Kate's Wise Woman. A novel

Front matter

KATE'S WISE WOMAN A NOVEL BY CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM LONDON GAY AND BIRD 22 Bedford Street, Strand Tka Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. With the First Snow 1 II. Marguerite 17 III. Katherine's First Lesson . . . . 3.3 IV. Katherine's Misstep 48 V. Fireside Confidences 63 VI. A Professional Visit 75 1.-. VII. Milliner and Medico ..... 90 VIII. The Athletic Club 103 IX. An Averted Danger 117 X. Marguerite consults the Oracle . . 131 XI. The Aid Society 145 XII. Transition 101 XIII. The Athletic Club Ball . . . .173 XIV. The Spell of the Waltz .... 189 XV. Afterthoughts 208 XVI. Springtime 222 XVII. Pokonet 236 XVIII. Maternal Anxieties 250 XIX. The Buoys 268 XX. A Repentant Culprit .... 285 XXI. A Siren 303 XXII. "Sweets and Sours" 315 XXIII.

The Bonfire 332 .i-yi XXIV. The Mary Leddy 349 XXV. The Eve of Departure 370 XXVI. The Reception 391 XXVII. La Grippe's Victim 406 XXVIII. In Woodrow Park KATE'S WISE WOMAN.

Chapter I. With The First Snow

"Is your pain any better? " asked Silas Hodg son, putting his gray head and his good-natured face in at his wife's bedroom door. The after noon had seemed very long to him. He spoke doubtfully and stroked his rough beard. That short beard was a great comfort to the old man in times of apprehension like the present. He always grasped it when called upon to solve a problem, or when in need of moral support. "I thought I heard ye stirrin'," he continued gently and tentatively after a pause. It seemed to him many hours that he had debarred himself from speech. There came an inarticulate murmur from the recumbent woman on the bed, who lay with her back toward him. "A little, did ye say?" He turned his head sideways to catch any further response, and, as none came, a shade of disappointment clouded the kind, simple face.

"Well, let me know if I can TJIE WISE W0MAX. do anything for ye, Ma," and he left the room and returned to the sitting-room window, from which he had been listlessly gazing for ten minutes previous to making his futile appeal. They lived alone in the old farmhouse, this couple. Only one child had been given to them, and the three months of her little life had already retreated twenty years into the background of their experience; yet for the sweet sake of that tiny baby the parents were "Ma" and "Pa" to each other to-day. The old man glanced at the loud-ticking clock, and sighed unconsciously. The tortoise-shell cat, which had been asleep before the glowing fire in the Franklin stove, stretched her elastic body to a preternatural length, and then approached her master with deliberate dignity and leaped to the window-sill, where she arched her back beneath his hand as she, too, gazed forth on the country side.

"I do believe it's begun to snow, Tab," observed the sociable man, glad of an excuse to speak again. Then he turned his face toward the half-open door of the bedroom. "It's snowm', Ma," he announced timidly, yet with some hope fulness. He could not resist trying the effect of this announcement of the first snow of the season. Perhaps it might exorcise the spirit of pain. No response from the bedroom. "Not spittin', ye know; actually snowin'," he added, in the same raised tone. This time he did not strain his ears in vain for an answer. It came in somewhat thick but de cided accents. "I want you should leave me alone, Pa." An abashed look crept over the man's weather beaten face. He grasped his beard, and whistled inandibly as he turned quickly back, and again gave his attention to the wide, level, russet fields stretching away to where the sand dunes hid the sea.

Then for a while his wife slept, and waking, much relieved, lamented her own severity. " 'T won't do to question the dispensations q' Providence," she groaned; "but I do wish men could knit, or make crazy-quilts, or amuse them selves some way, come fall weather." Then aloud, faintly: "Pa." "Yes, Ma," meekly. "Couldn't you whittle out some pegs for these windows? They made a racket all night." "I did that this mornin'." Then, once more encouraged, "It's snowin' righ' down, Ma." Mrs. Hodgson rose from her bed and appeared, still pale, in the doorway, fastening the small three-cornered cap she wore. "Why, so 'tis," she responded, looking out on the light whirling flakes. "Well, it's time for it." "Set down here in the big chair and let me g?t ye a cup o' tea," said the relieved husband, beam ing with contentment.

