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diff --git a/18011.txt b/18011.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebfa218 --- /dev/null +++ b/18011.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19706 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Portion of Labor, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Portion of Labor + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: March 18, 2006 [EBook #18011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORTION OF LABOR *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + + +The Portion of Labor + +By +Mary E. Wilkins + + +Author of +"Jerome" "A New England Nun" Etc. + +Illustrated + + +Harper & Brothers +Publishers New York +And London MDCCCCI + + +To Henry Mills Alden + + + +[Illustration: What did such a good little girl as you be run away from +father and mother for?] + + + + +Chapter I + + +On the west side of Ellen's father's house was a file of Norway +spruce-trees, standing with a sharp pointing of dark boughs towards +the north, which gave them an air of expectancy of progress. + +Every morning Ellen, whose bedroom faced that way, looked out with a +firm belief that she would see them on the other side of the stone +wall, advanced several paces towards their native land. She had no +doubt of their ability to do so; their roots, projecting in fibrous +sprawls from their trunks, were their feet, and she pictured them +advancing with wide trailings, and rustlings as of green draperies, +and a loudening of that dreamy cry of theirs which was to her +imagination a cry of homesickness reminiscent of their old life in +the White north. When Ellen had first heard the name Norway spruce, +'way back in her childhood--so far back, though she was only seven +and a half now, that it seemed to her like a memory from another +life--she had asked her mother to show her Norway on the map, and +her strange convictions concerning the trees had seized her. When +her mother said that they had come from that northernmost land of +Europe, Ellen, to whose childhood all truth was naked and literal, +immediately conceived to herself those veritable trees advancing +over the frozen seas around the pole, and down through the vast +regions which were painted blue on her map, straight to her father's +west yard. There they stood and sang the songs of their own country, +with a melancholy sweetness of absence and longing, and were forever +thinking to return. Ellen felt always a thrill of happy surprise +when she saw them still there of a morning, for she felt that she +would miss them sorely when they were gone. She said nothing of all +this to her mother; it was one of the secrets of the soul which +created her individuality and made her a spiritual birth. She was +also silent about her belief concerning the cherry-trees in the east +yard. There were three of them, giants of their kind, which filled +the east yard every spring as with mountains of white bloom, +breathing wide gusts of honey sweetness, and humming with bees. +Ellen believed that these trees had once stood in the Garden of +Eden, but she never expected to find them missing from the east yard +of a morning, for she remembered the angel with the flaming sword, +and she knew how one branch of the easternmost tree happened to be +blasted as if by fire. And she thought that these trees were happy, +and never sighed to the wind as the dark evergreens did, because +they had still the same blossoms and the same fruit that they had in +Eden, and so did not fairly know that they were not there still. +Sometimes Ellen, sitting underneath them on a low rib of rock on a +May morning, used to fancy with success that she and the trees were +together in that first garden which she had read about in the Bible. + +Sometimes, after one of these successful imaginings, when Ellen's +mother called her into the house she would stare at her little +daughter uneasily, and give her a spoonful of a bitter spring +medicine which she had brewed herself. When Ellen's father, Andrew +Brewster, came home from the shop, she would speak to him aside as +he was washing his hands at the kitchen sink, and tell him that it +seemed to her that Ellen looked kind of "pindlin'." Then Andrew, +before he sat down at the dinner-table, would take Ellen's face in +his two moist hands, look at her with anxiety thinly veiled by +facetiousness, rub his rough, dark cheek against her soft, white one +until he had reddened it, then laugh, and tell her she looked like a +bo'sn. Ellen never quite knew what her father meant by bo'sn, but +she understood that it signified something very rosy and hearty +indeed. + +Ellen's father always picked out for her the choicest and tenderest +bits of the humble dishes, and his keen eyes were more watchful of +her plate than of his own. Always after Ellen's mother had said to +her father that she thought Ellen looked pindling he was late about +coming home from the shop, and would turn in at the gate laden +with paper parcels. Then Ellen would find an orange or some other +delicacy beside her plate at supper. Ellen's aunt Eva, her mother's +younger sister, who lived with them, would look askance at the +tidbit with open sarcasm. "You jest spoil that young one, Fanny," +she would say to her sister. + +"You can do jest as you are a mind to with your own young ones when +you get them, but you can let mine alone. It's none of your business +what her father and me give her to eat; you don't buy it," Ellen's +mother would retort. There was the utmost frankness of speech +between the two sisters. Neither could have been in the slightest +doubt as to what the other thought of her, for it was openly +proclaimed to her a dozen times a day, and the conclusion was never +complimentary. Ellen learned very early to form her own opinions of +character from her own intuition, otherwise she would have held her +aunt and mother in somewhat slighting estimation, and she loved +them both dearly. They were headstrong, violent-tempered women, but +she had an instinct for the staple qualities below that surface +turbulence, which was lashed higher by every gust of opposition. +These two loud, contending voices, which filled the house before +and after shop-hours--for Eva worked in the shop with her +brother-in-law--with a duet of discords instead of harmonies, meant +no more to Ellen than the wrangle of the robins in the cherry-trees. +She supposed that two sisters always conversed in that way. She +never knew why her father, after a fiery but ineffectual attempt to +quell the feminine tumult, would send her across the east yard to +her grandmother Brewster's, and seat himself on the east door-step +in summer, or go down to the store in the winter. She would sit at +the window in her grandmother's sitting-room, eating peacefully the +slice of pound-cake or cooky with which she was always regaled, and +listen to the scolding voices across the yard as she might have +listened to any outside disturbance. She was never sucked into the +whirlpool of wrath which seemed to gyrate perpetually in her home, +and wondered at her grandmother Brewster's impatient exclamations +concerning the poor child, and her poor boy, and that it was a shame +and a disgrace, when now and then a louder explosion of wrath struck +her ears. + +Ellen's grandmother--Mrs. Zelotes Brewster, as she was called, +though her husband Zelotes had been dead for many years--was an +aristocrat by virtue of inborn prejudices and convictions, in +despite of circumstances. The neighbors said that Mrs. Zelotes +Brewster had always been high-feeling, and had held up her head with +the best. It would have been nearer the truth to say that she held +up her head above the best. No one seeing the erect old woman, in +her draperies of the finest black goods to be bought in the city, +could estimate in what heights of thin upper air of spiritual +consequence her head was elevated. She had always a clear sight of +the head-tops of any throng in which she found herself, and queens +or duchesses would have been no exception. She would never have +failed to find some stool of superior possessions or traits upon +which to raise herself, and look down upon crown and coronet. When +she read in the papers about the marriage of a New York belle to an +English duke, she reflected that the duke could be by no means as +fine a figure of a man as Zelotes had been, and as her son Andrew +was, although both her husband and son had got all their education +in the town schools, and had worked in shoe-shops all their lives. +She could have looked at a palace or a castle, and have remained +true to the splendors of her little one-story-and-a-half house with +a best parlor and sitting-room, and a shed kitchen for use in hot +weather. + +She would not for one instant have been swerved from utmost +admiration and faith in her set of white-and-gold wedding china by +the contemplation of Copeland and Royal Sevres. She would have +pitted her hair-cloth furniture of the ugliest period of household +art against all the Chippendales and First Empire pieces in +existence. + +As Mrs. Zelotes had never seen any household possessions to equal +her own, let alone to surpass them, she was of the same mind with +regard to her husband and his family, herself and her family, her +son and little granddaughter. She never saw any gowns and shawls +which compared with hers in fineness and richness; she never tasted +a morsel of cookery which was not as sawdust when she reflected upon +her own; and all that humiliated her in the least, or caused her to +feel in the least dissatisfied, was her son's wife and her family +and antecedents. + +Mrs. Zelotes Brewster had considered that her son Andrew was +marrying immeasurably beneath him when he married Fanny Loud, of +Loudville. Loudville was a humble, an almost disreputably humble, +suburb of the little provincial city. The Louds from whom the +locality took its name were never held in much repute, being +considered of a stratum decidedly below the ordinary social one of +the city. When Andrew told his mother that he was to marry a Loud, +she declared that she would not go to his wedding, nor receive the +girl at her house, and she kept her word. When one day Andrew +brought his sweetheart to his home to call, trusting to her pretty +face and graceful though rather sharp manner to win his mother's +heart, he found her intrenched in the kitchen, and absolutely +indifferent to the charms of his Fanny in her stylish, albeit +somewhat tawdry, finery, though she had peeped to good purpose from +her parlor window, which commanded the road, before she fled +kitchenward. + +Mrs. Zelotes was beating eggs with as firm an impetus as if she were +heaving up earth-works to strengthen her own pride when her son +thrust his timid face into the kitchen. "Mother, Fanny's in the +parlor," he said, beseechingly. + +"Let her set there, then, if she wants to," said his mother, and +that was all she would say. + +Very soon Fanny went home on her lover's arm, freeing her mind with +no uncertain voice on the way, though she was on the public road, +and within hearing of sharp ears in open windows. Fanny had a pride +as fierce as Mrs. Zelotes Brewster's, though it was not so well +sustained, and she would then and there have refused to marry Andrew +had she not loved him with all her passionate and ill-regulated +heart. But she never forgave her mother-in-law for the slight she +had put upon her that day, and the slights which she put upon her +later. She would have refused to live next door to Mrs. Zelotes had +not Andrew owned the land and been in a measure forced to build +there. Every time she had flaunted out of her new house-door in her +wedding finery she had an uncomfortable feeling of defiance under a +fire of hostile eyes in the next house. She kept her own windows +upon that side as clear and bright as diamonds, and her curtains in +the stiffest, snowy slants, lest her terrible mother-in-law should +have occasion to impeach her housekeeping, she being a notable +housewife. The habits of the Louds of Loudville were considered +shiftless in the extreme, and poor Fanny had heard an insinuation of +Mrs. Zelotes to that effect. + +The elder Mrs. Brewster's knowledge of her son's house and his wife +was limited to the view from her west windows, but there was +half-truce when little Ellen was born. Mrs. Brewster, who considered +that no woman could be obtained with such a fine knowledge of +nursing as she possessed, and who had, moreover, a regard for her +poor boy's pocket-book, appeared for the first time in his doorway, +and opened her heart to her son's child, if not to his wife, whom +she began to tolerate. + +However, the two women had almost a hand-to-hand encounter over +little Ellen's cradle, the elder Mrs. Brewster judging that it was +for her good to be rocked to sleep, the younger not. Little Ellen +herself, however, turned the balance that time in favor of her +grandmother, since she cried every time the gentle, swaying motion +was hushed, and absolutely refused to go to sleep, and her mother +from the first held every course which seemed to contribute to her +pleasure and comfort as a sacred duty. At last it came to pass that +the two women met only upon that small neutral ground of love, and +upon all other territory were sworn foes. Especially was Mrs. +Zelotes wroth when Eva Loud, after the death of her father, one of +the most worthless and shiftless of the Louds of Loudville, came to +live with her married sister. She spoke openly to Fanny concerning +her opinion of another woman's coming to live on poor Andrew, and +paid no heed to the assertions that Eva would work and pay her way. + +Mrs. Zelotes, although she acknowledged it no social degradation for +a man to work in a shoe-factory, regarded a woman who worked therein +as having hopelessly forfeited her caste. Eva Loud had worked in a +shop ever since she was fourteen, and had tagged the grimy and +leathery procession of Louds, who worked in shoe-factories when they +worked at all, in a short skirt with her hair in a strong black +pigtail. There was a kind of bold grace and showy beauty about this +Eva Loud which added to Mrs. Zelotes's scorn and dislike. + +"She walks off to work in the shop as proud as if she was going to a +party," she said, and she fairly trembled with anger when she saw +the girl set out with her son in the morning. She would have +considered it much more according to the eternal fitness of things +had her son Andrew been attending a queen whom he would have dropped +at her palace on the way. She writhed inwardly whenever little Ellen +spoke of her aunt Eva, and would have forbidden her to do so had she +dared. + +"To think of that child associating with a shop-girl!" she said to +Mrs. Pointdexter. Mrs. Pointdexter was her particular friend, whom +she regarded with loving tolerance of superiority, though she had +been the daughter of a former clergyman of the town, and had wedded +another, and might presumably have been accounted herself of a +somewhat higher estate. The gentle and dependent clergyman's widow, +when she came back to her native city after the death of her +husband, found herself all at once in a pleasant little valley of +humiliation at the feet of her old friend, and was contented to +abide there. "Perhaps your son's sister-in-law will marry and go +away," she said, consolingly, to Mrs. Zelotes, who indeed lived in +that hope. But Eva remained at her sister's, and, though she had +admirers in plenty, did not marry, and the dissension grew. + +It was an odd thing that, however the sisters quarrelled, the minute +Andrew tried to take sides with his wife and assail Eva in his turn, +Fanny turned and defended her. "I am not going to desert all the +sister I have got in the world," she said. "If you want me to leave, +say so, and I will go, but I shall never turn Eva out of doors. I +would rather go with her and work in the shop." Then the next +moment the wrangle would recommence, and the harsh trebles of wrath +would swell high. Andrew could not appreciate this savageness of +race loyalty in the face of anger and dissension, and his brain +reeled with the apparent inconsistency of the thing. + +"Sometimes I think they are both crazy," he used to tell his mother, +who sympathized with him after a covertly triumphant fashion. She +never said, "I told you so," but the thought was evident on her +face, and her son saw it there. + +However, he said not a word against his wife, except by implication. +Though she and her sister were making his home unbearable, he still +loved her, and, even if he did not, he had something of his mother's +pride. + +However, at last, when Ellen was almost eight years old, matters +came suddenly to a climax one evening in November. The two sisters +were having a fiercer dispute than usual. Eva was taking her sister +to task for cutting over a dress of hers for Ellen, Fanny claiming +that she had given her permission to do so, and Eva denying it. The +child sat listening in her little chair with a look of dawning +intelligence of wrath and wicked temper in her face, because she was +herself in a manner the cause of the dissension. Suddenly Andrew +Brewster, with a fiery outburst of inconsequent masculine wrath with +the whole situation, essayed to cut the Gordian knot. He grabbed the +little dress of bright woollen stuff, which lay partly made upon the +table, and crammed it into the stove, and a reek of burning wool +filled the room. Then both women turned upon him with a combination +of anger to which his wrath was wildfire. + +Andrew caught up little Ellen, who was beginning to look scared, +wrapped the first thing he could seize around her, and fairly fled +across the yard to his mother's. Then he sat down and wept like a +boy, and his pride left him at last. "Oh, mother," he sobbed, "if it +were not for the child, I would go away, for my home is a hell!" + +Mrs. Zelotes stood clasping little Ellen, who clung to her, +trembling. "Well, come over here with me," she said, "you and +Ellen." + +"Live here in the next house!" said Andrew. "Do you suppose Fanny +would have the child living under her very eyes in the next house? +No, there is no way out of the misery--no way; but if it was not for +the child, I would go!" + +Andrew burst out in such wild sobs that his mother released Ellen +and ran to him; and the child, trembling and crying with a curious +softness, as of fear at being heard, ran out of the house and back +to her home. "Oh, mother," she cried, breaking in upon the dialogue +of anger which was still going on there with her little tremulous +flute--"oh, mother, father is crying!" + +"I don't care," answered her mother, fiercely, her temper causing +her to lose sight of the child's agitation. "I don't care. If it +wasn't for you, I would leave him. I wouldn't live as I am doing. I +would leave everybody. I am tired of this awful life. Oh, if it +wasn't for you, Ellen, I would leave everybody and start fresh!" + +"You can leave _me_ whenever you want to," said Eva, her handsome +face burning red with wrath, and she went out of the room, which was +suffocating with the fumes of the burning wool, tossing her black +head, all banged and coiled in the latest fashion. + +Of late years Fanny had sunk her personal vanity further and further +in that for her child. She brushed her own hair back hard from her +temples, and candidly revealed all her unyouthful lines, and dwelt +fondly upon the arrangement of little Ellen's locks, which were of a +fine, pale yellow, as clear as the color of amber. + +She never recut her skirts or her sleeves, but she studied anxiously +all the slightest changes in children's fashions. After her sister +had left the room with a loud bang of the door, she sat for a moment +gazing straight ahead, her face working, then she burst into such a +passion of hysterical wailing as the child had never heard. Ellen, +watching her mother with eyes so frightened and full of horror that +there was no room for childish love and pity in them, grew very +pale. She had left the door by which she had entered open; she gazed +one moment at her mother, then she turned and slipped out of the +room, and, opening the outer door softly, though her mother would +not have heard nor noticed, went out of the house. + +Then she ran as fast as she could down the frozen road, a little, +dark figure, passing as rapidly as the shadow of a cloud between the +earth and the full moon. + + + + +Chapter II + + +The greatest complexity in the world attends the motive-power of any +action. Infinite perspectives of mental mirrors reflect the whys of +all doing. An adult with long practice in analytic introspection +soon becomes bewildered when he strives to evolve the primary and +fundamental reasons for his deeds; a child so striving would be lost +in unexpected depths; but a child never strives. A child obeys +unquestioningly and absolutely its own spiritual impellings without +a backward glance at them. + +Little Ellen Brewster ran down the road that November night, and did +not know then, and never knew afterwards, why she ran. Loving +renunciation was surging high in her childish heart, giving an +indication of tidal possibilities for the future, and there was also +a bitter, angry hurt of slighted dependency and affection. Had she +not heard them say, her own mother and father say, that they would +be better off and happier with her out of the way, and she their +dearest loved and most carefully cherished possession in the whole +world? It is a cruel fall for an apple of the eye to the ground, for +its law of gravitation is of the soul, and its fall shocks the +infinite. Little Ellen felt herself sorely hurt by her fall from +such fair heights; she was pierced by the sharp thorns of selfish +interests which flourish below all the heavenward windows of life. + +Afterwards, when her mother and father tried to make her tell them +why she ran away, she could not say; the answer was beyond her own +power. + +There was no snow on the ground, but the earth was frozen in great +ribs after a late thaw. Ellen ran painfully between the ridges which +a long line of ice-wagons had made with their heavy wheels earlier +in the day. When the spaces between the ridges were too narrow for +her little feet, she ran along the crests, and that was precarious. +She fell once and bruised one of her delicate knees, then she fell +again, and struck the knee on the same place. It hurt her, and she +caught her breath with a gasp of pain. She pulled up her little +frock and touched her hand to her knee, and felt it wet, then she +whimpered on the lonely road, and, curiously enough, there was pity +for her mother as well as for herself in her solitary grieving. +"Mother would feel pretty bad if she knew how I was hurt, enough to +make it bleed," she murmured, between her soft sobs. Ellen did not +dare cry loudly, from a certain unvoiced fear which she had of +shocking the stillness of the night, and also from a delicate sense +of personal dignity, and a dislike of violent manifestations of +feeling which had strengthened with her growth in the midst of the +turbulent atmosphere of her home. Ellen had the softest childish +voice, and she never screamed or shouted when excited. Instead of +catching the motion of the wind, she still lay before it, like some +slender-stemmed flower. If Ellen had made much outcry with the hurt +in her heart and the smart of her knee, she might have been heard, +for the locality was thickly settled, though not in the business +portion of the little city. The houses, set prosperously in the +midst of shaven lawns--for this was a thrifty and emulative place, +and democracy held up its head confidently--were built closely along +the road, though that was lonely and deserted at that hour. It was +the hour between half-past six and half-past seven, when people were +lingering at their supper-tables, and had not yet started upon their +evening pursuits. The lights shone for the most part from the rear +windows of the houses, and there was a vague compound odor of tea +and bread and beefsteak in the air. Poor Ellen had not had her +supper; the wrangle at home had dismissed it from everybody's mind. +She felt more pitiful towards her mother and herself when she smelt +the food and reflected upon that. To think of her going away without +any supper, all alone in the dark night! There was no moon, and the +solemn brilliancy of the stars made her think with a shiver of awe +of the Old Testament and the possibility of the Day of Judgment. +Suppose it should come, and she all alone out in the night, in the +midst of all those worlds and the great White Throne, without her +mother? Ellen's grandmother, who was of a stanch orthodox breed, and +was, moreover, anxious to counteract any possible detriment as to +religious training from contact with the degenerate Louds of +Loudville, had established a strict course of Bible study for her +granddaughter at a very early age. All celestial phenomena were in +consequence transposed into a Biblical key for the child, and she +regarded the heavens swarming with golden stars as a Hebrew child of +a thousand years ago might have done. + +She was glad when she came within the radius of a street light from +time to time; they were stationed at wide intervals in that +neighborhood. Soon, however, she reached the factories, when all +mystery and awe, and vague terrors of what beside herself might be +near unrevealed beneath the mighty brooding of the night, were over. +She was, as it were, in the mid-current of the conditions of her own +life and times, and the material force of it swept away all +symbolisms and unstable drift, and left only the bare rocks and +shores of existence. Always when the child had been taken by one of +her elders past the factories, humming like gigantic hives, with +their windows alert with eager eyes of toil, glancing out at her +over bench and machine, Ellen had seen her secretly cherished +imaginings recede into a night of distance like stars, and she had +felt her little footing upon the earth with a shock, and had clung +more closely to the leading hand of love. "That's where your poor +father works," her grandmother would say. "Maybe you'll have to work +there some day," her aunt Eva had said once; and her mother, who had +been with her also, had cried out sharply as if she had been stung, +"I guess that little delicate thing ain't never goin' to work in a +shoe-shop, Eva Loud." And her aunt Eva had laughed, and declared +with emphasis that she guessed there was no need to worry yet +awhile. + +"She never shall, while I live," her mother had cried; and then Eva, +coming to her sister's aid against her own suggestion, had declared, +with a vehemence which frightened Ellen, that she would burn the +shop down herself first. + +As for Ellen's father, he never at that time dwelt upon the child's +future as much as his wife did, having a masculine sense of the +instability of houses of air which prevented him from entering them +without a shivering of walls and roof into naught but star-mediums +by his downrightness of vision. "Oh, let the child be, can't you, +Fanny?" he said, when his wife speculated whether Ellen would be or +do this or that when she should be a woman. He resented the +conception of the woman which would swallow up, like some +metaphysical sorceress, his fair little child. So when he now and +then led Ellen past the factories it was never with the slightest +surmise as to any connection which she might have with them beyond +the present one. "There's the shop where father works," he would +tell Ellen, with a tender sense of his own importance in his child's +eyes, and he was as proud as Punch when Ellen was able to point with +her tiny pink finger at the window where father worked. "That's +where father works and earns money to buy nice things for little +Ellen," Andrew would repeat, beaming at her with divine foolishness, +and Ellen looked at the roaring, vibrating building as she might +have looked at the wheels of progress. She realized that her father +was very great and smart to work in a place like that, and earn +money--so much of it. Ellen often heard her mother remark with pride +how much money Andrew earned. + +To-night, when Ellen passed in her strange flight, the factories +were still, though they were yet blazing with light. The gigantic +buildings, after a style of architecture as simple as a child's +block house, and adapted to as primitive an end, loomed up beside +the road like windowed shells enclosing massive concretenesses of +golden light. They looked entirely vacant except for light, for the +workmen had all gone home, and there were only the keepers in the +buildings. There were three of them, representing three different +firms, rival firms, grouped curiously close together, but Lloyd's +was much the largest. Andrew and Eva worked in Lloyd's. + +She was near the last factory when she met a man hastening along +with bent shoulders, of intent, middle-aged progress. After he had +passed her with a careless glance at the small, swift figure, she +smelt coffee. He was carrying home a pound for his breakfast supply. +That suddenly made her cry, though she did not know why. That +familiar odor of home and the wontedness of life made her isolation +on her little atom of the unusual more pitiful. The man turned round +sharply when she sobbed. "Hullo! what's the matter, sis?" he called +back, in a pleasant, hoarse voice. Ellen did not answer; she fled as +if she had wings on her feet. The man had many children of his own, +and was accustomed to their turbulence over trifles. He kept on, +thinking that there was a sulky child who had been sent on an errand +against her will, that it was not late, and she was safe enough on +that road. He resumed his calculation as to whether his income would +admit of a new coal-stove that winter. He was a workman in a +factory, with one accumulative interest in life--coal-stoves. He +bought and traded and swapped coal-stoves every winter with keenest +enthusiasm. Now he had one in his mind which he had just viewed in a +window with the rapture of an artist. It had a little nickel +statuette on the top, and that quite crowded Ellen out of his mind, +which had but narrow accommodations. + +So Ellen kept on unmolested, though her heart was beating loud with +fright. When she came into the brilliantly lighted stretch of Main +Street, which was the business centre of the city, her childish mind +was partly diverted from herself. Ellen had not been down town many +times of an evening, and always in hand of her hurrying father or +mother. Now she had run away and cut loose from all restrictions of +time; there was an eternity for observation before her, with no call +in-doors in prospect. She stopped at the first bright shop window, +and suddenly the exultation of freedom was over the child. She +tasted the sweets of rebellion and disobedience. She had stood +before that window once before of an evening, and her aunt Eva had +been with her, and one of her young men friends had come up behind, +and they had gone on, the child dragging backward at her aunt's +hand. Now she could stand as long as she wished, and stare and +stare, and drink in everything which her childish imagination +craved, and that was much. The imagination of a child is often like +a voracious maw, seizing upon all that comes within reach, and +producing spiritual indigestions and assimilations almost endless in +their effects upon the growth. This window before which Ellen stood +was that of a market: a great expanse of plate-glass framing a crude +study in the clearest color tones. It takes a child or an artist to +see a picture without the intrusion of its second dimension of +sordid use and the gross reflection of humanity. + +Ellen looked at the great shelf laid upon with flesh and vegetables +and fruits with the careless precision of a kaleidoscope, and did +not for one instant connect anything thereon with the ends of +physical appetite, though she had not had her supper. What had a +meal of beefsteak and potatoes and squash served on the little +white-laid table at home to do with those great golden globes which +made one end of the window like the remove from a mine, those +satin-smooth spheres, those cuts as of red and white marble? She had +eaten apples, but these were as the apples of the gods, lying in a +heap of opulence, with a precious light-spot like a ruby on every +outward side. The turnips affected her imagination like ivory +carvings: she did not recognize them for turnips at all. She never +afterwards believed them to be turnips; and as for cabbages, they +were green inflorescences of majestic bloom. There is one position +from which all common things can be seen with reflections of +preciousness, and Ellen had insensibly taken it. The window and the +shop behind were illuminated with the yellow glare of gas, but the +glass was filmed here and there with frost, which tempered it as +with a veil. In the background rosy-faced men in white frocks were +moving to and fro, customers were passing in and out, but they were +all glorified to the child. She did not see them as butchers, and as +men and women selling and buying dinners. + +However, all at once everything was spoiled, for her fairy castle of +illusion or a higher reality was demolished, and that not by any +blow of practicality, but by pity and sentiment. Ellen was a +woman-child, and suddenly she struck the rock upon which women so +often wreck or effect harbor, whichever it may be. All at once she +looked up from the dazzling mosaic of the window and saw the dead +partridges and grouse hanging in their rumpled brown mottle of +plumage, and the dead rabbits, long and stark, with their fur +pointed with frost, hanging in a piteous headlong company, and all +her delight and wonder vanished, and she came down to the hard +actualities of things. "Oh, the poor birds!" she cried out in her +heart. "Oh, the poor birds, and the poor bunnies!" + +Just at that moment, when the sudden rush of compassion and +indignation had swollen her heart to the size of a woman's, and +given it the aches of one, when her eyes were so dilated with the +sight of helpless injury and death that they reflected the mystery +of it and lost the outlook of childhood, when her pretty baby mouth +was curved like an inverted bow of love with the impulse of tears, +Cynthia Lennox came up the street and stopped short when she reached +her. + +Suddenly Ellen felt some one pressing close to her, and, looking up, +saw a woman, only middle-aged, but whom she thought very old, +because her hair was white, standing looking at her very keenly with +clear, light-blue eyes under a high, pale forehead, from which the +gray hair was combed uncompromisingly back. The woman had been a +beauty once, of a delicate, nervous type, and had a certain beauty +now, a something which had endured like the fineness of texture of a +web when its glow of color has faded. Her black garments draped her +with sober richness, and there was a gleam of dark fur when the wind +caught her cloak. A small tuft of ostrich plumes nodded from her +bonnet. Ellen smelt flowers vaguely, and looked at the lady's hand, +but she did not carry any. + +"Whose little girl are you?" Cynthia Lennox asked, softly, and Ellen +did not answer. "Can't you tell me whose little girl you are?" +Cynthia Lennox asked again. Ellen did not speak, but there was the +swift flicker of a thought over her face which told her name as +plainly as language if the woman had possessed the skill to +interpret it. + +"Ellen Brewster--Ellen Brewster is my name," Ellen said to herself +very hard, and that was how she endured the reproach of her own +silence. + +The woman looked at her with surprise and admiration that were +fairly passionate. Ellen was a beautiful child, with a face like a +white flower. People had always turned to look after her, she was so +charming, and had caused her mothers heart to swell with pride. "The +way everybody we met has stared after that child to-day!" she would +whisper her husband when she brought Ellen home from some little +expedition; then the two would look at the little one's face with +the one holy vanity of the world. Ellen wore to-night the little +white shawl which her father had caught up when he carried her over +to her grandmother's. She held it tightly together under her chin +with one tiny hand, and her face looked out from between the soft +folds with the absolute purity of curve and color of a pearl. + +"Oh, you darling!" said the woman, suddenly; "you darling!" and +Ellen shrank away from her. "Don't be afraid, dear," said Cynthia +Lennox. "Don't be afraid, only tell me who you are. What is your +name, dear?" But Ellen remained silent; only, as she shrank aloof, +her eyes grew wild and bright with startled tears, and her sweet +baby mouth quivered piteously. She wanted to run, but the habit of +obedience was so strong upon her little mind that she feared to do +so. This strange woman seemed to have gotten her in some invisible +leash. + +"Tell me what your name is, darling," said the woman, but she might +as well have importuned a flower. Ellen was proof against all +commands in that direction. She suddenly felt the furry sweep of the +lady's cloak against her cheek, and a nervous, tender arm drawing +her close, though she strove feebly to resist. "You are cold, you +have nothing on but this little white shawl, and perhaps you are +hungry. What were you looking in this window for? Tell me, dear, +where is your mother? She did not send you on an errand, such a +little girl as you are, so late on such a cold night, with no more +on than this?" + +A tone of indignation crept into the lady's voice. + +"No, mother didn't send me," Ellen said, speaking for the first +time. + +"Then did you run away, dear?" Ellen was silent. "Oh, if you did, +darling, you must tell me where you live, what your father's name +is, and I will take you home. Tell me, dear. If it is far, I will +get a carriage, and you shall ride home. Tell me, dear." + +There was an utmost sweetness of maternal persuasion in Cynthia +Lennox's voice; Ellen was swayed by it as a child might have been +swayed by the magic pipe of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. She half +yielded to her leading motion, then she remembered. "No," she cried +out, with a sob of utter desolation. "No, no." + +"Why not, dear?" + +"They don't want; they don't want. No, no!" + +"They don't want you? Your own father and mother don't want you? +Darling, what is the matter?" But Ellen was dumb again. She stood +sobbing, with a painful restraint, and pulling futilely from the +lady's persuasive hand. But it ended in the mastery of the child. +Suddenly Cynthia Lennox gathered her up in her arms under her great +fur-lined cloak, and carried her a little farther down the street, +then across it to a dwelling-house, one of the very few which had +withstood the march of business blocks on this crowded main street +of the provincial city. A few people looked curiously at the lady +carrying such a heavy, weeping child, but she met no one whom she +knew, and the others looked indifferently away after a second +backward stare. Cynthia Lennox was one to bear herself with such +dignity over all jolts of circumstances that she might almost +convince others of her own exemption from them. Her mental bearing +disproved the evidence of the senses, and she could have committed a +crime with such consummate self-poise and grace as to have held a +crowd in abeyance with utter distrust of their own eyes before such +unquestioning confidence in the sovereignty of the situation. +Cynthia Lennox had always had her own way except in one respect, and +that experience had come to her lately. + +Though she was such a slender woman, she seemed to have great +strength in her arms, and she bore Ellen easily and as if she had +been used to such a burden. She wrapped her cloak closely around the +child. + +"Don't be afraid, darling," she kept whispering. Ellen panted in +bewilderment, and a terror which was half assuaged by something like +fascination. + +She was conscious of a soft smother of camphor, in which the +fur-lined cloak had lain through the summer, and of that flower +odor, which was violets, though she did not know it. Only the wild +American scentless ones had come in little Ellen's way so far. + +She felt herself carried up steps, then a door was thrown open, and +a warm breath of air came in her face, and the cloak was tossed +back, and she was set softly on the floor. The hall in which she +stood seemed very bright; she blinked and rubbed her eyes. + +The lady stood over her, laughing gently, and when the child looked +up at her, seemed much younger than she had at first, very young in +spite of her white hair. There was a soft red on her cheek; her lips +looked full and triumphant with smiles; her eyes were like stars. An +emotion of her youth which had never become dulled by satisfaction +had suddenly blossomed out on her face, and transformed it. An +unassuaged longing may serve to preserve youth as well as an +undestroyed illusion; indeed, the two are one. Cynthia Lennox looked +at the child as if she had been a young mother, and she her +first-born; triumph over the future, and daring for all odds, and +perfect faith in the kingdom of joy were in her look. Had she nursed +one child like Ellen to womanhood, and tasted the bitter in the cup, +she would not have been capable of that look, and would have been as +old as her years. She threw off her cloak and took off her bonnet, +and the light struck her hair and made it look like silver. A brooch +in the laces at her throat shone with a thousand hues, and as Ellen +gazed at it she felt curiously dull and dizzy. She did not resist at +all when the lady removed her little white shawl, but stared at her +with the look of some small and helpless thing in too large a grasp +of destiny to admit of a struggle. "Oh, you darling!" Cynthia Lennox +said, and stooped and kissed her, and half carried her into a great, +warm, dazzling room, with light reflected in long lines of gold from +picture-frames on the wall, and now and then startling patches of +lurid color blazing forth unmeaningly from the dark incline of their +canvases, with gleams of crystal and shadows of bronze in settings +of fretted ebony, with long swayings of rich draperies at doors and +windows, a red light of fire in a grate, and two white lights, one +of piano keys, the other of a flying marble figure in a corner, +outlined clearly against dusky red. The light in this room was very +dim. It was all beyond Ellen's imagination. The White North where +the Norway spruces lived would not have seemed as strange to her as +this. Neither would Bluebeard's Castle, nor the House that Jack +Built, nor the Palace of King Solomon, nor the tent in which lived +little Joseph in his coat of many colors, nor even the Garden of +Eden, nor Noah's Ark. Her imagination had not prepared her for a +room like this. She had formed her ideas of rooms upon her +grandmother's and her mother's and the neighbors' best parlors, with +their glories of crushed plush and gilt and