Dena

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Iowa Ardena Marsh i

II Of Football Fame 12

Chapter I

Ardena leaned against the footboard of the old walnut bed and watched the stolid little woman adjusting her shawl before the tilted looking glass.

“ You’re getting it on crooked, grandmother.” Ardena straightened the shawl on the square shoulders that the fringed point of the shawl might fall in a straight line down the middle of the black alpaca skirt.

“ Am I ? Well, I don’t know but that’s ’bout the way I’ve been doing most things lately. Seems like since the funeral I can’t get back into the old way.” Grandmother’s jerky tones sank, the last word ending in a sigh. Under the mass of red hair, Ardena’s face flushed and her mouth quivered, but she hastily lifted the black velvet bonnet and put it in the knotted hands outstretched to take it.

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“ Oh, you’re getting that on all crooked, too ! ” Ardena caught her breath and a light came into her dark eyes as the stiff little plume slanted ignominiously to the left over a tight knot of gray hair.

After a more decided tilt of the paintless looking glass grandmother replaced the bonnet and tied it securely by the bow under the chin.

“ I don’t see why your father has to hang his glass so high. He’s not so tall he needs to string it up to the ceiling. And a window shade rolled to the very top — and crooked at that ! ” Grandmother gave a little sniff of disgust and stretched for the offending shade, cutting off, as she lowered the frayed and punctured green curtain, a share of the mellow brightness of the September sunshine.

“ And then that bed,” grandmother continued to note as she turned about. “ I’ve been working to get that smooth the whole week I’ve been here. But it’s the springs — I’m certain of that, finally. As long’s your mother’s gone now, Ardena, I don’t know what you will come to ! ” Grandmother’s voice softened and she tugged for the handkerchief at her belt. “ Your father’ll never get ahead enough to buy new and he’ll never leave off reading long enough to mend the old. The printing business in a small town’s not a very paying business even when it’s got a hustling manager. And William’s anything but a hustler. He doesn’t even charge enough for the work he does do. Went and did a real good job with the Anderson girl’s wedding announcements and then charged so little that stingy old Billy Anderson sent him a check for twice what he’d asked for.” Grandmother sniffed again in impatient disgust. Then, as she noted Ardena’s very long and very sober face, “ But he means well, William does. And he thinks a lot of you children.”

“ I’m going to learn to do the managing,” responded Ardena. “ I can help father.”

“ You’re no more’n a child yet, Ardena. And going to school and keeping house and tending to the children — ,” she was looking again at Ardena. “ It doesn’t seem right your mother was taken. She was needed so and she — ” Her mouth twitched uncontrollably.

Ardena, leaning against the foot of the old walnut bedstead, straightened to the full height of her fourteen years. But erect and tall Ardena was still girlish, for the shiny brown skirt, even with its various saggings, did not reach the shoetops and the mass of red hair had ascended only to the neck. “ But, grandmother, I can — yes, I can.” It was

DENA the seriousness of the dark eyes behind the fringe of fluffy hair that was persuasive.

Grandmother, with jerky little steps, walked on towards the sitting room. “ We might as well sit down,” she said, as she seated herself in the clumsy wooden rocker. “ Your Uncle Logan may be an hour yet in coming. Saturday’s a bad time to get trading done. But I’ll be putting my gloves on anyway. It’s hard to get the horses to stand and he’ll want to be home seeing to the chores.” Extending her arms beyond the confines of the well-pinned shawl she unrolled the black cotton gloves wadded in a knot and Ardena, seated on the bumpy carpet lounge, watched her nervously pull them over her work-knotted hands.

“ I don’t know, Ardena,” grandmother was losing button after button in the nervous grasp of her blunt fingers, “ as I ought to go off and leave you. A week hasn’t been as much as I thought it would be. I didn’t help you to get done what I wanted to. The house is pretty well cleaned and the washing and ironing’s done for next week, but I haven’t showed you how to do everything you ought to know. Somehow I can’t seem to think as well as I could before your mother was taken sick — she — she had such good common sense on everything. I don’t know how you will manage, ’’she said thoughtfully, as she looked across the red wool stand-cover at Ardena, who sat in a hollow of the old lounge, her hands clasped about her knee, her face sobered in sympathy.

