WHEN MOTHER WAS A POET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2693, 24 December 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHEN MOTHER WAS A POET.

A CHRISTMAS STORY BY KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN, (Author of “The Mother of the Isand,” the “Juliana” Stories, etc.)

M y friend Elizabeth Payne’s studio —for studio it is, although she herself calls it “the worksho-p”—is a most alluring place. Just a tiny tower-room it is, fourteen stories up, its graygreen walls hung with tantalizing sketches and fragments of illumination, missal pages and cover desighs, for the 1 illuminating and binding of rare books is Elizabeth’s handicraft. Sometimes I call her studio “The Clearing-House of Hearts.” For her daily work brings her a thousand fleeting glimpses into quiet friendships and happinesses—the constant perquisite of her profession. One November morning when I dropped in from my own small aerie next door I found that a stout, severe man of fifty, whose impeccable card, I afterward learned, bore the name of a well-known and plutocratic banker, had preceded me. He desired a manuscript copy in white and silver—“ Yes, a little color —rose, perhaps”—of Lady Nairn’s poem, “The Land o’ the Leal.” “And the title-page is to have just the title and your name?” “Not my name; my wife’s,” he inter, posed. “It is for her birthday. Then I want a dedication, illuminated: ‘To Helen, Who — Who ’ Ah—l' believe, after all, that you need not include that; just leave a space, say three inches, with a plain gold border. I’ll write that dedication in myself. I—l think perhaps she would prefer it that way.”

A boyish pink brightened his cheeks as he went away.

“Lucky Helen 1” I remarked pensively, and there I halted. For the next customer- was standing shyly on the threshold. ; ' ‘

She was a gentle old woman, well past seventy, but still lovely to look upon, and full of a dear, appealing charm, like a wistful child. And for all her overwhelming elegance of attire, her sweep of silks, the sables that sheathed her from shoulders, to feet, she was yet such a little, deprecating figure that 1 owned a hungry longing to slip across and tuck a capable arm around her slender shoulders till .die should feel more at home. “This is Miss Payne—the Miss Payne who binds books?” she said with halffrightened friendless and a tremulous pink flickering in her soft, withered cheek. .

“Yes, lam Miss Payne. You wished to have something rebound?”

“N—not exactly.” She sat down obediently in the low chair which Elizabeth drew up. Her little fingers grasped the arm nervously, and the dim arbutus-pink brightened in her cheek; she , hesitated, .picking her words. “I-Htny name is Mrs Chandler, Mrs Rufus Chandler. I make my home with my daughter, Mrs Cortlandt Fo’ Benedict. Perhaps you knowvhyr ?” Elizabeth nodded.

‘ ‘I am planning, rny Christmas gifts. I—l wished to have three copies, lettered: by ..hand, of. a—-a poem. They ar® to be; my Christmas gifts to my children, so I- wanted them to be real pretty.” She was flushing and paling by turns as she stumbled through her explanation. I wondered at her .pa'.Sfut embarrassment over so simple a matter. “I’ll be very glad to undertake this for you,” returned Elizabeth promptly. ! ‘‘Have you a copy of the poem • at

hand? Thank you: I’ll just glance through it. Then I can suggest some scheme of decoration.”

She bent over the closely-written pages; The little old lady watched her with waiting, anxiou s eyes. She had drawn off her long, costly gloves, and her veined, _ little hands, like shrunken rose-petals, lay in her lap; the worn thread of her wedding ring glinted faintly. Her hands were worn, too; the small joints and delicate knuckles bore the ineffaceable marks of labor; Dainty and sweet as she was her splendid clothes were obviously not of her own choosing. From quietly-sumptuous French bonnet to exquisite suede shoe, every detail had undoubtedly been selected and urged upon her by some young, strong, domineering hand. To be sure, there had been affection as well as insistence in thig dictation. And yet—- “ Can you really make a book out of it? Will it—will it—do?” She leaned forward, fairly palpitating with eagerness.

“Yes, it ought to work up into a very attractive little gift,” said Elizabeth, considering. “It’s a dear little poem, and very sweetly written.” “Is it?” whispered Mrs Chandler with a quick, indrawn breath. Her faded eyes lit with starry sparkles. “Is it actually good enough to —to print?” “Why, yes, to be sure.” Elizabeth was fumbling through a pile of cover designs. “Now, how shall we plan the make-up? A different leather and an individual design for each copy?” “I—l don’t know.” Mrs Chandler gazed at her, flushed, softly radiant. “You don’t know how glad I am that it will really do?”