onyx and cheap lace and +picture-throws and lambrequins. This room was such a heterodoxy +against her creed of civilization that it did not look beautiful to +her as much as strange and bewildering, and when she was bidden to +sit down in a little inlaid precious chair she put down her tiny +hand and reflected, with a sense of strengthening of her household +faith, that her grandmother had beautiful, smooth, shiny hair-cloth. + +Cynthia Lennox pulled the chair close to the fire, and bade her hold +out her little feet to the blaze to warm them well. "I am afraid you +are chilled, darling," she said, and looked at her sitting there in +her dainty little red cashmere frock, with her spread of baby-yellow +hair over her shoulders. Then Ellen thought that the lady was +younger than her mother; but her mother had borne her and nursed +her, and suffered and eaten of the tree of knowledge, and tasted the +bitter after the sweet; and this other woman was but as a child in +the garden, though she was fairly old. But along with Ellen's +conviction of the lady's youth had come a conviction of her power, +and she yielded to her unquestioningly. Whenever she came near her +she gazed with dilating eyes upon the blazing circle of diamonds at +her throat. + +When she was bidden, she followed the lady into the dining-room, +where the glitter of glass and silver and the soft gleam of precious +china made her think for a little while that she must be in a store. +She had never seen anything like this except in a store, when she +had been with her mother to buy a lamp-chimney. So she decided this +to be a store, but she said nothing. She did not speak at all, but +she ate her biscuits, and slice of breast of chicken, and +sponge-cake, and drank her milk. + +She had her milk in a little silver cup which seemed as if it might +have belonged to another child; she also sat in a small high-chair, +which made it seem as if another child had lived or visited in the +house. Ellen became singularly possessed with this sense of the +presence of a child, and when the door opened she would look around +for her to enter, but it was always an old black woman with a face +of imperturbable bronze, which caused her to huddle closer into her +chair when she drew near. + +There were not many colored people in the city, and Ellen had never +seen any except at Long Beach, where she had sometimes gone to have +a shore dinner with her mother and Aunt Eva. Then she always used to +shrink when the black waiter drew near, and her mother and aunt +would be convulsed with furtive mirth. "See the little gump," her +mother would say in the tenderest tone, and look about to see if +others at the other tables saw how cunning she was--what a charming +little goose to be afraid of a colored waiter. + +Ellen saw nobody except the lady and the black woman, but she was +still sure that there was a child in the house, and after supper, +when she was taken up-stairs to bed, she peeped through every open +door with the expectation of seeing her. + +But she was so weary and sleepy that her curiosity and capacity for +any other emotion was blunted. She had become simply a little, +tired, sleepy animal. She let herself be undressed; she was not even +moved to much self-pity when the lady discovered the cruel bruise on +her delicate knee, and kissed it, and dressed it with a healing +salve. She was put into a little night-gown which she knew dreamily +belonged to that other child, and was laid in a little bedstead +which she noted to be made of gold, with floating lace over the +head. + +She sleepily noted, too, that there were flowers on the walls, and +more floating lace over the bureau. This room did not look so +strange to her as the others; she had somehow from the treasures of +her fancy provided the family of big bears and little bears with a +similar one. Then, too, one of the neighbors, Mrs. George Crocker, +had read many articles in women's papers relative to the beautifying +of homes, and had furnished a wonderful chamber with old soap-boxes +and rolls of Japanese paper which was a sort of a cousin many times +removed of this. When she was in bed the lady kissed her, and called +her darling, and bade her sleep well, and not be afraid, she was in +the next room, and could hear if she spoke. Then she stood looking +at her, and Ellen thought that she must be younger than Minnie +Swensen, who lived on her street, and wore a yellow pigtail, and +went to the high-school. Then she closed her heavy eyes, and forgot +to cry about her poor father and mother; still, there was, after +all, a hurt about them down in her childish heart, though a great +wave of new circumstances had rolled on her shore and submerged for +the time her memory and her love, even, she was so feeble and young. + +She slept very soundly, and awoke only once, about two o'clock in +the morning. Then a passing lantern flashed into the chamber into +her eyes, and woke her up, but she only sighed and stretched +drowsily, then turned her little body over with a luxurious roll and +went to sleep again. + +It was poor Andrew Brewster's lantern which flashed in her eyes, for +he was out with a posse of police and sympathizing neighbors and +friends searching for his lost little girl. He was frantic, and when +he came under the gas-lights from time to time the men that saw him +shuddered; they would not have known him, for almost the farthest +agony of which he was capable had changed his face. + + + + +Chapter III + + +By the next morning all the city was in a commotion over little +Ellen's disappearance. Woods on the outskirts were being searched, +ponds were being dragged, posters with a stare of dreadful meaning +in large characters of black and white were being pasted all over +the fences and available barns, and already three of the local +editors had been to the Brewster house to obtain particulars and +photographs of the missing child for reproduction in the city +papers. + +The first train from Boston brought two reporters representing great +dailies. + +Fanny Brewster, white-cheeked, with the rasped redness of tears +around her eyes and mouth, clad in her blue calico wrapper, received +them in her best parlor. Eva had made a fire in the best parlor +stove early that morning. "Folks will be comin' in all day, I +expect," said she, speaking with nervous catches of her breath. Ever +since the child had been missed, Eva's anxiety had driven her from +point to point of unrest as with a stinging lash. She had pelted +bareheaded down the road and up the road; she had invaded all the +neighbors' houses, insisting upon looking through their farthest and +most unlikely closets; she had even penetrated to the woods, and +joined wild-eyed the groups of peering workers on the shore of the +nearest pond. That she could not endure long, so she had rushed home +to her sister, who was either pacing her sitting-room with +inarticulate murmurs and wails of distress in the sympathizing ears +of several of the neighboring women, or else was staring with +haggard eyes of fearful hope from a window. When she looked from the +eastern window she could see her mother-in-law, Mrs. Zelotes +Brewster, at an opposite one, sitting immovable, with her Bible in +her lap, prayer in her heart, and an eye of grim holding to faith +upon the road for the fulfilment of promise. She felt all her +muscles stiffen with anger when she saw the wild eyes of the child's +mother at the other window. "It is all her fault," she said to +herself--"all her fault--hers and that bold trollop of a sister of +hers." When she saw Eva run down the road, with her black hair +rising like a mane to the morning wind, she was an embodiment of an +imprecatory psalm. When, later on, she saw the three editors +coming--Mr. Walsey, of _The Spy_, and Mr. Jones, of _The Observer_, +and young Joe Bemis, of _The Star_, on his bicycle--she watched +jealously to see if they were admitted. When Fanny's head +disappeared from the eastern window she knew that Eva had let them +in and Fanny was receiving them in the parlor. "She will tell them +all about the words they had last night, that made the dear child +run away," she thought. "All the town will know what doings there +are in our family." Mrs. Zelotes made up her mind to a course of +action. Each editor was granted a long audience with Fanny and Eva, +who entertained them with hysterical solemnity and displayed Ellen's +photographs in the red plush album, from the last, taken in her best +white frock, to one when she was three weeks old, and seeming weakly +and not likely to live. This had been taken by a photographer +summoned to the house at great expense. "Her father has never spared +expense for Ellen," said Fanny, with an outburst of grief. "That's +so," said Eva. "I'll testify to that. Andrew Brewster never thought +anything was too good for that young one." Then she burst out with +a sob louder than her sister's. Eva had usually a coarsely +well-kempt appearance, her heavy black hair being securely twisted, +and her neck ribbons tied with smart jerks of neatness; but to-day +her hair was still in the fringy braids of yesterday, and her cotton +blouse humped untidily in the back. Her face was red and her lips +swollen; she looked like a very bacchante of sorrow, and as if she +had been on some mad orgy of grief. + +Mr. Walsey, of _The Spy_, who had formerly conducted a paper in a +college town and was not accustomed to the feminine possibilities of +manufacturing localities, felt almost afraid of her. He had never +seen a woman of that sort, and thought vaguely of the French +Revolution and fish-wives when she gave vent to her distress over +the loss of the child. He fairly jumped when she cut short a +question of his with a volley of self-recriminatory truths, +accompanied with fierce gesturing. He stood back involuntarily out +of reach of those powerful, waving arms. "Do I know of any reason +for the child to run away?" shrieked Eva, in a voice shrilly hideous +with emotion, now and then breaking into hoarseness with the strain +of tears. "I guess I know why, I guess I do, and I wish I had been +six foot under ground before I did what I did. It was all my fault, +every bit of it. When I got home, and found that Fan had been making +that precious young one a dress out of my old blue one, I pitched +into her for it, and she gave it back to me, and then we jawed, and +kept it up, till Andrew, he grabbed the dress and flung it into the +fire, and did just right, too, and took Ellen and run over to old +lady Brewster's with her; then Ellen, she see him cryin', and it +scared her 'most to death, poor little thing, and she heard him say +that if it wasn't for her he'd quit, and then she come runnin' home +to her mother and me, and her mother said the same thing, and then +that poor young one, she thought she wa'n't wanted nowheres, and she +run. She always was as easy to hurt as a baby robin; it didn't take +nothing to set her all of a flutter and a twitter; and now she's +just flown out of the nest. Oh my God, I wish my tongue had been +torn out by the roots before I'd said a word about her blessed +little dress; I wish Fan had cut up every old rag I've got; I'd go +dressed in fig-leaves before I'd had it happen. Oh! oh! oh!" + +Young Joe Bemis, of _The Star_, was the first to leave, whirling +madly and precariously down the street on his wheel, which was +dizzily tall in those days. Mrs. Zelotes, hailing him from her open +window, might as well have hailed the wind. Her family dissensions +were well aired in _The Star_ next morning, and she always kept the +cutting at the bottom of a little rosewood work-box where she stored +away divers small treasures, and never looked at the box without a +swift dart of pain as from a hidden sting and the consciousness as +of the presence of some noxious insect caged therein. + +Mrs. Zelotes was more successful in arresting the progress of the +other editors, and (standing at the window, her Bible on the little +table at her side) flatly contradicted all that had been told them +by her daughter-in-law and her sister. "The Louds always give way, +no matter what comes up. You can always tell what kind of a family +anybody comes from by the way they take things when anything comes +across them. You can't depend on anything she says this morning. My +son did not marry just as I wished; everybody knows that; the Louds +weren't equal to our family, and everybody knows it, and I have +never made any secret as to how I felt, but we have always got along +well enough. The Brewsters are not quarrelsome; they never have +been. There were no words whatever last night to make my +granddaughter run away. Eva and Fanny are all wrong about it. Ellen +has been stolen; I know it as well as if I had seen it. A +strange-looking woman came to the door yesterday afternoon; she was +the tallest woman I ever saw, and she took the widest steps; she +measured her dress skirt every step she took, and she spoke gruff. I +said then I knew she was a man dressed up. Ellen was playing out in +the yard, and she saw the child as she went out, and I see her stoop +and look at her real sharp, and my blood run kind of cold then, and +I called Ellen away as quick as I could; and the woman, she turned +round and gave me a look that I won't ever forget as long as I live. +My belief is that that woman was laying in wait when Ellen was going +across the yard home from here last night, and she has got her safe +somewhere till a reward is offered. Or maybe she wants to keep her, +Ellen is such a beautiful child. You needn't put in your papers that +my grandchild run away because of quarrelling in our family, because +she didn't. Eva and Fanny don't know what they are talking about, +they are so wrought up; and, coming from the family they do, they +don't know how to control themselves and show any sense. I feel it +as much as they do, but I have been sitting here all the morning; I +know I can't do anything to help, and I am working a good deal +harder, waiting, than they are, rushing from pillar to post and +taking on, and I'm doing more good. I shall be the only one fit to +do anything when they find the poor child. I've got blankets warming +by the fire, and my tea-kettle on, and I'm going to be the one to +depend on when she's brought home." Mrs. Zelotes gave a glance of +defiant faith from the window down the road as she spoke. Then she +settled back in her chair and resumed her Bible, and dismissed the +tall and forbidding woman whom she had summoned to save the honor of +her family resolutely from her conscience. The editors of _The Spy_ +and _The Observer_ had a row of ingratiating photographs of little +Ellen from three weeks to seven years of age; and their opinions as +to the cause of her disappearance, while fully agreeing in all +points of sensationalism with those of young Bemis, of _The Star_, +differed in detail. + +Young Bemis read about the mysterious kidnapper, and wondered, and +the demand for _The Star_ was chiefly among the immediate neighbors +of the Brewsters. Both _The Observer_ and _The Spy_ doubled their +circulation in one day, and every face on the night cars was hidden +behind poor little Ellen's baby countenances and the fairy-story of +the witch-woman who had lured her away. Mothers kept their children +carefully in-doors that evening, and pulled down curtains, fearful +lest She look in the windows and be tempted. Mrs. Zelotes also +waylaid both of the Boston reporters, but with results upon which +she had not counted. One presented her story and Fanny's and Eva's +with impartial justice; the other kept wholly to the latter version, +with the addition of a shrewd theory of his own, deduced from the +circumstances which had a parallel in actual history, and boldly +stated that the child had probably committed suicide on account of +family troubles. Poor Fanny and Eva both saw that, when night was +falling and Ellen had not been found. Eva rushed out and secured the +paper from the newsboy, and the two sisters gasped over the +startling column together. + +"It's a lie! oh, Fanny, it's a lie!" cried Eva. "She never would; +oh, she never would! That little thing, just because she heard you +and me scoldin', and you said that to her, that if it wasn't for her +you'd go away. She never would." + +"Go away?" sobbed Fanny--"go away? I wouldn't go away from hell if +she was there. I would burn; I would hear the clankin' of chains, +and groans, and screeches, and devils whisperin' in my ears what I +had done wrong, for all eternity, before I'd go where they were +playin' harps in heaven, if she was there. I'd like it better, I +would. And I'd stay here if I had twenty sisters I didn't get along +with, and be happier than I would be anywhere else on earth, if she +was here. But she couldn't have done it. She didn't know how. It's +awful to put such things into papers." + +Eva jumped up with a fierce gesture, ran to the stove, and crammed +the paper in. "There!" said she; "I wish I could serve all the +papers in the country the same way. I do, and I'd like to put all +the editors in after 'em. I'd like to put 'em in the stove with +their own papers for kindlin's." Suddenly Eva turned with a swish +of skirts, and was out of the room and pounding up-stairs, shaking +the little house with every step. When she returned she bore over +her arm her best dress--a cherished blue silk, ornate with ribbons +and cheap lace. "Where's that pattern?" she asked her sister. + +"She wouldn't ever do such a thing," moaned Fanny. + +"Where's that pattern?" + +"What pattern?" Fanny said, faintly. + +"That little dress pattern. Her little dress pattern, the one you +cut over my dress for her by." + +"In the bureau drawer in my room. Oh, she wouldn't." + +Eva went into the bedroom, returned with the pattern, got the +scissors from Fanny's work-basket, and threw her best silk dress in +a rustling heap upon the table. + +Fanny stopped moaning and looked at her with wretched wonder. "What +be you goin' to do?" + +"Do?" cried Eva, fiercely--"do? I'm goin' to cut this dress over for +her." + +"You ain't." + +"Yes, I be. If I drove her away from home, scoldin' because you cut +over that other old thing of mine for her, I'm goin' to make up for +it now. I'm goin' to give her my best blue silk, that I paid a +dollar and a half a yard for, and 'ain't worn three times. Yes, I +be. She's goin' to have a dress cut out of it, an' she's comin' back +to wear it, too. You'll see she is comin' home to wear it." + +Eva cut wildly into the silk with mad slashes of her gleaming +shears, while two neighboring women, who had just come into the +room, stared aghast, and even Fanny was partly diverted from her +sorrow. + +"She's crazy," whispered one of the women, backing away as she +spoke. + +"Oh, Eva, don't; don't do so," pleaded Fanny, tremulously. + +"I be," said Eva, and she cut recklessly up the front breadth. + +"You ain't cutting it right," said the other neighbor, who was +skilful in such matters, and never fully moved from her own +household grooves by any excitement. "If you are a-goin' to cut it +at all, you had better cut it right." + +"I don't care how I cut it," returned Eva, thrusting the woman away. +"Oh, I don't care how I cut it; I want to waste it. I will waste +it." + +The other neighbor backed entirely out of the room, then turned and +fled across the yard, her calico wrapper blowing wildly and lashing +about her slender legs, to her own house, the doors of which she +locked. Presently the other woman followed her, stepping with the +ponderous leisure which results from vastness of body and philosophy +of mind. The autumn wind, swirling in impetuous gusts, had little +effect upon her broadside of woollen shawl. She had not come out on +that raw evening with nothing upon her head. She shook the kitchen +door of her friend, and smiled with calm reassurance when it was +cautiously set ajar to disclose a wide-eyed and open-mouthed face of +terror. "Who is it?" + +"It's me. What have you got your door locked for?" + +"I think that Eva Loud is raving crazy. I'm afraid of her." + +"Lord! you 'ain't no reason to be 'fraid of her. She ain't crazy. +She's only lettin' the birds that fly over your an' my heads settle +down to roost. You and me, both of us, if we was situated jest as +she is, might think of doin' jest what she's a-doin', but we won't +neither of us do it. We'd let our best dresses hang in the closet, +safe and sound, while we cut them up in our souls; but Eva, she's +different." + +"Well, I don't care. I believe she's crazy, and I'm going to keep my +doors locked. How do you know she hasn't killed Ellen and put her in +the well?" + +"Stuff! Now you're lettin' your birds roost, Hattie Monroe." + +"I read something that wasn't any worse than that in the paper the +other day. I should think they would look in the well. Have Mrs. +Jones and Miss Cross gone home?" + +"No; they are over there. There's poor Andrew coming now; I wonder +if he has heard anything?" + +Both women eyed hesitatingly poor Andrew Brewster's dejected figure +creeping up the road in the dark. + +"You holler and ask him," said the woman in the door. + +"I hate to, for I know by his looks he 'ain't heard anything of her. +I know he's jest comin' home to rest a minute, so he can start +again. I know he 'ain't eat a thing since last night. Well, Maria +has got some coffee all made, and a nice little piece of steak ready +to cook." + +"You holler and ask him." + +"What is the use? Just see the way he walks; I know without askin'." + +However, as Andrew neared his house he involuntarily quickened his +pace, and his head and shoulders became suddenly alert. It had +occurred to him that possibly Fanny and Eva might have had some news +of Ellen during his absence. Possibly she might have come home even. + +Then he was hailed by the stout woman standing at the door of the +next house. "Heard anything yet, Andrew?" + +Andrew shook his head, and looked with despairing eyes at the +windows where he used to see Ellen's little face. She had not come, +then, for these women would have known it. He entered the house, and +Fanny greeted him with a tremulous cry. "Have you heard anything; +oh, have you heard anything, Andrew?" + +Eva sprang forward and clutched him by the arm. + +"Have you?" + +[Illustration: Eva sprang forward and clutched him by the arm] + +Andrew shook his head, and moved her hand from his arm, and pushed +past her roughly. + +Fanny stood in his way, and threw her arms around him with a wild, +sobbing cry, but he pushed her away also with sternness, and went to +the kitchen sink to wash his hands. The four women--his wife, her +sister, and the two neighbors--stood staring at him; his face was +terrible as he dipped the water from the pail on the sink corner, +and the terribleness of it was accentuated by the homely and +every-day nature of his action. + +They all stared, then Fanny burst out with a loud and desperate +wail. "He won't speak to me, he pushes me away, when it is our child +that's lost--his as well as mine. He hasn't any feelings for me that +bore her. He only thinks of himself. Oh, oh, my own husband pushes +me away." + +Andrew went on washing his hands and his ghastly face, and made no +reply. He had actually at that moment not the slightest sympathy +with his wife. All his other outlets of affection were choked by his +concern for his lost child; and as for pity, he kept reflecting, +with a cold cruelty, that it served her right--it served both her +and her sister right. Had not they driven the child away between +them? + +He would not eat the supper which the neighbors had prepared for +him; finally he went across the yard to his mother's. It seemed to +him at that time that his mother could enter into his state of mind +better than any one else. + +When he went out, Fanny called after him, frantically, "Oh, Andrew, +you ain't going to leave me?" + +When he made no response, she gazed for a second at his retreating +back, then her temper came to her aid. She caught her sister's arm, +and pulled her away out of the kitchen. "Come with me," she said, +hoarsely. "I've got nobody but you. My own husband leaves me when he +is in such awful trouble, and goes to that old woman, that has +always hated me, for comfort." + +The sisters went into Fanny's bedroom, and sat down on the edge of +the bed, with their arms round each other. "Oh, Fanny!" sobbed Eva; +"poor, poor Fanny! if Andrew turns against you, I will stand by you +as long as I live. I will work my fingers to the bone to support you +and Ellen. I will never get married. I will stay and work for you +and her. And I will never get mad with you again as long as I live, +Fanny. Oh, it was all my fault, every bit my fault, but, but--" +Eva's voice broke; suddenly she clasped her sister tighter, and then +she went down on her knees beside the bed, and hid her tangled head +in her lap. "Oh, Fanny," she sobbed out miserably, "there ain't much +excuse for me, but there's a little. When Jim Tenny stopped goin' +with me last summer, my heart 'most broke. I don't care if you do +know it. That's what made me so much worse than I used to be. Oh, my +heart 'most broke, Fanny! He's treated me awful, but I can't get +over it; and now little Ellen's gone, and I drove her away!" + +Fanny bent over her sister, and pressed her head close to her bosom. +"Don't you feel so bad, Eva," said she. "You wasn't any more to +blame than I was, and we'll stand by each other as long as we live." + +"I'll work my fingers to the bone for you and Ellen, and I'll never +get married," said Eva again. + + + + +Chapter IV + + +Ellen Brewster was two nights and a day at Cynthia Lennox's, and no +one discovered it. All day the searching-parties passed the house. +Once Ellen was at the window, and one of the men looked up and saw +her, and since his solicitude for the lost child filled his heart +with responsiveness towards all childhood, he waved his hand and +nodded, and bade another man look at that handsome little kid in the +window. + +"Guess she's about Ellen's size," said the other. + +"Shouldn't wonder if she looked something like her," said the first. + +"Answers the description well enough," said the other, "same light +hair." + +Both of the men waved their hands to Ellen as they passed on, but +she shrank back afraid. That was about ten o'clock of the morning of +the day after Miss Lennox had taken her into her house. She had +waked at dawn with a full realization of the situation. She +remembered perfectly all that had happened. She was a child for whom +there were very few half-lights of life, and no spiritual twilights +connected her sleeping and waking hours. She opened her eyes and +looked around the room, and remembered how she had run away and how +her mother was not there, and she remembered the strange lady with +that same odd combination of terror and attraction and docility with +which she had regarded her the night before. It was a very cold +morning, and there was a delicate film of frost on the windows +between the sweeps of the muslin curtains, and the morning sun gave +it a rosy glow and a crusting sparkle as of diamonds. The sight of +the frost had broken poor Andrew Brewster's heart when he saw it, +and reflected how it might have meant death to his little tender +child out under the blighting fall of it, like a little +house-flower. + +Ellen lay winking at it when Cynthia Lennox came into the room and +leaned over her. The child cast a timid glance up at the tall, +slender figure clad in a dressing-gown of quilted crimson silk which +dazzled her eyes, accustomed as she was to morning wrappers of +dark-blue cotton at ninety-eight cents apiece; and she was filled +with undefined apprehensions of splendor and opulence which might +overwhelm her simple grasp of life and cause her to lose all her old +standards of value. + +She had always thought her mother's wrappers very beautiful, but now +look at this! Cynthia's face, too, in the dim, rosy light, looked +very fair to the child, who had no discernment for those ravages of +time of which adults either acquit themselves or by which they +measure their own. She did not see the faded color of the woman's +face at all; she did not see the spreading marks around mouth and +eyes, or the faint parallels of care on the temples; she saw only +that which her unbiased childish vision had ever sought in a human +face, love and kindness, and tender admiration of herself; and her +conviction of its beauty was complete. But at the same time a bitter +and piteous jealousy for her mother and home, and all that she had +ever loved and believed in, came over her. What right had this +strange woman, dressed in a silk dress like that, to be leaning over +her in the morning, and looking at her like that--to be leaning over +her in the morning instead of her own mother, and looking at her in +that way, when she was not her mother? She shrank away towards the +other side of the bed with that nestling motion which is the natural +one of all young and gentle children even towards vacancy, but +suddenly Cynthia was leaning close over her, and she was conscious +again of that soft smother of violets, and Cynthia's arms were +embracing all her delicate little body with tenderest violence, +folding her against the soft red silk over her bosom, and kissing +her little, blushing cheeks with the lightest and carefulest kisses, +as though she were a butterfly which she feared to harm with her +adoring touch. + +"Oh, you darling, you precious darling!" whispered Cynthia. "Don't +be afraid, darling; don't be afraid, precious; you are very safe; +don't be afraid. You shall have such a little, white, new-laid egg +for your breakfast, and some slices of toast, such a beautiful +brown, and some honey. Do you love honey, sweet? And some chocolate, +all in a little pink-and-gold cup which you shall have for your very +own." + +"I want my mother!" Ellen cried out suddenly, with an exceedingly +bitter and terrified and indignant cry. + +"There, there, darling!" Cynthia whispered; "there is a beautiful +red-and-green parrot down-stairs in a great cage that shines like +gold, and you shall have him for your own, and he can talk. You +shall have him for your very own, sweetheart. Oh, you darling! you +darling!" + +Ellen felt herself overborne and conquered by this tide of love, +which compelled like her mother's, though this woman was not her +mother, and her revolt of loyalty was subdued for the time. After +all, whether we like it or not, love is somewhat of an impersonal +quality to all children, and perhaps to their elders, and it may be +in such wise that the goddess is evident. + +She did not shrink from Cynthia any more then, but suffered her to +lift her out of bed as if she were a baby and set her on a white fur +rug, into which her feet sank, to her astonishment. Her mother had +only drawn-in rugs, which Ellen had watched her make. She was a +little afraid of the fur rug. + +Ellen was very small, and seemed much younger than she was by reason +of her baby silence and her little clinging ways. Then, too, she had +always been so petted at home, and through never going to school had +not been in contact with other children. Often the bloom of +childhood is soonest rubbed off by friction with its own kind. +Diamond cut diamond holds good in many cases. + +Cynthia did not think she was more than six years old, and never +dreamed of allowing her to dress herself, and indeed the child had +always been largely assisted in so doing. Cynthia washed her and +dressed her, and curled her hair, and led her down-stairs into the +dining-room of the night before, which Ellen still regarded with +wise eyes as the store. Then she sat in the tall chair which must +have been vacated by that mysterious other child, and had her +breakfast, eating her new-laid egg, which the black woman broke for +her, while she leaned delicately away as far as she could with a +timid shrug of her little shoulder, and sipping her chocolate out of +the beautiful pink-and-gold cup. That, however, Ellen decided within +herself was not nearly as pretty as one with "A Gift of Friendship" +on it in gilt letters which her grandmother kept on the whatnot in +her best parlor. This had been given to her aunt Ellen, who died +when she was a young girl, and was to be hers when she grew up. She +did not care as much for the egg and toast either as for the +griddle-cakes and maple syrup at home. All through breakfast Cynthia +talked to her, and in such manner as the child had never heard. That +fine voice, full of sweetest modulations and cadences, which used +the language with the precision of a musician, was as different from +the voices at home with their guttural slurs and maimed terminals as +the song of a spring robin from the scream of the parrot which Ellen +could hear in some distant room. And what Cynthia said was as +different from ordinary conversation to the child as a fairy tale, +being interspersed with terms of endearment which her mother and +grandmother would have considered high-flown, and have been +shamefaced in employing, and full of a whimsical playfulness which +had an undertone of pathos in it. Cynthia was not still for a +minute, and seemed to feel that much of her power lay in her speech +and voice, like some enchantress who cast her spell by means of her +silver tongue. Nobody knew how she dreaded that outcry of Ellen's, +"I want my mother!" It gave her the sensations of a murderess, even +while she persisted in her crime. So she talked, diverting the +child's mind from its natural channel by sheer force of eloquence. +She told a story about the parrot, which caused Ellen's eyes to +widen with thoughtful wonder; she promised her treasures and +pleasures which made her mouth twitch into smiles in spite of +herself; but with all her efforts, when after breakfast they went +into another room, Ellen broke out again, "I want my mother!" + +Cynthia turned white and struggled with herself for a moment, then +she spoke. That which she was doing of the nature of a crime was in +reality more foreign to her nature than virtue, and her instinct was +to return to her narrow and straight way in spite of its cramping of +love and natural longings. "Who is your mother, darling?" she asked. +"And what is your name?" + +But Ellen was silent, except for that one cry, "I want my mother!" +The persistency of the child, in spite of her youth and her +distress, was almost invulnerable. She came of a stiff-necked family +on one side at least, and sometimes stiff-neckedness is more +pronounced in a child than in an adult, in whom it may be tempered +by experience and policy. "I want my mother! I want my mother!" +Ellen repeated in her gentle wail as plaintively inconsequent as the +note of a bird, and would say no more. + +Then Cynthia displayed the parrot, but a parrot was too fine and +fierce a bird for Ellen. She would have preferred him as a subject +for her imagination, which could not be harmed by his beak and +claws, and she liked Cynthia's story about him better than the +gorgeous actuality of the bird himself. She shrank back from that +shrieking splendor, clinging with strong talons to his cage wires, +against which he pressed cruelly his red breast and beat his +gold-green wings, and through which he thrust his hooked beak, and +glared with his yellow eyes. + +Ellen fairly sobbed at last when the parrot thrust out a wicked and +deceiving claw towards her, and said something in his unearthly +shriek which seemed to have a distinct reference to her, and fired +at her a volley of harsh "How do's" and "Good-mornings," and +"Good-nights," and "Polly want a cracker's," then finished with a +wild shriek of laughter, her note of human grief making a curious +chord with the bird's of inhuman mirth. "I want my mother!" she +panted out, and wept, and would not be comforted. Then Cynthia took +her away from the parrot and produced the doll. Then truly did the +sentiment of emulative motherhood in her childish breast console her +for the time for her need of her own mother. Such a doll as that she +had never seen, not even in the store-windows at Christmas-time. +Still, she had very fine dolls for a little girl whose relatives +were not wealthy, but this doll was like a princess, and nearly as +large as Ellen. + +Ellen held out her arms for this ravishing creature in a French +gown, looked into its countenance of unflinching infantile grace and +amiability and innocence, and her fickle heart betrayed her, and she +laughed with delight, and the tension of anxiety relaxed in her +face. + +"Where is her mother?" she asked of Cynthia, having a very firm +belief in the little girl-motherhood of dolls. She could not imagine +a doll without her little mother, and even in the cases of the +store-dolls, she wondered how their mothers could let them be sold, +and mothered by other little girls, however poor they might be. But +she never doubted that her own dolls were her very own children even +if they had been bought in a store. So now she asked Cynthia with an +indescribably pitying innocence, "Where is her mother?" + +Cynthia laughed and looked adoringly at the child with the doll in +her arms. "She has no mother but you," said she. "She is yours, but +once she belonged to a dear little boy, who used to live with me." + +Ellen stared thoughtfully: she had never seen a little boy with a +doll. The lady seemed to read her thought, for she laughed again. + +"This little boy had curls, and he wore dresses like a little girl, +and he was just as pretty as a little girl, and he loved to play +with dolls like a little girl," said she. + +"Where is he?" asked Ellen, in a small, gentle voice. "Don't he want +her now?" + +"No, darling," said Cynthia; "he is not here; he has been gone away +two years, and he had left off his baby curls and his dresses, and +stopped playing with her for a year before that." Cynthia sighed +and drew down her mouth, and Ellen looked at her lovingly and +wonderingly. + +"Be you his mother?" she asked, piteously; then, before Cynthia +could answer, her own lip quivered and she sobbed out again, even +while she hugged her doll-child to her bosom, "I want my mother! I +want my mother!" + +All that day the struggle went on. Cynthia Lennox, leading her +little guest, who always bore the doll, traversed the fine old house +in search of distraction, for the heart of the child was sore for +its mother, and success was always intermittent. The music-box +played, the pictures were explained, and even old trunks of +laid-away treasures ransacked. Cynthia took her through the +hot-houses and gave her all the flowers she liked to pick, to still +that longing cry of hers. Cynthia Lennox had fine hot-houses kept by +an old colored man, the husband of her black cook. Her establishment +was very small; her one other maid she had sent away early that +morning to make a visit with a sick sister in another town. The old +colored couple had lived in her family since she was born, and would +have been silent had she stolen a whole family of children. Ellen +caught a glimpse of a bent, dark figure at one end of the pink-house +as they entered; he glanced up at her with no appearance of +surprise, only a broad, welcoming expansion of his whole face, which +caused her to shrink; then he shuffled out in response to an order +of his mistress. + +Ellen stared at the pinks, swarming as airily as butterflies in +motley tints of palest rose to deepest carmine over the blue-green +jungle of their stems; she sniffed the warm, moist, perfumed +atmosphere; she followed Cynthia down the long perspective of bloom, +then she said again that she wanted her mother; and Cynthia led her +into the rose-house, then into one where the grapes hung low +overhead and the air was as sweet and strong as wine, but even there +Ellen wanted her mother. + +But it was not until the next morning when she was eating her +breakfast that the climax came. Then the door-bell rang, and +presently Cynthia was summoned into another room. She kissed Ellen, +and bade her go on with her breakfast and she would return shortly; +but before she had quite left the room a man stood unexpectedly in +the door-way, a man who looked younger than Cynthia. He had a fair +mustache, a high forehead scowling over near-sighted blue eyes, and +stood with a careless slouch of shoulders in a gray coat. + +"Good-morning," he began. Then he stopped short when he saw Ellen in +her tall chair staring shyly around at him through her soft golden +mist of hair. "What child is that?" he demanded; but Cynthia with a +sharp cry sprang to him, and fairly pulled him out of the room, and +closed the door. + +Then Ellen heard voices rising higher and higher, and Cynthia say, +in a voice of shrill passion: "I cannot, Lyman. I cannot give her +up. You don't know what I have suffered since George married and +took little Robert away. I can't let this child go." + +Then came the man's voice, hoarse with excitement: "But, Cynthia, +you must; you are mad. Think what this means. Why, if people know +what you have done, kept this child, while all this search has been +going on, and made no effort to find out who she was--" + +"I did ask her, and she would not tell me," Cynthia said, miserably. + +"Good Lord! what of that? That is nothing but a subterfuge. You must +have seen in the papers--" + +"I have not looked at a paper since she came." + +"Of course you have not. You were afraid to. Why, good God! Cynthia +Lennox, I don't know but you will stand in danger of lynching if +people ever find this out, that you have taken in this child and +kept her in this way--I don't know what people will do." + +Ellen waited for no more; she rose softly, she gathered up her great +doll which sat in a little chair near by, she gathered up her +pink-and-gold cup which had been given her, and the pinks which had +been brought from the hot-house the day before, which Cynthia had +arranged in a vase beside her plate, then she stole very softly out +of the side door, and out of the house, and ran down the street as +fast as her little feet could carry her. + + + + +Chapter V + + +That morning, after the street in front of Lloyd's factory had been +cleared of the flocking employes with their little dinner-boxes, and +the great broadside of the front windows had been set with faces of +the workers, a distracted figure came past. A young fellow at a +window of the cutting-room noticed her first. "Look at that, Jim +Tenny," said he, with a shove of an elbow towards his next neighbor. + +"Get out, will ye?" growled Jim Tenny, but he looked. + +Then three girls from the stitching-room came crowding up behind +with furtively tender pressings of round arms against the shoulders +of the young men. "We come in here to see if that was Eva Loud," +said one, a sharp-faced, alert girl, not pretty, but a favorite +among the male employes, to the constant wonder of the other girls. + +"Yes, it's her fast enough," rejoined another, a sweet-faced blonde +with an exaggeratedly fashionable coiffure and a noticeable +smartness in the tie of her neck-ribbon and the set of her cotton +waist. "Just look at the poor thing's hair. Only see how frowsly it +is, and she has come out without her hat." + +"Well, I don't wonder," said the third girl, who was elderly and +whose complexion was tanned and weather-beaten almost to the color +of the leather upon which she worked. Yet through this seamed and +discolored face, with thin grayish hair drawn back tightly from the +temples, one could discern, as through a transparent mask, a past +prettiness and an exceeding gentleness and faithfulness. "If my +sister's little Helen was to be lost I shouldn't know whether my hat +was on or not," said she. "I believe I should go raving mad." + +"You wouldn't have to slave as you have done supportin' it ever +since your sister's husband died," said the pretty girl. "Only look +how Eva's waist bags in the back and she 'ain't got any belt on. I +wouldn't come out lookin' so." + +"I should die if I didn't have something to work for. That's the +difference between being a worker and a slave," said the other girl, +simply. "Poor Eva!" + +"Well, it was a pretty young one," said the first girl. + +"Looks to me as if Eva Loud's skirt was comin' off," said the pretty +girl. She pressed close to Jim Tenny with a familiar air of +proprietorship as she spoke, but the young man did not seem to heed +her. He was looking over his bench at the figure on the street +below, and his heavy black eyebrows were scowling, and his mouth +set. + +Jim Tenny was handsome after a swarthy and grimy fashion, for the +tint of the leather seemed to have become absorbed into his skin. +His black mustache bristled roughly, but his face was freer than +usual from his black beard-stubble, because the day before had been +Sunday and he had shaved. His black right hand with its squat +discolored nails grasped his cutting-knife with a hard clutch, his +left held the piece of leather firmly in place, while he stared out +with that angry and anxious scowl at Eva, who had paused on the +street below, and was staring up at the windows, as if she meditated +a wild search in the factory for the lost child. There was a curious +likeness between the two faces; people had been accustomed to say +that Eva Loud and her gentleman looked more like brother and sister +than a courting couple, and there was, moreover, a curious spirit of +comradeship between the two. It asserted itself now with the young +man, in opposition to the more purely sexual attraction of the +pretty girl who was leaning against him, and for whom he had +deserted Eva. + +After all, friendship and good comradeship are a steadier force than +love, if not as overwhelming, and it may be that tortoise of the +emotions which outruns the hare. + +"Well, for my part, I think a good deal more of Eva Loud than if she +had come out all frizzed and ruffled--shows her heart is in the +right place," said the man who had spoken first. He spoke with a +guttural drawl, and kept on with his work, but there was a meaning +in his words for the pretty girl, who had coquetted with him before +taking up with Jim Tenny. + +"That is so," said another man at Jim Tenny's right. "She is right +to come out as she has done when she is so anxious for the child." +This man was a fair-haired Swede, and he spoke English with a +curious and careful precision, very different from the hurried, +slurring intonations of the other men. He had been taught the +language by a philanthropic young lady, a college graduate, in whose +father's family he had lived when he first came to America, and in +consequence he spoke like a gentleman and had some considerable +difficulty in understanding his companions. + +"Eva Loud has had a damned hard time, take it all together," spoke +out another man, looking over is bench at the girl on the street. He +was small and thin and wiry, a mass of brown-coated muscles under +his loose-hanging gingham shirt. He plied feverishly his +cutting-knife with his lean, hairy hands as he spoke. He was +accounted one of the best and swiftest cutters in Lloyd's, and he +worked unceasingly, for he had an invalid wife and four children to +support. Now and then he had to stop to cough, then he worked +faster. + +"That's so," said the first man. + +"Yes, that is so," said the Swede, with a nod of his fair head. + +"And now to lose this young one that she set her life by," said the +first girl, with an evident point of malice in her tone, and a +covert look at the pretty girl at Jim Tenny's side. Jim Tenny paled +under his grime; the hand which held the knife clinched. + +"What do you s'pose has become of the young one?" said the first +girl. "There's a good many out from the shop huntin' this mornin', +ain't there?" + +"Fifty," said the first man, laconically. + +"You three were out all day yesterday, wa'n't you?" + +"Yes, Jim and Carl and me were out till after midnight." + +"Well, I wonder whether the poor little young one is alive? Don't +seem as if she could be--but--" + +"Look there! look there!" screamed the elderly girl suddenly. "Look +at _there!