What Diantha Did

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Diantha tried to be very philosophic over her home letters; but they
were far from stimulating. "It's no use arguing with poor Susie!" she
decided. "Susie thinks the sun rises and sets between kitchen, nursery
and parlor!

"Mother can't see the good of it yet, but she will later--Mother's all
right.

"I'm awfully sorry the Wardens feel so--and make Ross unhappy--but of
course I knew they would. It can't be helped. It's just a question of
time and work."

And she went to work.

*

Mrs. Porne called on her friend most promptly, with a natural eagerness
and curiosity.

"How does it work? Do you like her as much as you thought? Do tell me
about it, Viva. You look like another woman already!"

"I certainly feel like one," Viva answered. "I've seen slaves in
housework, and I've seen what we fondly call 'Queens' in housework; but
I never saw brains in it before."

Mrs. Porne sighed. "Isn't it just wonderful--the way she does things!
Dear me! We do miss her! She trained that Swede for us--and she does
pretty well--but not like 'Miss Bell'! I wish there were a hundred of
her!"

"If there were a hundred thousand she wouldn't go round!" answered Mrs.
Weatherstone. "How selfish we are! _That_ is the kind of woman we all
want in our homes--and fuss because we can't have them."

"Edgar says he quite agrees with her views," Mrs. Porne went on.
"Skilled labor by the day--food sent in--. He says if she cooked it he
wouldn't care if it came all the way from Alaska! She certainly can
cook! I wish she'd set up her business--the sooner the better."

Mrs. Weatherstone nodded her head firmly. "She will. She's planning.
This was really an interruption--her coming here, but I think it will be
a help--she's not had experience in large management before, but she
takes hold splendidly. She's found a dozen 'leaks' in our household
already."

"Mrs. Thaddler's simply furious, I hear," said the visitor. "Mrs. Ree
was in this morning and told me all about it. Poor Mrs. Ree! The home
is church and state to her; that paper of Miss Bell's she regards as
simple blasphemy."

They both laughed as that stormy meeting rose before them.

"I was so proud of you, Viva, standing up for her as you did. How did
you ever dare?"

"Why I got my courage from the girl herself. She was--superb! Talk of
blasphemy! Why I've committed _lese majeste_ and regicide and the
Unpardonable Sin since that meeting!" And she told her friend of her
brief passage at arms with Mrs. Halsey. "I never liked the woman," she
continued; "and some of the things Miss Bell said set me thinking. I
don't believe we half know what's going on in our houses."

"Well, Mrs. Thaddler's so outraged by 'this scandalous attack upon the
sanctities of the home' that she's going about saying all sorts of
things about Miss Bell. O look--I do believe that's her car!"

Even as they spoke a toneless voice announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Thaddler,"
and Madam Weatherstone presently appeared to greet these visitors.

"I think you are trying a dangerous experiment!" said Mrs. Thaddler to
her young hostess. "A very dangerous experiment! Bringing that young
iconoclast into your home!"

Mr. Thaddler, stout and sulky, sat as far away as he could and talked to
Mrs. Porne. "I'd like to try that same experiment myself," said he to
her. "You tried it some time, I understand?"

"Indeed we did--and would still if we had the chance," she replied. "We
think her a very exceptional young woman."

Mr. Thaddler chuckled. "She is that!" he agreed. "Gad! How she did
set things humming! They're humming yet--at our house!"

He glanced rather rancorously at his wife, and Mrs. Porne wished, as she
often had before, that Mr. Thaddler wore more clothing over his domestic
afflictions.

"Scandalous!" Mrs. Thaddler was saying to Madam Weatherstone. "Simply
scandalous! Never in my life did I hear such absurd--such
outrageous--charges against the sanctities of the home!"

"There you have it!" said Mr. Thaddler, under his breath. "Sanctity of
the fiddlesticks! There was a lot of truth in what that girl said!"
Then he looked rather sheepish and flushed a little--which was needless;
easing his collar with a fat finger.

Madam Weatherstone and Mrs. Thaddler were at one on this subject; but
found it hard to agree even so, no love being lost between them; and the
former gave evidence of more satisfaction than distress at this
"dangerous experiment" in the house of her friends. Viva sat silent,
but with a look of watchful intelligence that delighted Mrs. Porne.

"It has done her good already," she said to herself. "Bless that girl!"

Mr. Thaddler went home disappointed in the real object of his call--he
had hoped to see the Dangerous Experiment again. But his wife was well
pleased.

