Miss Theodosias Heartstrings | Page 7

cooking, what did they count in Miss Theodosia's
summing up of tasks?
Always there had been some one to do her heavy things. She had put
her washings out and taken her dinners in; three times a week she was
swept and scrubbed and made immaculate.
But to-night--to-night was different. This was to be no playing at work.
Miss Theodosia rose to the occasion gallantly--indeed, exultantly.
Thrills of enthusiasm ran up, ran down her spine. She prepared for a
night of it.
The dresses immersed in steaming hot water and her supper eaten, she
stretched drying-lines, with considerable difficulty, from corner to
corner of her kitchen, prepared an ironing-board, and got out long-idle
irons. At eight o'clock she stopped for breath. Stefana's starch still
resisted all inducements to part with Miss Theodosia's dresses; more
hot water was required. After another steamy bath, they were cooled
and wrung and draped over the crisscross clotheslines in the hot kitchen.
Then Miss Theodosia temporarily retired from the field of battle.
Theodosia Baxter had come back from her travelings to this small
ancestral town with a mildly disturbing taste in her mouth. "Settling
down" at thirty-six was not at all to her mind; she would not settle
down!
"If I catch you doing it, Theodosia Baxter!" she said. "If I catch you
growing old! The minute you feel it coming on, you pack up and start
for Rome! Or Paris! Or Turkistan! Start for Anywhere! Keep going!"
But, already, did she feel it coming on even before all her trunks were
unpacked? She was a little frightened at certain signs. Now, when she
sat down heavily--why did she sit down heavily? If some one had
called upon her for scores of little services, so that she must hop up
again, immediately--little piping voices: "Mother, where's my cap?"

"Mother, make Johnnie stop plaguing me!" "Mother, come quick!" If a
big John had come home to her, demanding her time or sympathy or
service--
"No little Johns--no big one!" She sighed. "Is that the matter with you,
Theodosia Baxter? Well, for Heaven's sake, don't tell anybody! Keep a
bold front."
She dozed a little in her rocker while she waited. Her plaintive reveries
took the shape of a sober little dream wherein one Theodosia Baxter
tottered on a cane and another walked briskly and youngly among
Johns. Both Theodosias were thirty-six.
"Mercy!" she exclaimed, waking up. "Where's my cane? I must go and
iron Stefana's dresses!" She felt oddly refreshed. Queer dream to
refresh one! She found herself thinking kindly of Stefana.
"I hope she's sound asleep, and a pitying little girl angel with a nurse's
cap under her halo will slip down and cure her thumbs before she
wakes up."
The irons she had set to heating were much too hot. Should she run
out-of-doors while one of them cooled, and lie in wait to catch the little
nurse-angel on the wing or perhaps darting thrillingly down to Stefana
on a shooting star, breaking all speed limits! This was a night for
adventure. The wild ride of a becapped and haloed little celestial in
goggles would be an adventure! Miss Theodosia laughed out girlishly,
not at all a tottery laugh on a cane, and the pleasant sound broke the
midnight stillness.
The dresses were dry enough to roll into tight bundles. One she essayed
to iron as it was. She began as soon as the iron was cool enough.
Miss Theodosia toiled--adventured--through the long hours into the
short. It was unaccustomed toiling, and, like Stefana, she burned her
thumbs. She had judgment and the skill that age kindly lends, in her
favor, and slowly her delicate fingers undid the ravages of Stefana's
patient endeavors and brought beauteous perfection out of apparent ruin.

But the process was wearying and long. It would have been but half the
labor to have begun at the beginning instead of at Stefana's poor little
end.
At midnight, Miss Theodosia made herself cups of tea and sipped them
thirstily. A wrist, both thumbs, and her testing forefinger smarted; she
was tired and disheveled. But the spirit of adventure refused to die.
The fire burned red-hot and the irons must cool again. Miss Theodosia
slipped out this time into the soft darkness.
"Let us hope Aunt Sarah will 'knit fast,'" she was thinking, with
whimsical eyes. "But if she doesn't--Theodosia Baxter, dear, if Aunt
Sarah is a slow knitter, you are in for it! I've no idea of letting you off.
Baxters that begin, end."
It was dim starshine out-of-doors. Miss Theodosia was too late to see
the nurse-angel riding on her star, her little cap and halo awry with the
downhill glide through space. She was too late to see her go into the
dark little House of Children--but she saw her come