“Assuredly it will. Why not? Now, do you want the author’s name inscribed on the cover, or just on the titlepage? And who is the author, by-the-way ? I don’t recall reading that poem before.”

MyAittle old lady shrank and stammered at the question like a frightened child. Then she caught my eye, and the stars in her own eyes deepened into a- shy glow. “I’m almost ashamed to tell it,” she confessed. “But —I thought maybe the children would like it. So I wrote it—myself.” “You wrote it yourself! Why, what a lovely thing to do!”

“Yes. All fall I’ve been thinking and thinking what I could give them for Christmas. Somehow they always seem to have everything! I wanted so to make them some gift that should be all my own. And, half in fun, I tried to write some little verses; and before I knew it I had thought of —of this.” Her voice dropped with a sudden, grave sweetne-Hi. “It’s just the story of the way we used to work together, the children and I, those years after their father died. We were so happy together! And they’ve always been such good children to me! They all accomplish so much and do so much good in tile world, and I’ve never seemed to accomplish anything. But I thought, maybe this once, I could do something that will please them. That is, if you really think this will do —” “‘lf this will do?’ It’s beautiful!” Elizabeth’s voice wa s very emphatic and very sweet. “I am more pleased than I can tell you that you are willing to entrust it to me.”

Mrs Chandler’s face grew luminous. J ‘l am glad!” She leaned back with a happy sigh. “Now if just the children will like them —I can’t ask anything more! My oldest son, my Robert, ought to have the most beautiful copy. He was only twelve year s old when his father died, but he worked in the fields all that summer, and did a man’s work, too. I want his book to be the best of all. Yet Henry’s ought to be just as fine, for Henry—oh, I never could have managed) without Henry. . He was just nine that year, arid a delicate boy. But he took all the care of Baby Lucy, and worked about the house like a woman; he even learned to cook and When I d come home —I taught our district school, you know —he’d have the house all clean and warm and a hot supper ready, and even my dry shoes set to warm, if I’d had to walk home through rain or snow. It was a three-mile walk, but it was level roads, so that wasn’t bad. And Henry was plways so loving and tender to me! Henry s book surely ought to be the best. Though' there’s Lucy, too —my little Lucy! She was like a light in the house. I couldn’t have faced that first year alone without her. And her book ought to be the most beautiful book of all!”

“We’ll make each one just a little {prettier than the other two,” said Elizabeth, gravely smiling. She brought out sheet after sheet of ivory parchment and rolls of fragrant leather. Mrs Chandler listened to her suggestions with eager pleasure. In the midst of her happy calculations a curt tap sounded at the door. A majestical footman, in the FordBenedict livery, filled the narrow entrance. Mrs Chandler gave a guilty little start.

“Madame wished me to inquire 'Whether your errand would be concluded shortly,” announced the majestical on*.

“Certainly, Peters; I’m coming down right away.” Mrs Chandler sprang up fluttering. “Dear me, I hope Lucy doesn’t suspect anything. I wouldn’t spoil this surprise for my little Lucy for anything in the world!” Elizabeth and I glanced at each other as shb left the room. “Fancy the magnificent Mrs Ford-Benedict as anybody’s ‘my little Lucy’ I” said Elizabeth. -■

Suddenly Mrs Chandler came hurrying back. “Oh, Miss Payne!” The shy color burned hot in her cheeks. “You will think me most careless. But —I neglected to ask the —the cost.” “The " books? - Oh—two dollars apiece,” said Elizabeth placidly.. • • •

I gasped. Two dollars! When ten dollars would not cover even the goldwork and the illuminating I “That will be six dollars for the three books, then.” Mrs Chandler brightened with childlike relief; evidently she had felt a little dread of tho possible expenditure. “I do thank you, Miss Payne, for your kindness and patience. And may I come in sometimes, maybe, and see how the books are getting on?”

“Do,” urged Elizabeth. “I shall love to have you.” She took Mrs Chandler to the elevator. As she reentered the studio her manner was a shade defiant.

“Elizabeth Payne, are you quite daft?” I demanded. “Six dollars for three hand-made, parchment copies, when you always charge thirty for one —and well worth the thirty they are, at that!”

