# Century Magazine/Volume 101/Issue 3/Mollie:The Ideal Nurse

Extracted from The Century Magazine, Vol 101, Jan 1921, pp. 326–335. Accompanying illustrations by C. F. Peters may be omitted.
Mollie:The Ideal Nurse
By ELISABETH HOLDING
Illustrations by C. F. Peters
BUT, Rob," said Mrs. Keating, "you can't deny that it was—well—at least suspicious."
"Pshaw!" replied her husband, with vigor. "Nothing but surmise, anyway. And in any case, she was justified."
"But a murderess!" protested Mrs. Keating. Her husband scowled at the word.
"You women!" he exclaimed. "You are never satisfied. Here you are with an ideal nurse, and you cavil at—at a mere suspicion. You 've forgotten, I suppose, how it was before she came."
Forgotten that time, that awful time before Mollie came? Never in life would Mrs. Keating forget it. Her mind reverted with amazing vividness to the day that was the climax of the awfulness and the end of it. She remembered it and said no more of her suspicions.
She remembered how she had been sitting at the window, where she could watch her three terrifying children playing on the lawn; remembered how dowdy and dreadful she had looked, with her red eyes and her frowzy hair, how worse than dreadful she had felt, how hopeless, how helpless.
The front door had banged, and out came a lean, wooden man, who strode down the garden path, jerked open the gate, dammed it after him, and disappeared in the direction of the railway station. Her husband, in a frightful temper. There had been a scene at the breakfast-table; his tea had been weak and cold, the eggs hard as bullets, the toast revoltingly pale and soft. And the baby, somewhere out of sight, had wailed miserably all the time.
"What's the matter with this breakfast?" Keating had demanded.
"Cook has her hands full," she had explained. "She's taking care of baby, and she does n't know how very well."
"Why the devil don't you get another nurse?"
"But, Rob, I don't know how. I don't know where to look for a really good, trustworthy woman. I'm not used to American ways yet."
Keating had become quite violent.
"You 'll have to find out. It's your business. Your business either to find a nurse or to learn how to keep that child quiet yourself. I will not be bothered with this sort of thing."
She had begun to cry, which helped nothing.
"Oh, Lord!" he shouted. "Can't you do anything but sit there and snivel? Look at this breakfast. Not fit to eat, the house all upset. What's the matter with you, anyway? Simply because a poor old ayah dies, everything goes to pieces."
And so on, until Mrs. Keating had got up and left the table, sobbing. Her husband watched her go, and if it had n't been for her dressing-gown, he would have gone after her. But that outrageous thing of dingy flowered flannel trimmed with purple ribbon, with a long, trailing fold at the back—this garment, combined with her tears and her untidy hair, quite hardened his heart. Of course he realized that it was hard for her after that languid existence in India and the years of utter reliance upon the ayah, but still it did n't do to overlook the fact that he was being made very uncomfortable and that it was n't wifely, was n't decent, of her to allow any such condition.
So, deserted and rebuked, sat Mrs. Keating in her room. She was expected, she well knew, to dust and to make beds, as cook could n't do that and likewise walk unceasingly up and down the nursery with a baby suddenly grown sleepless. But she felt too ill and miserable and too hopeless. The little she could do would n't make any impression upon the dreadful confusion, daily growing worse.
Illustration: Her mind reverted with amazing vividness to the day that was the climax of the awfulness
She was thinking something about wishing she had never been born or had never married Rob or had never come to America, when, glancing dutifully at her quite unmanageable children, she observed a stranger in the garden, a sturdy, gray-haired woman, respectably dressed in black, with a voluminous skirt that flounced about her square-toed boots as she walked. She was talking to the children with that manner and that smile recognized at once by Mrs. Keating as being absolutely the proper sort, at once adult and full of authority, without being irritating.
She patted young Robert's head, and went on her way, disappeared round the corner of the house, headed evidently for the back door. No doubt cook admitted her, for presently Mrs. Keating, with some surprise, heard soft-soled boots come squeaking up the stairs, and there stood the stranger in the doorway of her room.
"Good morning, ma'am," she said in a pleasant voice. "Please to excuse me for coming up, but the cook tells me you 're not very well, so I did n't want to trouble you. I heard you wanted a nurse, so I stopped in. I'm a nurse, ma'am, and looking for a proper situation."