"They will rue it!" she announced. "Madam Weatherstone is ashamed of
her daughter-in-law--I can see that! _She_ looks cool enough. I don't
know what's got into her!"

"Some of that young woman's good cooking," her husband suggested.

"That young woman is not there as cook!" she replied tartly. "What she
_is_ there for we shall see later! Mark my words!"

Mr. Thaddler chuckled softly. "I'll mark 'em!" he said.

Diantha had her hands full. Needless to say her sudden entrance was
resented by the corps of servants accustomed to the old regime. She had
the keys; she explored, studied, inventoried, examined the accounts,
worked out careful tables and estimates. "I wish Mother were here!" she
said to herself. "She's a regular genius for accounts. I _can_ do
it--but it's no joke."

She brought the results to her employer at the end of the week. "This
is tentative," she said, "and I've allowed margins because I'm new to a
business of this size. But here's what this house ought to cost you--at
the outside, and here's what it does cost you now."

Mrs. Weatherstone was impressed. "Aren't you a little--spectacular?"
she suggested.

Diantha went over it carefully; the number of rooms, the number of
servants, the hours of labor, the amount of food and other supplies
required.

"This is only preparatory, of course," she said. "I'll have to check it
off each month. If I may do the ordering and keep all the accounts I
can show you exactly in a month, or two at most."

"How about the servants?" asked Mrs. Weatherstone.

There was much to say here, questions of competence, of impertinence, of
personal excellence with "incompatibility of temper." Diantha was given
a free hand, with full liberty to experiment, and met the opportunity
with her usual energy.

She soon discharged the unsatisfactory ones, and substituted the girls
she had selected for her summer's experiment, gradually adding others,
till the household was fairly harmonious, and far more efficient and
economical. A few changes were made among the men also.

By the time the family moved down to Santa Ulrica, there was quite a new
spirit in the household. Mrs. Weatherstone fully approved of the Girls'
Club Diantha had started at Mrs. Porne's; and it went on merrily in the
larger quarters of the great "cottage" on the cliff.

"I'm very glad I came to you, Mrs. Weatherstone," said the girl. "You
were quite right about the experience; I did need it--and I'm getting
it!"

She was getting some of which she made no mention.

As she won and held the confidence of her subordinates, and the growing
list of club members, she learned their personal stories; what had
befallen them in other families, and what they liked and disliked in
their present places.

"The men are not so bad," explained Catharine Kelly, at a club meeting,
meaning the men servants; "they respect an honest girl if she respects
herself; but it's the young masters--and sometimes the old ones!"

"It's all nonsense," protested Mrs. James, widowed cook of long
standing. "I've worked out for twenty-five years, and I never met no
such goings on!"

Little Ilda looked at Mrs. James' severe face and giggled.

"I've heard of it," said Molly Connors, "I've a cousin that's workin' in
New York; and she's had to leave two good places on account of their
misbehavin' theirselves. She's a fine girl, but too good-lookin'."

Diantha studied types, questioned them, drew them out, adjusted facts to
theories and theories to facts. She found the weakness of the whole
position to lie in the utter ignorance and helplessness of the
individual servant. "If they were only organized," she thought--"and
knew their own power!--Well; there's plenty of time."

As her acquaintance increased, and as Mrs. Weatherstone's interest in
her plans increased also, she started the small summer experiment she
had planned, for furnishing labor by the day. Mrs. James was an
excellent cook, though most unpleasant to work with. She was quite able
to see that getting up frequent lunches at three dollars, and dinners at
five dollars, made a better income than ten dollars a week even with
several days unoccupied.

A group of younger women, under Diantha's sympathetic encouragement,
agreed to take a small cottage together, with Mrs. James as a species of
chaperone; and to go out in twos and threes as chambermaids and
waitresses at 25 cents an hour. Two of them could set in perfect order
one of the small beach cottage in an hour's time; and the occupants,
already crowded for room, were quite willing to pay a little more in
cash "not to have a servant around." Most of them took their meals out
in any case.

It was a modest attempt, elastic and easily alterable and based on the
special conditions of a shore resort: Mrs. Weatherstone's known interest
gave it social backing; and many ladies who heartily disapproved of
Diantha's theories found themselves quite willing to profit by this very
practical local solution of the "servant question."

The "club girls" became very popular. Across the deep hot sand they
ploughed, and clattered along the warping boardwalks, in merry pairs and
groups, finding the work far more varied and amusing than the endless
repetition in one household. They had pleasant evenings too, with
plenty of callers, albeit somewhat checked and chilled by rigorous Mrs.
James.

