That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's Part 8

Beth's just a tramp-."

Eliza had risen. She stood like an offended G.o.ddess before the woman.

"Not another word in my house, Livia Burtsch. Not another word. You always have been a news-carrier, making trouble wherever you go. I've borne with you a good many years without saying a word in return. I've put up with it too long. Now, we'll understand each other. If you can come in my home and visit without carrying news, and slandering everyone in the neighborhood, well and good; you may come and I'll make you welcome. If you can't be civil and can't keep from bothering about my affairs-stay away."

Mrs. Burtsch had also arisen. She was fairly trembling with offended pride. She looked at Eliza as though she had never seen her before.

Indeed, she had never seen such an Eliza before. She could not say a word. She made an effort, but it only ended in a clack of her tongue against her false teeth. With what dignity she could command, she turned and, jerking Rose up by the hand, fairly pulled her from the room.

Her tongue was loosened before she reached home. Rose listened to a storm of abuse against Eliza and her fosterchild. She learned all the particulars of Beth's advent into the Wells home.

When they had gone, Eliza went back to her sewing. Her hand trembled with nervousness. Beth came and stood back of her chair. "Adee, I think I'll fix your hair like you used to wear it when I was a baby."

She loosened the smooth bands until the soft chestnut locks fell loosely about the high, broad forehead. The roll of hair was too heavy for the child to manage, so Adee herself coiled it loosely as Beth wished it to be.

The child disappeared for a moment, but soon returned with some sweet peas in a delicate pink.

"This is the way you used to wear them, Adee." She stuck them in with her light, easy touch.

"Now, look how sweet you look, Adee," she cried. Eliza viewed herself in the big mirror and smiled. She recognized beauty when she saw it and-well, she was growing to look like her own flowers, and her own heart.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mrs. Burtsch remained away all the remainder of the summer and until late in the fall. Rose, of course, was prohibited from visiting Beth.

For her own part, Eliza was better pleased than otherwise with the arrangement of affairs. She regretted that Beth was cut off from intimate companions.h.i.+p with those of her own age, yet Rose had never been the most desirable acquaintance. Being alone was preferable to undesirable friends.

Eliza made a point of inviting Helen Reed from Friday until Sunday evening. The two little girls had the best of times. There were bushels of pop-corn and barrels of apples. When the weather was not too cold, they spent hours playing in the attic. Eliza had given them each a play skirt which could trail behind, and they were happy.

There was a box of antiquated hats in the attic. Beth and Helen at once set up a millinery shop and sewed braids and trimmed hats until their fingers were sore. They had quite a fine a.s.sortment before they had finished. It was only too bad that they had no customers and were forced to buy their own goods.

Winter months in the country are never propitious for visiting unless one is able to keep a driving horse. The people at s.h.i.+ntown had only the work horses. During the coldest months these were taken to town to haul ice from the river to the big store houses, and so were unavailable. So the folks of s.h.i.+ntown ploughed their own way through the snow to church or Sunday-school which was always held in the school-house.

Eliza caught glimpses of Mrs. Burtsch and tried to speak to her, but the offended lady would accept no overtures. She took her place opposite Eliza and never looked in her direction. When Beth after services would have run after Rose, Mrs. Burtsch drew her offspring away with, "Come, Rose, this instant. Hain't I told you that I want you to be particular who you are friends with."

Even at the sauer-kraut supper, which was the annual event for the last week in November, when money was raised to pay the minister's salary, Mrs. Burtsch ignored her neighbors of the old Wells place. Eliza was was.h.i.+ng dishes and Mrs. Burtsch carrying plates heaped with pork, sauer-kraut and mashed potatoes.

After several attempts, Eliza gave up and accepted Mrs. Burtsch's att.i.tude as a matter of course. Since the day when Beth had fluffed her hair and stuck sweet peas in it, Eliza had kept it so. The garden flowers had all gone. There were plenty of house plants at the Wells place, however. The evening of the supper, Beth stuck a pink geranium in her foster-mother's hair.

"You'll be the very sweetest one at the party Adee," said Beth.

She was a true prophet. Eliza's work and the overheated room had given her cheeks the same tint as the flower in her hair.

"Eliza Wells haint so bad looking," said Sam Houston to some one near him. "It's wonderful how she does keep her looks. She's thirty-five if she's a day."

More than one pair of eyes were attracted toward her. Mrs. Kilgore sighed when she overheard some one mention Eliza's fine coloring. She shook her head sadly. "I don't like the looks of it," she said. "Old Sally Caldwell, her great aunt by marriage on her father's side, had just such high coloring and she was took off sudden as could be with galloping consumption. You can't tell me. Such things are inherited.

