Produced by S.R.Ellison, Suzanne Shell, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
Three Lives
Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena
Donc je suis malheureux et ce n'est ni ma faute ni celle de la vie.[1]
Jules Laforgue
[Footnote 1: Therefore I am unhappy and it is neither my fault nor that of life.]
Contents
page
The Good Anna 1
Melanctha 47
The Gentle Lena 142
The tradesmen of Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of "Miss
Mathilda", for with that name the good Anna always conquered.
The strictest of the one price stores found that they could give
things for a little less, when the good Anna had fully said that "Miss
Mathilda" could not pay so much and that she could buy it cheaper "by
Lindheims."
Lindheims was Anna's favorite store, for there they had bargain days,when flour and sugar were sold for a quarter of a cent less for apound, and there the heads of the departments were all her friends andalways managed to give her the bargain prices, even on other days.
Anna led an arduous and troubled life.
Anna managed the whole little house for Miss Mathilda. It was a funnylittle house, one of a whole row of all the same kind that made aclose pile like a row of dominoes that a child knocks over, for theywere built along a street which at this point came down a steep hill.They were funny little houses, two stories high, with red brick frontsand long white steps.
This one little house was always very full with Miss Mathilda, anunder servant, stray dogs and cats and Anna's voice that scolded,managed, grumbled all day long.
"Sallie! can't I leave you alone a minute but you must run to the doorto see the butcher boy come down the street and there is Miss Mathildacalling for her shoes. Can I do everything while you go around alwaysthinking about nothing at all? If I ain't after you every minute youwould be forgetting all, the time, and I take all this pains, and whenyou come to me you was as ragged as a buzzard and as dirty as a dog.Go and find Miss Mathilda her shoes where you put them this morning."
"Peter!",—her voice rose higher,—"Peter!",—Peter was the youngestand the favorite dog,—"Peter, if you don't leave Baby alone,"—Babywas an old, blind terrier that Anna had loved for many years,—"Peterif you don't leave Baby alone, I take a rawhide to you, you bad dog."
The good Anna had high ideals for canine chastity and discipline. Thethree regular dogs, the three that always lived with Anna, Peter andold Baby, and the fluffy little Rags, who was always jumping up intothe air just to show that he was happy, together with the transients,the many stray ones that Anna always kept until she found them homes,were all under strict orders never to be bad one with the other.
A sad disgrace did once happen in the family. A little transientterrier for whom Anna had found a home suddenly produced a crop ofpups. The new owners were certain that this Foxy had known no dogsince she was in their c