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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #67373 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67373)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Worst Joke in the World, by
-Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The Worst Joke in the World
-
-Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
-
-Release Date: February 11, 2022 [eBook #67373]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark. This file was produced from
-             images generously made available by The Internet Archive.
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORST JOKE IN THE WORLD ***
-
-
-
-                     The Worst Joke in the World
-
-           A STORY WHICH THROWS A NEW AND INTERESTING LIGHT
-                    UPON THE TIME-HONORED PROBLEM OF
-                         THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
-
-                     By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
-
-
-Mrs. Champney was putting the very last things into her bag, and Mrs.
-Maxwell and Mrs. Deane sat watching her. The room in which she had
-lived for nearly four years was already strange and unfamiliar. The
-silver toilet articles were gone from the bureau. The cupboard door
-stood open, showing empty hooks and shelves. The little water colors
-of Italian scenes had vanished from the walls, and the books from the
-table. All those things were gone which had so charmed and interested
-Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.
-
-They were old ladies, and to them Jessica Champney at fifty was not
-old at all. With her gayety, her lively interest in life, and her
-dainty clothes, she seemed to them altogether young—girlish, even, in
-her enthusiastic moments, and always interesting. They loved and
-admired her, and were heavy-hearted at her going.
-
-“You’ve forgotten the pussy cat, Jessica,” Mrs. Maxwell gravely
-remarked.
-
-“Oh, so I have!” said Mrs. Champney.
-
-Hanging beside the bureau was a black velvet kitten with a strip of
-sandpaper fastened across its back, and underneath it the inscription:
-
-                           SCRATCH MY BACK
-
-It was intended, of course, for striking matches. As Mrs. Champney
-never had occasion to strike a match, this little object was not
-remarkably useful. Nor, being a woman of taste, would she have
-admitted that it was in the least ornamental; but it was precious to
-her—so precious that a sob rose in her throat as she took it down from
-the wall.
-
-She showed a bright enough face to the old ladies, however, as she
-carried the kitten across the room and laid it in the bag. She had
-often talked to these old friends about her past—about her two
-heavenly winters in Italy, about her girlhood “down East,” about all
-sorts of lively and amusing things that she had seen and done; but she
-had said very, very little about the period to which the velvet kitten
-belonged.
-
-It had been given to her in the early days of her married life by a
-grateful and adoring cook. It had hung on the wall of her bedroom in
-that shabby, sunny old house in Connecticut where her three children
-had been born. She could not think of that room unmoved, and she did
-not care to talk of it to any one.
-
-Not that it was sad to remember those bygone days. There was no trace
-of bitterness in the memory. It was all tender and beautiful, and
-sometimes she recalled things that made her laugh through the tears;
-but even those things she couldn’t talk about.
-
-There was, for instance, that ridiculous morning when grandpa had come
-to see the baby, the unique and miraculous first baby. He had sat down
-in a chair and very gingerly taken the small bundle in his arms, and
-the chair had suddenly broken beneath his portly form. Down he
-crashed, his blue eyes staring wildly, his great white mustache fairly
-bristling with horror, the invaluable infant held aloft in both hands.
-If she had begun to tell about that, in the very middle of it another
-memory might have come—a recollection of the day when she had sat in
-that same room, the door locked, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes
-staring ahead of her at the years that must be lived without her
-husband, her friend and lover.
-
-She had thought she could not bear that, but she had borne it; and the
-time had come when the memory of her husband was no longer an anguish
-and a futile regret, but a benediction. She had lived a happy life
-with her children. They were all married now, and in homes of their
-own, and she was glad that it should be so.
-
-These four years alone had been happy, too. Her children wrote to her
-and visited her, and their family affairs were a source of endless
-interest. She had all sorts of other interests, too. She made friends
-readily; she was an energetic parish worker; she loved to read; she
-enjoyed a matinée now and then, or a concert, and the conversation of
-Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.
-
-With all her heart she had relished her freedom and her dignity. Her
-children were always asking her to come and live with one or the other
-of them, but she had always affectionately refused. She believed it
-wasn’t wise and wasn’t right.
-
-She had stayed on in this comfortable, old-fashioned boarding house in
-Stamford, cheerful and busy. It had been a delight beyond measure to
-her to send a little check now and then to one of her children, a
-present to a grandchild, some pretty thing that she had embroidered or
-crocheted to her daughters-in-law. Her elder son’s wife had written
-once that she was a “real fairy godmother,” and Mrs. Champney never
-forgot that. It was exactly what she wanted to be to them all—a gay,
-sympathetic, gracious fairy godmother.
-
-But she wasn’t going to be one any longer. What her lawyer called a
-“totally unforeseen contingency” had arisen, and all her life was
-changed. He was a young man, that lawyer. His father had been Mrs.
-Champney’s lawyer and friend in his day, and she had, almost as a
-matter of course, given the son charge of her affairs when the elder
-man died.
-
-She had not wanted either of her sons to look after things for her.
-She didn’t like even to mention financial matters to people she loved.
-Indeed, she had been a little obstinate about this. And now this
-“totally unforeseen contingency” had come, to sweep away almost all of
-her income, and with it the independence, the dignity, that were to
-her the very breath of life.
-
-If it had been possible, she would not have told her children. She had
-said nothing when she had received that letter from the lawyer—such an
-absurd and pitiful letter, full of a sort of angry resentment, as if
-she had been unjustly reproaching him. She had gone to see him at
-once. She had been very quiet, very patient with him, and had asked
-very few questions about what had happened. She simply wanted to know
-exactly what there was left for her, and she learned that she would
-have fifteen dollars a month.
-
-So she had been obliged to write to her children, and they had all
-wanted her immediately; but she chose her second son, because he lived
-nearest, and she hadn’t enough money for a longer journey. Now she was
-ready to go to his house.
-
-She locked the bag and gave one more glance around the empty room.
-
-“Well!” she said cheerfully. “That seems to be all!”
-
-Mrs. Maxwell rose heavily from her chair.
-
-“Jessica,” she said, not very steadily, “we’re going to miss you!”
-
-Mrs. Deane also rose.
-
-“Whoever else takes this room,” she added sternly, “it won’t be
-_you_—and I don’t care what any one says, either!”
-
-Mrs. Champney put an arm about each of them and smiled at them
-affectionately. She was, in their old eyes, quite a young woman, full
-of energy and courage, trim and smart in her dark suit and her
-debonair little hat; but she had never before felt so terribly old and
-discouraged.
-
-She couldn’t even tell these dear old friends that she would see them
-again soon, for in order to see them she would have either to get the
-money for the railway ticket from her son, or else to invite them to
-her daughter-in-law’s house. It hurt her to leave them like this—and
-it was only the beginning.
-
-At this point the landlady came toiling up the stairs.
-
-“The taxi’s here, Mrs. Champney,” she said, with a sigh. “My, how
-empty the room does look!”
-
-So Mrs. Champney kissed the old ladies and went downstairs. The two
-servants were waiting in the hall to say good-by to her. She smiled at
-them. Then the landlady opened the front door, and Mrs. Champney went
-out of the house, still smiling, went down the steps, and got into the
-taxi.
-
-She sat up very straight in the cab, a valiant little figure, dressed
-in her best shoes, with spotless white gloves, and her precious sable
-stole about her shoulders—and such pain and dread in her heart! There
-was no one in the world who could quite understand what she felt in
-this hour. To other people she was simply leaving a boarding house
-where she had lived all by herself, and going to a good home where she
-was heartily welcome, to a son whom she loved, a daughter-in-law of
-whom she was very fond, and a grandchild who was almost the very best
-of all her grandchildren; but to Mrs. Champney the journey was bitter
-almost beyond endurance.
-
-She loved her children with all the strength of her soul, but she had
-been wise in her love. She had tried always to be a little aloof from
-them, never to be too familiar, never to be tiresome. She had given
-them all she had, all her love and care and sympathy, and she had
-wanted nothing in return. She wished them to think of her, not as weak
-and helpless, but as strong and enduring, and always ready to give.
-And now—
-
-“Now I’m going to be a mother-in-law,” she said to herself. “Oh,
-please God, help me! Help me not to be a burden to Molly and Robert!
-Help me to stand aside and to hold my tongue! Oh, please God, help me
-_not_ to be a mother-in-law!”
-
-
-                                  II
-
-Mrs. Champney had arranged matters so as to reach the house just at
-dinner time. She even hoped that she might be a little late, so that
-there wouldn’t be any time at all to sit down and talk. She had never
-dreaded anything as she dreaded that first moment, the crossing of
-that threshold. Her hands and feet were like ice, her thin cheeks were
-flushed, anticipating it. She wanted to enter in an agreeable little
-stir and bustle, to be cheerful, to be casual; but Robert and Molly
-were too young for that. They would be too cordial.
-
-“I don’t expect them to want me,” said Mrs. Champney to herself. “They
-can’t want me. If they’d only just not try—not pretend!”
-
-She did not know Molly very well. She had seen her a good many
-times—Molly and the incomparable baby—but that had been in the days
-when Mrs. Champney was a fairy godmother, with all sorts of delightful
-gifts to bestow. Robert’s wife had been a little shy with her. A kind,
-honest girl, Mrs. Champney had thought her, good to look at in her
-splendid health and vitality, but not very interesting. And now she
-had to come into poor Molly’s house!
-
-She was pleased to see that her train was late. She had not told them
-what train she would take. Perhaps they wouldn’t keep dinner waiting.
-When she got there, perhaps they would be sitting at the table. Then
-she could hurry in, full of cheerful apologies, and sit down with
-them, and there wouldn’t be that strained, terrible moment she so much
-dreaded.
-
-A vain hope! For, as she got out of the train, her heart sank to see
-Robert there waiting for her—Robert with his glummest face, Robert at
-his worst.
-
-There was no denying that Robert had a worst. He was never willful and
-provoking, as his adorable sister could be upon occasion. He was never
-stormy and unreasonable, like his elder brother; but he could be what
-Mrs. Champney privately called “heavy,” and that was, for her, one of
-the most dismaying things any one could be. She saw at the first
-glance that he was going to be heavy now.
-
-“Mother!” he said, in a tone almost tragic.
-
-“But, my dear boy, how in the world did you know I’d get this train?”
-she asked gayly. “I didn’t write—”
-
-“I’ve been waiting for an hour,” he answered. “You said ‘about dinner
-time,’ and I certainly wasn’t going to let you come from the station
-alone. This way—there’s a taxi waiting.”
-
-Mrs. Champney was ashamed of herself. Robert was the dearest boy, so
-stalwart, so trustworthy, so handsome in his dark and somber fashion,
-and so touchingly devoted to her! After all, wasn’t it far better to
-be a little too heavy than too light and insubstantial? As he got into
-the cab beside her, she slipped her arm through his and squeezed it.
-
-“You dear boy, to wait like that!” she said.
-
-“Mother!” he said again. “By Heaven, I could wring that fellow’s neck!
-Speculating with your money—”
-
-“Don’t take it like that, Robert. It’s all over and done with now.”
-
-“No, it’s not!” said he. “It’s—the thing is, you’ve been used to all
-sorts of little—little comforts and so on; and just at the present
-time I’m not able to give you—”
-
-“Please don’t, Robert!” she cried. “It hurts me!”
-
-He put his arm about her shoulders.
-
-“You’re not going to be hurt,” he said grimly; “not by _anyone_,
-mother!”
-
-His tone and his words filled her with dismay.
-
-“Robert,” she said firmly, “I will not be made a martyr of!”
