CHAPTER III

For days Claire lay in a state of drowsy quiet.

She hardly realized the fact of her changed condition, that she was being cared for, ministered to, looked after. She had brief, waking moments when she seemed to be aware that Martha was bringing in her breakfast, or sitting beside her while she ate her dinner, but the intervening s.p.a.ces, when "Ma" or Cora served, were dim, indistinct adumbrations of no more substantial quality than the vagrant dreams that ranged mistily across her relaxed brain.

The thin walls of the cheaply-built flat did not protect her from the noise of the children's prattling tongues and boisterous laughter, but the walls of her consciousness closed her about, as in a m.u.f.fled security, and she slept on and on, until the exhausted body was reinforced, the overtaxed nerves infused with new strength.

Then, one evening, when the room in which she lay was dusky with twilight shadows, she realized that she was awake, that she was alive.

She had gradually groped her way through the dim stretches lying between the region of visions and that of the actual, but the step into a full sense of reality was abrupt. She heard the sound of children's voices in the next room. So clear they were, she could distinguish every syllable.

"Say, now, listen, mother! What do you do when you go out working every day?" It was Cora speaking.

"I work."

"Pooh, you know what I mean. What kinder work do you do?"

For a moment there was no answer, then Claire recognized Martha's voice, with what was, undeniably, a chuckle tucked away in its mellow depths, where no mere, literal child would be apt to discern it.

"Stenography an' typewritin'!"

"Are you a stenographer an' typewriter, mother? Honest?"

"Well, you can take it from me, if I was _it_ at all, I'd be it honest.

What makes you think there's any doubt o' my being one? Don't I have the appearance of a high-toned young lady stenographer an' typewriter?"

A pause, in which Martha's substantial steps were to be heard busily pa.s.sing to and fro, as she went about her work. Her mother's reply evidently did not carry conviction to Cora's questioning mind, for a second later she was up and at it afresh.

"Say, now, listen, mother--if you do stenography an' typewritin', what makes your ap.r.o.n so wet an' dirty, nights when you come home?"

"Don't you s'pose I clean my machine before I leave? What kinder typewriter d'you think I am? To leave my machine dirty, when a good scrub-down, with a pail o' hot water, an' a stiff brush, an' Sapolio, would put it in fine shape for the next mornin'."

"Mother--say, now, listen! I don't _believe_ that's the way they clean typewriters. Miss Symonds, she's the Princ.i.p.al's seckerterry to our school, an' she sits in the office, she cleans her machine with oil and a little fine brush, like you clean your teeth with."

"What you been doin' in the Princ.i.p.al's office, miss, I should like to know? Been sent up to her for bad behavior, or not knowin' your lessons?

Speak up now! Quick!"

"My teacher, she sends me on errands, an' I got a credit-card last week an', say, mother, I don't _believe_ you're a young lady stenographer an'

typewriter. You're just trying to fool me."

"Well, Miss Smarty, supposin' I am. So long's I don't succeed you've no kick comin'."

"Say, now listen, mother."

"Hush! You'll wake the pretty lady. Besides, too many questions before dinner is apt to spoil the appet.i.te, to say nothin' of the temper. Turn to, an' lend a hand with them potatoes. Smash 'em good first, an' then beat 'em with a fork until they're light an' creamy, an' you won't have so much gimp left for snoopin' into things that don't concern you!"

"Say, now listen, mother!"

"Well?"

"Say, mother, something awful funny happened to me last night?"

"Are you tellin' what it was?"

"Something woke me up in the middle of the night, 'n' I got up out of bed, an' the clock struck four, 'n' then I knew it was mornin'. 'N' I heard a noise, 'n' I thought it was robbers, 'n' I went to the door, 'n'

it was open, 'n' I went out into the hall, 'n'--"

"Well?"

"An' there was _you_, mother, on the stairs--kneelin'!"

"Guess you had a dream, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't."

"What'd I be kneelin' on the stairs for, at four o'clock in the mornin', I should like to know?"

"It looked like you was brushin' 'em down."

"_Me_ brushin' down _Snyder's_ stairs! Well, now what do you think o'

that?" Her tone of amazement, at the mere possibility, struck Cora, and there was a pause, broken at length by Martha, in a preternaturally solemn voice. "I s'pose you never tumbled to it I might be _prayin'_."

Cora's eyes grew wide. "Prayin'!" she repeated in an awed whisper. "But, mother, what'd you want to go out in the hall for, to pray on the _stairs_, at four o'clock in the mornin'?"

"Prayin' is a G.o.dly ack. Wheresomedever, an' _when_somedever you do it."

"But, mother, I don't _believe_ you were prayin'. I heard the knockin'

o' your whis'-broom. You was brushin' down the stairs."

"Well, what if I was? Cleanliness is next to G.o.dliness, ain't it?

Prayin' an' cleanin', it amounts to the same thing in the end--it's just a question of what you clean, outside you or _in_."

"But say, now, listen, mother, you never cleaned down Mr. Snyder's stairs before. An' you been making shirtwaists for Mrs. Snyder, after you get home nights. I saw her with one of 'em on."

"Cora, do you know what happened to a little girl oncet who asked too many questions?"

"No."

"Well, I won't tell you now. It might spoil your appet.i.te for dinner.

But you can take it from me, the end she met with would surprise you."

Shortly after, Claire's door quietly opened, and Cora, with a lighted taper in her hand, tiptoed cautiously in, like a young torch-bearing _avant-courriere,_ behind whom Mrs. Slawson, laden with a wonderful tray, advanced processionally.

"Light the changelier, an' then turn it low," Martha whispered. "An'

then you, yourself, light out, so's the pretty lady can eat in comfort."