_" She began to dance, she laughed, she sobbed, she waved +her lean hands frantically out of the window, leaning far over the +bench. "Look at there!" she kept crying. Then she turned and ran out +of the room, with the other girls and half the cutting-room after +her. + +"Damn it, she's got the child!" said the thin man. He kept on +working, his dark, sinewy hands flying over the sheets of leather, +but the tears ran down his cheeks. Lloyd's emptied itself into the +street, and surrounded Eva Loud and Ellen, who, running aimlessly, +had come straight to her aunt. Jim Tenny was first. + +Eva stood clasping the child, who was too frightened to cry, and was +breathing in hushed gasps, her face hidden on her aunt's broad +bosom. Eva had caught her up at the first sight of her, and now she +stood clasping her fiercely, and looking at them all as if she +thought they wanted to rob her of the child. Even when a great cheer +went up from the crowd, and was echoed by another from the factory, +with an accompaniment of waving bare, leather-stained arms and +hands, that expression of desperate defiance instead of the joy of +recovery did not leave her face, not until she saw Jim Tenny's face +working with repressed emotion and met his eyes full of the memory +of old comradeship. Then her bold heart and her pride all melted and +she burst out in a great wail before them all. + +"Oh, Jim!" she cried out. "Oh, Jim, I lost you, and then I thought +I'd lost her! Oh, Jim!" + +Then there was a chorus of feminine sobs, for Eva's wild weeping had +precipitated the ready sympathy of half the girls present. The men +started a cheer to cover a certain chivalrous shamefacedness which +was upon them at the sight of the girl's grief, and another cheer +from the factory echoed it. Then came another sound, the great +steam-whistle of Lloyd's; then the whistles of the other neighboring +factories responded, and people began to swarm out of them, and the +windows to fill with eager faces. Jim Tenny grasped Eva's arm with a +grasp like a vise. "Come this way," said he, sharply. "Come this +way, Eva." + +"Oh, Jim! oh, Jim!" Eva sobbed again; but she followed him, little +Ellen's golden fleece tossing over her shoulder. + +"She's got her; she's got her!" shouted the people. + +[Illustration: 'She's got her!' Shouted the people] + +Then the leather-stained hands gyrated, the cheers went up, and +again the whistles blew. + +Jim Tenny, with his hand on Eva's arm, pushed his way through the +crowd. + +"Where you goin', Jim?" asked the pretty girl at his elbow, but he +pushed past her roughly, and did not seem to hear. Eva's face was +all inflamed and convulsed with sobs, but she did not dream of +covering it--she was full of the holy shamelessness of grief and +joy. "Let me see her! let me see her! Oh, the dear little thing, +only look at her! Where have you been, precious? Are you hungry? Oh, +Nellie, she is hungry, I know! She looks thin. Run over to the +bakery and buy her some cookies, quick! Are you cold? Give her this +sacque. Only look at her! Kate, only look at her! Are you hurt, +darling? Has anybody hurt you? If anybody has, he shall be hung! Oh, +you darling! Only see her, 'Liza." + +But Jim Tenny, his mouth set, his black brows scowling, his hard +grasp on Eva's arm, pushed straight through the gathering crowd +until they came to Clarkson's stables at the rear of Lloyd's, where +he kept his horse and buggy--for he lived at a distance from his +work, and drove over every morning. He pointed to a chair which a +hostler had occupied, tilted against the wall, for a morning smoke, +after the horses were fed and watered, and which he had vacated to +join the jubilant crowd. "Sit down there," he said to Eva. Then he +hailed a staring man coming out of the office. "Here, help me in +with my horse, quick!" said he. + +The man stared still, with slowly rising indignation. He was portly +and middle-aged, the senior partner of the firm, who seldom touched +his own horses of late years, and had a son at Harvard. "What's to +pay? What do you mean? Anybody sick?" he asked. + +"Help me into the buggy with my horse!" shouted Jim Tenny. "I tell +you the child is found, and I've got to take it home to its folks." + +"Don't they know yet? Is that it?" + +"Yes, I tell you." Jim was backing out his horse as he spoke. + +Mr. Clarkson seized a harness and threw the collar over the horse's +head, while Jim ran out the buggy. When Mr. Clarkson lifted Eva and +Ellen into the buggy he gave the child's head a pat. "God bless it!" +he said, and his voice broke. + +The horse was restive. Jim took a leap into the buggy at Eva's side, +and they were out with a dash and a swift rattle. The crowd parted +before them, and cheer after cheer went up. The whistles sounded +again. Then all the city bells rang out. They were signalling the +other searchers that the child was found. Jim and Eva and Ellen made +a progress of triumph down the street. The crowd pursued them with +cheers of rejoicing; doors and windows flew open; the house-yards +were full of people. Jim drove as fast as he could, scowling hard to +hide his tenderness and pity. Eva sat by his side, weeping in her +terrible candor of grief and joy, and Ellen's golden locks tossed on +her shoulder. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +As Jim Tenny, with Eva Loud and the child, drove down the road +towards the Brewster house, his horse and buggy became the nucleus +of a gathering procession, shouting and exclaiming, with voices all +tuned to one key of passionate sympathy. There were even many women +of the poorer class who had no sense of indecency in following the +utmost lead of their tender emotions. Some of them bore children of +their own in their arms, and were telling them with passionate +croonings to look at the other little girl in the carriage who had +been lost, and gone away a whole day and two nights from her mother. +They often called out fondly to Ellen and Eva, and ordered Jim to +wait a moment that they might look at the poor darling. But Jim +drove on as fast as he was able, though he had sometimes to rein his +horse sharply to avoid riding down some lean racing boys, who would +now and then shoot ahead of him with loud whoops of triumph. Once as +he drove he laid one hand caressingly over Eva's. "Poor girl!" he +said, hoarsely and shamefacedly, and Eva sobbed loudly. When Jim +reached Mrs. Zelotes Brewster's house there was a swift displacement +of lights and shadows in a window, a door flew open, and the gaunt +old woman was at the wheel. + +"Stop!" she cried. "Stop! Bring her in here to me! Let me have her! +Give her to me; I have got everything ready! Come, Ellen--come to +grandmother!" + +Then there was a mad rush from the opposite direction, and the +child's mother was there, reaching into the buggy with fierce arms +of love and longing. "Give her to me!" she shrieked out. "Give me my +baby, Eva Loud! Oh, Ellen, where have you been?" + +Fanny Brewster dragged her child from her sister's arms so forcibly +that she seemed fairly to fly over the wheel. Then she strained her +to her hungry bosom, covering her with kisses, wetting her soft face +and yellow hair with tears. + +"My baby, mother's darling, mother's baby!" she gasped out with +great pants of satisfied love; but another pair of lean, wiry old +arms stole around the child's slender body. + +"Give her to me!" demanded Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. "She is my son's +child, and I have a right to her! You will kill her, goin' on so +over her. Give her to me! I have everything all ready in my house to +take care of her. Give her to me, Fanny Loud!" + +"Keep your hands off her!" cried Fanny. "She's my own baby, and +nobody's goin' to take her away from me, I guess." + +"Give her to me this minute!" said Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. "You'll +kill her, goin' on so. You're frightenin' her to death. Give her to +me this minute!" + +Ellen, meanwhile, that little tender blossom tossed helplessly by +contending waves of love, was weeping and trembling with joy at the +feel of her mother's arms and with awe and terror at this tempest of +passion which she had evoked. + +"Give her to me!" demanded Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. + +The crowd who had followed stood gaping with working faces. The +mothers wept over their own children. Eva stood at her sister's +elbow, with a hand on one of the child's, which was laid over +Fanny's shoulder. Jim Tenny had his face hidden on his horse's neck. + +"Give her to me!" said Mrs. Zelotes again. "Give her to me, I say! I +am her own grandmother!" + +"And I am her own mother!" called out Fanny, with a great +master-note of love and triumph and defiance. "I'm her own mother, +and I've got her, and nobody but God shall take her from me again." +The tears streamed down her cheeks; she kissed the child with pale, +parted lips. She was at once pathetic and terrible. She was human +love and selfishness incarnate. + +Mrs. Zelotes Brewster stared at her, and her face changed suddenly +and softened. She turned and went back into her own house. Her gray +head appeared a second beside her window, then sank out of sight. +She was kneeling there with her Bible at her side, a sudden sweet +humility of thankfulness rising from her whole spirit like a +perfume, when Fanny, with Eva following, still clinging to the +child's little hand over her sister's shoulder, went across the yard +to her own house to tell her husband. The others followed, and stood +about outside, listening with curiosity sanctified by intensest +sympathy. One nervous-faced boy leaped on the slant of the bulkhead +to peer in a window of the sitting-room, and when his mother pulled +him back forcibly, rubbed his grimy little knuckles across his eyes, +and a dark smooch appeared on his nose and cheeks. He was a young +boy, very small and thin for his age. He whispered to his mother and +she nodded, and he darted off in the direction of his own home. + +Andrew Brewster had just come home after an all-night's search, and +he was in his bedroom in the bitter sleep of utter exhaustion and +despair. Suddenly his heart had failed him and his brain had reeled. +He had begun to feel dazed, to forget for a minute what he was +looking for. He had made incoherent replies to the men with him, and +finally one, after a whispered consultation with the others, had +said: "Look at here, Andrew, old fellow; you'd better go home and +rest a bit. We'll look all the harder while you're gone, and maybe +she'll be found when you wake up." + +"Who will be found?" Andrew asked, with a dazed look. He reeled as +if he were drunk. + +"Ain't had anything, has he?" one of the men whispered. + +"Not a drop to my knowledge." + +Andrew's lips trembled perceptibly; his forehead was knitted with +vacuous perplexity; his eyes reflected blanks of unreason; his whole +body had an effect of weak settling and subsidence. The man who +worked next to him in the cutting-room at Lloyd's, and had searched +at his side indefatigably from the first, stole a tender hand under +his shoulder. "Come along with me, old man," he said, and Andrew +obeyed. + +When Fanny and Eva came in with the child, he lay prostrate on the +bed, and scarcely seemed to breathe. A great qualm of fear shot over +Fanny for a second. His father had died of heart-disease. + +"Is he--dead?" she gasped to Eva. + +"No, of course he ain't," said Eva. "He's asleep; he's wore out. +Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, wake up! She's found, Andrew; Ellen's +found." But Andrew did not stir. + +"He is!" gasped Fanny, again. + +"No, he ain't. Andrew, Andrew Brewster, wake up, wake up! Ellen's +here! She's found!" + +Fanny put Ellen down, and bent over Andrew and listened. "No, I can +hear him breathe," she cried. Then she kissed him, and leaned her +mouth close to his ear. "Andrew!" she said, in a voice which Eva and +Ellen had never heard before. "Andrew, poor old man, wake up; she's +found! Our child is found!" + +When Andrew still did not wake, but only stirred, and moaned +faintly, Fanny lifted Ellen onto the bed. "Kiss poor father, and +wake him," she told her. + +Ellen, whose blue eyes were big with fright and wonder, whose lips +were quivering, and whose little body was vibrating with the strain +of her nerves, laid her soft cheek against her father's rough, pale +one, and stole a little arm under his neck. "Father, wake up!" she +called out in her little, trembling, sweet voice, and that reached +Andrew Brewster in the depths of his own physical inertness. He +opened his eyes and looked at the child, and the light came into +them, and then the sound of his sobbing filled the house and reached +the people out in the yard, and an echo arose from them. Gradually +the crowd dispersed. Jim Tenny, before he drove away, went to the +door and spoke to Eva. + +"Anything I can do?" he asked, with a curious, tender roughness. He +did not look at her as he spoke. + +"No; thank you, Jim," replied Eva. + +Suddenly the young man reached out a hand and stroked her rough +hair. "Well, take care of yourself, old girl," he said. + +Eva went to her sister as Jim went out of the yard. Ellen was in the +sitting-room with her father, and Fanny had gone to the kitchen to +heat some milk for the child, whom she firmly believed to have had +nothing to eat during her absence. + +"Fanny," said Eva. + +"Well?" said Fanny. "I can't stop; I must get some milk for her; she +must be 'most starved." + +Fanny turned and looked at Eva, who cast down her eyes before her in +a very shamefacedness of happiness and contrition. + +"Why, what is it?" repeated Fanny, staring at her. + +"I've got Jim back, I guess, as well as Ellen," said Eva, "and I'm +going to be a good woman." + +After all the crowd of people outside had gone, the little nervous +boy raced into the Brewster yard with a tin cup of chestnuts in his +hand. He knocked at the side door, and when Fanny opened it he +thrust them upon her. "They're for her!" he blurted out, and was +gone, racing like a deer. + +"Don't you want the cup back?" Fanny shouted after him. + +"No, ma'am," he called back, and that, although his mother had +charged him to bring back the cup or he would get a scolding. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +Ellen had clung fast all the time to her doll, her bunch of pinks, +and her cup and saucer; or, rather, she had guarded them jealously. +"Where did you get all these things?" her aunt Eva had asked her, +amazedly, when she first caught sight of her, and then had not +waited for an answer in her wild excitement of joy at the recovery +of the child. The great, smiling wax doll had ridden between Jim and +Eva in the buggy, Eva had held the pink cup and saucer with a kind +of mechanical carefulness, and Ellen herself clutched the pinks in +one little hand, though she crushed them against her aunt's bosom as +she sat in her lap. Ellen's grandmother and aunt had glanced at +these treasures with momentary astonishment, and so had her mother, +but curiosity was in abeyance for both of them for the time; rapture +at the sight of the beloved child at whose loss they had suffered +such agonies was the one emotion of their souls. But later +investigation was to follow. + +When Ellen did not seem to care for her hot milk liberally sweetened +in her own mug, and griddle-cakes with plenty of syrup, her mother +looked at her, and her eyes of love sharpened with inquiry. "Ain't +you hungry?" she said. Ellen shook her head. She was sitting at the +table in the dining-room, and her father, mother, and aunt were all +hovering about her, watching her. Some of the neighbor women were +also in the room, staring with a sort of deprecating tenderness of +curiosity. + +"Do you feel sick?" Ellen's father inquired, anxiously. + +"You don't feel sick, do you?" repeated her mother. + +Ellen shook her head. + +Just then Mrs. Zelotes Brewster came in with her +black-and-white-checked shawl pinned around her gaunt old face, +which had in it a strange softness and sweetness, which made Fanny +look at her again, after the first glance, and not know why. + +"We've got our blessing back again, mother," said her son Andrew, in +a broken voice. + +"But she won't eat her breakfast, now mother has gone and cooked it +for her, so nice, too," said Fanny, in a tone of confidence which +she had never before used towards Mrs. Zelotes. + +"You don't feel sick, do you, Ellen?" asked her grandmother. + +Ellen shook her head. "No, ma'am," said she. + +"She says she don't feel sick, and she ain't hungry," Andrew said, +anxiously. + +"I wonder if she would eat one of my new doughnuts. I've got some +real nice ones," said a neighbor--the stout woman from the next +house, whose breadth of body seemed to symbolize a corresponding +spiritual breadth of motherliness, as she stood there looking at the +child who had been lost and was found. + +"Don't you want one of Aunty Wetherhed's nice doughnuts?" asked +Fanny. + +"No; I thank you," replied Ellen. Eva started suddenly with an air +of mysterious purpose, opened a door, ran down cellar, and returned +with a tumbler of jelly, but Ellen shook her head even at that. + +"Have you had your breakfast?" said Fanny. + +Then Ellen was utterly quiet. She did not speak; she made no sign or +motion. She sat still, looking straight before her. + +"Don't you hear, Ellen?" said Andrew. "Have you had your breakfast +this morning?" + +"Tell Auntie Eva if you have had your breakfast," Eva said. + +Mrs. Zelotes Brewster spoke with more authority, and she went +further. + +"Tell grandmother if you have had your breakfast, and where you had +it," said she. + +But Ellen was dumb and motionless. They all looked at one another. +"Tell Aunty Wetherhed: that's a good girl," said the stout woman. + +"Where are those things she had when I first saw her?" asked Mrs. +Zelotes, suddenly. Eva went into the sitting-room, and fetched them +out--the bunch of pinks, the cup and saucer, and the doll. Ellen's +eyes gave a quick look of love and delight at the doll. + +"She had these, luggin' along in her little arms, when I first +caught sight of her comin'," said Eva. + +"Where did you get them, Ellen?" asked Fanny. "Who gave them to +you?" + +Ellen was silent, with all their inquiring eyes fixed upon her face +like a compelling battery. "Where have you been, Ellen, all the time +you have been gone?" asked Mrs. Zelotes. "Now you have got back +safe, you must tell us where you have been." + +Andrew stooped his head down to the child's, and rubbed his rough +cheek against her soft one, with his old facetious caress. "Tell +father where you've been," he whispered. Ellen gave him a little +piteous glance, and her lip quivered, but she did not speak. + +"Where do you s'pose she got them?" whispered one neighbor to +another. + +"I can't imagine; that's a beautiful doll." + +"Ain't it? It must have cost a lot. I know, because my Hattie had +one her aunt gave her last Christmas; that one cost a dollar and +ninety-eight cents, and it didn't begin to compare with this. That's +a handsome cup and saucer, too." + +"Yes, but you can get real handsome cups and saucers to Crosby's for +twenty-five cents. I don't think so much of that." + +"Them pinks must have come from a greenhouse." + +"Yes, they must." + +"Well, there's lots of greenhouses in the city besides the florists. +That don't help much." Then the first woman inclined her lips +closely to the other woman's ear and whispered, causing the other to +start back. "No, I can't believe she would," said she. + +"She came from those Louds on her mother's side," whispered the +first woman, guardedly, with dark emphasis. + +"Ellen," said Fanny, suddenly, and almost sharply, "you didn't take +those things in any way you hadn't ought to, did you? Tell mother." + +"Fanny!" cried Andrew. + +"If she did, it's the first time a Brewster ever stole," said Mrs. +Zelotes. Her face was no longer strange with unwonted sweetness as +she looked at Fanny. + +Andrew put his face down to Ellen's again. "Father knows she didn't +steal the things; never mind," he whispered. + +Suddenly the stout woman made a soft, ponderous rush out of the room +and the house. She passed the window with oscillating swiftness. + +"Where's Miss Wetherhed gone?" said one woman to another. + +"She's thought of somethin'." + +"Maybe she left her bread in the oven." + +"No, she's thought of somethin'." + +A very old lady, who had been sitting in a rocking-chair on the +other side of the room, rose trembling and came to Ellen and leaned +over her, looking at her with small, black, bright eyes through +gold-rimmed spectacles. The old woman was deaf, and her voice was +shrill and high-pitched to reach her own consciousness. "What did +such a good little girl as you be run away from father and mother +for?" she piped, going back to first principles and the root of the +whole matter, since she had heard nothing of the discussion which +had been going on about her, and had supposed it to deal with them. + +Ellen gasped. Suddenly all her first woe returned upon her +recollection. She turned innocent, accusing eyes upon her father's +loving face, then her mother's and aunt's. "You said--you +said--you--" she stammered out, but then her father and mother were +both down upon their knees before her in her chair embracing her, +and Eva, too, seized her little hands. "You mustn't ever think of +what you heard father and mother say, Ellen," Andrew said, solemnly. +"You must forget all about it. Father and mother were both very +wrong and wicked--" + +"And Aunt Eva, too," sobbed Eva. + +"And they didn't mean what they said," continued Andrew. "You are +the greatest blessing in this whole world to father and mother; +you're all they have got. You don't know what father and mother have +been through, thinking you were lost and they might never see their +little girl again. Now you mustn't ever think of what they said +again." + +"And you won't ever hear them say it again, Ellen," Fanny Brewster +said, with a noble humbling of herself before her child. + +"No, you won't," said Eva. + +"Mother is goin' to try to do better, and have more patience, and +not let you hear such talk any more," said Fanny, kissing Ellen +passionately, and rising with Andrew's arm around her. + +"I'm going to try, too, Ellen," said Eva. + +The stout woman came padding softly and heavily into the room, and +there was a bright-blue silken gleam in her hand. She waved a whole +yard of silk of the most brilliant blue before Ellen's dazzled eyes. +"There!" said she, triumphantly, "if you will tell Aunty Wetherhed +where you've been, and all about it, she'll give you all this +beautiful silk to make a new dress for your new dolly." + +Ellen looked in the woman's face, she looked at the blue silk, and +she looked at the doll, but she was silent. + +"Only think what a beautiful dress it will make!" said a woman. + +"And see how pretty it goes with the dolly's light hair," said +Fanny. + +"Ellen," whispered Andrew, "you tell father, and he'll buy you a +whole pound of candy down to the store." + +"I shouldn't wonder if I could find something to make your dolly a +cloak," said a woman. + +"And I'll make her a beautiful little bonnet, if you'll tell," said +another. + +"Only think, a whole pound of candy!" said Andrew. + +"I'll buy you a gold ring," Eva cried out--"a gold ring with a +little blue stone in it." + +"And you shall go to ride with mother on the cars to-morrow," said +Fanny. + +"Father will get you some oranges, too," said Andrew. + +But Ellen sat silent and unmoved by all that sweet bribery, a little +martyr to something within herself; a sense of honor, love for the +lady who had concealed her, and upon whom her confession might bring +some dire penalty; or perhaps she was strengthened in her silence by +something less worthy--possibly that stiff-neckedness which had +descended to her from a long line of Puritans upon her father's +side. At all events she was silent, and opposed successfully her one +little new will to the onslaught of all those older and more +experienced ones before her, though nobody knew at what cost of +agony to herself. She had always been a singularly docile and +obedient child; this was the first persistent disobedience of her +whole life, and it reacted upon herself with a cruel spiritual hurt. +She sat clasping the great doll, the pinks, and the pink cup and +saucer before her on the table--a lone little weak child, opposing +her single individuality against so many, and to her own hurt and +horror and self-condemnation, and she did not weaken; but all at +once her head drooped on one side, and her father caught her. + +"There! you can all stop tormentin' this blessed child!" he cried. +"Ellen, Ellen, look at Father! Oh, mother, look here; she's fainted +dead away!" + +"Fanny!" + +When Ellen came to herself she was on the bed in her mother's room, +and her aunt Eva was putting some of her beautiful cologne on her +head, and her mother was trying to make her drink water, and her +grandmother had a glass of her currant wine, and they were calling +to her with voices of far-off love, as if from another world. + +And after that she was questioned no more about her mysterious +journey. + +"Wherever she has been, she has got no harm," said Mrs. Zelotes +Brewster, "and there's no use in trying to drive a child, when it +comes of our family. She's got some notion in her head, and you've +got to leave her alone to get over it. She's got back safe and +sound, and that's the main thing." + +"I wish I knew where she got those things," Fanny said. Looseness of +principle as to property rights was not as strange to her +imagination as to that of her mother-in-law. + +For a long time afterwards she passed consciously and uneasily by +cups and saucers in stores, and would not look their way lest she +should see the counterpart of Ellen's, which was Sevres, and worth +more than the whole counterful, had she only known it, and she +hurried past the florists who displayed pinks in their windows. The +doll was evidently not new, and she had not the same anxiety with +regard to that. + +No one was allowed to ask Ellen further questions that day, not even +the reporters, who went away quite baffled by this infantile +pertinacity in silence, and were forced to draw upon their +imaginations, with results varying from realistic horrors to Alice +in Wonderland. Ellen was kissed and cuddled by some women and young +girls, but not many were allowed to see her. The doctor had been +called in after her fainting-fit, and pronounced it as his opinion +that she was a very nervous child, and had been under a severe +strain, and he would not answer for the result if she were to be +further excited. + +"Let her have her own way: if she wants to talk, let her, and if she +wants to be silent, let her alone. She is as delicate as that cup," +said the doctor, looking at the shell-like thing which Ellen had +brought home, with some curiosity. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +That evening Lyman Risley came to see Cynthia. He looked at her +anxiously and scrutinizingly when he entered the room, and did not +respond to her salutation. + +"Well, I have seen the child," he said, in a hushed voice, with a +look towards the door as he seated himself before the fire and +spread out his hands towards the blaze. He looked nervous and +chilly. + +"How did she look?" asked Cynthia. + +"Why in the name of common-sense, Cynthia," he said, abruptly, +without noticing her query, "if you had to give that child china for +a souvenir, didn't you give her something besides Royal Sevres?" +Lyman Risley undoubtedly looked younger than Cynthia, but his manner +even more than his looks gave him the appearance of comparative +youth. There was in it a vehemence and impetuosity almost like that +of a boy. Cynthia, with her strained nervous intensity, seemed very +much older. + +"Why not?" said she. + +"Why not? Well, it is fortunate for you that those people have a +knowledge for the most part of the fundamental properties of the +drama of life, such as bread-and-butter, and a table from which to +eat it, and a knife with which to cut it, and a bed in which to +sleep, and a stove and coal, and so on, and so on, and that the +artistic accessories, such as Royal Sevres, which is no better than +common crockery for the honest purpose of holding the tea for the +solace of the thirsty mouth of labor, is beneath their attention." + +"How does the child look, Lyman?" asked Cynthia Lennox. She was +leaning back in a great crimson-covered chair before the fire, a +long, slender, graceful shape, in a clinging white silk gown which +was a favorite of hers for house wear. The light in the room was +subdued, coming mostly through crimson shades, and the faint, worn +lines on Cynthia's face did not show; it looked, with her soft crown +of gray hair, like a cameo against the crimson background of the +chair. The man beside her looked at her with that impatience of his +masculine estate and his superior youth, and yet with the adoration +which nothing could conquer. He had passed two-thirds of his life, +metaphorically, at this woman's feet, and had formed a habit of +admiration and lovership which no facts nor developments could ever +alter. He was frowning, he replied with a certain sharpness, and yet +he leaned towards her as he spoke, and his eyes followed her long, +graceful lines and noted the clear delicacy of her features against +the crimson background. "How the child looked--how the child looked; +Cynthia, you do not realize what you did. You have not the faintest +realization of what it means for a woman to keep a lost child hidden +away as you did, when its parents and half the city were hunting for +it. I tell you I did not know what the consequences might be to you +if it were found out. There is wild blood in a city like this, and +even the staid old New England stream is capable of erratic +currents. I tell you I have had a day of dreadful anxiety, and it +was worse because I had to be guarded. I dared scarcely speak to any +one about the matter. I have listened on street corners; I have made +errands to newspaper offices. I meant to get you away if-- Well, +never mind--I tell you, you do not realize what you did, Cynthia." + +Cynthia glanced at him without moving her head, then she looked +away, her face quivering slightly, more as if from a reflection of +his agitation than from her own. "You say you saw her," she said. + +"This afternoon," the man went on, "I got fairly desperate. I +resolved to go to the fountain-head for information, and take my +chances. So down I went to Maple Street, where the Brewsters live, +and I rang the front-door bell, and the child's aunt, a handsome, +breathless kind of creature, came and ushered me into the best +parlor, and went into the next room--the sitting-room--to call the +others. I caught sight of enough women for a woman's club in the +sitting-room. Then Andrew Brewster came in, and I offered my legal +services out of friendly interest in the case, and in that way I +found out what I wanted to. Cynthia, that child has not told." + +Cynthia raised herself and sat straight, and her face flashed like a +white flame. "Were they harsh to her?" she demanded. "Were they +cruel? Did they question her, and were they harsh and cruel because +she would not tell? Why did you not tell them yourself? Why did you +not, Lyman Risley? Why did you not tell the whole story rather than +have that child blamed? Well, I will go myself. I will go this +minute. They shall not blame that darling. What do you think I care +for myself? Let them lynch me if they want to. I will go this +minute!" Cynthia sprang to her feet, but Risley, with a hoarse +shout under his breath, caught hold of her and forced her back. + +"For God's sake, sit down, Cynthia!" he said. "Didn't you hear the +door-bell? Somebody is coming." + +The door-bell had in fact rung, and Cynthia had not noticed it. She +lay back in her chair as the door opened, and Mrs. Norman Lloyd +entered. "Good-evening, Cynthia," she said, beamingly. "I thought I +would stop a few minutes on my way to meeting. I'm rather early. No, +don't get up," as Cynthia rose. "Don't get up; I can only stay a +minute. Never mind about giving me a chair, Mr. Risley--thank you. +Yes, this is a real comfortable chair." Mrs. Lloyd, seated where +the firelight played over her wide sweep of rich skirts, and her +velvet fur-trimmed cloak and plumed bonnet, beamed upon them with an +expansive benevolence and kindliness. She was a large, handsome, +florid woman. Her grayish-brown hair was carefully crimped, and +looped back from her fat, pink cheeks, a fine shell-and-gold comb +surmounted her smooth French twist, and held her bonnet in place. +She unfastened her cloak, and a diamond brooch at her throat caught +the light and blazed red like a ruby. She was the wife of Norman +Lloyd, the largest shoe-manufacturer in the place. There was between +her and Cynthia a sort of relationship by marriage. Norman Lloyd's +brother George had married Cynthia's sister, who had died ten years +before, and of whose little son, Robert, Cynthia had had the charge. +Now George, who was a lawyer in St. Louis, had married again. Mrs. +Norman had sympathized openly with Cynthia when the child was taken +from Cynthia at his father's second marriage. "I call it a shame," +she had said, "giving that child to a perfect stranger to bring up, +and I don't see any need of George's marrying again, anyway. I don't +know what I should do if I thought Norman would marry again if I +died. I think one husband and one wife is enough for any man or +woman if they believe in the resurrection. It has always seemed to +me that the answer to that awful question in the New Testament, as +to whose wife that woman who had so many husbands would be in the +other world, meant that people who had done so much marrying on +earth would have to be old maids and old bachelors in heaven. George +ought to be ashamed of himself, and Cynthia ought to keep that +child." + +Ever since she had been very solicitously friendly towards Cynthia, +who had always imperceptibly held herself aloof from her, owing to a +difference in degree. Cynthia had no prejudices of mind, but many of +nerves, and this woman was distinctly not of her sort, though she +had a certain liking for her. Every time she was brought in contact +with her she had a painful sense of a grating adjustment as of +points of meeting which did not dovetail as they should. Norman +Lloyd represented one of the old families of the city, distinguished +by large possessions and college training, and he was the first of +his race to engage in trade. His wife came from a vastly different +stock, being the daughter of a shoe-manufacturer herself, and the +granddaughter of a cobbler who had tapped his neighbor's shoes in +his little shop in the L of his humble cottage house. Mrs. Norman +Lloyd was innocently unconscious of any reason for concealing the +fact, and was fond, when driving out to take the air in her fine +carriage, of pointing out to any stranger who happened to be with +her the house where her grandfather cobbled shoes and laid the +foundation of the family fortune. "That all came from that little +shop of my grandfather," she would say, pointing proudly at Lloyd's +great factory, which was not far from the old cottage. "Mr. Lloyd +didn't have much of anything when I married him, but I had +considerable, and Mr. Lloyd went into the factory, and he has been +blessed, and the property has increased until it has come to this." +Mrs. Lloyd's chief pride was in the very facts which others +deprecated. When she considered the many-windowed pile of Lloyd's, +and that her husband was the recognized head and authority over all +those throngs of grimy men, walking with the stoop of daily labor, +carrying their little dinner-boxes with mechanical clutches of +leather-tanned fingers, she used to send up a prayer for humility, +lest evil and downfall of pride come to her. She was a pious woman, +a member of the First Baptist Church, and active in charitable work. +Mrs. Norman Lloyd adored her husband, and her estimate of him was +almost ludicrously different from that of the grimy men who flocked +to his factory, she seeing a most kindly spirited and amiable man, +devoting himself to the best interests of his employes, and striving +ever for their benefit rather than his own, and the others seeing an +aristocrat by birth and training, who was in trade because of shrewd +business instincts and a longing for wealth and power, but who +despised, and felt himself wholly superior to, the means by which it +was acquired. + +"We ain't anything but the rounds of the ladder for Norman Lloyd to +climb by, and he only sees and feels us with the soles of his +patent-leathers," one of the turbulent spirits in his factory said. +Mrs. Norman Lloyd would not have believed her ears had she heard +him. + +Mrs. Lloyd had not sat long before Cynthia's fire that evening +before she opened on the subject of the lost child. "Oh, Cynthia, +have you heard--" she began, but Risley cut her short. + +"About that little girl who ran away?" he said. "Yes, we have; we +were just talking about her." + +"Did you ever hear anything like it?" said Mrs. Lloyd. "They say +they can't find out where she's been. She won't tell. Don't you +believe somebody has threatened her if she does?" + +Cynthia raised herself and began to speak, but a slight, almost +imperceptible gesture from the man beside her stopped her. + +"What did you say, Cynthia?" + +"There is no accounting for children's freaks," said Risley, shortly +and harshly. Mrs. Lloyd was not thin-skinned; such a current of +exuberant cordiality emanated from her own nature that she was not +very susceptible to any counter-force. Now, however, she felt +vaguely and wonderingly, as a child might have done, that for some +reason Lyman Risley was rude to her, and she had a sense of +bewildered injury. Mrs. Lloyd was always, moreover, somewhat anxious +as to the relations between Cynthia and Lyman Risley. She heard a +deal of talk about it first and last; and while she had no word of +unkind comment herself, yet she felt at times uneasy. "Folks do talk +about Cynthia and Lyman Risley keeping company so long," she told +her husband; "it's as much as twenty