-
-“A victim, then,” Robert insisted doggedly. “You’ve been tricked and
-swindled by that contemptible fellow; but Frank and I are going to see
-that it’s made right!”
-
-“Oh, Robert! You’re not going to do anything to that poor, miserable,
-distracted man?”
-
-“Nothing we can do. You gave the fellow a free hand, and he took
-advantage of it. No, I mean that Frank and I are going to make it up
-to you, mother.”
-
-He might as well have added “at any cost.” Mrs. Champney winced in
-spirit, but at the same time she loved him for his blundering
-tenderness, his uncomprehending loyalty. He meant only to reassure
-her, but he made it all so hard, so terribly hard! She felt tears well
-up in her eyes. How could she go through with this gallantly if he
-made it so hard?
-
-Then, suddenly, there came to her mind the memory of a winter
-afternoon, long, long ago, when Frank and Robert had been going out to
-skate. She had heard alarming reports about the ice, and she had run
-after them, bareheaded, into the garden. She could see that dear
-garden, bare and brown in the wintry sunshine; she could see her two
-boys, stopping and turning toward her as she called.
-
-Frank had laughingly assured her that there was no danger at all. That
-was Frank’s way. She didn’t believe him, yet his sublime confidence in
-himself and his inevitable good luck somehow comforted her; and then
-Robert had said:
-
-“Well, look here, mother—we’ll promise not to go near the middle of
-the pond at the same time. Then, whatever happens, you’ll have one of
-us left anyhow—see?”
-
-And that was Robert’s way. The very thought of it stopped the dreaded
-invasion of tears and made her smile to herself in the dark. Such a
-splendidly honest way—and so devastating!
-
-The taxi had stopped now, and Robert helped her out in a manner that
-made her feel very, very old and frail.
-
-“Wait till I pay the driver, mother,” he said. “Don’t try to go
-alone—it’s too dark.”
-
-So Mrs. Champney waited in the dark road outside that strange little
-house. Her son was paying for the cab; her son was going to assist her
-up the path; she was old and helpless and dependent.
-
-Then the front door opened, and Molly stood there against the light.
-
-“Hello, mother dear!” she called, in that big, rich, beautiful voice
-of hers. “Hurry in! It’s cold!”
-
-Mrs. Champney did hurry in, and Molly caught her in both arms and
-hugged her tight.
-
-“Just don’t mind very much how things are, will you?” she whispered.
-“My housekeeping’s pretty awful, you know!”
-
-Tears came to Mrs. Champney’s eyes again, because this was such a
-blessed sort of welcome.
-
-“As if I’d care!” she said.
-
-“Let me show your room—and Bobbetty,” said Molly.
-
-She took the bag from Robert, who had just come in, and ran up the
-stairs. Mrs. Champney followed her. All the little house seemed warm
-and bright with Molly’s beautiful, careless spirit. It wasn’t strange
-or awkward. It was like coming home; and the room that Molly had got
-ready for her was so pretty!
-
-“Dinner’s all ready,” said Molly; “but—if you’ll just take one look at
-Bobbetty. He’s—when he’s asleep, he’s—”
-
-Words failed her.
-
-Mrs. Champney got herself ready as quickly as she could, and followed
-Molly down the hall to a closed door. Molly turned the handle softly,
-and they stepped into a little room that was like another world, all
-dark and still, with the wind blowing in at an open window.
-
-“Nothing wakes him up!” whispered Molly proudly, and turned on a
-green-shaded electric lamp that stood on the bureau.
-
-Mrs. Champney went over to the crib and looked down at the child who
-lay there—the child who was her child, flesh of her flesh, and was yet
-another woman’s child. He was beautiful—more beautiful than any of her
-children had been. He lay there like a little prince. His face,
-olive-skinned and warmly flushed on the cheeks, wore a look of
-careless arrogance, his dark brows were level and haughty, his mouth
-was richly scornful; and yet, for all this pride of beauty, she could
-not help seeing the baby softness and innocence and helplessness of
-him.
-
-He might lie there like a little prince, but he was caged in an iron
-crib, he wore faded old flannel pyjamas, and beside him, where it had
-slipped from the hand that still grasped it in dreams, lay such an
-unprincely toy! Mrs. Champney, bending over to examine it, found it to
-be a rubber ball squeezed into a white sock.
-
-It seemed to Mrs. Champney that she could never tire of looking at
-that beautiful baby. She hadn’t half finished when Molly touched her
-arm and whispered “Robert,” and, turning out the light, led her
-husband’s mother across the dark, windy room out into the hall again.
-
-“I heard Robert getting restless downstairs,” she explained.
-
-Side by side they descended the stairs. Mrs. Champney was happy, with
-that particular happiness which the companionship of babies brought to
-her. She had friends who were made unhappy by the sight of babies.
-They said that they couldn’t help looking ahead and imagining the
-sorrows in store for the poor little things. But to Mrs. Champney this
-seemed morbid and quite stupid, because, when the sorrows came, the
-babies would no longer be babies, but grown people, and as well able
-as any one else to deal with them.
-
-No—babies were not melancholy objects to Mrs. Champney. On the
-contrary, they filled her with a strong and tender delight, because of
-her knowledge that whatever troubles came to them, she could surely
-help; because, for babies, a kiss is a cure for so much, and a song
-can dry so many baby tears; because love, which must so often stand
-mute and helpless before grown-up misery, can work such marvels for
-little children.
-
-She was happy, then, until she reached the foot of the stairs—and not
-again for a long time.
-
-Robert was waiting for them there. He came forward, with a faint
-frown, and pushed into place two hairpins that were slipping out of
-Molly’s hair. It was the most trifling action, yet it seemed to Mrs.
-Champney very significant. He didn’t like to see those hairpins
-falling out, didn’t like to see Molly’s lovely, shining hair in
-disorder. He noticed things of that sort, and he cared. He cared too
-much. There had been a look of annoyance and displeasure on his face
-that distressed Mrs. Champney.
-
-Fussiness, she thought, was one of the most deplorable traits a man
-could have.
-
-It was only another name for pettiness, and that was something no
-member of her family had ever displayed. Could it be possible that
-Robert, the most uncompromising and high-minded of all her children,
-was developing in that way—and with such a wife as Molly?
-
-She watched her son with growing uneasiness during the course of the
-dinner. It was a splendidly cooked dinner. The roast veal was browned
-and seasoned to perfection, the mashed potatoes were smooth and light,
-there were scalloped tomatoes and a salad of apples and celery, and a
-truly admirable lemon meringue pie; but Robert frowned because the
-potatoes were in an earthenware bowl, and the plates did not match.
-When the splendid pie appeared, in the tin dish in which it had been
-baked, he sprang up and carried it out into the kitchen, to return
-with it damaged, but lying properly on a respectable dish.
-
-“Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Robert!” Molly said, each time that Robert
-found something wrong; and there was such generous contrition in her
-honest face that Mrs. Champney wanted to get up and shake her son.
-
-What did those silly little things matter? How could he even see them,
-with Molly before his eyes?
-
-“She’s beautiful,” thought Mrs. Champney. “She wouldn’t be beautiful
-in a photograph. I suppose she’d look quite plain; but when you’re
-with her—when she smiles—it’s like a blessing!”
-
-
-                                 III
-
-It was not a comfortable meal for any of them, and Mrs. Champney was
-glad when it was finished. She offered to help Molly with the dishes,
-and she really wanted to do so; but when Molly refused, and she saw
-that Robert didn’t like the idea, she did not persist. She went into
-the little sitting room with Robert, and he settled her in an
-armchair, putting behind her shoulders a plump cushion that made her
-neck ache. He lit his pipe and began to move about restlessly.
-
-“You know,” he began abruptly, “Molly’s not really—slovenly.”
-
-“Robert!” cried Mrs. Champney. “What nonsense!”
-
-“Yes, I know,” he said doggedly; “but I don’t want you to think—”
-
-Mrs. Champney did not hear the rest of his speech. She was vaguely
-aware that he was making excuses for Molly, but she did not stop him.
-He had said enough. He had given her the key, and now she could
-understand.
-
-This was not pettiness, and Robert was not fussy. It was because he
-loved Molly so much that he could not endure to have another person
-see in her what might be construed as faults. If he had been alone
-with Molly, he wouldn’t have cared, he wouldn’t even have noticed
-these things. It was because his mother had come, and he was afraid.
-
-It is an old and a deep-rooted thing, the child’s faith in the
-mother’s judgment. If the mother has been honest and wise, if the
-child has been never deceived or disappointed by her, then, no matter
-how old he grows, or how far he may go from her, that old and
-deep-rooted faith lives in him. Robert, at twenty-six, was surer of
-himself than he was ever likely to be again. He was certain that all
-his ideas were his own, and that no living creature could influence
-him; yet he was terribly afraid of what his mother might think of
-Molly.
-
-For, after all, his mother was the standard, and the home she had made
-for him in his boyhood must forever be the standard of homes. She
-would see that this home of Molly’s was not like that. She would
-think—
-
-“You needn’t worry, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Champney gently. “I’m sure
-I’ll understand Molly.”
-
-And no more than that. It wouldn’t do to tell him what she really
-thought of Molly. It would sound exaggerated and insincere. It would
-startle him, and it might conceivably make him contrary; so she held
-her tongue.
-
-Presently Molly came in from the kitchen, flushed and smiling, and
-sank into a chair.
-
-“Take off that apron, old girl,” said Robert.
-
-“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Molly. “I always forget!”
-
-Robert took it away into the kitchen.
-
-“Too tired for a song, Molly?” he asked when he returned.
-
-“Of course I’m not!” said she, getting up again.
-
-She was tired, though, and a little nervous, and Mrs. Champney felt
-sorry for her; but Robert would have it so. His mother must see what
-Molly could do. He lay back in his chair, smoking, with an air of
-regal indifference, as if he were a young sultan who had commanded
-this performance but was not much interested in it; but as a matter of
-fact he was twice as nervous as Molly.
-
-He had spoken to his mother before about Molly’s singing, and Mrs.
-Champney had thought of it as an agreeable accomplishment for a son’s
-wife, but this performance amazed her. This was not a parlor
-accomplishment, this big, glorious voice, true and clear, effortless
-because so perfectly managed. This was an art, and Molly was an
-artist.
-
-“Molly!” she cried, when the song was done. “Molly, my dear! I don’t
-know what to say!”
-
-Molly flushed with pleasure.
-
-“I do love music,” she said. “I often hope Bobbetty will care about
-it.”
-
-“That was a darned silly song, though,” observed Robert.
-
-Molly turned away hastily.
-
-“I know it was!” she said cheerfully. But Mrs. Champney had seen the
-tears come into her eyes. Molly was hurt. She didn’t understand, and
-unfortunately Mrs. Champney did. She knew that Robert had been trying
-to tell his mother that Molly could do even better than this—that she
-could, if she chose, sing the most prodigious songs. He was afraid
-that his mother would judge and condemn Molly for that darned silly
-song about “the flowers all nodding on yonder hill.”
-
-“That’s what being a mother-in-law really means,” said Mrs. Champney
-to herself. “It means being the third person, the one who stands
-outside and sees everything—all the poor, pitiful little faults and
-weaknesses. Love won’t help. The more I love them, the more I can’t
-help seeing, and they’ll know—they’ll always know. When Robert is
-impatient, Molly will know that I’ve noticed it, and she’ll think she
-has to notice it, too. When Molly is careless, Robert will imagine
-that I’m blaming her, and he’ll feel ashamed of her. That’s why
-mothers-in-law make trouble. It’s not because they always interfere,
-or because they’re troublesome and domineering. It’s because they
-_see_ all the little things that nobody ought to see—the little things
-that would never grow important if a third person wasn’t there. I used
-to feel so sorry for mothers-in-law. I used to think it was a vulgar,
-heartless joke about their making trouble. A joke? Oh, it’s the worst,
-most horrible joke in the world—because it’s true!”