Now, Mrs. Keating was almost irresistibly inclined to accept this placid and kindly woman as a gift from Heaven without further questioning. She knew that there would be no faults or flaws in her. But the wraith of her husband forbade any such course. She was obliged to be what he would call sensible. So, apologetically, with an absurd feeling that it was an impertinence to interrogate this wise woman old enough to be her mother, she murmured something about references.
"Have you had much experience?" she inquired.
"I have, ma'am. Eighteen years with Mis. Lyons down the street a bit. She 'll tell you anything you'd like to know. Only mention Mollie to her. Six children she had, and I 've brought them all up from the day they were born."
She waited for another question, but Mrs. Keating could think of none to ask. So Mollie herself inquired:
"What food do you give your baby, ma'am?"
"I don't know. You see, I had an ayah—an Indian woman—who took entire charge of—of everything. Of course I would n't expect any one else to do what she did—"
"There's nothing could be done by any heathen woman that I could n't do," said Mollie, respectful, but stern. "You can safely leave everything to me, ma'am, as Mrs. Lyons will tell you."
"I'm sure of it," Mrs. Keating began, and again recollected her husband and her own rôle of competent mistress. "Would you tell me why you left Mrs. Lyons?"
"The children grew up," said Mollie, soberly. "It's hard, when you 've been with them day and night for all them years, but it's what's to be expected. It's nature."
"Well," said Mrs. Keating, "I don't see why—if you like it, you might try the place for a while, and see how we get on together."
"Yes, ma'am," said Mollie, and stood for a moment looking quietly at her new mistress. Then, as she looked, her sun-burned and impassive face broke slowly into an indulgent smile.
"Everything will be all right now," she remarked kindly. "Lie down, ma'am, and rest."
Mrs. Keating not moving, she took matters into her own hands, made the bed deftly, and, patting the pillows, said soothingly:
"Come now, ma'am, lie down! There, I 'll take them hairpins out of your hair and make a braid that 'll give your head more comfort. Now! Wait and I 'll cover up your feet and close the shutters. After a bit I 'll maybe bring you up a cup of tea."
She was gone, stepping softly, shoes squeaking comfortably, vast skirt rustling.
Mrs. Keating fell asleep, closed her eyes upon a complex and troubled world, opened them upon peace. Mollie, coming up with a tray, had tactfully waked her, propped her up with pillows, brushed and coiled her hair, opened the shutters to let in the gay spring sunshine, and left her to drink her tea in heavenly comfort and quiet. She stopped long enough to give her detailed information about her young family, and went serenely about her business again.
When Keating got home that evening, he encountered a delightful peace and orderliness in his household. He was prepared to be amiable, anyway, to atone for his morning ferocity, and this evidence of reform on the part of his wife still further softened him. He started up the stairs with a whistle absolutely cheerful, when a stout, gray-haired stranger appeared before him, finger to lips, and whispered:
"Hush, sir! The baby's asleep! The children are in the nursery, sir."
So he went into the nursery and found them there at tea, clean and contented, and with a new air of restraint that profoundly pleased him. They were evidently being "managed." He watched them for a time in solemn satisfaction, and then went into his wife's room to compliment her—indirectly, of course—upon her judgment and discrimination.
"You seem," he said, "to have found a very good, useful sort of woman."
Mrs. Keating, refreshed, rested, at ease regarding the future, had not the least intention of telling her husband that she had n't found Mollie, that Mollie had, in fact, simply materialized. Neither did she intend to let him know that she had n't investigated the apparition's references, and never meant to, either.
"Rob," she said firmly, "she is absolutely the ideal nurse!"
And she was. Undoubtedly. She went out that evening, and returned later with a large valise, and installed herself in the nursery, whence day after day she ruled the household with wise tyranny. She was infallible, supreme, beyond appeal, yet so discreet that no one resented her authority; not even the irritable master chafed under it. Within a month she had become the indispensable, inevitable thing, the sun, one might poetically say, of their universe. They relied upon her for everything good, yet took her as a matter of course.
Keating was, I think, the only one who really appreciated her. To see her in the evening, sitting in the dimly lighted corridor outside the nursery door, hands folded, rocking placidly, prepared apparently to wait there eternally; or to watch her on the lawn with the children, watchful as some mother animal, and as little interfering; to observe her limitless discretion, to hear her calm voice, satisfied his very soul. They never spoke to each other except for a "Good morning, Mollie," and a "Good morning, sir," decorously exchanged. But he, with his profound British propriety, and she, with her inborn Irish decorum, were always in accord, always understood each other. Not for them to inquire, to experiment; they were of the elect who knew by instinct and tradition what was the right and proper course at all times.
