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Old Mrs. HarrisXI
For the next few days Mrs. Harris was very sombre, and she was not well. Several times in the kitchen she was seized with what she called giddy spells, and Mandy had to help her to a chair and give her a little brandy.
"Don`t you say nothin`, Mandy," she warned the girl. But Mandy knew enough for that.
Mrs. Harris scarcely noticed how her strength was failing, because she had so much on her mind. She was very proud, and she wanted to do something that was hard for her to do. The difficulty was to catch Mrs. Rosen alone.
On the afternoon when Victoria went to her weekly euchre, the old lady beckoned Mandy and told her to run across the alley and fetch Mrs. Rosen for a minute.
Mrs. Rosen was packing her trunk, but she came at once. Grandmother awaited her in her chair in the play-room.
"I take it very kindly of you to come, Mrs. Rosen. I`m afraid it`s warm in here. Won`t you have a fan?" She extended the palm leaf she was holding.
"Keep it yourself, Grandma. You are not looking very well. Do you feel badly, Grandma Harris?" She took the old lady`s hand and looked at her anxiously.
"Oh, no, ma`am! I`m as well as usual. The heat wears on me a little, maybe. Have you seen Vickie lately, Mrs. Rosen?"
"Vickie? No. She hasn`t run in for several days. These young people are full of their own affairs, you know."
"I expect she`s backward about seeing you, now that she`s so discouraged."
"Discouraged? Why, didn`t the child get her scholarship after all?"
"Yes`m, she did. But they write her she has to bring more money to help her out; three hundred dollars. Mr. Templeton can`t raise it just now. We had so much sickness in that mountain town before we moved up here, he got behind. Pore Vickie`s downhearted."
"Oh, that is too bad! I expect you`ve been fretting over it, and that is why you don`t look like yourself. Now what can we do about it?"
Mrs. Harris sighed and shook her head. "Vickie`s trying to muster courage to go around to her father`s friends and borrow from one and another. But we ain`t been here long,--it ain`t like we had old friends here. I hate to have the child do it."
Mrs. Rosen looked perplexed. "I`m sure Mr. Rosen would help her. He takes a great interest in Vickie."
"I thought maybe he could see his way to. That`s why I sent Mandy to fetch you."
"That was right, Grandma. Now let me think." Mrs. Rosen put up her plump red-brown hand and leaned her chin upon it. "Day after tomorrow I am going to run on to Chicago for my niece`s wedding." She saw her old friend`s face fall. "Oh, I shan`t be gone long; ten days, perhaps. I will speak to Mr. Rosen tonight, and if Vickie goes to him after I am off his hands, I`m sure he will help her."
Mrs. Harris looked up at her with solemn gratitude. "Vickie ain`t the kind of girl would forget anything like that, Mrs. Rosen. Nor I wouldn`t forget it."
Mrs. Rosen patted her arm. "Grandma Harris," she exclaimed, "I will just ask Mr. Rosen to do it for you! You know I care more about the old folks than the young. If I take this worry off your mind, I shall go away to the wedding with a light heart. Now dismiss it. I am sure Mr. Rosen can arrange this himself for you, and Vickie won`t have to go about to these people here, and our gossipy neighbours will never be the wiser." Mrs. Rosen poured this out in her quick, authoritative tone, converting her th`s into d`s, as she did when she was excited.
Mrs. Harris`s red-brown eyes slowly filled with tears,--Mrs. Rosen had never seen that happen before. But she simply said, with quiet dignity: "Thank you, ma`am. I wouldn`t have turned to nobody else."
"That means I am an old friend already, doesn`t it, Grandma? And that`s what I want to be. I am very jealous where Grandma Harris is concerned!" She lightly kissed the back of the purple-veined hand she had been holding, and ran home to her packing. Grandma sat looking down at her hand. How easy it was for these foreigners to say what they felt!
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