“ihear miss gail’s back home.” it was the ice man. he had given her slivers of ice in the days when she had wished that she were a boy.
“yassum.” mammy emma. she said “yassum” to everybody; men, women, and children.
gail, still snuggled in the pillows, smiled affectionately, and knew what time it was. she reached lazily out and pressed the button.
“prettier than ever, i suppose.” a slam and a bang and a rattle of crockery.
“heaps.” the clink of a muffin pan. gail knew the peculiar sound from that of all the other pans in the house. “i thought i done tole you yeahs ago to saw that ice straight. does it fit that away?”
“all right, emma.” the slam of a lid. “i’ll remember it next time. miss gail home for good?”
“praise the lawd, yes.”
the clank of ice tongs.
“she’s a fine girl!” this with profound conviction. “she didn’t get her head turned and marry any of those rich new yorkers.”
“she could if she’d ‘a’ wanted to!” this indignantly.
“sure she could.” sounds of a heavy booted iceman coming down the steps of the kitchen porch. “new 168york papers said she could have her pick; but she come back home.”
gail’s maid came in, a neat french girl who had an artist’s delight in her. she shivered and closed the windows.
“arly!”
“good morning,” came a cheerful voice through three open doors. “i’m up hours,” and arly trotted in, fresh-eyed and smiling, clad in a rich blue velvet boudoir robe and her black hair braided down her back. “i peeped in a few minutes ago, but you were sound asleep. i want my coffee.”
“you poor infant,” and gail promptly slid two pink feet out of bed to be slippered by nanette. “i’ll be ready in a minute. why didn’t you ring?”
“i did. aunty clem was up and took all the burden of living away from me. i wouldn’t have coffee by myself, though. i get that at home,” and there was the slightest trace of wistfulness in her tone.
“call clem again,” directed gail. “shall we have it in your dressing-room or mine?”
“all over both suites,” laughed arly. “i shall never have enough of these beautiful little rooms,” and she hurried back to her own quarters, to summons, once more, the broadly smiling face of aunty clem.
that was the beginning of the first morning at home, with every delightful observance just as it had used to be; first the fragrant coffee, and the pathetically good hot muffins and jam; then the romping, laughing, splashing process of dressing; then interrupted by a visit from mrs. sargent, and from taffy, and from vivian jennings, who lived next door, and from madge frazier, who had stayed the night with vivian; then a race out to the stables, to say good morning to the 169horses, and laughing with moist eyes, hear their excited whinnies of greeting, and slip them lumps of sugar; then to the kennels to be half smothered by the eager collies; then over to vivian’s, to surround deaf old grandmother jennings with the flowers she loved best, the faces of young girls; then back to the house and the telephone, for a cheery good morning to everybody in the world, beginning with dad, who was already plugging away in his office, the morning half gone, and looking forward to lunch.
breakfast at eleven, a brisk horseback ride, a change, and gail’s little grey electric was at the door. there was a tremendous lot of shopping to be done. to begin with, sixteen new hair ribbons, and nine fancy marbles, not the big ones that you can’t use, but the regular unattainable fifteen centers, and twenty-five pears, and twenty-five small boxes of candy, and eleven pound packages of special tea, and six pound packages of special tobacco, and one quart of whiskey, and eighteen bunches of red carnations, five to the bunch, five grouping better than four or six. none of these things were to be delivered. gail piled them all in her coupé, and, after saying “howdydo” to about everybody on main street, and feeling immensely uplifted thereby, she inserted arly in among the carnations and pears and tobacco and things, and whirled her out to chickentown, which was the actively devilish section of the city allotted to gail’s church work.
there were those of the guild who made of this religious duty a solemn and serious task, to be entered upon with sweet piety and uplifting words; but gail had solved her problem in a fashion which kept chickentown from hating her and charity. she distributed flowers and pears and tobacco and things, and perfectly 170human smiles, and a few commonsense observations when they seemed to be necessary, and scoldings where they seemed due, and it was a lasting tribute to her diplomacy and popularity that all the new born babies in the district were named either gail or gale.
chickentown lay in a smoky triangle, entirely surrounded by railroad yards and boiler factories and packing houses and the like, and it was as feudal in its instincts as any stronghold of old. its womenfolk would not market where the black creek women marketed, its men would not drink in the same saloons, and its children came home scarred and prowed from gory battles with the black creek gang; yet, in their little cottages and in their tiny yards was the neatness of local pride, which had sprung up immediately after gail had inaugurated the annual front yard flower prize system.