Mark my words, Eliza Wells will be took off before the year is out. It hain't natural. A woman ought to look a little faded by the time she's Eliza's age. It's only natural that she should."

"Don't let that worry you none," laughed Mrs. Burtsch in her bitter, cynical fas.h.i.+on. "Those red cheeks won't have nothing to do with Eliza's going off unless she goes off with just plumb foolishness. We could all be blooming out and looking like young colts if we wanted to spend our money at a drug-store. Pink cheeks! Buy them at twenty-five cents a bottle at Swain's drug-store."

Sleet set in before the supper was over. It was almost nine o'clock before the social event of the season was over and the lights in the school-house were ready to be turned off. The weather had moderated and the sleet had become a rain. The walking was bad. Slush with pools of water had filled the road.

Old Squire Stout had come over with his three-seated "carry-all".

"I'll carry you and Beth home," he said to Eliza. "You'uns folks is farthest out and you hain't got no men folks with you. You'd better ride along."

"I should like to. Beth's so tired that she can barely keep on her feet."

They were ready to start when Mrs. Burtsch came out of the school-house with her basket over her arm. "I most forgot my potato-kettle," she explained. "I never could get along without that."

"Oh, is that you, Livia," cried the squire in his way. "Better climb in and we'll carry you home. Always room for one more. Crowd in somewhere.

Let the youngsters sit on the floor."

Mrs. Burtsch was about to comply when she saw that the only seat not already crowded to its full capacity, was occupied by Eliza and the squire's wife. They had moved closer to make room for her.

"Not to-night, but I thank you kindly just the same, squire. I'll keep to Shank's mare yet awhile. I'll trot on alone and I'll be sure to be in good company."

"Suit yourself, Livia," said the squire, touching his whip to the flanks of the off horse. "It's a right fool thing to walk two miles on a night like this when you could just as well ride. But I hain't no way responsible for your foolishness. You always was plumb set in your ways."

Later events proved that Mrs. Burtsch was foolish. Sam Houston brought the news to Eliza. Sam and his wife had the best intentions in the world. They were "chock-full" to the throat with fine theories about how to run a farm and anything else that came up for discussion. They meant to put their theories into practice, but somehow they never got around to it. He knew when sauer-kraut should be made and just how it should be made. He got as far in working it out as to have his cabbage piled on the back porch with bran sacks over it to keep it from freezing. His "working germ" took a vacation there. The week following the sauer-kraut supper, he came around to Eliza's back door. He was careful to "stomp"

the snow from his boots before he entered the kitchen.

"Why-you, Sam?" exclaimed Eliza. "I hope nothing has happened to Mary Jane." Sam was not one to make early calls.

"No, the missis is all right. She just sent me over to get the lend of your kraut-cutter. You hain't using it, I calculate."

"Mercy, no. I've got mine made long ago. The cutter's out in the wash-house. You'll find it hanging up behind the door."

"We're a little slow somehow about making ours. 'Pears to be so much to do. There's ch.o.r.es, and then I had some carpenter work to do on the chicken-coop. But last night, the cold nipped the top layer of the cabbage heads, so Mary Jane said we'd better make the kraut right off or it would all be spoiled. She spoke to set up with Livia Burtsch to-night."

"Livia Burtsch?" exclaimed Eliza. "What's wrong with her?"

"Got water-soaked the night of the church-supper and took 'monia'.

They've had the doctor from the Bend. The parson's been to see her.

She's right bad. Somebody's had to set up with her every night now for three days. She gets out of her head."

Sam moved on to get the sauer-kraut cutter. There was no question in Eliza's mind as to her duty.

"I'm going over to see Mrs. Burtsch, Beth," she said. "I'm not sure that I'll be back in time for dinner. You can take some bread and milk. I don't want you to fuss with the fire and try to cook while I'm away.

Mrs. Burtsch is sick and may need me."

There were more ways than one in which Mrs. Burtsch would need help.

Eliza knew that. Olivia was not one to "cook up" anything. She was generally out of bread and never made jelly, or canned what she called "truck". Eliza knew how she would find matters in the Burtsch household, so she took her biggest basket and filled it with some fresh bread, some jelly and several bottles of home-made grape-juice.

She wasted no time in apology or explaining when she entered the Burtsch household.

"Well Livia, this is too bad that you're laid up. Have you had any breakfast yet?"