“Set down – set down,” said Mrs. Ames cordially. “I was just getting in my eggs – but here’s only about eight yet. How many was you wantin’?”

  “I want all you can find,” said Mrs. Holmes. “Two dozen, three dozen – all I can carry.”

  “There’s two hens layin’ out – I’ll go and look them up. And I ain’t been in the woodshed chamber yet. I’ll go’n hunt. You set right here with my sister.” And Mrs. Ames bustled off.

  “Pleasant view you have here,” said Mrs. MacAvelly politely, while Mrs.

  Holmes rocked and fanned herself.

  “Pleasant! Glad you think so, ma’am. Maybe you city folks wouldn’t think so much of views if you had nothing else to look at!”

  “What would you like to look at?”

  “Folks!” said Mrs. Joyce briefly. “Lots of folks! Somethin’ doin’.”

  “You’d like to Iive in the city?”

  “Yes, ma’am – I would so! I worked in the city once when I was a girl. Waitress. In a big restaurant. I got to be cashier – in two years! I like the business!”

  “And then you married a farmer?” suggested Mrs. Holmes.

  “Yes, I did. And I never was sorry, Mrs. Holmes. David Joyce was a mighty good man. We was engaged before I left home – I was workin’ to help earn, so ‘t we could marry.”

  “There’s plenty of work on a farm, isn’t there?” Mrs. MacAvelly inquired.

  Mrs. Joyce’s eager eyes kindled. “There is so!” she agreed. “Lots to do. And lots to manage! We kept help then, and the farm hands, and the children growin’ up. And some seasons we took boarders.”

  “Did you like that?”

  “I did. I liked it first rate. I like lots of people, and to do for ‘em. The best time I ever had was one summer I ran a hotel.”

  “Ran a hotel! How interesting!”

  “Yes’m – it was interesting! I had a cousin who kept a summer hotel up here in the mountains a piece – and he was short-handed that summer and got me to go up and help him out. Then he was taken sick, and I had the whole thing on my shoulders! I just enjoyed it! And the place cleared more that summer’n it ever did! He said ’twas owin’ to his advantageous buyin’. Maybe ’twas! But I could ‘a bought more advantageous than he did – I could a’ told him that. Point o’ fact, I did tell him that – and he wouldn’t have me again.”

  “That was a pity!” said Mrs. Holmes. “And I suppose if it wasn’t for your foot you would do that now – and enjoy it!”

  “Of course I could!” protested Mrs. Joyce. “Do it better ‘n ever, city or country! But here I am, tied by the leg! And dependent on my sister and children! It galls me terribly!”

  Mrs. Holmes nodded sympathetically. “You are very brave, Mrs. Joyce,” she said. “I admire your courage, and—” she couldn’t say patience, so she said, “cheerfulness.”

  Mrs. Ames came in with more eggs. “Not enough, but some,” she said, and the visitors departed therewith.

  Toward the end of the summer, Miss Podder at the Girls’ Trade Union Association, sweltering in the little office, was pleased to receive a call from her friend, Mrs. MacAvelly.

  “I’d no idea you were in town,” she said.

  “I’m not, officially,” answered her visitor, “just stopping over between visits. It’s hotter than I thought it would be, even on the upper west side.”

  “Think what it is on the lower east side!” answered Miss Podder, eagerly. “Hot all day – and hot at night! My girls do suffer so! They are so crowded!”

  “How do the clubs get on?” asked Mrs. MacAvelly. “Have your girls any residence clubs yet?”

  “No – nothing worth while. It takes somebody to run it right, you know. The girls can’t; the people who work for money can’t meet our wants – and the people who work for love, don’t work well as a rule.”

  Mrs. McAvelly smiled sympathetically. “You’re quite right about that,” she said. “But really – some of those ‘Homes’ are better than others, aren’t they?”

  “The girls hate them,” answered Miss Podder. “They’d rather board – even two or three in a room. They like their independence. You remember Martha Joyce?”

  Mrs. MacAvelly remembered. “Yes,” she said, “I do – I met her mother this summer.”