years. It does seem as if they +ought to get married, don't you think so, Norman? Do you suppose it +is because the property was left that way--for you know Lyman hasn't +got anything besides what he earns--or do you suppose it is because +Cynthia doesn't want to marry him? I guess it is that. Cynthia never +seemed to me as if she would ever care enough about any man to marry +him. I guess that's it; but I do think she ought to stop his coming +there quite so much, especially when people know that about her +property." + +Cynthia's property was hers on condition that her husband took her +name if she married, otherwise it was forfeited to her sister's +child. "Catch a Risley ever taking his wife's name!" said Mrs. +Lloyd. "Of course Cynthia would be willing to give up the money if +she loved him, but I don't believe she does. It seems as if Lyman +Risley ought to see it would be better for him not to go there so +much if they weren't going to be married." + +So it happened when Risley caught up her question to Cynthia in that +peremptory fashion, Mrs. Lloyd felt in addition to the present cause +some which had gone before for her grievance. She addressed herself +thereafter entirely and pointedly to Cynthia. "Did you ever see that +little girl, Cynthia?" said she. + +"Yes," replied Cynthia, in a voice so strange that the other woman +stared wonderingly at her. + +"Ain't you feeling well, Cynthia?" she asked. + +"Very well, thank you," said Cynthia. + +"When did you see her?" asked Mrs. Lloyd. Cynthia opened her mouth +as if to speak, then she glanced at Risley, whose eyes held her, and +laughed instead--a strange, nervous laugh. Happily, Mrs. Lloyd did +not wait for her answer. She had her own important information to +impart. She had in reality stopped for that purpose. "Well, I have +seen her," she said. "I met her in front of Crosby's one day last +summer. And she was so sweet-looking I stopped and spoke to her--I +couldn't help it. She had beautiful eyes, and the softest light +curls, and she was dressed so pretty, and the flowers on her hat +were nice. The embroidery on her dress was very fine, too. Usually, +you know, those people don't care about the fineness, as long as it +is wide, and showy, and bright-colored. I asked her what her name +was, and she answered just as pretty, and her mother told me how old +she was. Her mother was a handsome woman, though she had an +up-and-coming kind of way with her. But she seemed real pleased to +have me notice the child. Where do you suppose she was all that +time, Cynthia?" + +"She was in some safe place, undoubtedly," said Risley, and again +Mrs. Lloyd felt that she was snubbed, though not seeing how nor why, +and again she rebelled with that soft and gentle persistency in her +own course which was the only rebellion of which she was capable. + +"Where do you suppose she was, Cynthia?" said she. + +"I think some woman must have seen her, and coaxed her in and kept +her, she was such a pretty child," said Cynthia, defiantly and +desperately. But the other woman looked at her in wonder. + +"Oh, Cynthia, I can't believe that," said she. "It don't seem as if +any woman could be so bad as that when the child's mother was in +such agony over her." And then she added, "I can't believe it, +because it seems to me that if any woman was bad enough to do that, +she couldn't have given her up at all, she was such a beautiful +child." Mrs. Norman Lloyd had no children of her own, and was given +to gazing with eyes of gentle envy at pretty, rosy little girls, +frilled with white embroidery like white pinks, dancing along in +leading hands of maternal love. "It don't seem to me I could ever +have given her up, if I had once been bad enough to steal her," she +said. "What put such an idea into your head, Cynthia?" + +When the church-bell clanged out just then Lyman Risley had never +been so thankful in his life. Mrs. Lloyd rose promptly, for she had +to lead the meeting, that being the custom among the sisters in her +church. "Well," said she, "I am thankful she is found, anyway; I +couldn't have slept a wink that night if I had known she was lost, +the dear little thing. Good-night, Cynthia; don't come to the door. +Good-night, Mr. Risley. Come and see me, Cynthia--do, dear." + +When Mrs. Norman Lloyd was gone, Risley looked at Cynthia with a +long breath of relief, but she turned to him with seemingly no +appreciation of it, and repeated her declaration which Mrs. Lloyd's +coming had interrupted: "Lyman, I am going there to-night--this +minute. Will you go with me? No, you must not go with me. I am +going!" She sprang to her feet. + +"Sit down, Cynthia," said Risley. "I tell you they were not harsh to +her. You don't seem to consider that they love the child--possibly +better than you can--and would not in the nature of things be harsh +to her under such circumstances. Sit down and hear the rest of it." + +"But they will be harsh by-and-by, after the first joy of finding +her is over," said Cynthia. "I will go and tell them the first thing +in the morning, Lyman." + +"You will do nothing so foolish. They are not only not insisting +upon her telling her secret, but announced to me their determination +not to do so in the future. I wish you could have seen that man's +face when he told me what a delicate, nervous little thing his child +was, and the doctor said she must not be fretted if she had taken a +notion not to tell; and I wish you could have seen the mother and +the aunt, and the grandmother, Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. They would all +give each other and themselves up to be torn of wild beasts first. +It is easy to see where the child got her extraordinary strength of +will. They took me out in the sitting-room, and there was a wild +flurry of feminine skirts before me. I had previously overheard +myself announced as Lawyer Risley by the aunt, and the response from +various voices that they were 'goin' if he was comin' out in the +sittin'-room.' It always made them nervous to see lawyers. Well, I +followed the parents and the grandmother and the aunt out. I dared +not refuse when they suggested it, and I hoped desperately that the +child would not remember me from that one scared glance she gave at +me this morning. But there she sat in her little chair, holding the +doll you gave her, and she looked up at me when I entered, and I +have never in the whole course of my existence seen such an +expression upon the face of a child. Remember me? Indeed she did, +and she promised me with the faithfulest, stanchest eyes of a woman +set in a child's head that she would not tell; that I need not fear +for one minute; that the lady who had given her the doll was quite +safe. She knew, and she must have heard what I said to you this +morning. She is the most wonderful child I have ever seen." + +Cynthia had sank back in her chair. Lyman Risley put his cigar back +between his lips; Cynthia was quite still, her delicate profile +towards him. + +"I assure you there is not the slightest danger of their troubling +the child because of her silence, and you would do an exceedingly +foolish thing, and its consequences would react not upon yourself +only, but--upon others, were you to confess the truth to them," he +said after a little. "You must think of others--of your friends, and +of your sister's boy, whose loss led you into this. This +would--well, it would get into the papers, Cynthia." + +"Do you think that the doll continued to please her?" asked Cynthia. + +"Cynthia, I want you to promise," said her friend, persistently. + +"Very well, I will promise, if you will promise to let me know the +minute you hear that they are treating her harshly because of her +silence." + +Suddenly Cynthia turned her face upon him. "Lyman," said she, "do +you think that I could do anything for her--" + +"Do anything for her?" he repeated, vaguely. + +"Yes; they cannot have money. They must be poor: the father works in +the factory. Would they allow me--" + +The lawyer laughed. "Cynthia," he said, "you do not realize that +pride finds its native element in all strata of society, and riches +are comparative. Let me inform you that these Brewsters, of whom +this child sprung, claim as high places in the synagogue as any of +your Lennoxes and Risleys, and, what is more, they believe +themselves there. They have seen the tops of their neighbors' heads +as often as you or I. The mere fact of familiarity with shoe-knives +and leather, and hand-skill instead of brain-skill, makes no +difference with such inherent confidence of importance as theirs. +The Louds, on the other side--the handsome aunt is a Loud--are +rather below caste, but they make up for it with defiance. And as +for riches, I would have you know that the Brewsters are as rich in +their own estimation as you in yours; that they have possessions +which entirely meet their needs and their aesthetic longings; that +not only does Andrew Brewster earn exceedingly good wages in the +shop, and is able to provide plenty of nourishing food and good +clothes, but even by-and-by, if he prospers and is prudent, +something rather extra in the way of education--perhaps a piano. I +would have you know that there is a Rogers group on a little +marble-topped table in the front window, and a table in the side +window with a worked spread, on which reposes a red plush photograph +album; that there is also a set of fine parlor furniture, with +various devices in the way of silken and lace scarfs over the +corners and backs of the chairs and sofa, and that there is a +tapestry carpet; that in the sitting-room is a fine crushed-plush +couch, and a multiplicity of rocking-chairs; that there is a +complete dining-set in the next room, the door of which stood open, +and even a side-board with red napkins, and a fine display of glass, +every whit as elegant in their estimation as your cut glass in +yours. The child's father owns his house and land free of +encumbrance. He told me so in the course of his artless boasting as +to what he might some day be able to do for the precious little +creature of his own flesh and blood; and the grandmother owns her +comfortable place next door, and she herself was dressed in black +silk, and I will swear the lace on her cap was real, and she wore a +great brooch containing hair of the departed, and it was set in +pearl. What are you going to do in the face of opulence like this, +Cynthia?" + +Cynthia did not speak; her face looked as still as if it were carved +in ivory. + +"Cynthia," said the man, in a harsh voice, "I did not dream you were +so broken up over losing that little boy of your sister's, poor +girl." + +Cynthia still said nothing, but a tear rolled down her cheek. Lyman +Risley saw it, then he looked straight ahead, scowling over his +cigar. He seemed suddenly to realize in this woman whom he loved +something anomalous, yet lovely--a beauty, as it were, of deformity, +an over-development in one direction, though a direction of utter +grace and sweetness, like the lip of an orchid. + +Why should she break her heart over a child whom she had never seen +before, and have no love and pity for the man who had laid his best +at her feet so long? + +He saw at a flash the sweet yet monstrous imperfection of her, and +he loved her better for it. + + + + +Chapter IX + + +After Ellen's experience in running away, she dreamed her dreams +with a difference. The breath of human passion had stained the pure +crystal of her childish imagination; she peopled all her +air-castles, and sounds of wailing farewells floated from the White +North of her fancy after the procession of the evergreen trees in +the west yard, and the cherry-trees on the east had found out that +they were not in the Garden of Eden. In those days Ellen grew taller +and thinner, and the cherubic roundness of her face lengthened into +a sweet wistfulness of wonder and pleading, as of one who would look +farther, since she heard sounds and saw signs in her sky which +indicated more beyond. Andrew and Fanny watched her more anxiously +than ever, and decided not to send her to school before spring, +though all the neighbors exclaimed at their tardiness in so doing. +"She'll be two years back of my Hattie gettin' into the +high-school," said one woman, bluntly, to Fanny, who retorted, +angrily, + +"I don't care if she's ten years behind, if she don't lose her +health." + +"You wait and see if she's two years behind!" exclaimed Eva, who had +just returned from the shop, and had entered the room bringing a +fresh breath of December air, her cheeks glowing, her black eyes +shining. + +Eva was so handsome in those days that she fairly forced admiration, +even from those of her own sex whose delicacy of taste she offended. +She had a parcel in her hand, which she had bought at a store on her +way home, for she was getting ready to be married to Jim Tenny. "I +tell you there don't nobody know what that young one can do," +continued Eva, with a radiant nod of triumph. "There ain't many +grown-up folks round here that can read like her, and she's studied +geography, and she knows her multiplication-table, and she can spell +better than some that's been through the high-school. You jest wait +till Ellen gets started on her schoolin'--she won't stay in the +grammar-school long, I can tell you that. She'll go ahead of some +that's got a start now and think they're 'most there." Eva pulled +off her hat, and the coarse black curls on her forehead sprang up +like released wire. She nodded emphatically with a good-humored +combativeness at the visiting woman and at her sister. + +"I hope your cheeks are red enough," said Fanny, looking at her with +grateful admiration. + +The visiting woman sniffed covertly, and a retort which seemed to +her exceedingly witty was loud in her own consciousness. "Them that +likes beets and pinies is welcome to them," she thought, but she did +not speak. "Well," said she, "folks must do as they think best about +their own children. I have always thought a good deal of an +education myself. I was brought up that way." She looked with eyes +that were fairly cruel at Eva Loud and Fanny, who had been a Loud, +who had both stopped going to school at a very early age. + +Then the rich red flamed over Eva's forehead and neck as well as her +cheeks. There was nothing covert about her, she would drag an +ambushed enemy forth into the open field even at the risk of +damaging disclosures regarding herself. + +"Why don't you say jest what you mean, right out, Jennie Stebbins?" +she demanded. "You are hintin' that Fanny and me never had no +education, and twittin' us with it." + +"It wa'n't our fault," said Fanny, no less angrily. + +"No, it wa'n't our fault," assented Eva. "We had to quit school. +Folks can live with empty heads, but they can't with empty stomachs. +It had to be one or the other. If you want to twit us with bein' +poor, you can, Jennie Stebbins." + +"I haven't said anything," said Mrs. Stebbins, with a scared and +injured air. "I'd like to know what you're making all this fuss +about? I don't know. What did I say?" + +"If I'd said anything mean, I wouldn't turn tail an' run, I'd stick +to it about one minute and a half, if it killed me," said Eva, +scornfully. + +"You know what you was hintin' at, jest as well as we do," said +Fanny; "but it ain't so true as you and some other folks may think, +I can tell you that. If Eva and me didn't go to school as long as +some, we have always read every chance we could get." + +"That's so," said Eva, emphatically. "I guess we've read enough +sight more than some folks that has had a good deal more chance to +read. Fanny and me have taken books out of the library full as much +as any of the neighbors, I rather guess." + +"We've read every single thing that Mrs. Southworth has ever +written," said Fanny, "and that's sayin' considerable." + +"And all Pansy's and Rider Haggard's," declared Eva, with triumph. + +"And every one of The Duchess and Marie Corelli, and Sir Walter +Scott, and George Macdonald, and Laura Jean Libbey, and Charles +Reade, and more, besides, than I can think of." + +"Fanny has read 'most all Tennyson," said Eva, with loyal +admiration; "she likes poetry, but I don't very well. She has read +most all Tennyson and Longfellow, and we've both read _Queechee_, +and _St. Elmo_, and _Jane Eyre_." + +"And we've read the Bible through," said Fanny, "because we read in +a paper once that that was a complete education. We made up our +minds we'd read it through, and we did, though it took us quite a +while." + +"And we take _Zion's Herald_, and _The Rowe Gazette_, and _The +Youth's Companion_," said Eva. + +"And we've both of us learned Ellen geography and spellin' and +'rithmetic, till we know most as much as she does," said Fanny. + +"That's so," said Fanny. "I snum, I believe I could get into the +high-school myself, if I wasn't goin' to git married," said Eva, +with a gay laugh. She was so happy in those days that her power of +continued resentment was small. The tide of her own bliss returned +upon her full consciousness and overflowed, and crested, as with +glory, all petty annoyances. + +The visiting woman took up her work, and rose to go with a slightly +abashed air, though her small brown eyes were still blanks of +impregnable defence. "Well, I dunno what I've said to stir you both +so," she remarked again. "If I've said anythin' that riled you, I'm +sorry, I'm sure. As I said before, folks must do as they are a mind +to with their own children. If they see fit to keep 'em home from +school until they're women grown, and if they think it's best not to +punish 'em when they run away, why they must. I 'ain't got no right +to say anythin', and I 'ain't." + +"You--" began Fanny, and then she stopped short, and Eva began +arranging her hair before the glass. "The wind blew so comin' home," +she said, "that my hair is all out." The visiting woman stared with +a motion of adjustive bewilderment, as one might before a sudden +change of wind, then she looked, as a shadowy motion disturbed the +even light of the room and little Ellen passed the window. She knew +at once, for she had heard the gossip, that the ready tongues of +recrimination were hushed because of the child, and then Ellen +entered. + +The winter afternoon was waning and the light was low; the child's +face, with its clear fairness, seemed to gleam out in the room like +a lamp with a pale luminosity of its own. + +The three women, the mother, and aunt, and the visiting neighbor, +all looked at her, and Ellen smiled up at them as innocently sweet +as a flower. There was that in Ellen's smile and regard at that time +which no woman could resist. Suddenly the visiting neighbor laid a +finger softly under her chin and tilted up her little face towards +the light. Then she said with that unconscious poetry of bereavement +which sees a likeness in all fair things of earth to the face of the +lost treasure, "I do believe she looks like my first little girl +that died." + +After the visiting woman had gone, Fanny and Eva calling after her +to come again, they looked at each other, then at Ellen. "That +little girl that died favored the Stebbinses, and was dark as an +Injun," said Fanny, "no more like Ellen--" + +"That's so," acquiesced Eva; "I remember that young one. Lookin' +like Ellen--I'd like to see the child that did look like her; there +ain't none round these parts. I wish you could have seen folks stare +at her when I took her down street yesterday. One woman said, 'Ain't +she pretty as a picture,' so loud I heard it, but Ellen didn't seem +to." + +"Sometimes I wonder if we'll make her proud," Fanny said, in a +hushed voice, with a look of admiration that savored of worship +at Ellen. + +"She don't ever seem to notice," said Eva, with a hushed response. +Indeed, Ellen had seemed to pay no attention whatever to +their remarks, whether from an innate humility and lack of +self-consciousness, or because she was so accustomed to adulation +that it had become as the breath of her nostrils, to be taken no +more account of. She had seated herself in her favorite place in a +rocking-chair at a west window, with her chin resting on the sill, +and her eyes staring into the great out-of-doors, full of winds and +skies and trees and her own imaginings. + +She would sit so, motionless, for hours at a time, and sometimes her +mother would rouse her almost roughly. "What be you thinkin' about, +settin' there so still?" she would ask, with eyes of vague anxiety +fixed upon her, but Ellen could never answer. + +Though it was getting late, it did not seem dark as early as usual, +since there was a full moon and there was snow on the ground which +gave forth a pale light in a wide surface of reflection. However, +the moon was behind clouds, for it was beginning to snow again quite +heavily, and the white flakes drove in whirlwinds past the +street-lamp on the corner of the street. Now and then a tramping and +muffled figure came into the radius of light, then passed into the +white gloom beyond. + +Fanny was preparing supper, and the light from the dining-room shone +in where Ellen sat, but the sitting-room was not lighted. Ellen +began to smell the fragrance of tea and toast, and there was a +reflection of the dining-room table and lamp outside pictured +vividly against the white sheet of storm. + +Ellen knew better, but it amused her to think that her home was +out-of-doors as well as under her father's and mother's roof. Eva +passed her with her hands full of kindlings. She was going to make a +fire in the parlor-stove, for Jim Tenny was coming that evening. She +laid a tender hand on Ellen's head as she passed, and smoothed her +hair. Ellen had a sort of acquiescent wonder over her aunt Eva in +those days. She heard people say Eva was getting ready to be +married, and speculated. "What is getting ready to be married?" she +asked Eva. + +"Why, getting your clothes made, you little ninny," Eva answered. + +The next day Ellen had watched her mother at work upon a new little +frock for herself for some time before she spoke. + +"Mother," she said. + +"Yes, child." + +"Mother, you are making that new dress for me, ain't you?" + +"Of course I am; why?" + +"And you made me a new coat last week?" + +"Why, you know I did, Ellen; what do you mean?" + +"And you are going to make me a petticoat and put that pretty lace +on it?" + +"You know I am, Ellen Brewster, what be you drivin' at?" + +"Be I a-gettin' ready to be married, mother?" asked Ellen, with the +strangest look of wonder and awe and anticipation. + +Fanny had told this saying of the child's to everybody, and that +evening when Jim Tenny came he caught up Ellen and gave her a toss +to the ceiling, a trick of his which filled Ellen with a sort of +fearful delight, the delight of helplessness in the hands of +strength, and the titillation of evanescent risk. + +"So you are gettin' ready to be married, are you?" Jim Tenny said, +with a great laugh, looking at her soberly, with big black eyes. Jim +Tenny was a handsome fellow, and much larger and stronger than her +father. Ellen liked him; he often brought candies in his pocket for +her, and they were great friends, but she could never understand why +he stayed in the parlor all alone with her aunt Eva, instead of in +the sitting-room with the others. + +Ellen had looked back at him as soberly. "Mother says I 'ain't," she +replied, "but--" + +"But what?" + +"I am getting most as many new clothes as Aunt Eva, and she is." + +"And you think maybe you are gettin' ready to be married, after all, +hey?" + +"I think maybe mother wants to surprise me," Ellen said. + +Jim Tenny had all of a sudden shaken convulsively as if with mirth, +but his face remained perfectly sober. + +That evening after the parlor door was closed upon Jim and Eva, +Ellen wondered what they were laughing at. + +To-night when she saw Eva enter the room, a lighted lamp +illuminating her face fairly reckless with happiness, to light the +fire in the courting-stove as her sister facetiously called it, she +thought to herself that Jim Tenny was coming, that they would be +shut up in there all alone as usual, and then she looked out at the +storm and the night again, and the little home picture thrown +against it. Then she saw her father coming into the yard with his +arms full of parcels, and she was out of her chair and at the +kitchen door to meet him. + +Andrew had brought as usual some dainties for his darling. He +watched Ellen unwrap the various parcels, not smiling as usual, but +with a curious knitting of his forehead and pitiful compression of +mouth. When she had finished and ran into the other room to show a +great orange to her aunt, he drew a heavy sigh that was almost a +groan. His wife coming in from the kitchen with a dish heard him, +and looked at him with quick anxiety, though she spoke in a merry, +rallying way. + +"For the land sake, Andrew Brewster, what be you groanin' that way +for?" she cried out. + +Andrew's tense face did not relax; he strove to push past her +without a word, but Fanny stood before him. "Now, look at here, +Andrew," said she, "you 'ain't goin' to walk off with a face like +that, unless I know what the matter is. Are you sick?" + +"No, I ain't sick, Fanny," Andrew said; then in a low voice, "Let me +go, I will tell you by-and-by." + +"No, Andrew, you have got to tell me now. I'm goin' to know whatever +has happened." + +"Wait till after supper, Fanny." + +"No, I can't wait. Look here, Andrew, you are my husband, and there +ain't no trouble that can come to you in this world that I can't +bear, except not knowin'. You've got to tell me what the matter is." + +"Well, keep quiet till after supper, then," said Andrew. Then +suddenly he leaned his face close to her and whispered with a hiss +of tragedy, "Lloyd's shut down." + +Fanny recoiled and looked at him. + +"When?" + +"The foreman gave notice to-night." + +"For how long? Did he say?" + +"Oh, till business got better--same old story. Unless I'm mistaken, +Lloyd's will be shut down all winter." + +"Well, it ain't so bad for us as for some," said Fanny. Both pride +and a wish to cheer her husband induced her to say that. She did not +like to think that, after the fine marriage she had made, she needed +to be as distressed at a temporary loss of employment as others. +Then, too, that look of overhanging melancholy in Andrew's face +alarmed her; she felt that she must drive it away at any cost. + +"Seems to me it's bad enough for anybody," said Andrew, morosely. + +"Now, Andrew, you know it ain't. Here we own the house clear, and +we've got that money in the savings-bank, and all that's your +mother's is yours in the end. Of course we ain't always thinkin' of +that, and I'm sure I hope she'll outlive me, but it's so. You know +we sha'n't starve if you don't have work." + +"We shall starve in the end, and you know I've been--" Andrew +stopped suddenly as he heard Ellen and his sister-in-law coming. He +shook his head at his wife with a warning motion that she should +keep silence. + +"Don't Eva know?" she whispered. + +"No, she came out early. Do for Heaven's sake keep quiet till after +supper." + +Eva was sharp-eyed, and all through supper she watched Andrew, and +the lines of melancholy on his face, which did not disappear even +when he forced conversation. + +"What in creation ails you, Andrew?" she burst out, finally. "You +look like a walking funeral." + +Andrew made no reply, and Fanny volunteered an answer. "He's all +tired out," she said; "he's got a little cold. Eat some more of the +stew, Andrew; it'll do you good, it's nice and hot." + +"You can't cheat me," said Eva. "There's something to pay." She +took a mouthful, then she stared at Andrew, with a sudden pallor. +"It ain't anythin' about Jim, is it?" she gasped out. "Because if it +is, there's no use in your waitin' to tell me, you might as well +have it over at once. You won't make it any easier for me, I can +tell you that." + +"No, it ain't anything about Jim, in the way you mean, Eva," her +sister said, soothingly. "Eat your supper and don't worry." + +"What do you mean by that? Jim ain't sick?" + +"No, I tell you; don't be a goose, Eva." + +"He ain't been anywhere with--" + +"Do keep still, Eva!" Fanny cried, impatiently. "If I didn't have +any more faith than that in a man, I'd give him up. I don't think +you're fair to Jim. Of course he ain't been with that girl, when +he's goin' to marry you next month." + +"I'm just as fair to Jim as he deserves," Eva said, simply. "I think +just as much of him, but what a man's done once he may do again, and +I can't help it if I think of it, and he shouldn't be surprised. +He's brought it on himself. I've got as much faith in him as anybody +can have, seein' as he's a man. Well, if it ain't that, Andrew +Brewster, what is it?" + +"Now, you let him alone till after supper, Eva," Fanny said. "Do let +him have a little peace." + +"Well, I'll get it out of him afterwards," Eva said. + +As soon as she got up from the table she pushed him into the +sitting-room. "Now, out with it," said she. Ellen, who had followed +them, stood looking at them both, her lips parted, her eyes full of +half-alarmed curiosity. + +"Lloyd's has shut down, if you want to know," Andrew said, shortly. + +"Oh my God!" cried Eva. Andrew shrank from her impatiently. She made +that ejaculation because she was a Loud, and had an off-streak in +her blood. Not one of Andrew's pure New England stock would have so +expressed herself. He sat down beside the lamp and took up the +evening paper. Eva stood looking at him a minute. She was quite +pale, she was weighing consequences. Then she went out to her +sister. "Well, you know what's happened, Fan, I s'pose," she said. + +"Yes, I'm awful sorry, but I tell Andrew it ain't so bad for us as +for some; we sha'n't starve." + +"I don't know as I care much whether I starve or not," said Eva. +"It's goin' to make me put off my weddin'; and if I do put it off, +Jim and me will never get married at all; I feel it in my bones." + +"Why, what should you have to put it off for?" asked Fanny. + +"Why? I should think you'd know why without askin'. Ain't I spent +every dollar I have saved up on my weddin' fixin's, and Jim, he's +got his mother on his hands, and she's been sick, and he ain't saved +up anything. If you s'pose I'm goin' to marry him and make him any +worse off than he is now you're mistaken." + +"Well, mebbe Jim can work somewhere else, and mebbe Lloyd's won't be +shut up long," Fanny said, consolingly. "I wouldn't give up so, if I +was you." + +"I might jest as well," Eva returned. "It's no use, Jim and me will +never get married." Eva's face was curiously set; she was not in +the least loud nor violent as was usually the case when she was in +trouble, her voice was quite low, and she spoke slowly. + +Fanny looked anxiously at her. "It ain't as though you hadn't a roof +to cover you," she said, "for you've got mine and Andrew's as long +as we have one ourselves." + +"Do you think I'd live on Andrew long?" demanded Eva. + +"You won't have to. Jim will get work in a week or two, and you'll +get married. Don't act so. I declare, I'm ashamed of you, Eva Loud. +I thought you had more sense, to give up discouraged at no more than +this. I don't see why you jump way ahead into trouble before you get +to it." + +"I've got to it, and I can feel the steam of it in my face," Eva +said, with unconscious imagery. Then she lit a lamp, and went +up-stairs to change her dress before Jim Tenny arrived. + +It was snowing hard. Ellen sat in her place by the window and +watched the flakes drive past the radiance of the street-lamp on the +corner, and past the reflection of the warm, bright room. Now she +could see, since the light was in the room where she sat, her father +beside the table reading his paper, and shadowy images of all the +familiar things projecting themselves like a mirage of home into the +night and storm. Ellen could see, even without turning round, that +her father looked very sober, and did not seem to be much interested +in his paper, and a vague sense of calamity oppressed her. She did +not know just what might be involved in Lloyd's shutting down, but +she saw that her father and aunt were disturbed, and her imaginings +were half eclipsed by a shadow of material things. Ellen dearly +loved this early evening hour when she could stare out into the +mystery of the night, herself sheltered under the wing of home, and +the fancies which her childish brain wove were as a garment of +spirit for the future; but to-night she did not dream so much as she +wondered and reflected. Pretty soon Ellen saw a man's figure +plodding through the fast-gathering snow, and heard her aunt Eva +make a soft, heavy rush down the front stairs, and she knew the man +was Jim Tenny, and her aunt had been watching for him. Ellen +wondered why she had watched up in her cold room, why she had not +sat down-stairs where it was warm, and let Jim ring the door-bell. +Ellen liked Jim Tenny, but there was often that in her aunt's eyes +regarding him which made Ellen look past him and above him to see if +there was another man there. Ellen heard the fire crackling in the +parlor-stove, and saw the light shining under the parlor threshold, +and heard the soft hum of voices. Her mother, having finished +washing up the supper dishes, came in presently and seated herself +beside the lamp with her needle-work. + +"You don't feel any wind comin' in the window?" she said, anxiously, +to Ellen. + +"No, ma'am," replied Ellen. + +Andrew looked up quickly. "You're sure you don't?" he said. + +"No, sir." + +Ellen watched her mother sewing out in the snowy yard, then a dark +shadow came between the reflection and the window, then another. Two +men treading in the snow in even file, one in the other's +foot-tracks, came into the yard. + +"Somebody's comin'," said Ellen, as a knock, came on the side door. + +"Did you see who 'twas?" Fanny asked, starting up. + +"Two men." + +"It's somebody to see you, Andrew," Fanny said, and Andrew tossed +his paper on the table and went to the door. + +When the door was opened Ellen heard a man cough. + +"I should think anybody was crazy to come out such a night as this, +coughin' that way," murmured Fanny. "I do believe it's Joe Atkins; +sounds like his cough." Then Andrew entered with the two men +stamping and shaking themselves. + +"Here's Joseph Atkins and Nahum Beals," Andrew said, in his +melancholy voice, all unstirred by the usual warmth of greeting. The +two men bowed stiffly. + +"Good-evenin'," Fanny said, and rose and pushed forward the +rocking-chair in which she had been seated to Joseph Atkins, who was +a consumptive man with an invalid wife, and worked next Andrew in +Lloyd's. + +"Keep your settin', keep your settin'," he returned in his quick, +nervous way, as if his very words were money for dire need, and sat +himself down in a straight chair far from the fire. The other man, +Nahum Beals, was very young. He seated himself next to Joseph, and +the two side by side looked with gloomy significance at Andrew and +Fanny. Then Joseph Atkins burst out suddenly in a rattling volley of +coughs. + +"You hadn't ought to come out such a night as this, I'm afraid, Mr. +Atkins," said Fanny. + +"He's been out jest as bad weather as this all winter," said the +young man, Nahum Beals, in an unexpectedly deep voice. "The workers +of this world can't afford to take no account of weather. It's for +the rich folks to look out betwixt their lace curtains and see if it +looks lowery, so they sha'n't git their gold harnesses and their +shiny carriages, an' their silks an' velvets an' ostrich feathers +wet. The poor folks that it's life and death to have to go out +whether or no, no matter if they've got an extra suit of clothes or +not. They've got to go out through the drenchin' rain and the +snow-drifts, to earn money so that the rich folks can have them +gold-plated harnesses and them silks and velvets. Joe's been out all +winter in weather as bad as this, after he's been standin' all day +in a shop as hot as hell, drenched with sweat. One more time won't +make much difference." + +"It would be 'nough sight better for me if it did," said Joseph +Atkins, chokingly, and still with that same seeming of hurry. + +Fanny had gone out to the dining-room, and now she returned stirring +some whiskey and molasses in a cup. + +"Here," said she, "you take this, Mr. Atkins; it's real good for a +cough. Andrew cured a cold with it last month." + +"Mine ain't a cold, and it can't be cured in this world, but it's +better for me, I guess," said Joe Atkins, chokingly, but he took the +cup. + +"Now, you hadn't ought to talk so," Fanny said. "You had ought to +think of your wife and children." + +"My life is insured," said Joseph Atkins. + +"We ain't got no money and no jewelry, and no silver to leave them +we love--all we've got to leave 'em is the price of our own lives," +said Nahum Beals. + +"I wish I had got my life insured," Andrew said. + +"Don't talk so, Andrew," Fanny cried, with a shudder. + +"My life is insured for two thousand dollars," Joe Atkins said, with +an odd sort of pride. "I had it done three years ago. My lungs was +sound as anybody's then, but that very next summer I worked up under +that tin roof, and came out as wet as if I'd been dipped in the +river, into an east wind, and got a chill. It was the only time I +ever struck luck--to get insured before that happened. Nobody'd look +at me now, and I dunno what they'd do. I 'ain't laid up a cent, I've +had so much sickness in my family." + +"If you hadn't worked that summer in the annex under that tin roof, +you'd be as well as you ever was now," said Nahum Beals. + +"I worked there 'longside of you that summer," said Andrew to Joe, +with bitter reminiscence. "We used to strip like a gang of convicts, +and we stood in pools of sweat. It was that awful hot summer, and +the room had only that one row of windows facing the east, and the +wind never that way." + +"Not till I came out of the shop that night I took the chill," said +Joe. + +Suddenly the young man, Nahum Beals, hit his knees a sounding slap, +which made Ellen, furtively and timidly attentive at her window, +jump. "It seems sometimes as if the Almighty himself was in league +with 'em," he shouted out, "but I tell you it won't last, it won't +last." + +"I don't see much sign of any change for the better," Andrew said, +gloomily. + +"I tell you, sir, it won't last," repeated Nahum Beals. "I tell you, +the Lord only raises 'em up higher and higher that He may dash 'em +lower when the time comes. The same earth is beneath the high places +of this life, and the lowly ones, and the law that governs 'em is +the same, and--the higher the place the longer the fall, and the +longer the fall the sorer the hurt." Nahum Beals sprang to his feet +with a strange abandon of self-consciousness and a fiery impetus for +one of his New England blood. He had a delicate, nervous face, like +a woman's, his blue eyes gleamed like blue flames under his overhang +of white forehead, he shook his head as if it were maned like a +lion, and, though he wore his thin, fair hair short, one could seem +to see it flung back in glistening lines. He spread his hands as if +he were addressing an audience, and as he did so the parlor door +opened and Jim Tenny and Eva stood there, listening. + +"I tell you, sir," shouted Nahum Beals, "the time will come when you +will all thank God that you belong to the poor and down-trodden of +this earth, and not to the rich and great--the time will come. +There's knives to sharpen to-day, and wood for scaffolds as plenty +as in the days of the French Revolution, and the hand that marks the +time of day on the clock of men's patience with wrong and oppression +has near gone round to the same hour and minute." + +Andrew Brewster looked at him, with a curious expression half of +disgust, half of sympathy. His sense of dignity in the face of +adversity inherited from his New England race was shocked; he was +not one to be blindly swayed by another's fervor even when his own +wrongs were in question. He would not have made a good follower in a +revolution, nor a leader. He would simply have found his own place +of fixed principle and abided there. Then, too, he had a judicial +mind which could combine the elements of counsels for and against +his own cause. + +"Now, look at here," he said, slowly, "I ain't goin' to say I don't +think we ain't in a hard place, and that there's somethin' wrong +that's to blame for it, but I dunno but you go most too far, Nahum; +or, rather, I dunno as you go far enough. I dunno but we've got to +dig down past the poor and the rich, farther into the everlastin' +foundations of things to get at what's the trouble." + +Jim Tenny, standing in the parlor doorway, with an arm around Eva's +waist, broke in suddenly with a defiant laugh. "I don't care nothin' +about the everlastin' foundations of things, and I don't care a darn +about the rich and the poor," he proclaimed. "I'm willin' to leave +that to lecturers and dynamiters, and let 'em settle it if they can. +I don't grudge the rich nothin', and I ain't goin' to call the +Almighty to account for givin' somebody else the biggest piece of +pie; mebbe it would give me the stomach-ache. All I'm concerned +about is Lloyd's shut-down." + +"That's so," said Eva. + +"I tell you, sir, it ain't the facts of the case, but the reason for +the facts, which we must think of," maintained Nahum Beals. + +"I don't care a darn for the facts nor the reasons," said Jim Tenny; +"all I care about is I'm out of work maybe till spring, with my +mother dependent on me, and not a cent laid up, I've been so darned +careless, and here's Eva says she won't marry me till I get work." + +"I won't," said Eva, who was very pale, except for burning spots on +her cheeks. + +"She's afraid she won't get frostin' on her cake, and silk dresses, +I expect," Jim Tenny said, and laughed, but his laugh was very +bitter. + +"Jim Tenny, you know better than that," Eva cried, sharply. "I won't +stand that." + +Jim Tenny, with a quick motion, unwound his arm from Eva's waist and +stripped up his sleeve. "There, look at that, will you," he cried +out, shaking his lean, muscular arm at them; "look at that muscle, +and me tellin' her that I could earn a livin' for her, and she +afraid. I can dig if I can't make shoes. I guess there's work in +this world for them that's willin', and don't pick and choose." + +"There ain't," declared Nahum, shortly. + +"You can't dig when the ground's froze hard," Eva said, with literal +meaning. + +"Then I'll take a pickaxe," cried Jim. + +"You can dig, but who's goin' to pay you for the diggin'?" demanded +Nahum Beals. + +"The idea of a girl's bein' afraid I wa'n't enough of a man to +support a wife with an arm like that," said Jim Tenny, "as if I +couldn't dig for her, or fight for her." + +"The fightin' has got to come first in order to get the diggin', and +the pay for it," said Nahum. + +"Now, look at here," Andrew Brewster broke in, "you know I'm in as +bad a box as you, and I come home to-night feelin' as if I didn't +care whether I lived or died; but if it's true what McGrath said +to-night, we've got to use common-sense in lookin' at things