Kitabı oku: «The Rosie World», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XVIII
ON THE CULTURE OF BABIES

Midsummer came and with it a great suffocating blanket of heat which brought prostration to the world at large and to little Rosie O'Brien a new care and a great anxiety.

"I don't mind about myself," she murmured one breathless sultry morning as she served George Riley his late breakfast. Even George, who paid scant attention to weather, looked worn and pale.

Rosie sat down opposite him as he began eating and stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and very serious.

"It's Geraldine, Jarge. I don't know what I'm going to do. The poor birdie was awake nearly all night. I hope you didn't hear us. I don't want to disturb you, too."

George shook his head. "Oh, I slept all right. I always do. But it was so blamed hot that when I got up I felt weak as a cat." He bolted a knifeful of fried potatoes, then asked: "What's ailing Geraldine? Ain't her food agreeing with her?"

Rosie sighed. It was the sigh of a little mother who had been asking herself that same question over and over. "It's partly that; but I think the food would be all right if only other things were all right. You're a man, Jarge, so you don't understand about babies. It's Geraldine's second summer and she's teething. Her poor little mouth's all swollen and feverish. It would be bad enough in cold weather, but in this heat she hardly gets a wink of sleep… I tell you, Jarge, if we don't do something for her real quick, she's just going to die!" Rosie dropped her head on the table and wept.

"Aw, now, 'tain't that bad, is it, Rosie?"

"Yes." The answer came muffled in tears. "It's just awful, Jarge, the way they go down. They'll be perfectly well, and then before you know what's happening they just wilt, and you can't do anything for them. And if Geraldine dies, I – I want to die too!"

"Aw, Rosie, cheer up! She ain't going to die!" George's words were brave but his face was troubled. "I suppose, now, if she was only in the country, she'd be all right, wouldn't she?"

Rosie wiped her eyes and sighed. "Is it cool in the country, Jarge?"

"You bet it is – just as cool and nice! The grass is green and wind's always a-blowin' in the trees and you can hear the gurgle of the creek down at the bottom of the meadow. And at night you can sleep on the big upstairs porch, if you want to, and you always get a breeze up there. And you needn't be afraid of mosquitoes and flies, either, 'cause mother always has things screened in with black mosquito-netting. Oh, I tell you it's just fine in the country!"

George paused a moment, then laughed a little apologetically. "Leastways, Rosie, that's how I always think of the country now. Of course we do have sizzling weather out there just as much as we do here; but it's different, somehow. Out there you get a chance to cool off. They ain't them ever-lasting paved streets all around you, sending out heat like a furnace night and day just the same… Do you know, I ain't felt like myself for three weeks! If I was back home now I tell you what I'd do: I'd go down to the creek and take a dip and then I'd come in and, by gosh, maybe I wouldn't sleep!"

Rosie sighed again. "Well, no use talking about the country. It's the city for ours, even if Geraldine does die."

Tears again threatened and George hastened to give the comforting assurance: "Aw, now, Rosie, it ain't that bad, I know it ain't. Besides, this weather can't keep up forever. We'll be having a thunderstorm any time now, and that'll cool things off." Then, to change the subject: "What does your mother say about Geraldine?"

"Pooh!" Rosie tossed her head in fine scorn. "I'd like to know what my mother knows about babies!"

George protested. "She ought to know something. She's had a few herself."

"Jarge Riley, you listen to me." Rosie looked at him fixedly. "With some women, having babies don't mean one blessed thing! They just have 'em and have 'em and have 'em, and that's all they know about them. Take me, now, and I'm twelve, and take ma, and I don't know how old she is, but she has had eight children, so you can judge for yourself, and right now she's so ignur'nt about the proper care and feeding of babies that I wouldn't dare trust Geraldine to her alone for twenty-four hours!"

Rosie paused impressively, then concluded with the damning statement: "All the time she was taking care of that baby she never once boiled a nipple! Never once!"

