Mr. Burke was the one reliable man in town. It didn"t make much difference what the Perkinses wanted done, they generally sent for Mr. Burke to do it, largely because when he attempted a commission he saw it through. A carpenter and builder by trade, he had for many years looked after the repairs needful to the Perkins"
dwelling; he had come often between Thaddeus and unskilled labor; he had made bookcases which were dreams of convenience and sufficiently pleasing to the eye; he had "fixed up" Mrs. Perkins"s garden; he had supplied the family with a new gardener when the old one had taken on habits of drink, which destroyed not only himself but the cabbages; he had kept an eye on the plumbers; he had put up, taken down, and repaired awnings--in short, as Perkins said, he was a "Universal." Once, when a delicate piece of bric-a-brac had been broken and the china-mender a.s.serted that it could not be mended, Perkins had said, "See if Burke can"t fix it," and Burke had fixed it; and as final tribute to this wonder, Perkins had said, in suffering:
"My dear, I"m afraid I have appendicitis. Send for Mr. Burke."
"Mr. Burke!" echoed his wife.
"Yes, Mr. Burke," moaned the sufferer. "If my vermiform appendix is to be removed, I"d rather have Mr. Burke do it with a chisel and saw than any surgeon I know; and I won"t take ether either, because it is such a satisfaction to see him work."
So, when this happy pair of house-holders had reached what might be described as the grand climateric of their patience, and it was finally decided that Jane"s usefulness was a thing of the past, and utterly beyond redemption, Thaddeus naturally suggested turning to his faithful friend, Mr. Burke, to rid them of their woes, and, indeed, but for Jane"s own intervention, I fear that course would have proved the sole alternative to her becoming an irremovable fixture in the household. But it was Jane herself who solved the problem.
It was two days after the cranberry episode that the solution came, and it was in this wise:
"Did ye send for me?" Jane asked, suddenly materializing in Mrs.
Perkins"s room.
"No, Jane, I haven"t; why?"
The girl began to shed tears.
"Because--you"d ought to have, ma"am. I know well enough that I ain"t satisfactory to you," she returned, her voice quivering, "and I can"t be, and I know you want me to go--and I--I"ve come to give you notice."
Then Mrs. Perkins looked at Jane with sorrow on her countenance, for she had acquired an affection for her which the maid"s delinquencies had not been able to efface.
"Can"t you try and do better?" she asked.
"No, ma"am," returned Jane. "Not with the system--never. Mr.
Perkins is too easy, and you do be so soft-hearted it don"t keep a girl up to her work. When I first come here, ma"am, not knowin" ye well, I was afraid to be anything but what was right, but the way you took accidents, and a bit of a shortcomin" once in a while, sort of took away my fear, and I"ve been goin" down hill ever since.
Servant-girls is only human, Mrs. Perkins."
Mrs. Perkins looked at Jane inquiringly.
"We needs to be kept up to our work just as much as anybody else, and when a lady like yourself is too easy, it gets a girl into bad habits, and occasionally it does us good if the gentleman of the house will swear at us, Mrs. Perkins, and sort of scare us, so it does. It was that that was the making of me. The last place I was in, ma"am, I was so afraid of both the missus and the gentleman that I didn"t dare to be careless; and I didn"t dare be careless with you until I found you all the time a-smilin", whatever went wrong, and Mr. Perkins never sayin" a word, whether the dishes come to the table clean or not."
"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Perkins, somewhat carried away by this course of reasoning, "you haven"t been what we hoped--there is no denying that; but knowing that you were disappointing us, why couldn"t you have made a special effort?"
"Oh, Mrs. Perkins," sobbed the poor woman, "you don"t understand.
We"re all disappointin" to them we loves, but--it"s them we fear--"
"Then why aren"t you afraid of us?"
Jane laughed through her tears. The idea was preposterous.
"Afraid of you and Mr. Perkins? Ah!" she said, sadly, "if I only could be--but I can"t. Why, Mrs. Perkins, if Mr. Perkins should come in here now and swear at me the way Mr. Barley did when I worked there, I"d know he was only puttin" it on, and that inside he"d be laughin" at me. No, ma"am, it"s no use. I feel that I must go, or I"ll be forever ruined. It was the cranberry showed me; a girl had ought to be discharged for that. Dirty dinner plates isn"t excusable, and yet neither of you said a word, and next week it"ll be the same way--so I"m goin". You won"t send me off, so I"ve got to do it myself."
"Very well, Jane," said Mrs. Perkins; "if that is the way you feel about it we"ll have to part, I suppose. I am sorry, but--"
The sentence was not finished, for Jane rushed weeping from the room, and within a few days, her place having been filled, the house knew her no more, except as an occasional visitor, ostensibly to see the children. Later she got a place to her satisfaction, and one night the Perkins were invited to dine with Jane"s new employers.
They went and found their old-time "butler" at the very zenith of her powers. She served the dinner as she had never served one in her palmiest days in the Perkins"s dining-room; and when all was over, and when Mrs. Perkins went up-stairs to don her wrap to return home, she found Jane above waiting to help her.
"I am glad to see you so happy, Jane," she said, as the girl held her cloak.
"Ah, ma"am, I"m not very happy."
"You ought to be, here. Your work to-night was perfect."
"Yes," said Jane, "it had to be, for"--here her voice fell to a whisper--"I don"t dare let it be different, ma"am. Mrs. Harkins is a regular divvle, and the ould gentleman--well, ma"am, he do swear finer "n any gentleman I ever met. It"s just the place for me."
And Jane sighed as her old mistress left her.
"Wasn"t she great, Bess?" said Thaddeus, on the way home.
"She was, indeed," replied Mrs. Perkins, with a smile. "It"s a pity I"m not a divvle."
Thaddeus laughed. "That"s so," he said; "or that I never learned to swear like a gentleman, eh?"