-
-
-                                  IV
-
-Mrs. Champney did not sleep well that night. When she first turned out
-the light, a strange sort of panic seized her. She felt trapped, shut
-in, here in this unfamiliar room, in this house where she had no
-business to be, and yet could not leave. She got up and turned on the
-light, and that was better, for she could think more clearly in the
-light. She propped herself up on the pillows, pulled the blanket up to
-her chin, and sat there, trying to find the way out.
-
-“There always is a way out,” she thought. “It’s never necessary to do
-a thing that injures other people. I must not stay here, or with any
-of my children. If I think quietly and sensibly, I can—”
-
-There was a knock at the door.
-
-“Are you all right, mother?” asked Robert’s voice. “I saw your light.”
-
-“Perfectly all right, dear boy!” she answered brightly. “I’m very
-comfortable. Good night!”
-
-“Sure?” he asked.
-
-She wanted to jump up and go to him and kiss him—her dear, solemn,
-anxious Robert; but that wouldn’t do. Never, never, while she had a
-trace of dignity and honor, would she turn to her children for
-reassurance. She was the mother. She could not always be strong, but
-she could at least hide her weakness from her children. She could
-endure her bad moments alone.
-
-“Quite sure!” she answered, and snapped out the light. “There! I’m
-going to sleep! Good night, my own dear, dear boy!”
-
-“Good night, mother!” he answered.
-
-His voice touched her so! If only she could let go, and be frail and
-helpless, and allow her children to take care of her! They would be so
-glad to do it—they would be so dear and kind!
-
-“Shame on you, Jessica Champney!” she said to herself. “You weren’t an
-old lady before you came here, and you’re not going to be one now.
-You’re only fifty, and you’re well and strong. There must be any
-number of things a healthy woman of fifty can do. Find them!”
-
-And then, as if by inspiration, she thought of Emily Lyons.
-
-The next morning, as soon as Robert had gone, she told Molly that she
-wanted to “see about something”; and off she went, dressed in her best
-again, and took the train to a near-by town. She was going to see Miss
-Lyons. She had not met this old school friend for a good many years,
-but she remembered her with affection and respect, and perhaps with a
-little pity, because Emily had never married. She had devoted her life
-to charitable work—an admirable existence, but, Mrs. Champney thought,
-rather a forlorn one.
-
-Her pity fled in haste, however, when she saw Emily.
-
-A very earnest young secretary ushered the caller into a big, quiet,
-sunny office, and there, behind a large desk, sat Miss Lyons. She rose
-at once, and came forward with outstretched hands. Her blue eyes
-behind the horn-rimmed spectacles were as friendly and kind as ever,
-and yet Mrs. Champney’s heart sank. The Emily she wished to remember
-was a thin, freckled girl with a long blond pigtail and a shy and
-hesitating manner—an Emily who had very much looked up to the debonair
-and popular Jessica. This was such a very different Emily—a person of
-importance, of grave assurance, a person with a large, impressive
-office at her command. To save her life Mrs. Champney couldn’t help
-being impressed by offices and filing cabinets and typewriters.
-
-She sat down, and she tried to talk in her usual blithe and amusing
-way, but she knew that she was not succeeding at all. In the presence
-of this new Emily she felt shockingly frivolous. She was sorry that
-she had worn her white gloves and her sable stole. She wished that the
-heels of her new shoes were not so high.
-
-She told Emily that she wanted something to do.
-
-“Do you mean charitable work, Jessica?” asked Miss Lyons.
-
-“I’m afraid I’d have to be paid,” said Mrs. Champney, with a guilty
-flush. “You see, Emily, I’ve had a—a financial disaster. Of course, my
-children are only too willing, but—”
-
-“They’re all married, aren’t they?” asked Emily.
-
-Something in the grave, kindly tone of her question stung Mrs.
-Champney into a sort of bitterness.
-
-“Yes,” she answered. “All of them are married. I’m a mother-in-law,
-Emily.”
-
-Miss Lyons did not smile. She was silent for a time, looking down at
-her polished desk as if she were consulting a crystal. Then she looked
-up.
-
-“We happen to need somebody in the Needlecraft Shop,” she said. “I
-could give you that, Jessica, at eighteen dollars a week; but—”
-
-“But what?” asked Mrs. Champney, after waiting a minute.
-
-“I’m afraid you haven’t had much experience,” said Miss Lyons.
-
-“I’ve done a good deal of parish work,” said Mrs. Champney anxiously.
-
-She had known love, and happiness with the man she loved. She had
-endured the anguish of losing him. She had borne three children and
-brought them up. She had traveled a little in the world. She had even
-known a “financial disaster” at fifty; but in the presence of Emily
-Lyons she was ready to admit that she had had no experience—that her
-sole qualification for any useful occupation was the parish work she
-had done.
-
-“If you’d like to try it, then,” said Emily gently. “I’ve found,
-though, that women who have led a sheltered domestic life are inclined
-to be a little oversensitive when it comes to business.”
-
-Mrs. Champney, into whose sheltered domestic life had come only such
-incidents as birth and death and illness and accident and so on, said
-that she hoped she wasn’t silly.
-
-“Of course you’re not, my dear!” said her old friend, taking her hand
-across the desk. “You’re splendid! You always were!”
-
-And Mrs. Champney had to be satisfied with that. She was to begin at
-the Needlecraft Shop the next morning. She was at last to enter the
-world; but instead of being filled with ambitious hopes and resolves,
-she actually could think of nothing but how she was to tell Robert
-about it.
-
-The only possible way was to take a mighty high hand with him from the
-start, and the trouble was that she didn’t feel high-handed. She felt
-depressed, and tired and—yes, crushed—that was the word for it. She
-was not going to let Robert suspect that, however, or Molly, either.
-
-She decided to take her time about getting back. After leaving Emily,
-she walked for a time through the streets of the brisk suburban town.
-Then, seeing a clean little white-tiled restaurant, she went in there
-and had her lunch. It was noon, and there were a good many other
-business women there. Mrs. Champney tried to feel that she was one of
-them now, but somehow she could not. Somehow the whole thing seemed
-unreal, and even a little fantastic.
-
-She mustn’t think that it was unreal or fantastic, or how could she
-convince Robert? She tried to make it real by doing all sorts of
-calculations based upon eighteen dollars a week. With that amount, and
-with what was left of her income, she could manage to live by herself,
-somewhere near Robert and Molly, where she could see them and the baby
-often, and yet be independent. Once more she could be a fairy
-godmother—with sadly clipped wings, to be sure, but still able to
-bestow a little gift now and then.
-
-She thought she would get something for Bobbetty now, and she bought
-one of the nicest gray plush animals imaginable. The saleswoman said
-it was a cat, but Mrs. Champney privately believed it to be a dog,
-because of its drooping ears. Anyhow, it was a lovable animal, with a
-frank and kindly expression and a most becoming leather collar. On the
-train, going back, she regretfully took out its round yellow eyes, for
-they were pins, and unless she forestalled him, Bobbetty would surely
-do this.
-
-Even then it was a lovable animal, and Bobbetty received it with warm
-affection. He was sitting in his high chair in the kitchen, while
-Molly cooked the dinner. He was almost austerely neat and clean after
-his bath, and he was eating a bowl of Graham crackers and milk, with a
-large bib tied under his chin. A model child—yet, in the sidelong
-glance of his black eyes in the direction of the new bowwow, who was
-not to be touched until supper was finished, Mrs. Champney saw a
-thoughtful and alarming gleam. Bobbetty was not quite sure whether he
-would continue being good, or whether it would be nicer suddenly and
-violently to demand the bowwow.
-
-Mrs. Champney helped him to choose the better course. She entertained
-him while he ate, and then carried him off upstairs, with the bowwow,
-and put him to bed. He became very garrulous then. He lay in his crib,
-clasping the bowwow, and he told Mrs. Champney all sorts of
-interesting things in such a polite, conversational tone that she felt
-quite ashamed of herself for interrupting him and telling him to go to
-sleep.
-
-He was nice about it, however. He paid no attention to this rudeness,
-but pleasantly went on talking. Even when she went out of the room and
-closed the door behind her, she heard his bland little voice
-continuing the story of a wild horsy who stampled on _six_ policemens.
-Bobbetty was not yet three, but he had personality.
-
-She was smiling as she went down the stairs—until she saw Robert. He
-came to the foot of the stairs, watching her as she came toward him.
-She had to meet his eyes, she had to smile again, but it was hard
-beyond all measure.
-
-She had never seen that look on his face before. He had always been
-utterly loyal to her, had always loved her, but it had been after the
-fashion of a boy. The look she saw on his face now was not a boy’s; it
-was the profound compassion and tenderness of a man. It came to her,
-with a stab of pain, that she had cruelly underrated her son. She had
-thought of him as a dear and rather clumsy boy, and he was so much
-more than that—so much more!
-
-Her own affair seemed more fantastic than ever now. Here was Robert,
-making his valiant battle in the world for the life and safety of his
-wife and child. Here was Molly, busy with the vital needs of life,
-with food and clothes, with the care of their child; and she herself
-was going to work in the Needlecraft Shop.
-
-She had to tell them, of course. When they were all seated at the
-table, she did so, in the most casual, matter-of-fact way.
-
-It was even worse than she had feared. Robert grew very white.
-
-“You mean—a job?” he asked.
-
-“It’s charitable work, really,” Mrs. Champney explained. “The
-foreign-born women bring their needlework to the shop, and we sell it
-on commission for them. The idea is to encourage their home
-industries, and—”
-
-“But you’re going to get paid for it?” asked Robert.
-
-“Why, yes!” said Mrs. Champney brightly. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy the
-work, too. I’ve always—”
-
-“You mean you’re going off to work every morning in this shop?” said
-Robert. “Do you mind telling me why?”
-
-“Because I consider it very useful and interesting work, Robert,”
-replied Mrs. Champney, with dignity.
-
-There was a long silence.
-
-“All right!” said Robert briefly.
-
-She knew how terribly she had hurt him. He had wanted to do so much
-for her, to take her into his home and protect her and care for her,
-and she would not let him. She had turned away with a smile from all
-that he had to offer. She would take nothing.
-
-“I’ve always led—such an active life,” she said, in a very unsteady
-voice. “I should think you could understand, Robert—”
-
-“I do!” he said grimly.
-
-“You don’t!” she cried. “You don’t! You—”
-
-She could not go on. She bent her head and pretended to be cutting up
-something on her plate, but she could not see clearly. He never would
-understand that she was doing this only for love of him, only so that
-she might not be here in his home as the sinister third person who saw
-everything and—
-
-She started at the touch of Molly’s hand on her arm.
-
-“If that’s your way to be happy, darling,” said Robert’s wife, and
-Mrs. Champney saw tears in her honest eyes.
-
-
-                                  V
-
-Mrs. Champney envisaged her life as divided into epochs, each one with
-its own significance and its own memories. There was her childhood,
-there was her girlhood. There were the early days of her married life,
-when she and her husband had been alone. There were the crowded and
-anxious and wonderful years when her children had been little. There
-was the beginning of her widowhood, overshadowed with anguish and
-loneliness, yet with a dark beauty of its own. There was her tranquil
-middle age, and there was her business life.