But Ardena, pensive, brightened. “ Why, grandmother, you know I had to help mother so much — it’s a year in November! Really, I almost managed things myself sometimes — when she was the worst. And father is good — he always tries to help — and Alonzo is large enough to do lots of things.”

“ Then there’s the mortgage on my farm,” grandmother continued, unheeding. “ I’ve worked my fingers to the bone to save that farm and now I don’t want to give in at the very last. Logan’s a good son-in-law and a first-rate manager but I feel safest to tend to things myself. Your grandfather run things when he was alive and he ’bout run them into the ground, too, and I said once I got the reins in my own hands I’d never give them over to another man. And then there’s my butter and eggs customers — I feel like I can’t give them up. Poor Lib, too! She’s got her hands full with the four children — and the baby’s so cross. She’s not got any too good health, either.”

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Grandmother’s faded blue eyes filled with tears which spilled one by one down the furrows of her wrinkled brown cheeks. Ardena’s own eyes, in the shadow of the fringe of red hair, glowed luminously and her hands, clasped in the folds of her dingy skirt, locked themselves tightly together. But for a moment only. “ Father thinks it best we manage by ourselves, too,” she said quietly, a strained note of reassurance in her voice. “ Doq’t worry about us, grandmother. We’ll make it all right. I’m sure we will.”

“ And William T.’s only a baby.” Grandmother’s solicitation kept urging her on. “ Five years old’s a pretty young age to be left without a mother. Iowa was a good mother to her children. You won’t ever get over her loss, Ardena. She was a good housekeeper and a good manager. And we all know she’s had little enough to manage with. . . . She wasn’t any hand to complain either, but she did what she had to do and she did it cheerfully. And she was a pretty girl. . . .”

Out in the kitchen a clock was ticking its loud, intrusive, shallow tick-tack. Horses’ hoofs sounded, a light buggy spun humming along the road before the open door and from across the street came the shouts of the children,

“ Pump, pump, pull away ;

Come or I’ll pull you away/’

followed by ringrng squeals.

Grandmother nervously wadded a crumpled handkerchief in the tight grip of the black cotton gloves. “If only Alonzo wasn’t just at the age to wear out pants! He no need to squirm and wiggle around so much and then they wouldn’t give out so soon. Alonzo never was a hand to sit still. Cold weather’s coming on and he’ll begin to wear shoes and stockings and that’ll mean the darning to keep going. And you’ll be taken up with your studies — this being your first year in the high school. But you want to learn to keep the mending up as you go along or you’ll see the things’ll be wearing out soon. And even if your father does seem to keep working right along he’s always found it hard to buy new even when Iowa was . . .”

Ardena started to her feet, the rusty springs of the bumpy old lounge creaking as she rose. “ I’m forgetting something. I must make good use of you while you are here,” she said, as she hurried up the steep flight of stairs leading out of the sitting room. “ I’ve saved this little book to write down some recipes in,” she went on, as she came down, again

DENA seated herself on the lounge, and opened a little red notebook. “ I’m going to begin in a very sensible manner. Most of the girls are foolish over salads and cakes, but I’m going to begin with the staff of life,” commencing to write. “ Now, tell me all over again how to do it so that I’ll be sure to have the directions exact,” and Ardena attentively chewed the remnant of the eraser. “ I’ve made bread before — but then — Well, just how is it, grandmother? I know that I’ll forget the salt or the yeast or the flour or something. Recipes are harder to remember than dates in history. But ‘ where there’s a will there’s a way ’ — and I will.” Ardena smiled bravely across at her grandmother.