even if +it goes against us. If what McGrath said was true, that Lloyd's +losing money keeping on, I dunno how we can expect him or any other +man to do that." + +"Why not he lose money as well as we?" demanded Nahum, fiercely. + +"'Cause we 'ain't got none to lose," cried Jim Tenny, with a hard +laugh, and Eva and Fanny echoed him hysterically. + +Nahum took no notice of the interruption. Tragedy, to his +comprehension, never verged on comedy. One could imagine his face of +intense melancholy and denunciation relaxed with laughter no more +than that of the stern prophet of righteous retribution whose name +he bore. + +"Why shouldn't Norman Lloyd lose money?" he demanded again. "Why +shouldn't he lose his fine house as well as I my poor little home? +Why shouldn't he lose his purple and fine linen as well as Jim his +chances of happiness? Why shouldn't he lose his diamond shirt-studs, +and his carriage and horses, as well as Joe his life?" + +"Well, he earned his money, I suppose," Andrew said, slowly, "and I +suppose it's for him to say what he'll do with it." + +"Earned his money? He didn't earn his money," cried Nahum Beals. "We +earned it, every dollar of it, by the sweat of our brows, and it's +for us, not him, to say what shall be done with it. Well, the time +will come, I tell ye, the time will come." + +"We sha'n't see it," said Joe Atkins. + +"It may come sooner than you think," said Nahum. Then Nahum Beals, +with a sudden access of bitterness, broke in. "Look at Norman +Lloyd," he cried, "havin' that great house, and horses and +carriages, and dressin' like a dude, and his wife rustlin' in silks +so you can hear her comin' a mile off, and shinin' like a jeweller's +window--look at 'em all--all the factory bosses--livin' like princes +on the money we've earned for 'em; and look at their relations, and +look at the rich folks that ain't never earned a cent, that's had +money left 'em. Go right up and down the Main Street, here in this +city. See the Lloyds and the Maguires and the Marshalls and the +Risleys and the Lennoxes--" + +"There ain't none of the Lennoxes left except that one woman," said +Andrew. + +"Well, look at her. There she is without chick or child, rollin' in +riches, and Norman Lloyd's her own brother-in-law. Why don't she +give him a little money to run the factory this winter, so you and +me won't have to lose everythin'?" + +"I suppose she's got a right to do as she pleases with her own," +said Andrew. + +"I tell you she ain't," shouted Nahum. "She ain't the one to say, +'It's the Lord, and He's said it.' Cynthia Lennox and all the women +like her are the oppressors of the poor. They are accursed in the +sight of the Lord, as were those women we read about in the Old +Testament, with their mantles and crisping-pins. Their low voices +and their silk sweeps and their shrinkin' from touchin' shoulders +with their fellow-beings in a crowd don't alter matters a mite." + +"Now, Nahum," cried Jim Tenny, with one of his sudden turns of base +when his sense of humor was touched, "you don't mean to say that you +want Cynthia Lennox to give you her money?" + +"I'd die, and see her dead, before I'd touch a dollar of her money!" +cried Nahum--"before I'd touch a dollar of her money or anything +that was bought with her money, her money or any other rich +person's. I want what I earn. I don't want a gift with a curse on +it. Let her keep her fine things. She and her kind are responsible +for all the misery of the poor on the face of the earth." + +"Seems to me you're reasonin' in a circle, Nahum," Andrew said, +good-humoredly. + +"Look here, Andrew, if you're on the side of the rich, why don't you +say so?" cried Eva. + +"He ain't," returned Fanny--"you know better, Eva Loud." + +"No, I ain't," declared Andrew. "You all of you know I'm with the +class I belong to; I ain't a toady to no rich folks; I don't think +no more of 'em than you do, and I don't want any favors of 'em--all +I want is pay for my honest work, and that's an even swap, and I +ain't beholden, but I want to look at things fair and square. I +don't want to be carried away because I'm out of work, though, God +knows, it's hard enough." + +"I don't know what's goin' to become of us," said Joseph +Atkins--then he coughed. + +"I don't," Jim Tenny said, bitterly. + +"And God knows I don't," cried Eva, and she sat down in the nearest +chair, flung up her hands before her face, and wept. + +Then Fanny spoke to Ellen, who had been sitting very still and +attentive, her eyes growing larger, her cheeks redder with +excitement. Fanny had often glanced uneasily at her, and wished to +send her to bed, but she was in the habit of warming Ellen's little +chamber at the head of the stairs by leaving open the sitting-room +door for a while before she went to it, and she was afraid of +cooling the room too much for Joseph Atkins, and had not ventured to +interrupt the conversation. Now, seeing the child's fevered face, +she made up her mind. "Come, Ellen, it's your bed-time," she said, +and Ellen rose reluctantly, and, kissing her father, she went to her +aunt Eva, who caught at her convulsively and kissed her, and sobbed +against her cheek. "Oh, oh!" she wailed, "you precious little thing, +you precious little thing, I don't know what's goin' to become of us +all." + +"Don't, Eva," said Fanny, sharply; "can't you see she's all wrought +up? She hadn't ought to have heard all this talk." + +Andrew looked anxiously at his wife, rose, and caught up Ellen in +his arms with a hug of fervent and protective love. "Don't you +worry, father's darlin'," he whispered. "Don't you worry about +anythin' you have heard. Father will always have enough to take care +of you with." + +Jim Tenny, when Andrew set the child down, caught her up again with +a sounding kiss. "Don't you let your big ears ache, you little +pitcher," said he, with a gay laugh. "Little doll-babies like you +haven't anythin' to worry about if Lloyd's shut down every day in +the year." + +"They're the very ones whom it concerns," said Nahum Beals, when +Ellen and her mother had gone up-stairs. + +"Well, I wouldn't have had that little nervous thing hear all this, +if I'd thought," Andrew said, anxiously. + +Joseph Atkins, whom Fanny had stationed in a sheltered corner near +the stove when she opened the door, peered around at Andrew. + +"Seems as if she was too young to get much sense of it," he +remarked. "My Maria, that's her age, wouldn't." + +"Ellen hears everything and makes her own sense of it," said Andrew, +"and the Lord only knows what she's made of this. I hope she won't +fret over it." + +"I wish my tongue had been cut off before I said anything before +her," cried Eva. "I know just what that child is. She'll find out +what a hard world she's in soon enough, anyway, and I don't want to +be the one to open her eyes ahead of time." + +Ellen went to bed quietly, and her mother did not think she had paid +much attention to what had been going on, and said so when she went +down-stairs after Ellen had been kissed and tucked in bed and the +lamp put out. "I guess she didn't mind much about it, after all," +she said to Andrew. "I guess the room was pretty warm, and that was +what made her cheeks so red." + +But Ellen, after her mother left her, turned her little head towards +the wall and wept softly, lest some one hear her, but none the less +bitterly that she had no right conception of the cause of her grief. +There was over her childish soul the awful shadow of the labor and +poverty of the world. She knew naught of the substance behind the +shadow, but the darkness terrified her all the more, and she cried +and cried as if her heart would break. Then she, with a sudden +resolution, born she could not have told of what strange +understanding and misunderstanding of what she had heard that +evening, slipped out of bed, groped about until she found her +cherished doll, sitting in her little chair in the corner. She was +accustomed to take the doll to bed with her, and had undressed her +for that purpose early in the evening, but she had climbed into bed +and left her sitting in the corner. + +"Don't you want your dolly?" her mother had asked. + +"No, ma'am; I guess I don't want her to-night," Ellen had replied, +with a little break in her voice. Now, when she reached the doll, +she gathered her up in her little arms, and groped her way with her +into the closet. She hugged the doll, and kissed her wildly, then +she shook her. "You have been naughty," she whispered--"yes, you +have, dreadful naughty. No, don't you talk to me; you have been +naughty. What right had you to be livin' with rich folks, and +wearin' such fine things, when other children don't have anything. +What right had that little boy that was your mother before I was, +and that rich lady that gave you to me? They had ought to be put in +the closet, too. God had ought to put them all in the closet, the +way I'm goin' to put you. Don't you say a word; you needn't cry; +you've been dreadful naughty." + +Ellen set the doll, face to the wall, in the corner of the closet, +and left her there. Then she crept back into bed, and lay there +crying over her precious baby shivering in her thin night-gown all +alone in the dark closet. But she was firm in keeping her there, +since, with that strange, involuntary grasp of symbolism which has +always been maintained by the baby-fingers of humanity for the +satisfying of needs beyond resources and the solving of problems +outside knowledge, she had a conviction that she was, in such +fashion, righting wrong and punishing evil. But she wept over the +poor doll until she fell asleep. + + + + +Chapter X + + +When Ellen woke the next morning she had a curious feeling, as if +she were blinded by the glare of many hitherto unsuspected windows +opening into the greatness outside the little world, just large +enough to contain them, in which she had dwelt all her life with her +parents, her aunt, her grandmother, and her doll. She tried to +adjust herself to her old point of view with her simple childish +recognition of the most primitive facts as a basis for dreams, but +she remembered what Mr. Atkins, who coughed so dreadfully, had said +the night before; she remembered what the young man with the bulging +forehead, who frightened her terribly, had said; she remembered the +gloomy look in her father's face, the misery in her aunt Eva's; and +she remembered her doll in the closet--and either everything was +different or had a different light upon it. In reality Ellen's +evening in the sound and sight of that current of rebellion against +the odds of life which has taken the poor off their foot hold of +understanding since the beginning of the world had aged her. She had +lost something out of her childhood. She dreaded to go down-stairs; +she had a feeling of shamefacedness struggling within her; she was +afraid that her father and mother would look at her sharply, then +look again, and ask her what the matter was, and she would not know +what to say. When she went down, and backed about for her mother to +fasten her little frock as was her wont, she was careful to keep her +face turned away; but Fanny caught her up and kissed her in her +usual way, and then her aunt Eva sung out to know if she wanted to +go on a sleigh-ride, and had she seen the snow; and then her father +came in and that look of last night had gone from his face, and +Ellen was her old self again until she was alone by herself and +remembered. + +Fanny and Andrew and Eva had agreed to say nothing before the child +about the shutting-up of Lloyd's, and their troubles in consequence. +"She heard too much last night," Andrew said; "there's no use in her +botherin' her little head with it. I guess that baby won't suffer." + +"She's jest the child to fret herself most to pieces thinkin' we +were awful poor, and she would starve or somethin'," Fanny said. + +"Well, she sha'n't be worried if I can help it, no matter what +happens to me," Eva said. + +After breakfast that morning Eva went to work on a little dress of +Ellen's. When Fanny told her not to spend her time over that, when +she had so much sewing of her own to do, Eva replied with a gay, +hard laugh, that she guessed she'd wait and finish her weddin'-fix +when she was goin' to be married. + +"Eva Loud, you ain't goin' to be so silly as to put off your +weddin'," Fanny cried out. + +"I dunno as I've put it off; I dunno as I want to get married, +anyhow," Eva said, still laughing. "I dunno, but I'd rather be old +maid aunt to Ellen." + +"Eva Loud," cried her sister; "do you know what you are doin'?" + +"Pretty well, I reckon," said Eva. + +"Do you know that if you put off Jim Tenny, and he not likin' it, +ten chances to one Aggie Bemis will get hold of him again?" + +"Well," said Eva, "let her. I won't have been the one to drag him +into misery, anyhow." + +"Well, if you can feel that way," Fanny returned, looking at her +sister with a sort of mixed admiration and pity. + +"I can. I tell you what 'tis, Fanny. When I look at Jim, handsome +and head up in the air, and think how he'd look all bowed down, hair +turnin' gray, and not carin' whether he's shaved and has on a clean +shirt or not, 'cause he's got loaded down with debt, and the +grocery-man and the butcher after him, and no work, and me and the +children draggin' him down, I can bear anything. If another girl +wants to do it, she must, though I'd like to kill her when I think +of it. I can't do it, because--I think too much of him." + +"He might lose his work after he was married, you know." + +"Well, I suppose we'd have to run the risk of that; but I'm goin' to +start fair or not at all." + +"Well, maybe he'll get work," Fanny said. + +"He won't," said Eva. She began to sing "Nancy Lee" over Ellen's +dress. + +After breakfast Ellen begged a piece of old brown calico of her +mother. "Why, of course you can have it, child," said her mother; +"but what on earth do you want it for? I was goin' to put it in the +rag-bag." + +"I want to make my dolly a dress." + +"Why, that ain't fit for your dolly's dress. Only think how queer +that beautiful doll would look in a dress made of that. Why, you +'ain't thought anything but silk and satin was good enough for her." + +"I'll give you a piece of my new blue silk to make your doll a +dress," said Eva. + +But Ellen persisted. When the doll came out of her closet of +vicarious penance she was arrayed like a very scullion among dolls, +in the remnant of the dress in which Fanny Brewster had done her +house-work all summer. + +"There," Ellen told the doll, when her mother did not hear "you look +more like the way you ought to, and you ought to be happy, and not +ever think you wish you had your silk dress on. Think of all the +poor children who never have any silk dresses, or any dresses at +all--nothing except their cloth bodies in the coldest weather. You +ought to be thankful to have this." For all which good advice and +philosophy the little mother of the doll would often look at the +discarded beauty of the wardrobe, with tears in her eyes and fondest +pity in her heart; but she never flinched. When the young man Nahum +Beals came in, as he often did of an evening, and raised his voice +in fierce denunciation against the luxury and extravagance of the +rich, Ellen would listen and consider that he would undoubtedly +approve of what she had done, did he know, and would allow that she +had made her small effort towards righting things. + +"Only think what Mr. Beals would say if he saw you in your silk +dress; why, I don't know but he would throw you out of the window," +she told her doll once. + +Ellen did not feel any difference in her way of living after her +father was out of work. "She ain't goin' to be stented in one single +thing; remember that," Andrew told Fanny, with angry emphasis. "That +little, delicate thing is goin' to have everything she needs, if I +spend every cent I've saved and mortgage the place." + +"Oh, you'll get work before it comes to that," Fanny said, +consolingly. + +"Whether I do or not, it sha'n't make any difference," declared +Andrew. "I'm goin' to hire a horse and sleigh and take her +sleigh-ridin' this afternoon. It'll be good, and she's been talkin' +about a sleigh-ride ever since snow flew." + +"She could do without that," Fanny said, doubtfully. + +"Well, she ain't goin' to." + +So it happened that the very day after Lloyd's had shut down, when +every man out of employment felt poorer than he did later when he +had grown accustomed to the sensation of no money coming in, Andrew +Brewster hired a horse and double sleigh, and took Ellen, her +mother, grandmother, and aunt out sleigh-riding. Ellen sat on the +back seat of the sleigh, full of that radiant happiness felt by a +child whose pleasures have not been repeated often enough for +satiety. The sleigh slid over the blue levels of snow followed by +long creaks like wakes of sound, when the livery-stable horse shook +his head proudly and set his bells in a flurry. Ellen drew a long +breath of rapture. These unaccustomed sounds held harmonies of +happiness which would echo through her future, for no one can +estimate the immortality of some little delight of a child. In all +her life, Ellen never forgot that sleigh-ride. It was a very cold +day, and the virgin snow did not melt at all; the wind blew a soft, +steady pressure from the west, and its wings were evident from the +glistening crystals which were lifted and borne along. The trees +held their shining boughs against the blue of the sky, and burned +and blazed here and there as with lamps of diamonds. The child +looked at them, and they lit her soul. Her little face, between the +swan's-down puffs of her hood, deepened in color like a rose; her +blue eyes shone; she laughed and dimpled silently; she was in too +much bliss to speak. The others kept looking at her, then at one +another. Fanny nudged her mother-in-law, behind the child's back, +and the two women exchanged glances of confidential pride. Andrew +and Eva kept glancing around at her, and asking if she were having a +good time. Eva was smartly dressed in her best hat, gay with bows +and red wings bristling as sharply as the head-dress of an Indian +chief in the old pictures. She had a red coat, and a long fur boa +wound around her throat; the clear crimson of her cheeks, her great +black eyes, and her heavy black braids were so striking that people +whom they met looked long at her. Eva talked fast to Andrew, and +laughed often and loudly. + +Whenever that strident laugh of hers rang out, Mrs. Zelotes +Brewster, on the seat behind, moved her be-shawled shoulders with a +shivering hunch of disgust. "Can't you tell that girl not to laugh +so loud when we're out ridin'," she said to her son that evening; "I +saw folks lookin'." + +"Oh, never mind, mother," Andrew said; "the poor girl's got a good +deal on her mind." + +"I suppose you mean that Tinny feller," said Mrs. Zelotes, alluding +to something which had happened that afternoon in the course of the +sleigh-ride. + +The sleighing that day was excellent, for there had been an ice +coating on the road before, and the last not very heavy snowfall had +been just enough. The Brewsters passed and met many others: young +men out with their sweethearts, whole families drawn by the sober +old horse as old as the grown-up children; rakish young men driving +stable teams, leaning forward with long circles of whip over the +horses' backs, leaving the scent of cigars behind them; and often, +too, two young ladies in dainty turnouts; and sometimes two girls or +four girls from Lloyd's, who had clubbed together and hired a +sleigh, taking reckless advantage of their enforced vacation. + +"There's Daisy and Hat Sears, and--and there's Nell White and Eaat +Ryoce in the team behind," Eva said. + +"I should think they better be savin' their money if Lloyd's has +shut up," said Mrs. Zelotes, severely. + +"We ain't savin' ours, or Andrew ain't," Eva retorted, with a laugh. + +"It's different with us," said Mrs. Zelotes, proudly, "though I +shouldn't think it was right for Andrew to hire a team every day." + +"Sometimes I think folks might just as well have a little as they're +goin' along, for half the time they never seem to get there," Eva +said, with another hard laugh at her own wit; and just then she saw +something which made her turn deathly white, and catch her breath +with a gasp in spite of herself, though that was all. She held up +her head like a queen and turned her handsome white face full +towards Jim Tenny and the girl for whom he had jilted her before, as +they drove past, and bowed and smiled in a fashion which made the +red flame up over the young man's swarthy cheek, and the pretty girl +at his side shrink a little and avert her tousled fair head with a +nervous giggle. + +Mrs. Zelotes Brewster twisted herself about and looked after them. +"There's John Tibbets and his wife in that sleigh; he's thrown out +of work as well as you, Andrew," said Fanny, hastily. "See that +feather in her bonnet blow; it's standin' up straight." But Fanny's +manoeuvre to turn the attention of her mother-in-law was of no +avail, for nothing short of sudden death could interpose an +effectual barrier between Mrs. Zelotes Brewster's tongue and mind +set with the purpose of speech. "Was that the Tinny fellow?" she +demanded. + +"Yes; I guess so. I didn't notice in particular," Fanny replied, in +a low voice. Then she added, pointing to an advancing sleigh. "Good +land, there's that Smith girl. They said she wasn't able to ride +out. Seems to me she's taken a queer day for it." + +"Was that that Tinny fellow?" Mrs. Zelotes asked again. She leaned +forward and gave Eva a hard nudge on her red-coated elbow. + +"Yes, it was," Eva answered, calmly. + +"Who was that girl with him?" + +"It was Aggie Bemis." + +Mrs. Zelotes gave a sniff, then she settled back, studying Eva's +back with a sort of reflective curiosity. Presently she fumbled +under the sleigh cushion for an extra shawl which she had brought, +and handed it up to Eva. "Don't you want this extra shawl?" she +asked, while Fanny stared at her wonderingly. Mrs. Zelotes's +civilities towards her sister had been few and far between. + +"No, thank you," Eva replied, with a start. + +"Hadn't you better? It must be pretty cold sitting up there. You +must take all the wind. You can wrap this shawl all around your face +and ears, and I don't want it." + +"No, thank you; I'm plenty warm," Eva replied. She swallowed hard, +and set her mouth hard. There was something about this kindness of +her old disapprover which touched her deeply, and moved her to +weakness more than had the sight of her recreant love with another +girl. Fanny saw the little quiver pass over her sister's face, and +leaned over and whispered. + +"I shouldn't be a mite surprised if that girl asked Jim to take her. +It would be just like her." + +"It don't make any odds whether she did or not," returned Eva, with +no affectation of secrecy. "I don't care which way 'twas." She sat +up straighter than ever, and some men in a passing sleigh turned to +look after her. + +"I s'pose she don't think my shawl looks genteel enough to wear," +Mrs. Zelotes said to Fanny; "but she's dreadful silly." + +They drove through the main street of the city and passed Cynthia +Lennox's house. Ellen looked at it with the guilt of secrecy. She +thought she saw the lady's head at a front window, and the front +door opened and Cynthia came down the walk with a rich sweep of +black draperies, and the soft sable toss of plumes. "There's Cynthia +Lennox," said Fanny. "She's a handsome-lookin' woman, ain't she?" + +"She's most as old as Andrew, but you'd never suspect it," said Mrs. +Zelotes. She had used to have a fancy that Andrew and Cynthia might +make a match. She had seen no reason to the contrary, and she always +looked at Cynthia with a curious sense of injury and resentment when +she thought of what might have been. + +As Cynthia Lennox swept down the walk to-day, the old lady said, +sharply: + +"I don't see why she should walk any prouder than anybody else. I +don't know why she should, if she's right-minded. The Lennoxes +wasn't any grander than the Brewsters way back, if they have got a +little more money of late years. Cynthia's grandfather, old Squire +Lennox, used to keep the store, and live in one side of it, and her +mother's father, Calvin Goodenough, kept the tavern. I dunno as she +has so much to be proud of, though she's handsome enough, and shows +her bringin' up, as folks can't that ain't had it." Fanny winced a +little; her bringing up was a sore subject with her. + +"Well, folks can't help their bringin' up," she retorted, sharply. + +"There's Lloyd's team," Andrew said, quickly, partly to avert the +impending tongue-clash between his wife and mother. + +He reined his horse to one side at a respectful distance, and Norman +H. Lloyd, with his wife at his side, swept by in his fine sleigh, +streaming on the wind with black fur tails, his pair of bays +stepping high to the music of their arches of bells. The Brewsters +eyed Norman Lloyd's Russian coat with the wide sable collar turned +up around his proud, clear-cut face, the fur-gauntleted hands which +held the lines and the whip, for Mr. Lloyd preferred to drive his +own blooded pair, both from a love of horseflesh and a greater +confidence in his own guidance than in that of other people. Mr. +Lloyd was no coward, but he would have confided to no man his +sensations had he sat behind those furnaces of fiery motion with +other hands than his own upon the lines. + +"I should think Mis' Lloyd would be afraid to ride with such +horses," said Mrs. Zelotes, as they leaped aside in passing; then +she bowed and smiled with eager pleasure, and yet with perfect +self-respect. She felt herself every whit as good as Mrs. Norman +Lloyd, and her handsome Paisley shawl and velvet bonnet as genteel +as the other woman's sealskins and floating plumes. Mrs. Lloyd +loomed up like a vast figure of richness enveloped in her bulky +winter wraps; her face was superb with health and enjoyment and +good-humor. Her cheeks were a deep crimson in the cold wind; she +smiled radiantly all the time as if at life itself. She had no +thought of fear behind those prancing bays which seemed so frightful +to Mrs. Zelotes, used to the steadiest stable team a few times +during the year, and driven with a wary eye to railroad crossings +and a sense of one's mortality in the midst of life strong upon her. +Mrs. Norman Lloyd had never any doubt when her husband held the +lines. She would have smiled behind ostriches and zebras. To her +mind Norman Lloyd was, as it were, impregnable to all combinations +of alien strength or circumstances. When she bowed on passing the +Brewsters, she did not move her fixed smile until she caught sight +of Ellen. Then emotion broke through the even radiance of her face. +She moved her head with a flurry of nods; she waved her hand; she +even kissed it to her. + +"Bow to Mis' Lloyd, Ellen," said her grandmother; and Ellen ducked +her head solemnly. She remembered what she had heard the night +before, and the sleigh swept by, Mrs. Lloyd's rosy face smiling back +over the black fringe of dancing tails. Eva had shot a swift glance +of utmost rancor at the Lloyds, then sat stiff and upright until +they passed. + +"I wouldn't ask Ellen to bow to that woman," said she, fiercely, +between her teeth. "I hate the whole tribe." + +No one heard her except Andrew, and he shook the lines over the +steady stable horse, and said, "G'lang!" hoarsely. + +Mrs. Norman Lloyd, in the other sleigh, had turned to her husband +with somewhat timid and deprecating enthusiasm. "Ain't she a sweet +little girl?" said she. + +"What little girl?" Lloyd asked, abstractedly. He had not looked at +the Brewsters at all. + +"That little Ellen Brewster who ran away and was gone most three +days a little while ago. She was in that sleigh we just passed. She +is just the sweetest child I ever laid eyes on," and Norman Lloyd +smiled vaguely and coldly, and cast a glance over his sable-clad +shoulders to see how far behind the team whose approaching bells he +heard might be. + +"I suppose her father and aunt are out of work on account of the +closing of the factory," remarked Mrs. Lloyd, and a shadow of +reflection came over her radiant face. + +"Yes, I believe they worked there," Lloyd replied, shaking loose the +reins and speeding the horses, that he might not be overtaken. In a +few minutes they reached the factory neighborhood. There were three +factories: two of them on opposite sides of the road, humming with +labor, and puffing with jets of steam at different points; Lloyd's, +beyond, was as large as both those standing hushed with windows +blank in the afternoon sunshine. + +"I suppose the poor men feel pretty badly at being thrown out of +work," Mrs. Lloyd said, looking up at the windows as she slipped +past in her nest of furs. + +"They feel so badly that I have seen a round dozen since we started +out taking advantage of their liberty to have a sleigh-ride with +livery teams at a good round price," Lloyd replied, with languid +emphasis. He never spoke with any force of argument to his wife, nor +indeed to any one else, in justification of his actions. His reasons +for action were in most cases self-evolved and entirely +self-regulated. He had said not a word to any one, not even to his +foreman, of his purpose to close the factory until it was quite +fixed; he had asked no advice, explained to no one the course of +reasoning which led to his doing so. Rowe was a city of strikes, but +there had never been a strike at Lloyd's because he had abandoned +the situation in every case before the clouds of rebellion were near +enough for the storm to break. When Briggs and McGuire, the rival +manufacturers at his right and left, had resorted to cut prices when +business was dull, as a refuge from closing up, Lloyd closed with no +attempt at compromise. + +"I suppose they need a little recreation," Mrs. Lloyd observed, +thinking of the little girl's face peeping out between her mother +and grandmother in the sleigh they had just passed. + +"Their little recreation is on about the same scale for them as my +hiring a special railroad train every day in the week to go to +Boston would be for me," returned Lloyd, setting his handsome face +ahead at the track. + +"It does seem dreadful foolish," said his wife, "when they are out +of work, and maybe won't earn any more money to support their +families all winter--" Mrs. Lloyd hesitated a minute. "I wonder," +said she, "if they feel sort of desperate, and think they won't have +enough for their families, anyway--that is, enough to feed them, and +they might as well get a little good time out of it to remember +by-and-by when there ain't enough bread-and-butter. I dunno but we +might do something like that, if we were in their places--don't you, +Norman?" + +"No, I do not," replied Lloyd; "and that is the reason why you and I +are not in their places." + +Mrs. Lloyd put her sealskin muff before her face as they turned a +windy corner, and reflected that her husband was much wiser than +she, and that the world couldn't be regulated by women's hearts, +pleasant as it would be for the world and the women, since the final +outcome would doubtless be destruction. + +Mrs. Norman Lloyd was an eminent survival of the purest and +oldest-fashioned femininity, a very woman of St. Paul, except that +she did not keep silence in the sanctuary. + +Just after they had turned the corner they passed an outlying +grocery store much frequented as a lounging-place by idle men. There +was a row of them on the wooden platform (backed against the wall), +cold as it was, watching the sleighs pass, and two or three knots +gathered together for the purposes of confabulation. Nearly all of +them were employes of Lloyd's, and they had met at that unseasonable +hour on that bitter day, drifting together unconsciously as towards +a common nucleus of trouble, to talk over the situation. + +When these men, huddled up in their shabby great-coats, with caps +pulled over shaggy brows and sullenly flashing eyes, saw the Lloyds +approaching, the rumble of conversation suddenly ceased. They all +stood staring when their employer passed. Only one man, Nahum Beals, +looked fairly at Lloyd's face with a denouncing flash of eyes. + +To this man Lloyd, recognizing him and some of the others as his +employes, bowed. Nahum Beals stood glaring at him in accusing +silence, and his head was as immovable as if carved in stone. The +other men, with their averted eyes, made a curious, motionless +tableau of futile and dumb resistance to power which might have been +carved with truth on the face of the rock from the beginning of the +earth. + + + + +Chapter XI + + +The closing of Lloyd's marked, in some inscrutable way, the close of +the first period of Ellen Brewster's childhood. Looking back in +later years, she always felt her retrospective thought strike a +barrier there, beyond which her images of the past were confused. +Yet it was difficult to tell why it was so, for after the first the +child could, it seemed, have realized no difference in her life. Now +and then she heard some of that conversation characterized at once +by the confidence of wrong and injustice, and the logical doubt of +it, by solid reasoning which, if followed far enough, refuted +itself, by keen and unanswerable argument, and the wildest and most +futile enthusiasm. But she had gained nothing except the conviction +of the great wrongs of the poor of this earth and the awful tyranny +of the rich, of the everlasting moaning of Lazarus at the gates and +the cry for water later on from the depths of the rich man's hell. +Somehow that last never comforted Ellen; she had no conception of +the joy of the injured party over righteous retribution. She pitied +the rich man and Lazarus impartially, yet all the time a spirit of +fierce partisanship with these poor men was strengthening with her +growth, their eloquence over their wrongs stirred her soul, and set +her feet outside her childhood. Still, as before said, there was no +tangible difference in her daily life. The little petted treasure of +the Brewsters had all her small luxuries, sweets, and cushions of +life, as well after as before the closing of Lloyd's. And the +preparations for her aunt's wedding went on also. The sight of her +lover sleigh-riding with her rival that afternoon had been too much +for the resolution of Eva Loud's undisciplined nature. She had +herself gone to Jim Tenny's house that evening, and called him to +account, to learn that he had seriously taken her resolution not to +marry at present to proceed from a fear that he would not provide +properly for her, and that he had in this state of indignation been +easily led by the sight of Aggie Bemis's pretty face in her front +door, as he drove by, to stop. She had told Jim that she would marry +him as she had agreed if he looked at matters in that way, and had +passed Aggie Bemis's window leaning on Jim's arm with a side stare +of triumph. + +"Be you goin' to get married next month after what you said this +mornin'?" her sister asked, half joyfully, half anxiously. + +"Yes, I be," was all Eva replied, and Fanny stared at her; she was +so purely normal in her inconsistency as to seem almost the other +thing. + +The preparations for the wedding went on, but Eva never seemed as +happy as she had done before the closing of Lloyd's. Jim Tenny could +get no more work, and neither could Andrew. + +Fanny lamented that the shop had closed at that time of year, for +she had planned a Christmas tree of unprecedented splendor for +Ellen, but Mrs. Zelotes was to be depended upon as usual, and Andrew +told his wife to make no difference. "That little thing ain't goin' +to be cheated nohow," he said one night after Ellen had gone to bed +and his visiting companions of the cutting-room had happened in. + +"I know my children won't get much," Joseph Atkins said, coughing as +he spoke; "they wouldn't if Lloyd's hadn't shut down. I never see +the time when I could afford to make any account of Christmas, much +as ever I could manage a turkey Thanksgiving day." + +"The poor that the Lord died for can't afford to keep his birthday; +it is the rich that he's going to cast into outer darkness, that +keep it for their own ends, and it's a blasphemy and a mockery," +proclaimed Nahum Beals. He was very excited that night, and would +often spring to his feet and stride across the room. There was +another man there that night, a cousin of Joseph Atkins, John +Sargent by name. He had recently moved to Rowe, since he had +obtained work at McGuire's, "had accepted a position in the +finishing-room of Mr. H. S. McGuire's factory in the city of Rowe," +as the item in the local paper put it. He was a young man, younger +than his cousin, but he looked older. He had a handsome face, under +the most complete control as to its muscles. When he laughed he gave +the impression of the fixedness of merriment of a mask. He looked +keenly at Nahum Beals with that immovable laugh on his face, and +spoke with perfectly good-natured sarcasm. "All very well for the +string-pieces of the bridge from oppression to freedom," he said, +"but you need some common-sense for the ties, or you'll slump." + +"What do you mean?" + +"We ain't in the Old Testament, but the nineteenth century, and +those old prophets, if they were alive to-day, would have to step +down out of their flaming chariots and hang their mantles on the +bushes, and instead of standing on mountain-tops and tellin' their +enemies what rats they were, and how they would get what they +deserved later on, they would have to tell their enemies what they +wanted them to do to better matters, and make them do it." + +"Instead of standing by your own strike in Greenboro, you quit and +come here to work in McGuire's the minute you got a chance," said +Nahum Beals, sullenly, and Sargent responded, with his unrelaxing +laugh, "I left enough strikers for the situation in Greenboro; don't +you worry about me." + +"I think he done quite right to quit the strike if he got a chance +to work," Joseph Atkins interposed. "Folks have got to look out for +themselves, labor reform or no labor reform." + +"That's the corner-stone of labor reform, seems to me," said Andrew. + +"Seems to me sometimes you talk like a damned scab," cried Nahum +Beals, fiercely, red spots flickering in his thin cheeks. Andrew +looked at him, and spoke with slow wrath. "Look here, Nahum Beals," +he said, "you're in my house, but I ain't goin' to stand no such +talk as that, I can tell you." + +John Sargent laid a pacifically detaining hand on Nahum Beals's arm +as he strode past him. "Oh, Lord, stop rampagin' up and down like a +wildcat," he said. "What good do you think you're doin' tearin' and +shoutin' and insultin' people? He ain't talkin' like a scab, he's +only talkin' a tie to your string-piece." + +"That's so," said Joseph Atkins. Sargent boarded with him, and the +board money was a godsend to him, now he was out of work. John +Sargent had fixed his own price, and it was an unheard-of one for +such simple fare as he had. His weekly dollars kept the whole poor +family in food. But John Sargent was a bachelor, and earning +remarkably good wages, and Joseph Atkins's ailing wife, whom illness +and privation had made unnaturally grasping and ungrateful, told her +cronies that it wasn't as if he couldn't afford it. + +Up-stairs little Ellen lay in her bed, her doll in her arms, +listening to the low rumble of masculine voices in the room below. +Her mother had gone out, and there were only the men there. They +were smoking, and the odor of their pipes floated up into Ellen's +chamber through the door-cracks. She thought how her grandmother +Brewster would sniff when she came in next day. She could hear her +saying, "Well, for my part, if those men couldn't smoke their old +pipes somewhere else besides in my sittin'-room, I wouldn't have 'em +in the house." But that reflection did not trouble Ellen very long, +and she had never been disturbed herself by the odor of the pipes. +She thought of them insensibly as the usual atmosphere when men were +gathered together in any place except the church. She knew that they +were talking about that old trouble, and Nahum Beals's voice of high +wrath made her shrink; but, after all, she was removed from it all +that night into a little prospective paradise of her own, which, as +is the case in childhood, seemed to overgild her own future and all +the troubles of the world. Christmas was only a week distant, she +was to have a tree, and the very next evening her mother had +promised to take her down-town and show her the beautiful, lighted +Christmas shops. She wondered, listening to that rumble of +discontent below, why grown-up men and women ever fretted when they +were at liberty to go down-town every evening when they chose and +look at the lighted shops, for she could still picture pure delight +for others without envy or bitterness. + +The next day the child was radiant; she danced rather than walked; +she could not speak without a smile; she could eat nothing, for her +happiness was so purely spiritual that desires of the flesh were in +abeyance. Her heart beat fast; the constantly recurring memory of +what was about to happen fairly overwhelmed her as with waves of +delight. + +"If you don't eat your supper you can't go, and that's all there is +about it," her mother told her when they were seated at the table, +and Ellen sat dreaming before her toast and peach preserve. + +"You must eat your supper, Ellen," Andrew said, anxiously. Andrew +had on his other coat, and he had shaved, and was going too, as was +Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. + +"She 'ain't eat a thing all day, she's so excited about goin'," +Fanny said. "Now, Ellen, you must eat your supper, or you can't +go--you'll be sick." + +And Ellen ate her supper, though exceeding joy as well as exceeding +woe can make food lose its savor, and toast and preserves were as +ashes on her tongue when the very fragrance of coming happiness was +in her soul. + +When, finally, in hand of her mother, while Andrew walked behind +with her grandmother, she went towards the lights of the town, she +had a feeling as of wings on her feet. However, she walked soberly +enough with wide eyes of amazement and delight at everything--the +long, silver track of the snowy road under the light of the full +moon, the slants of the house roofs sparkling with crusts of +crystals, the lighted windows set with house plants, for the +dwellers in the outskirts of Rowe loved house plants, and their +front windows bloomed with the emulative splendor of geraniums from +fall to spring. She saw behind them glimpses of lives and some +doings as real as her own, but mysterious under the locks of other +personalities, and therefore as full of possibilities of +preciousness as the sheet of morning dew over a neighbor's yard; she +had often believed she saw diamonds sparkle in that, though never in +her own. She had proved it otherwise too often. So Ellen, seeing +through a window a little girl of her own age in a red frock, +straightway believed it to be satin of the richest quality, and, +seeing through another window a tea-table spread, had no doubt that +the tin teapot was silver. A girl with a crown of yellow braids +pulled down a curtain, and she thought her as beautiful as an angel; +but of all this she said nothing at all, only walked soberly on, +holding fast to her mother's hand. + +When they were half-way to the shops, a door of a white house close +to the road flew open and shut again with a bang, there was a scurry +and grating slide on the front walk, then the gate was thrown back, +and a boy dashed through with a wild whoop, just escaping contact +with Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. "You'd better be careful," said she, +sharply. "It ain't the thing for boys to come tearin' out of yards +in the evenin' without seein' where they are goin'." + +The boy cast an abashed glance at her. The street-lamp shone full on +his face, which was round and reddened by the frosty winds, with an +aimlessly grinning mouth of uncertain youth, and black eyes with a +bold and cheerful outlook on the unknown. He was only ten, but he +was large for his age. Ellen, when he looked from her grandmother +back at her, thought him almost a man, and then she saw that he was +the boy who had brought the chestnuts to her the night when she had +returned from her runaway excursion. The boy recognized her at the +same moment, and his mouth seemed to gape wider, and a moist red +overspread his face down to his swathing woollen scarf. Then he gave +another whoop significant of the extreme of nervous abashedness and +the incipient defiance of his masculine estate, there was a flourish +of heels, followed by a swift glimmering slide of steel, and he was +off trailing his sled. + +"That's that Joy boy that brought Ellen the chestnuts that time," +Fanny said. "Do you remember him, Ellen?" + +"Yes, ma'am," replied Ellen. The look of the boy in her face had +bewildered and confused her, without her knowing the why of it. It +was as if she had spelled a word in her reading-book whose meaning +she could not grasp. + +"I don't care who he is," said Mrs. Zelotes, "he 'ain't no business +racin' out of gates that way, and his folks hadn't ought to let a +boy no older than that out alone of nights." + +They kept on, and the boy apparently left them far behind in his +career of youthful exuberance, until they came to the factories. +Andrew looked up at the windows of Lloyd's, dark except for a faint +glimmer in a basement window from the lamp of the solitary watchman, +and drew a heavy sigh. + +"It ain't as bad for you as it is for some," his mother said, +sharply, and then she jumped aside, catching her son's arm as the +boy sprang out of a covering shadow under the wall of Lloyd's and +dashed before them with another wild whoop and another glance of +defiant bashfulness at Ellen. + +"My land! it's that boy again," cried Mrs. Zelotes. "Here, you +boy!