-
-She had begun it on Tuesday, and this was Friday. It had lasted four
-days, yet it seemed to her quite as long as all the years of her
-youth. It seemed a lifetime in itself, in which she had acquired a new
-and bitter wisdom.
-
-The train stopped at her station, and, with a crowd of other
-home-going commuters, Mrs. Champney got out and hurried up the steps
-to the street, to catch a trolley car; but she was not quick enough.
-By the time she got there the car was full, and she drew back and let
-it go. She never was quick enough any more. She seemed to have been
-transferred into a world of terrific speed and vigor, where she was
-hopelessly outdistanced, hopelessly old and weary and slow.
-
-She had thought, until this week, that she was a fairly intelligent
-and energetic woman. She had even had her innocent little vanities;
-but now, standing on the corner and looking after the car—
-
-“I’m a silly, doddering old thing!” she said to herself, with a
-trembling lip.
-
-She remembered all the dreadful defeats and humiliations of the week.
-She remembered how slow she had been about wrapping up things and
-making change—how curt she had been with some of the wealthiest and
-most important customers—how stupid she had been about understanding
-the Polish and Italian women who brought in their work. She remembered
-the weary patience of Miss Elliott, who managed the shop. Miss Elliott
-was not more than twenty-eight, but she had been to Mrs. Champney like
-a discouraged but long-suffering teacher with a very trying child.
-
-“Doddering!” Mrs. Champney repeated.
-
-She was alone on the corner. In this new world nobody waited for
-anything. Those who, like herself, had missed the car, had at once set
-off on foot; and Mrs. Champney decided to do so herself. It was less
-than a mile—a pleasant walk in the soft April dusk.
-
-This walk might have been specially designed by Miss Elliott to teach
-Mrs. Champney another lesson; only it was a lesson that she had
-already learned. She really needed no further demonstration of the
-fact that she was fifty and utterly tired and miserable. It was
-superfluous, it was cruel, and it made her angry. When she reached the
-street where Robert’s little house stood, her heart was hot and bitter
-with resentment.
-
-“If they’d only let me alone!” she thought. “I don’t want any one to
-speak to me or look at me. I know I’m unreasonable. I want to be
-unreasonable. I want to be let alone!”
-
-But of course she couldn’t be. Nobody can be let alone except those
-who would give all the world for a little tiresome interference. Molly
-saw at once how tired she was, and wanted her to lie down and have
-dinner brought up to her. Robert, by saying nothing at all, was still
-more difficult to endure.
-
-“I’m not particularly tired, Molly, thank you,” said Mrs. Champney,
-with great politeness.
-
-What she wanted to do was to stamp her foot and cry:
-
-“Let me alone! Let me alone! Tomorrow is Saturday, and the next day is
-Sunday. You can talk to me on Sunday. Let me alone now!”
-
-She sternly repressed all this. She sat down at the table and tried to
-eat her dinner. She forced herself to remain in the sitting room until
-ten o’clock.
-
-“In a week or two I’ll go away and get a room for myself,” she
-thought, “where I can be as tired as I like!”
-
-When the clock struck ten, she sat still and counted up to five
-hundred, so that she wouldn’t seem like a tired person in a dreadful
-hurry to get to bed. Then she rose, said good night to Robert and
-Molly, and went upstairs.
-
-Even then she would not slight or omit any detail of her routine. She
-washed, rubbed cold cream into her hands, braided her hair, folded her
-clothes neatly, ready for the morning, and knelt down to say her
-prayers. Then she turned out the light, opened the window, and got
-into bed; and she was so glad to be there, so glad to lay her tired
-gray head on the pillow, that she cried.
-
-She was ashamed of this weakness, and meant to struggle against it;
-but sleep came before she had driven it away—a heavy and sorrowful
-sleep, colored with the mist of tears.
-
-She slept. Then she sighed, and stirred in her sleep. Something was
-coming through into the shadowy world of dreams—something imperious
-and menacing. She didn’t want to wake up, but something was forcing
-her to do so. She heard something calling.
-
-She sat up suddenly. It was a child’s voice calling “Mother!”—a sound
-which would, she thought, have reached her even in heaven.
-
-“Mother! Mother! I _want_ you!” It was Bobbetty screaming that, and no
-one answered him. “I want you, mother!”
-
-“What’s the matter with Molly?” thought Mrs. Champney in a blaze of
-anger.
-
-She got out of bed and hurried barefooted across the room. That baby
-voice was filling the whole house, the whole world, with its
-heartbreaking cry:
-
-“Mother! Mother!”
-
-Mrs. Champney went out into the hall, and there she found Robert and
-Molly standing in the dim light outside Bobbetty’s door—Molly with her
-magnificent hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her face quite
-desperate, tears rolling down her cheeks.
-
-“What’s the matter?” cried Mrs. Champney.
-
-“Hush!” whispered Robert. “Dr. Pinney said we weren’t to take him
-up—said it was nothing but temper. I went in to see, and he’s
-perfectly all right. He simply wants Molly to take him up.”
-
-“But he’s—so little!” sobbed Molly, in a smothered voice.
-
-“Mother! I want you, mother!” shrieked Bobbetty.
-
-Molly made a move forward, but Robert clutched her arm. He, too, was
-pale and desperate.
-
-“No, Molly!” he said. “Dr. Pinney told us definitely—”
-
-“Bah!” cried Mrs. Champney, in a tone that amazed both of them. “Dr.
-Pinney, indeed!”
-
-She opened the door of Bobbetty’s room, went in, snatched him out of
-his crib, and carried him off, past his speechless parents, and into
-her own room.
-
-
-                                  VI
-
-Bobbetty’s hand was flung out and fell, soft and limp, across Mrs.
-Champney’s face. She opened her eyes. The dawn was stealing into the
-room, coming like music. One drowsy little bird was awake in the
-world, piping sweetly. The breeze came, fluttering the window curtain,
-and it seemed to her that she could hear the footsteps of the glorious
-sun coming up the sky. All creation waited for him—waited breathless,
-to break into a great chorus of ecstasy when he appeared.
-
-Bobbetty was waking, too. His hard little head bumped against her
-shoulder. His toes moved softly, he scowled, his great black eyes
-opened, he looked sternly into her face, and then he smiled.
-
-“Gramma!” he said contentedly, and sat up.
-
-“We must be very quiet, not to wake mother,” said Mrs. Champney.
-
-“Why?” asked Bobbetty.
-
-In his superb arrogance he looked upon his mother somewhat as he
-looked upon the sun. She existed solely for him. He adored her and he
-needed her—that was why she existed. Mrs. Champney did not trouble to
-explain. He would learn soon enough how very many other people there
-were in this world, and that it was not his own world and his own sun
-at all. In the meantime, let him make the most of it. She said that
-they would surprise mother, and the idea appealed to Bobbetty. He said
-he would be as quiet as a mouse, and so he was.
-
-Mrs. Champney got his ridiculous little garments and dressed him. She
-knelt at his feet to put on his stubby sandals. She even kissed his
-feet, and his hands, and his warm, olive-tinted cheeks, and the back
-of his neck. He smiled upon her, condescendingly but kindly.
-
-Then she carried him down into the kitchen. He was a plump and sturdy
-baby, but he was no burden to her arms. She wasn’t tired now. Indeed,
-she thought she had never in her life felt so gay and light and happy.
-
-The sun had come, and the kitchen was filled with it. The aluminium
-saucepans glittered like silver, and the water ran out of the tap in a
-rainbow spray. She laid the table in the dining room, and Bobbetty
-followed her back and forth, carrying the less dangerous things.
-
-There was a wonderful perfume in the air—the intangible sweetness of
-spring—and with it, and no less wonderful, was the homely fragrance of
-coffee and oatmeal and bacon. It was a divine hour, and Bobbetty knew
-it. Bobbetty could share it with her—he and he alone.
-
-He dropped a loaf of bread that he was carrying, and, moved by
-impulse, kicked it across the room. Mrs. Champney picked it up,
-without a word of reproof. She knew how Bobbetty felt.
-
-Then she drew the chairs up to the table—and made her great discovery.
-
-“There are four chairs!” she cried aloud. “There are four of us! Why,
-I’m not the third person at all!”
-
-She was so overcome by this that she sat down, and stared before her
-with a dazed look.
-
-“There were three already—I’m the fourth, and four’s such a nice
-number! I can’t go away and leave Robert and Molly alone together.
-They’ll never be alone together any more—there’s Bobbetty. I can help
-so much! They’re both so very, very young, and I could do so much!
-Molly could have time for music. There are two buttons off Bobbetty’s
-underwaist. Mother-in-law, indeed!”
-
-She heard the percolator boiling too hard, and she got up. In the
-kitchen doorway she met Bobbetty with the bowwow.
-
-“Bobbetty!” she said. “Do you know something?”
-
-“Yes, I do!” shouted the child.
-
-But Mrs. Champney told him, anyhow.
-
-“Bobbetty,” she said, “there’s a Lucy Stone League for women who don’t
-want to use their husbands’ names. I believe I’ll start a Jessica
-Champney League for women who refuse to be called mothers-in-law.
-There’s really no such thing as a mother-in-law, Bobbetty. It’s just a
-joke, and a very nasty one. Really and truly, Bobbetty, there are
-nothing but mothers-in-nature. I think I’ll invent some other word.
-Why not ‘husbandsmother,’ or ‘wifesmother,’ or—”
-
-Molly appeared before her, evidently in great distress.
-
-“Oh, mother darling!” she cried. “You shouldn’t have done this! You
-shouldn’t be up so early! You’ll be tired out before you start!”
-
-Mrs. Champney stirred the oatmeal, which was bubbling and spouting
-like molten lava.
-
-“I don’t believe I will go,” she said. “It seems—such a waste of time.
-I think I’ll stay home, and help you, and be a grandmother. I’ve tried
-everything else, and I believe I’d do well at that.”
-
-Molly stared for a moment. Then she ran to the foot of the stairs.
-
-“Robert!” she called, in her ringing, joyous voice. “Robert! Mother’s
-going to stay home!”
-
-
-[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 1925 issue of
-Munsey’s Magazine.]
-
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Worst Joke in the World, by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
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-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
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-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
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-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Worst Joke in the World</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 11, 2022 [eBook #67373]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark. This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORST JOKE IN THE WORLD ***</div>
-<h1>The Worst Joke in the World</h1>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; font-size:0.8em;'>
-A STORY WHICH THROWS A NEW AND INTERESTING LIGHT<br/>
-UPON THE TIME-HONORED PROBLEM OF<br/>
-THE MOTHER-IN-LAW</div>
-<div class='ce'>
-<div style='font-size:1.1em;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:2em;'>By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding </div>
-</div>
-<h2 id='sI'></h2>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney was putting the very last things into her bag, and Mrs.