Illustration: Mollie, coming up with a tray, had tactfully waked her
So you may imagine how amazing and disgusting it was for him to hear that Mollie had a "follower." Mrs. Keating had long ago heard rumors, which she preferred to keep to herself. The cook had told her of a mysterious man whom Mollie supplied with table scraps. She had rebuked the cook for tale-bearing, and told her she was quite sure Mollie was incapable of anything improper.
"I don't care," she said to herself, "how many followers she has. I know she's a perfectly respectable woman, and I'm not going to interfere with her."
it was on a Sunday that Mr. Keating discovered the thing. He was weeding a beloved flower bed when he heard voices at the back of the house and went quietly to see. He saw Mollie handing an immense sandwich to a man.
"Here," she said somewhat ungraciously, "take this. It 'll last you till dinner-time. And don't you be hanging about here, Steve. It won't do."
As the man went off with his sandwich, Keating made a point of getting a good look at him, and was shocked. A man of perhaps fifty, with an alarmingly red face, drooping black mustache, a heavy, beefy, slovenly fellow without a collar. Keating at once decided—or insisted—in his own mind that this was Mollie's reprobate brother. It could not be otherwise; it should not be. He kept as silent in regard to this follower as his wife did.
For months the follower haunted the premises, resolutely ignored by every one. He really was n't any trouble even to the cook. He appeared once or twice a week and got a package of food, scrupulously selected by Mollie from what would otherwise have been wasted. It represented on her part a struggle between honesty and propriety and a nice balance achieved. She would n't rob her employers of the very meanest scrap, but neither would she give to any human being food that was n't clean and decent. She used to stand out on the back steps in the dusk, talking to the man, and after a bit he would go away with his honest package, while she returned to the kitchen, affable, but not to be questioned.
Apart from the follower, this remarkable woman had but a single weakness and a most amazing one. This was a passion for tobacco coupons. She even ventured to break her silence with Mr. Keating and to address him on the subject, to his great surprise. It was a Sunday evening, cook's night off, and Mollie was obligingly waiting on the supper-table. They had finished; she was taking out the cold pudding when Mr. Keating lighted a cigar, and she suddenly spoke to him.
"Excuse me, sir," she said, "but is n't that one of them Victor cigars?"
He stared at her.
"Yes," he said.
Illustration: "'Take this. It 'll last you till dinner-time'"
"I take the liberty of asking, sir, because—I don't know whether or not you 've any use for the coupons they give with them. Two with every Victor. Because, sir, if you have n't any use for them—"
"Never keep them," said Keating.
"Are you collecting them, Mollie?" his wife inquired.
"Yes, ma'am," she replied, with modest triumph. "I 've near a thousand. Mr. Lyons used to give me all he had, and—other people. When I 've two thousand," she added, "there's an elegant tea-set, a hundred pieces, I have me eye on."
After that Keating was punctilious in preserving the coupons given with the Victor and bringing them home to Mollie. He showed an unaffected interest in her tea-set, too; she showed him the picture of it in the catalogue of premiums, and assured him that she had gone to see it in person and that it was still more imposing in reality than in the picture. It is not impossible that he consumed more Victors than he really wanted or were good for him. He would have done more than that for the excellent woman. What is more, he thoroughly understood her ambition. Mrs. Keating had kind-heartedly suggested buying a similar tea-set and presenting it to Mollie as a Christmas gift, but he refused. He knew that the thing would lose all its virtue that way. It must be pointed out and displayed as having been secured with Victor coupons; otherwise it would be like any ordinary tea-set.
In view of his strong sympathy with Mollie, then, one may imagine his feelings on that miserable evening when they came across the follower in so disgraceful a way. They were returning from the theater; they had come decorously up the garden path in the moonlight, arm in arm, and there he was, lying on their front steps, drunk and asleep and snoring.
Keating shook him.
"Get up!" he cried roughly. "Be off with you!"
"A—a tramp," Mrs. Keating suggested, although she had perfectly recognized that red face and that black mustache.
"Of course," her husband answered impatiently, and shook the man again, with more violence. "Here! Wake up! Be off with you!"