  “She’s a cripple, isn’t she?” asked Miss Podder. “Martha’s told me about her.”

  “Why, not exactly. She’s what a Westerner might call ‘crippled up some,’ but she’s livelier than most well persons.” And she amused her friend with a vivid rehearsal of Mrs. Joyce’s love of the city and her former triumphs in restaurant and hotel.

  “She’d be a fine one to run such a house for the girls, wouldn’t she?” suddenly cried Miss Podder.

  “Why – if she could,” Mrs. MacAvelly admitted slowly.

  “Could! Why not? You say she gets about easily enough. All she’s have to do is manage, you see. She could order by ‘phone and keep the servants running!”

  “I’m sure she’d like it,” said Mrs. MacAvelly. “But don’t such things require capital?”

  Miss Podder was somewhat daunted. “Yes – some; but I guess we could raise it. If we could find the right house!”

  “Let’s look in the paper,” suggested her visitor. “I’ve got a Herald.”

  “There’s one that reads all right,” Miss Podder presently proclaimed. “The location’s good, and it’s got a lot of rooms – furnished. I suppose it would cost too much.”

  Mrs. MacAvelly agreed, rather ruefully.

  “Come,” she said, “it’s time to close here, surely. Let’s go and look at that house, anyway. It’s not far.”

  They got their permit and were in the house very shortly. “I remember this place,” said Miss Podder. “It was for sale earlier in the summer.”

  It was one of those once spacious houses, not of “old,” but at least of “middle-aged” New York; with large rooms arbitrarily divided into smaller ones.”p”It’s been a boarding-house, that’s clear,” said Mrs. MacAvelly.

  “Why, of course,” Miss Podder answered, eagerly plunging about and examining everything. “Anybody could see that! But it’s been done over – most thoroughly. The cellar’s all whitewashed, and there’s a new furnace, and new range, and look at this icebox!” It was an ice-closet, as a matter of fact, of large capacity, and a most sanitary aspect.

  “Isn’t it too big?” Mrs. MacAvelly inquired.

  “Not for a boarding-house, my dear,” Miss Podder enthusiastically replied. “Why, they could buy a side of beef with that ice-box! And look at the extra ovens! Did you ever see a place better furnished – for what we want? It looks as if it had been done on purpose!”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” said Mrs. MacAvelley.

  Miss Podder, eager and determined, let no grass grow under her feet.

  The rent of the place was within reason.

  “If they had twenty boarders – and some “mealers,” I believe it could be done! she said. “It’s a miracle – this house. Seems as if somebody had done it just for us!”

  * * *

  Armed with a list of girls who would agree to come, for six and seven dollars a week, Miss Podder made a trip to Willettville and laid the matter before Martha’s mother.

  “What an outrageous rent!” said that lady.

  “Yes – New York rents are rather inconsiderate,” Miss Podder admitted. “But see, here’s a guaranteed income if the girls stay – and I’m sure they will; and if the cooking’s good you could easily get table boarders besides.”

  Mrs. Joyce hopped to the bureau and brought out a hard, sharp-pointed pencil, and a lined writing tablet.

  “Let’s figger it out,” said she. “You say that house rents furnished at $3,200. It would take a cook and a chambermaid!”

  “And a furnace man,” said Miss Podder. “They come to about fifty a year. The cook would be thirty a month, the maid twenty-five, if you got first-class help, and you’d need it.”

  “That amounts to $710 altogether,” stated Mrs. Joyce.

  “Fuel and light and such things would be $200,” Miss Podder estimated, “and I think you ought to allow $200 more for breakage and extras generally.”

  “That’s $4,310 already,” said Mrs. Joyce.

  Then there’s the food,” Miss Podder went on. “How much do you think it would cost to feed twenty girls, two meals a day, and three Sundays?”

  “And three more,” Mrs. Joyce added, “with me, and the help, twenty-three. I could do it for $2.00 a week apiece.”

  “Oh!” said Miss Podder. “Could you? At New York prices?”

  “See me do it!” said Mrs. Joyce.

  “That makes a total expense of $6,710 a year. Now, what’s the income, ma’am?”