-Maxwell and Mrs. Deane sat watching her. The room in which she had
-lived for nearly four years was already strange and unfamiliar. The
-silver toilet articles were gone from the bureau. The cupboard door
-stood open, showing empty hooks and shelves. The little water colors
-of Italian scenes had vanished from the walls, and the books from the
-table. All those things were gone which had so charmed and interested
-Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.</p>
-
-<p>They were old ladies, and to them Jessica Champney at fifty was not
-old at all. With her gayety, her lively interest in life, and her
-dainty clothes, she seemed to them altogether young—girlish, even, in
-her enthusiastic moments, and always interesting. They loved and
-admired her, and were heavy-hearted at her going.</p>
-
-<p>“You’ve forgotten the pussy cat, Jessica,” Mrs. Maxwell gravely
-remarked.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, so I have!” said Mrs. Champney.</p>
-
-<p>Hanging beside the bureau was a black velvet kitten with a strip of
-sandpaper fastened across its back, and underneath it the inscription:</p>
-
-<div class='ce'>
-<div>SCRATCH MY BACK</div>
-</div>
-<p>It was intended, of course, for striking matches. As Mrs. Champney
-never had occasion to strike a match, this little object was not
-remarkably useful. Nor, being a woman of taste, would she have
-admitted that it was in the least ornamental; but it was precious to
-her—so precious that a sob rose in her throat as she took it down from
-the wall.</p>
-
-<p>She showed a bright enough face to the old ladies, however, as she
-carried the kitten across the room and laid it in the bag. She had
-often talked to these old friends about her past—about her two
-heavenly winters in Italy, about her girlhood “down East,” about all
-sorts of lively and amusing things that she had seen and done; but she
-had said very, very little about the period to which the velvet kitten
-belonged.</p>
-
-<p>It had been given to her in the early days of her married life by a
-grateful and adoring cook. It had hung on the wall of her bedroom in
-that shabby, sunny old house in Connecticut where her three children
-had been born. She could not think of that room unmoved, and she did
-not care to talk of it to any one.</p>
-
-<p>Not that it was sad to remember those bygone days. There was no trace
-of bitterness in the memory. It was all tender and beautiful, and
-sometimes she recalled things that made her laugh through the tears;
-but even those things she couldn’t talk about.</p>
-
-<p>There was, for instance, that ridiculous morning when grandpa had come
-to see the baby, the unique and miraculous first baby. He had sat down
-in a chair and very gingerly taken the small bundle in his arms, and
-the chair had suddenly broken beneath his portly form. Down he
-crashed, his blue eyes staring wildly, his great white mustache fairly
-bristling with horror, the invaluable infant held aloft in both hands.
-If she had begun to tell about that, in the very middle of it another
-memory might have come—a recollection of the day when she had sat in
-that same room, the door locked, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes
-staring ahead of her at the years that must be lived without her
-husband, her friend and lover.</p>
-
-<p>She had thought she could not bear that, but she had borne it; and the
-time had come when the memory of her husband was no longer an anguish
-and a futile regret, but a benediction. She had lived a happy life
-with her children. They were all married now, and in homes of their
-own, and she was glad that it should be so.</p>
-
-<p>These four years alone had been happy, too. Her children wrote to her
-and visited her, and their family affairs were a source of endless
-interest. She had all sorts of other interests, too. She made friends
-readily; she was an energetic parish worker; she loved to read; she
-enjoyed a matinée now and then, or a concert, and the conversation of
-Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.</p>
-
-<p>With all her heart she had relished her freedom and her dignity. Her
-children were always asking her to come and live with one or the other
-of them, but she had always affectionately refused. She believed it
-wasn’t wise and wasn’t right.</p>
-
-<p>She had stayed on in this comfortable, old-fashioned boarding house in
-Stamford, cheerful and busy. It had been a delight beyond measure to
-her to send a little check now and then to one of her children, a
-present to a grandchild, some pretty thing that she had embroidered or
-crocheted to her daughters-in-law. Her elder son’s wife had written
-once that she was a “real fairy godmother,” and Mrs. Champney never
-forgot that. It was exactly what she wanted to be to them all—a gay,
-sympathetic, gracious fairy godmother.</p>
-
-<p>But she wasn’t going to be one any longer. What her lawyer called a
-“totally unforeseen contingency” had arisen, and all her life was
-changed. He was a young man, that lawyer. His father had been Mrs.
-Champney’s lawyer and friend in his day, and she had, almost as a
-matter of course, given the son charge of her affairs when the elder
-man died.</p>
-
-<p>She had not wanted either of her sons to look after things for her.
-She didn’t like even to mention financial matters to people she loved.
-Indeed, she had been a little obstinate about this. And now this
-“totally unforeseen contingency” had come, to sweep away almost all of
-her income, and with it the independence, the dignity, that were to
-her the very breath of life.</p>
-
-<p>If it had been possible, she would not have told her children. She had
-said nothing when she had received that letter from the lawyer—such an
-absurd and pitiful letter, full of a sort of angry resentment, as if
-she had been unjustly reproaching him. She had gone to see him at
-once. She had been very quiet, very patient with him, and had asked
-very few questions about what had happened. She simply wanted to know
-exactly what there was left for her, and she learned that she would
-have fifteen dollars a month.</p>
-
-<p>So she had been obliged to write to her children, and they had all
-wanted her immediately; but she chose her second son, because he lived
-nearest, and she hadn’t enough money for a longer journey. Now she was
-ready to go to his house.</p>
-
-<p>She locked the bag and gave one more glance around the empty room.</p>
-
-<p>“Well!” she said cheerfully. “That seems to be all!”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Maxwell rose heavily from her chair.</p>
-
-<p>“Jessica,” she said, not very steadily, “we’re going to miss you!”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Deane also rose.</p>
-
-<p>“Whoever else takes this room,” she added sternly, “it won’t be
-<i>you</i>—and I don’t care what any one says, either!”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney put an arm about each of them and smiled at them
-affectionately. She was, in their old eyes, quite a young woman, full
-of energy and courage, trim and smart in her dark suit and her
-debonair little hat; but she had never before felt so terribly old and
-discouraged.</p>
-
-<p>She couldn’t even tell these dear old friends that she would see them
-again soon, for in order to see them she would have either to get the
-money for the railway ticket from her son, or else to invite them to
-her daughter-in-law’s house. It hurt her to leave them like this—and
-it was only the beginning.</p>
-
-<p>At this point the landlady came toiling up the stairs.</p>
-
-<p>“The taxi’s here, Mrs. Champney,” she said, with a sigh. “My, how
-empty the room does look!”</p>
-
-<p>So Mrs. Champney kissed the old ladies and went downstairs. The two
-servants were waiting in the hall to say good-by to her. She smiled at
-them. Then the landlady opened the front door, and Mrs. Champney went
-out of the house, still smiling, went down the steps, and got into the
-taxi.</p>
-
-<p>She sat up very straight in the cab, a valiant little figure, dressed
-in her best shoes, with spotless white gloves, and her precious sable
-stole about her shoulders—and such pain and dread in her heart! There
-was no one in the world who could quite understand what she felt in
-this hour. To other people she was simply leaving a boarding house
-where she had lived all by herself, and going to a good home where she
-was heartily welcome, to a son whom she loved, a daughter-in-law of
-whom she was very fond, and a grandchild who was almost the very best
-of all her grandchildren; but to Mrs. Champney the journey was bitter
-almost beyond endurance.</p>
-
-<p>She loved her children with all the strength of her soul, but she had
-been wise in her love. She had tried always to be a little aloof from
-them, never to be too familiar, never to be tiresome. She had given
-them all she had, all her love and care and sympathy, and she had
-wanted nothing in return. She wished them to think of her, not as weak
-and helpless, but as strong and enduring, and always ready to give.
-And now—</p>
-
-<p>“Now I’m going to be a mother-in-law,” she said to herself. “Oh,
-please God, help me! Help me not to be a burden to Molly and Robert!
-Help me to stand aside and to hold my tongue! Oh, please God, help me
-<i>not</i> to be a mother-in-law!”</p>
-
-<h2 id='sII'>II</h2>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney had arranged matters so as to reach the house just at
-dinner time. She even hoped that she might be a little late, so that
-there wouldn’t be any time at all to sit down and talk. She had never
-dreaded anything as she dreaded that first moment, the crossing of
-that threshold. Her hands and feet were like ice, her thin cheeks were
-flushed, anticipating it. She wanted to enter in an agreeable little
-stir and bustle, to be cheerful, to be casual; but Robert and Molly
-were too young for that. They would be too cordial.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t expect them to want me,” said Mrs. Champney to herself. “They
-can’t want me. If they’d only just not try—not pretend!”</p>
-
-<p>She did not know Molly very well. She had seen her a good many
-times—Molly and the incomparable baby—but that had been in the days
-when Mrs. Champney was a fairy godmother, with all sorts of delightful
-gifts to bestow. Robert’s wife had been a little shy with her. A kind,
-honest girl, Mrs. Champney had thought her, good to look at in her
-splendid health and vitality, but not very interesting. And now she
-had to come into poor Molly’s house!</p>
-
-<p>She was pleased to see that her train was late. She had not told them
-what train she would take. Perhaps they wouldn’t keep dinner waiting.
-When she got there, perhaps they would be sitting at the table. Then
-she could hurry in, full of cheerful apologies, and sit down with
-them, and there wouldn’t be that strained, terrible moment she so much
-dreaded.</p>
-
-<p>A vain hope! For, as she got out of the train, her heart sank to see
-Robert there waiting for her—Robert with his glummest face, Robert at
-his worst.</p>
-
-<p>There was no denying that Robert had a worst. He was never willful and
-provoking, as his adorable sister could be upon occasion. He was never
-stormy and unreasonable, like his elder brother; but he could be what
-Mrs. Champney privately called “heavy,” and that was, for her, one of
-the most dismaying things any one could be. She saw at the first
-glance that he was going to be heavy now.</p>
-
-<p>“Mother!” he said, in a tone almost tragic.</p>
-
-<p>“But, my dear boy, how in the world did you know I’d get this train?”
-she asked gayly. “I didn’t write—”</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve been waiting for an hour,” he answered. “You said ‘about dinner
-time,’ and I certainly wasn’t going to let you come from the station
-alone. This way—there’s a taxi waiting.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney was ashamed of herself. Robert was the dearest boy, so
-stalwart, so trustworthy, so handsome in his dark and somber fashion,
-and so touchingly devoted to her! After all, wasn’t it far better to
-be a little too heavy than too light and insubstantial? As he got into
-the cab beside her, she slipped her arm through his and squeezed it.</p>
-
-<p>“You dear boy, to wait like that!” she said.</p>
-
-<p>“Mother!” he said again. “By Heaven, I could wring that fellow’s neck!
