St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 5/Tea-cups
The junior members of the Gordon family had taken advantage of the absence of their parents from the dinner-table that night, and had called a council. They were now “in solemn meeting assembled’’— Helen, who had but recently returned from college; Hilda, still in the short-skirt-and-pigtails stage of her existence; Robert, who already occupied a position in his father’s office, and Ted, fully imbued with the importance and responsibilities of a junior in high school.
“Ladies—or shall I say lady?—and gentlemen,” continued Helen, with mock dignity, “we are assembled here to-night to discuss a question of great and lasting importance, a question which (need I remind you, lady and gentlemen?) is only to be decided after due and mature consideration—both of the subject and of our respective pocket-books. Briefly stated, the question is this: what are we to present to our dear mother—I should say to our beloved maternal ancestor—as a slight token of our affection for her and of our rejoicing over the completion of her forty-fifth year of life? Discussion of the subject is now in order.”
There was a miniature storm of applause, and then Robert, with a profound bow to the chairman, claimed the floor. “Madam Chairman, ladies and gentleman: As our great and honored chairman has just remarked” (prolonged coughing from Hilda and Ted), “the question we have under consideration is not one to be rashly decided, and yet I am bold enough to hope that the suggestion which I am about to make will meet with your unanimous approval. In view of the aforesaid maternal ancestor's well-known fondness for pretty china, permit me to suggest that we purchase a pretty new dinner set. It would serve not only as a fitting birthday remembrance, but in a certain measure as an atonement also, offered in memory of the many occasions—oh, painful memory!—when we have shattered the china idols of that loving heart.” And Robert subsided, his flowery efforts rewarded by a hearty burst of laughter and cries of “Good! good!”
“I think Rob ’s just right!” exclaimed Hilda, scrambling enthusiastically to her feet. “Let ‘s buy just the dandiest set—”
“The lady is out of order,” interrupted her elder sister with due severity. “‘Sich langwidge,’ Hilda! Am I to understand that you desire to second the motion now before the house? The motion has been made and seconded. Will all those in favor of adopting Robert's suggestion please signify their approval by raising the right hand? Contrary-minded the same. Since you are unanimously in favor of a dinner set, we will now proceed to a consideration of the problem of ways and means.”
“I ‘ll give ten,” said Robert, depositing a crisp bank-note beside his sister's place; “and suggest that we leave the selection to Helen.”
“I ’m afraid I can’t give a tenner—I just got my new base-ball suit, you know,” said Ted, ruefully.
“And I my new golf-clubs,” echoed Helen. “We ‘ll make it fifteen together, Ted. It ‘s comforting to think that we can probably count on Father for twenty-five.”
“And I'm going to give five dollars!" put in Hilda, decidedly, with special emphasis on the “dollars”; and producing a bulky pocket-book, she forthwith proceeded to empty its contents into her sister’s lap.
“You ‘ll have to go without caramels for a month, Puss, if you donate all that chicken feed,” laughed Robert, giving his sister's long braids a parting tug as he left the room, closing the door behind him just in time to escape a flying leather cushion, sent with Hilda’s unerring aim.
And so it was that Mrs. Gordon. conducted to the seat of honor at the dinner-table on the eve of her birthday anniversary, found the table resplendent with a new set of French china, whose graceful shape and dainty decoration quite justified Robert’s confidence in his older sister’s good judgment and artistic taste.
In response to repeated cries of “Speech! speech!” from Ted and Hilda, Mrs. Gordon rose from her seat, and, with a radiant smile on her flushed face, addressed her family.
“My dearest husband and children,” she began laughingly, “I can’t even begin to tell you how much pleasure you have given me this evening, nor how rich I feel with my new set of dishes. I shall treasure each piece as a priceless possession, and shall take the entire care of this china into my own hands. So woe unto him who breaks the first piece, for he shall provide me with an 
“SHE MOUNTED THE CHAIR AND SET THE DISHES BACK INTO PLACE." (SEE PAGE 394.) entire new set!” And amid a chorus of groans and laughter from her hearers, Mrs. Gordon resumed her seat.
The new china, duly enthroned on the topmost shelves of the china-closet, seemed destined to a long and uneventful life, for, after its owner’s dire threat, no one ventured to lay hands upon it for many months. Then, on a luckless day, Helen, who was entertaining college friends, was tempted by its dainty beauty, and with her own skilful fingers proceeded to decorate the tea-tray with her mother’s precious china. Just how it happened she could not understand, but in lifting one of the fragile cups from the shelf, there was a spiteful little crack, and the cup remained standing in its place, while Helen’s fingers held only the handle.