  The income was clear – if they could get it. Ten girls at $6.00 and ten at $7.00 made $130.00 a week – $6,700.00 a year.

  “There you are!” said Mrs. Joyce triumphantly. “And the ‘mealers’ – if my griddle-cakes don’t fetch ’em I’m mistaken! If I have ten – at $5.00 a week and clear $3.00 off ’em – that’ll be another bit – $1,560.00 more. Total income $8,320.00. More’n one thousand clear! Maybe I can feed ’em a little higher – or charge less!”

  The two women worked together for an hour or so; Mrs. Ames drawn in later with demands as to butter, eggs, and “eatin’ chickens.”

  “There’s an ice-box as big as a closet,” said Miss Podder.

  Mrs. Joyce smiled triumphantly. “Good!” she said. “I can buy my critters of Judson here and have him freight ’em down. I can get apples here and potatoes, and lots of stuff.”

  “You’ll need, probably, a little capital to start with,” suggested Miss Podder. “I think the Association could – ”

  “It don’t have to, thank you just the same,” said Mrs. Joyce. “I’ve got enough in my stocking to take me to New York and get some fuel. Besides, all my boarders is goin’ to pay in advance – that’s the one sure way. The mealers can buy tickets!”

  Her eyes danced. She fairly coursed about the room on her nimble crutches.

  “My!” she said, “it will seem good to have my girl to feed again.”

  * * *

  The house opened in September, full of eager girls with large appetites long unsatisfied. The place was new-smelling, fresh-painted, beautifully clean. The furnishing was cheap, but fresh, tasteful, with minor conveniences dear to the hearts of women.

  The smallest rooms were larger than hall bedrooms, the big ones were shared by friends. Martha and her mother had a chamber with two beds and space to spare!

  The dining-room was very large, and at night the tables were turned into “settles” by the wall and the girls could dance to the sound of a hired pianola. So could the “mealers,” when invited; and there was soon a waiting list of both sexes.

  “I guess I can make a livin’,” said Mrs. Joyce, “allowin’ for bad years.”

  “I don’t understand how you feed us so well – for so little,” said Miss

  Podder, who was one of the boarders.

  “‘Sh!” said Mrs. Joyce, privately. “Your breakfast don’t really cost more’n ten cents – nor your dinner fifteen – not the way I order! Things taste good ‘cause they’re cooked good – that’s all!”

  “And you have no troubles with your help?”

  “‘Sh!” said Mrs. Joyce again, more privately. “I work ’em hard – and pay ’em a bonus – a dollar a week extra, as long as they give satisfaction. It reduces my profits some – but it’s worth it!”

  “It’s worth it to us, I’m sure!” said Miss Podder.

  Mrs. MacAvelly called one evening in the first week, with warm interest and approval. The tired girls were sitting about in comfortable rockers and lounges, under comfortable lights, reading and sewing. The untired ones were dancing in the dining-room, to the industrious pianola, or having games of cards in the parlor.

  “Do you think it’ll be a success?” she asked her friend.

  “It is a success!” Miss Podder triumphantly replied. “I’m immensely proud of it!”

  “I should think you would be,” aid Mrs. MacAvelly.

  The doorbell rang sharply.

  Mrs. Joyce was hopping through the hall at the moment, and promptly opened it.

  “Does Miss Martha Joyce board here?” inquired a gentleman.

  “She does.”

  “I should like to see her,” said he, handing in his card.

  Mrs. Joyce read the card and looked at the man, her face setting in hard lines. She had heard that name before.

  “Miss Joyce is engaged,” she replied curtly, still holding the door.

  He could see past her into the bright, pleasant rooms. He heard the music below, the swing of dancing feet, Martha’s gay laugh from the parlor.

  The little lady on crutches blocked his path.

  “Are you the housekeeper of this place?” he asked sharply.

  “I’m more’n that!” she answered. “I’m Martha’s mother.”

  Mr. Basset concluded he would not wait.