-Speculating with your money—”</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t take it like that, Robert. It’s all over and done with now.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, it’s not!” said he. “It’s—the thing is, you’ve been used to all
-sorts of little—little comforts and so on; and just at the present
-time I’m not able to give you—”</p>
-
-<p>“Please don’t, Robert!” she cried. “It hurts me!”</p>
-
-<p>He put his arm about her shoulders.</p>
-
-<p>“You’re not going to be hurt,” he said grimly; “not by <i>anyone</i>,
-mother!”</p>
-
-<p>His tone and his words filled her with dismay.</p>
-
-<p>“Robert,” she said firmly, “I will not be made a martyr of!”</p>
-
-<p>“A victim, then,” Robert insisted doggedly. “You’ve been tricked and
-swindled by that contemptible fellow; but Frank and I are going to see
-that it’s made right!”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Robert! You’re not going to do anything to that poor, miserable,
-distracted man?”</p>
-
-<p>“Nothing we can do. You gave the fellow a free hand, and he took
-advantage of it. No, I mean that Frank and I are going to make it up
-to you, mother.”</p>
-
-<p>He might as well have added “at any cost.” Mrs. Champney winced in
-spirit, but at the same time she loved him for his blundering
-tenderness, his uncomprehending loyalty. He meant only to reassure
-her, but he made it all so hard, so terribly hard! She felt tears well
-up in her eyes. How could she go through with this gallantly if he
-made it so hard?</p>
-
-<p>Then, suddenly, there came to her mind the memory of a winter
-afternoon, long, long ago, when Frank and Robert had been going out to
-skate. She had heard alarming reports about the ice, and she had run
-after them, bareheaded, into the garden. She could see that dear
-garden, bare and brown in the wintry sunshine; she could see her two
-boys, stopping and turning toward her as she called.</p>
-
-<p>Frank had laughingly assured her that there was no danger at all. That
-was Frank’s way. She didn’t believe him, yet his sublime confidence in
-himself and his inevitable good luck somehow comforted her; and then
-Robert had said:</p>
-
-<p>“Well, look here, mother—we’ll promise not to go near the middle of
-the pond at the same time. Then, whatever happens, you’ll have one of
-us left anyhow—see?”</p>
-
-<p>And that was Robert’s way. The very thought of it stopped the dreaded
-invasion of tears and made her smile to herself in the dark. Such a
-splendidly honest way—and so devastating!</p>
-
-<p>The taxi had stopped now, and Robert helped her out in a manner that
-made her feel very, very old and frail.</p>
-
-<p>“Wait till I pay the driver, mother,” he said. “Don’t try to go
-alone—it’s too dark.”</p>
-
-<p>So Mrs. Champney waited in the dark road outside that strange little
-house. Her son was paying for the cab; her son was going to assist her
-up the path; she was old and helpless and dependent.</p>
-
-<p>Then the front door opened, and Molly stood there against the light.</p>
-
-<p>“Hello, mother dear!” she called, in that big, rich, beautiful voice
-of hers. “Hurry in! It’s cold!”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney did hurry in, and Molly caught her in both arms and
-hugged her tight.</p>
-
-<p>“Just don’t mind very much how things are, will you?” she whispered.
-“My housekeeping’s pretty awful, you know!”</p>
-
-<p>Tears came to Mrs. Champney’s eyes again, because this was such a
-blessed sort of welcome.</p>
-
-<p>“As if I’d care!” she said.</p>
-
-<p>“Let me show your room—and Bobbetty,” said Molly.</p>
-
-<p>She took the bag from Robert, who had just come in, and ran up the
-stairs. Mrs. Champney followed her. All the little house seemed warm
-and bright with Molly’s beautiful, careless spirit. It wasn’t strange
-or awkward. It was like coming home; and the room that Molly had got
-ready for her was so pretty!</p>
-
-<p>“Dinner’s all ready,” said Molly; “but—if you’ll just take one look at
-Bobbetty. He’s—when he’s asleep, he’s—”</p>
-
-<p>Words failed her.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney got herself ready as quickly as she could, and followed
-Molly down the hall to a closed door. Molly turned the handle softly,
-and they stepped into a little room that was like another world, all
-dark and still, with the wind blowing in at an open window.</p>
-
-<p>“Nothing wakes him up!” whispered Molly proudly, and turned on a
-green-shaded electric lamp that stood on the bureau.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney went over to the crib and looked down at the child who
-lay there—the child who was her child, flesh of her flesh, and was yet
-another woman’s child. He was beautiful—more beautiful than any of her
-children had been. He lay there like a little prince. His face,
-olive-skinned and warmly flushed on the cheeks, wore a look of
-careless arrogance, his dark brows were level and haughty, his mouth
-was richly scornful; and yet, for all this pride of beauty, she could
-not help seeing the baby softness and innocence and helplessness of
-him.</p>
-
-<p>He might lie there like a little prince, but he was caged in an iron
-crib, he wore faded old flannel pyjamas, and beside him, where it had
-slipped from the hand that still grasped it in dreams, lay such an
-unprincely toy! Mrs. Champney, bending over to examine it, found it to
-be a rubber ball squeezed into a white sock.</p>
-
-<p>It seemed to Mrs. Champney that she could never tire of looking at
-that beautiful baby. She hadn’t half finished when Molly touched her
-arm and whispered “Robert,” and, turning out the light, led her
-husband’s mother across the dark, windy room out into the hall again.</p>
-
-<p>“I heard Robert getting restless downstairs,” she explained.</p>
-
-<p>Side by side they descended the stairs. Mrs. Champney was happy, with
-that particular happiness which the companionship of babies brought to
-her. She had friends who were made unhappy by the sight of babies.
-They said that they couldn’t help looking ahead and imagining the
-sorrows in store for the poor little things. But to Mrs. Champney this
-seemed morbid and quite stupid, because, when the sorrows came, the
-babies would no longer be babies, but grown people, and as well able
-as any one else to deal with them.</p>
-
-<p>No—babies were not melancholy objects to Mrs. Champney. On the
-contrary, they filled her with a strong and tender delight, because of
-her knowledge that whatever troubles came to them, she could surely
-help; because, for babies, a kiss is a cure for so much, and a song
-can dry so many baby tears; because love, which must so often stand
-mute and helpless before grown-up misery, can work such marvels for
-little children.</p>
-
-<p>She was happy, then, until she reached the foot of the stairs—and not
-again for a long time.</p>
-
-<p>Robert was waiting for them there. He came forward, with a faint
-frown, and pushed into place two hairpins that were slipping out of
-Molly’s hair. It was the most trifling action, yet it seemed to Mrs.
-Champney very significant. He didn’t like to see those hairpins
-falling out, didn’t like to see Molly’s lovely, shining hair in
-disorder. He noticed things of that sort, and he cared. He cared too
-much. There had been a look of annoyance and displeasure on his face
-that distressed Mrs. Champney.</p>
-
-<p>Fussiness, she thought, was one of the most deplorable traits a man
-could have.</p>
-
-<p>It was only another name for pettiness, and that was something no
-member of her family had ever displayed. Could it be possible that
-Robert, the most uncompromising and high-minded of all her children,
-was developing in that way—and with such a wife as Molly?</p>
-
-<p>She watched her son with growing uneasiness during the course of the
-dinner. It was a splendidly cooked dinner. The roast veal was browned
-and seasoned to perfection, the mashed potatoes were smooth and light,
-there were scalloped tomatoes and a salad of apples and celery, and a
-truly admirable lemon meringue pie; but Robert frowned because the
-potatoes were in an earthenware bowl, and the plates did not match.
-When the splendid pie appeared, in the tin dish in which it had been
-baked, he sprang up and carried it out into the kitchen, to return
-with it damaged, but lying properly on a respectable dish.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Robert!” Molly said, each time that Robert
-found something wrong; and there was such generous contrition in her
-honest face that Mrs. Champney wanted to get up and shake her son.</p>
-
-<p>What did those silly little things matter? How could he even see them,
-with Molly before his eyes?</p>
-
-<p>“She’s beautiful,” thought Mrs. Champney. “She wouldn’t be beautiful
-in a photograph. I suppose she’d look quite plain; but when you’re
-with her—when she smiles—it’s like a blessing!”</p>
-
-<h2 id='sIII'>III</h2>
-
-<p>It was not a comfortable meal for any of them, and Mrs. Champney was
-glad when it was finished. She offered to help Molly with the dishes,
-and she really wanted to do so; but when Molly refused, and she saw
-that Robert didn’t like the idea, she did not persist. She went into
-the little sitting room with Robert, and he settled her in an
-armchair, putting behind her shoulders a plump cushion that made her
-neck ache. He lit his pipe and began to move about restlessly.</p>
-
-<p>“You know,” he began abruptly, “Molly’s not really—slovenly.”</p>
-
-<p>“Robert!” cried Mrs. Champney. “What nonsense!”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, I know,” he said doggedly; “but I don’t want you to think—”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney did not hear the rest of his speech. She was vaguely
-aware that he was making excuses for Molly, but she did not stop him.
-He had said enough. He had given her the key, and now she could
-understand.</p>
-
-<p>This was not pettiness, and Robert was not fussy. It was because he
-loved Molly so much that he could not endure to have another person
-see in her what might be construed as faults. If he had been alone
-with Molly, he wouldn’t have cared, he wouldn’t even have noticed
-these things. It was because his mother had come, and he was afraid.</p>
-
-<p>It is an old and a deep-rooted thing, the child’s faith in the
-mother’s judgment. If the mother has been honest and wise, if the
-child has been never deceived or disappointed by her, then, no matter
-how old he grows, or how far he may go from her, that old and
-deep-rooted faith lives in him. Robert, at twenty-six, was surer of
-himself than he was ever likely to be again. He was certain that all
-his ideas were his own, and that no living creature could influence
-him; yet he was terribly afraid of what his mother might think of
-Molly.</p>
-
-<p>For, after all, his mother was the standard, and the home she had made
-for him in his boyhood must forever be the standard of homes. She
-would see that this home of Molly’s was not like that. She would
-think—</p>
-
-<p>“You needn’t worry, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Champney gently. “I’m sure
-I’ll understand Molly.”</p>
-
-<p>And no more than that. It wouldn’t do to tell him what she really
-thought of Molly. It would sound exaggerated and insincere. It would
-startle him, and it might conceivably make him contrary; so she held
-her tongue.</p>
-
-<p>Presently Molly came in from the kitchen, flushed and smiling, and
-sank into a chair.</p>
-
-<p>“Take off that apron, old girl,” said Robert.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Molly. “I always forget!”</p>
-
-<p>Robert took it away into the kitchen.</p>
-
-<p>“Too tired for a song, Molly?” he asked when he returned.</p>
-
-<p>“Of course I’m not!” said she, getting up again.</p>
-
-<p>She was tired, though, and a little nervous, and Mrs. Champney felt
-sorry for her; but Robert would have it so. His mother must see what
-Molly could do. He lay back in his chair, smoking, with an air of
-regal indifference, as if he were a young sultan who had commanded
-this performance but was not much interested in it; but as a matter of
-fact he was twice as nervous as Molly.</p>
-
-<p>He had spoken to his mother before about Molly’s singing, and Mrs.
