Michael O'Halloran Part 63

CHAPTER XVI

_The Fingers in the Pie_

When Mickey went the following morning to bring water for the inevitable was.h.i.+ng, Mrs. Harding said to him: "Is it possible that child is awake this early?"

"No. She is sleeping like she'd never come to," said Mickey. "I'll wait 'til the last minute before I touch her."

"You shouldn't wake her," said Mrs. Harding.

"But I must," said Mickey. "I can't go away and leave her not washed, fed, and fixed the best I can."

"Of course I understand that," said Mrs. Harding, "but now it's different. Then you were forced, this is merely a question of what is best for her. Now Mickey, we're all worked up over this till we're most beside ourselves, so we want to help; suppose you humour us, by letting us please ourselves a trifle. How does that proposition strike you?"

"Square, from the ground up," answered Mickey promptly. "But what would please you?"

"Well," said Mrs. Harding, "it would please me to keep this house quiet, and let that child sleep till the demands of her satisfied body wake her up. Then I'd love to bathe her as a woman would her own, in like case; and cook her such dainties as she should have: things with lots of lime in them. I think her bones haven't been built right; I believe I could make her fifty per cent better in three months myself; and as far as taking her away when this week is up, you might as well begin to make different plans right now. If she does well here, and likes it, she can't be taken back where I found her, till cool weather, if I can get the consent of my mind to let her go then. Of course I know she's yours, so things will be as you say, but think a while before you go against me. If I do all I can for her I ought to earn the privilege of having my finger in the pie a little bit."

"So far as Lily goes," said Mickey, "I'd be tickled 'most to death. I ain't anxious to pull and haul, and wake up the poor, little sleepy thing. Every morning it 'most makes me sick. I'd a lot rather let her sleep it out as you say, but while Lily is mine, and I've got to do the best by her I can, you are Peter's so he must do the best by you he can; and did you notice how he jumped on that was.h.i.+ng business yesterday? How we going to square up with Peter?"

"I'm perfectly willing to do what I said for the sake of that child.

I've come to be mighty fond of you Mickey, in the little time I've known you; if I didn't like and want to help Peaches I'd do a lot for her, just to please you----"

"Gee, you're something grand!" cried Mickey.

"Just common clay, commonest kind of clay Mickey," said Mrs. Harding.

"But if you want to know how you could 'square' it with me, which will 'square' it with Peter--I'll tell you. You may think I'm silly; but as we're made, we're made, and this is how it is with me: of course I love Peter, my children, my home, and I love my work; but I've had this job without 'jot or t.i.ttle' of change for fifteen years, and I'm about stalled with the sameness of it. I know you'll think I'm crazy----"

"I won't!" interrupted Mickey. "You go on and tell me! The sameness of it is getting you and----"

"Just the way you flew around and did things last night perfectly amazed me. I never saw a boy like you before; you helped me better and with more sense than any woman I ever hired, and thinking it over last night, I said to myself, 'Now if Mickey would be willing to trade jobs with me, it would give me a change, and it wouldn't be any more woman's work for him than what he _is_ doing----"

"Well never you mind about the 'woman's work' part of it," said Mickey.

"That doesn't cut any ice with me. It's men's work to eat, and I don't know who made a law that it was any more 'woman's work' to cook for men than it is their own. If there _is_ a law of that kind, I bet a liberty-bird the _men_ made it. I haven't had my show at law-making yet, but when I get it, there are some things I can see right now that I'm going to fix for Lily, and I'd sooner fix them for you too, than not. Just _what_ were you thinking?"

Mrs. Harding went to Mickey, took him by the shoulder, turned him toward the back door and piloted him to the porch, where she pointed east indicating an open line. It began as high as his head against the side of the Harding back wall and ran straight. It crossed the yard between trees that through no design at all happened to stand in line with those of the orchard so that they formed a narrow emerald wall on each side of a green-carpeted s.p.a.ce that led to the meadow, where it widened, ran down hill and crossed lush gra.s.s where cattle grazed. Then it climbed a far hill, tree crested, cloud capped, and in a mist of glory the faint red of the rising sun worked colour miracles with the edges of cloud rims, tinted them with flushes of rose, lavender, streaks of vivid red, and a broad stripe of pale green. Alone, on the brow of the hill, stood one giant old apple tree, the remains of an early-day orchard. It was widely branching, symmetrically outlined, backed and coloured by cloud wonder, above and around it. The woman pointed down the avenue with a shaking finger, and asked: "See that Mickey? Start slow and get all of it. Every time I've stepped on this back porch for fifteen years, summer or winter, I've seen that just as it is now or as it was three weeks ago when the world was blooming, or as it will be in the red and gold of fall, or the later grays and browns, and when it's ice coated, and the sun comes up, I think sometimes it will kill me. I've neglected my work to stand staring, many's the time in summer, and I've taken more than one chill in winter--I've tried to show Peter, and a few times I've suggested----"

"He ought to have seen for himself that you should have had a window cut there the first thing," said Mickey.