--boy! What's your name?" + +"His name is Granville Joy," Ellen replied, unexpectedly. + +"Why, how did you know, child?" her grandmother asked. "Seems to me +he's got a highfalutin' name enough. Here you, Granville--if that's +your name--don't you know any better than to--" But the boy was +gone, his sled creaking on the hard snow at his heels, and a faint +whoop sounded from the distance. + +"I guess if I had the bringin' up of that boy there wouldn't be such +doin's," said Mrs. Zelotes, severely. "His mother's a pretty woman, +but I don't believe she's got much force. She wouldn't have given +him such a name if she had." + +"She named him after the town she came from," said Fanny. "She told +me once. She's a real smart woman, and she makes that boy stand +around." + +"She must; it looks as if he was standin' round pretty lively jest +now," said Mrs. Zelotes. "Namin' of a boy after a town! They'd +better wait and name a town after the boy if he amounts to +anything." + +"His mother told me he was goin' into the first grammar-school next +year," said Fanny. + +"I pity the teacher," said Mrs. Zelotes, and then she recoiled, for +the boy made another dart from behind a lamp-post, crossed their +path, and was off again. + +"My land!" gasped Mrs. Zelotes, "you speak to him, Andrew." But +Andrew laughed. "Might as well speak to a whirlwind," said he. "He +ain't doin' any harm, mother; it's only his boyish antics. For +Heaven's sake, let him enjoy himself while he can, it won't be long +before the grind-mill in there will get hold of him, and then he'll +be sober enough to suit anybody," and Andrew pointed at Lloyd's as +he spoke. + +"Boys can be boys," said Mrs. Zelotes, severely, "and they can have +a good time, but they can behave themselves." + +None of them looking after that flying and whooping figure ahead had +the slightest idea of the true situation. They did not know that the +boy was confused by the fires, none the less ardent that they were +so innocent, of a first love for Ellen; that, ever since he had seen +her little, fair face on her aunt's shoulder the day when she was +found, it had been even closer to his heart than his sled and his +jackstones and his ball, and his hope of pudding for dinner. They +did not know that he had toiled at the wood-pile of a Saturday, and +run errands after school, to earn money to buy Christmas presents +for his mother and Ellen; that he had at that very minute in his +purse in the bottom of his pocket the sum of eighty-nine cents, +mostly in coppers, since his wage was generally payable in that +coin, and his pocket sagged arduously therefrom. They did not know +that he was even then bound upon an errand to the grocery store for +a bag of flour to be brought home on his sled, and would thereby +swell his exchequer by another cent. They did not know what dawning +chords of love, and knowledge of love, that wild whoop expressed; +and the boy dodged and darted and hid, and appeared before them all +the way to the busy main street of Rowe; and, after they had entered +the great store where the finest Christmas display was held, he +stood before the window staring at Ellen vanishing in a brilliant +vista, and whooped now and then, regardless of public opinion. + +Ellen, when once she was inside the store, forgot everything else. +She clung more tightly to her mother's hand, as one will cling to +any wonted stay of love in the midst of strangeness, even of joy, +and she saw everything with eyes which photographed it upon her very +soul. At first she had an impression of a dazzling incoherence of +splendor, of a blare as of thousands of musical instruments all +sounding different notes of delight, of a weaving pattern of colors, +too intricate to master, of a mingled odor of paint and varnish, and +pine and hemlock boughs, and then she spelled out the letters of the +details. She looked at those counters set with the miniature +paraphernalia of household life which give the first sweet taste of +domesticity and housekeeping joys to a little girl. + +There were the sets of dolls' furniture, and the dolls, dishes, and +there was a counter with dolls' cooking-stoves and ranges bristling +with the most delightful realism of pots and pans, at which she +gazed so fixedly and breathlessly that she looked almost stupid. Her +elders watched half in delight, half with pain, that they could not +purchase everything at which she looked. Mrs. Zelotes bought some +things surreptitiously, hiding the parcels under her shawl. Andrew, +whispering to a salesman, asked the price of a great cooking-stove +at which Ellen looked long. When he heard the amount he sighed. +Fanny touched his arm comfortingly. "There would be no sense in your +buying that, if you had all the money in creation," she said, in a +hushed voice. "There's a twenty-five-cent one that's good enough. +I'm going to buy that for her to-morrow. She'll never know the +difference." But Andrew Brewster, nevertheless, went through the +great, dazzling shop with his heart full of bitterness. It seemed to +him monstrous and incredible that he had a child as beautiful and +altogether wonderful as that, and could not buy the whole stock for +her if she wanted it. He had never in his whole life wanted anything +for himself that he could not have, enough to give him pain, but he +wanted for his child with a longing that was a passion. Her little +desires seemed to him the most important and sacred needs in the +whole world. He watched her with pity and admiration, and shame at +his own impotence of love to give her all. + +But Ellen knew nothing of it. She was radiant. She never thought of +wanting all those treasures further than she already had them. She +gazed at the wonders in that department where the toy animals were +kept, and which resembled a miniature menagerie, the silence broken +by the mooing of cows, the braying of donkeys, the whistle of +canaries, and the roars of mock-lions when their powers were invoked +by the attendants, and her ears drank in that discordant bable of +tiny mimicry like music. There was no spirit of criticism in her. +She was utterly pleased with everything. + +When her grandmother held up a toy-horse and said the fore-legs were +too long, Ellen wondered what she meant. To her mind it was more +like a horse than any real one she had ever seen. + +As she gazed at the decorations, the wreaths, the gauze, the tinsel, +and paper angels, suspended by invisible wires over the counters, +and all glittering and shining and twinkling with light, a strong +whiff of evergreen fragrance came to her, and the aroma of +fir-balsam, and it was to her the very breath of all the mysterious +joy and hitherto untasted festivity of this earth into which she had +come. She felt deep in her childish soul the sense of a promise of +happiness in the future, of which this was a foretaste. When she +went into the department where the dolls dwelt, she fairly turned +pale. They swung, and sat, and lay, and stood, as in angelic ranks, +all smiling between shining fluffs of hair. It was a chorus of +smiles, and made the child's heart fairly leap. She felt as if all +the dolls were smiling at her. She clung fast to her mother's hand, +and hid her face against her skirt. + +"Why, what is the matter, Ellen?" Fanny asked. Ellen looked up, and +smiled timidly and confusedly, then at the dazzle of waxen faces and +golden locks above skirts of delicate pink and blue and white, like +flower petals. + +"You never saw so many dolls together before, did you, Ellen?" said +Andrew; then he added, wistfully, "There ain't one of 'em any bigger +and prettier than your own doll, be they, Ellen?" And that, +although he had never recovered from his uneasiness about that +mysterious doll. + +Ellen had not seen Cynthia Lennox since that morning several weeks +ago when she had run away from her, except one glimpse when she was +sleigh-riding. Now all at once, when they had stopped to look at +some wonderful doll-houses, she saw her face to face. Ellen had been +gazing with rapture at a great doll-house completely furnished, and +Andrew had made one of his miserable side inquiries as to its price, +and Fanny had said, quite loud, "Lord, Andrew, you might just as +well ask the price of the store! You know such a thing as that is +out of the question for any child unless her father is rich as +Norman Lloyd," and Ellen, who had not noticed what they were saying, +looked up, when a faint breath of violets smote her sense with a +quick memory, and there was the strange lady who had taken her into +her house and kept her and given her the doll, the strange lady whom +the gentleman said might be punished for keeping her if people were +to know. + +Cynthia Lennox went pale when, without knowing what was going to +happen, she looked down and saw suddenly the child's innocent face +looking into hers. She stood wavering in her trailing, fur-lined, +and softly whispering draperies, so marked and set aside by her +grace and elegance and countenance of superiority and proud calm +that people turned to look after her more than after many a young +beauty, and did not, for a second, know what to say or do. She had +no mind to shrink from a recognition of the child; she had no fear +of the result, but there was a distinct shrinking at a scene with +that flashing-eyed and heavy-browed mother of the child in such a +place as that. She would undoubtedly speak very loud. She expected +the volley of recrimination in a high treble which would follow the +announcement in that sweet little flute which she remembered so +well. + +"Mamma, that is the lady who kept me, and would not let me go home." + +But Ellen, after a second's innocent and startled regard, turned +away with no more recognition than if she had been a stranger. She +turned her little back to her, and looked at the doll-house. A great +flush flamed over Cynthia Lennox's face, and a qualm of mortal +shame. She took an impetuous glide forward, and was just about to +speak and tell the truth, whatever the consequences, and not be +outdone in magnanimity by that child, when a young girl with a +sickly but impudent and pretty face jostled her rudely. The utter +pertness of her ignorant youth knew no respect for even the rich +Miss Cynthia Lennox. "Here's your parcel, lady," she said, in her +rough young voice, its shrillness modified by hoarseness from too +much shouting for cash boys during this busy season, and she thrust, +with her absent eyes upon a gentleman coming towards her, a parcel +into Cynthia's hands. Somehow the touch of that parcel seemed to +bring Cynthia to her senses. It was a kodak which she had been +purchasing for the little boy who had lived with her, and whom it +had almost broken her heart to lose. She remembered what her friend +Lyman Risley had said, that it might make trouble for others besides +herself. She took her parcel with that involuntary meekness which +the proudest learn before the matchless audacity of youthful +ignorance when it fairly asserts itself, and passed out of the store +to her waiting carriage. Ellen saw her. + +"That was Cynthia Lennox, wasn't it?" Fanny said, with something +like awe. "Wasn't that an elegant cloak she had on? I guess it was +Russian sable." + +"I don't care if it was, it ain't a mite handsomer than my cape +lined with squirrel," said Mrs. Zelotes. + +Ellen looked intently at a game on the counter. It was ten o'clock +when Ellen went home. She had been into all the principal stores +which were decorated for Christmas. Her brain resembled a +kaleidoscope as she hurried along at her mother's hand. Every +thought seemed to whirl the disk, and new and more dazzling +combinations appeared, but the principle which underlay the whole +was that of the mystery of festivity and joy upon the face of the +earth, of which this Christmas wealth was the key. + +The Brewsters had scarcely reached the factory neighborhood when +there was a swift bound ahead of them and the familiar whoop. + +"There's that boy again," said Mrs. Zelotes. + +She made various remonstrances, and even Andrew, when the boy had +passed his own home in his persistent dogging of them, called out to +him, as did Fanny, but he was too far ahead to hear. The boy +followed them quite to their gate, proceeding with wild spurts and +dashes from shadow to shadow, and at last reappeared from behind one +of the evergreen trees in the west yard, springing out of its long +shadow with strange effect. He darted close to Ellen as she passed +in the gate, crammed something into her hand, and was gone. Andrew +could not catch him, though he ran after him. "He ran like a +rabbit," he said, coming breathlessly into the house, where they +were looking at the treasure the boy had thrust upon Ellen. It was a +marvel of a patent top, which the boy had long desired to own. He +had spent all his money on it, and his mother was cheated of her +Christmas present, but he had given, and Ellen had received, her +first token of love. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +The next spring Ellen went to school. When a child who has reigned +in undisputed sovereignty at home is thrust among other children at +school, one of two things happens: either she is scorned and +rebelled against, and her little crown of superiority rolled in the +dust of the common playground, or she extends the territories of her +empire. Ellen extended hers, though involuntarily, for there was no +conscious thirst for power in her. + +On her first morning at school, she seated herself at her desk and +looked forth from the golden cloud of her curls, her eyes full of +innocent contemplation, her mouth corners gravely drooping. She knew +one little girl who sat not far from her. The little girl's name was +Floretta Vining. Floretta was built on the scale of a fairy, with +tiny, fine, waxen features, a little tossing mane of flaxen hair, +eyes a most lovely and perfect blue, with no more depth in them than +in the blue of china, and an expression of the sweetest and most +innocent inanity and irresponsibility. Nobody ever expected anything +of this little Floretta Vining. She was always a negative success. +She smiled around from the foot of her curving class, and never had +her lessons, but she never disobeyed the rules, except that of +punctuality. + +Floretta was late at school. She came daintily up the aisle, two +cheap bangles on one wrist slipping over a slim hand, and tinkling. +Floretta's mother had a taste for the cheaply decorative. There was +an abundance of coarse lace on Floretta's frock, and she wore a +superfluous sash which was not too fresh. Floretta toed out +excessively, her slender little feet pointing out sharply, almost at +right angles with each other, and Ellen admired her for that. She +watched her coming, planting each foot as carefully and precisely as +a bird, her lace frills flouncing up and down, her bangles jingling, +and thought how very pretty she was. + +Ellen felt herself very loving towards the teacher and Floretta +Vining. Floretta leaned forward as soon as she was seated and gazed +at her with astonishment, and that deepening of amiability and +general sweetness which one can imagine in the face of a doll after +persistent scrutiny. Ellen smiled decorously, for she was not sure +how much smiling was permissible in school. When she smiled +guardedly at Floretta, she was conscious of another face regarding +her, twisted slightly over a shabby little shoulder covered with an +ignominious blue stuff, spotted and faded. This little girl's wisp +of brown braid was tied with a shoe-string, and she looked poorer +than any other child in the school, but she had an honest light in +her eyes, and Ellen considered her to be rather more beautiful than +Floretta. + +She was Maria Atkins, Joseph Atkins's second child. Ellen sat with +her book before her, and the strange, new atmosphere of the +school-room stole over her senses. It was not altogether pleasant, +although it was considered that the ventilation was after the most +approved modern system. She perceived a strong odor of peppermints, +and Floretta Vining was waving ostentatiously a coarse little +pocket-handkerchief scented with New-mown Hay. There was also a +strong effusion of stale dinners and storm-beaten woollen garments, +but there was, after all, that savor of festivity which Ellen was +apt to discover in the new. She looked over her book with utter +content. In a line with her, on the boys' side, there appeared a +covertly peeping face under a thatch of light hair, and Ellen, +influenced insensibly by the boy's shyly worshipful eyes, looked and +saw Granville Joy. She remembered the Christmas top, and blushed +very pink without knowing why, and flirted all her curls towards the +boys' side. + +Ellen, from having so little acquaintance with boys, had had no very +well-defined sentiments towards them, but now, on being set apart +with her feminine element, and separated so definitely by the middle +aisle of the school-room, she began to experience sensations both of +shyness and exclusiveness. She did not think the boys, in their +coarse clothes, with their cropped heads, half as pretty as the +girls. + +The teacher coming down the aisle laid a caressing hand on Ellen's +curls, and the child looked up at her with that confidence which is +exquisite flattery. + +After she had passed, Ellen heard a subtle whisper somewhere at her +back; it was half audible, but its meaning was entirely plain. It +signified utmost scorn and satirical contempt. It was fine-pointed +and far-reaching. A number looked around. It was as expressive as a +whole sentence, and, being as concentrated, was fairly explosive +with meaning. + +"H'm, ain't you pretty? Ain't you dreadful pretty, little +dolly-pinky-rosy. H'm, teacher's partial. Ain't you pretty? Ain't +you stuck up? H'm." + +Ellen, not being used to the school vernacular, did not fairly +apprehend all this, and least of all that it was directed towards +herself. She cast a startled look around, then turned to her book. +She leaned back in her seat and held her book before her face with +both hands, and began to read, spelling out the words noiselessly. +All at once, she felt a fine prick on her head, and threw back one +hand and turned quickly. The little girl behind was engrossed in +study, and all Ellen could see was the parting in her thick black +hair, for her head was supported by her two hands, her elbows were +resting on her desk, and she was whispering the boundaries of the +State of Massachusetts. + +Ellen turned back to her reading-book, and recommenced studying with +the painful faithfulness of the new student; then came again that +small, fine, exasperating prick, and she thrust her face around +quickly to see that same faithfully intent little girl. + +Ellen rubbed her head doubtfully, and tried to fix her attention +again upon her book, but presently it came again; a prick so small +and fine that it strained consciousness; an infinitesimal point of +torture, and this time Ellen, turning with a swift flirt of her +head, caught the culprit. It was that faithful little girl, who held +a black-headed belt-pin in her hand; she had been carefully +separating one hair at a time from Ellen's golden curls, and +tweaking it out. + +Ellen looked at her with a singular expression compounded of +bewilderment, of injury, of resentment, of alarm, and of a readiness +to accept it all as a somewhat peculiar advance towards +good-fellowship and a merry understanding. But the expression on +that dark, somewhat grimy little face, looking out at her from a +jungle of coarse, black locks, was fairly impish, almost malicious. +There was not merriment in it so much as jibing; instead of that +soft regard and worshipful admiration which Ellen was accustomed to +find in new eyes, there was resentful envy. + +Then Ellen shrank, and bristled with defiance at the same time, for +she had the spirit of both the Brewsters and the Louds in her, in +spite of her delicacy of organization. She was a fine instrument, +capable of chords of tragedy as well as angelic strains. She saw +that the little girl who was treating her so was dressed very +poorly, that her dress was not only shabby, but actually dirty; that +she, as well as the other girl whom she noticed, had her braid tied +with an old shoe-string, and that a curious smell of leather +pervaded her. Ellen continued to regard the little girl, then +suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, and the teacher, Miss +Rebecca Mitchell, was looking down at her. "What is the trouble?" +asked Miss Mitchell. That look of half-wondering admiration to which +Ellen was accustomed was in the teacher's eyes, and Ellen again +thought her beautiful. + +One of the first, though a scarcely acknowledged principle of +beauty, is that of reflection of the fairness of the observer. Ellen +being as innocently self-seeking for love and admiration as any +young thing for its natural sustenance, was quick to recognize it, +though she did not understand that what she saw was herself in the +teacher's eyes, and not the teacher. She gazed up in that roseate +face with the wide mouth set in an inverted bow of smile, curtained, +as it were, with smoothly crinkled auburn hair clearly outlined +against the cheeks, at the palpitating curve of shiny black-silk +bosom, adorned with a festoon of heavy gold watch-chain, and thought +that here was love, and beauty, and richness, and elegance, and +great wisdom, calling for reverence but no fear. She answered not +one word to the teacher's question, but continued to gaze at her +with that look of wide-eyed and contemplative regard. + +"What is the trouble, Ellen?" repeated Miss Mitchell. "Why were you +looking around so?" Ellen said nothing. The little girl behind had +her head bent over her book so low that the sulky curves of her +mouth did not show. The teacher turned to her--"Abby Atkins," said +she, "what were you doing?" + +Abby Atkins did not raise her studious head. She did not seem to +hear. + +"Abby Atkins," said the teacher, sharply, "answer me. What were you +doing?" Then the little girl answered, with a sulky note, half +growl, half whimper, like some helpless but indomitable little +trapped animal, "Nothin'." + +"Ellen," said the teacher, and her voice changed indescribably. +"What was she doing?" Ellen did not answer. She looked up in the +teacher's face, then cast down her eyes and sat there, her little +hands folded in tightly clinched fists in her lap, her mouth a pink +line of resistance. "Ellen," repeated the teacher, and she tried to +make her voice sharp, but in spite of herself it was caressing. Her +heart had gone out to the child the moment she had seen her enter +the school-room. She was as helpless before her as before a lover. +She was wild to catch her up and caress her instead of pestering her +with questions. "Ellen, you must answer me," she said, but Ellen sat +still. + +Half the scholars were on their feet, reaching and craning their +necks. The teacher turned on them, and there was no lack of +sharpness in her tone. "Sit down this moment, every one of you," she +called. "Abby Atkins, if there is any more disturbance, I shall know +what is at the root of the matter. If I see you turning around +again, Ellen, I shall insist upon knowing why." Then the teacher +placed a caressing hand upon Ellen's yellow head, and passed down +the aisle to her desk. + +Ellen had no more trouble during the session. Abby Atkins was +commendably quiet and studious, and when called out to recitation +made the best one in her class. She was really brilliant in a +defiant, reluctant fashion. However, though she did not again +disturb Ellen's curls, she glowered at her with furtive but +unrelaxed hostility over her book. Especially a blue ribbon which +confined Ellen's curls in a beautiful bow fired her eyes of +animosity. She looked hard at it, then she pulled her black braid +over her shoulder and felt of the hard shoe-string knot, and frowned +with an ugly frown of envy and bitterest injury, and asked herself +the world-wide and world-old question as to the why of inequality, +and, though it was based on such trivialities as blue ribbons and +shoe-strings, it was none the less vital to her mind. She would have +loved, have gloried, to pull off that blue ribbon, put it on her own +black braid, and tie up those yellow curls with her own shoe-string +with a vicious yank of security. But all the time it was not so much +because she wanted the ribbon as because she did not wish to be +slighted in the distribution of things. Abby Atkins cared no more +for personal ornament than a wild cat, but she wanted her just +allotment of the booty of the world. So at recess she watched her +chance. Ellen was surrounded by an admiring circle of big girls, +gushing with affection. "Oh, you dear little thing," they said. +"Only look at her beautiful curls. Give me a kiss, won't you, +darling?" Little reverent fingers twined Ellen's golden curls, red +apples were thrust forward for her to take bites, sticky morsels of +candy were forced secretly into her hands. Abby Atkins stood aloof. +"You mean little thing," one of the big girls said suddenly, +catching hold of her thin shoulder and shaking her--"you mean little +thing, I saw you." + +"So did I," said another big girl, "and I was a good mind to tell on +you." + +"Yes, you had better look out, and not plague that dear little +thing," said the other. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," chimed in still another big +girl. "Only look how pretty she is, the little darling--the idea of +your tormenting her. You deserve a good, hard whipping, Abby +Atkins." + +This big girl was herself a beauty and wore a fine and precise +blue-ribbon bow, and Abby Atkins looked at her with a scowl of +hatred. + +"She's an ugly little thing," said the big girls among themselves as +they went edging gently and imperceptibly away towards a knot of big +boys, and then Abby Atkins's chance had come. She advanced with a +spring upon Ellen Brewster, and she pulled that blue ribbon off her +head so cruelly and fiercely that she pulled out some of the golden +hairs with it and threw it on the ground, and stamped on it. Then +she seized Ellen by the shoulders and proceeded to shake her for +wearing a blue ribbon when she herself wore a shoe-string, but she +reckoned without Ellen. One would as soon have expected to meet +fight in a little child angel as in this Ellen Brewster, but she did +not come of her ancestors for nothing. + +Although she was so daintily built that she looked smaller, she was +in reality larger than the other girl, and as she straightened +herself in her wrath she seemed a head taller and proportionately +broad. She tossed her yellow head, and her face took on an +expression of noble courage and indignation, but she never said a +word. She simply took Abby Atkins by the arms and lifted her off her +feet and seated her on the ground. Then she picked up her blue +ribbon, and walked off, and Abby scrambled to her feet and looked +after her with a vanquished but untamed air. Nobody had seen what +happened except Abby's younger sister Maria and Granville Joy. +Granville pressed stealthily close to Ellen as she marched away and +whispered, his face blazing, his voice full of confidence and +congratulation, "Say, if she'd been a boy, I'd licked her for you, +and you wouldn't hev had to tech her yourself;" and Maria walked up +and eyes her prostrate but defiantly glaring sister--"I ain't sorry +one mite, Abby Atkins," she declared--"so there." + +"You go 'long," returned Abby, struggling to her feet, and shaking +her small skirts energetically. + +"Your dress is jest as wet as if you'd set down in a puddle, and +you'll catch it when you get home," Maria said, pitilessly. + +"I ain't afraid." + +"What made you touch her, anyhow; she hadn't done nothin'?" + +"If you want to wear shoe-strings when other folks wear ribbons, you +can," said Abby Atkins. She walked away, switching, with unabated +dignity in the midst of defeat, the draggled tail of her poor little +dress. She had gone down like a cat; she was not in the least hurt +except in her sense of justice; that was jarred to a still greater +lack of equilibrium. She felt as if she had been floored by +Providence in conjunction with a blue bow, and her very soul rose in +futile rebellion. But, curiously enough, her personal ire against +Ellen vanished. + +At the afternoon recess she gave Ellen the sound half of an old red +Baldwin apple which she had brought for luncheon, and watched her +bite into it, which Ellen did readily, for she was not a child to +cherish enmity, with an odd triumph. "The other half ain't fit to +eat, it's all wormy," said Abby Atkins, flinging it away as she +spoke. + +"Then you ought to have kept this," Ellen cried out, holding towards +her the half, minus one little bite. But Abby Atkins shook her head +forcibly. "That was why I gave it to you," said she. "Say, didn't +you never have to tie up your hair with a shoe-string?" Ellen shook +her head, looking at her wonderingly. Then with a sudden impulse she +tore off the blue ribbon from her curls. "Say, you take it," she +said, "my mother won't care. I'd just as lief wear the shoe-string, +honest." + +"I don't want your blue ribbon," Abby returned, stoutly; "a +shoe-string is a good deal better to tie the hair with. I don't want +your blue ribbon; I don't want no blue ribbon unless it's mine." + +"It would be yours if I give it to you," Ellen declared, with blue +eyes of astonishment and consternation upon this very strange little +girl. + +"No, it wouldn't," maintained Abby Atkins. + +But it ended in the two girls, with that wonderful and inexplicable +adjustment of childhood into one groove after harsh grating on +different levels, walking off together with arms around each other's +waist, and after school began Ellen often felt a soft, cat-like pat +on her head, and turned round with a loving glance at Abby Atkins. + +Ellen talked more about Abby Atkins than any other of the children +when she got home, and while her mother looked at it all easily, her +grandmother was doubtful. "There's others that I should rather have +Ellen thick with," said she. "I 'ain't nothin' against the Atkinses, +but they can't have been as well brought up as some, they have had +so little to do with, and their mother's been ailin' so long." + +"Ellen may as well begin as she can hold out, and be intimate with +them that will be intimate with her," Eva said, rather bitterly. Eva +was married by this time, and living with Jim and his mother. She +wore in those days an expression of bitterly defiant triumph and +happiness, as of one who has wrested his sweet from fate under the +ban of the law, and is determined to get the flavor of it though the +skies fall. "I suppose I did wrong marrying Jim," she often told her +sister, "but I can't help it." + +"Maybe Jim will get work before long," her sister would say, +consolingly. + +"I have about given up," Eva would reply. "I guess Jim will have to +roost on a flour-barrel at Munsey's store the rest of his days; but +as long as he belongs to me, it don't make so much difference." + +Eva had taken up an agency for a cosmetic which was manufactured by +a woman in Rowe. She had one window of the north parlor in the Tenny +cottage, which had been given up to her when she married Jim, filled +with the little pink boxes containing the "Fairy Cream," and a great +sign, but the trade languished. Both Eva and Jim had tried in vain +to obtain employment in factories in other towns. + +Lloyd's had not reopened, although it was April, and Andrew was +drawing on his savings. Fanny had surreptitiously answered an +advertisement purporting to give instructions to women as to the +earning of large sums of money at home, and was engaged with a stock +of glass and paints which she hurriedly swept out of sight when any +one's shadow passed the window, and later she found herself to be +the victim of a small swindling conspiracy, and lost the dollar +which she had invested. But Ellen knew nothing of all this. She +lacked none of her accustomed necessaries nor luxuries, and with her +school a new life full of keen, new savors or relish began for her. +There were also new affections in it. + +Ellen was as yet too young, and too confident in love, to have new +affections plunge her into anything but a delightful sort of +anti-blossom tumult. There was no suspense, no doubt, no jealousy, +only utter acquiescence of single-heartedness, admiration, and +trust. She thought Abby Atkins and Floretta Vining lovely and +dependable; she parted from them at night without a pang, and looked +forward blissfully to the meeting next morning. She also had +sentiments equally peaceful and pronounced, though instinctively +more secret, towards Granville Joy. She used to glance over towards +the boys' side and meet his side-long eyes without so much a +quickening of her pulses as a quickening of her imagination. + +"I know who your beau is," Floretta Vining, who was in advance of +her years, said to her once, and Ellen looked at her with +half-stupid wonder. + +"His first name begins with a G and his last with a J," Floretta +tittered, and Ellen continued to look at her with the faintest +suspicion of a blush, because she had a feminine instinct that a +blush was in order, not because she knew of any reason for it. + +"He is," said Floretta, with another exceedingly foolish giggle. +"My, you are as red as a beet." + +"I ain't old enough to have a beau," Ellen said, her soft cheeks +becoming redder, and her baby face all in a tremor. + +"Yes, you be," Floretta said, with authority, "because you are so +pretty, and have got such pretty curls. Ben Simonds said the other +day you were the prettiest girl in school." + +"Then do you think he is my beau, too?" asked Ellen, innocently. But +Floretta frowned, and tittered, and hesitated. + +"He said except one," she faltered out, finally. + +"Well, who was that?" asked Ellen. + +"How do I know?" pouted Floretta. "Mebbe it was me, though I don't +think I'm so very pretty." + +"Then Ben Simonds is your beau," said Ellen, reflectively. + +"Yes, I guess he is," admitted Floretta. + +That night, amid much wonder and tender ridicule, Ellen told her +mother and Aunt Eva, and her father, that Ben Simonds was Floretta's +beau, and Granville Joy was hers. But Andrew laughed doubtfully. + +"I don't want that little thing to get such ideas into her head yet +a while," he told Fanny afterwards, but she only laughed at him, +seeing nothing but the childish play of the thing; but he, being a +man, saw deeper. + +However, Ellen's fondest new love was not for any of her little +mates, but for her school-teacher. To her the child's heart went out +in worship. All through the spring she offered her violets--violets +gathered laboriously after school in the meadow back of her +grandmother's house. She used to skip from hillock to hillock of +marsh grass with wary steps, lest she might slip and wet her feet in +the meadow ooze and incur her mother's displeasure, for Fanny, in +spite of her worship of the child, could speak with no uncertain +voice. She pulled up handfuls of the flowers, gleaming blue in the +dark-green hollows. Later she carried roses from the choice bush in +the yard, and, later, pears from her grandmother's tree. She used to +watch for Miss Mitchell at her gate and run to meet her, and seize +her hand and walk at her side, blushing with delight. Miss Mitchell +lived not far from Ellen, in a tidy white house with a handsome +smoke-tree on one side of the front walk and a willow with +upside-down branches on the other. Miss Mitchell had been born and +brought up in this house, but she had been teaching school in a +distant town ever since Ellen's day, so they had never been +acquainted before she went to school. Miss Mitchell lived alone with +her mother, who was an old friend of Mrs. Zelotes. Ellen privately +thought her rather better-looking than her own grandmother, though +her admiration was based upon wholly sentimental reasons. Old Mrs. +Mitchell might have earned more money in a museum of freaks than her +daughter in a district school. She was a mountain of rotundity, a +conjunction of palpitating spheres, but the soul that dwelt in this +painfully ponderous body was as mellow with affection and kindliness +as a ripe pear, and the voice that proceeded from her ever-smiling +lips was a hoarse and dove-like coo of love. Ellen at first started +a little aghast at this gigantic fleshliness, this general slough +and slump of outline, this insistency of repellent curves, and then +the old woman spoke and thrust out a great, soft hand, and the heart +of the child overleaped her artistic sense and her reason, and she +thought old Mrs. Mitchell beautiful. Mrs. Mitchell never failed to +regale her with a superior sort of cooky, and often with a covert +peppermint, and that although the Mitchells were not well off. The +old place was mortgaged, and Miss Mitchell had hard work to pay the +interest. Ellen had the vaguest ideas about the mortgage, and was +half inclined to think it might be a disfiguring patch in the +plastering of the sitting-room, which hung down in an unsightly +fashion with a disclosure of hairy edges, and threatened danger to +the heads underneath. + +Often of a Saturday afternoon Ellen went to visit Miss Mitchell and +her mother, and really preferred them to friends of her own age. +Miss Mitchell had a store of superannuated paper dolls which dated +from her own childhood. Their quaint costumes, and old-fashioned +coiffures, and simpers were of overwhelming interest to Ellen. Even +at that early age she had a perception of the advantages of an +atmosphere to art, and even to the affections. Without understanding +it, she loved those obsolete paper-dolls and those women of former +generations better because they gave her breathing-scope for her +imagination. She could love Abby Atkins and Floretta Vining at one +bite, as it were, and that was the end of it, but she could sit and +ponder and dream over Miss Mitchell and her mother, and see whole +vistas of them in receding mirrors of affection. + +As for the teacher and her mother, they simply adored the child--as +indeed everybody did. She continued at her first school for a year, +which was one of the hardest financially ever experienced in Rowe. +Norman Lloyd during all that time did not reopen his factory, and in +the autumn two others shut down. The streets were full of the +discontented ranks of impotent labor, and all the public buildings +were props for the weary shoulders of the unemployed. On pleasant +days the sunny sides of the vacant factories, especially, furnished +settings for lines of scowling faces of misery. + +This atmosphere affected Ellen more than any one realized, since the +personal bearing of it was kept from her. She did not know that her +father was drawing upon his precious savings for daily needs, she +did not know how her aunt Eva and her uncle Jim were getting into +greater difficulties every day, but she was too sensitive not to be +aware of disturbances which were not in direct contact with herself. +She never forgot what she had overheard that night Lloyd's had shut +down; it was always like a blot upon the face of her happy +consciousness of life. She often overheard, as then, those loud, +dissenting voices of her father and his friends in the sitting-room, +after she had gone to bed; and then, too, Abby Atkins, who was not +spared any knowledge of hardship, told her a good deal. "It's awful +the way them rich folks treat us," said Abby Atkins. "They own the +shops and everything, and take all the money, and let our folks do +all the work. It's awful. But then," continued Abby Atkins, +comfortingly, "your father has got money saved in the bank, and he +owns his house, so you can get along if he don't have work. My +father 'ain't got any, and he's got the old-fashioned consumption, +and he coughs, and it takes money for his medicine. Then mother's +sick a good deal too, and has to have medicine. We have to have more +medicine than most anything else, and we hardly ever have any pie or +cake, and it's all the fault of them rich folks." Abby Atkins wound +up with a tragic climax and a fierce roll of her black eyes. + +That evening Ellen went in to see her grandmother, and was presented +with some cookies, which she did not eat. + +"Why don't you eat them?" Mrs. Zelotes asked. + +"Can I have them to do just what I want to with?" asked Ellen. + +"What on earth do you want to do with a cooky except eat it?" Ellen +blushed; she had a shamed-faced feeling before a contemplated +generosity. + +"What do you want to do with them except eat them?" her grandmother +asked, severely. + +"Abby Atkins don't have any cookies 'cause her father's out of +work," said Ellen, abashedly. + +"Did that Atkins girl ask you to bring her cookies?" + +"No, ma'am." + +"You can do jest what you are a mind to with 'em," Mrs. Zelotes +said, abruptly. + +Ellen never knew why her grandmother insisted upon her drinking a +little glass of very nice and very spicy cordial before she went +home, but the truth was, that Mrs. Zelotes thought the child so +angelic in this disposition to give up the cookies which she loved +to her little friend that she was straightway alarmed and thought +her too good to live. + +The next day she told Fanny, and said to her, with her old face +stern with anxiety, that the child was lookin' real pindlin', and +Ellen had to take bitters for a month afterwards because she gave +the cookies to Abby Atkins. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +In all growth there is emulation and striving for precedence between +the spiritual and the physical, and this very emulation may +determine the rate of progression of the whole. Sometimes the one, +sometimes the other, may be in advance, but all the time the +tendency is towards the distant goal. Sometimes the two keep +abreast, and then there is the greatest harmony in speed. In Ellen +Brewster at twelve and fifteen the spiritual outstripped the +physical, as is often the case. Her eyes grew intense and hollow +with reflection under knitting brows, her thin shoulders stooped +like those of a sage bent with study and contemplation. She was +slender to emaciation; her clothes hung loosely over her form, which +seemed as sexless as a lily-stem; indeed, her body seemed only made +for the head, which was flower-like and charming, but almost painful +in its delicacy, and with such weight of innocent pondering upon the +unknown conditions of things in which she found herself. At times, +of course, there were ebullitions of youthful spirit, and the child +was as inconsequent as a kitten. At those times she was neither +child nor woman; she was an anomalous thing made up not so much of +actualities as of instincts. She romped with her mates as unseen and +uncomprehended of herself as any young animal, but the flame of her +striving spirit made everything full of unread meaning. + +Ellen was accounted a most remarkable scholar. She had left Miss +Mitchell's school, and was in one of a higher grade. At fifteen she +entered the high-school and had a master. + +Andrew was growing old fast in those days, though not so old as to +years. Though he was far from old, his hair was gray, his back bent. +He moved with a weary shuffle. The men in the shop began to eye him +furtively. "Andrew Brewster will get fired next," they said. "The +boss 'ain't no use for men with the first snap gone." Indeed, +Andrew was constantly given jobs of lower grades, which did not pay +so well. Whenever the force was reduced on account of dulness in +trade, Andrew was one of the first to be laid aside on waiting +orders in the regular army of toil. On one of these occasions, in +the spring after Ellen was fifteen, his first fit of recklessness +seized him. One night, after loafing a week, he came home with fever +spots in his cheeks and a curiously bright, strained look in his +eyes. Fanny gazed sharply at him across the supper-table. Finally +she laid down her knife and fork, rested her elbows on the table, +and fixed her eyes commandingly upon him. "Andrew Brewster, what is +the matter?" said she. Ellen turned her flower-like face towards her +father, who took a swallow of tea without saying a word, though he +shuffled his feet uneasily. "Andrew, you answer me," repeated Fanny. + +"There ain't anything the matter," answered Andrew, with a strange +sullenness for him. + +"There is, too. Now, Andrew Brewster, I ain't goin' to be put off. I +know you're on the shelf on account of hard times, so it ain't that. +It's something new. Now I want to know what it is." + +"It ain't anything." + +"Yes, it is. Andrew, you ought to tell me. You know I ain't afraid +to bear anything that you have to bear, and Ellen is getting old +enough now, so she can understand, and she can't always be spared. +She'd better get a little knowledge of hardships while she has us to +help her bear 'em." + +"This ain't a hardship, and there ain't anything to spare, Ellen," +said Andrew; and he laughed with a hilarity totally unlike him. + +That was all Fanny could get out of him, but she was half reassured. +She told Eva that she didn't believe but he had been buying some +Christmas present that he knew was extravagant for Ellen, and was +afraid to tell her because he knew she would scold. But Andrew had +not been buying Christmas presents, but speculating in mining +stocks. He had resisted the temptation long. Year in and year out he +had heard the talk right and left in the shop, on the street, and at +the store of an evening. "I'll give you a point," he had heard one +say to another during a discussion as to prices and dividends. He +had heard it all described as a short cross-cut over the fields of +hard labor to wealth and comfort, and he had kept his face straight +ahead in his narrow track of caution and hereditary instincts until +then. "The savings bank is good enough for me," he used to say; +"that's where my father kept his money. I don't know anything about +your stocks. I'd rather have a little and have it safe." The men +could not reason him out of his position, not even when Billy Monroe +made fifteen hundred dollars on a Colorado mine which had cost him +fifteen cents per share, and left the shop, and drove a fast horse +in a Goddard buggy. + +It was even reported that fifteen hundred was fifteen thousand, but +Andrew was proof against this brilliant loadstar of success, though +many of his mates followed it afar, just before the shares dropped +below par. + +Jim Tenny went with the rest. "Tell you what 'tis, Andrew, old man," +he said, clapping Andrew on the shoulder as they were going out of +the shop one night, "you'd better go in too." + +"The savings-bank is good enough for me," said Andrew, with his +gentle doggedness. + +"You can buy a trotter," urged Jim. + +"I never was much on trotters," replied Andrew. + +"I ain't going to walk home many times more, you bet," Jim said to +Eva when he got home, and then he bent back her tensely set face and +kissed it. Eva was crocheting hoods for fifteen cents apiece for a +neighboring woman who was a padrone on a small scale, having taken a +large order from a dealer for which she realized twenty cents +apiece, and employed all the women in the neighborhood to do the +work. + +"Why not?" said she. + +"Oh," said Jim, gayly, "I've bought some of that 'Golden Hope' +mining stock. Billy Monroe has just made fifteen thousand on it, and +I'll make as much in a week or two." + +"Oh, Jim, you 'ain't taken all the money out of the bank?" + +"Don't you worry, old girl," replied Jim. "I guess you'll find I can +take care of you yet." + +But the stock went down, and Jim's little venture with it. + +"Guess you were about right, old man," he said to Andrew. + +Andrew was rather looked up to for his superior caution and +sagacity. He was continually congratulated upon it. "Savings-banks +are good enough for me," he kept repeating. But that was four years +ago, and now his turn had come; the contagion of speculation had +struck him at last. That was the way with Lloyd's failing employes. + +Andrew kept his stock certificate in a little, tin, trunk-shaped box +which had belonged to his father. It had a key and a tiny padlock, +and he had always stored in it the deed of his house, his +savings-bank book, and his insurance policy. He carried the key in +his pocket. Fanny never opened the box, or had any curiosity about +it, believing that she was acquainted with its contents; but now +when, on coming unexpectedly into the bedroom--the box was always +kept at the head of the bed--she heard a rattle of papers, and +caught Andrew locking the box with a confused air, she began to +suspect something. She began to look hard at the box, to take it up +and shake it when her husband was away. Fanny was crocheting hoods +as well as Eva. Ellen wished to learn, but her mother would not +allow that. "You've got enough to do to study your lessons," she +said. Andrew watched his wife crochet with ill-concealed impatience. + +"I ain't goin' to have you do that long," he said--"workin' at that +rate for no more money. That Mrs. William Pendergrass that lets out +these hoods is as bad as any factory boss in the country." + +"Well, she got the chance," said Fanny, "and they won't let out the +work except that way; they can get it done so much cheaper." + +"Well, you sha'n't have it, anyhow," said Andrew, smiling +mysteriously. + +"Why, you ain't goin' to work again, be you, Andrew?" + +"You wait." + +"Well, don't you talk the way poor Jim did. Eva wasn't going to +crochet any more hoods, and now Jim's out of work again. Eva told me +yesterday that she didn't know where the money was comin' from. +Jim's mother owns the place, and it ain't worth much, anyhow, and +they can't take it from her in her lifetime, even if she was willing +to let it go. Eva said she was goin' to try again for work herself +in the shop. She thought maybe there might be some kind of a job she +could get. Don't you talk like Jim did about his good-for-nothin' +mining stock. I've been glad enough that you had sense enough to +keep what little we had where 'twas safe." + +"Ain't it most time for Ellen to be comin' home?" asked Andrew, to +turn the conversation, as he felt somewhat guilty and uncomfortable, +though his eyes were jubilant. He had very little doubt about the +success of his venture. As it is with a man who yields to love for +the first time in his life, it was with Andrew in his tardy +subjection to the hazards of fortune. He was a much more devoted +slave than those who had long wooed her. He had always taken nothing +but the principal newspaper published in Rowe, but now he subscribed +to a Boston paper, the one which had the fullest financial column, +though Fanny exclaimed at his extravagance. + +Along in midsummer, in the midst of Ellen's vacation, the mining +stock dropped fast a point or more a day. Andrew's heart began to +sink, though he was far from losing hope. He used to talk it over +with the men who advised him to buy, and come home fortified. + +All he had to do was to be patient; the fall meant nothing wrong +with the mine, only the wrangle of speculators. "It's like a +football, first on one side, and then on the other," said the man, +"but the football's there all the same, and if it's that you want, +you're all right." + +One night when Nahum Beals and Atkins and John Sargent were in, +Andrew repeated this wisdom, concealing the fact of its personal +application. He was anxious to have some confirmation. + +"I suppose it's about so," he said. + +Then John Sargent spoke up. "No, it is not so," he said--"that is, +not in many cases. There isn't any football--that's the trouble. +There's nothing but the money; a lot of fools have paid for it when +it never existed out of their imagination." + +"About so," said Nahum Beals. Andrew and Atkins exchanged glances. +Atkins was at once sympathizing and triumphant. + +"Lots of those things appear to be doing well, and to be all right," +said Andrew, uneasily. "The directors keep saying that they are in a +prosperous condition, even if the stock drops." He almost betrayed +himself. + +John Sargent laughed that curious, inflexible laugh of his. "Lord, I +know all about that," said he. "I had some once. First one thing and +then another came up to hinder the working of the mine and the +payments of dividends. First there wasn't any water, an +unprecedented dry season in those parts, oldest inhabitants for +evidence. Then there was too much water, no way to mine except they +employed professional divers, everything under water. Then the +transportation was to pay; then, when that was remedied, the ore +didn't come out in shape to transport in the rough and had to be +worked up on the premises, and new mills had to be built and new +machinery put in, and a few little Irish dividends were collected +for that. Then when they got the mills up and the machinery in, they +struck another kind of ore that ought to be transported; then there +came a landslide and carried half the road into a canon. So it went +on, one thing and another. If ever that darned mine had got into +working order, right kind of ore, water enough and not too much, +roads and machinery all right, and everything swimming, the Day of +Judgment would have come." + +"Did you ever get anything out of it?" inquired Andrew. + +"Anything out of it?" repeated the other. "Yes, I got enough worldly +wisdom never to buy any more mining stock, after I had paid +assessments on it for two years and the whole thing went to pieces." + +"It may come up yet," said Andrew. + +"There's nothing to come up," said John Sargent. He had been away +from Rowe a year, but had just returned, and was again boarding with +Atkins, and all the family lived on his board money. Andrew and +Nahum Beals were smoking pipes. Andrew gently, like a philosopher, +who smokes that he may dream; Nahum with furious jets and frequent +removals of his pipe for scowling speeches. John Sargent did not +smoke at all. He had left off cigars first, then even his pipe. He +gave the money which he saved thereby to Mrs. Atkins as a bonus on +his board money. + +The lamp burned dimly in the blue fog of tobacco smoke, and the +windows where the curtains were not drawn were blanks of silvery +moonlight. Ellen sat on the doorstep outside and heard the talk. She +did not understand it, nor take much interest in it. Their minds +were fixed upon the way of living, and hers upon life itself. She +could bring her simplicity to bear upon the world-old question of +riches and poverty and labor, but this temporal adjunct of stocks +and markets was as yet beyond her. Her mother had gone to her aunt +Eva's and she sat alone out in the wide mystery of the summer night, +watching the lovely shift of radiance and shadows, as she might have +watched the play of a kaleidoscope, seeing the beauty of the new +combinations, and seeing without comprehending the unit which +governed them all. The night was full of cries of insistent life and +growth, of birds and insects, of calls of children, and now and then +the far-away roar of railroad trains. It was nearly midsummer. The +year was almost at its height, but had not passed it. Growth and +bloom was still in the ascendant, and had not yet attained that +maturity of perfection beyond which is the slope of death. + +Everywhere about her were the revolutions of those unseen wheels of +nature whose immortal trend is towards the completion of time, and +whose momentum can overlap the grave; and the child was within them +and swept onward with the perfecting flowers, and the ripening +fruit, and the insects which were feeling their wings; and all +unconsciously, in a moment as it were, she unfolded a little farther +towards her own heyday of bloom. Suddenly from those heights of the +primitive and the eternal upon which a child starts and where she +still lingered she saw her future before her, shining with new +lights, and a wonderful conviction of bliss to come was over her. It +was that conviction which comes at times to all unconquered souls, +and which has the very essence of truth in it, since it overleaps +the darkness of life that lies between them and that bliss. Suddenly +Ellen felt that she was born to great happiness, and all that was to +come was towards that end. Her heart beat loud in her ears. There +was a whippoorwill calling in some trees to the left; the moon was +dim under a golden dapple of clouds. She could not feel her hands or +her feet; she seemed to feel nothing except her soul. + +Then she heard, loud and sweet and clear, a boy's whistle, one of +the popular tunes of the day. It came nearer and nearer, and it was +in the same key with the child's thoughts and dreams. Then she saw a +slender figure dark against the moonlight stop at a fence, and she +jumped up and ran towards it with no hesitation through the dewy +grass; and it was the boy, Granville Joy. He stood looking at her. +He had a handsome, eager face, and Ellen looked at him, her lips +parted, her face like a lily in the white light. + +"Hulloo," said the boy. + +"Hulloo," Ellen responded, faintly. + +Granville extended one rough, brown, boyish hand over the fence, and +Ellen laid her little, soft hand in it. He pulled her gently close, +then Ellen lifted her face, and the boy bent his, and the two kissed +each other over the fence. Then the boy went on down the street, but +he did not whistle, and Ellen went back to the doorstep, and, +looking about to be sure that none of the men in the sitting-room +saw, pulled off one little shoe and drew forth a sprig of +southernwood, or boy's-love, which was crushed under her foot. + +That day Floretta Vining had told her that if she would put a sprig +of boy's-love in her shoe, the very first boy she met would be the +one she was going to marry; and Ellen, who was passing from one +grade of school to another, had tried it. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + +The high-school master was a distant relative of the Lloyd's, +through whom he had obtained the position. One evening when he was +taking tea with them at Cynthia Lennox's, he spoke of Ellen. "I have +one really remarkable scholar," he said, with a curious air of +self-gratulation, as if he were principally responsible for it; "her +name is Brewster--Ellen Brewster." + +"Good land! That must be the child that ran away five or six years +ago, and all the town up in arms over it," said Mrs. Norman Lloyd. +"Don't you remember, Cynthia?" + +"Yes," replied Cynthia, and continued pouring tea. Cynthia was very +little changed. In some faces time seems to engrave lines +delicately, once for all, and then lay by. She was rather more +charming now than when one had looked at her with any expectancy of +youth, since there was now no sense of disappointment. + +"I remember that," said Norman Lloyd. "The child would never tell +where she had been. A curious case." + +"Well," said the school-master, "leaving that childish episode out +of the question, she has a really remarkable mind. If she were a +boy, I should advise a thorough education and a profession. I should +as it is, if her family were able to bear the expense. She has that +intuitive order of mind which is wonderful enough, though not, after +all, so rare in a girl; but in addition she has the logical, which, +according to my experience, is almost unknown in a woman. She ought +to have an education." + +"But," said Risley, "what is the use of educating that unfortunate +child?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"What I say. What is the use? There she is in her sphere of life, +the daughter of a factory operative, in all probability in +after-years to be the wife of one and the mother of others. Nothing +but a rich marriage can save her, and that she is not likely to +make. Milk-maids are more likely to make rich marriages than factory +girls; there is a certain savor of romance about milk, and the dewy +meadows, and the breath of kine, but a shoe factory is brutally +realistic and illusionary. Now, why do you want to increase the poor +child's horizon farther than her little feet can carry her? Fit her +to be a good female soldier in the ranks of labor, to be a good wife +and mother to the makers of shoes, to wash and iron their uniforms +of toil, to cook well the food which affords them the requisite +nourishment to make shoes, to appreciate book-lore, which is a +pleasure and a profit to the makers of shoes; possibly in the +non-event of marriage she will make shoes herself. The system of +education in our schools is all wrong. It is both senseless and +futile. Look at the children filing past to school, and look at +their fathers, and their mothers too, filing past to the factory. +Look at their present, and look at their future. And look at the +trash taught them in their text-books--trash from its utter +dissociation with their lives. You might as well teach a Zulu +lace-work, instead of the use of the assagai." + +"Now look here, Mr. Risley," said the school-master, his face +flushing, "is not--I beg your pardon, of course--this view of yours +a little narrow and ultra-conservative? You do not want to establish +a permanent factory-operative class in this country, do you? That is +what your theory would ultimately tend towards. Ought not these +children be given their chance to rise in the ranks; ought they to +be condemned to tread in the same path as their fathers?" + +"I would have those little paths which intersect every unoccupied +field in this locality worn by the feet of these men and their +children after them unto the third and fourth generation," said +Risley. "If not, where is our skilled labor?" + +"Oh, Mr. Risley," said Mrs. Lloyd, anxiously, "you wouldn't want all +those dear little children to work as hard as their fathers, and not +do any better, would you?" + +"If they don't, who is going to make our shoes, dear Mrs. Lloyd?" +asked Risley. + +Mrs. Lloyd and the school-master stared at him, and Lloyd laughed +his low, almost mirthless laugh. + +"Don't you know, Edward," he said, "that Mr. Risley is not in +earnest, and speaks with the deadly intent of an anarchist with a +bomb in his bag? He is the most out-and-out radical in the country. +If there were a strike, and I did not yield to the demands of the +oppressed, and imported foreign labor, I don't know that my life +would be safe from him." + +"Then you do approve of a higher education?" asked the +school-master, while Mrs. Lloyd stared from one to the other in +bewilderment. + +"Yes, if we and our posterity have to go barefoot," said Risley, +laughing out with a sudden undertone of seriousness. + +"I suppose everybody could get accustomed to going barefoot after a +while," said Mrs. Lloyd. "Do you suppose that dear little thing was +barefooted when she ran away, Cynthia?" + +Risley answered as if he had been addressed. "I can vouch for the +fact that she was not, Mrs. Lloyd," he said. "They would sooner have +walked on red-hot ploughshares themselves than let her." + +"Her father is getting quite an old man," Norman Lloyd said, with no +apparent relevancy, as if he were talking to himself. + +All the time Cynthia Lennox had been quietly sitting at the head of +the table. When the rest of the company had gone, and she and Risley +were alone, seated in the drawing-room before the parlor fire, for +it was a chilly day, she turned her fair, worn face towards him on +the crimson velvet of her chair. "Do you know why I did not speak +and tell them where the child was that time?" she asked. + +"Because of your own good sense?" + +"No; because of you." + +He looked at her adoringly. She was older than he, her beauty rather +recorded than still evident on her face; she had been to him from +the first like a fair, forbidden flower behind a wall of +prohibition, but nothing could alter his habit of loving her. + +"Yes," said she. "It was more on your account than on my own; +confession would be good for the soul. The secret has always rankled +in my pride. I would much rather defy opinion than fly before it. +But I know that you would mind. However, there was another reason." + +"What?" + +She hesitated a little and colored, even laughed a little, +embarrassed laugh which was foreign to her. "Well, Lyman," said she, +finally, "one reason why I did not speak was that I see my way clear +to making up to that child and her parents for any wrong which I may +have done them by causing them a few hours' anxiety. When she has +finished the high-school I mean to send her to college." + + + + +Chapter XV + + +When Ellen was about sixteen, in her second year at the high-school, +her own family never looked at her without a slight shock of +wonder, as before the unexpected. Her mates, being themselves +in the transition state, received her unquestioningly as a +fellow-traveller, and colored like themselves with the new lights of +the journey. But Ellen's father and mother and grandmother never +ceased regarding her with astonishment and admiration and something +like alarm. While they regarded Ellen with the utmost pride, they +still privately regretted this perfection of bloom which was the +forerunner of independence of the parent stalk--at least, Andrew +did. Andrew had grown older and more careworn; his mine had not yet +paid any dividends, but he had scattering jobs of work, and with his +wife's assistance had managed to rub along, and his secret was still +safe. + +One day in February there was a half-holiday. Lloyd's was shut for +the rest of the day, for his brother in St. Louis was dead, and had +been brought to Rowe to be buried, and his funeral was at two +o'clock. + +"Goin' to the funeral, old man?" one of Andrew's fellow-workmen had +asked, jostling him as he went out of the shop at noon. Before +Andrew could answer, another voice broke in fiercely. It belonged to +Joseph Atkins, who was ghastly that day. + +"I ain't goin' to no funerals," he said; "guess they won't shut up +shop for mine." Then he coughed. His daughter Abby, who had been +working in the factory for some time then, pressed close behind her +father, and the expression in her face was an echo of his. + +"When I strike, that's what I'm going to strike for--to have the +shop shut up the day of my funeral," said she; and the remark had a +ghastly flippancy, contradicted by her intense manner. A laugh went +around, and a young fellow with a handsome, unshaven face caught her +by the arm. + +"You'd better strike to have the shop shut up the day you're +married," said he; but Abby flung away from him. + +"I'll thank you to let me alone, Tom Hardy," she said, with a snap; +and the men laughed harder. + +Abby was attractive to men in spite of her smallness and leanness +and incisiveness of manner. She was called mighty smart and dry, +which was the shop synonym for witty, and her favors, possibly +because she never granted them, were accounted valuable. Abby Atkins +had more admirers than many a girl who was prettier and presumably +more winning in every way, and could have married twice to their +once. But Abby had no wish for a lover. "I've got all I can do to +earn my own living and the living of them that belong to me," said +she. + +That afternoon Andrew Brewster stayed at home. After dinner Eva +Tenny and her little girl came in, and Ellen went down street on an +errand. + +Mrs. Zelotes Brewster was crossing her yard to her son's house when +she saw Ellen passing, and paused to gaze at her with that superb +pride which pertains to self and is yet superior to it. It was the +idealized pride of her own youth. When she proceeded again against +the February gusts, it was with an unconscious aping of her +granddaughter's freedom of gait. Mrs. Zelotes wore an old red +cashmere scarf crossed over her bosom; she held up her black skirts +in front, and they trailed pointedly in the rear; she also stood +well back on her heels, and when she paused in the wind-swept yard +presented a curious likeness to an old robin pausing for +reconnoitre. Fanny and Eva Tenny in the next house saw her coming. + +"Look at her holding up her dress in front and letting it drag in +the back," said Eva. "It always seemed to me there was somethin' +wrong about any woman that held up her dress in front and let it +drag behind." + +Eva retained all the coarse beauty of her youth, but lines of +unalterable hardness were fixed on her forehead and at her mouth +corners, and the fierce flush in her cheeks was as set as paint. Her +beauty had endured the siege; no guns of mishaps could affect it, +but that charm of evanescence which awakens tenderness was gone. Jim +Tenny's affection seemed to be waning, and Eva looked at herself in +the glass even when bedecked with tawdry finery, and owned that she +did not wonder. She strained up her hair into the latest perkiness +of twist, and crimped it, and curled her feathers, and tied her +ribbons not as much in hope as in a stern determination to do her +part towards the furbishing of her faded star of attraction. "Jim +don't act as if he thought so much of me, an' I dun'no' as I +wonder," she told her sister. + +Fanny looked at her critically. "You mean you ain't so good-lookin' +as you used to be?" said she. + +Eva nodded. + +"Well, if that is all men care for us," said Fanny. + +"It ain't," said Eva, "only it's the key to it. It's like losin' the +key and not bein' able to get in the door in consequence." + +"It wa'n't my husband's key," said Fanny, with a glance at her own +face, faded as to feature and bloom, but intensified as to love and +daily duty, like that of a dog sharpened to one faithfulness of +existence. + +"Andrew ain't Jim," said Eva, shortly. + +"I know he ain't," Fanny assented, with emphasis. + +"But I wouldn't swap off my husband for a dozen of yours," said Eva. + +"Well, I wouldn't swap off mine for a thousand of yours," returned +Fanny, sharply; and there might have been one of the old-time +tussles between the sisters had not Eva's violent, half-bitter sense +of humor averted it. She broke into a hard laugh. + +"Good Lord," she said, "I dun'no' as I should want a thousand like +Jim. Seems to me it would be considerable care." + +Fanny began to speak, but checked herself. She had heard rumors +regarding Jim Tenny of late and had flown fiercely with denial at +the woman who told her, and had not repeated them to her sister. + +She was thinking how she had heard that Jim had been seen driving in +Wenham with Aggie Morse several times lately. Aggie Morse had been +Aggie Bemis, Jim's old sweetheart. She had married a well-to-do +merchant in Wenham, who died six months before and left her with +considerable property. It was her own smart little turn-out in which +she had been seen with Jim. + +Eva was working in the shop, and Jim had been out of employment for +nearly a year, and living on his wife. There was a demand for girls +and not for men just then, so Jim loafed. His old mother cared for +the house as well as she was able, and Eva did the rest nights and +mornings. At first Jim had tried to help about the house-work, but +Eva had interfered. + +"It ain't a man's work," said she. "Your mother can leave the hard +part of it till I get home." Eva used to put the money she earned +surreptitiously into her husband's pockets that he might not feel +his manly pride injured, but she defeated her own ends by her very +solicitude. Jim Tenny began to reason that his wife saw his shame +and ignominious helplessness, else she would not have been so +anxious to cover it. The stoop of discouragement which Eva used to +fear for his shoulders did not come, but, instead, something +worse--the defiant set-back of recklessness. He took his wife's +earnings and despised himself. Whenever he paid a bill, he was sure +the men in the store said, the minute his back was turned, "It's his +wife's money that paid for that." He took to loafing on sunny +corners, and eying the passers-by with the blank impudence of regard +of those outside the current of life. When his wife passed by on her +way from the shop he nodded to her as if she were a stranger, and +presently followed her home at a distance. He would not be seen on +the street with her if he could avoid it. If by any chance when he +was standing on his corner of idleness his little girl came past, he +melted away imperceptibly. He could not bear it that the child +should see him standing there in that company of futility and openly +avowed inadequacy. The child was a keen-eyed, slender little girl, +resembling neither father nor mother, but looking rather like her +paternal grandmother, who was a fair, attenuated woman, with an +intelligence which had sharpened on herself for want of anything +more legitimate, and worn her out by the unnatural friction. The +little Amabel, for Eva had been romantic in the naming of her child, +was an old-fashioned-looking child in spite of Eva's careful +decoration of the little figure in the best childish finery which +she could muster. + +Little Amabel was reading a child's book at another window. When +Mrs. Zelotes entered she eyed her with the sharpness and inscrutable +conclusions therefrom of a kitten, then turned a leaf in her book. + +When Mrs. Zelotes had greeted her daughter-in-law and Eva, she +looked with disapproval at Amabel. + +"When I was a little girl I should have been punished if I hadn't +got up and curtsied and said good-afternoon when company came in," +she remarked, severely. + +Amabel was not a favorite outside of her own family. People used to +stare aghast at her unexpected questions and demands delivered in a +shrill clarion as from some summit of childish wisdom, and they said +she was a queer child. She yielded always to command from utter +helplessness, but the why of obedience was strongly alert within +her. The child might have been in some subtle and uncanny fashion +the offspring of her age and generation instead of her natural +parents, she was so unlike either of them, and so much a product of +the times, with her meekness and slavishness of weakness and +futility, and her unquenchable and unconquerable vitality of +dissent. + +Ellen adored the little Amabel. Presently, when she returned from +her errand down-town, she cried out with delight when she saw her; +and the child ran to meet her, and clung to her, with her flaxen +head snuggled close to her cheek. Ellen caught the child up, seated +herself, and sat cuddling her as she used to cuddle her doll. + +"You dear little thing!" she murmured, "you dear little thing! You +did come to see Ellen, didn't you?" And the child gazed up in the +young girl's face with a rapt expression. Nothing can express the +admiration, which is almost as unquestionable as worship, of a very +little girl for a big one. Amabel loved her mother with a rather +unusual intensity for a child, but Ellen was what she herself would +be when she was grown up. Through Ellen her love of self and her +ambition budded into blossom. Ellen could do nothing wrong because +she did what she herself would do when she was grown. She never +questioned Ellen for her reasons. + +Mrs. Zelotes kept looking at the two, with pride in Ellen and +disapproval of her caresses of the child. "Seems to me you might +speak to your own folks as well as to have no eyes for anybody but +that child," she said, finally. + +"Why, grandma, I spoke to you just a little while ago," returned +Ellen. "You know I saw you just a few minutes before I went +down-town." Ellen straightened the child on her knees, and began to +try to twist her soft, straight flaxen locks into curls. Andrew +lounged in from the kitchen and sat down and regarded Ellen fondly. +The girl's cheeks were a splendid color from her walk in the cold +wind, her hair around her temples caught the light from the window, +and seemed to wreathe her head with a yellow flame. She tossed the +child about with lithe young arms, whose every motion suggested +reserves of tender strength. Ellen was more beautiful than she had +ever been before, and yet something was gone from her face, though +only temporarily, since the lines for the vanished meaning was still +there. All the introspection and dreaminess and poetry of her face +were gone, for the girl was, for the time, overbalanced on the +physical side of her life. The joy of existence for itself alone was +intoxicating her. The innocent frivolities of her sex had seized her +too, and the instincts which had not yet reached her brain nor gone +farther than her bounding pulses of youth. "Ellen is getting real +fond of dress," Fanny often said to Andrew. He only laughed at that. +"Well, pretty birds like pretty feathers, and no wonder," said he. +But he did not laugh when Fanny added that Ellen seemed to think +more about the boys than she used to. There was scarcely a boy in +the high-school who was not Ellen's admirer. It was a curious +happening in those days when Ellen was herself in much less degree +the stuff of which dreams are made than she had been and would be +thereafter, that she was the object of so many. Every morning when +she entered the school-room she was reflected in a glorious multiple +of ideals in no one could tell how many boyish hearts. Floretta +Vining began to imitate her, and kept close to Ellen with supremest +diplomacy, that she might thereby catch some of the crumbs of +attention which fell from Ellen's full table. Often when some happy +boy had secured a short monopoly of Ellen, his rival took up with +Floretta, and she was content, being one of those purely feminine +things who have no pride when the sweets of life are concerned. +Floretta dressed her hair like Ellen's, and tied her neck-ribbons +the same way; she held her head like her, she talked like her, +except when the two girls were absolutely alone; then she sometimes +relapsed suddenly, to Ellen's bewilderment, into her own ways, and +her blue eyes took on an expression as near animosity as her +ingratiating politic nature could admit. + +Ellen did not affiliate as much with Floretta as with Maria Atkins. +Abby had gone to work in the shop, and so Ellen did not see so much +of her. Maria was not as much a favorite with the boys as she had +been since they had passed and not yet returned to that stage when +feminine comradeship satisfies; so Ellen used to confide in her with +a surety of sympathy and no contention. Once, when the girls were +sleeping together, Ellen made a stupendous revelation to Maria, +having first bound her to inviolable secrecy. "I love a boy," said +she, holding Maria's little arm tightly. + +"I know who," said Maria, with a hushed voice. + +"He kissed me once, and then I knew it," said Ellen. + +"Well, I guess he loves you," said Maria. Ellen shivered and drew a +fluttering sigh of assent. Then the two girls lay in each other's +arms, looking at the moonlight which streamed in through the window. +God knew in what realms of pure romance, and of passion so +sublimated by innocence that no tinge of earthliness remained, the +two wandered in their dreams. + +At last, that afternoon in February, Ellen put down little Amabel +and got out her needle-work. She was making a lace neck-tie for her +own adornment. She showed it to her grandmother at her mother's +command. "It's real pretty," said Mrs. Zelotes. "Ellen takes after +the Brewsters; they were always handy with their needles." + +"Can uncle sew?" asked little Amabel, suddenly, from her corner, in +a tone big with wonder. + +Eva and the others chuckled, but Mrs. Zelotes eyed the child +severely. "Little girls shouldn't ask silly questions," said she. + +Andrew passed his hand with a rough caress over the small flaxen +head. "Uncle Andrew can't sew anything but shoes," said he. + +Little Amabel's question had aroused in Mrs. Zelotes a carping +spirit even against Ellen. Presently she turned to her. "I heard +something about you," said she. "I want to know if it is true. I +heard that you were walking home from school with that Joy boy one +day last week." Ellen looked at her grandmother without flinching, +though the pink was over her face and neck. + +"Yes'm, I did," said she. + +"Well, I think it's about time it was put a stop to," said Mrs. +Zelotes. "That Joy boy!" + +Then Fanny lost her temper. "I can manage my own daughter, Grandma +Brewster," said she, "and I'll thank you to attend to your own +affairs." + +"You don't seem to know enough to manage her," retorted Mrs. +Zelotes, "if you let her go traipsin' round with that Joy boy." + +The warfare waged high for a time. Andrew withdrew to the kitchen. +Ellen took little Amabel up in her own chamber and showed her her +beautiful doll, which looked not a day older, so carefully had she +been cherished, than when she first had her. Ellen felt both +resentment and shame, and also a fierce dawning of partisanship +towards Granville Joy. "Why should my grandmother speak of him so +scornfully?" she asked herself. "He is a real good boy." + +That night was very cold, a night full of fierce white glitter of +frost and moonlight, and raging with a turbulence of winds. Ellen +lay awake listening to them. Presently between the whistle of the +wind she heard another, a familiar pipe from a boyish throat. She +sprang out of bed and peeped from her window, and there was a dark, +slight figure out in the yard, and he was looking up at her window, +whistling. Shame, and mirth, and also exultation, which overpowered +them both, stirred within the child's breast. She had read of things +like this. Here was her boy lover coming out this bitter night just +for the sake of looking up at her window. She adored him for it. +Then she heard a window raised with a violent rasp across the yard, +and saw her grandmother's night-capped head thrust forth. She heard +her shrill, imperious voice call out quite distinctly, "Boy, who be +you?" + +The lovelorn whistler ceased his pipe, and evidently, had he +consulted his own discretion, would have shown a pair of flying +heels, but he walked bravely up to the window and the night-capped +head and replied. Ellen could not hear what he said, but she +distinguished plainly enough her grandmother's concluding remarks. + +"Go home," cried Mrs. Zelotes; "go home just as fast as you can and +go to bed. Go home!" Mrs. Zelotes made a violent shooting motion +with her hands and her white head as if he were a cat, and Granville +Joy obeyed. However, Ellen heard his brave, retreating whistle far +down the road. She went back to bed, and lay awake with a fervor of +young love roused into a flame by opposition swelling high in her +heart. But the next afternoon, after school, Ellen, to Granville +Joy's great bliss and astonishment, insinuated herself, through the +crowd of out-going scholars, close to him, and presently, had he not +been so incredulous, for he was a modest boy, he would have said it +was by no volition of his own that he found himself walking down the +street with her. And when they reached his house, which was only +half-way to her own, she looked at him with such a wistful surprise +as he motioned to leave her that he could not mistake it, and he +walked on at her side quite to her own house. Granville Joy was a +gentle boy, young for his age, which was a year more than Ellen's. +He had a face as gentle as a girl's, and really beautiful. Women all +loved him, and the school-girls raised an admiring treble chorus in +his praise whenever his name was spoken. He was saved from +effeminacy by nervous impulses which passed for sustained manly +daring. "He once licked a