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Page 36
"Find out--find out--" droned the voice, monotonously.
The President sat up very straight in his chair. "The children--the
children." He remembered now--they were the children from the
incurable ward at Saint Margaret's.
He sank back with a feeling of great helplessness, and closed his eyes
again. And there he sat, immovable, his finger still marking his place
in the report of the United Charities.
The Oldest Trustee sat alone, knitting comforters for the Preventorium
patients. Like many another elderly person, her usual retiring hour
was later than that of the younger members of her household,
undoubtedly due to the frequent cat-naps snatched from the evening.
The Oldest Trustee had a habit of knitting the day's events in with her
yarn. What she had done and said and heard were all thought over again
to the rhythmic click of her needles. And the results at the end of
the evening were usually a finished comforter and a comfortable
feeling. This night, however, the knitting lagged and the thoughts
were unaccountably dissatisfying; she could not even settle down to a
cat-nap with the habitual serenity.
"I don't know why I should feel disturbed," and the Oldest Trustee
prodded her yarn ball with a disquieting needle, "but I certainly miss
the usual gratification of a day well spent."
She closed her eyes, hoping thereby to lose herself for the space of a
moment, but instead-- She was startled to hear voices at her very
elbow; a number of persons must have entered the room, but how they
could have done so without her knowing it she could not understand. Of
course they thought her asleep; it was just as well to let them think
so. She really felt too tired to talk.
"Mother's undoubtedly growing old. Have you noticed how much she naps
in the evening, now?" It was the voice of her youngest daughter.
"I heard her telling some one the other day she was five years younger
than she is. That's a sure sign," and her son laughed an amused little
chuckle.
"I can tell you a surer one." This time it was her oldest
daughter--her first-born. "Haven't you noticed how all mother's little
peculiarities are growing on her? She is getting so much more
dictatorial and preachy. Of course, we know that mother means to be
kind and helpful, but she has always been so--tactless--and blunt; and
it's growing worse and worse."
"I have often wondered how all her charity people take her; it must
come tough on them, sometimes. Gee! Can't you see her raising those
lorgnettes of hers and saying, 'My good boy, do you read your Bible?'
or, 'My little girl, I hope you remember to be grateful for all you
receive.' Say, wouldn't you hate to have charity stuffed down your
throat that way?" and the oldest and favorite grandson groaned out his
feelings.
"That isn't what I should mind the most." It was the youngest daughter
speaking again. "I've been with mother when she has made remarks about
the patients in the hospital, loud enough for them to hear, and I was
so mortified I wanted to sink through the floor, And you simply can't
shut mother up. Of course she doesn't realize how it sounds; she
doesn't believe they hear her, but I know they do. I wonder how mother
would like to have us stand around her--and we know her and love
her--and have us say she was getting deaf, or her hair was coming out,
or her memory was beginning to fail, or--"
The Oldest Trustee smiled grimly. "Oh, don't stop, my dear. If there
is any other failing you can think of--" She opened her eyes with a
start. "Goodness gracious!" she exclaimed. "My grandson is in college
five hundred miles away, and my daughter is abroad. Have I been
dreaming?"
The Meanest Trustee unlocked the drawer of his desk and took out a
cigar. He did not intend that his sons or his servants should smoke at
his expense; furthermore, it was well not to spread temptation before
others. He took up the evening paper and examined the creases
carefully. He wished to make sure it had not been unfolded before;
being the one to pay for the news in his house, he preferred to be the
first one to read it. The creases proved perfectly satisfactory; so he
lighted his cigar, crossed his feet, and settled himself--content in
his own comfort. The smoke spun into spirals about his head; and after
he had skimmed the cream of the day's events he read more leisurely,
stopping to watch the spirals with a certain lazy enjoyment. They
seemed to grow increasingly larger. They spun themselves about into
all kinds of shapes, wavering and illusive, that defied the somewhat
atrophied imagination of the Meanest Trustee.
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