Miss Theodosias Heartstrings | Page 6

she sent one of
the children to Miss Theodosia with her day's work. The one who came
was Carruthers, chatty and deaf. Miss Theodosia did not have to do any
talking.
"Stefana says there's some smooches, but the worst ones come under
your arms an' where they's puckers. The wrinkles Stefana hopes you'll
excuse--they'll air 'out, she expects. She was comin' over an' explain,
herself, but she's gone to bed. Evangeline's gone, too, to keep the baby
quiet. Stefana says you needn't pay as much's you expected to, 'count o'
the smooches an' wrink--"
"I always pay the same price for my dresses," Miss Theodosia said,
forgetful of the boy's affliction. She put the money into the hard little
palm of Carruthers and watched him scamper home with it. Miss
Theodosia looked happy. She felt pleasant little tweaks at her
heartstrings as if small grimy hands were ringing them, playing a tender

little tune. Scorched, blundering young hands--Stefana's. The little tune
rang plaintive in her ears. She had a vision of Stefana toiling over the
ironing of her dresses and going to bed exhausted, when the toil was
over. Miss Theodosia's eyes followed Carruther's retreating little figure
till it reached the House of Little Children and disappeared from view.
What had she, Theodosia Baxter, to do with houses of little children?
Since when had they possessed attractions for her--held her tender,
brooding gaze? What was she doing here now, gazing? Theodosia
Baxter!
Stefana had folded the dresses painstakingly in separate newspaper
bundles and stacked them on Carruther's outstretched arms. They were
stacked now on Miss Theodosia's porch. She picked them up and
turned with them into the house.
"I'll unfold them," she thought, "and shake them out. I must tell her to
send them home without folding next time--or I can go and get them
myself."
Unpinning Stefana's many pins, she lifted out one of the dresses. It
creaked starchily under her hands; it opened out before Miss
Theodosia's horrified vision. She uttered a groan.
Where, now, was that tender little heart-string tune?
CHAPTER II
Miss Theodosia saw pink. Near-anger surged up within her at this
ruinous, this piteous result of Stefana's toil. The result dangled
creaksomely from her hands, revealing new wrinkles and smooches and
leprous patches of starch at every motion. What was in this bundle
would be in the rest--there was no hope.
In Theodosia Baxter's little girlhood, she had played there were two
"'Dosies," a good one and a bad one. The Good 'Dosie was often away
from home, but was sometimes apt to appear at unexpected moments,
to the embarrassment of the Bad 'Dosie. Stamp her foot as she would,
Bad 'Dosie could not always drive the unwelcome intruder away.

"I don't like her!" the small sinner had once been heard to say.
"She--she p'eaches at me!"
The Good 'Dosie was preaching now.
"Wait! Count ten!" she preached. "Don't get any angrier, or you'll see
red instead of pink. Think of that poor child's burned thumbs--think of
her having to take to her bed when she got through--"
"I don't wonder!" snapped Bad 'Dosie.
"Wait--wait! Aren't you going to be good? Do you remember what you
used to do, to help out? Well?"
Miss Theodosia dropped the starchy mass on top of the other
newspaper bundles and rather suddenly sat down in a chair. She saw a
little child, preached to and penitent, on her knees, with folded hands,
saying "Now I lame me down to sleep."
It was very still in the room. Miss Theodosia's eyes closed and opened
again. It was as if she had said "Now I lame me." A little smile tugged
at the corners of her mouth. She no longer saw even pink.
She got up briskly and began turning back her cuffs. First, she would
build the kitchen fire; it must roar and snap, with all the work it had to
do to-night. She would heat a lot of water, for only boiling water could
take out Stefana's awful starch. While the water was heating, she would
eat her supper.
"A good, big supper, it will have to be," smiled this gentled Miss
Theodosia. "I've got to get up my strength! No tea-and-toast-and-jam
supper to-night." She heated her gridiron smoking hot and broiled a bit
of steak. She tossed together little feathery biscuit and made coffee,
fragrant and strong. Momently, Miss Theodosia's strength "got up." She
moved about the kitchen briskly--when had she launched out upon a
night's work like this? Adventure!--call it adventure.
Work to Miss Theodosia had always meant something that other people

did,--the Stefanas and their mothers and brothers and fathers. What she
herself did, a gentle, dilatory playing at work, hardly merited the name.
A bit of dusting, tea-and-toasting, making her own bed, cooking for
sheer love of