Chapter 22

It was late in October that the twins were born, a boy and a girl, and Margaret did not rise from her bed for a month. It was six weeks before she got downstairs.

Long before the trained nurse left her, she realized what, before her confinement, she had dimly foreseen, the struggle to the death which she would certainly have with Jennie's strong prejudices in favour of old-fashioned country methods of taking care of a baby. It was only the doctor's powers of persuasion that induced the nurse, harassed beyond endurance by Jennie's interference with her methods, to remain with her patient until she was no longer needed.

"You poor thing, you certainly are up against it!" was her parting bit of sympathy to Margaret. "She'll kill off those precious twinlets for you, or she'll kill you. One of you has got to die! The woman's a holy terror, my dear! And the other one, that wears Mother Hubbards and Kate Greenaways and Peter Thompsons and Heaven knows what, she's nearly as bad as her sister about these babies. I don't know what you're going to do! You may be able to protect them when you're with them; but you've got to get out sometimes for an airing without dragging the baby-coach along, and those two"—indicating, with a twirl of her thumb, the twins' redoubtable aunts—"will certainly kill off your babies for you while you're out."

"If you're sure of that I'll never go out."

"And you can't look for your husband to help you any," continued the nurse. "Crazy as he is over the twinnies, he'll help the old ladies kill them off, because he thinks their ancient ideas are right. The old ladies, for that matter, are nearly as crazy over the babies as he is. You'd think nobody but Mr. Danny Leitzel had ever had twins before. I never saw such a looney lot of people. But it's their love for those children that's going to make them kill them, for it does beat all the way you can't knock a new idea into any of them."

In the very hour of the nurse's departure, Jennie, supported by Sadie as always, swooped down upon Margaret to insist, with the triple force of conviction, of tyranny, and of her love for Danny's precious babies, that they be brought up as she knew how babies should be, and not by the murderous modern methods of exposing them to the night air, of bathing them all over every day even in winter, of feeding them, even up to the age of one year, on nothing but milk, of taking them outdoors every day in winter as well as in summer.

"Many's the little green mound in the cemetery that hadn't ought to be there!" Sadie sentimentally warned Margaret. "So you let us teach you how to take care of Danny's babies!"

Well, the conflict or convictions between the mother, on the one side, and the aunts and the father on the other, was not settled in a day, nor yet in a week. It was, indeed, prolonged to the inevitable end. But while the strife and tumult of battle raged, the mother's will was carried out, at the cost to her of a nervous energy she was in no wise strong enough to expend.

The fact that the twins thrived wonderfully under Margaret's régime did not in the least modify the Leitzels' prejudice against it. Daniel could not help believing profoundly in the wisdom of his sisters, since they had made such a success of him. And never once in his life had he failed to "come out on top" when following their advice. He admired and respected them; and he felt as much affection for them as he was capable of feeling for any one. So that, with his loyalty to them challenged by that force which to most men is the strongest in life—the love of a woman—the atmosphere of his home was, just at present, rather uncomfortably surcharged.

But in spite of this and of his actual bewilderment at the continued obstinacy of a wife who, though tenderly beloved, indulged, and petted, dared to stand out against not only his sisters but against himself, Daniel was so radiantly proud and happy at finding himself the father of a son and daughter at one stroke that he discussed with every one he met the charms, the characteristics, the food, and the habits of his offspring; told his colleagues in business what food-formula agreed with his girl baby, who was being brought up on the bottle, the mother being able to nurse only one child and that one being, of course, by his wish, the boy; delivered to every one who would hear him his views on Modern Fallacies in the Care of Infants; and invited the opinions even of his employees as to suitable or desirable names for the daughter, the son being of course Daniel, Junior.

It was one mild day in January, when, after a siege of more than usually bitter opposition on Jennie's part to the twins being kept on the piazza all the morning, Margaret found herself, during the afternoon, in a blessed solitude in the family sitting-room, Jennie and Sadie having gone out calling. So tired and heartsick was she that she did not even feel any desire to call up Catherine and ask her to share her few hours of freedom from interference and fear of harm to her babies. The twins were again healthily sleeping on the porch outside the sitting-room and Margaret gave herself up to the sweet peace of this respite, reading, dreaming, resting, when presently the door-bell rang, and a moment later Emmy ushered into the sitting-room a feeble old woman dressed in the plain religious habit of the Mennonites.