“ Yes,” grandmother answered, a bit dubiously. “ If only you’ll remember, Ardena. You mean well, but you’re real harum-scarum most of the time and there isn’t setting much dependence on you. But you’re getting older and since — ”

“ ‘ Yeast,’ you said, didn’t you ? ” Ardena’s voice was a bit unsteady, and her head was lowered over the page. “ If I should forget the yeast Alonzo says he’ll blow some air into the dough with that bicycle pump he found. No, really, grandmother dear, don’t look quite so disgusted, please. I’m sure I’ll remember to put in the yeast.”

It was not until the sun was slanting through the west window that a quick pounding of heavy hoofs whirred the old surrey to a halt before the house.

“ There’s Logan now,” grandmother exclaimed, hastily rising. “ I wrapped Alonzo’s pants I’m going to patch and the little suit of William T.’s that was started and never finished in the same bundle, didn’t I? I’ll try to get them ready for Logan to bring back next Saturday. But it’s not much time I get for sewing with so much to do. And then the other bundle, too, Ardena, — your mother’s things. They’ll be yours later, only I want them while I live. Tell Logan I’m coming.”

Alonzo had already stationed himself near the stamping grays, his brown freckled face squinting in the sunlight and his hair in damp strings about his bare head. From a small whirl of dust was emerging William T., stout of frame and plump of cheek, as he made his way frantically across the street.

“ Don’t forget to keep an eye on William T.,” grandmother was saying to Ardena as they came down the walk from the house. “ Put the matches up on the clock shelf and stick the hatchet up under the roof of the shed each time. Hang the kerosene can up on a nail and don’t let William T. go down

DENA the cellar steps alone. And then I most believe that bed won’t look quite so bumpy if you turn the mattress ’round the way it was in the first place. And when a hole comes in the rag carpet, darn it right off, Ardena, before it sets in to ravel. Oatmeal in the bulk’s cheaper than in the package and beef’s not as high as pork now. Wash your dishes after each meal and then they won’t pile up so. Don’t leave them till you come from school — it takes the shine off the knives and forks. And don’t forget to sweep under the beds and behind the stove and iron your starched things before you do your plain clothes.”

“ Yes, grandmother, I promise faithfully to do my very, very best. I’m going to be as much like mother as I can,” Ardena answered, and threw her arms impulsively about her grandmother’s neck and pressed her fresh warm lips against the withered cheek. “ You’ve been so good to us. We — we — ” But grandmother had bent down to kiss Alonzo. And then she bent lower and kissed William T.

Uncle Logan, big and homely and good, stepped to the ground to help grandmother into the front seat beside him. Then he patted Ardena on the shoulder, dropped a sack of candy into William T.’s grimy little hands and climbed over the wheel. A wave to Ardena, a forward lunge of the horses, a ii whir of wheels, and they were gone. Alonzo and William T. were dividing impartially the pink and the white gumdrops, with the empty sack to compensate for the uneven number. But Ardena still gazed down the road at the fast dispersing cloud of dust, her eyes luminous again behind the blowing fringe of red hair. Then William T. was slipping a sticky gumdrop into her hand with a “ Here, Dena,” and Alonzo was insisting that she take a generous helping from his handful. Ardena blinked again. And then she smiled.

Chapter II

The Marsh family quickly settled down to the new order of things. Ardena truly tried to live up to the good promises she had made her grandmother, but there were many and frequent lapses. The meals to get, the dishes to wash, the beds to make, the washing, the ironing, the scrubbing — it was a physical impossibility to do it all as she knew that her grandmother wished it done and she realized that her grandmother was often all but completely discouraged. Ardena, it must be said, sometimes just willfully drifted and the Marsh housekeeping consisted of the proverbial lick and promise. But at fourteen one is much more vitally concerned with high school football games than with housekeeping. It was the good little grandmother who kept the ship floating, for she did the sewing for the family and came in frequently for a day or two of general cleaning up. Mr. Marsh cut short the reading of his paper on Saturday morning and turned the wash- 12 ing machine and at frequent intervals curtailed the perusal of an absorbing book or article to lend a hand at housework. Alonzo did the chores and assisted with the detested dishes. In answering to William T.’s many and varied needs each immediate and distant member of the Marsh family was subject to call.

