CHAPTER XIX SUZANNA PUTS A REQUEST

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In that devastating fire which swept out of existence the entire tenement district of Anchorville two were lost, never to be heard of again, parents of a twain of children, a boy of four and a girl of three.

Mrs. Procter, finding the mites wandering away from the smoking ruins, had at once taken them home with her, fed them, found clothes for them, and rocked the tired little girl to sleep.

"Are we going to keep them forever, mother?" Maizie asked one afternoon about two weeks after the fire. No one had put in a claim for the children; they were homeless, friendless. What was to be done with them? Mrs. Procter had turned with loathing from the thought of the orphanage.

She stood at Maizie's question in deep perplexity. She could not turn the children away or put them in an institution—and yet, how could she care for them? There was the very definite problem of extra clothes and food to be found out of an income already stretched to its utmost.

"They haven't a home any more, have they, mother?" Suzanna asked, the while her earnest eyes searched her mother's face. "So we should do unto others as we'd be done by, shouldn't we?"

A vague memory returned to Mrs. Procter. What was it Suzanna had once said? "Mrs. Procter cuddles all children in her heart." And Suzanna and Maizie stood watching her, asking a literal translation of a principle laid down for man's guidance.

"We'll see what can be done," Mrs. Procter answered finally. And then she continued very carefully: "You see, it isn't only a question of giving these little ones a home, but they must be clothed and fed and educated, and we haven't a great deal of money."

"So many of those poor people haven't any homes any more, have they?" asked Suzanna. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears of pity. She looked out of the window. The sun was shining brightly. And to be in keeping with the suffering about them, Suzanna wished it would hide behind a cloud. It seemed the day itself, to be in sympathy, should be dark, depressed, altogether gloomy.

Her mother answered: "It's providential in a manner that those unsightly cottages were swept away; but they meant homes for many poor souls; and all that they possessed was contained in those homes."

Suzanna's ingenious mind settled itself to work on the problem of the bereft ones. She was no longer thinking of the two little orphans, but of the many troubled people. If only her home were large enough to accommodate them all! Her thoughts in natural sequence ran to the Eagle Man and his beautiful place, but she immediately rejected the idea. She feared he might not listen kindly to the plan of lending his home even as a temporary abode for the stricken. Had he not been a little unkind about her father's wonderful Machine?

Suddenly she remembered Bartlett Villa, and with the memory came a thousand thoughts. Impulsively she donned hat and coat, spoke a word to her mother and was off.

In a very short time, for she ran nearly all the way, she reached Bartlett Villa. She pushed open the big iron gate leading into the grounds, and stopped short, for there to the left, near a closed fountain, stood Graham. He was talking to a tall man whose back was toward Suzanna. About the two, in seeming happiness, played Jerry.

Graham cried out when he saw Suzanna. She went quickly to him. Then the man looked down at her and smiled. Suzanna decided that she liked him, but she wished his smile was more of a real one, one that should light his face. She did not know the word, but he looked, despite his smile, cynical, rather weary. Yes, she knew she should like him, for in some indefinite way he reminded her of her father. Was it the brown, rather nearsighted eyes? Surely they were keen, yet behind their keenness dwelt a softness; perhaps he, too, once had cherished a vision.

Graham greeted her demonstratively. "And this is my father, Suzanna," he said. "I've told him a lot about you."

"Yes, I know a great deal about you, Suzanna," said Mr. Bartlett; "and David has told me of your father's invention and what he expects to do some day with it."

Suzanna's face kindled. "Yes, my father's a great man," she said, simply.

Then she turned to Graham: "I came to talk to you about something very important. I was going to ask you afterwards to speak to your father about my plan."

"I may hear, then?" said Mr. Bartlett. "Shall we go on into the house? There's a little chill in the air."

So they walked toward the great house, leaving Jerry rather disconsolate. Suzanna, looking up at Mr. Bartlett, said: "I've been here twice and I've never seen you."

"My business takes me often to different cities," he replied.