Margaret instantly knew who the visitor was, and as she went to her, took her two hands in both her own, kissed her and looked down into the motherly old face with its expression of childlike innocence and sweetness, she was thankful that the rest of the family was not at home and that she could for a little while bask in the warmth of this kindly human countenance.

When she had made her visitor comfortable in Danny's big easy-chair before the fire and had had Emmy bring in some hot tea and toast, the old woman's beaming gratitude betrayed how unlooked-for were such attentions in this home of her step-children.

"I'll soon get my breath," she feebly said as she sipped her tea. "I do get out of puff so quick, still, since my lungs took so bad this fall."

"It was really too much of a trip for you to take, and all alone," said Margaret solicitously. "I was just this very day deciding that I would go out to see you some time this week, if I could manage it. It's very hard for me to get away or I should have been to see you before this."

"Well, my dear, what brang me in to-day was that I just had to see Danny and the girls on a little business, and so my neighbour fetched me in in his automobile. I couldn't spare the money to come by train. But," she said tremulously, "he made his automobile go so unmannerly fast, I didn't have no pleasure. He said he ain't commonly got the fashion of going so fast, but, you see, he raced another automobile. He took me along for kindness, but indeed I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy myself."

"It was a strain on you, I can see," said Margaret sympathetically.

"But the tea's making me feel all right again," said Mrs. Leitzel reassuringly. "It's wonderful kind of you to give it to me; but I didn't want to make no bother. I seen Danny down at his office, and when he told me the girls wasn't home this after, I came up here on the chanct of seein' you alone, and them dear little twinses! Indeed I felt I got to see them two twin babies before I died a'ready. You see I knowed by your nice letters to me that you'd treat me kind, and indeed I had afraid to try to go back home alone on the train; I conceited that mebby you'd take me to the depot," she said with timid wistfulness, "and put me on the right train, and then I wouldn't have been so afraid. Danny thinks I went straight off home by myself. But indeed I didn't darst to."

"Of course I'll take care of you. But you must not think of leaving before to-morrow when you've had a chance to get thoroughly rested."

"Oh, but, my dear," said Mrs. Leitzel nervously, "Danny give me the money to pay my way back home and he thinks I went. And you see, it would put the girls out to have to make up the spare bed just for me."

"But who could be more important than you—you who took care of them all when they were children? Indeed I shan't let you go a step to-day."

"Did they tell you I took care of them, my dear?" asked Mrs. Leitzel, puzzled. "Because they never talked to me that way. And Danny tried to show me this after, when I put it to him that now I couldn't hold out no longer to support myself gardening on the old place—he said I hadn't no claim on him. I don't know," she added sadly, "what I'll do. I'm too old and feeble to work any more, my dear. God knows I would if I could. I'd work for all of them as well as for myself, the way I used to, if I had strength to. But I come in to-day to tell Danny that at last I'm done out. Yes, the doctor says I got tendencies and things and that I got to be awful careful."

"'Tendencies?'" asked Margaret.

"He says I got somepin stickin' in me."

"Something sticking in you! Do you mean that you swallowed a bone or something?"

"No, my dear, I didn't swallow nothin'. I got a tendency stickin' in me that might give pneumonia. So I come to ask Danny to-day if—if he couldn't mebby spare me something," she faltered, "to live on for the little time I got left, so that"—a childlike fear in her aged eyes—"I don't have to go to the poorhouse!"

"When you told Danny all this," asked Margaret, laying her hand on Mrs. Leitzel's, "he said you had no claim on him?"

The old woman's lips quivered and she pressed them together for an instant before she answered.

"He told me he'd talk it all over oncet with Hiram and the girls. But," she shook her head, "I'm afraid Hiram's less merciful than any of my children and he'll urge 'em to put me to such a home for paupers; and, oh, Margaret—dare I call you Margaret?"

"What else would you call your son's wife, dearie?"

"I have so glad Danny has such a sweet wife! I wouldn't of believed he'd marry a lady that would be so nice and common to me. It wonders me! I can't hardly believe it!"

"But you are good to me, making me that lovely quilt and the baby socks. I use the quilt all the time and one of the twins is wearing the socks now. How could even Hiram be hard to you?"