  A Middle-Sized Artist

  When Rosamond’s brown eyes seemed almost too big for her brilliant little face, and her brown curls danced on her shoulders, she had a passionate enthusiasm for picture books. She loved “the reading,” but when the picture made what her young mind was trying to grasp suddenly real before her, the stimulus reaching the brain from two directions at once, she used to laugh with delight and hug the book.

  The vague new words describing things she never saw suggested “castle,” a thing of gloom and beauty; and then upon the page came The Castle itself, looming dim and huge before her, with drooping heavy banners against the sunset calm.

  How she had regretted it, scarce knowing why, when the pictures were less real than the description; when the princess, whose beauty made her the Rose of the World (her name was Rosamond, too!), appeared in visible form no prettier, no, not as pretty, as The Fair One with The Golden Locks in the other book! And what an outcry she made to her indifferent family when first confronted by the unbelievable blasphemy of an illustration that differed from the text!

  “But, Mother – see!” she cried. “It says, ‘Her beauty was crowned by rich braids of golden hair, wound thrice around her shapely head,’ and this girl has black hair – in curls! Did the man forget what he just said?”

  Her mother didn’t seem to care at all. “They often get them wrong,” she said. “Perhaps it was an old plate. Run away, dear, Mama is very busy.”

  But Rosamond cared.

  She asked her father more particularly about this mysterious “old plate,” and he, being a publisher, was able to give her much information thereanent. She learned that these wonderful reinforcements of her adored stories did not emanate direct from the brain of the beneficent author, but were a supplementary product by some draughtsman, who cared far less for what was in the author’s mind than for what was in his own; who was sometimes lazy, sometimes arrogant, sometimes incompetent; sometimes all three. That to find a real artist, who could make pictures and was willing to make them like the picture the author saw, was very unusual.

  “You see, little girl,” said Papa, “the big artists are too big to do it – they’d rather make their own pictures; and the little artists are too little – they can’t make real ones of their own ideas, nor yet of another’s.”

  “Aren’t there any middle-sized artists?” asked the child.

  “Sometimes,” said her father; and then he showed her some of the perfect illustrations which leave nothing to be desired, as the familiar ones by Teniel and Henry Holiday, which make Alice’s Adventures and the Hunting of the Snark so doubly dear, Dore and Retsch and Tony Johannot and others.

  “When I grow up,” said Rosamond decidedly, “I’m going to be a middle-sized artist!”

  Fortunately for her aspirations the line of study required was in no way different at first from that of general education. Her parents explained that a good illustrator ought to know pretty much everything. So she obediently went through school and college, and when the time came for real work at her drawing there was no objection to that.

  “It is pretty work,” said her mother, “a beautiful accomplishment. It will always be a resource for her.”

  “A girl is better off to have an interest,” said her father, “and not marry the first fool that asks her. When she does fall in love this won’t stand in the way; it never does; with a woman. Besides – she may need it sometime.”

  So her father helped and her mother did not hinder, and when the brown eyes were less disproportionate and the brown curls wreathed high upon her small fine head, she found herself at twenty-one more determined to be a middle-sized artist than she was at ten.

  Then love came; in the person of one of her father’s readers; a strenuous new-fledged college graduate; big, handsome, domineering, opinionative; who was accepting a salary of four dollars a week for the privilege of working in a publishing house, because he loved books and meant to write them some day.

  They saw a good deal of each other, and were pleasantly congenial. She sympathized with his criticisms of modem fiction; he sympathized with her criticisms of modern illustration; and her young imagination began to stir with sweet memories of poetry and romance; and sweet hopes of beautiful reality.

  There are cases where the longest way round is the shortest way home; but Mr. Allen G. Goddard chose differently. He had read much about women and about love, beginning with a full foundation from the ancients; but lacked an understanding of the modern woman, such as he had to deal with.

  Therefore, finding her evidently favorable, his theories and inclinations suiting, he made hot love to her, breathing, “My Wife!” into her ear before she had scarce dared to think “my darling!” and suddenly wrapping her in his arms with hot kisses, while she was still musing on “The Hugenot Lovers” and the kisses she dared dream of came in slow gradation as in the Sonnets From the Portuguese.