George blinked his eyes in puzzled thought. "Do you got to boil 'em?"

For a moment Rosie glared unspeakable things. Then she answered with crushing emphasis: "You certainly do!"

George moved uneasily. "No hard feelings, Rosie. I was just askin'."

Rosie was magnanimous. "I'm not blaming you, Jarge. You're a man and not supposed to understand about sterilizing. But I do say it's disgraceful in a mother of eight… Why, do you know what ma was feeding Geraldine when I took hold of her? Nothing but that old-fashioned baby-food that nobody but ignur'nt people use now. It's the first thing they hand out to you at the drug-store, if you don't know the difference. It makes babies fat but it don't give them one bit of strength, and people like ma suppose if a baby's fat, of course, it's all right. Oh, such ignur'nce!" Rosie sighed wearily and cast long-suffering eyes to heaven.

Balancing a conciliatory knife on his finger, George appealed to her as man to man: "Now, Rosie, see here: I'm not saying that you don't know all about babies, 'cause I think you do. I know the way you been finding out things at the Little Mothers' Class and I know the way you study that book. But facts is facts, Rosie, and after all, your ma has raised five kids out of eight, and that ain't so bad."

"Go on." Rosie looked at him challengingly.

George had no more to say.

Rosie had. "Jarge Riley, you know as much about babies as a rabbit! Don't you know that Geraldine is a bottle-baby?"

An expression of helpless wonderment spread over George's face. "Why, Rosie, ain't they all bottle-babies? Seems to me I always seen 'em give bottles to all of 'em."

"All of them bottle-babies! Jarge, you're more ignur'nt than I supposed. Why, every last baby my mother's had except Geraldine has been a breast-baby!"

The pink of an unexpected embarrassment mounted to George's shiny cheekbones.

Rosie surveyed him critically. "I suppose, now that you come to think about it, it seems to you they must all be breast-babies, too. Tell me, ain't that so?"

"Search me if it ain't!" George spoke in candid bewilderment.

"That just shows how much you know and yet you're willing to sit there and argue with me. Now I suppose you think it takes as much brains to raise a breast-baby as a bottle-baby." There was a question in Rosie's tone but George, breathing hard, had no opinion to hazard. After a moment of impressive silence, Rosie continued: "Any ordinary, ignur'nt, healthy woman, with lots of good milk, can raise a baby, but when it comes to bottle-feeding – "

Rosie broke off suddenly and her face took on the expression of a listening mother.

"Rosie! Rosie!" Mrs. O'Brien's voice called. "Geraldine's awake and is crying for you."

Rosie paused long enough to say, in parting: "There's lots more I could tell you, Jarge, if I had time."

"Oh, don't mind me, Rosie. Just run along. I'm sure Geraldine needs you." George spoke with a certain relief. The weight of the new knowledge that Rosie had already imposed upon him seemed as much as he could bear for the present.

Rosie left him. She felt cheered and comforted, as talking out her troubles with George always cheered and comforted her. Dear old George! Rosie didn't know what she would do without him.

It was well that she had the consciousness of his friendly interest to support her, for the day was to prove a trying one. Not a breath of air stirred, and Geraldine, languid and feverish, tossed and fretted unceasingly. Ordinarily Rosie could have given her whole attention to the ailing baby, but today she had to take her mother's place as cook for dinner, since a large family washing required all of Mrs. O'Brien's time and strength. If Geraldine would only have fallen off to sleep, Rosie could have managed simply enough; but the poor child could not sleep. So Rosie spent a frantic morning running back and forth between kitchen and front room.

"Why, Rosie, what ails you? You're not eating a bite," her father remarked during dinner.

"It's too hot to eat," Rosie murmured.

"Give me your meat!" Jack cried out. "Please, Rosie!"

Without a word, Rosie passed him her plate.