They entered the house and went into a small room at the left of the wide hall. It was lovely, Suzanna decided, done all in soft gray, except the curtains at the window, which were of amber silk, hanging in heavy folds. Yes, very charming, Suzanna emphasized to herself. She liked particularly the one picture on the wall, showing a group of horses, heads high in the air, full of fire. Suzanna could see them move, she believed.

"Sit down there, Suzanna, in that high-backed chair and tell us what you have to say that's so important," suggested Mr. Bartlett.

"I'm crazy to hear all about it, Suzanna," supplemented Graham. He settled himself in anticipation, for Suzanna was always intensely interesting.

Suzanna seated herself. A quaint little figure she was, her fine head thrown in relief against the gray satin of the chair. "You know," she began, "there's been a fire."

"A bully big one," said Graham.

Suzanna turned her dark eyes upon the boy. "It was a big one, and maybe fun to watch," she said, "but it burned all the people's homes. We've got two little children, at our house. We could never find their father and mother."

Mr. Bartlett, occupying the corner of a lounge, shifted uneasily. Evidently to put forth truths so baldly was inartistic.

"My mother says it was—I can't think of the word—but she meant it was lucky those cottages were burned down; they were so dirty." Suzanna went on: "And babies played in the yards in ashes and old papers. I always hurried past when I went that way because something stopped inside of me, I felt so sorry for those babies." Suzanna paused. "I just thought as we walked up your front path how different everything is here; your front yard is so clean, and there's so much room!"

She stopped again. She wished Mr. Bartlett would speak. He must guess now all that she meant to convey to him; all she would ask of him.

But still he didn't answer. "The Eagle Man owned those houses," she said at last.

"The Eagle Man?" Mr. Bartlett roused himself at last. "Who is the Eagle Man?"

"Mr. Massey other people call him. The Eagle Man's my own private name for him."

Graham knew his father was heavily interested in the Massey Steel Mills. But he did not speak.

"You know, it's an awful fine feeling you get when you're doing something for strangers," Suzanna pressed on. "Some way you don't feel so excited when you're doing something for your very own family."

But she was doomed to disappointment. A continued silence still greeted her words. "When people work for you isn't it as though you were their father or their big brother and had to help them when they needed it?" she asked, at length.

"Well, it's a new thought that you owe anything to the men who work for you except their wages," said Mr. Bartlett at last.

"Why, Drusilla told me that everyone in the world has a little silver chain running from his wrist to his next friend's wrist; it stretches when you run—a fellowship link my father named it when I told him. And the chain runs from my wrist to your wrist and from yours to every other wrist in the world." She leaned closer, finishing earnestly. "And Drusilla says if you break your chain you're really a slave."

"Very interesting," commented Mr. Bartlett.

"Yes, isn't it?" agreed Suzanna. She returned tenaciously to her subject. "There are many homeless families who weren't welcome where they had to go after the fire. Mary Holmes says her mother took in four people and she says as long as they stay there'll have to be stews, for in that way a pound of meat goes further, and Mary just hates stews."

"Well, what is your suggestion of a remedy, Suzanna?" asked Mr. Bartlett. At which question, though put in words beyond her, Suzanna's eyes brightened. She caught the sense unerringly and answered promptly.

"Why, I thought you could do something. You have so much room." And then the solution came, out of the sky as often answers came when you didn't expect them. "Why, you could put tents up in your big yards for the homeless people, till their own homes are built again."

Mr. Bartlett was greatly amused. "You ask such a little thing, Suzanna."

"Yes, isn't it, seeing it'll help out so much?" Suzanna returned innocently.

Graham rose and went close to his father. "Father," he said, "who's going to build the new homes for the poor people?"

His father answered: "I don't know, I'm sure; but I should think it old John Massey's duty to do so."

"Father," asked Graham, after a pause given over to thought and drawing on his memory for what vague facts he knew of his father's business, "if you take less money for your interests in the mill and if you speak to him, do you suppose Mr. Massey would begin at once to build those homes?" His young face was quite white with earnestness and other new emotions struggling up to the surface.