-Champney had thought of it as an agreeable accomplishment for a son’s
-wife, but this performance amazed her. This was not a parlor
-accomplishment, this big, glorious voice, true and clear, effortless
-because so perfectly managed. This was an art, and Molly was an
-artist.</p>
-
-<p>“Molly!” she cried, when the song was done. “Molly, my dear! I don’t
-know what to say!”</p>
-
-<p>Molly flushed with pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>“I do love music,” she said. “I often hope Bobbetty will care about
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>“That was a darned silly song, though,” observed Robert.</p>
-
-<p>Molly turned away hastily.</p>
-
-<p>“I know it was!” she said cheerfully. But Mrs. Champney had seen the
-tears come into her eyes. Molly was hurt. She didn’t understand, and
-unfortunately Mrs. Champney did. She knew that Robert had been trying
-to tell his mother that Molly could do even better than this—that she
-could, if she chose, sing the most prodigious songs. He was afraid
-that his mother would judge and condemn Molly for that darned silly
-song about “the flowers all nodding on yonder hill.”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s what being a mother-in-law really means,” said Mrs. Champney
-to herself. “It means being the third person, the one who stands
-outside and sees everything—all the poor, pitiful little faults and
-weaknesses. Love won’t help. The more I love them, the more I can’t
-help seeing, and they’ll know—they’ll always know. When Robert is
-impatient, Molly will know that I’ve noticed it, and she’ll think she
-has to notice it, too. When Molly is careless, Robert will imagine
-that I’m blaming her, and he’ll feel ashamed of her. That’s why
-mothers-in-law make trouble. It’s not because they always interfere,
-or because they’re troublesome and domineering. It’s because they
-<i>see</i> all the little things that nobody ought to see—the little things
-that would never grow important if a third person wasn’t there. I used
-to feel so sorry for mothers-in-law. I used to think it was a vulgar,
-heartless joke about their making trouble. A joke? Oh, it’s the worst,
-most horrible joke in the world—because it’s true!”</p>
-
-<h2 id='sIV'>IV</h2>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney did not sleep well that night. When she first turned out
-the light, a strange sort of panic seized her. She felt trapped, shut
-in, here in this unfamiliar room, in this house where she had no
-business to be, and yet could not leave. She got up and turned on the
-light, and that was better, for she could think more clearly in the
-light. She propped herself up on the pillows, pulled the blanket up to
-her chin, and sat there, trying to find the way out.</p>
-
-<p>“There always is a way out,” she thought. “It’s never necessary to do
-a thing that injures other people. I must not stay here, or with any
-of my children. If I think quietly and sensibly, I can—”</p>
-
-<p>There was a knock at the door.</p>
-
-<p>“Are you all right, mother?” asked Robert’s voice. “I saw your light.”</p>
-
-<p>“Perfectly all right, dear boy!” she answered brightly. “I’m very
-comfortable. Good night!”</p>
-
-<p>“Sure?” he asked.</p>
-
-<p>She wanted to jump up and go to him and kiss him—her dear, solemn,
-anxious Robert; but that wouldn’t do. Never, never, while she had a
-trace of dignity and honor, would she turn to her children for
-reassurance. She was the mother. She could not always be strong, but
-she could at least hide her weakness from her children. She could
-endure her bad moments alone.</p>
-
-<p>“Quite sure!” she answered, and snapped out the light. “There! I’m
-going to sleep! Good night, my own dear, dear boy!”</p>
-
-<p>“Good night, mother!” he answered.</p>
-
-<p>His voice touched her so! If only she could let go, and be frail and
-helpless, and allow her children to take care of her! They would be so
-glad to do it—they would be so dear and kind!</p>
-
-<p>“Shame on you, Jessica Champney!” she said to herself. “You weren’t an
-old lady before you came here, and you’re not going to be one now.
-You’re only fifty, and you’re well and strong. There must be any
-number of things a healthy woman of fifty can do. Find them!”</p>
-
-<p>And then, as if by inspiration, she thought of Emily Lyons.</p>
-
-<p>The next morning, as soon as Robert had gone, she told Molly that she
-wanted to “see about something”; and off she went, dressed in her best
-again, and took the train to a near-by town. She was going to see Miss
-Lyons. She had not met this old school friend for a good many years,
-but she remembered her with affection and respect, and perhaps with a
-little pity, because Emily had never married. She had devoted her life
-to charitable work—an admirable existence, but, Mrs. Champney thought,
-rather a forlorn one.</p>
-
-<p>Her pity fled in haste, however, when she saw Emily.</p>
-
-<p>A very earnest young secretary ushered the caller into a big, quiet,
-sunny office, and there, behind a large desk, sat Miss Lyons. She rose
-at once, and came forward with outstretched hands. Her blue eyes
-behind the horn-rimmed spectacles were as friendly and kind as ever,
-and yet Mrs. Champney’s heart sank. The Emily she wished to remember
-was a thin, freckled girl with a long blond pigtail and a shy and
-hesitating manner—an Emily who had very much looked up to the debonair
-and popular Jessica. This was such a very different Emily—a person of
-importance, of grave assurance, a person with a large, impressive
-office at her command. To save her life Mrs. Champney couldn’t help
-being impressed by offices and filing cabinets and typewriters.</p>
-
-<p>She sat down, and she tried to talk in her usual blithe and amusing
-way, but she knew that she was not succeeding at all. In the presence
-of this new Emily she felt shockingly frivolous. She was sorry that
-she had worn her white gloves and her sable stole. She wished that the
-heels of her new shoes were not so high.</p>
-
-<p>She told Emily that she wanted something to do.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you mean charitable work, Jessica?” asked Miss Lyons.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m afraid I’d have to be paid,” said Mrs. Champney, with a guilty
-flush. “You see, Emily, I’ve had a—a financial disaster. Of course, my
-children are only too willing, but—”</p>
-
-<p>“They’re all married, aren’t they?” asked Emily.</p>
-
-<p>Something in the grave, kindly tone of her question stung Mrs.
-Champney into a sort of bitterness.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” she answered. “All of them are married. I’m a mother-in-law,
-Emily.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Lyons did not smile. She was silent for a time, looking down at
-her polished desk as if she were consulting a crystal. Then she looked
-up.</p>
-
-<p>“We happen to need somebody in the Needlecraft Shop,” she said. “I
-could give you that, Jessica, at eighteen dollars a week; but—”</p>
-
-<p>“But what?” asked Mrs. Champney, after waiting a minute.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m afraid you haven’t had much experience,” said Miss Lyons.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve done a good deal of parish work,” said Mrs. Champney anxiously.</p>
-
-<p>She had known love, and happiness with the man she loved. She had
-endured the anguish of losing him. She had borne three children and
-brought them up. She had traveled a little in the world. She had even
-known a “financial disaster” at fifty; but in the presence of Emily
-Lyons she was ready to admit that she had had no experience—that her
-sole qualification for any useful occupation was the parish work she
-had done.</p>
-
-<p>“If you’d like to try it, then,” said Emily gently. “I’ve found,
-though, that women who have led a sheltered domestic life are inclined
-to be a little oversensitive when it comes to business.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney, into whose sheltered domestic life had come only such
-incidents as birth and death and illness and accident and so on, said
-that she hoped she wasn’t silly.</p>
-
-<p>“Of course you’re not, my dear!” said her old friend, taking her hand
-across the desk. “You’re splendid! You always were!”</p>
-
-<p>And Mrs. Champney had to be satisfied with that. She was to begin at
-the Needlecraft Shop the next morning. She was at last to enter the
-world; but instead of being filled with ambitious hopes and resolves,
-she actually could think of nothing but how she was to tell Robert
-about it.</p>
-
-<p>The only possible way was to take a mighty high hand with him from the
-start, and the trouble was that she didn’t feel high-handed. She felt
-depressed, and tired and—yes, crushed—that was the word for it. She
-was not going to let Robert suspect that, however, or Molly, either.</p>
-
-<p>She decided to take her time about getting back. After leaving Emily,
-she walked for a time through the streets of the brisk suburban town.
-Then, seeing a clean little white-tiled restaurant, she went in there
-and had her lunch. It was noon, and there were a good many other
-business women there. Mrs. Champney tried to feel that she was one of
-them now, but somehow she could not. Somehow the whole thing seemed
-unreal, and even a little fantastic.</p>
-
-<p>She mustn’t think that it was unreal or fantastic, or how could she
-convince Robert? She tried to make it real by doing all sorts of
-calculations based upon eighteen dollars a week. With that amount, and
-with what was left of her income, she could manage to live by herself,
-somewhere near Robert and Molly, where she could see them and the baby
-often, and yet be independent. Once more she could be a fairy
-godmother—with sadly clipped wings, to be sure, but still able to
-bestow a little gift now and then.</p>
-
-<p>She thought she would get something for Bobbetty now, and she bought
-one of the nicest gray plush animals imaginable. The saleswoman said
-it was a cat, but Mrs. Champney privately believed it to be a dog,
-because of its drooping ears. Anyhow, it was a lovable animal, with a
-frank and kindly expression and a most becoming leather collar. On the
-train, going back, she regretfully took out its round yellow eyes, for
-they were pins, and unless she forestalled him, Bobbetty would surely
-do this.</p>
-
-<p>Even then it was a lovable animal, and Bobbetty received it with warm
-affection. He was sitting in his high chair in the kitchen, while
-Molly cooked the dinner. He was almost austerely neat and clean after
-his bath, and he was eating a bowl of Graham crackers and milk, with a
-large bib tied under his chin. A model child—yet, in the sidelong
-glance of his black eyes in the direction of the new bowwow, who was
-not to be touched until supper was finished, Mrs. Champney saw a
-thoughtful and alarming gleam. Bobbetty was not quite sure whether he
-would continue being good, or whether it would be nicer suddenly and
-violently to demand the bowwow.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney helped him to choose the better course. She entertained
-him while he ate, and then carried him off upstairs, with the bowwow,
-and put him to bed. He became very garrulous then. He lay in his crib,
-clasping the bowwow, and he told Mrs. Champney all sorts of
-interesting things in such a polite, conversational tone that she felt
-quite ashamed of herself for interrupting him and telling him to go to
-sleep.</p>
-
-<p>He was nice about it, however. He paid no attention to this rudeness,
-but pleasantly went on talking. Even when she went out of the room and
-closed the door behind her, she heard his bland little voice
-continuing the story of a wild horsy who stampled on <i>six</i> policemens.
-Bobbetty was not yet three, but he had personality.</p>
-
-<p>She was smiling as she went down the stairs—until she saw Robert. He
-came to the foot of the stairs, watching her as she came toward him.
-She had to meet his eyes, she had to smile again, but it was hard
-beyond all measure.</p>
-
-<p>She had never seen that look on his face before. He had always been
-utterly loyal to her, had always loved her, but it had been after the
-fashion of a boy. The look she saw on his face now was not a boy’s; it
-was the profound compassion and tenderness of a man. It came to her,
-with a stab of pain, that she had cruelly underrated her son. She had
-thought of him as a dear and rather clumsy boy, and he was so much
-more than that—so much more!</p>
-
-<p>Her own affair seemed more fantastic than ever now. Here was Robert,
-making his valiant battle in the world for the life and safety of his
-wife and child. Here was Molly, busy with the vital needs of life,
-with food and clothes, with the care of their child; and she herself
-was going to work in the Needlecraft Shop.</p>
-
-<p>She had to tell them, of course. When they were all seated at the
-table, she did so, in the most casual, matter-of-fact way.</p>
-
-<p>It was even worse than she had feared. Robert grew very white.</p>
-
-<p>“You mean—a job?” he asked.</p>
-
-<p>“It’s charitable work, really,” Mrs. Champney explained. “The
-foreign-born women bring their needlework to the shop, and we sell it
-on commission for them. The idea is to encourage their home
-industries, and—”</p>
-
-<p>“But you’re going to get paid for it?” asked Robert.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, yes!” said Mrs. Champney brightly. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy the
-work, too. I’ve always—”</p>
-
-<p>“You mean you’re going off to work every morning in this shop?” said
-Robert. “Do you mind telling me why?”</p>
-
-<p>“Because I consider it very useful and interesting work, Robert,”
-replied Mrs. Champney, with dignity.</p>
-
-<p>There was a long silence.</p>
-
-<p>“All right!” said Robert briefly.</p>
-
-<p>She knew how terribly she had hurt him. He had wanted to do so much
-for her, to take her into his home and protect her and care for her,
-and she would not let him. She had turned away with a smile from all
-that he had to offer. She would take nothing.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve always led—such an active life,” she said, in a very unsteady
-voice. “I should think you could understand, Robert—”</p>
-
-<p>“I do!” he said grimly.</p>
-
-<p>“You don’t!” she cried. “You don’t! You—”</p>
-
-<p>She could not go on. She bent her head and pretended to be cutting up
-something on her plate, but she could not see clearly. He never would
-understand that she was doing this only for love of him, only so that
-she might not be here in his home as the sinister third person who saw
-everything and—</p>
-
-<p>She started at the touch of Molly’s hand on her arm.</p>
-
-<p>“If that’s your way to be happy, darling,” said Robert’s wife, and
-Mrs. Champney saw tears in her honest eyes.</p>
-
-<h2 id='sV'>V</h2>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney envisaged her life as divided into epochs, each one with
-its own significance and its own memories. There was her childhood,
-there was her girlhood. There were the early days of her married life,
-when she and her husband had been alone. There were the crowded and
-anxious and wonderful years when her children had been little. There
-was the beginning of her widowhood, overshadowed with anguish and
-loneliness, yet with a dark beauty of its own. There was her tranquil
-middle age, and there was her business life.</p>
-
-<p>She had begun it on Tuesday, and this was Friday. It had lasted four
-days, yet it seemed to her quite as long as all the years of her
-youth. It seemed a lifetime in itself, in which she had acquired a new
-and bitter wisdom.</p>
-
-<p>The train stopped at her station, and, with a crowd of other
-home-going commuters, Mrs. Champney got out and hurried up the steps
-to the street, to catch a trolley car; but she was not quick enough.