In mid-afternoon, when it was time for Rosie to go about her business of delivering papers, she entrusted the care of Geraldine to Janet McFadden. For several days now she had been employing Janet for this duty. Out of her own earnings she was paying Janet two cents a day, and she did not grudge the money. Janet was the one person to whom she was willing to entrust Geraldine at this critical time. Janet knew as much about babies as Rosie herself, for she had gone to the Little Mother classes with Rosie and had faithfully studied the book. So Rosie started out with the feeling that she need not hurry back.

She loitered along slowly; after the rush of home it was good to loiter. Even the blazing sun was restful compared with home and its unending demands. Rosie covered the ground at snail's pace, resting at the least provocation of shade, and stopping to look at the least hint of anything happening or likely to happen.

It was five o'clock when she reached home again, and time to give Geraldine her afternoon bath. Mrs. O'Brien was still at the ironing-board and Rosie had to shift clothes-horses to find a place on the floor for the big basin.

"Ah, now, and ain't Rosie the kind sister to be giving Geraldine a nice bath!" Mrs. O'Brien began in her usual tone and manner. "Your poor ma wishes there was some one to give her a nice bath!" She rambled on while Rosie splashed Geraldine and then began wrapping her in a towel.

"I wouldn't moind it so much if only it cooled off of nights." Mrs. O'Brien wiped her moist face with her apron, and sighed. "It's played out I am, Rosie. I can't stand another minute." She took a long, uncertain breath and dropped heavily into a chair.

Rosie, with Geraldine in her arms, paused in the doorway. She, too, wanted to escape from the hot kitchen, but something in her mother's tone held her.

Mrs. O'Brien swayed listlessly in her chair. "It's sick at me stomach I'm feelin'. The smell o' the kitchen goes agin' me… Rosie dear – " Mrs. O'Brien broke off to look at Rosie a moment in silent appeal. "Rosie dear, do ye think just for tonight ye could cook the supper for me? I hate to ask you – I do that, for ye've had a hard day of it with poor wee Geraldine fretting her life away. And I'm not forgetting that ye helped me this noon. I wouldn't be asking another thing of you today if I could help it, but I'm clean tuckered out ironin' them last shirt-waists for Ellen, and I tell ye, Rosie, I feel like I'd faint if I thried to stand up in front of that stove."

Tears of self-pity came to Rosie's eyes and she wanted to cry out: "And what about me? Don't you suppose I'm tired, too?" But the sight of her mother's face going suddenly pale and of her hands beginning to shake, checked her, and she said, quietly enough: "All right, Ma, I will. You take Geraldine and go out in front. Maybe it's a little cooler there."

Mrs. O'Brien started off, murmuring gratefully: "Ah, Rosie dear, ye're a darlint and I don't know what I'd do without you!"

Rosie, left to herself, instead of taking comfort at thought of her own nobility of conduct, leaned miserably against the kitchen door and burst into tears… "I don't see why I always got to do all the disagreeable things in this house, and I always do got to, too! I – I – I'm tired, I am!"

She sobbed on awhile brokenly, then slowly dried her eyes, for it was half-past five and time to set to work for supper.

CHAPTER XIX
CRAZY WITH THE HEAT

Rosie was spoken of in the family as a good cook, but this afternoon there was so little of any housewifely pride left in her that she fried the potatoes as carelessly as Ellen would have fried them, and she scorched the ham. She set the table after some fashion, and then, when all was ready, went through the house calling, "Supper's ready! Supper's ready!"

As the family straggled in, Rosie went on to her next duty of putting George Riley's supper into a tin pail.

"Better hurry," Terence warned her. "You'll be missing Jarge's car."

"I can't hurry any faster," Rosie murmured; but she did, nevertheless, snatch up the pail and start off.

