Mary Minds Her Business — Inside the Classic

There were three children to this marriage--one son and two daughters.

I will tell you about the daughters in my first chapter--two delightful old maids who later had a baby between them--but first I must tell you about the seventh and last Josiah.

In his youth he was wild.

This may have been partly due to that irreducible minimum of Original Sin which (they say) is in all of us--and partly due to his cousin Stanley.

Now I don't mean to say for a moment that Stanley Woodward was a natural born villain. I don't think people are born that way at all. At first the idea probably struck him as a sort of a joke. "If anything happens to young Josiah," I can imagine him thinking to himself with a grin, "I may own this place myself some day.... Who knows?"

And from that day forward, he unconsciously borrowed from the spiders--if you can imagine a smiling spider--and began to spin.

Did young Josiah want to leave the office early? Stanley smilingly did his work for him.

Was young Josiah late the next morning? Stanley smilingly hid his absence.

Did young Josiah yearn for life and adventure? Stanley spun a few more webs and they met that night in Brigg's livery stable.

It didn't take much of this--unexpectedly little in fact--the last of the Spencers resembling one of those giant firecrackers of bygone days--the bigger the cracker, the shorter the fuse. Some say he married an actress, which was one of the things which were generally whispered when I was a boy. A Russian they said she was--which never failed to bring another gasp. Others say she was a beautiful bare-back rider in a circus and wore tights--which was another of the things which used to be whispered when I was a boy, and not even then unless the children had first been sent from the room and only bosom friends were present.

Whatever she was, young Josiah disappeared with her, and no one saw him again until his mother died in the mansion on the hill. Some say she died of a broken heart, but I never believed in that, for if sorrow could break the human heart I doubt if many of us would be alive to smile at next year's joys. However that may be, I do believe that young Josiah thought that he was partly responsible for his mother's death. He turned up at the funeral with a boy seven years old; and bit by bit we learned that he was separated from his wife and that the court had given him custody of their only child.

As you have probably noticed, there are few who can walk so straight as those who have once been saved from the crooked path. There are few so intolerant of fire as those poor, charred brands who have once been snatched from the burning.

After his mother's funeral young Spencer settled down to a life of atonement and toil, till first his father and then even his cousin Stanley were convinced of the change which had taken place in the one-time black sheep of the family.

By that time the patents on the artillery wheel had expired and a competition had set in which was cutting down the profits to zero. Young Josiah began experimenting on a new design which finally resulted in a patent upon a combination ball and roller bearing. This was such an improvement upon everything which had gone before, that gradually Spencer & Son withdrew from the manufacture of wagons and wheels and re-designed their whole factory to make bearings.

This wasn't done in a month or two, nor even in a year or two. Indeed the returned prodigal grew middle aged in the process. He also saw the possibilities of harnessing the water power above the factory to make electric current. This current was sold so cheaply that more and more factories were drawn to New Bethel until the fame of the city's products were known wherever the language of commerce was spoken.

At the height of his son's success, old Josiah died, joining those silent members of the firm who had gone before. I often like to imagine the whole seven of them, ghostly but inquisitive, following the subsequent strange proceedings with noiseless steps and eyes that missed nothing; and in particular keeping watch upon the last living Josiah Spencer--a heavy, powerfully built man with a look of melancholy in his eyes and a way of sighing to himself as though asking a question, and then answering it with a muffled "Yes... Yes..." This may have been partly due to the past and partly due to the future, for the son whom he had brought home with him began to worry him--a handsome young rascal who simply didn't have the truth in him at times, and who was buying presents for girls almost before he was out of short trousers.

His name was Paul--"Paul Vionel Olgavitch Spencer," he sometimes proudly recited it, and whenever we heard of that we thought of his mother.

The older Paul grew, the handsomer he grew. And the handsomer he grew, the wilder he became and the less the truth was in him. At times he would go all right for a while, although he was always too fond of the river for his aunts' peace of mind.

At a bend below the dam he had found a sheltered basin, covered with grass and edged with trees. And there he liked to lie, staring up into the sky and dreaming those dreams of youth and adventure which are the heritage of us all.

Or else he would sit and watch the river, although he couldn't do it long, for its swift movement seemed to fascinate him and excite him, and to arouse in him the desire to follow it--to follow it wherever it went. These were his quieter moods.

Ordinarily there was something gipsy-like, something Neck-or-Nothing about him. A craving for excitement seemed to burn under him like a fire. The full progression of correction marched upon him and failed to make impression: arguments, orders, warnings, threats, threshings and the stoppage of funds: none of these seemed to improve him in the least.

Josiah's two sisters did their best, but they could do nothing, either.

"I wouldn't whip him again, Josiah," said Miss Cordelia one night, timidly laying her hand upon her brother's arm. "He'll be all right when he's a little older.... You know, dear ... you were rather wild, yourself ... when you were young.... Patty and I were only saying this morning that if he takes after you, there's really nothing to worry about--"

"He's God's own punishment," said Josiah, looking up wildly. "I know--things I can't tell you. You remember what I say: that boy will disgrace us all...."

One morning he suddenly and simply vanished with the factory pay-roll and one of the office stenographers.

In the next twelve months Josiah seemed to age at least twelve years--his cousin Stanley watching him closely the while--and then one day came the news that Paul Spencer had shot and killed a man, while attempting to hold him up, somewhere in British Columbia.

If you could have seen Josiah Spencer that day you might have thought that the bullet had grazed his own poor heart.

"It's God's punishment," he said over and over. "For seven generations there has been a Spencer & Son--a trust that was left to me by my father that I should pass it on to my son. And what have I done...!"

Whereupon he made a gesture that wasn't far from despair--and in that gesture, such as only those can make who know in their hearts that they have shot the albatross, this preface brings itself to a close and at last my story begins.

"Patty," said Miss Cordelia one morning, "have you noticed Josiah lately?"

"Yes," nodded Miss Patricia, her eyes a little brighter than they should have been.

"Do you know," continued the other, her voice dropping to a whisper, "I'm afraid--if he keeps on--the way he is--"

"Oh, no, Cordelia! You know as well as I do--there has never been anything like that in our family."

Nevertheless the two sisters looked at each other with awe-stricken eyes, and then their arms went around each other and they eased their hearts in the immemorial manner.

"You know, he worries because we are the last of the Spencers," said Cordelia, "and the family dies with us. Even if you or I had children, I don't think he would take it so hard--"

A wistful look passed over their faces, such as you might expect to see on those who had repented too late and stood looking through St. Peter's gate at scenes in which they knew they could never take a part.

"But I am forty-eight," sighed Cordelia.

"And I--I am fifty--"

The two sisters had been writing when this conversation started. They were busy on a new generation of the Spencer-Spicer genealogy, and if you have ever engaged on a task like that, you will know the correspondence it requires. But now for a time their pens were forgotten and they sat looking at each other over the gatelegged table which served as desk. They were still both remarkably good-looking, though marked with that delicacy of material and workmanship--reminiscent of old china--which seems to indicate the perfect type of spinster-hood. Here and there in their hair gleamed touches of silver, and their cheeks might have reminded you of tinted apples which had lightly been kissed with the frost.

And so they sat looking at each other, intently, almost breathlessly, each suddenly moved by the same question and each wishing that the other would speak.

For the second time it was Cordelia who broke the silence.

"Yes, dear?" breathed Patty, and left her lips slightly parted.

"I wonder if Josiah--is too old--to marry again! Of course," she hurriedly added, "he is fifty-two--but it seems to me that one of the Spicers--I think it was Captain Abner Spicer--had children until he was sixty--although by a younger wife, of course."

They looked it up and in so doing they came across an Ezra Babcock, father-in-law of the Third Josiah Spencer, who had had a son proudly born to him in his sixty-fourth year.

They gazed at each other then, those two maiden sisters, like two conspirators in their precious innocence.

"If we could find Josiah a young wife--" said the elder at last.

"Oh, Cordelia!" breathed Patty, "if, indeed, we only could!"

Which was really how it started.

