is a strong word, Teddy,” Bessie replied, “particularly since Ellen can’t read.”
“Then you ought to read them to her.”
“That’s what I think,” Bessie answered, amiably. “I’m going to do it very soon—day after to-morrow, I guess.”
“What has Jane said?” asked Thaddeus, biting his lip.
Bessie colored. Jane had expressed herself with considerable force, and Bessie had been a little afraid to tell Thaddeus what she had said and done.
“Oh, nothing much,” she answered. “She—she said she’d never worn caps like a common servant, and wasn’t going to begin now; and then she didn’t like having to clean the silver on Saturday afternoons, because the silver-powder got into her finger-nails; and that really is too bad, Teddy, because Saturday night is the night her friends come to call, and silver-powder is awfully hard to get out of your nails, you know; and, of course, a girl wants to appear neat and clean when she has callers.”
“Of course,” said Thaddeus. “And I judge by the appearance of the brass fenders that she doesn’t like to polish them up on Wednesday because it gives her a backache on Thursday, which is her day out.”
Bessie’s eyes took on their watery aspect again.
“Do the fenders look so very badly, Ted?” she asked.
“They’re atrocious,” said Thaddeus.
“I’m sorry, dear; but I did my best. I polished them myself this afternoon; Jane had to go to a funeral.”
“Oh, my!” cried Thaddeus. “This subject’s too much for me. Let’s go out—somewhere, anywhere—to a concert. Music hath its charms to soothe a savage breast, and my breast is simply the very essence of wildness to-night. Put on your things, Bess, and hurry, or I’ll suffocate.”
Bessie did as she was told, and before ten o’clock the happy pair had forgotten their woes, nor do I think they would have remembered them again that night had they not found on their return home that they were locked out.
At this even the too amiable Bessie was angry—very angry—unjustly, as it turned out afterwards.
“They weren’t to blame, after all,” she explained to Thaddeus, when he came home the next night. “I spoke to them about it, and they all thought we’d spend the night with your mother and father at the Oxford.”
“They’re a thoughtful lot,” said Thaddeus.
And so time passed. The “treasures” did as they pleased; the dubious auburn-haired Norah continued her aggravating efficiency. Bessie’s days were spent in anticipation of an interview of an unpleasant nature with Jane or Ellen “to-morrow.” Thaddeus’s former smile grew less perpetual—that is, it was always visible when Bessie was before him, but when Bessie was elsewhere, so also was the token of Thaddeus’s amiability. He chafed under the tyranny, but it never occurred to him but once that it would be well for him to interview Ellen and Jane; and then, summoning them fiercely, he addressed them mildly, ended the audience with a smile, and felt himself beneath their sway more than ever.
Then something happened. A day came and went, and the morrow thereof found Thaddeus dethroned from even his nominal position of head of the house. There was a young Thaddeus, an eight-pound Thaddeus, a round, red-cheeked, bald-headed Thaddeus that looked more like the Thaddeus of old than Thaddeus did himself; and then, at a period in which man feels himself the least among the insignificant, did our hero find happiness unalloyed once more, for to the pride of being a father was added the satisfaction of seeing Jane and Ellen acknowledge a superior. Make no mistake, you who read. It was not to Thaddeus junior that these gems bowed down. It was to the good woman who came in to care for the little one and his mother that they humbled themselves.
“She’s great,” said Thaddeus to himself, as he watched Jane bustling about to obey the command of the temporary mistress of the situation as she had never bustled before.
“She’s a second Elizabeth,” chuckled Thaddeus, as he listened to an order passed down the dumb-waiter shaft from the stout empress of the moment to the trembling queen of the kitchen.
“She’s a little dictatorial,” whispered Thaddeus to his newspaper, when the monarch of all she surveyed gave him his orders. “But there are times, even in a Republic like this, when a dictator is an advantage. I hate to see a woman cry, but the way Jane wept at the routing Mrs. Brown gave her this morning was a finer sight than Niagara.”
But, alas! this happy state of affairs could not last forever. Thaddeus was just beginning to get on easy terms with Mrs. Brown when she was summoned elsewhere.
“Change of heir is necessary for one in her profession,” sighed Thaddeus; and then, when he thought of resuming the reins himself, he sighed again, and wished that Mrs. Brown might have remained a fixture in the household forever. “Still,” he added, more to comfort himself than because he had any decided convictions to express—“still, a baby in the house will make a difference, and Ellen and Jane will behave better now that Bessie’s added responsibilities put them more upon their honor.”
For a time Thaddeus’s prophecy was correct. Ellen and Jane did do better for nearly two months, and then—but why repeat the old story? Then they lapsed, that is all, and became more tyrannical than ever. Bessie was so busy with little Ted that the household affairs outside of the nursery came under their exclusive control. Thaddeus stood it—I was going to say nobly, but I think it were better put ignobly—but he had a good excuse for so doing.
“A baby is an awful care to its mother,” he said; “a responsibility that takes up her whole time and attention. I don’t think I’d better complicate matters by getting into a row with the servants.”
And so it went. A year and another year passed. The pretty home was beginning to look old. The bloom of its youth had most improperly faded—for surely a home should never fade—but there was the boy, a growing delight to his father, so why complain? Better this easy-going life than one of domestic contention.
Then on a sudden the boy fell ill. The doctor came—shook his head gravely.
“You must take him to the sea-shore,” he said. “It is his only chance.”
And to the sea-shore they went, leaving the house in charge of the treasures.
“I have confidence in you,” said Thaddeus to Jane and Ellen on the morning of the departure, “so I have decided to leave the house open in your care. Mrs. Perkins wants you to keep it as you would if she were here. Whatever you need to make yourselves comfortable, you may get. Good-bye.”
“What a comfort it is,” said Bessie, when they had reached the sea-shore, and were indulging in their first bit of that woful luxury, homesickness—“what a comfort it is to feel that the girls are there to look after things! An empty house is such a temptation to thieves.”
“Yes,” said Thaddeus. “I hope they won’t entertain too much, though.”
“Ellen and Jane are too old for that sort of thing,” Bessie answered.
“How about Norah?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. There was nothing really for Norah to do, so I told her she could go off and stay with her mother on board-wages.”
