The Best Short Stories of 1919 Part 16

"Do you want I should tell you about them dishes?"

"Well--it was thisaway. And understand--I don't blame n.o.buddy. Folks are different. I always loved pretty dishes, but I never got to use 'em.

First on account of you being little"--she eyed Nellie and Marvin with benignant allowance--"and after that, because of Nell always bein' agen'

using things common. She's like her father. He was thataway. He was a good man, but he 'lowed good things shouldn't be used common. And then when Myry come with her purty weddin' dishes and all, I'd hoped she'd be sort o' different--more like me. But seem like she favored Nell. But I'd never thought of breakin' them if it hadn't a be'n for the pink cup.

That give me the idee. That very night I broke the sa.s.ser to it. I figured I'd get the use of them dishes some way."

Old Mrs. Bray clucked pleasantly, and resumed.

"I'd always wanted to wear one o' my good dresses afternoons, too.

Well--Myry made me one. And she was reel good about wantin' me to wear it common. I had a good man. I've had good children. I've lived a long life. But two things I wanted, I never had--pretty dishes to use, and to be dressed up afternoons. Myry makin' me that dress turned my head, I reckon. And the pink cup finished it."

"I take the full blame. It was me done both--broke the cup and sewed the dress"--spoke up Myry. "And it's you I favored all along, Mother. If you knew how I've honed to set the table with my weddin' dishes. And I could show you--I've got some things you've never seen--house-dresses--pink--sprigged--"

"Meanin' no offense, Nellie--and Marvin--you can't help bein' like your pa. I guess I'm just a foolish old woman."

"We're all like we're made," sounded the oracular accents of Mr.

Peebles. "Joke's on you all right, Nell."

"I guess I'm it," she admitted cheerfully.

Doc Bradley looked sharply at Myra when she let him out. Perhaps he noted the pathos of that thin face; those speaking eyes, that seemed to confess a secret longing.

"If you should feel the call, just break a few dishes on your own account!" he advised her. "I like to see folks get what they want. If they want it bad enough, they'll get it." He thought it might be a dress, perhaps--something pretty. Women in Myry's case have odd notions.

Myry had an odd notion. She wanted to be told that she was beautiful and loved.

"You little black stringy thing!" she told herself fiercely. "He's fond of you. And good to you. He's like his pa; he won't show it common. And anyways--you beautiful!"

But every month she read, with a new and avid interest, those far-fetched, extravagant tales of beautiful and beloved women.

During the remainder of Nell's stay, old Mrs. Bray and Myra felt a certain delicacy about inaugurating the use of the white cloths, the wedding china, and the pretty bits on the safe-shelf. But when the Peebles's visit was over, the table achieved a patterned whiteness and a general festive appearance. Old Mrs. Bray donned the gray-and-lavender every afternoon, and Myra bloomed out in pink print. She scarcely ever went abroad now, but for all that, her world was infinitely widened.

Once Marvin, dangling from two spread fingers a tiny yoke, inquired doubtfully, "Do you think it's big enough to go round his neck?"

He was always urging her to have help in, and not to tire herself out.

But curiously, he never noted the pink print any more than if it had been dull slate. That had not been his pa's way; and it was not his way.

But he was good to her. What more could a woman ask?

After Nell came, he felt aggrieved--quite useless and in the way. The women were always displaying things--digging them out from the bottoms of drawers--clouds of soft, white things, with here and there a rift of color in ta.s.sel or tufting.

There came a night when he sat alone. In the beginning, he had tried to read--he picked up her woman's magazine, eyeing it curiously, that these silly, floppy sheets should hold, as they did, women's eyes. There were pictures in it--always pictures--pictured embraces, with words beneath.

"How beautiful you are! I love you--I love you! How beautiful you are!"

Always harping on the same thing--love and beauty. As if life were a sentimental thing like that!

He flung it down. How could he stay his mind on such stuff, when Myry--when Myry--

Nell, important and managerial, occasionally came out and elbowed him about in some mysterious search. At such times, old Mrs. Bray, done up for the night in a highly flowered and mantle-like garment, came creeping inquiringly in.

"Now, Nell--you know what Myry told ye--if you was to fergit now--"

"All right, Mother. I won't forget."

"You know where to find 'em--"

"Yes, I know where to find 'em."

"Now, Nell, I promised Myry--"

"What did you promise Myry?" Marvin flared in sudden jealousy. Both women eyed him, as from a great and unattainable height. Then Nell's capable back disappeared beyond Myry's door; and his mother's little old grotesque and woolly figure was swallowed up by the black hall.

Again he took up the magazine. Again looked at the picture. Again, scarcely seeing them, he read the words. Again he sat; and again Nell elbowed him importantly, and his mother in her snail-like wrappings, came creeping in to remind Nell--

When Doc Bradley came out, at first he thought the man, sprawled loosely in the chair, must be asleep--till he lifted his eyes. They were sleepless and inflamed like a watch-dog's.

"Hold on! Wait a minute! Nell's boss now. You don't want to go in looking that way--you'd skeer 'im!"

"What'll I say?" inquired Marvin hoa.r.s.ely; "Myry's a good woman--she 's been a good wife to me--too good--"

"Tell 'er something she don't know! Say something fond-like and foolish."

"You can come in now," granted the lofty Nell.

Somehow, old Mrs. Bray had preceded him. But he never saw her. He never even saw the managerial Nell. He saw his wife's face, looking so little and white from out a ruffled lace cap. There were circles of ruffles about her thin wrists. There was a lace ruffle in the neck of her gown.

For these were Myry's coronation robes; it was about this adorning that old Mrs. Bray had continuously cautioned Nell. Nell, in that smug, proprietary manner of hers, had turned back a blanket--enough to show the tiny yoke which he had dangled, and the neck which it encircled, and the red and wrinkly head on top of that---

Like a well-conned article of catechism, words came to Marvin--words he could never have got from his pa.

"Oh, Myry--I love you! How beautiful you are!"

A strange cosmetic glowed on Myra's white cheek. Happiness is the surest beautifier. He might never say it again. It was not likely that he would. He favored his pa. But she had had her great moment--her beautiful and beloved moment. She smiled drowsily up at old Mrs. Bray, beaming beneficently above; and remembered, in an odd flash, the pink china cup. This was her cup--full and running over.

"Come on out now, and let her sleep," ordered the dictatorial Nell.

"Who'd a' thought, now, Myry had her little vanities? That lace cap now, and them ruffles--for Marvin! Some folks has the strangest notions."

"'Tain't notions!" protested old Mrs. Bray.

"Oh, yes, it is! And all right, if you feel that way--like you and your dishes, now."

"Myry and me both is powerful set on dishes," exulted old Mrs. Bray.

THE BLOOD-RED ONE[8]

[Note 8: Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner's Sons.]

BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT