第28章 CHAPTER XII--FLOTSAM AND JETSAM(1)

It may be said in justice to Mrs. Grubb that she was more than usually harassed just at this time.

Mrs. Sylvester, her voluble next-door neighbour, who had lifted many sordid cares from her shoulders, had suddenly become tired of the 'new method of mental healing,' and during a brief absence of Mrs.

Grubb from the city had issued a thousand embossed gilt-edged cards, announcing herself as the Hand Reader in the following terms TO THE ELITE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CITY!

I take this method of introducing myself to your kind consideration as a Hand Reader of RARE and GENUINE MERIT; catering merely to the Creme du le Creme of this city. No others need apply.

Having been educated carefully and refinedly, speaking French fluently, therefore I only wish to deal with the elite of the bon-ton.

I do not advertise in papers nor at residence.

Ladies $1.50. Gents $2.

Yours truly, MRS. PANSY SYLVESTER, 3 Eden Place near 4th, Lower bell PS. Pupil of S. CORA GRUBB.

Inasmuch as Mrs. Sylvester had imbibed all her knowledge from Mrs.

Grubb, that prophet and scholar thought, not unnaturally, that she might have been consulted about the enterprise, particularly as the cards were of a nature to prejudice the better class of patients, and lower the social tone of the temple of healing.

As if this were not vexatious enough, her plans were disarranged in another and more important particular. Mrs. Sylvester's manicure had set up a small establishment for herself, and admitted as partner a certain chiropodist named Boone. The two artists felt that by sharing expenses they might increase profits, and there was a sleeping thought in both their minds that the partnership might ripen into marriage if the financial returns of the business were satisfactory. It was destined, however, to be a failure in both respects; for Dr. Boone looked upon Madame Goldmarker, the vocal teacher in No. 13 Eden Place, and to look upon her was to love her madly, since she earned seventy-five dollars a month, while the little manicure could barely eke out a slender and uncertain twenty.

In such crises the heart can be trusted to leap in the right direction and beat at the proper rate.

Mrs. Grubb would have had small interest in these sordid romances had it not been that Madame Goldmarker had faithfully promised to look after Lisa and the twins, so that Mrs. Grubb might be free to hold classes in the adjoining towns. The little blind god had now overturned all these well-laid plans, and Mrs. Grubb was for the moment the victim of inexorable circumstances.

Dr. Boone fitted up princely apartments next his office, and Madame Goldmarker Boone celebrated her nuptials and her desertion of Eden Place by making a formal debut at a concert in Pocahontas Hall. The next morning, the neighbourhood that knew them best, and many other neighbourhoods that knew them not at all, received neat printed circulars thrust under the front door. Upon one side of the paper were printed the words and music of 'Home, Sweet Home,' 'as sung by Madame Goldmarker Boone at her late concert in Pocahontas Hall.' On the reverse side appeared a picture of the doctor, a neat cut of a human foot, a schedule of prices, and the alluring promise that the Madame's vocal pupils would receive treatment at half the regular rates.

Many small disputes and quarrels were consequent upon these business, emotional, and social convulsions, and each of the parties concerned, from Mrs. Grubb to the chiropodist, consulted Mistress Mary and solicited her advice and interference.

This seemed a little strange, but Mistress Mary's garden was the sort of place to act as a magnet to reformers, eccentrics, professional philanthropists, and cranks. She never quite understood the reason, and for that matter nobody else did, unless it were simply that the place was a trifle out of the common, and she herself a person full of ideas, and eminently sympathetic with those of other people.

Anybody could 'drop in,' and as a consequence everybody did--grandmothers, mothers with babes in arms, teachers, ministers, photographers, travellers, and journalists. A Russian gentleman who had escaped from Siberia was a frequent visitor. He wanted to marry Edith and open a boarding-house for Russian exiles, and was perfectly confident of making her happy, as he spoke seven languages and had been a good husband to two Russian ladies now deceased. An Alaskan missionary, home on a short leave, called periodically, and attempted to persuade Mary to return with him to his heathen. These suitors were disposed of summarily when they made their desires known; but there were other visitors, part of the flotsam and jetsam of a great city, who appeared and disappeared mysteriously--ships passing Mistress Mary in the night of sorrow, and, after some despairing, half-comprehended signal, vanishing into the shadows out of which they had come. Sometimes, indeed, inspired by the good cheer of the place, they departed, looking a little less gloomy; sometimes, too, they grew into a kind of active if transitory relation with the busy little world, and became, for a time, a part of it.

Mistress Mary went down to the street corner with the children one noon to see them safely over the crossing. There was generally a genial policeman who made it a part of his duty to stand guard there, and guide the reckless and stupid and bewildered ones among the youngsters over the difficulties that lay in their path. Sometimes he would devote himself exclusively to Atlantic and Pacific Simonson, who really desired death, though they were not spiritually fitted for it, and bent all their energies towards getting under trucks rather than away from them. Marm Lisa never approached the spot without a nervous trembling and a look of terror in her eyes, and before the advent of the helpful officer had always taken a twin by each arm, and the three had gone over thus as a solid body, no matter how strong the resistance.