Mr. Bartlett looked from one small face to the other. He smiled grimly. They could see nothing but the humanness of a situation, the need existing. Going against all precedent meant nothing to them; they simply followed ridiculous altruistic impulses. Only in their minds was the knowledge that other people were suffering; and the immediate necessity for relief.

He let his hand fall upon his son's shoulder. "How about the trip abroad, Graham?" There was an under meaning in his question which Graham got at once. His face lit.

"I'd rather help out here, father, and give up the trip. I really would."

Mr. Bartlett remained quiet for a long time again. In some mysterious manner he was now for almost the first time looking upon his son as an individual, one with opinions and the power of criticism. And there grew in his heart the very fervent desire to stand well in that son's estimation. He looked at Suzanna and envied her father. How proudly, how simply she had said, "He is a great man!"

But when he spoke, he reverted to a name used a moment before by Suzanna, a name he knew well.

"Who's your very philosophic friend, Suzanna—Drusilla, you called her."

Suzanna's eyes shone. "Drusilla? She's my special friend. She lives in a little house on the forked road. She's pretty and sweet and she has fancies, like children. She plays sometimes she's a queen. But she's lonely. She gave Miss Massey to Robert in the little church. And she has no one in all the world left to call her by her first name. So I call her Drusilla and she loves it."

Graham did not stir. Neither did he look at his father till Suzanna, suddenly remembering, cried out:

"Why, Drusilla's Graham's grandmother!"

Mr. Bartlett's face suddenly went very white. He didn't speak for a long time. Then he rose and went to the window, drew back the silken curtain and stared out.

Suzanna wondered if he would ever move again! At the moment he was far away. He was a boy again at his mother's knee, listening to that fanciful conception of the little silver chain that stretched so far. There rushed in on him, too, other memories, blinding ones that hurt. True, every day at the little house a spray of lilies of the valley were delivered; but with that impersonal gift which cost him nothing but the drawing of a check he had dismissed his mother from his busy mind, letting her stay in loneliness, live in old dreams.

A soft little swish was heard at the door and Mrs. Bartlett entered the room. She stopped in some consternation at sight of the silent trio within.

"Why, what is the matter?" she asked, impulsively.

Mr. Bartlett turned from the window. He looked at his wife, steadily regarded her beautiful face and bronze-colored hair piled high upon her small and regal head. His gaze sought the soft, white hands, the tapered fingers with pink and shining nails.

At last he spoke, very quietly, but each word seemed weighed: "'And in the morning there shall tents suddenly arise.' A quotation from somewhere, my dear, but it shall come true here."

She turned a cold gaze upon him. "Will you explain what you mean?" she asked.

"There are a few homeless people in Anchorville; their homes laid waste by a fire," he said, pleasantly. "This small messenger has suggested that we make use of our ample grounds for a time by putting up tents, for a time, I say, till more substantial abiding places may be built."

She clenched her hands. "You can't do that, Graham," she began, a note of entreaty in her voice; "you can't possibly be so absurdly quixotic."

"And why not?"

"I can't understand!" she repeated. "Such philanthropic ideas have not occurred to you before."

He went to her, standing so he could look into her eyes. "It's late in the day, but I'll try to do some little thing my mother would like me to do."

Mrs. Bartlett was about to speak again in burning protest when her glance fell upon the children, Suzanna and her own boy. And the eloquent expressions upon those small faces kept her silent. At last she turned as though to leave the room. Over her shoulder she spoke.

"At least you will not insist upon my presence here while you fulfill your preposterous plans?"

He replied gently: "As always, I ask nothing that you cannot give in perfect freedom."

She hesitated, was about to say something, stopped and took another subject: "As for your mother—"

He interrupted her, but to repeat "As for my mother—" but he left his thought unfinished.

Then he, too, went toward the door, and as he passed Suzanna he let his fine, nervous hand touch her bright hair. Once he turned. "Suzanna, as I told you," he said, "David, my fine gardener, has interested me somewhat in your father's machine; perhaps I'll make a journey to your home some day to see it."


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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