"It is both foolish and wicked!" said Madam Weatherstone to her
daughter-in-law, "Exposing a group of silly girls to such danger and
temptations! I understand there is singing and laughing going on at
that house until half-past ten at night."

"Yes, there is," Viva admitted. "Mrs. James insists that they shall all
be in bed at eleven--which is very wise. I'm glad they have good
times--there's safety in numbers, you know."

"There will be a scandal in this community before long!" said the old
lady solemnly. "And it grieves me to think that this household will be
responsible for it!"

Diantha heard all this from the linen room while Madam Weatherstone
buttonholed her daughter-in-law in the hall; and in truth the old lady
meant that she should hear what she said.

"She's right, I'm afraid!" said Diantha to herself--"there will be a
scandal if I'm not mighty careful and this household will be responsible
for it!"

Even as she spoke she caught Ilda's childish giggle in the lower hall,
and looking over the railing saw her airily dusting the big Chinese
vases and coquetting with young Mr. Mathew.

Later on, Diantha tried seriously to rouse her conscience and her common
sense. "Don't you see, child, that it can't do you anything but harm?
You can't carry on with a man like that as you can with one of your own
friends. He is not to be trusted. One nice girl I had here simply left
the place--he annoyed her so."

Ilda was a little sulky. She had been quite a queen in the small
Norwegian village she was born in. Young men were young men--and they
might even--perhaps! This severe young housekeeper didn't know
everything. Maybe she was jealous!

So Ilda was rather unconvinced, though apparently submissive, and
Diantha kept a careful eye upon her. She saw to it that Ilda's room had
a bolt as well as key in the door, and kept the room next to it empty;
frequently using it herself, unknown to anyone. "I hate to turn the
child off," she said to herself, conscientiously revolving the matter.
"She isn't doing a thing more than most girls do--she's only a little
fool. And he's not doing anything I can complain of--yet."

But she worried over it a good deal, and Mrs. Weatherstone noticed it.

"Doesn't your pet club house go well, 'Miss Bell?' You seem troubled
about something."

"I am," Diantha admitted. "I believe I'll have to tell you about
it--but I hate to. Perhaps if you'll come and look I shan't have to say
much."

She led her to a window that looked on the garden, the rich, vivid,
flower-crowded garden of Southern California by the sea. Little Ilda,
in a fresh black frock and snowy, frilly cap and apron, ran out to get a
rose; and while she sniffed and dallied they saw Mr. Mathew saunter out
and join her.

The girl was not as severe with him as she ought to have been--that was
evident; but it was also evident that she was frightened and furious
when he suddenly held her fast and kissed her with much satisfaction.
As soon as her arms were free she gave him a slap that sounded smartly
even at that distance; and ran crying into the house.

"She's foolish, I admit," said Diantha,--"but she doesn't realize her
danger at all. I've tried to make her. And now I'm more worried than
ever. It seems rather hard to discharge her--she needs care."

"I'll speak to that young man myself," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "I'll
speak to his grandmother too!"

"O--would you?" urged Diantha. "She wouldn't believe anything except
that the girl 'led him on'--you know that. But I have an idea that we
could convince her--if you're willing to do something rather
melodramatic--and I think we'd better do it to-night!"

"What's that?" asked her employer; and Diantha explained. It was
melodramatic, but promised to be extremely convincing.

"Do you think he'd dare! under my roof?" hotly demanded Madam
Weatherstone.

"I'm very much afraid it wouldn't be the first time," Diantha
reluctantly assured her. "It's no use being horrified. But if we could
only make _sure_--"

"If we could only make his grandmother sure!" cried Madam Weatherstone.
"That would save me a deal of trouble and misunderstanding. See here--I
think I can manage it--what makes you think it's to-night?"

"I can't be absolutely certain--" Diantha explained; and told her the
reasons she had.

"It does look so," her employer admitted. "We'll try it at any rate."

Urging her mother-in-law's presence on the ground of needing her
experienced advice, Mrs. Weatherstone brought the august lady to the
room next to Ilda's late that evening, the housekeeper in attendance.

"We mustn't wake the servants," she said in an elaborate whisper. "They
need sleep, poor things! But I want to consult you about these
communicating doors and the locksmith is coming in the morning.--you see
this opens from this side." She turned the oiled key softly in the
lock. "Now Miss Bell thinks they ought to be left so--so that the girls
can visit one another if they like--what do you think?"

