Mary Minds Her Business

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And I-I am fifty-"

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

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

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

"Patty-!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which was really how it started.

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

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

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

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

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

"Any of them married?" she continued.

"All but me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, dear," whispered Cordelia, her mouth ever so close to his ear.

"Your future wife-and the mother of your future children-"

"Nonsense, nonsense-" muttered Josiah, breaking away quite flustered.

"I'm-I'm too old-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Later they were glad they had told her this.

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

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

But she didn't.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We must start sewing," said Miss Cordelia.

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you notice how much better Josiah is looking!" whispered Miss

Cordelia to her sister one evening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They were pleased at these revelations.

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

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

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

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

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

"You poor motherless little thing," breathed Cordelia, cuddling the baby in her arms. "Look, Josiah," she said, trying to rouse her brother. "Look ...it's smiling at you-"

But Josiah looked up with haggard eyes that saw nothing, and could only repeat the sentence which he had been whispering to himself, "It's God's own punishment-God's own punishment-there are things-I can't tell you-"

The doctor came to him at last and, after he was quieter, the two sisters went away, carrying their precious burden with them.

"Wasn't there a girl's name which means bitterness?" asked Miss Cordelia, suddenly stopping.

"Yes," said Miss Patty. "That's what 'Mary' means."

The two sisters looked at each other earnestly-looked at each other and nodded.

"We'll call her 'Mary' then," said Miss Cordelia.

And that is how my heroine got her name.