But he was not to be roused, and he could n't be moved. They went in and left him there, snoring under the moon, a shameful blot upon Mollie's fair name. With solemn duplicity Mrs. Keating suggested sending for the police to remove the creature, and was immeasurably relieved when her husband refused, as she had expected he would. Her heart almost stopped beating at the very idea of losing Mollie, of losing dignity, comfort, security.
Mr. Keating suffered from the same anxiety, because he, too, had immediately recognized the follower. He got up early the next morning, a Sunday, and looked quietly and cautiously out of the front window. The man was still there and still asleep, a yet more disgusting object in the morning sunshine, his mouth open, his dank black hair plastered over his red forehead. He was dressed in a flannel undershirt, a pair of outrageous old trousers, and carpet slippers. Where could he have come from in such a costume? And what possible quality in him could appeal to that soul of propriety that was Mollie?
Unfortunately, steps must be taken; the follower could n't any longer be ignored. Keating put on a dressing-gown and went quietly along the hall to the nursery, whence came a cheerful babel properly hushed for Sunday.
He knocked on the door.
"Mollie," he called, "will you come out and speak to me for a minute?"
She appeared without an instant's delay.
"Yes, sir?"
"There's a man outside. I believe he's known to you. He's been there all night, drunk. If you think you can get him away quietly—"
"Yes, sir," she answered, without the slightest change of voice or expression; "I think I can. Perhaps you'd be so good, sir, as to sit in the nursery for half a minute. They 'll look at their picture-books like lambs. And the baby's asleep."
For no one else under the sun would Keating have taken sole charge of his children for any fraction of a minute; now, however, he consented at once, and was sitting meekly enough in Mollie's big rocking-chair when she re-entered.
"He's gone, sir," she said.
Keating got up.
"We—there's no need to mention the occurrence to any one," he said. "Only don't let him hang about, will you?"
Mollie shook her head sadly.
"I'm afraid I can't help it, sir," she answered. "I 've done my best. But when once this sort of thing begins there's no hope. He's my husband."
Try as she would to remain respectfully calm, the tears stood in her eyes, and her lips quivered.
"It's a great cross to me, sir," she said. "He's hounded me from place to place. All the time growing worse and worse, the way his kind always does. Since I 've left Mrs. Lyons, I 've had no peace at all. I 've tried my best. We lost our little home two years ago because of his—ways, and—and every time I 've set about saving up again, he—"
She could n't go on for a minute.
"I'm sorry, sir, and ashamed that you should be troubled by him when you 've been so kind. And I did love the children, indeed I did. But now that he's got in the way of coming here, there'd be no end to it. I 've got to go."
"Nonsense!" said Keating; "we sha'n't hold you responsible for that—for him. And perhaps you could get rid of him once and for all. I 'll speak to my lawyer—"
"In my church, sir, we don't look on it that way. He's my husband, that I chose of my own free will, and I 've got to put up with him the best I can till one of us is dead."
She dried her eyes.
"I 'll see that Mrs. Keating's not too much put about by my leaving," she said. "I 'll take it on myself to find a new nurse."
Mrs. Keating was overwhelmed with dismay when Mollie told her.
"Oh, no!" she entreated, "don't go! We 'll find work for your husband. He can take care of the garden or the furnace if you'd like."
"He would n't stick to it, ma'am. He says the only thing to keep him straight and sober would be a home of his own again. So I think I 'll try it once more, ma'am. 'T is no use trying to keep a situation, the way things is now."
They helped her in every possible way. Keating was generous beyond his wife's expectation; gave lavish assistance toward furnishing the little home, and took great trouble to find a job for Steve. He even "talked to" Steve, tried to impress upon him how fine a wife he had, and how he ought to honor and cherish her. Steve quite agreed, was even fulsome in his praise of Mollie, but said it was almost impossible to cherish any one who was so much away from home.
"Whin we 're settled, boss," he said, "you 'll see! I'm a fine fellow, I am, and a great hand for work, give me only something to work for. You 'll see, boss."
No one, however, was able to have any faith in Steve. He was so obviously just what he was and nothing more, and he so shamelessly traded upon the indulgence extended to Mollie's husband. He had an exasperating, cunning air about him. "You 'll do it for Mollie's sake," his expression seemed to say triumphantly, while he humbly asked the most outrageous favors.