"But Hiram and the others is wery different to what you are." Mrs. Leitzel shook her head. "Danny says if he did pay me a little to live on, Hiram would have awful cross at him. You see, my dear, the reason I ain't got anything saved, as they think I had ought to have, is that I never could make enough off of the wegetables I raised in the backyard to keep myself and pay for all the repairs on the old place, for all I done a good bit; enough anyhow to keep the old place from fallin' in on me. I don't know how I'd of lived all these years if it hadn't of been for the kindness of my neighbours. And now Danny says if I can't keep myself at all no more——" Again she pressed her lips together for an instant. "He don't see nothing for it but that I go to a old woman's home. He calls it a old woman's home, but he means the poorhouse."

"Mother," said Margaret, clasping the hand she held, "I wish you would tell me the whole story of your life with Daniel and Hiram and 'the girls.' Begin, please, away back at 'Once upon a time.'"

Mrs. Leitzel smiled as she looked gently and gratefully upon Daniel's young wife who wasn't too proud to call her "Mother."

"Well, my dear, I married John Leitzel when Danny was only six months old, because them children needed a mother. John drank hard and it was too much for them young folks to earn the living and keep house and take care of a baby. I married John because I pitied 'em all and so's I could take hold and help. Jennie was fifteen, Sadie ten, and Hiram five, and then the baby, Danny. I sent the three older ones to school and I took in washings and kep' care of the baby and did the housekeeping and the sewing. I kep' Jennie in school till she could pass the County Superintendent's examination a'ready and get such a certificate you mind of, and get elected to teach the district school. And with all my hard work, I kep' her dressed as well as I otherwise could. For I was always handy with the needle and Jennie and Sadie was always so fond for the clo'es. Well, when at last Jennie come home with her certificate to teach, my but we was all proud! Indeed, I wasn't more proud when Hiram got his paper that he was now a real preacher—sich a seminary preacher, mind you!—though that was a long time afterward. Well, I thought it would go easier for me, mebby, when Jennie got her school. But you see, she had so ambitious to dress nice and do for Danny (he was such a smart little fellah) that I had still to take in washings and go out by the day to work. Hiram he worked the little farm we had and I helped him, too, in the busy seasons to save the cost of a hired man, for our place had such a heavy mortgage that the interest took near all we could scrape together. Yes, for nine years and a half we struggled along like that, and then at last John died. And mind you, the wery next month after he died, we all of a suddint found coal on our land! Yes, who'd ever of looked for such an unexpected ewent as that! Ain't?"

"To whom did the land belong?" asked Margaret.

"It had belonged to my husband's first wife, but she had willed it over to him before she died. So it was hisn."

"Oh, but, my dear, then you were entitled to one third of it, if you didn't sign away your rights."

"Indeed, no, I didn't sign nothing. Leave me tell you something, my dear: John on his deathbed he thanked me for all I done and his dying orders to me was, 'Don't you never leave Jennie and the rest get you to sign away your rights in the farm that you worked so hard to keep in the family. If it wasn't for you,' he said, 'we would of been sold out of here long ago, and the children all bound out and me in the poorhouse! And if I had the money for a lawyer, I'd sign the whole farm over to you before I die.' 'No, John,' I said, 'that wouldn't be right, neither, to give it to me over your children's heads.' 'Well, anyway,' he says, 'it's too late now, so you just pass me your solemn promise on my deathbed that you'll never leave 'em persuade you to sign nothing without you first leave one of your Mennonite brethren look it over and say you ain't signin' away your rights.' So I passed my promise and I've kep' it, though it has certainly went hard for me to keep it. Danny worried me often a'ready these thirty years back, to sign a paper, and it used to make him wonderful put out when I had to tell him, still, that I'd sign if he'd leave one of our Mennonite brethren read it first and say if I was breakin' my word to John or no. Danny always said he didn't want our affairs made so public and the Mennonite brother would have too much to say. So then I had to say I couldn't sign it; I couldn't break my word to John on his deathbed. Many's the time I was sorry I passed that promise to John—they all have so cross at me because I won't sign nothin'. You see, they always was generous to me, giving me the house and backyard to live in without rent. But to be sure I couldn't break my word to my dying man!"

