第17章 CHAPTER VII--THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR(3)

'Why, I've told you how I feel about her, and you must respect my feeling. The world can only grow when each person allows his fellow-man complete liberty of thought and action. I've kept the child four years, and now when my good care and feeding, together with the regular work and early hours I've always prescribed, have begun to show their fruits in her improved condition, you want she should be put in some institution. Why, isn't she doing well enough as she is?

I'm sure you've had a wonderful influence over her.'

'Nothing could induce me to lose sight of her entirely,' said Mistress Mary, 'but we feel now that she is ready to take the next step. She needs a skilled physician who is master both of body and mind, as well as a teacher who is capable of following out his principles. I will see to all that, if you will only give me the privilege.'

Mrs. Grubb sank down in the rocking-chair in despair. 'Don't I need some consideration as well as that little imbecile? Am I, with my ambitions and aspirations, to be for ever hampered by these three nightmares of children? Oh, if I could once get an astral body, I would stay in it, you may be sure!'

'You do not absolutely need Lisa yourself,' argued Mary. 'It is the twins to whom she has been indispensable. Provide for them in some way, and she is freed from a responsibility for which she is not, and never was, fit. It is a miracle that some tragedy has not come out of this daily companionship of three such passionate, irresponsible creatures.'

'Some tragedy will come out of it yet,' said Mrs. Grubb gloomily, 'if I am not freed from the shackles that keep me in daily slavery. The twins are as likely to go to the gallows as anywhere; and as for Lisa, she would be a good deal better off dead than alive, as Mrs.

Sylvester says.'

'That isn't for us to decide,' said Mistress Mary soberly. 'I might have been careless and impertinent enough to say it a year ago, but not now. Lisa has all along been the victim of cruel circumstances.

Wherever she has been sinned against through ignorance, it is possible, barely possible, that the fault may be atoned for; but any neglect of duty now would be a criminal offence. It does not behove us to be too scornful when we remember that the taint (fortunately a slight one) transmitted to poor little Lisa existed in greater or less degree in Handel and Moliere, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Petrarch, and Mohammed. The world is a good deal richer for them, certainly.'

Mrs. Grubb elevated her head, the light of interest dawned in her eye, and she whipped her notebook out of her pocket.

'Is that a fact?' she asked excitedly.

'It is a fact.'

'Is it generally known?'

'It must be known by all who have any interest in the education of defective persons, since it touches one of the bug-bears which they have to fight.'

'Is there any society in this city devoted to the study of such problems?'

'There is a society which is just on the point of opening an institution for the training of defective children.'

Mrs. Grubb's face fell, and her hand relaxed its grasp upon the pencil. (If there was anything she enjoyed, it was the sensation of being a pioneer in any movement.) Presently she brightened again.

'If it is just starting,' she said, 'then it must need more members, and speakers to stir up the community. Now, I am calculated, by constant association with a child of this character, to be of signal service to the cause. Not many persons have had my chance to observe phenomena. Just give me a letter to the president,--have they elected officers yet?--where do they meet?--and tell him I'll call on him and throw all the weight of my influence on his side. It's wonderful! Handel, Moliere, Buddha, was it--Buddha?--Caesar, Petrarch, and Wellington,--no, not Wellington. Never mind, I'll get a list from you to-morrow and look it all up,--it's perfectly marvellous! And I have one of this great, unhappy, suffering class in my own family, one who may yet be transformed into an Elizabeth Browning or a Joan of Arc!'

Mistress Mary sighed in her heart. She learned more of Mrs. Grubb with every interview, and she knew that her enthusiasms were as discouraging as her apathies.

'How unlucky that I mentioned Napoleon, Caesar, and Mohammed!' she thought. 'I shall be haunted now by the fear that she will go on a lecturing-tour through the country, and exhibit poor Lisa as an interesting example. Mrs. Grubb's mind is like nothing so much as a crazy-quilt.'