The last day came; the new nurse, hopelessly inferior and wholesomely impressed with that fact, was installed after a course of training personally conducted by Mollie. Mollie, bag in hand, her eyes still red from taking leave of the children, came in to bid good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Keating. And Mr. Keating gave her a final gift of a package of Victor coupons sufficient to complete her hoard. This gift moved her inordinately; she found it almost impossible to maintain her composed, respectful manner. She would, one felt, have liked to kiss his hand or fall at his feet or do something equally extravagant. Mrs. Keating's handsome and thoughtful farewell gift was as nothing at all in comparison.
"O Mr. Keating, sir!" she cried, "all these! Oh, I'm sure, sir, you 've no need of so many Victors!"
"I bought a few boxes in advance," he told her. "They 'll be all the better for aging. Don't worry; they won't be wasted."
He had, in fact, by this time acquired an incorrigible appetite for Victors; he never afterward smoked any other brand. They had become more or less hallowed by the worthy creature who had so well cared for his children.
She had a final request, in absolutely the proper tone of deference and pride mingled. If, when she did get that tea-set, Mr. and Mrs. Keating would do her the favor to come and see it in her own home? They agreed readily, and at last she left, the door closed after her; she was gone. Once again there descended upon them that old fear well known to all parents, that fear of their children. They dreaded lest they should hear the baby cry or Robert's voice in his nightly demands for drinks of water, handkerchiefs, or assuagements for his spiritual alarms. Once again had the whole alarming load settled upon their shoulders, for now there was no Mollie. The new nurse, good enough in her way, found it necessary to come to them for instruction on every possible point, from safety-pins to prayers. She was earnest, kind, trustworthy; but she was not authority.
In the course of time came a letter from Mollie.
       Mrs. Keating, dear madam, I have it all planned to get the Tea Set on Saturday morning and if you and Mr. Keating and master Robert and Miss Lucy would call by in the afternoon there would be home made ice cream and cake which would not hurt them and they would I know like to see the plates with birds on as I often showed them in the premiums book Mollies Tea Set they called it. Respectfully yours
Mollie Dillon.
The Keatings arrived at what Mrs. Keating imagined would be the expected hour, at three o'clock, or thereabouts. To do honor to Mollie the children were dressed up as she loved to see them, decorous and well-starched and wearing gloves. She met them at the door of her flat, not dressed up herself, because Steve's income never stretched to include clothing. Food, shelter, and his whisky consumed it all. But she was, of course, neat and clean, and beyond measure correct in an old white linen dress given her years ago by Mrs. Lyons. She led them into the tiny parlor and invited them to sit down, but was pleased and flattered when they asked to be shown about the place. Stiff, orderly, hideous, every inch of it, everything brand-new and shining, a "parlor set," a "dining-room set," a "bedroom set," all designed and executed for the world's Mollies and, accordingly, giving them absolute satisfaction. And all so clean and beautifully cared for as to be a little pitiful, as were, above all, the many tokens of the gratitude the good woman had inspired in her life. There were photographs of all the Lyons family at various ages, and pictures relating to older services, records, indeed, of a long life of service, faithfully and competently performed; little presents from the children she had loved. And beside these were all sorts of trifles carelessly thrown away as of no value by those for whom she had worked, which were somehow decorative in her eyes, paper fans, dinner favors, painted candy-boxes. Mollie liked her home "cozy," and there were few bare spaces on the walls or on the floors.
Illustration: He ... was sitting meekly enough in Mollie's big rocking-chair
They reviewed every part of her domain, and then went back into the parlor for the ceremonious chat required. It was then for the first time that Keating and his wife noticed something very wrong in Mollie's look, an expression altogether new to that composed and pleasant face—the look unmistakable of one suffering from an intolerable outrage. She sat down and talked to them, the first time she had ever sat in their presence with idle hands, but she not at all embarrassed, because the situation was altogether correct. She was in her own home and mistress of it and entitled to her due meed of consideration. No; it was not embarrassment or constraint that disturbed her; it was some emotion profound and novel. Her pleasant, ruddy color had faded, her lips were compressed; there was a sort of classic and repressed fury about her. Presently, after a decent interval, she rose, excused herself, and vanished into the kitchen, whence came sounds of dishes gently handled, the clinking of knives and forks, and her firm footsteps passing to and fro.
"The ice-cream!" murmured young Robert.