As I think you will realize, it would be a story in itself to describe the progress of that gentle intrigue--the consultations, the gradual eliminations, the search, the abandonment of the search--(which came immediately after learning of two elderly gentlemen with young wives--but no children!)--the almost immediate resumption of the quest because of Josiah's failing health--and finally then the reward of patience, the pious nudge one Sunday morning in church, the whispered "Look, Cordelia, that strange girl with the Pearsons--no, the one with the red cheeks--yes, that one!"--the exchange of significant glances, the introduction, the invitation and last, but least, the verification of the fruitfulness of the vine.

The girl's name was Martha Berger and her home was in California. She had come east to attend the wedding of her brother and was now staying with the Pearsons a few weeks before returning west. Her age was twenty-six. She had no parents, very little money, and taught French, English and Science in the high school back home.

"Have you any brothers or sisters!" asked Miss Cordelia, with a side glance toward Miss Patty.

"Only five brothers and five sisters," laughed Martha.

For a moment it might be said that Miss Cordelia purred.

"Any of them married?" she continued.

"My dear! ... You don't mean to say that they have made you an aunt already?"

Martha paused with that inward look which generally accompanies mental arithmetic.

"Only about seventeen times," she finally laughed again.

When their guest had gone, the two sisters fairly danced around each other.

"Oh, Patty!" exulted Miss Cordelia, "I'm sure she's a fruitful vine!"

There is something inexorable in the purpose of a maiden lady--perhaps because she has no minor domestic troubles to distract her; and when you have two maiden ladies working on the same problem, and both of them possessed of wealth and unusual intelligence--!

They started by taking Martha to North East Harbor for the balance of the summer, and then to keep her from going west in the fall, they engaged her to teach them French that winter at quite a fabulous salary. They also took her to Boston and bought her some of the prettiest dresses imaginable; and the longer they knew her, the more they liked her; and the more they liked her, the more they tried to enlist her sympathies in behalf of poor Josiah--and the more they tried to throw their brother into Martha's private company.

"Look here," he said one day, when his two sisters were pushing him too hard. "What's all this excitement about Martha? Who is she, anyway?"

"Why, don't you know!" Cordelia sweetly asked him, and drawing a full breath she added: "Martha--is--your--future--wife--"

If you had been there, you would have been pardoned for thinking that the last of the Spencers had suddenly discovered that he was sitting upon a remonstrative bee.

The two sisters smiled at him--rather nervously, it is true, but still they kept their hands upon their brother's shoulders, as though they were two nurses soothing a patient and saying: "There, now ... The-e-e-ere ... Just be quiet and you'll feel better in a little while."

"Yes, dear," whispered Cordelia, her mouth ever so close to his ear. "Your future wife--and the mother of your future children--"

"Nonsense, nonsense--" muttered Josiah, breaking away quite flustered. "I'm--I'm too old--"

Almost speaking in concert they told him about Captain Abner Spencer who had children until he was sixty, and Ezra Babcock, father-in-law of the third Josiah Spencer, who had a son proudly born to him in his sixty-fourth year.

"And she's such a lovely girl," said Cordelia earnestly. "Patty and I are quite in love with her ourselves--"

"And think what it would mean to your peace of mind to have another son--"

"And what it would mean to Spencer & Son--!"

Josiah groaned at that. As a matter of fact he hadn't a chance to escape. His two sisters had never allowed themselves to be courted, but they must have had their private ideas of how such affairs should be conducted, for they took Josiah in hand and put him through his paces with a speed which can only be described as breathless.

Flowers, candy, books, jewellery, a ring, the ring--the two maiden sisters lived a winter of such romance that they nearly bloomed into youth again themselves; and whenever Josiah had the least misgiving about a man of fifty-two marrying a girl of twenty-six, they whispered to him: "Think what it will mean to Spencer & Son--" And whenever Martha showed the least misgivings they whispered to her: "That's only his way, my dear; you mustn't mind that." And once Cordelia added (while Patty nodded her head): "Of course, there has to be a man at a wedding, but I want you to feel that you would be marrying us, as much as you would be marrying Josiah. You would be his wife, of course, but you would be our little sister, too; and Patty and I would make you just as happy as we could--"

Later they were glad they had told her this.

