The Old Maid's Boy

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

 

THE OLD MAID'S BOY.

BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART.

THE big doll in Miss Maria's shop window had been for years the model after which the village infants were clothed. When Miss Maria's baby wore thread lace, so also did every baby in Moon Center. When blind embroidery became the fashion, the doll wore its stiffened glories smilingly, although the other infants shouted lusty rebellion. And when everything gave way to hem-stitched flounces, according to the agent who made semi-quarterly visits im a mud-spattered buggy, the baby in the window blossomed out in a complete hem-stitched outfit, with tiny tucks and feather-stitching. The next christening at the church was an orgy of hemstitching, accomplished at night after milking, at no one knows what cost to work-hardened fingers and tired eyes.

Miss Maria was thinking of these things as she bit off her thread with a snap and laid the finished garment on the table before her. It was a sheer white dress, trimmed with tiny frills of lace and insertion, and beside it lay the skirts to match—the doll's new summer wardrobe. Miss Maria picked up the lamp, and, going into the darkened store, took the doll carefully out of the window.

“It's bed time, Elizabeth,” she said, putting the lamp on the counter, and drawing out the box in which Elizabeth had been shipped from the city, and in which she still lay protected from the dust at night. Miss Maria pulled down the blue shades and sat for a moment on one of the stiff-backed chairs with the doll om her lap. “Ten years to-day I've had you,” she went on, smoothing back the doll's yellow curls, “and four times every year I've sat up like an old fool and made you new clothes. That makes forty dresses, most of them lying in the trunk getting yellow. You aren't hard on your clothes, that's sure, if you aren't much company.”

Outside, steps came rapidly down the street, paused a moment, and went on. Miss Maria rose, yawned, and picked up the lamp.

“Well,” she said, looking at the clock, “I reckon I'd better wash your hair and put it in kids. Having the stove lit the last few days has made it kind of grimy.”

She pushed into their places the bolts on the door, and turned to go. Then she stopped suddenly and listened. Outside, above the rustling of the maple leaves, she heard the fitful cry of a small child.

“Nice hour to have a baby out!” she snapped, fumbling at the bolt. “It would be just like the Jim Blakes, and their baby's got a weak chest.”

She threw open the door, letting the lamp-light stream out over the deserted street, and looked around her anxiously. Then with a little cry she stooped, and, picking up a shawl-wrapped bundle which lay on the upper step, retreated hurriedly into the store and bolted the door.

Once safe in her tiny sitting-room, Miss Maria unrolled the shawl and looked critically at its contents. The baby stared fixedly at the lamp and sucked a wrinkled thumb noisily.

“Seems like I ought to know those features,” mused Miss Maria. “If it wasn't for the nose, I'd say it was a Simmons youngster. It's certainly got the Simmons jaw, and goodness knows they could give a baby away without missing it. But those curls aren't Simmons.” Here her eyes fell on the shawl, dirty, faded, and ragged. Miss Maria stiffened and glared at the inoffensive baby. “Humph! So she thought I'd forgot that shawl,” she said grimly. “I'm not in the habit of forgetting things that aren't paid for. It must be six years since the little idiot ran off to get married, and took a trunk full of things she'd no notion of settling for.” The baby caught her finger in its small, restless hand and conveyed it eagerly to its mouth. “But you aren't responsible for a worthless mother, baby, and I reckon you'll be a nice little thing when you're clean.”

Miss Maria had officiated at the inaugural tubbing of half the village; hence it was with no unskilled fingers that she got together materials for the bath. The baby emerged even pinker from the scrubbing; and when at last, fed and warm, he dropped comfortably to sleep, she sat gently rocking before the empty fireplace, the tiny bundle close in her arms, and a soft light shining through her steel-rimmed spectacles. Elizabeth lay forgotten and neglected on the counter in the shop that night, while close beside Miss Maria's four-poster the wooden box, set on two chairs and filled with pillows, made a comfortable bed for the new member of the family.

The coming of Samuel—named after Miss Maria's long-dead father—marked an entirely new era in that lady's life. The boy grew and throve in spite of occasional childish ailments. Miss Maria fed colds and starved fevers according to the custom of the village, and put much faith in mustard foot-baths and catnip tea. Sammy had passed the toy-horse period, and was in the kite-flying, pockets-filled-with-marbles stage, when the thing happened which had been Miss Maria's secret dread for years.

She was putting clean papers in the store windows, keeping at the same time a watchful eye on Sammy, who was engaged across the street in a wordy combat that threatened every moment to come to blows, when she saw a strange woman walking slowly past the shop. The stranger's dress was cheaply fashionable, and draped around her feathered hat was a purple veil.