"It's jest all ye need now to set ye up." "I guess 'tis," she answered, "but I'd better make it myself." "No, you won't. You ain't fit to. It 's a half hour yet to supper -time. Set still ; " and the old man moved with alacrity into the kitchen, from which immediately began to proceed a series of noises which stirred Mrs. Hodgson's housewifely soul with ever-increasing apprehension. "The new kettle 's the one you better use," she suggested, sitting forward in her chair and listen ing alertly, while smothered objurgations from the kitchen followed each fresh clatter. "Silas, you better let me " — she began at last. "There now, I 'm all right," declared her in visible spouse mans idly. "I know a thing or two, let me tell ye. When I make a cup o' tea I don't try to git a whole gallon o' water to bile.

I take jest sich a quantity aud it 's ready on time." His genial face here appeared as he moved to the china closet and brought forth a cup and saucer. "Not that one, Pa," pleaded his wife. "I'd jest as soon have a common one." "No, ma'am. The best ain't any too good for you," returned the other, beaming, as he bore off the dainty old cup in triumph. "When we set out to be stylish we know how to do it, I hope." He disappeared, and it required all the good ness of Mrs. Hodgson's heart to deter her from following him. She sat nearer than ever to the edge of her chair, and her pulses beat nervously in the silence that followed. It was soon ended by an ominous sharp crash in the kitchen, and simultaneously a ring at the front doorbell pealed through the house. "Silas Hodgson, you hain't broken that cup!

" Acute dismay paralyzed the speaker and effectually prevented her from rising. "All to flinders, Ma," was the slow, dejected response. "It jest slipped away from me like — like lightnin' " — "I didn't want you should take it," groaned his wife, at last appearing on the scene where the old man was kneeling on the hearth, brushing the delicate fragments into one hand with the big, stiff fingers of the other. "There goes that bell again!" he exclaimed with alacrity. "I '11 jest step out and see who 't is in all this storm. They better stayed to home, / think;" and, thanking Fate for a diversion, he rose from his kneeling posture, dropped the flecks of china upon the edge of the sink, and hurried away through the hall. Opening the house door he admitted a blast of November wind, and saw a young woman waiting on the step, the shoulders of her fashionable jacket already white with snow, and her dark eyes brightening with satisfaction at sight of him.

" How do you do ? " she said cheerily, putting out her neatly gloved hand. Mr. Hodgson regarded her uncomprehending^, and returned the greeting mechanically. "I began to be so afraid there might be no one at home. It would have served me right, of course," she added gayly, "but it would have been awkward." She turned toward a depot-carriage waiting at the gate. "You can go," she said with a nod to the driver. Tardy but pleased recognition stole over the host's face. "Hob! If 't ain't Kitty Ormond! " he ejaculated. "Well, where 'd you snow down from? Right in the nick o' time, too," added the old man in confidential tones, as he drew her in side and closed the door behind her. "Jest had an accident here. I 've busted one o' Grandma Fletcher's cups. Triflin'. good-for-nothin' things they lie.

No more substance to 'em than babbles. Doshed fool I was to touch it. It 's worked Ma all up. You fix it. Kitty, like a good child. Gimme your bag. P'raps you might 's well go in first." Katherine Ormond had listened to the opening of this confession with a sober countenance. She had large brown eyes placed well apart under curving eyebrows which, with the firm, small mouth and the opaque whiteness of her fine skin, gave her face a very serious expression. By the time the old man had finished, emphasizing his last remark with a gently suggestive shove, the girl's eyes had nearly disappeared between their lashes, showing only a narrow space of dancing light: the delicate lips had broadened into an appreciative smile, and it was the merriest face imaginable that appeared in Mrs. Hodgson's sitting-room just as that lady emerged disconsolate from the kitchen door.

The girl walked straight up to her hostess, who stared into the smiling face, then retreated a step in her surprise. "Why — why" — she stammered. " 'T ain't Kitty ! Turn 'round and let me get the light on you. Is it really you, child? What does this mean?" "You know you said I might, Mrs. Hodgson. You said I might, any time." The girl put her hand on the other's shoulder and kissed her. The hostess began fumbling at the fastenings of her guest's jacket, looking her pleasure, and expressing it somewhat incoherently. Her husband, reconnoitring through the crack of the hall door, and observing that there was no room at present in the mental atmosphere for a memory of mishaps, followed the social bent of his nature, and entered the room. " Wa'n't a kittiwake the last bird you expected to see fly into the house to-day, Ma?