“Now, Matilda, that will do. It would spoil all her pleasure in her gifts if she dreamed how much time and money they represent.” “But her daughter can give her any allowance she could ask, and, Elizabeth, this Avork means your bread.and butter. You can’t afford—” “But her daughter is not buying these books. And I’m not going to wreck all her little happy secrets by making her feel that she has been extravagant.”

I subsided. Elizabeth may be, as she boasts, no sentimentalist. But behind that front of serene detachment you’ll find a heart of tender understanding. . “What is the poem like, Elizabeth?” “You read it for yourself.” Elizabeth laid it in my hands. “Is it really poetry?” “It’s music, not poetry,” said Elizabeth briefly.

I glanced down the close-written •pages —just a handful of little verses, the story of their years of struggle—“the children and I” —of her long, brave fight to hold her little flock together, to give her sons and the baby Lucy, their own chance in the world. Elizabeth had put it well; for all the sorrow underlying the, story it was sheer music. The harmony of secure love and deep content thrilled through even the pathos of the short, quiet tale. Round it, in loving iteration, her children’s names were women, like pearls upon her rosary—Robert, Henry, Lucy, tenderly over and over. And yet one more, of which she had not spoken, “My Philip.”

“ ‘Philip?’ Who can Philip be?” I wondered. But the poem told nothing more.

Mrs Chandler came often, and hovered over desk and work-table like a breath of orchard air. With all her child-heart she exulted in these mysterious hours in our small tower. And to watch Elizabeth at her work, to see her own poem, her one real “accomplishment,” as she gravely referred to it, taking on lovely form before her eyes, was her unending joy. Elizabeth is always painstaking; but never has she put more scrupulous pains upon her work than she gave to those three copies. The first for the eldest son, the helper, “My Robert,” now a famou s surgeon, Dean of the School of Medicine in a great Eastern university, was brown and gold. Massed golden wheat-ears wreathed the cover of warm, brown Spanish leather; golden arabesques framed each stanza in luminous traceries. The copy for Henry, the second son, was designed in exquisite dim tones of green. A single stalk of pussy-willow glimmered across the cover; threads of silver, woven into a border fine as cobweb, bound each page. We had long known of .the second son as the most brilliant—and the most merciless —lawyer of his day. Yet our unflattering estimate of his character seemed somehow inadequate, in the light of the little mother’s adoring phrase, “And Henry was always so loving and tender to me! I never could have managed without Henry.”

But the copy for the daughter, the intimidating Mis Ford-Benedict ) “my little Lucy,” was Elizabeth’s pride. Its leathern cover was powdery gray, the gray velvet of a baby grape-leaf, showered with tiny buds of apple-blossoms. No borders decked the ivory pages; but here and there, as though blown from the stems of the verses themselves, lay a rosy petal, a half-curled, silky, green leaf.

“It doesn’t seem as if these lovely things could be mine to give,” said Mrs Chandler softly. She sat at Elizabeth’s elbow, watching every touch with shining eyes. “I’ve always done such common, every-day things, just bread and butter and buttons, for my children. And now to think that I can give them—this!” The telephone rang. Elizabeth was besought to come to a neighboring studio, there to pas s judgment upon a critical bit of stained glass. As she went away Mrs Chandler stooped again over the books. A curious shadow* dimmed her gentle face. “There’s just one disappointment,” she said musingly. “If only there were to he four books —not three!” “Thero ought to he one more?” I whispered. “Just one more.” Her soft eyes dimmed. “For my little Philip; but he only stayed with us till he was twelve. He was only five when his father died, and he was the loveliest and dearest of all my childern. But sometimes I’d look at him and almost wish that he had slipped away with his father. For my little Philip was blind. Oh, my little, dear, patient son! Robert and Henry and Philip and Lucy!” Her voice swung tenderly through the chaplet of beloved names. “We were so proud of them, and we planned such great things for them all! But then the War came, and after the War it was all different, somehow. Their father came home all tired out, and soon he had a long sickness. Then, before he was able to work again, Philip was born; and two years later Lucy came.

And their father worked too hard, trying to provide for us all, and when tho fever seized him the second time he couldn’t fight it a day. We had tho farm, of course, but it was heavily in debt. For a while I didn’t know which way to turn. But the directors gave me the school, and Robert and I managed to hold the farm. I’d get up and feed the animals and help him milk, mornings. Sometimes , he’d bo so sound asleep, poor little man, that I couldn’t bear to wake him. I’d just tuck him in and slip out and do'the chores myself, although it always made him cry, he’d be so angry when he found out. Then I’d leave the little ones and the house to Henry and go on to school.

