Chapter 31

The household at Hilcrest did not break up as early as usual that year. A few days were consumed in horrified remonstrances and tearful pleadings on the part of Mrs. Merideth and Ned when Margaret's plans became known. Then several more days were needed for necessary arrangements when the stoical calm of despair had brought something like peace to the family.

"It is not so dreadful at all," Margaret had assured them. "I have taken a large house not far from the mills, and I am having it papered and painted and put into very comfortable shape. Patty and her family will live with me, and we are going to open classes in simple little things that will help toward better living."

"But that is regular settlement work," sighed Mrs. Merideth.

"Is it?" smiled Margaret, a little wearily. "Well, perhaps it is. Anyway, I hope that just the presence of one clean, beautiful home among them will do some good. I mean to try it, at all events."

"But are you going to do nothing but that all the time�just teach those dreadful creatures, and�and live there?"

"Certainly not," declared Margaret, with a bright smile. "I've planned a trip to New York."

"To New York?" Mrs. Merideth sat up suddenly, her face alight. "Oh, that will be fine�lovely! Why didn't you tell us? Poor dear, you'll need a rest all right, I'm thinking, and we'll keep you just as long as we can, too." With lightning rapidity Mrs. Merideth had changed their plans�in her mind. They would go to New York, not Egypt. Egypt had seemed desirable, but if Margaret was going to New York, that altered the case.

"Oh, but I thought you weren't going to New York," laughed Margaret. "Besides�I'm going with Patty."

"With Patty!" If it had not been tragical it would have been comical�Mrs. Merideth's shocked recoil at the girl's words.

"Yes. After we get everything nicely to running�we shall have teachers to help us, you know�Patty and I are going to New York to see if we can't find her sisters, Arabella and Clarabella."

"What absurd names!" Mrs. Merideth spoke sharply. In reality she had no interest whether they were, or were not absurd; but they chanced at the moment to be a convenient scapegoat for her anger and discomfiture.

"Patty doesn't think them absurd," laughed Margaret. "She would tell you that she named them herself out of a �piece of a book' she found in the ash barrel long ago when they were children. You should hear Patty say it really to appreciate it. She used to preface it by some such remark as: �Names ain't like measles an' relations, ye know. Ye don't have ter have 'em if ye don't want 'em�you can change 'em.'"

"Ugh!" shuddered Mrs. Merideth. "Margaret, how can you�laugh!"

"Why, it's funny, I think," laughed Margaret again, as she turned away.

Even the most urgent entreaties on the part of Margaret failed to start the Spencers on their trip, and not until she finally threatened to make the first move herself and go down to the town, did they consent to go.

"But that absurd house of yours isn't ready yet," protested Mrs. Merideth.

"I know, but I shall stay with Patty until it is," returned Margaret. "I would rather wait until you go, as you seem so worried about the �break,' as you insist upon calling it; but if you won't, why I must, that is all. I must be there to superintend matters."

"Then I suppose I shall have to go," moaned Mrs. Merideth, "for I simply will not have you leave us here and go down there to live; and I shall tell everybody, everybody," she added firmly, "that it is merely for this winter, and that we allowed you to do it only on that one condition."

Margaret smiled, but she made no comment�it was enough to fight present battles without trying to win future ones.

On the day the rest of the family left Hilcrest, Margaret moved to Patty's little house on the Hill road. Her tiny room up under the eaves looked woefully small and inconvenient to eyes that were accustomed to luxurious Hilcrest; and the supper�which to Patty was sumptuous in the extravagance she had allowed herself in her visitor's honor�did not tempt her appetite in the least. She told herself, however, that all this was well and good; and she ate the supper and laid herself down upon the hard bed with an exaltation that rendered her oblivious to taste and feeling.

In due time the Mill House, as Margaret called her new home, was ready for occupancy, and the family moved in. Naming the place had given Margaret no little food for thought.

"I want something simple and plain," she had said to Patty; "something that the people will like, and feel an interest in. But I don't want any �Refuges' or �Havens' or �Rests' or �Homes' about it. It is a home, but not the kind that begins with a capital letter. It is just one of the mill houses."

"Well, why don't ye call it the �Mill House,' then, an' done with it?" demanded Patty.

"Patty, you're a genius! I will," cried Margaret. And the "Mill House" it was from that day.

Margaret's task was not an easy one. Both she and her house were looked upon with suspicion, and she had some trouble in finding the two or three teachers of just the right sort to help her. Even when she had found these teachers and opened her classes in sewing, cooking, and the care of children, only a few enrolled themselves as pupils.

"Never mind," said Margaret, "we shall grow. You'll see!"

The mill people, however, were not the only ones that learned something during the next few months. Margaret herself learned much. She learned that while there were men who purposely idled their time away and drank up their children's hard-earned wages, there were others who tramped the streets in vain in search of work.

"I hain't got nothin' ter do yit, Miss," one such said to Margaret, in answer to her sympathetic inquiries. "But thar ain't a boss but what said if I'd got kids I might send them along. They was short o' kids. I been tryin' ter keep Rosy an' Katy ter school. I was cal'latin' ter make somethin' of 'em more'n their dad an' their mammy is: but I reckon as how I'll have ter set 'em ter work."

"Oh, but you mustn't," remonstrated Margaret. "That would spoil everything. Don't you see that you mustn't? They must go to school�get an education."

The man gazed at her with dull eyes.

"They got ter eat�first," he said.

"Yes, yes, I know," interposed Margaret, eagerly. "I understand all that, and I'll help about that part. I'll give you money until you get something to do."

A sudden flash came into the man's eyes. His shoulders straightened.

"Thank ye, Miss. We be n't charity folks." And he turned away.

A week later Margaret learned that Rosy and Katy were out of school. When she looked them up she found them at work in the mills.

This matter of the school question was a great puzzle to Margaret. Very early in her efforts she had sought out the public school-teachers, and asked their help and advice. She was appalled at the number of children who appeared scarcely to understand that there was such a thing as school. This state of affairs she could not seem to remedy, however, in spite of her earnest efforts. The parents, in many cases, were indifferent, and the children more so. Some of the children in the mills, indeed, were there solely�according to the parents' version�because they could not "get on" in school. Conscious that there must be a school law, Margaret went vigorously to work to find and enforce it. Then, and not until then, did she realize the seriousness of even this one phase of the problem she had undertaken to solve.

There were other phases, too. It was not always poverty, Margaret found, that was responsible for setting the children to work. Sometimes it was ambition. There were men who could not even speak the language of their adopted country intelligibly, yet who had ever before them the one end and aim�money. To this end and aim were sacrificed all the life and strength of whatever was theirs. The minute such a man's boys and girls were big enough and tall enough to be "sworn in" he got the papers and set them to work; and never after that, as long as they could move one dragging little foot after the other, did they cease to pour into the hungry treasury of his hand the pitiful dimes and pennies that represented all they knew of childhood.