"I think you are absurd to bring me to the top floor, at this time of
night, for a thing like this!" said the old lady. "They should be
permanently locked, to my mind! There's no question about it."

Viva, still in low tones, discussed this point further; introduced the
subject of wall-paper or hard finish; pointed out from the window a tall
eucalyptus which she thought needed heading; did what she could to keep
her mother-in-law on the spot; and presently her efforts were rewarded.

A sound of muffled speech came from the next room--a man's voice dimly
heard. Madam Weatherstone raised her head like a warhorse.

"What's this! What's this!" she said in a fierce whisper.

Viva laid a hand on her arm. "Sh!" said she. "Let us make sure!" and
she softly unlatched the door.

A brilliant moon flooded the small chamber. They could see little Ilda,
huddled in the bedclothes, staring at her door from which the key had
fallen. Another key was being inserted--turned--but the bolt held.

"Come and open it, young lady!" said a careful voice outside.

"Go away! Go away!" begged the girl, low and breathlessly. "Oh how
_can_ you! Go away quick!"

"Indeed, I won't!" said the voice. "You come and open it."

"Go away," she cried, in a soft but frantic voice. "I--I'll scream!"

"Scream away!" he answered. "I'll just say I came up to see what the
screaming's about, that's all. You open the door--if you don't want
anybody to know I'm here! I won't hurt you any--I just want to talk to
you a minute."

Madam Weatherstone was speechless with horror, her daughter-in-law
listened with set lips. Diantha looked from one to the other, and at
the frightened child before them who was now close to the terrible door.

"O please!--_please!_ go away!" she cried in desperation. "O what shall
I do! What shall I do!"

"You can't do anything," he answered cheerfully. "And I'm coming in
anyhow. You'd better keep still about this for your own sake. Stand
from under!" Madam Weatherstone marched into the room. Ilda, with a
little cry, fled out of it to Diantha.

There was a jump, a scramble, two knuckly hands appeared, a long leg was
put through the transom, two legs wildly wriggling, a descending body,
and there stood before them, flushed, dishevelled, his coat up to his
ears--Mat Weatherstone.

He did not notice the stern rigidity of the figure which stood between
him and the moonlight, but clasped it warmly to his heart.--"Now I've
got you, Ducky!" cried he, pressing all too affectionate kisses upon the
face of his grandmother.

Young Mrs. Weatherstone turned on the light.

It was an embarrassing position for the gentleman.

He had expected to find a helpless cowering girl; afraid to cry out
because her case would be lost if she did; begging piteously that he
would leave her; wholly at his mercy.

What he did find was so inexplicable as to reduce him to gibbering
astonishment. There stood his imposing grandmother, so overwhelmed with
amazement that her trenchant sentences failed her completely; his
stepmother, wearing an expression that almost suggested delight in his
discomfiture; and Diantha, as grim as Rhadamanthus.

Poor little Ilda burst into wild sobs and choking explanations, clinging
to Diantha's hand. "If I'd only listened to you!" she said. "You told
me he was bad! I never thought he'd do such an awful thing!"

Young Mathew fumbled at the door. He had locked it outside in his
efforts with the pass-key. He was red, red to his ears--very red, but
there was no escape. He faced them--there was no good in facing the
door.

They all stood aside and let him pass--a wordless gauntlet.

Diantha took the weeping Ilda to her room for the night. Madam
Weatherstone and Mrs. Weatherstone went down together.

"She must have encouraged him!" the older lady finally burst forth.

"She did not encourage him to enter her room, as you saw and heard,"
said Viva with repressed intensity.

"He's only a boy!" said his grandmother.

"She is only a child, a helpless child, a foreigner, away from home,
untaught, unprotected," Viva answered swiftly; adding with quiet
sarcasm--"Save for the shelter of the home!"

They parted in silence.

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER X

UNION HOUSE.

"We are weak!" said the Sticks, and men broke them;
"We are weak!" said the Threads, and were torn;
Till new thoughts came and they spoke them;
Till the Fagot and the Rope were born.

For the Fagot men find is resistant,
And they anchor on the Rope's taut length;
Even grasshoppers combined,
Are a force, the farmers find--
In union there is strength.

Ross Warden endured his grocery business; strove with it, toiled at it,
concentrated his scientific mind on alien tasks of financial calculation
and practical psychology, but he liked it no better. He had no interest
in business, no desire to make money, no skill in salesmanship.