It seemed to her the street was even hotter and more breathless than the smoky kitchen. The late afternoon sun was still beating down on pavements and houses and people, fiercely, unceasingly, as it had been since early morning, and all things alike looked worn and dusty and utterly fatigued. Little shop-girls were trailing listlessly home, their hats crooked, their black waists limp with perspiration, their hair hanging about their pale faces in shiny, damp strings. Yet, tired as they were, they were still attempting forlorn, giggly little jokes and friendly greetings.

One girl called out in passing: "Gee, Rosie, ain't this the limit?" Another asked facetiously: "Well, kid, how does this weather suit you?" and a third stopped her to exclaim breathlessly: "Say, Rosie, ain't you just crazy with the heat!"

Rosie reached the corner in good time for George's car. There was a slight congestion in traffic and George had a moment or two before dashing back to his place on the rear platform. He looked dirty and hot. His collar was in a soft welt, his face streaked with dust and perspiration. His expression, usually good-natured, was gloomy and irritable.

"What you got tonight?" he asked, lifting the lid of the pail. "What! Ham again? Ham! What do you think I am? It's ham, ham, ham, every night of the week till I'm sick and tired of it! Here! Take it back – I don't want it! I'll buy me something decent to eat!"

"Why, Jarge!" Rosie had never heard him talk that way before. She hadn't supposed he could talk that way to her. The unexpectedness of it was like a blow. For the first time in their acquaintance she shrank from him. Her face quivered, her eyes filled with tears. "Why, Jarge!" she stammered again.

The motorman of George's car sounded his gong in warning and George, without another word, dropped the pail at Rosie's feet and jumped aboard.

Rosie, dazed and crushed, stood where she was until the car disappeared. At first she was too hurt to cry out; too surprised by the suddenness of the attack to formulate her protest in words. One thing only was clear, namely, that George Riley had failed her. She could never again believe in him blindly, implicitly, as heretofore. There she had been supposing him so much better than any one else, and he wasn't at all. Probably he wasn't as good!.. One little corner of her heart pleaded for him, whispering that poor George must have forgotten himself for the moment because, like the rest of the world, he was crazy with the heat. But Rosie silenced the whisper by exclaiming passionately: "Even if he was, I don't see why he had to go and take it out on me! I'm sure I'm not to blame!"

After a pause her heart again sought weakly to excuse him by suggesting that perhaps Mrs. O'Brien did serve fried ham with a certain monotonous regularity. Rosie was not to be taken in by that. "Well," she demanded grimly, "what does he expect on a five-dollar-a-week board, with meat the price it is! Lamb chops and porterhouse steak?" After that her heart said nothing more, realizing, apparently, that so long as Rosie cared to nurse her grievance, she could find reasons in plenty. And Rosie did care to nurse it, and by the act of nursing soon changed it from a feeling of bewildered woe to one of mounting indignation… If George Riley wanted to act that way, very well, let him do so. But he better not think that she, Rosie O'Brien, would stand for any such treatment, for she just wouldn't!

At home she was able to explain quietly enough that George hadn't wanted any supper. Jack at once called out: "Give me his ham! Aw, please, now, Rosie, give it to me! Give it to me!"

"No, Jackie, you're too little to have meat at supper," Rosie explained. "This is for Terry. Here, Terry."

Terence accepted the windfall with a gallant, "Thanks, Rosie." Then he added: "But don't you want a piece of it yourself?"

"No, Terry, I'm not hungry. Besides, ma has saved me a little piece."

"And here it is, ye poor lamb." Mrs. O'Brien touched her affectionately on the cheek. "Sit right down and eat it before Geraldine wakes. Ye've hardly had a bite all day."

Rosie took her place at the table and tried to eat. It was no use; and suddenly, as much to her own surprise as to the others', she burst out crying.

"Mercy on us!" Mrs. O'Brien threw up astonished hands. "What's happened now?"

"N-nothing," Rosie quavered, pushing her plate away and dropping her head upon the table.

"What's ailin' you, Rosie?" her father asked gently.

