country were giving much of their time to a discussion of the changed industrial relations due to the war. Increasingly often, visitors appeared at the factory, asking if they could see for themselves--well-known, even famous figures among them. But on the afternoon when Helen Cabot made her first call, Mary received a letter which took her breath away, so distinguished, so ill.u.s.trious were the names of those who were asking if they could pay a visit on the following day.

Mary sent a telegram and then, her cheeks coloured with pride, she made a tour through the factory to make sure that everything would be in order, whispering the news here and there, and knowing that every woman would hear it as unmistakably as though it had been pealed from the heavens in tones of thunder.

The visitors arrived at ten o'clock the next morning.

There were four in the party--two men and two women. Mary recognized three of them at the first glance and felt a glow of pride warm her as they seated themselves in her office.

"Not even you," she thought with a glance at the attentive figures on the walls, "not even you ever had visitors like these." And in some subtle manner which I simply cannot describe to you, she felt that the portrayed figures were proud of the visitors, too--and prouder yet of the dreamy-eyed girl who had brought it about, flesh of their flesh, blood of their blood, who was looking so queenly and chatting so quietly to the elect of the earth.

The fourth caller was introduced as Professor Marsh, and Mary soon perceived that he was a hostile critic.

"I shall have to be careful of him," she thought, "or I shall be giving him some good, hard bouncers before I know it--and that would never do today." So putting the temptation behind her she presently said, "We'll start at the nursery, if you like--any time you're ready."

You have already seen something of that nursery, its long row of windows facing the south, its awnings, toys, sand-piles and white-robed nurses.

Since then Mary had had time to elaborate the original theme with a kitchen for preparing their majesties' food, linen closets and a rest-room for the nurses.

The chief glory of the nursery, however, was its n.o.ble line of play-rooms, each in charge of two nurses.

"Let's look in here," said Mary, opening a door.

They came upon an interesting scene. In this room were twelve children, about two years old. The nurses were feeding them. Each nurse sat on the inside of a kidney shaped table, large enough to accommodate six children, but low enough to avoid the necessity for high chairs with the consequent dangling between earth and heaven.

In front of each child was a plate set in a recess in the table--this to guard against overturning in the excitement of the moment--and in each plate was a generous portion of chicken broth poured over broken bread.

It was evidently good. Approval shone on each pink face. A brisk play of spoons and the smacking of lips seemed to be the order of the day.

"Each play room has its own wash room--" said Mary.

She opened another door belonging to this particular suite and disclosed a bathroom with special fixtures for babies. Large bowls, with hot and cold water, were set in porcelain tables.

"What's the use of having so many bath-bowls in this table," asked Professor Marsh, "when you only have two nurses to do the bathing?"

"Every woman with a baby has half an hour off in the morning, and another half hour in the afternoon," he was told. "In the morning, she bathes her baby. In the afternoon she loves it."

In the next play-room which they visited, the babies were of the bottle age, and were proving this to the satisfaction of every one concerned.

In the next, refreshments were over; and some of the youngsters slept while others were starting large engineering projects upon the sand pile.

"I never saw such nurseries," said the most distinguished visitor. He looked at the artistic miniature furniture, the decorations, the low padded seat which ran around the walls--at once a seat and a cupboard for toys. He looked at the sunlight, the screened verandah, the awning, the flowers, the birds hopping over the lawn, the river gleaming through the trees.

"Miss Spencer," he said, "I congratulate you. If they could understand me, I would congratulate these happy youngsters, too."

"But don't you think it's altogether wrong," said Professor Marsh, "to deprive a child of the advantages of home life?"

"I read and hear that so often," said Mary, "that I have adopted my own method of replying to it."

She led her visitors into a small room with a low ceiling. It was furnished with a cookstove, a table, a small side-board, an old conch and a few chairs. The floor was splintery and only partly covered by frayed rugs and worn oil cloth. The paper on the walls was a dark mottled green.

The ceiling was discoloured by smoke.

"This is the kitchen of an average wage-earner," said Mary. "Some are better. Some are worse. I bought the furniture out of a room, just as it stood, and had the whole place copied in detail."