"And we 'll see the tea-set!" his sister added. Then Mollie drew aside the curtains that shut off the dining-room, showing a table lavishly set with cakes, jellies, a tall cylinder of ice-cream, and smoking cups of cocoa. They all walked in soberly and sat down in their appointed places.
"But, Mollie!" cried little Lucy.
"Yes, my pet?" asked Mollie.
"The tea-set!"
Something very wrong here! There they were eating from earthenware plates, cups and saucers that did n't match.
"Is n't—was n't—" ventured Mrs. Keating.
"Steve has n't come home with it yet," said Mollie.
Two spots of bright color came out over her high cheek-bones; she could not maintain her lifelong reserve.
"When I saw he was n't going to work this morning," she went on, "I said to myself I'd send him to fetch the tea-set. He'd not been drinking at all. I thought I'd be safe trusting him. Coupons is not like money, either. I sent him at nine o'clock. I thought it would give me a grand chance to get plenty of water heated, the way I could wash it as soon as he'd bring it."
She had an air of trying to force back a torrent of words, almost a physical struggle. A few more escaped her.
"I'd the shelves all scrubbed the night before," she said, "and clean scalloped paper with a fancy green edge laid along them, all ready."
"And you 've heard nothing of him since nine o'clock this morning?" Mrs. Keating asked.
"No, ma'am; I have not."
Mr. Keating suggested that perhaps he had met with an accident.
"Yes, sir, I dare say," she answered grimly.
They resumed eating. But her delicacies had lost their flavor, had turned pathetically bitter on their cracked plates. Even the children were impressed and very grave; they knew as well as any one that this feast without the tea-set was a wedding without a bride, a travesty, a mockery.
Dusk came, and Mollie lighted a wonderful lamp made of two round balls of blue china, one on top of the other, with a design of pink roses painted over it. They had gone back into the parlor again, and it was evident to all of them that the occasion was over, that it was time to go home. Yet they lingered; Mrs. Keating could n't make a move. Suddenly and loudly the front door-bell rang; Mollie went to answer it, and returned, followed by Steve.
Perhaps some obscure instinct of self-justification made them remember him forever afterward as almost superhumanly repulsive; or it may be that he really was so. Mrs. Keating described him later as looking "drowned in whisky." He had, she said, such a disgustingly wet look, his long black mustache, his hair, his red face. And he had his usual offensive manner; he was collarless, unshaven, he reeked of whisky, and he had the gross politeness of a beggar.
Mr. Keating looked at him severely.
"Well, Steve," he said, "let's see the tea-set."
"I ain't got the tea-set, Mr. Keating, sir. I used them valu'ble coupons for something more useful-like, as 'd benefit the two of us."
"O Steve!" murmured Mrs. Keating, reproachfully. But Mollie, standing by, said nothing at all.
Steve laid a paper bundle on the table in the bright light of the blue china lamp and began to unwrap it—a jumble of cords, blocks, staples, and hooks.
"What is it?" Mr. Keating asked, with a frown.
"Well, boss, I went, like the old woman told me, and got the tea-set."
There was a faint sound from Mollie, but no one turned toward her.
"Just like in the book it was. Mighty fine and pretty. Too fine and pretty for us, I thought, and I said so to a young fella I seen outside. 'Take this instead,' says he, 'I 'll give it ye for yer chiny.' He was standing outside." Outside what, Steve did not say. "'Step in,' he says, 'and I 'll show ye my little invention,' says he; ''T will save yer life,' says he, 'and is n't that worth more than cups and dishes and plates and jugs and the like?' So I steps in, and he shows me how does it work. So after I 'd sat with him a bit, to be sociable-like, I came home."
There was a long silence.
"Come on!" Keating said suddenly to his family. "Time to go."
But Steve would n't hear of that; he insisted, with a pompous, half-defiant insistence, that they should wait and watch him demonstrate the little invention. And for Mollie's sake, rather than that she should see Steve knocked out of the way, Mr. Keating complied.
Steve led the way into the kitchen and lighted the gas-jet there, revealing those empty shelves covered with clean scalloped paper, prepared for the tea-set. They all stood about awkwardly, Mrs. Keating holding her little girl by the hand, Mr. Keating in the doorway, the inquisitive young Robert near the window where Steve was securing his contrivance. It took a preposterous length of time. His hands moved busily, and he whistled under his breath, while close beside him, handing him this, that, and the other tool, tying knots, straightening tangles, stood his silent wife.