Miss Maria glared at the veil with disapproval. Then she caught sight of the pretty, weak face beneath, and with a gasp she tottered back to a chair. The woman hesitated a moment and then came slowly into the shop.

“I guess you don't know me, Miss Maria,” she said with a dubious smile, raising her veil. But Miss Maria only set her lips tighter and stared at her visitor with curiously strained eyes. “It's a long time since I've been here.”

“Seven years!” Miss Maria's dry lips almost refused to articulate, but she made a supreme effort at self-control.

“You knew, then? Well, that makes it easier. I—I think I'll take the baby now, Miss Maria.”

Miss Maria got up then, pale with desperation.

“You can't,” she said slowly. “You can't have him. He's—he's dead!”

For a moment the woman believed it; then she laughed scornfully.

“You're lying,” she said coarsely. “Whose cap and coat are those hanging over the chair? Besides, I asked at the station. I'm going to take the boy with me. He's mine, isn't he?” Then her voice became more pacific. “I'm doing all right now, Miss Maria. I haven't been drinking at all lately, and if you're thinking about Jim's being in the Pen. last year, why, you can ask any one about it; he wouldn't have been sent up at all if his lawyer hadn't took sick.”

Miss Maria shuddered. For a moment she did not move; then she walked over and opened the door fiercely.

“Get out!” she said chokingly. “Get out, quick, or I'll strangle you!” The woman fidgeted a moment with her parasol, then moved slowly toward the door. “You may have borne the child—I don't deny it, but he's mine by every law of God. While you've been sleeping your drunken sleep of nights, I've been hanging over that boy's little bed, listening to his every breath. While you've been dancing and carousing and flirting through life, I've been teaching that boy his prayers and listening to his primer. I'd rather see him dead than with you and your Jim!”

As the visitor banged the door behind her and trailed her long skirts down the muddy street, Miss Maria called Sammy in, and in the seclusion of her sitting-room sobbed convulsively over the bewildered child.

Her arraignment of Mrs. Jim rankled in that lady's shallow mind. The fleeting maternal impulse was gone, but the more lasting one of revenge took its place. Miss Maria was not surprised to hear that the case was to be taken before the squire.

Illustration: MISS MARIA RETREATED HURRIEDLY INTO THE STORE AND BOLTED THE DOOR.

The day of the hearing was a cold, damp day in early autumn. Miss Maria turned Sammy's collar up around his throat and pulled down his cap; then they went hand in hand, heads down before the chilly wind, along the street. They were very early. The squire's office was empty, save for a man asleep in a corner over the weekly paper. Miss Maria sat down before the stove and took off Sammy's wraps. Then she kissed him impulsively, half ashamed the next moment of her weakness.

The squire and Mrs. Jim came almost together, and the hearing commenced. Squire Andrews listened with an impassive face, first to the child's mother, then to Miss Maria. The latter was as reticent as the former had been voluble. She had reared the boy and loved him, she said with a little tremble, and the mother was not fit. That was all.

Illustration:“YOU'RE CRAZY, IRA ANDREWS!”

The squire sat stroking his beard thoughtfully, and Miss Maria desperately counted the loud ticking of the clock on the wall, while a lump in her throat seemed to choke her. Sammy played unconcernedly with the office-cat, while his mother removed and readjusted the purple veil, and yawned repeatedly. At last the squire looked up and cleared his throat.

“It's a pretty hard question,” he said slowly, “to decide in a hurry. Seems to me I'd better think it over to-night and decide to-morrow. In the mean time, Maria, I'm scarcely justified in allowing you to take the boy home. We'll leave him in the lockup ever night.”

Mrs. Jim got up pettishly and drew on her gloves.

“That's another trip for me,” she said, shaking out her skirts; but Miss Maria was on her feet, staring at the squire with blazing eyes.

“You're crazy, Ira Andrews!” she stormed, a spot of indignant red in either cheek. “If he goes to the lockup I go too, and we neither of us go if you haven't got the stove put up yet. The idea of a man with eleven children at home putting a seven-year-old boy in that damp, cold place over night! Sammy has a cold now. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

Squire Andrews took off his glasses and wiped them serenely.

“A good many years ago,” he said, holding his glasses to the light and inspecting them, “a king was called on to decide the ownership of a child. When he said to divide the baby and give each mother a half, one consented and one protested. As I remember, the mother whose first thought was for the child, got it. It seems like a pretty fair arrangement, and I guess the law books ain't got any better precedent than that. Maria, you'd better take that youngster home and give him some onion juice for his cold!”