Margaret saw that there had been no self-interest in her refusal to sign away her rights, but that the binding quality of a deathbed promise was to her a fetish, a superstition. And it was this, no doubt, that Catherine had meant in speaking of her "breast-plate of righteousness," her conscientious devotion to her solemn vow had shielded her from the snare of the fowler; from "the greed of the vulture," Catherine had said.

"And lately," Mrs. Leitzel continued her story, "Danny didn't bother me no more to sign nothing. But to-day," she concluded, suddenly looking very weak and helpless, as she leaned far back in her chair, "to-day he ast me again, and he said it couldn't make no matter to me now when I was so near my end, and if I'd sign a paper he'd not leave the others put me to the poorhouse. But I told him if I was so soon to come before my Maker, I darsent go with a broken promise on my soul. If only I hadn't never passed that promise, my dear! John meant it in kindness to me, but you see," she suddenly sobbed, "it's sendin' me to the poorhouse to end my days!"

"Oh, but my dear!" exclaimed Margaret, her face flushed with excitement, "why didn't you, from the very first, get your one third interest in those coal lands? You were and are entitled to it!"

"Well," said Mrs. Leitzel, "right in the beginning when they first found the coal, they got me to say I'd be satisfied to take the house and backyard for my share; not to keep, of course, but to live on for the rest of my life; and seeing the land had been their own mother's, that was a lot more'n I had the right to look for. To be sure," she gently explained, "you couldn't expect your step-children to care for you as your own flesh and blood might."

"You cared for them as though they were your own flesh and blood. Tell me, you did not sign an agreement, did you, to accept the house and backyard in lieu of your one third interest in the estate?"

"No, for that would of been breakin' the promise I passed to John. For you see, Danny never would leave one of the brethren look over the paper he wanted me to sign, and say whether I could do it without breakin' my word. So I never signed nothing."

"Then the only thing you need to establish your absolute right in one third of the income of the coal lands (now enjoyed by your step-children and excluding you) is the proof that the title to those lands was vested absolutely in your husband at the time of his death. If it wasn't, you have no case. If it was, you've plenty of money! You see, my brother-in-law is a lawyer and I've imbibed a little bit of legal knowledge. But I have an intimate friend, Miss Catherine Hamilton, who knows nearly as much law as Daniel does and I'll get her to look up the court-house records for your husband's title to that land, and then, my dear, if we find it—— Oh, my stars!"

"But, Margaret," the old woman protested fearfully, "you'll get 'em all down on you if you go and do somepin like that!"

"You see," Margaret gravely explained, "I am living on this money which belongs to you, and my children will be living on it, inheriting it. I couldn't bear that, of course."

"Do you mean," faltered Mrs. Leitzel, "you think they cheated me? There's others tried to hint that to me and I wouldn't never listen to it. Why, Hiram's a Christian minister and they're all church members and professin' Christians! They wouldn't steal, my dear—and from an old woman like me!"

"It's been done, however, by church members and professing Christians. We'll investigate it, my dear," Margaret firmly repeated.

"But I wouldn't want to be the cause of you and Danny's fallin' out, little girl! That I certainly wouldn't. And, dear me!—if you got Jennie down on you yet!"

"She couldn't be much more down on me than she is. And during all these years, you know, you've stood up to them for the sake of a sacred promise. I hope I haven't less courage."

"Don't you think Danny's too smart a lawyer, my dear, for you to get 'round him?" Mrs. Leitzel anxiously tried to avert the disaster which Margaret's suggestion surely presaged.

"My brother-in-law is a smart lawyer, too. I'll write to him this very night, put the case to him (omitting names) and ask his advice. Oh," she suddenly lowered her voice, "here come 'the girls.' Do not breathe a word of what I've said to you!"

"Oh, no, indeed I won't. I know how cross they'd have at me! My dear," she added, clinging to Margaret's hand, "stay by me, will you? Please! Jennie and Sadie won't like it so well that I come. I conceited I'd get away before they got back, and they're likely to scold me some, my dear, and——"

Margaret stooped over her impulsively and kissed her forehead. "Come out to the porch with me and see the babies." When a moment later Jennie and Sadie came into the room they saw, through the long French window opening on to the porch, their step-mother bending over the sleeping infants in the big double coach, and Margaret standing at her side, her arm about her waist.