no sooner had the familiar coupé crossed the black creek bridge than a yell went up, which could be heard echoing and reverberating from street to street throughout the entire domain of chickentown! one block inside the fiefdom, the progress of the car was impeded by exactly twenty-five children. by some miracle they all arrived at nearly the same time, the only difference being that those who had come the farthest were the most out of breath. gail jumped out among them, and twenty-five right hands went straight up in the air. she inspected the hands critically, one by one, and, by that inspection alone, divided the mobs into two groups, the clean handed ones, who were mostly girls, and the dirty-handed ones, who looked sorry. she shook hands with the first group, and she smiled on 171both, and she distributed hair ribbons and marbles and pears and candy with cordial understanding.
“it doesn’t do for me to be away so long,” she confessed, looking them over regretfully. “i don’t believe you are as clean.”
those who were as clean looked consciously hurt, but for the most part they looked guilty; and gail apologised individually, to those who merited it.
“now we’ll hear the troubles,” she announced; “and you must hurry. the cleanest first.”
twenty-five hands went up, and she picked out the cleanest, a neat little girl with yellow hair and blue eyes and a prim little walk, who shyly came forward alone out of the group and wiggled her interlocked fingers behind her, while gail sat in the door of her coupé and held her court.
a half-whispered conversation; a genuine trouble, and some sound and sensible advice. yellow hair did not like her school-teacher; and what was she to do about it? a difficult problem that, and while gail was inculcating certain extremely cautious lessons of mingled endurance and diplomacy, which would have been helpful to grown-ups as well as to yellow-haired little girls, and which gail reflected that she might herself use with profit, arly, with an entirely new sort of smile in her softened eyes, walked over to the chattering group, all of whom had troubles to relate, and asked a boy to have a bill changed for her into quarter dollars. the boy looked at his hand.
“i guess i won’t be next for a long time,” and taking the bill ran for the candy shop, which was nearest. there were seven places of retail business in chickentown, and since they dealt mostly in coppers, he expected to be a long time on this errand.
172arly watched gail handle the case of a particularly black-eyed little girl, whose brother was getting too big to play with her any more; and she grew wistful.
“do you mind if i hear a few troubles, gail?” she requested.
“help yourself,” was the laughing reply. “i think there’s enough to go around.”
“i’ll begin at the other end,” decided arly. “put up your hands, kiddies,” and they went up slowly. she conscientiously picked the dirtiest one, but the boy who owned it came forward with a reluctance which was almost sullen.
“i druther tell miss gail,” he frankly informed her.
“of course,” arly immediately agreed, smiling down into his eyes with more charm than she had seen fit to exert on anybody in many months. “but you can tell miss gail about it afterwards, if you like, or you might tell me your littlest trouble and save your biggest one for miss gail.”
“i ain’t got but one,” responded the boy, and he looked searchingly into arly’s black eyes. her being pretty, like gail, was a recommendation.
“there’s a kid over in black creek that i used to lick; but now he’s got me faded.”
from his intensity, this was a serious trouble, and arly considered it seriously.
“does he fight fairly?” she asked, and that one question alone showed that she knew the first principles of human life and conduct, which was rare in a girl or woman of any type.
he came a step closer, and looked up into her eyes with all his reservation gone.
“yessum,” he confessed, and there was something of a clutch in his throat which would never grow up to 173be a sob, but which would have been one in a girl. he’d rather have lied, but you couldn’t get any useful advice that way.
“maybe he’s growing faster than you.”
“yessum. i eat all the oatmeal they give me, and i take trainin’ runs every evening after school, clear up to scraggers park and back; but it don’t do any good.”
arly pondered.
“when does he lick you?” she asked.
“right after supper when he catches me.”
“do you play all day?”
“i go to school.”
“baseball?”
“yessum. baseball, and one-old-cat, and two-old-cat, and rounders, and marbles, and prisoner’s base, and high-spy, but mostly baseball and marbles.”
arly studied the future citizen with the eye of a practical physical culturist, who knew exactly how she had preserved her clear complexion and lithe figure. in spite of his sturdy build, there was not enough protuberance to his chest, and, though his cheeks were full enough, there was a hollow look about his jaws and around his eyes.
“you’re over-trained,” she decisively told him. “you mustn’t play marbles very often, or very long at a time, because that stooping over in the dust isn’t good for you, and you mustn’t take your training runs up to that park. the other boy licks you because you’re all tired out. i don’t believe it’s because he’s a better fighter.”
that boy breathed with the sigh of one freed from a mighty burden, and the eyes which looked up into arly’s were almost swimming with gratitude.