"E-E-Ellen's got to do the dishes tonight. I-I-I'm too tired."

"I'm awful sorry," Ellen began, "but tonight, Rosie, I got to go out early. I got to go over to Hattie Graydon's for a note-book."

"Note-book nuthin'!" Terence glared at Ellen angrily. "That's the way you get out of everything, with your note-books and your Hattie Graydons and your old business college! Listen here, Ellen O'Brien: you'll do those dishes tonight or I'll know why!"

"Huh!" snorted Ellen. "From the way you talk, a person would suppose you were my father."

"Wish I was your father for ten minutes – long enough to give you a good beatin'!.. Who do you think you are, anyway? A real live lady? Everybody else in the family's got to work, but not you!"

"Ah, now, Terry," Mrs. O'Brien expostulated, "you mustn't be talkin' that way to your poor sister Ellen. She's got her own work to do at school and I'm sure it's hard work, ain't it, Ellen dear?"

"Say, Ma, you fade away!" Terence waved his hand suggestively. "What you don't know about Ellen's a-plenty! Just look at her, the big lazy lump! There she's been sitting in a comfortable cool room all day long with a fan in one hand and a pencil in the other and her mouth full of chewing-gum, pretending to study, and you and Rosie have been up here in this hot little hole working like niggers. Aw, why do you let her fool you? Why don't you make her do something?"

Ellen, her head tossed high, appealed to her mother. "Ma, will you please explain to Mr. Terence O'Brien that I'd be perfectly willing to wash and wipe the dishes every night of my life if it wasn't for my hands. If ever I'm to be a stenog, I've got to take care of my hands."

"What about Rosie's hands?" Reaching over, Terence drew one out from beneath Rosie's face and held it up. At that moment it was a pathetic little hand, shaken by sobs and wet with tears, but its roughened skin and short, stubby nails were evidence enough of the work that it did.

"Well, what about them?" Ellen, at least, was unmoved by the exhibit. "Rosie's not going to be a stenog, is she?"

Terence almost choked in fury, but before he could find an answer sufficiently crushing, his father spoke.

"See here, Ellen, we've had talk enough. You'll be doing the dishes tonight before you go after the note-book. That ends it."

"Very well!" Ellen flounced out of the room, then flounced back. "But if I don't get my certificate next month, you'll know whose fault it is!"

"Ain't she the limit?" Terry addressed his inquiry to the gas-jet, and small Jack, taking up the word, called after her: "Ellen, you're the limit! You're the limit!"

"Fie on you, Jackie!" Mrs. O'Brien said reprovingly. "You mustn't be talkin' that way to your sister."

But Jack, hopping about the kitchen like mad, kept shouting, "You're the limit! You're the limit!" until there was a sudden wail from the front of the house.

"Now see what ye've done, ye naughty b'y! Ye've waked up Geraldine!"

Jack subsided abruptly and Rosie, with a sigh, stood up.

Her mother looked at her compassionately. "Sit where you are, Rosie dear, and rest, and I'll take care of Geraldine."

"No, I'll go."

Rosie carried the child outside to the little front porch, where she rocked and crooned in the gathering darkness until Geraldine grew quiet. Then she put her to bed and later, at the proper time, gave her a last bottle. After that Rosie's day was done.

To be near Geraldine, Rosie was sleeping downstairs for the present, on the floor of the front room. Just as George Riley got home she was ready to retire.

"Good-night, everybody," she said.

George, looking a little sheepish, called after her: "Aren't you going to kiss me good-night, Rosie?"

Without turning back, Rosie made answer: "It's too hot to kiss." Then she told herself grimly: "There, now! I guess that'll jar him! If he thinks he can treat me like a nigger and then kiss me good-night, he's mightily mistaken." She closed the door of the room with a determined click and stood for a moment with her head high. Then she sank to the floor, a very miserable little heap of a girl who sobbed to herself: "But I wish he wasn't so mean to me!"