"Ah!" he cried at last, triumphantly, and opened the window. A raw, wet wind came blowing in, making the gas-light flicker and lifting his sodden hair from his forehead. He leaned far out and threw out one end of his device. The metal weight at the end of it clanked dismally on the stones four stories below.
"She's down," he announced, and sat down on the window-sill, with his legs hanging out.
Mr. Keating seized him by the coat-collar.
"Come in here!" he cried. "Do you want to kill yourself?"
"No, I don't, boss. But I'm going to show you how this little invention works. In case of fire—"
"Don't play the fool. Come in!"
"Mr. Keating, sir, I'm going down on my fire-escape," said Steve, solemnly and loudly. "No one at all can stop me. I know all about it. I understand it. I tried it this morning with the young fella that invented it."
"Rob, don't let him!" cried Mrs. Keating.
Keating tried to haul him in, but Steve was a much larger and heavier man than himself, and he could n't move him.
"Come in!" he cried again. "You are drunk. You don't know what you are doing."
The sound of their voices had attracted the attention of the neighbors; windows across the narrow court were opened and heads thrust out.
"What the hell are you doing there at all, Steve?" called out a friendly voice opposite. "Get the legs of you inside."
"I'm going down on me new-invented fire-escape," Steve answered him. "The more of you watches me, the better. 'T will be a lesson. Ye 'll all want thim whin you 've seen me."
Without an instant's warning he disappeared. Mrs. Keating shrieked, but his voice reassured her, and the sight of his face reappearing just above the sill, looking more drowned than ever.
"Don't he uneasy, ma'am," he said. "I 've only to let meself down now. Whin the iron weight comes up here again, you 'll know that I 've touched the ground. Now, then, Mollie, take another look that all thim ropes is tight."
Mollie turned to Mr. Keating as if she were about to speak; but she turned away again abruptly and leaned out of the window; she was busy there for what seemed to be a long time.
"Hi!" shouted her husband. "Whatever are you doing, Mollie? You 've only to see that thim ropes is all tight."
Mr. Keating came forward, exasperated and alarmed by her fumbling.
"Let me see—" he began, but Mollie sprang back suddenly, almost upsetting him.
Illustration: "'I ain't got the tea-set, Mr. Keating, sir'"
"All right!" she cried. "Go ahead!"
And suddenly, like a shot, the iron weight came whizzing up and crashed through the top of the window.
They did n't comprehend for an instant. Then came a babel of shrieks and shouts.
"Take the children home at once," Keating ordered. "Get a taxi somewhere. Hurry up and get out."
Mrs. Keating obeyed blindly, hurried down the long flights of stairs holding Lucy by one hand and Robert by the other, flew down the dark, narrow street in a panic.
"Don't talk!" she commanded the children, sharply. "Wait till your father comes home; he 'll tell you all about it."
They were forced to go to bed unsatisfied, and their mother had a solitary and anxious dinner, for Mr. Keating did n't come home until ten o'clock. She jumped up when she heard a cab stop before the house, and hurried to the door.
"O Rob!" she began, but saw behind him the portly form of Mollie, with that very same black bag—composed, placid Mollie.
"I 'll go into the kitchen, ma'am, if I may, and ask cook for a cup of tea," she said, and disappeared before having been quite realized by Mrs. Keating.
"I suggested her coming back to us," said Keating, "and she seemed pleased. I thought you'd be glad to have her."
Mrs. Keating did n't trouble to reply to so obvious a statement.
"Then is Steve—" she asked.
"Dead. One of the ropes slipped. The police came, of course, and an ambulance, and so on. But it was too late. And, upon my word," he added vehemently, "it's a good thing, too. Worthless brute!"
Mrs. Keating remained silent for some time, frowning thoughtfully.
"Rob," she said at last.
He started in a guilty way.
"Well?"
"Are you sure—do you think—the rope really slipped?"
He scowled at her, but she persisted.
"Because, Rob, I'm quite sure. I saw her pulling one of the little hooks or screws or—"
"For the love of heaven!" cried Keating, jumping up, "if that's not just like a woman! Can't let well enough alone. Were n't you longing to have her back? Did n't you tell me morning, noon, and night that she was the ideal nurse?"
"She is, of course," his wife replied, but could n't resist adding, "She is the ideal nurse—even if she did."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1955, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 68 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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