" he in quired, with ingratiating cheerfulness. "She come right in on that last gust." "And oh, it seems so nice to be here!" said the girl with enthusiasm. "I didn't surprise you too much, did I, Mrs. Hodgson? It is your own fault if I did. You remember when I was here last? " "Yes, I recollect, but it's goin' on two years, Kitty. Here, Pa, take her things into the bed room. Are your feet wet, dear?" "No; I'm all right. Let me sit right down here beside you in front of this lovely blaze, and explain myself. It can be done briefly. You know when I was here last I had written for per mission to spend a few days with you, and when I went away after the visit, you told me to come thereafter any time I felt like it without troubling myself to write you, because this was one of my homes. Have you forgotten ?

" Mrs. Hodgson smiled into the coaxing face. "No, indeed." "Well, I didn't expect to obey you literally. I meant at least to give you warning when the fit next seized me; but circumstances, or perhaps I ought to be honest and say my own impatience, didn't jrive me time. I never thought of coming until last night, and after that I coidd n't wait. I knew if worse came to worst, there was a tav ern in Pokonet. Shall I go there now?" The speaker glanced up with the half -loving, half-saucy expression which had long been familiar to her hostess. "You look this minute just as you used to when you was five years old," said Mrs. Hodgson, smoothing the girl's fine hand, and becoming so conscious of the roughness of her own in the movement that she instantly ceased the caress. "You can stay here," she finished, leaning back in her seat.

"We used to have pretty good times, hey?" suggested Mr. Hodgson, drawing up a chair for himself on the guest's other side. "Good times!" she repeated warmly. "There never were such good times. Poor little children who don't spend their summers at Pokonet! What do they know of bliss? " The girl leaned her chin on her hand and gazed at the red coals. "I often wonder, Mr. Hodgson, how it was you could spare so much time to us children as you used to." The old man thought his wife was going to speak. They had not always agreed about what proportion of a summer clay should be given to play; so he broke in hurriedly: "Oh, I donno as I gave you so very much time." The girl went on: "What with boating, and crabbing, and fishing, and wading in the pond, or going into the surf, I don't think there was a man on Long Island so hard-worked as you."

Silas Hodgson sent a furtive look toward his wife. She smiled. "It was just the sort of work Pa liked," she remarked. "Then we would come in," continued Miss Or mond dreamily, "and eat your good dinners and suppers, and they were the best in the world. And oh, why did we grow up!" she finished ex pressively. "I'm free to say I've missed you," returned Mrs. Hodgson. "You three children got to seemin' as if you belonged to us, comin' so steady every summer from the time you was babies." "Yes," the girl sighed; "I was sorry enough when it seemed best for us to begin to step out of the beaten track." "Hope you enjoyed yourself this summer past, Kitty," said her host, regarding her affectionately. "Yes, we had a gay season, both at the sea and at the mountains. Then afterward, [Madeline and Gilbert and I went to a house party at Lenox.

The fact is, I 'm tired. I don't believe I was intended for a gay life. When we settled down at home this fall, I found that everything seemed more or less of a burden, and I was listless, and didn't know what I wanted, when all of a sudden I waked up to the fact that I hadn't had anyr Pokonet. Why, of course that explained everything. So here I am." "And now we're starvin' you, dearie!" ex claimed Mrs. Hodgson. "It's just supper-time. I haven't been first-rate to-day. and" — "And so Mr. Hodgson and I are going to get supper," said the girl, suddenly rising decidedly. "No, no," protested her hostess, pushing her chair back. "What do you think, Kitty : just before you came in Pa 'd broke one o' the Fletcher cups ! " The statement was made despairingly and with symptoms of tears. "Now Ma, don't ye take on about that," coaxed her husband, made courageous by the guest's presence.