“she’s all right,” he told the next candidate. “she’s 174a pippin! say, do you know what’s the matter with me? i’m over-trained,” and he smacked his chest resounding whacks and felt of his biceps.
there were troubles of all sorts and shapes and sizes, and arly bent to them more concentrated wisdom than she had been called upon to display for years. it was a new game, one with a live zest, and gail had invented it. her admiration for gail went up a notch. one boy was not so funny as his brother, and was never noticed; another had to eat turnips; and arly’s only little girl, for she had started at the boy end, couldn’t have little slippers that pinched her feet!
“i’m glad i came home with you,” commented arly, when she had finished her court and had distributed her money, which gail had permitted her just this once, and they had driven up the block attended by an escort of exactly twenty-five. “it makes me think, and i’d almost forgotten how.”
“it makes me think, too,” confessed gail, very seriously. “suppose i should go away. they’d go right on living, but i like to flatter myself that i’m doing more good for them than somebody else could do.” why that thought had worried her she could not say. she was home to stay now, except for the usual trips.
“you’d find the same opportunities anywhere,” arly quickly assured her.
“yes, but they wouldn’t be these same children,” worried gail. “i’d never know others like i know these.”
“no,” admitted arly slowly. “i think i’ll pick out a few when i go back home. i’ve often wondered how to do it, without having them think me a fool or a nosy, but you’ve solved the problem. you’re tremendously clever.”
“here’s granny jones’s,” interrupted gail, with a 175smile for the compliment. “don’t come in, for she’s my worst specimen. she’s a duty,” and taking some carnations and a package of tea, she hurried away.
flowers and tea for the old ladies, tobacco and flowers for the old men, and the bottle of whiskey for old ben jackson, to whom his little nip every morning and night was a genuine charity, though one severe worker left the guild because gail persisted in taking it to him.
at the house they found silver-haired old doctor mooreman, the rector of the quaintly beautiful little chapel up the avenue, and he greeted gail with a smile which was a strange commingling of spiritual virtue and earthly shrewdness.
“well, how’s my little pagan?” he asked her, in the few minutes they had alone.
“worse than ever, i’m afraid,” she confessed. “i suppose you’re asking about the state of my mind and the degree of my wickedness.”
“that’s it exactly,” agreed the reverend doctor, smiling on her fondly. “are you still quarrelling with the church, because it prefers to be respectable rather than merely good?”
“i’m afraid so,” she laughed. “i still don’t understand why hell is preached when nobody believes it; nor why we are told the material details of a spiritual heaven, when no one has proved its existence except by ancient literature; nor why an absolutely holy man whose works are all good, from end to end of his life, can’t go to heaven if he doubts the divinity of the saviour; nor why so much immorality is encouraged in the world by teaching that marriage itself is sinful; nor why a hundred other things, which are necessarily the formulas of man, are made a condition of the worship of the heart. you see, i’m as bad as ever.”
176the smile of doctor mooreman was a pleasant sight to behold.
“you’re in no spiritual difficulties,” he told her. “you’re only having fun with your mind, and laying tragic stress on the few little innocent fictions which were once well-meant and useful.”
gail looked at him in astonishment.
“i never heard you admit that much!” she marvelled.
“you’re approaching years of discretion,” laughed her old rector. “all these things are of small moment compared with the great fact that the church does stand as a constant effort to inculcate the grace of god. the young are prone to require roses without a blemish, but even god has never made one.”
“i don’t understand,” she puzzled. “you’re not combatting me on any of these things as you used to,” and it actually worried her.
“let me whisper something to you,” and the reverend doctor mooreman, whose face had the purity which is only visible in old age, leaned forward, with his eyes snapping. “i don’t believe a lot of them myself; but gail, i believe much in the grace of god, and i believe much in its refining and bettering influence on humanity, so to the people who would discard everything for the reason of one little flaw, i teach things i don’t believe; and my conscience is as clean as a whistle.”
“you’re a darling old fraud!” gail’s mind was singularly relieved. she had worried how a man of doctor mooreman’s intelligence could swallow so many of the things which were fed him in his profession. the conversation had done her good. it tempered her attitude toward certain things, but it did not change her 177steadfast principle that the church would be better off if it did not require the teachings of tenets and articles of faith which were an insult to modern intelligence.
had she been unfair with the reverend smith boyd? she could not shake off that thought. she must tell him the attitude of doctor mooreman. that is, if she ever saw him again. of course she would, however.