"Well, he didn't; and he doesn't!" said Mrs. Harding. "But Mickey, for fifteen years, _there hasn't been a single morning when I went to the back porch for water_----"

"And you ought to have had water inside, fifteen years ago!" cried Mickey.

"_Why so I had!_" exclaimed Mrs. Harding. "And come to think of it, I've mentioned _that_ to Peter, over and over, too. But Mickey, what I started to say was, that I've been perfectly possessed to follow that path and watch the sun rise while sitting under that apple tree; and never yet have I got to the place where there wasn't bread, or churning, or a baby, or visitors, or a wash, or ironing, or some reason why I couldn't go. Maybe I'm a fool, but sure as you're a foot high, I've got to take that trip pretty soon now, or my family is going to see trouble. And last night thinking it over for the thousandth time I said to myself: since he's so handy, if he'd keep things going just one morning, just one morning----"

Mickey handed her a sun hat.

"G'wan!" he said gruffly. "I'll do your work, and I'll do it right.

Lily can have her sleep. G'wan!"

The woman hesitated a second, pushed away the hat, took her bearings and crossed the walk, heading directly toward the old apple tree on the far crest. Her eyes were set on the rising sun, and as she turned to close the yard gate, Mickey could see that there was an awed, unnatural expression on her face. He stepped into the dining-room. By the time Peter and Junior came with big buckets of milk, Mickey had the cream separator rinsed and together, as he had helped Mrs. Harding fix it the day before. With his first glance Peter inquired: "Where's Ma?"

"She's doing something she's been crazy to for fifteen years," answered Mickey calmly, as he set the gauge and poured in the first bucket of milk.

"Which ain't answering where she is."

"So 'tain't!" said Mickey, starting the machine. "Well if you'll line up, I'll show you. Train your peepers down that green subway, and on out to glory as presented by the Almighty in this particular stretch of country, and just beyond your cows there you'll see a spot about as big as Bobbie, and that will be your nice lady heading straight for sunrise. She said she'd wanted to go for fifteen years, but there always had been churning, or baking, or something, so this morning, as there wasn't a thing but what I could do as good as she could, why we made it up that I'd finish her work and let her see her sunrise, since she seems to be set on it; and when she gets back she's going to wash and dress Lily for a _change_. Strange how women folks get discouraged on their job, among their best friends, who would do anything in the world for them, 'cept just to see that a little bit of change would help them. It will be a dandy scheme for Lily, 'cause it lets her get her sleep out, and it will be good for you, 'cause if Mrs. Harding doesn't get to sit under that apple tree and watch sunup pretty soon, things are going to go wrong at this house."

Peter's lower jaw slowly sagged.

"If you don't hurry," said Mickey, "even loving her like you do, and loving you as she does, she's going to have them nervous prostrations like the Swell Dames in Multiopolis get when they ask a fellow to carry a package, and can't remember where they want to send it. She's not there _yet_. She's ahead of them now, for she _wants_ to sit under that apple tree and watch sunup; but if she hadn't got there this morning or soon now, she'd a-begun to get mixed, I could see that plain as the City Hall."

"Mickey, what else can you see?" asked Peter.

"Enough to make your head swim," said Mickey.

"Out with it!" ordered Peter.

"Well," said Mickey gravely, and seemingly intent on the separator, but covertly watching Peter, "well, if you'd a-cut that window she's wanted for fifteen years, right over her table there where the line comes, she would a-been seeing that particular bit of glory--you notice Peter, that probably there's nothing niftier on earth than just the little spot she's been pining for; look good yourself, and you'll see, there she's just climbing the hill to the apple tree--look at it carefully, and then step inside and focus on what she's faced instead."

"What else does she want?" inquired Peter.

"She didn't mention anything but to watch sunup, just once, under that apple tree," said Mickey. "I don't know _what_ she wants; but from one day here, I could tell you things she _should_ have."

"Well go ahead and tell," said Peter.

"Will you agree not to break my neck 'til I get this cream in the can, and what she keeps strained, and these buckets washed?" asked Mickey.

"I want to have her job all done when she gets back, 'cause I promised her, and that's quite a hike she's taking."

"Well I was 'riled' for a minute, but I might as well hold myself,"

said Peter. "Looks like you were right."

"Strangers coming in can always see things that folks on the job can't," consoled Mickey.

"Well go on and tell me what you've seen here Mickey!"

Mickey hoisted the fourth bucket.

"Well, I've seen the very nicest lady I ever saw, excepting my mother,"

said Mickey. "I've seen a man 'bout your size, that I like better than any man I know, barring Mr. Douglas Bruce, and the bar is such a little one it would take a microscope to find it." Peter laughed, which was what Mickey hoped he would do, for he drew a deep breath and went on with greater a.s.surance: "I've seen a place that I thought was a new edition of Heaven, and it is, only it needs a few modern improvements----"

"Yes Mickey! The window, and what else?"

"You haven't looked at what I told you to about the window yet," said Mickey.