It was a quiet wedding and for a time nothing happened; although if you could have seen the two maiden sisters at church on a Sunday morning, you would have noticed that after the benediction they seemed to be praying very earnestly indeed--even as Sarah prayed in the temple so many years ago. There was this curious difference, however: Sarah had prayed for herself, but these two innocent spinsters were praying for another.

Then one morning, never to be forgotten, Martha thought to herself at the breakfast table, "I'll tell them as soon as breakfast is over."

She thought, "I'll take them into the garden and tell them there--"

But though she took them into the garden, somehow she couldn't tell them there.

"As soon as we get back into the house," she said, "I'll tell them."

Even then the words didn't come, and Martha sat looking out of the window so quietly and yet with such a look of mingled fear and pride and exaltation on her face, that Cordelia suddenly seemed to divine it.

"Oh, Martha," she cried. "Do you--do you--do you really think--"

Miss Patty looked up, too--stricken breathless all in a moment--and quicker than I can tell it, the three of them had their arms around each other, and tears and smiles and kisses were blended--quite in the immemorial manner.

"We must start sewing," said Miss Cordelia.

So they started sewing, Martha and the two maiden sisters, every stitch a hope, every seam the dream of a young life's journey.

"We must think beautiful thoughts," spoke up Miss Patty another day.

So while they sewed, sometimes one and sometimes another read poetry, and sometimes they read the Psalms, especially the Twenty-third, and sometimes Martha played the Melody in F, or the Shower of Stars or the Cinquieme Nocturne.

"We must think brave thoughts, too," said Miss Cordelia.

So after that, whenever one of them came to a stirring editorial in a newspaper, or a rousing passage in a book, it was put on one side to be read at their daily sewing bee; and when these failed they read Barbara Fritchie, or Patrick Henry, or Horatio at the Bridge.

"Do you notice how much better Josiah is looking!" whispered Miss Cordelia to her sister one evening.

"A different man entirely," proudly nodded Miss Patty. "I heard him speaking yesterday about an addition to the factory--"

"I suppose it's because he's living in the future now--"

"Instead of in the past. But I do wish he wouldn't be quite so sure that it's going to be a boy. I'm afraid sometimes--that perhaps he won't like it--if it's a girl--"

They had grown beautiful as they spoke, but now they looked at each other in silence, the same fear in both their glances.

"Oh, Cordelia," suddenly spoke Miss Patty. "Suppose it is a girl--!"

"Hush, dear. Remember, we must have brave thoughts. And even if the first one is a girl, there'll be plenty of time for a boy--"

"I hadn't thought of that," said Miss Patty.

They smiled at each other in concert, and a faint touch of colour arose to Miss Cordelia's slightly withered cheeks.

"Do you know," she said, hesitating, smiling--yes, and thrilling a little, too--"we've had so much to do with bringing it about, that somehow I feel as though it's going to be _my_ baby--"

"Why, Cordelia!" whispered Miss Patty, who had been nodding throughout this confession. "That's exactly how I feel about it, too!"

It wasn't long after that before they began to look up names.

"If Josiah wasn't such a family name," said Miss Cordelia, "I'd like to call him Basil. That means kingly or royal." Then of course they turned to Cordelia. Cordelia meant warm-hearted. Patricia meant royal. Martha meant the ruler of the house.

They were pleased at these revelations.

The week before the great event was expected, Martha had a notion one day. She wished to visit the factory. Josiah interpreted this as the happiest of auguries.

"After seven generations," was his cryptic remark, "you simply can't keep them away. It's bred in the bone...."

He drove Martha down to the works himself, and took her through the various shops, some of which were of such a length that when you stood at one end, the other seemed to vanish into distance.

Everything went well until they reached the shipping room where a travelling crane was rolling on its tracks overhead, carrying a load of boxes. This crane was hurrying back empty for another load, its chain and tackle swinging low, when Martha started across the room to look at one of the boys who had caught his thumb between a hammer and a nail and was trying to bind it with his handkerchief. The next moment the swinging tackle of the crane struck poor Martha in the back, caught in her dress and dragged her for a few horrible yards along the floor.

That night the house on the hill had two unexpected visitors, the Angel of Death following quickly in the footsteps of the Angel of Life.