"I promise not to touch a thing ye could bust with the hammer. I '11 only wait on Kitty. She knows where everything is ; don't ye, Kittiwake?" His meek eagerness and Miss Ormond's cheerful reassurances prevailed upon Mrs. Hodgson, who sat back in her chair and watched the lively preparations for tea with placid approval. "Of course mother and Madeline sent their love," said Katherine, when at last they were seated at table. "And GiUy," said the old man, as he passed his guest some cold meat. "How'sGilly? He was a plucky little chap. I s'pose I wouldn't hardly know him now." Miss Ormond laughed. " How comical it sounds to hear that name again, and how cross it made him when we first called him by it ; but he was a gilly sometimes, and truth compelled. No, I don't believe you would know him," she added.

"He hasn't been to Pokonet since he entered col lege, and he is — he has changed a good deal." "The children will grow up," remarked Mrs. Hodgson. "Maidie shot from a child into a young lady the suddenest I ever saw." "That Maidie was always a smart little jade," put in her husband, with an admiring, reminiscent smile. "I s'pose she's a regular grown-up woman now," continued his wife. "You know we had her down here awhile summer before last." "Yes; it isn't easy to wean us entirely from Pokonet; but I owe Madeline a grudge, for I think it is her fault after all that we aren't still coming here every summer in the good old way. She has grown popidar in a certain set, who have dragged us off in search of interests that don't interest — some of us. That is, not so much as the\T do her." "Ah. my dear," Mrs. Hodgson patted the girl's hand, "you have changed least of all.

Ain't she just the same, Pa? " "Yes; I can see her now, flyin' down the sands with her little gray and white gown and her black shoes, for all the world like a kittiwake ; and a good sight she was always for these eyes ; and a good sight she is yet. Glad ye come, Kitty." "So am I," she answered happily; "but the people at home were surprised enough when I announced my intention. I told them I could come better now than when we got deeper into work and play% and off I started. I felt a little guilty, for the sky looked like a storm; but I thought I would run a race with the snow. Per haps I should get here first; but no, indeed; it caught me on the road. How it whirls down now! What fun to be cozily shut in with you ! You see you don't know what a wearing thing it is to be a popular, fashionable girl's sister!" she added, with mock seriousness.

"Is Maidie more popular 'n you be, Kitty?" asked Mr. Hodgson, curiously. "She ain't better lookin'," observed his wife in an impartial tone, which caused a new disappear ance of her guest's eyes behind their lashes. "Oh!" she ejaculated, with a soft, high little cry, making a gesture of dismay. "I am only a faint shadow of Madeline. Why, indeed, Mrs. Hodgson," added the girl, with honest heartiness and wide-open eyes, "Madeline is the most beau tiful girl I ever saw." "You don't say," said Mr. Hodgson. "I want to know," remarked his wife. "Yes, indeed; it isn't the least wonder that people want to see her about, and that she has three partners to another girl's one, and all the rest of it; but the sister of a belle doesn't always walk in a path of roses. Another cup of tea, please, dear Mrs. Hodgson.

Modesty forbids me to praise it as it deserves, but actions speak louder than words. You see, there are the lovers; and I don't know why, but they gravitate to me just as naturally" — "Great fools if they didn't," remarked Silas Hodgson; "but look out, Kitty. Ye're young yet. It 's dreadful easy to make a mistake." The girl's laugh rang out spontaneously. "Not my lovers. Oh, no. Madeline's. Some of them are moths who refrain by reason of various mo tives from really getting into the candle flame, but a few have rushed upon their fate, and then, when they find themselves hurt, they invariably turn to me to be comforted." "That's a good mission, my child," said Mrs. Hodgson seriously, "to bind up the broken hearted." "I don't like it at all," protested her guest. "You have no idea how embarrassing it is some times.

The last victim fell at Lenox a few weeks ago, and yesterday, right at home in Montaigne, I had the bad luck to meet him on a street corner, and he woidd stop and talk about Madeline, and look white, and I had to beat about and try to think of something consoling to suggest, and couldn't at all. I don't know what I did say at last, but I made up my mind to come to Pokonet right away. I knew there wasn't anybody here whom [Madeline had refused." Mr. Hodgson continued eating his supper in dustriously. "I did some think Tom was sweet on her that time she was here two summers ago," he remarked. Color came pinkly into Miss Ormond's white face. "Oh, yes, how is Tom? " she asked hastily. "I haven't forgotten what an interest he was to you and Mrs. Hodgson. You know I was here when his parents died and he first came to you from out West, — [Michigan, was n't it, where he lived?