Ardena was keenly alive to all that pertained to the first-year class of the Arcadia high school. She loved her books, getting her lessons with a flash that was bewildering to her slow-minded, though lovable, little school comrade, Leta Lindsey. At the present season of the year Ardena was a devoted football fan — that is, as devoted a fan as it was possible to become with the serious handicap of the usually unavailable price of admittance to the athletic field.

In the Arcadia high school that fall, the football season had progressed to the third game. The first two games were little spoken of in Arcadia school circles; the scores were soon forgotten. But the third game merited attention — the Arcadia football team had won.

Ardena had been present at this game. And now she was the last of the last ecstatic group of girls to leave the field. It had been a perfect autumn day, the team had won, and she had been there, the req-

DENA uisite twenty-five cents for once being in possession at the decisive moment.

“ Isn’t it just glorious, Ardena? ” Leta was saying.

“ It makes me feel all thrilly and proud !” Ardena exclaimed in an outburst of emotion.

“ And isn’t Carlton Bell a fine player? And isn’t Adelbert Hastings ? ” Leta’s admiration for the battle-torn heroes some two blocks on ahead was unstinted.

“ And we’re going to have a celebration,” Ardena repeated, as they crossed the street. “ Oh, I just think we ought to do something real big and wonderful — ” But some other girl in the crowd had had a bigger, newer thought.

At the next street corner Ardena parted from the group and hurried on by herself. With her hair blowing about her face and her faded blue cloak flapping in the wind she pressed her dingy cap more firmly down on her head and finally broke into a run. Some blocks away from the main street she turned breathless up the walk leading to an old, dimmed, weather-beaten house that slanted its two stories, straight and plain, from the street. William T., apparently the only one at home, was visible through a cloud of dust in the middle of the street,

I S

for at the age of five William T. had caught the spirit of the season and against Budge Cracker of across the street was vigorously defending his rights to a wadded sofa pillow.

Hurrying up the loose front steps Ardena pushed aside the dust-laden mat, found the key and fitted it in the lock just as a rolling of carriage wheels and a pounding of heavy hoofs drew her attention again to the street. It was Uncle Logan and Aunt Lib and the four children. Ardena, leaving the key in the lock, hastened down the plank sidewalk out to the old surrey halted at the hitching post. Aunt Lib had been to the dentist’s. Then the purchasing of shoes for the family of four had consumed the rest of the afternoon, and they had stopped for supper before starting on their six-mile drive home. Uncle Logan hitched the team. Ardena helped Annie and Bessie and Charlie to alight, while gentle Aunt Lib with a swollen cheek and hat askew, carried a cross baby to the house.

A half dozen extra meant more elaborate preparations for supper. Ardena whisked on a ragged kitchen apron which lay draped over the back of the wooden rocking chair and catching up a rusty tin pan from the cupboard plunged down into the damp, musty cellar for potatoes. But the potatoes being a

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DENA mere scattering over the bottom of the barrel, Ardena was forced to think out a more varied menu. The supply of eggs was also inadequate, there being but two rolling in the depths of the peach basket. Ardena, while busy peeling the potatoes, was truly perplexed. And meanwhile the fretful wail of the baby came from the sitting room and the three children in visiting idleness squeaked their new shoes unweariedly over the resounding boards of the kitchen floor. Uncle Logan came in finally. Uncle Logan, big and homely and good, discerned the situation at a glance and dispatched the children to the yard while he himself went back up town for a supply of provisions.

At six o’clock William T. and the three small cousins sought the shelter of the house, the evening dampness threatening the luster of the new shoes. Alonzo, one of the spectators of the football game from a neighboring tree, had at length straggled in and adding himself to the group in the sitting room had started a game of tag. Back and forth on the carpet lounge, around the stove and over the chairs they jumped and “ tagged ” while Ardena poked the kitchen fire to urge the kettle of potatoes to a boil. At this juncture Mr. Marsh appeared.