With a little cry of dismay, she lifted the cup in her other hand and mechanically replaced the broken piece. How perfectly it fitted into place! One would never guess that it had ever been broken. Struck by a sudden thought, she slowly set away all the pretty dishes, pressed the broken handle into place before she set the cup back among its fellows, and, with her forehead still puckered into a little frown, got out the every-day dishes and returned to her friends.
That very evening, Mr. Gordon, who had misplaced his ash-tray, wandered into the china-closet in search of one—a Christmas gift of the year before. He blundered upon the new dishes instead, and, warned by the same ominous click that had so startled Helen a few hours before, was just in time to catch the handle of one of the new cups as it fell from its place on the shelf. “Well!” he exclaimed in surprise, examining the broken pieces curiously, “this will never do. What will Mother say when she finds that I ’ve been meddling with her new china?” And when Mr. Gordon, wearing a whimsical smile on his good-natured face, returned to the living-room a few moments later, the cup, with the broken handle again pressed into place, stood on the shelf as before.
A fortnight later, Ted was interrupted in his rummage for “some of those preserves” by the sound of falling china, and stood ruefully contemplating the havoc he had wrought—on the shelf stood one of the new egg-shell cups, and near it lay its handle, broken cleanly off. “By Jove!” he exclaimed; “of all the kinds of bad luck, this is the worst.” He took the dainty bit of china in his big hands and stared blankly down at the two rough places which showed where the handle had been. “I wonder—” he began doubtfully. He carefully readjusted the handle, set the cup away, and tiptoed away from the closet.
This time the cup remained untouched for more than a month, for the part of the china-closet devoted to the new dishes was studiously avoided by at least three members of the Gordon family. Then one night, Robert, who, with Helen's assistance, was entertaining some friends at a chafing-dish supper, went to the china-closet in search of a corkscrew. In one hand he held the bottle of olives which he wanted to open, and with the other felt cautiously about on the top shelf—that was where the corkscrew had always been kept, he felt sure. His hand struck lightly against a dish, and the handle of a cup rattled down onto the shelf. “Oh, bother! One would n’t think that the little jar I gave that bowl would have disturbed even the cobwebs, and here I ’ve broken one of Mother's Sunday-go-to-meeting best cups. Heigh-ho!” He made room for his olive bottle on one of the lower shelves and picked up the damaged cup. “A clean cut,” he remarked sadly. “I certainly did good work!” Yes, the parts fitted together perfectly, there was scarcely even a crack; what if— He replaced the cup on the shelf, after he had fitted the handle into place, and went back to the dining-room, to find Helen triumphantly flourishing the missing corkscrew.
It was late in the fall before Hilda’s turn came. Coming breezily in from school one afternoon, she went to look for her mother. Her search led her at last to the kitchen, where she found the maid busily at work, but no Mrs. Gordon. “Has Mother gone out, Ida?” she asked eagerly of the rosy-cheeked German girl at the 1roning-board.
“Ya, she has gone to pay for some visits,” returned the girl, smilingly.
Hilda swallowed hard, to keep from laughing at the funny English, and to hide her disappointment over her mother’s absence. “Oh, dear!” she sighed, “if Mother ’s gone out to pay calls, she ’s sure to be gone till dinner-time, and I did so want to see her right away!" She walked disconsolately to the window and stood looking out over the bare garden.
“You see,” she explained to the sympathetic maid, “almost every one I know is going down the new roller-skating rink—it ‘s going to have its opening this afternoon—and I wanted to too; but I just know that Mother would n‘t like it a bit if I went without first asking her.”
Though Ida had very little idea of what an opening and a roller-skating rink really were. She sympathized deeply with the school-girl’s trouble, and, somewhat comforted, Hilda wandered aimlessly out of the kitchen. On her way toward the dining-room, her eyes fell upon the open door of the china-closet, and it occurred to her that a few of the salted pecans that were kept there might, in a measure at least, help her to bear her disappointment. Not finding them on the lowest shelves, she carried one of the heavy dining-room chairs out to the closet, and stepping on it, began to hunt higher up for the box in which they were kept. Either it had been moved or emptied and thrown away, for, instead of coming in contact with its rough surface, her hand struck some china, and there was a clatter of dishes. “I hope I did n’t break anything,” murmured Hilda and reached for the electric-light switch. The light disclosed three overturned tea-cups from the precious set, and one of them had lost its handle!
Hilda slipped down from the chair and seated herself on its edge—a dejected, hopeless little figure. At last she rose, mounted the chair once more, and set the dishes back into place. She picked up the handle and fitted it back into place: it fitted perfectly, and her face brightened with sudden hope. She carried the chair back into the dining-room, commenting aloud, as she set down, “I can do it all right if I don’t buy any more candy this winter.”