But there were five mouths at home; sweet affectionate feminine mouths
no doubt, but requiring food. Also two in the kitchen, wider, and
requiring more food. And there were five backs at home to be covered,
to use the absurd metaphor--as if all one needed for clothing was a four
foot patch. The amount and quality of the covering was an unceasing
surprise to Ross, and he did not do justice to the fact that his
womenfolk really saved a good deal by doing their own sewing.

In his heart he longed always to be free of the whole hated load of
tradesmanship. Continually his thoughts went back to the hope of
selling out the business and buying a ranch.

"I could make it keep us, anyhow," he would plan to himself; "and I
could get at that guinea pig idea. Or maybe hens would do." He had a
theory of his own, or a personal test of his own, rather, which he
wished to apply to a well known theory. It would take some years to
work it out, and a great many fine pigs, and be of no possible value
financially. "I'll do it sometime," he always concluded; which was cold
comfort.

His real grief at losing the companionship of the girl he loved, was
made more bitter by a total lack of sympathy with her aims, even if she
achieved them--in which he had no confidence. He had no power to change
his course, and tried not to be unpleasant about it, but he had to
express his feelings now and then.

"Are you coming back to me?" he wrote. "How con you bear to give so
much pain to everyone who loves you? Is your wonderful salary worth
more to you than being here with your mother--with me? How can you say
you love me--and ruin both our lives like this? I cannot come to see
you--I _would_ not come to see you--calling at the back door! Finding
the girl I love in a cap and apron! Can you not see it is wrong,
utterly wrong, all this mad escapade of yours? Suppose you do make a
thousand dollars a year--I shall never touch your money--you know that.
I cannot even offer you a home, except with my family, and I know how
you feel about that; I do not blame you.

"But I am as stubborn as you are, dear girl; I will not live on my
wife's money--you will not live in my mother's house--and we are
drifting apart. It is not that I care less for you dear, or at all for
anyone else, but this is slow death--that's all."

Mrs. Warden wrote now and then and expatiated on the sufferings of her
son, and his failing strength under the unnatural strain, till Diantha
grew to dread her letters more than any pain she knew. Fortunately they
came seldom.

Her own family was much impressed by the thousand dollars, and found the
occupation of housekeeper a long way more tolerable than that of
house-maid, a distinction which made Diantha smile rather bitterly.
Even her father wrote to her once, suggesting that if she chose to
invest her salary according to his advice he could double it for her in
a year, maybe treble it, in Belgian hares.

_"They'd_ double and treble fast enough!" she admitted to herself; but
she wrote as pleasant a letter as she could, declining his proposition.

Her mother seemed stronger, and became more sympathetic as the months
passed. Large affairs always appealed to her more than small ones, and
she offered valuable suggestions as to the account keeping of the big
house. They all assumed that she was permanently settled in this well
paid position, and she made no confidences. But all summer long she
planned and read and studied out her progressive schemes, and
strengthened her hold among the working women.

Laundress after laundress she studied personally and tested
professionally, finding a general level of mediocrity, till finally she
hit upon a melancholy Dane--a big rawboned red-faced woman--whose
husband had been a miller, but was hurt about the head so that he was no
longer able to earn his living. The huge fellow was docile, quiet, and
endlessly strong, but needed constant supervision.

"He'll do anything you tell him, Miss, and do it well; but then he'll
sit and dream about it--I can't leave him at all. But he'll take the
clothes if I give him a paper with directions, and come right back."
Poor Mrs. Thorald wiped her eyes, and went on with her swift ironing.

Diantha offered her the position of laundress at Union House, with two
rooms for their own, over the laundry. "There'll be work for him, too,"
she said. "We need a man there. He can do a deal of the heavier
work--be porter you know. I can't offer him very much, but it will help
some."

Mrs. Thorald accepted for both, and considered Diantha as a special
providence.

There was to be cook, and two capable second maids. The work of the
house must be done thoroughly well, Diantha determined; "and the food's
got to be good--or the girls wont stay." After much consideration she
selected one Julianna, a "person of color," for her kitchen: not the
jovial and sloppy personage usually figuring in this character, but a
tall, angular, and somewhat cynical woman, a misanthrope in fact, with a
small son. For men she had no respect whatever, but conceded a grudging
admiration to Mr. Thorald as "the usefullest biddablest male person" she
had ever seen. She also extended special sympathy to Mrs. Thorald on
account of her peculiar burden, and the Swedish woman had no antipathy
to her color, and seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in Julianna's
caustic speeches.

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