“ Good evening — good evening. Glad to see you,” Mr. Marsh, spare and nervous, enthusiastically greeted Uncle Logan, who was cutting thick slices of bread. “ I didn’t know you were in town to-day. Why didn’t you drop into the office to see me? Glad you stopped for supper — it will kind of even things up. Ardena, how are you getting along? Things most ready? Oh, going to have steak, are you? ” Mr. Marsh made haste to hang his frayed overcoat on the nail by the door, a folded newspaper protruding from the torn pocket. “ Well, I’ll cook that. A woman can’t cook steak. Now, get your skillet good and hot — can’t cook steak without a fire. Here, Alonzo,” he called, as Alonzo darted out to the kitchen in a wiggling endeavor to escape catching, “ run out to the wood pile for some chips — quick now.”

“ Father,” Ardena remonstrated, the heat of the stove making her face glow as brightly as the hair that crowned it, “ do let me alone this once. If no one bothers me, I’ll have this supper ready in fifteen minutes. You’ll have enough time to sit down and look over your paper.” Ardena thought to divert his attention.

But in the matter of cooking steak Mr. Marsh was obdurate. He filled the stove with chips, crammed down stove lids, and poked ashes from the coals at i8

DENA the hearth. Thin puffs of blue smoke curled from the cracks and openings and finally the smouldering embers crackled into life and the fire roared up the chimney. Reaching for the piece of steak Mr. Marsh slapped it in the pan, the grease spattering up and burning him. In the next room the baby screamed and stiffened in a fresh burst of cries and the game of tag resulted in knocking over a chair.

“ Good gracious, Ardena !” Mr. Marsh burst out. “ I always told you a woman couldn’t cook steak. I ought to have started this fire from the very beginning. It is a shame if you can’t get up a good plain meal with less fuss and trouble than you seem to be having with this one. You’ve seen Aunt Lib give us a regular feast without ten minutes’ warning. I’ve spoken to you several times about looking out for the future and planning ahead and having things on hand. A woman that isn’t forehanded and foreheaded — ” but the constant sizzling of the meat drowned the completion of the sentence.

Then Uncle Logan saved the situation a second time. He departed for the sitting room and Aunt Lib for the kitchen. Cutting short the game of tag he settled each energetic participant on a separate seat and then commenced a gentle, patient, determined pacing up and down the room with the baby.

Meanwhile Aunt Lib, a practised hand, was turning out a juicy piece of meat, stirring a panful of rich brown gravy, beating up a kettle of fluffy potatoes and in every way producing the delectable and tempting. Ardena helped at every needed point and silently felt her admiration for the white-faced, slender woman with the swollen cheek and steady brown eyes grow stronger than ever. Aunt Lib personified the willingness of Ardena’s spirit, the goal of her housewifely intentions.

It was dark when the family were finally bundled into the carriage and started on the home journey. Then Mr. Marsh fitted the one remaining button of his frayed overcoat in the buttonhole, put on his rusty hat and went back to the office. It had been previously agreed that Alonzo was to take care of William T. that evening and Ardena realized the first free moment in hours. She closed the kitchen door upon the mountain-like pile of dishes stacked on the kitchen table and from behind the lounge in the sitting room dragged out her cloak, the faded blue one, buttonless and short of sleeves.

“ Now, Alonzo, don’t go away while I’m gone. And keep William T. in the house. Can’t you and William T. wash the dishes we’ll need for breakfast? And put William T. to bed before long,”

DENA she directed as she re-tied the green tie at her throat.

Alonzo, however, sat gloomily silent on the edge of the old carpet lounge, the springs of which bulged up around him at varying peaks and angles.