Such a solemn-looking boy." "Well he might look solemn, the dear child," said Mrs. Hodgson, "leaving all his friends and coming to perfect strangers like us, even if we were his uncle and aunt. We "re proud of Tom. just as proud as we can be." "I am sure he ought to be devoted to you, since you did so much for his education." "Oh, he had something," explained Mrs. Hodg son. "We helped him out, as of course we ought to. It was a great thing for him to go through the Institute, worth all the effort we could make." "Has he graduated?" "Certainly, a year ago. We always thought Stevens men could get good positions the minute they were out ; but 't ain't always so, as Tom found. He 's been workin' at one thing and an other till this fall he 's really got a place he likes in Newark. His sister has come on and joined him, and they are as happy as birds by their let ters.

She seems to be smart 's a whip, too. She stayed a week down here in August, and we liked her first-rate ; did n't we, Pa?" "Yes; the girl 's got snap to her, and she favors my sister, too. That 's sayin' enough for her looks." "Your mother's well, Kitty?" asked Mrs. Hodgson. "Yes, very well, thank you. The busiest one in the family, as usual. She belongs to so many clubs and societies." "Who keeps house, then?" "I do. I have a gift for it. Look at me!" "Don't that beat all! I should think she 'd be afraid you 'd be extravagant." "It doesn't matter quite so much about that as it used to. Mr. Arnold, who has helped mother in her affairs since father died, has invested the money so successfully that we have a little more leeway than at the time you used to hear mother talk about them." "That's clever."

"Yes, it is very convenient. It keeps mother young not to have to worry." Mrs. Hodgson looked thoughtfully into her guest's face, so thoughtfully and so long that Katherine stirred uneasily. "Well?" she asked, smiling. "Well, I was only thinkin' that I guessed you were probably an important member of your family." The girl spread out her hands. "All wrong, my dear Mrs. Hodgson. I am only the general utility member. Somebody says : ' Everybody is needed. Nobody is needed much.' I 'm not needed much. But I can make tea. You haven't said what good tea this is." "It's capital, Kitty. You've done me lots o' good."

Chapter II. Marguerite

Katherine stayed with her old friends until the sun shone brightly again, and the last traces of mud following the pretty snowstorm had hardened in a frost. Her entertainers felt reluctant to see her depart. "May the notion take ye soon again, Kitty," said the host, as she stepped out of his wagon upon the depot platform. "I hope it won't, Mr. Hodgson," returned the girl cheerily. "I feel toned up and in fine condition. You would better hope that I will be con tented now to stay at home and behave myself." "You always behave yourself," was the rather dejected reply. "I '11 tell mother you said so." Miss Ormond's bright eyes hid between her lashes as she smiled and waved her hand, for the train was coming. Silas Hodgson nodded, and pulled his beard as he sat, allowing the reins to lie loosely upon his imperturbable horse.

Katherine waved her hand once more to him from the car window as the train pulled out. The reminiscent smile on her lips scarcely faded before she reached Long Island City ; and when she had crossed New York and taken the train at Hoboken for her suburban home, it returned. "Montaigne! " yelled the brakeman at last, and she left the cars. Her innocent escapade was over, but the aroma of it was fresh in her heart when she met her mother, in careful street dress, at the gate of their modern, pretty home. "I have had such a good time!" she declared, greeting her affectionately. "You look it, Katherine," returned Mrs. Or mond, regarding her daughter with a scrutiny in which curiosity had a part. "You found Mr. and Mrs. Hodgson well, of course." "Yes, and they sent so much love to you." Mrs. Ormond laughed leniently, and gave the hand she was holding an affectionate parting shake.