“Evenings were our good time, though. Then they’d sit around my chair and sa y their lessons. They had to work daytimes, instead of going to school, but I was bound they should learn something, so I’d study with them every night, though sometimes we’d have to keep pinching each other to stay awake. Lucy would be asleep in her cradle by the fireplace, and Philip would be curled up on my knee, his fingers pressed against my mouth— I told you he was blind. And—and he couldn’t hear, either, my poor little man; nor speak. Yet he was the quickest, the brightest of them all. “In those days we’d never heard of schools for the dumb or the blind. But when Robert was sixteen and Henry thirteen I sold the farm and moved into town, so the boys could go to the academy. I rented a big house on , ’Cademy Hill and took students to board; the hoys helped me nights and Saturdays. And there I heard of an old doctor, who lived on bi s great farm, fourteen miles from town, and who had a dumb son he had taught to read people’s lips, even strangers’, and to talk with his hands, and even to make some sounds like words. So one day I borrowed a horse and waggon and took Philip out to him. Philip was nine then. I’ll never forget his little scared clutck.on my neck when I lifted him up and put him into the old man’s arms. And then — “Before my eyes, that old man took my child and put big hands on his mouth and taught him to speak—to see! For the first groping touch or soPhilip didn’t understand, and the fear and wonder in his baby face almost broke my heart. And then, all of asudden, he —he knew. And now the doctor couldn’t tell him fast enough. Happy? His little face shone like the sun. And when it was growing night, and I had to take him home he still clung to the doctor, tight. For the first time in all his life he didn’t want to come to me. ‘Leave him. with me,’ the old man said. ‘l’ll teach him and take care of him as if he were my own.’ “So that we did. But every Friday night, for two years, I’d borrow the horse and drive out and bring Philip home for his Sunday with us. No matter what the weather was, frost or fog, rain or snow, he’d be waiting for me at the farm gate. And all our long night-ride home his little fingers would be tapping on my hands, telling me what he had learned in these days gin- 0 ® we’d been apart. And with every week he grew stronger and happier and wiser. “But that next year came the fever again. Not one of my children sickened with it except my Phil. It was with him as it had been with his father; he could not fight it. He just slipped away.” There was a long silence. At last she laid down the apple-blossom copy with a touch like a caress and gathered her cloak about her shoulders. Tho dim radiance of her smile of good-byo stayed with me through the long day. * * * Three days later, barely a week before Christmas, Elizabeth put tho finishing touches on the apple-blossom, copy. We rather expected Mrs Chandler that day, for she had been looking forward like a child to the hour the books should be completed; but she did not- come. However, late that afternoon appeared the majestical FordBenedict footman, bearing a note, addressed in her soft, wavering hand. Elizabeth opened it ; it contained first the six dollars, then a ribboned packet, then the message itself. My Dear (it ran), I am disappointed that I cannot see you and your Friend to-day. But I have a little headache, and it is so stormy that it seems best not to venture out. 1 send you more thanks than I know how to say, for my beautiful books, and for your sweet helpfulness. I am enclosing the little gift I made for you. It ought to be much finer, but I am not so handy with my needle as I used to be. And I send you my Christmas love. Your respectful and loving friend MARY B. CHANDLER. “I rather think that I’m fully repaid, in spite of that ninety dollars you’re still lamenting,” said Elizabeth, handing the note and the delicate hit of hemstitched linen to me. In our own Christmas flurry the books and their gentle giver slipped from our minds. I spent ink holiday week out of town. Returning, I hurried to Elizabeth’s studio, overflowing with the tale of my good times. Elizabeth sat in the window-seat, talking with a customer. There was something familiar about the customer’s appearance, although her face was turned from me. She was a large, handsome woman, with a commanding air. I recognised her type: the indefatigable social leader, .the woman who “does” everything. Suddenly she turned toward me, and then I knew. This wa s Mrs FordBenedict, the superb, the intimidating Mrs Ford-Benedict—“my little Lucy!” Dressed in heavy black she looked somehow inexplicably changed; her ungloved hands were clasped jealously (Continued on Page 3.)