-By the time she got there the car was full, and she drew back and let
-it go. She never was quick enough any more. She seemed to have been
-transferred into a world of terrific speed and vigor, where she was
-hopelessly outdistanced, hopelessly old and weary and slow.</p>
-
-<p>She had thought, until this week, that she was a fairly intelligent
-and energetic woman. She had even had her innocent little vanities;
-but now, standing on the corner and looking after the car—</p>
-
-<p>“I’m a silly, doddering old thing!” she said to herself, with a
-trembling lip.</p>
-
-<p>She remembered all the dreadful defeats and humiliations of the week.
-She remembered how slow she had been about wrapping up things and
-making change—how curt she had been with some of the wealthiest and
-most important customers—how stupid she had been about understanding
-the Polish and Italian women who brought in their work. She remembered
-the weary patience of Miss Elliott, who managed the shop. Miss Elliott
-was not more than twenty-eight, but she had been to Mrs. Champney like
-a discouraged but long-suffering teacher with a very trying child.</p>
-
-<p>“Doddering!” Mrs. Champney repeated.</p>
-
-<p>She was alone on the corner. In this new world nobody waited for
-anything. Those who, like herself, had missed the car, had at once set
-off on foot; and Mrs. Champney decided to do so herself. It was less
-than a mile—a pleasant walk in the soft April dusk.</p>
-
-<p>This walk might have been specially designed by Miss Elliott to teach
-Mrs. Champney another lesson; only it was a lesson that she had
-already learned. She really needed no further demonstration of the
-fact that she was fifty and utterly tired and miserable. It was
-superfluous, it was cruel, and it made her angry. When she reached the
-street where Robert’s little house stood, her heart was hot and bitter
-with resentment.</p>
-
-<p>“If they’d only let me alone!” she thought. “I don’t want any one to
-speak to me or look at me. I know I’m unreasonable. I want to be
-unreasonable. I want to be let alone!”</p>
-
-<p>But of course she couldn’t be. Nobody can be let alone except those
-who would give all the world for a little tiresome interference. Molly
-saw at once how tired she was, and wanted her to lie down and have
-dinner brought up to her. Robert, by saying nothing at all, was still
-more difficult to endure.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m not particularly tired, Molly, thank you,” said Mrs. Champney,
-with great politeness.</p>
-
-<p>What she wanted to do was to stamp her foot and cry:</p>
-
-<p>“Let me alone! Let me alone! Tomorrow is Saturday, and the next day is
-Sunday. You can talk to me on Sunday. Let me alone now!”</p>
-
-<p>She sternly repressed all this. She sat down at the table and tried to
-eat her dinner. She forced herself to remain in the sitting room until
-ten o’clock.</p>
-
-<p>“In a week or two I’ll go away and get a room for myself,” she
-thought, “where I can be as tired as I like!”</p>
-
-<p>When the clock struck ten, she sat still and counted up to five
-hundred, so that she wouldn’t seem like a tired person in a dreadful
-hurry to get to bed. Then she rose, said good night to Robert and
-Molly, and went upstairs.</p>
-
-<p>Even then she would not slight or omit any detail of her routine. She
-washed, rubbed cold cream into her hands, braided her hair, folded her
-clothes neatly, ready for the morning, and knelt down to say her
-prayers. Then she turned out the light, opened the window, and got
-into bed; and she was so glad to be there, so glad to lay her tired
-gray head on the pillow, that she cried.</p>
-
-<p>She was ashamed of this weakness, and meant to struggle against it;
-but sleep came before she had driven it away—a heavy and sorrowful
-sleep, colored with the mist of tears.</p>
-
-<p>She slept. Then she sighed, and stirred in her sleep. Something was
-coming through into the shadowy world of dreams—something imperious
-and menacing. She didn’t want to wake up, but something was forcing
-her to do so. She heard something calling.</p>
-
-<p>She sat up suddenly. It was a child’s voice calling “Mother!”—a sound
-which would, she thought, have reached her even in heaven.</p>
-
-<p>“Mother! Mother! I <i>want</i> you!” It was Bobbetty screaming that, and no
-one answered him. “I want you, mother!”</p>
-
-<p>“What’s the matter with Molly?” thought Mrs. Champney in a blaze of
-anger.</p>
-
-<p>She got out of bed and hurried barefooted across the room. That baby
-voice was filling the whole house, the whole world, with its
-heartbreaking cry:</p>
-
-<p>“Mother! Mother!”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney went out into the hall, and there she found Robert and
-Molly standing in the dim light outside Bobbetty’s door—Molly with her
-magnificent hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her face quite
-desperate, tears rolling down her cheeks.</p>
-
-<p>“What’s the matter?” cried Mrs. Champney.</p>
-
-<p>“Hush!” whispered Robert. “Dr. Pinney said we weren’t to take him
-up—said it was nothing but temper. I went in to see, and he’s
-perfectly all right. He simply wants Molly to take him up.”</p>
-
-<p>“But he’s—so little!” sobbed Molly, in a smothered voice.</p>
-
-<p>“Mother! I want you, mother!” shrieked Bobbetty.</p>
-
-<p>Molly made a move forward, but Robert clutched her arm. He, too, was
-pale and desperate.</p>
-
-<p>“No, Molly!” he said. “Dr. Pinney told us definitely—”</p>
-
-<p>“Bah!” cried Mrs. Champney, in a tone that amazed both of them. “Dr.
-Pinney, indeed!”</p>
-
-<p>She opened the door of Bobbetty’s room, went in, snatched him out of
-his crib, and carried him off, past his speechless parents, and into
-her own room.</p>
-
-<h2 id='sVI'>VI</h2>
-
-<p>Bobbetty’s hand was flung out and fell, soft and limp, across Mrs.
-Champney’s face. She opened her eyes. The dawn was stealing into the
-room, coming like music. One drowsy little bird was awake in the
-world, piping sweetly. The breeze came, fluttering the window curtain,
-and it seemed to her that she could hear the footsteps of the glorious
-sun coming up the sky. All creation waited for him—waited breathless,
-to break into a great chorus of ecstasy when he appeared.</p>
-
-<p>Bobbetty was waking, too. His hard little head bumped against her
-shoulder. His toes moved softly, he scowled, his great black eyes
-opened, he looked sternly into her face, and then he smiled.</p>
-
-<p>“Gramma!” he said contentedly, and sat up.</p>
-
-<p>“We must be very quiet, not to wake mother,” said Mrs. Champney.</p>
-
-<p>“Why?” asked Bobbetty.</p>
-
-<p>In his superb arrogance he looked upon his mother somewhat as he
-looked upon the sun. She existed solely for him. He adored her and he
-needed her—that was why she existed. Mrs. Champney did not trouble to
-explain. He would learn soon enough how very many other people there
-were in this world, and that it was not his own world and his own sun
-at all. In the meantime, let him make the most of it. She said that
-they would surprise mother, and the idea appealed to Bobbetty. He said
-he would be as quiet as a mouse, and so he was.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney got his ridiculous little garments and dressed him. She
-knelt at his feet to put on his stubby sandals. She even kissed his
-feet, and his hands, and his warm, olive-tinted cheeks, and the back
-of his neck. He smiled upon her, condescendingly but kindly.</p>
-
-<p>Then she carried him down into the kitchen. He was a plump and sturdy
-baby, but he was no burden to her arms. She wasn’t tired now. Indeed,
-she thought she had never in her life felt so gay and light and happy.</p>
-
-<p>The sun had come, and the kitchen was filled with it. The aluminium
-saucepans glittered like silver, and the water ran out of the tap in a
-rainbow spray. She laid the table in the dining room, and Bobbetty
-followed her back and forth, carrying the less dangerous things.</p>
-
-<p>There was a wonderful perfume in the air—the intangible sweetness of
-spring—and with it, and no less wonderful, was the homely fragrance of
-coffee and oatmeal and bacon. It was a divine hour, and Bobbetty knew
-it. Bobbetty could share it with her—he and he alone.</p>
-
-<p>He dropped a loaf of bread that he was carrying, and, moved by
-impulse, kicked it across the room. Mrs. Champney picked it up,
-without a word of reproof. She knew how Bobbetty felt.</p>
-
-<p>Then she drew the chairs up to the table—and made her great discovery.</p>
-
-<p>“There are four chairs!” she cried aloud. “There are four of us! Why,
-I’m not the third person at all!”</p>
-
-<p>She was so overcome by this that she sat down, and stared before her
-with a dazed look.</p>
-
-<p>“There were three already—I’m the fourth, and four’s such a nice
-number! I can’t go away and leave Robert and Molly alone together.
-They’ll never be alone together any more—there’s Bobbetty. I can help
-so much! They’re both so very, very young, and I could do so much!
-Molly could have time for music. There are two buttons off Bobbetty’s
-underwaist. Mother-in-law, indeed!”</p>
-
-<p>She heard the percolator boiling too hard, and she got up. In the
-kitchen doorway she met Bobbetty with the bowwow.</p>
-
-<p>“Bobbetty!” she said. “Do you know something?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, I do!” shouted the child.</p>
-
-<p>But Mrs. Champney told him, anyhow.</p>
-
-<p>“Bobbetty,” she said, “there’s a Lucy Stone League for women who don’t
-want to use their husbands’ names. I believe I’ll start a Jessica
-Champney League for women who refuse to be called mothers-in-law.
-There’s really no such thing as a mother-in-law, Bobbetty. It’s just a
-joke, and a very nasty one. Really and truly, Bobbetty, there are
-nothing but mothers-in-nature. I think I’ll invent some other word.
-Why not ‘husbandsmother,’ or ‘wifesmother,’ or—”</p>
-
-<p>Molly appeared before her, evidently in great distress.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, mother darling!” she cried. “You shouldn’t have done this! You
-shouldn’t be up so early! You’ll be tired out before you start!”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Champney stirred the oatmeal, which was bubbling and spouting
-like molten lava.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t believe I will go,” she said. “It seems—such a waste of time.
-I think I’ll stay home, and help you, and be a grandmother. I’ve tried
-everything else, and I believe I’d do well at that.”</p>
-
-<p>Molly stared for a moment. Then she ran to the foot of the stairs.</p>
-
-<p>“Robert!” she called, in her ringing, joyous voice. “Robert! Mother’s
-going to stay home!”</p>
-
-<div class="tn">
-<div style='text-align:center'>Transcriber’s Notes</div>
-<ol>
-<li>This story appeared in the November 1925 issue of <em>Munsey’s Magazine</em>.</li>
-<li>The cover image was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.</li>
-</ol>
-</div>
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORST JOKE IN THE WORLD ***</div>
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