"Much obliged to them. I should like to see them myself, but I 'm afraid it would n't occur to me to make the trip just at this time." "But you know I was so tired, traveling around." Her mother's eyes twinkled. "So you thought you would jump into the bramble-bush?" "Bramble-bush! As if dear old Pokonet was anything like the places we have rushed about all summer." "Well, good-by. I mustn't be late for the hospital board meeting. It is all right, Kather ine, even if I don't quite understand you. Some hens do hatch ducks." MARGUERITE. 19 "Thank you, mother; I'm so glad you think I 'm a duck," and the girl threw a kiss after the retreating figure, as she walked backward up the path and entered the house. "Well, Katherine, is that you!" exclaimed a voice, quickly followed by a lithe, slim figure as a girl appeared from the depths of an armchair.

"It seems as if you had been gone a year." The heartiness of their greeting showed the attachment that existed between the sisters. Madeline Ormond was a fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty, sufficiently striking in appearance to ex cuse the superlatives whicli a partial sister had employed in speaking of her to the Hodgsons. "I am glad that is over," continued Madeline, seating herself and returning to her task of examining a box of odds and ends of millinery. "What? Hugging me? Thanks," returned Katherine, removing her wraps. "You know well enough what I mean. This freak of yours. Pokonet — Poky-net, I should prefer to call it at this season." "Bless its pokiness!" uttered Katherine de voutly. "You were caught in a snowstorm, too." "Indeed I was, a lovely one. It was so cosy, shut in there with the Hodgsons, living over good old times!

" "Ugh! Excuse me from that form of dissi pation. You are rightly named, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!" "Why? Because I like the fire?" Katherine curled up in the corner of a divan and watched the blazing logs on their heavy brass andirons. "No; but because you cannot be torn from old associations." Katherine made a repressive gesture. "Control your impatience, Madeline, to hear all about it, and I will tell you the Pokonet news." "No, you won't, my dear. I presume the sea and the dunes and the pond and the Hodgsons are all there, and all the same as they were two years ago when I saw them. Voila tout. We are invited to a tea at the Allingtons' on Monday, and the Arnolds are going to have a Thanksgiving dance in their new barn. It is all to be decorated with grain and fruit and vegetables, and the stables are to be furnished with divans and rugs and colored lanterns.

Won't they make jollv lit tle twosing corners? A conservatory can't com pare." "Twosing! What's that?" "Don't you know? I guessed right away when Ed Arnold used the word the other evening. He is authority on the latest ' sabre cuts of Saxon speech.' At any rate, you'll find out what it means at the dance. Ed will show you. He is always so philanthropic, and willing to instruct the young." "The Hodgsons asked all about Maidie," said Katherine, with mild reproach. MARGUERITE. 21 "Well, of course you told them. I trust myself in your hands willingly. I 'm very glad you had a good time. You know that. I only don't see how you could, that is all." " I feel as if I had been smoothed the right way, and been patted comfortingly, for days," said Katherine dreamily. Her sister laughed. "Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!" she repeated.

"You don't mind being thought kittenish, do you?" "Tom graduated all right," went on the elder. Madeline raised her pretty eyes inquiringly. "Tom who?" "Tom Sheldon." "Oh." Madeline returned to her velvet and feathers. "I remember now, he was in some college." "You would better remember," said Kate, with sjtirit. "He was at Pokonet two years ago, when you went there to stay a week and stayed a fort night because he teas there. I just wish I had been with you." Madeline raised her delicate eyebrows. "Your tone suggests that the longing is not prompted by affection, ma cliere." "No, it isn't," replied Katherine emphatically. "I wish I had been there to bring you home in the one week." "Why, what harm did I do, honey?" Made line spoke abstractedly as she continued to ran sack the millinery box, separating its contents into little piles.

"I don't know; but Mr. Hodgson said he had an idea that Tom was sweet on you." "And you are vexed with me for that?" in surprise. "Oh, when he said that I didn't know what might have happened. I remembered vaguely that you laughed about Tom when you came home. Nothing would be so bad as hurting one of those people," finished Katherine, rather incoherently. Madeline laughed. "The idea of exciting your self over a two-year-old offense — I mean suppos ing it was an offense." "Tell me all about it," said Katherine, imperi ously. "Little girls should say 'please,'" remarked her sister. "Please do, Madeline." "Why, I only remember in the vaguest way," replied the girl carelessly. "He was the bathing master there that summer." "He was? I had forgotten, if you told me that." "Yes, it seems he did everything he could to earn money, summers."