Then the whole Gordon family seemed to have forgotten the set of French china. Perhaps five of its members did so intentionally, because the thought of it brought them unpleasant recollections; but Mrs. Gordon, too, seemed to have forgotten the very existence of the new dishes which had at first been her pride and delight. At least she had not used them since the early summer. Certainly there was nothing farther from her thoughts as she took her place at the breaktfast-table on Christmas morning and returned the volley of good wishes with which her family had greeted her arrival.
“You ‘re ‘it,’ Mother,” announced Hilda. as soon as she could make herself heard. “You ‘re to open your packages first.”
Mrs. Gordon smilingly consented, and, selecting a package at random from the many heaped about her plate, cut the cord and undid its brown paper wrappings. A wooden box came to light. and from the excelsior which it contained, Mrs. Gordon drew a cut-glass celery tray and a tea-cup like those which she had received on her birthday. The card which was attached to its handle showed that Ted was the donor. “I ’m awfully sorry, little Mum, but accidents will happen. Please accept the celery tray as a peace-offering,” she read aloud, and a little pink spot appeared in each cheek.
She carefully avoided the eyes of her family as she thanked Ted, and then turned to undo the next package. When the baby ribbon which held its tissue-paper coverings in place had been untied, a holly box appeared, and the card which lay on its lid said, “This seems to be a particularly happy time to ask you to let bygones be bygones and to forgive and forget. Helen.” Mrs. Gordon set another tea-cup beside the first, and near it laid a purse of silver mesh. The pink in her cheeks deepened as she told Helen how much she appreciated the gifts.
“SHE HELD THE FATEFUL CUP UP FOR THEIR INSPECTION.” (SEE PAGE 396.)
It was not hard to guess that the third package also contained a cup and saucer—its knobby out-lines proclaimed it even before the string was cut. The little box which Mrs. Gordon took out of the tea-cup hid a brooch—a dainty wreath, its leaves studded with pearls; and the slip of paper which lay beneath it said only, “This wreath is in reality an olive-branch from your husband.” This time Mrs. Gordon felt that she really could n’t look up lest her family notice that she had tears in her eyes.
She opened the last two packages in quick succession. First came a holly box, just large enough to hold another cup and saucer; the envelop in the bottom of the box contained a check and one of Robert’s cards, on which he had written: “This check is really the silver plateau which you have long wanted—I did n't dare trust to my masculine taste, so I leave the selection to you. Will you please forgive the awkward black sheep?” The last package held a wooden box which was undistinguishable from Ted’s, but a gay Japanese vase instead of a cut-glass celery tray accompanied the cup and saucer, and the card, in Hilda’s boyish hand, read, “I know it was awkward, but I’m truly sorry that it happened. Please forgive me.”
Mrs. Gordon laid down the card, and at last faced her family. “Will some one please explain? How did you all know that that cup was broken?” she asked faintly, her face scarlet.
There was a moment of awkward silence, then came a chorus of responses. “I broke one of your cups last fall when I was looking for an ash-tray, but I knew how badly you ’d feel over it, so I just ordered another, and thought I would n’t say anything about it until—”
“I broke it when I was after some of those dandy pear preserves, but the dealer could n’t get me another until last week, because he had to order them from France, so—”
“It was just carelessness on my part, Mother. I was looking for a corkscrew in the dark, and you see the result. But—”
“I wanted to use those cups one day last fall when some of the college girls were here, and in some way—”’
“It just happened—I don’t know how, and I thought it would n’t worry you so much if I bought another just like it. The man said he ’d ordered some for some one else, and so—”’
Mrs. Gordon pushed her chair back from the table and hurriedly left the room. Her family faced each other in blank consternation.
“Do you suppose she ’s angry?” gasped Hilda. “Or hurt?” added Robert. “I thought she was laughing,” mused their father.
At that moment, Mrs. Gordon reëntered the room and deposited two more cups beside the others on the table, then faced her family with wet, laughing eyes. “My mind has n’t yet had time to grasp all the amazing details of the situation, but of one thing I feel very sure: I’m the real culprit. I broke that cup one day last summer when I was washing it, but I felt so ashamed of my awkwardness after the dire threats I had made to my family, that I decided to try to replace it before ‘’fessing up.’ My cup came last week (with all these others, I suppose), just a few days after I had discovered that I could have my broken cup mended and made as good as new at that funny little Chinese shop on Carson Street.” She held the fateful cup up for their inspection. “So now I ’m a whole set of cups richer than I was!”