44 I didn’t promise I’d stay home this very night,” he answered, his hands burrowed in his pockets.

44 But the next night was your turn and this is the next night. I’ve stayed home the last three times, so I’ve played fair. And, Lonzy, I do want to see the celebration. It was such a glorious game ! You can go when you’re in the high school.” Then as she pinned on the tasselless tarn o’ shanter she coaxed, 44 Why don’t you finish the 4 Revolutionary Heroes’? Or you can take the clock to pieces if you’ll stay. It won’t run the way it is, so you can’t hurt it much.” But Alonzo, non-committal, continued to sit on the bumpy lounge, his dark hair tossed about, his blue eyes unrelenting and his hands still burrowed in his pockets, while in the corner of the room on the floor William T. industriously emptied a battered bookcase of its lower row of encyclopedias. So Ardena opened the door and hurried out into the cool darkness.

Adelbert Hastings had donated the dry goods boxes from the back of his father’s store for the celebration and the boys had piled them up at the corner of the courthouse square. After a short but spirited parade in honor of the victory the huge pile of boxes was lighted and the smoke and flames rose soaring and crackling straight up into the blue stillness of the November night. Then the ring of dancing, yelling, singing and cheering boys and girls circled around it. When from the tower of the courthouse above them nine clear claps cut the night air the flames had sunk to jets of fire that darted out and back and died down lower. At length one flame, catching at a little pile of unburned straw, spread a circle of light around the square and revealed Alonzo, unwarily foremost of the group of small boys at the outskirts of the crowd. Then Ardena, Cinderella-like, fled. The everyday world with its responsibilities was held off no longer. The littered kitchen, the neglected William T., the faithless Alonzo darted through her mind and crowded out the bonfire, the parade, the noise, the fun. And Ardena sped homeward, down dark hollow streets, past dark closed houses and into the black shade of low-bending trees.

When still some distance away she knew that her fears were not groundless, for wail upon wail, deep and long and woeful, came to her ready ear. Faster than ever Ardena cut across the corner and ran

DENA down the next block. At the corner she all but collided with a little bunch of misery hidden in the shadow of the trees.

“ Oh ! ” she breathed, grasping for the coatless, the hatless, the forlorn William T. “ Oh, I’m so glad you aren’t dead ! Here’s Dena. Don’t cry so, honey, we’ll go home.” She took his cold, damp little hand in hers and tried to urge him along the board sidewalk, in and out of the dark shadows.

But William T. was inconsolable and continued to dig a fat little fist into a tear-dripping eye. Up the plank walk to the porch and up the sunken steps Ardena drew him. When she opened the door a kerosene lamp, burning dimly on the littered center-table, was emitting a smoky, stifling odor. The fire had gone out, books and papers lay scattered about on the rag carpet and the meager furniture of the room stood crowded in the corner. And the child continued in his grief. Ardena, meanwhile, was groping about the dark kitchen for a lamp with more oil in it. Having found one, finally, and lighted it and blown out the other she began to lift the halfburnt sticks of wood from the cold stove. But William T., his anguish becoming more intense, swelled himself afresh and continued to pour forth his feelings of cold and hunger and drowsiness and neglect in a fresh series of wails. Ardena could really make pretenses of deafness no longer — nor turn from the inevitable. He must be distracted some way. Looking around for something — anything, her eye fell first upon a worn limp purse on the clock shelf. This she tossed at William T. and then went on whittling shavings for the stove.

William T., whether tired out or cried out or charmed with the novelty of the gift, became pacified. Rolling on the floor, he opened the purse in the air, the pennies falling on his upturned face. Ardena laid the fire and turned for a match. But with a startled jump she grabbed the coughing, choking William T. by the heels and staggering to her feet shook him in mid-air with all her strength until the penny popped out of his mouth. Then letting him slide to the floor she sank into the old wooden rocking chair while William T., scared and blinking, silently adjusted himself to a more natural poise.

“ For the land sake, Ardena Marsh, what on earth is the matter over here ! ” Mrs. Shute, small and bony, entered at the half-open door, a red flannel shawl encircling her narrow, alert face. “ I never heard such yelling in all my days — or nights either ! Who’s getting killed? Ebenezer’s been off to bed