boy a third bigger than he was, and you +needn't call him sissy," one girl said once to a decrying friend. +To-day, as the boy and girl neared Mrs. Zelotes's house, Granville +was conscious of an inward shrinking before the remembrance of the +terrible old lady. He expected every minute to hear the grating +upward slide of the window and that old voice, which had in it a +terrible intimidation of feminine will. Granville had a mother as +gentle as himself, and a woman with the strength of her own +conviction upon her filled him with awe as of something anomalous. +He wondered uneasily what he should do if the old lady were to hail +him and call him to an account again, whether it would be a more +manly course to face her, or obey, since she was Ellen's +grandmother. He kept an uneasy eye upon the house, and presently, +when he saw the stern old face at the window, he quailed a little. +But Ellen for the first time in her life took his arm, and the two +marched past under the fire of Mrs. Zelotes's gaze. Ellen had +retaliated, not nobly, but as naturally under the conditions of her +life at that time as the branch of a tree blows east before the west +wind. + +[Illustration: He found himself walking home from school with her] + + + + +Chapter XVI + + +Ellen, when she graduated, was openly pronounced the flower of her +class. Not a girl equalled her, not a boy surpassed her. When Ellen +came home one night about two months before her graduation, and +announced that she was to have the valedictory, such a light of pure +joy flashed over her mother's face that she looked ten years +younger. + +"Well, I guess your father will be pleased enough," she said. She +was hard at work, finishing women's wrappers of cheap cotton. The +hood industry had failed some time before, since the hoods had gone +out of fashion. The same woman had taken a contract to supply a +large firm with wrappers, and employed many in the neighborhood, +paying them the smallest possible prices. This woman was a usurer on +a scale so pitiful and petty that it almost condoned usury. +Sometimes a man on discovering the miserable pittance for which his +wife toiled during every minute which she could snatch from her +household duties and the care of her children, would inveigh against +it. "That woman is cheating you," he would say, to be met with the +argument that she herself was only making ten cents on a wrapper. +Looked at in that light, the wretched profit of the workers did not +seem so out of proportion. It was usury in a nutshell, so +infinitesimal as almost to escape detection. Fanny worked every +minute which she could secure on these wrappers--the ungainly, +slatternly home-gear of other poor women. There was an air of +dejected femininity and slipshod drudgery about every fold of one of +them when it was hung up finished. Fanny used to keep them on a row +of hooks in her bedroom until a dozen were completed, when she +carried them to her employer, and Ellen used to look at them with a +sense of depression. She imagined worn, patient faces of the sisters +of poverty above the limp collars, and poor, veinous hands dangling +from the clumsy sleeves. + +Fanny would never allow Ellen to assist her in this work, though she +begged hard to do so. "Wait till you get out of school," said she. +"You've got enough to do while you are in school." + +When Ellen told her about the valedictory, Fanny was so overjoyed +that she lost sight of her work, and sewed in the sleeves wrong. +"There, only see what you have made me do!" she cried, laughing with +delight at her own folly. "Only see, you have made me sew in both +these sleeves wrong. You are a great child. Another time you had +better keep away with your valedictories till I get my wrapper +finished." Ellen looked up from the book which she had taken. + +"Let me rip them out for you, mother," she said. + +"No, you keep on with your study--it won't take me but a minute. I +don't know what your father will say. It is a great honor to be +chosen to write the valedictory out of that big class. I guess your +father will be pleased." + +"I hope I can write a good one," said Ellen. + +"Well, if you can't, I'd give up my beat," said the mother, looking +at her with enthusiasm, and speaking with scornful chiding. "Why +don't you go over and tell your grandmother Brewster? She'll be +tickled 'most to death." + +Ellen had not been gone long when Andrew came home, coming into the +yard, bent as if beneath some invisible burden of toil. Just then he +had work, but not in Lloyd's. He had grown too old for Lloyd's, and +had been discharged long ago. + +He had so far been able to conceal from Fanny the fact that he had +withdrawn all his little savings to invest in that mining stock. The +stock had not yet come up, as he had expected. He very seldom had a +circular reporting progress nowadays. When he did have one in the +post-office his heart used to stand still until he had torn open the +envelope and read it. It was uniformly not so hopeful as formerly, +while speciously apologetic. Andrew still had faith, although his +heart was sick with its long deferring. He could not actually +believe that all his savings were gone, sunken out of sight forever +in this awful shaft of miscalculation and misfortune. What he +dreaded most was that Fanny should find out, as she would have to +were he long out of employment. + +Andrew, when he entered the house on his return from work, had come +to open a door into the room where his wife was, with a deprecating +and apologetic air. He gained confidence when, after a few minutes, +the sore subject had not been broached. + +To-night, as usual, when he came into the sitting-room where Fanny +was sewing it was with a sidelong glance of uneasy deprecation +towards her, and an attempt to speak easily, as if he had nothing on +his mind. + +"Pretty warm day," he began, but his wife cut him short. She faced +around towards him beaming, her work--a pink wrapper--slid from her +lap to the floor. + +"What do you think, Andrew?" she said. "What do you s'pose has +happened? Guess." Andrew laughed gratefully, and with the greatest +alacrity. Surely this was nothing about mining-stocks, unless, +indeed, she had heard, and the stocks had gone up, but that seemed +to much like the millennium. He dismissed that from his mind before +it entered. He stood before her in his worn clothes. He always wore +a collar and a black tie, and his haggard face was carefully shaven. +Andrew was punctiliously neat, on Ellen's account. He was always +thinking, suppose he should meet Ellen coming home from school, with +some young ladies whose fathers were rich and did not have to work +in the shop, how mortified she might feel if he looked shabby and +unkempt. + +"Guess, Andrew," she said. + +"What is it?" said Andrew. + +"Oh, you guess." + +"I don't see what it can be, Fanny." + +"Well, Ellen has got the valedictory. What's the matter with you? Be +you deaf? Ellen has got the valedictory out of all them girls and +boys." + +"She has, has she?" said Andrew. He dropped into a chair and looked +at his wife. There was something about the intense interchange of +confidence of delight between these two faces of father and mother +which had almost the unrestraint of lunacy. Andrew's jaw fairly +dropped with his smile, which was a silent laugh rather than a +smile; his eyes were wild with delight. "She has, has she?" he kept +repeating. + +"Yes, she has," said Fanny. She tossed her head with an incomparable +pride; she coughed a little, affected cough. "I s'pose you know what +a compliment it is?" said she. "It means that she's smarter than all +them boys and girls--the smartest one in her whole class." + +"Yes, I s'pose it does," said Andrew. "So she has got it! Well!" + +"There she comes now," said Fanny, "and Grandma Brewster." + +Andrew borrowed money to buy a gold watch and chain for a graduating +gift for his daughter. He would scarcely have essayed anything quite +so magnificent, but Fanny innocently tempted him. The two had been +sitting in the door in the cool of the evening, one day in June, +about two weeks before the graduation, and had just watched Ellen's +light muslin skirts flutter out of sight. She had gone down-town to +purchase some ribbon for her graduating dress--she and Floretta +Vining, who had come over to accompany her. "I feel kind of anxious +to have her have something pretty when she graduates," Fanny said, +speaking as if she were feeling her way into a mind of opposition. +Neither she nor Andrew had ever owned a watch, and the scheme seemed +to her breathless with magnificence. + +"Yes, she ought to have something pretty," agreed Andrew. + +"I don't want her to feel ashamed when she sees the other girls' +presents," said Fanny. + +"That's so," assented Andrew. + +"Well," said Fanny, "I've been thinkin'--" + +"What?" + +"Well, I've been thinkin' that--of course your mother is goin' to +give her the dress, and that's all, of course, and it's a real +handsome present. I ain't sayin' a word against that; but there +ain't anybody else to give her much except us. Poor Eva 'd like to, +but she can't; it takes all she earns, since Jim's out of work, and +I don't know what she's goin' to do. So that leaves nobody but us, +and I've been thinkin'--I dun'no' what you'll say, Andrew, but I've +been thinkin'--s'pose you took a little money out of the bank, +and--got Ellen--a watch." Fanny spoke the last word in a faint +whisper. She actually turned pale in the darkness. + +"A watch?" repeated Andrew. + +"Yes, a watch. I've always wanted Ellen to have a gold watch and +chain. I've always thought she could, and so she could if you hadn't +been out of work so much." + +"Yes, she could," said Andrew--"a watch and mebbe a piano. I thought +I'd be back in Lloyd's before now. Well, mebbe I shall before long. +They say there's better times comin' by fall." + +"Well, Ellen will be graduated by that time," said Fanny, "and she +ought to have the watch now if she's ever goin' to. She'll never +think so much of it. Floretta Vining is goin' to have a watch, too. +Mrs. Cross says her mother told her so; said Mr. Vining had it all +bought--a real handsome one. I don't believe Sam Vining can afford +to buy a gold watch. I don't believe it is all gold, for my part. +They 'ain't got as much as we have, if Sam has had work steadier. I +don't believe it's gold. I don't want Ellen to have a watch at all +unless it's a real good one. It seems to me you'd better take a +little money out and buy her one, Andrew." + +"Well, I'll see," said Andrew. He had a terrible sense of guilt +before Fanny. Suppose she knew that there was no money at all in the +bank to take out? + +"Well, I'll buy her one if you say so," said he, in a curious, slow, +stern voice. In his heart was a fierce rising of rebellion, that he, +hard-working and frugal and self-denying all his life, should be +denied the privilege of buying a present for his darling without +resorting to deception, and even almost robbery. He did not at that +minute blame himself in the least for his misadventure with his +mining stock. Had not the same relentless Providence driven him to +that also? His weary spirit took for the first time a poise of utter +self-righteousness in opposition to this Providence, and he +blasphemed in his inner closet of self, before the face of the Lord, +as he comprehended it. + +"Well, I have a sort of set my heart on it," said Fanny. + +"She shall have the watch," repeated Andrew, and his voice was +fairly defiant. + +After Fanny had gone into the house and lighted her lamp, and +resumed work on her wrapper, Andrew still sat on the step in the +cool evening. There was a full moon, and great masses of shadows +seemed to float and hover and alight on the earth with a gigantic +brooding as of birds. The trees seemed redoubled in size from the +soft indetermination of the moonlight which confused shadow and +light, and deceived the eye as with soft loomings out of false +distances. There was a tall pine, grown from a sapling since Ellen's +childhood, and that looked more like a column of mist than a tree, +but the Norway spruces clove the air sharply like silhouettes in +ink, and outlined their dark profiles clearly against the silver +radiance. + +To Andrew, looking at it all, came the feeling of a traveller who +passes all scenes whether of joy or woe, being himself in his +passing the one thing which remains, and somehow he got from it an +enormous comfort. + +"We're all travellin' along," he said aloud, in a strained, solemn +voice. + +"What did you say, Andrew?" Fanny called from the open window. + +"Nothin'," replied Andrew. + + + + +Chapter XVII + + +Ellen had always had objective points, as it were, in her life, and +she always would have, no matter how long she lived. She came to +places where she stopped mentally, for retrospection and +forethought, wherefrom she could seem to obtain a view of that which +lay behind, and of the path which was set for her feet in advance. +She saw the tracked and the trackless. Once, going with Abby Atkins +and Floretta in search of early spring flowers, Ellen had lingered +and let them go out of sight, and had sat down on a springing mat of +wintergreen leaves under the windy outstretch of a great pine, and +had remained there quite deaf to shrill halloos. She had sat there +with eyes of inward scrutiny like an Eastern sage's, motionless as +on a rock of thought, while her daily life eddied around her. Ellen, +sitting there, had said to herself: "This I will always remember. No +matter how long I live, where I am, and what happens to me, I will +always remember how I was a child, and sat here this morning in +spring under the pine-tree, looking backward and forward. I will +never forget." + +When, finally, Abby and Floretta had run back, and spied her there, +they had stared half frightened. "You ain't sick, are you, Ellen?" +asked Abby, anxiously. + +"What are you sitting there for?" asked Floretta. + +Ellen had replied that she was not sick, and had risen and run on, +looking for flowers, but the flowers for her bloomed always against +a background of the past, and nodded with forward flings of +fragrance into the future; for the other children, who were wholly +of their own day and generation, they bloomed in the simple light of +their own desire of possession. They picked only flowers, but Ellen +picked thoughts, and they kept casting bewildered side-glances at +her, for the look which had come into her eyes as she sat beneath +the pine-tree lingered. + +It was as if a rose had a second of self-consciousness between the +bud and the blossom; a bird between its mother's brooding and the +song. She had caught sight of the innermost processes of things, of +her wheels of life. + +Ellen waked up on that June morning, and the old sensation of a +pause before advance was upon her, and the strange solemnity which +was almost a terror, from the feeble clutching of her mind at the +comprehension of infinity. She looked at the morning sunlight coming +between the white slants of her curtains, an airy flutter of her new +dress from the closet, her valedictory, tied with a white satin +ribbon, on the stand, and she saw quite plainly all which had led up +to this, and to her, Ellen Brewster; and she saw also the +inevitableness of its passing, the precious valedictory being laid +away and buried beneath a pile of future ones; she saw the crowd of +future valedictorians advancing like a flock of white doves in their +white gowns, when hers was worn out, and its beauty gone, pressing +forward, dimming her to her own vision. She saw how she would come +to look calmly and coldly upon all that filled her with such joy and +excitement to-day; how the savor of the moment would pass from her +tongue, and she said to herself that she would always remember this +moment. + +Then suddenly--since she had in herself an impetus of motion which +nothing, not even reflection, could long check--she saw quite +plainly a light beyond, after all this should have passed, and the +leaping power of her spirit to gain it. And then, since she was +healthy, and given only at wide intervals to these Eastern lapses of +consciousness from the present, she was back in her day, and alive +to all its importance as a part of time. + +She felt the bounding elation of tossing on the crest of her wave of +success, and the full rainbow glory of it dazzled her eyes. She was +first in her class, she was valedictorian, she had a beautiful +dress, she was young, she was first. It is a poor spirit, and one +incapable of courage in defeat, who feels not triumph in victory. +Ellen was triumphant and confident. She had faith in herself and the +love and approbation of everybody. + +When she was seated with her class on the stage in the city hall, +where the graduating exercises were held, she saw herself just as +she looked, and it was with a satisfaction which had nothing weakly +in its vein, and smiled radiantly and innocently at herself as seen +in this mirror of love and appreciation of all who knew her. + +[Illustration: The valedictory] + +When the band stopped playing, and Ellen, who as valedictorian came +last as the crown and capsheaf of it all, stepped forward from the +semicircle of white-clad girls and seriously abashed boys, there was +a subdued murmur and then a hush all over the hall. Andrew and Fanny +and the grandmother, seated directly in front of the stage--for they +had come early to secure good seats--heard whispers of admiration on +every side. It was admiration with no dissent--such jealous ears as +theirs could not be deceived. Fanny's face was blazing with the +sweet shame of pride in her child; Andrew was pale; the grandmother +sat as if petrified, with a proud toss of her head. They looked +straight ahead; they dared not encounter each other's eyes, for they +were more self-conscious than Ellen. They felt the attention of the +whole assembly upon them. Andrew was conscious of feeling ill and +faint. His own joy seemed to overwhelm him. He forgot his stocks, he +forgot his borrowed money, he forgot Lloyd's; he was perfectly happy +at the sight of that beautiful young creature of his own heart, who +was preferred before all others in the sight of the whole city. In +truth, there was about Ellen a majesty and nobility of youth and +innocence and beauty which overawed. The other girls of the class +were as young and as pretty, but none of them had that indescribable +quality which seemed to raise her above them all. Ellen still kept +her blond fairness, but there was nothing of the doll-like which +often characterizes the blond type. Although she was small, Ellen's +color had the firmness and unwavering of tinted marble; she carried +her crown of yellow braids as if it had been gold; she moved and +looked and spoke with decision. The violent and intense temperament +which she had inherited from two sides of her family had +crystallized in her to something more forcible, but also more +impressive. However, she was, after all, only a young girl, scarcely +more than a child, whatever her principle of underlying character +might be, and when she stood there before them all--all her +townspeople who represented her world, the human shore upon which +her own little individuality beat--when she saw those attentive +faces, row upon row, all fixed upon her, she felt her heart pound +against her side; she had no sensation of the roll of paper in her +hand; an awful terror as of suddenly discovered depths came over +her, as the wild clapping of hands to which her appearance had given +rise died away. Ellen stood still, holding the valedictory as if it +had been a stick. A little wondering murmur began to be heard. +Andrew felt as if he were dying. Fanny gripped his arm hard. Mrs. +Zelotes had the look of one about to spring. Ellen had the terrible +sensation which has in it a nightmare of inability to move, allied +with the intensest consciousness. She knew that she was to read her +valedictory, she knew that she must raise that white-ribboned roll +and read, or else be disgraced forever, and yet she was powerless. +But suddenly some compelling glance seemed to arouse her from this +lock of nerve and muscle; she raised her eyes, and Cynthia Lennox, +on the farther side of the hall, was gazing full at her with an +indescribable gaze of passion and help and command. Her own mother's +look could not have influenced her. Ellen raised her valedictory, +bowed, and began to read. Andrew looked so pale that people nudged +one another to look at him. Mrs. Zelotes settled back, relaxing +stiffly from her fierce attitude. Fanny wiped her forehead with a +cheap lace-bordered handkerchief. There was a stifled sob farther +back, that came from Eva Tenny, who sat back on account of a break +across the shoulders in the back of her silk dress. Amabel, anaemic +and eager in a little, tawdry, cheap muslin frock, sat beside her, +with worshipful eyes on Ellen. "What ailed her?" she whispered, +hitting her mother with a sharp little elbow. "Hush up!" whispered +Eva, angrily, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. In front, directly in +her line of vision, sat the woman of whom she was jealous--the young +widow, who had been Aggie Bemis, arrayed in a handsome India silk +and a flower-laden hat. Eva's hat was trimmed with a draggled +feather and a bunch of roses which she had tried to color with +aniline dye. When she got home that night she tore the feather out +of the hat and flung it across the room. She wished to do it that +afternoon every time she looked at the other woman's roses against +the smooth knot of her brown hair, and that repressed impulse, with +her alarm at Ellen's silence, had made her almost hysterical. When +Ellen's clear young voice rose and filled the hall she calmed +herself. Ellen had not folded back her first page with a flutter of +the white satin ribbons before people began to sit straight and +stare at each other incredulously. The subject of the valedictory, +as well as those of the other essays, had been allotted, and Ellen's +had been "Equality," and she had written a most revolutionary +valedictory. Ellen had written with a sort of poetic fire, and, +crude as it all was, she might have had the inspiration of a Shelley +or a Chatterton as she stood there, raising her fearless young front +over the marshalling of her sentiments on the smooth sheets of +foolscap. Her voice, once started, rang out clear and full. She had +hesitated at nothing, she flung all castes into a common heap of +equality with her strong young arms, and she set them all on one +level of the synagogue. She forced the employer and his employe to +one bench of service in the grand system of things; she gave the +laborer, and the laborer only, the reward of labor. As Ellen went on +reading calmly, with the steadfastness of one promulgating +principles, not the excitement of one carried away by enthusiasm, +she began to be interrupted by applause, but she read on, never +wavering, her clear voice overcoming everything. She was quite +innocently throwing her wordy bomb to the agitation of public +sentiment. She had no thought of such an effect. She was stating +what she believed to be facts with her youthful dogmatism. She had +no fear lest the facts strike too hard. The school-master's face +grew long with dismay; he sat pulling his mustache in a fashion he +had when disturbed. He glanced uneasily now and then at Mr. Lloyd, +and at another leading manufacturer who was present. The other +manufacturer sat quite stolid and unsmiling beside a fidgeting wife, +who presently arose and swept out with a loud rustle of silks. She +looked back once and beckoned angrily to her husband, but he did not +stir. He was on the school-board. The school-master trembled when he +saw that imperturbable face of storing recollection before him. Mr. +Lloyd leaned towards Lyman Risley, who sat beside him and whispered +and laughed. It was quite evident that he did not consider the +flight of this little fledgling in the face of things seriously. But +even he, as Ellen's clearly delivered sentiments grew more and more +defined--almost anarchistic--became a little grave in spite of the +absurd incongruity between them and the girlish lips. Once he looked +in some wonder at the school-teacher as much as to say, "Why did you +permit this?" and the young man pulled his mustache harder. + +When Ellen finished and made her bow, such a storm of applause arose +as had never before been heard at a high-school exhibition. The +audience was for the most part composed of factory employes and +their families, as most of the graduates were of that class of the +community. Many of them were of foreign blood, people who had come +to the country expecting the state of things advocated in Ellen's +valedictory, and had remained more or less sullen and dissenting at +the non-fulfilment of their expectation. One tall Swede, with a +lurid flashing of blue eyes under a thick, blond thatch, led the +renewed charges of applause. Red spots came on his cheeks, gaunt +with high cheekbones; his cold Northern blood was up. He stood +upreared against a background of the crowd under the balcony; he +stamped when the applause died low; then it swelled again and again +like great waves. The Swede brandished his long arms, he shouted, +others echoed him. Even the women hallooed in a frenzy of applause, +they clapped their hands, they stood up in their seats. Only a few +sat silent and contemptuous through all the enthusiasm. Thomas +Briggs, the manufacturer, was one of them. He sat like a rock, his +great, red, imperturbable face of dissent fixed straight ahead. Mrs. +Lloyd clapped wildly, on account of the girl who had read the +valedictory. She had slept through the greater part of it, for it +was very warm, and the heat always made her drowsy. She kept leaning +towards Cynthia as she clapped, and asking in a loud whisper if she +wasn't sweet. Cynthia did not applaud, but her delicate face was +pale with emotion. Lyman Risley, beside her, was clapping +energetically. "She may have a bomb somewhere concealed among those +ribbons and frills," he said to Lloyd when the applause was waxing +loudest, and Lloyd laughed. + +As for Ellen, when the storm of applause burst at her feet, she +stood still for a moment bewildered. Then she bowed again and turned +to go, then the compelling uproar brought her back. She stood there +quite piteous in her confusion. This was too much triumph, and, +moreover, she had not the least idea of the true significance of it +all. She was like a chemist who had brought together, quite +ignorantly and unwittingly, the two elements of an explosive. She +thought that her valedictory must have been well done, that they +liked it, and that was all. She had no sooner finished reading than +the ushers began in the midst of the storm of applause to approach +the stage with her graduating presents. They were laden with great +bouquets and baskets of flowers, with cards conspicuously attached +to most of them. Cynthia Lennox had sent a basket of roses. Ellen +took it on her arm, and wondered when she saw the name attached to +the pink satin bow on the handle. She did not look again towards +Cynthia since the old impulse of concealment on her account came +over her. Ellen had great boxes of candy from her boy admirers, +that being a favorite token of young affection upon such occasions. +She had a gift-book from her former school-teacher, and a +ninety-eight-cent gilded vase from Eva and Amabel, who had been +saving money to buy it. She heard a murmur of admiration when she +had finally reached her seat, after the storm of applause had at +last subsided, and she unrolled the packages with trembling fingers. + +"My, ain't that handsome!" said Floretta, pressing her muslin-clad +shoulder against Ellen's. "My, didn't they clap you, Ellen! What's +that in that package?" + +The package contained Ellen's new watch and chain. Floretta had +already received hers, and it lay in its case on her lap. Ellen +looked at the package, not hearing in the least the Baptist minister +who had taken his place on the stage, and was delivering an address. +She had felt her aunt Eva's and Amabel's eager eyes on her when she +unrolled the gaudy vase; now she felt her father's and mother's. The +small, daintily tied package was inscribed "Ellen Brewster, from +Father and Mother." + +"Why don't you open it?" came in her ear from Floretta. Maria was +leaning forward also, over her lapful of carnations which John +Sargent had presented to her. + +"Why don't she open it?" she whispered to Floretta. They were all +quite oblivious of the speaker, who moved nervously back and forth +in front of them, so screening them somewhat from the observation of +the audience. Still Ellen hesitated, looking at the little package +and feeling her father's and mother's eyes on her face. + +Finally she untied the cord and took out the jeweller's case from +the wrapping-paper. "My, you've got one too, I bet!" whispered +Floretta. Ellen opened the box, and gazed at her watch and chain; +then she glanced at her father and mother down in the audience, and +the three loving souls seemed to meet in an ineffable solitude in +the midst of the crowd. All three faces were pale--Ellen's began to +quiver. She felt Floretta's shoulder warm through her thin sleeve +against hers. + +"My! you've got one--I said so," she whispered. "It isn't chased as +much as mine, but it's real handsome. My, Ellen Brewster, you ain't +going to cry before all these people!" + +Ellen smiled against a sob, and she gave her head a defiant toss. +Down in the audience Fanny had her handkerchief to her eyes, and +Andrew sat looking sternly at the speaker. Ellen said to herself +that she would not cry--she would not, but she sat gazing down at +her flower-laden lap and the presents. The golden disk under her +fixed eyes waxed larger and larger, until it seemed to fill her +whole comprehension as with a golden light of a suffering, +self-denying love which was her best reward of life and labor on the +earth. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +After the exhibition there was a dance. The Brewsters, even Mrs. +Zelotes, remained to see the last of Ellen's triumph. Mrs. Zelotes +was firmly convinced that Ellen's appearance excelled any one's in +the hall. Not a girl swung past them in the dance but she eyed her +white dress scornfully, then her rosy face, and sniffed with high +nostrils like an old war-horse. "Jest look at that Vining girl's +dress, coarse enough to strain through," she said to Fanny, leaning +across Andrew, who was sitting rapt, his very soul dancing with his +daughter, his eyes never leaving her one second, following her fair +head and white flutter of muslin ruffles and ribbons around the +hall. + +"Yes, that's so," assented Fanny, but not with her usual sharpness. +A wistful softness and sweetness was on her coarsely handsome face. +Once she reached her hand over Andrew's and pressed it, and blushed +crimson as she did so. Andrew turned and smiled at her. All that +annoyed Andrew was that Ellen danced with Granville Joy often, and +also with other boys. It disturbed him a little, even while it +delighted him, that she should dance at all, that she should have +learned to dance. Andrew had been brought up to look upon dancing as +an amusement for Louds rather than for Brewsters. It had not been in +vogue among the aristocracy of this little New England city when he +was young. + +Mrs. Zelotes watched Ellen dance with inward delight and outward +disapproval. "I don't approve of dancing, never did," she said to +Andrew, but she was furious once when Ellen sat through a dance. +Towards the end of the evening she saw with sudden alertness Ellen +dancing with a new partner, a handsome young man, who carried +himself with more assurance than the school-boys. Mrs. Zelotes hit +Andrew with her sharp elbow. + +"Who's that dancing with her now?" she said. + +"That's young Lloyd," answered Andrew. He flushed a little, and +looked pleased. + +"Norman Lloyd's nephew?" asked his mother, sharply. + +"Yes, he's on here from St. Louis. He's goin' into business with his +uncle," replied Andrew. "Sargent was telling me about it yesterday. +Young Lloyd came into the post-office while we were there." Fanny +had been listening. Immediately she married Ellen to young Lloyd, +and the next moment she went to live in a grand new house built in a +twinkling in a vacant lot next to Norman Lloyd's residence, which +was the wonder of the city. She reared this castle in Spain with +inconceivable swiftness, even while she was turning her head towards +Eva on the other side, and prodding her with an admonishing elbow as +Mrs. Zelotes had prodded Andrew. "That's Norman Lloyd's nephew +dancing with her now," she said. Eva looked at her, smiling. +Directly the idea of Ellen's marriage with the young man with whom +she was dancing established full connections and ran through the +line of Ellen's relatives as though an electric wire. + +As for Ellen, dancing with this stranger, who had been introduced to +her by the school-master, she certainly had no thought of a possible +marriage with him, but she had looked into his face with a curious, +ready leap of sympathy and understanding of this other soul which +she met for the first time. It seemed to her that she must have +known him before, but she knew that she had not. She began to +reflect as they were whirling about the hall, she gazed at that +secret memory of hers, which she had treasured since her childhood, +and discovered that what had seemed familiar to her about the young +man was the face of a familiar thought. Ever since Miss Cynthia +Lennox had told her about her nephew, the little boy who had owned +and loved the doll, Ellen had unconsciously held the thought of him +in her mind. "You are Miss Cynthia Lennox's nephew," she said to +young Lloyd. + +"Yes," he replied. He nodded towards Cynthia, who was sitting on the +opposite side from the Brewsters, with the Norman Lloyds and Lyman +Risley. "She used to be like a mother to me," he said. "You know I +lost my mother when I was a baby." + +Ellen nodded at him with a look of pity of that marvellous scope +which only a woman in whom the maternal slumbers ready to awake can +compass. Ellen, looking at the handsome face of the young man, saw +quite distinctly in it the face of the little motherless child, and +all the tender pity which she would have felt for that child was in +her eyes. + +"What a beautiful girl she is," thought the young man. He smiled at +her admiringly, loving her look at him, while not in the least +understanding it. He had asked to be presented to Ellen from +curiosity. He had not been at the exhibition, and had heard the +school-master and Risley talking about the valedictory. "I didn't +know that you taught anarchy in school, Mr. Harris," Risley had +said. He laughed as he said it, but Harris had colored with an +uneasy look at Norman Lloyd, whose face wore an expression of +amusement. "Perhaps I should have," he began, but Lloyd interrupted +him. "My dear fellow," he said, "you don't imagine that any man in +his senses could take seriously enough to be annoyed by it that +child's effusion on her nice little roll of foolscap tied with her +pretty white satin ribbon?" + +"She is just as sweet as she can be," said Mrs. Norman, "and I +thought her composition was real pretty. Didn't you, Cynthia?" + +"Very," replied Cynthia. + +"What your are worrying about it for, Edward, I don't see," said +Mrs. Norman to the school-master. + +"Well, I am glad if it struck you that way," said he, "but when I +heard the applause from all those factory people"--he lowered his +voice, since a number were sitting near--"I didn't know, but--" He +hesitated. + +"That the spark that would fire the mine might be in that pretty +little beribboned roll of foolscap," said Risley, laughing. "Well, +it was a very creditable production, and it was written with the +energy of conviction. The Czar and that little school-girl would not +live long in one country, if she goes on as she has begun." + +It was then that young Lloyd, who had just come in, and was standing +beside the school-master, turned eagerly to him, and asked who the +girl was, and begged him to present him. + +"Perhaps he'll fall in love with her," said Mrs. Norman, directly, +when the two men had gone across the hall in quest of Ellen. Her +husband laughed. + +"You have not seen your aunt for a long time," Ellen said to young +Lloyd, when they were sitting out a dance after their waltz +together. + +"Not since--I--I came on--with my father when he died," he replied. +Again Ellen looked at him with that wonderful pity in her face, and +again the young man thought he had never seen such a girl. + +"I think your aunt is beautiful," Ellen said, presently, gazing +across at Cynthia. + +"Yes, she must have been a beauty when she was young." + +"I think she is now," said Ellen, quite fervently, for she was able +to disabuse her mind of associations and rely upon pure observation, +and it was quite true that leaving out of the question Cynthia's age +and the memory of her face in stronger lights at closer view, she +was as beautiful from where they sat as some graceful statue. Only +clear outlines showed at that distance, and her soft hair, which was +quite white, lay in heavy masses around the intense repose of her +face. + +"Yes--s," admitted Robert, somewhat hesitatingly. "She used to think +everything of me when I was a little shaver," he said. + +"Doesn't she now?" + +"Oh yes, I suppose she does, but it is different now. I am grown up. +A man doesn't need so much done for him when he is grown up." + +Then again he looked at Ellen with eyes of pleading which would have +made of the older woman what he remembered her to have been in his +childhood, and hers answered again. + +Robert did not say anything to her about the valedictory until just +before the close of the evening, when their last dance together was +over. + +"I am sorry I did not have a chance to hear your valedictory," he +said. "I could not come early." + +Ellen blushed and smiled, and made the conventional school-girl +response. "Oh, you didn't miss anything," said she. + +"I am sure I did," said the young man, earnestly. Then he looked at +her and hesitated a little. "I wonder if you would be willing to +lend it to me?" he said, then. "I would be very careful of it, and +would return it immediately as soon as I had read it. I should be so +interested in reading it." + +"Certainly, if you wish," said Ellen, "but I am afraid you won't +think it is good." + +"Of course I shall. I have been hearing about it, how good it was, +and how you broke up the whole house." + +Ellen blushed. "Oh, that was only because it was the valedictory. +They always clap a good deal for the valedictory." + +"It was because it was you, you dear beauty," thought the young man, +gazing at her, and the impulse to take her in his arms and kiss that +blush seized upon him. "I know they applauded your valedictory +because it was worthy of it," said he, and Ellen's eyes fell before +his, and the blush crept down over her throat, and up to the soft +toss of hair on her temples. The two were standing, and the man +gazed at Ellen's pink arms and neck through the lace of her dress, +those incomparable curves of youthful bloom shared by a young girl +and a rose; he gazed at that noble, fair head bent not so much +before him as before the mystery of life, of which a perception had +come to her through his eyes, and he said to himself that there +never was such a girl, and he also wondered if he saw aright, he +being one who seldom entirely lost the grasp of his own leash. +Having the fancy and the heart of a young man, he was given like +others of his kind to looking at every new girl who attracted him in +the light of a problem, the unknown quantity being her possible +interest for him, but he always worked it out calmly. He kept +himself out of his own shadow, when it came to the question of +emotions, in something the same fashion that his uncle Norman did. +Now, looking at Ellen Brewster with the whole of his heart setting +towards her in obedience to that law which had brought him into +being, he yet was saying quite coolly and loudly in his own inner +consciousness, "Wait, wait, wait! Wait until to-morrow, see how you +feel then. You have felt in much this way before. Wait! Perhaps you +don't see it as it is. Wait!" + +He realized his own wisdom all the more clearly when Ellen led him +to the settee where her relatives sat guarding her graduation +presents and her precious valedictory. She presented him gracefully +enough. Ellen knew nothing of society etiquette, she had never +introduced such a young gentleman as this to any one in her life, +but her inborn dignity of character kept her self-poise perfect. +Still, when young Lloyd saw the mother coarsely perspiring and +fairly aggressive in her delight over her daughter, when poor Andrew +hoped he saw him well, and Mrs. Zelotes eyed him with sharp +approbation, and Eva, conscious of her shabbiness, bowed with a +stiff toss of her head and sat back sullenly, and little Amabel +surveyed him with uncanny wisdom divided between himself and Ellen, +he became conscious of a slight disappearance of his glamour. He +thanked Ellen most heartily for the privilege which she granted him, +when she took the valedictory from the heap of flowers, and took his +leave with a bow which made Fanny nudge Andrew, almost before the +young man's back was turned. + +Then she looked at Ellen, but she said nothing. A sudden impulse of +delicacy prevented her. There was something about this beloved +daughter of hers which all at once seemed strange to her. She began +to associate her with the sacred mystery of life as she had never +done. Then, too, there was the more superficial association with one +of another class which she held in outward despite but inward awe. + +Ellen gathered up her presents into her lap, and sat there a few +minutes through the last dance, which she had refused to Granville +Joy, who went away with nervous alertness for another girl, and +nobody spoke to her. + +When young Lloyd and Cynthia Lennox and the others left, as they did +directly, Fanny murmured, "They've gone," and they all knew what she +meant. She was thinking--and so were they all, except Ellen--that +that was the reason, because he had to go, that he had not asked +Ellen for the last dance. + +As for Ellen, she sat looking at her gold watch and chain, which she +had taken out of the case. Her face grew intensely sober, and she +did not notice when young Lloyd left. All at once she had reflected +how her father had never owned a watch in his whole life, though he +was a man, but he had given one to her. She reflected how he had so +little work, how shabby his clothes were, how he must have gone +without himself to buy this for her, and the girl had such a heart +of gold that it rose triumphantly loyal to its first loves and +tendernesses, and her father's old, worn face came between her and +that of the young man who might become her lover. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + +The day after Ellen's graduation there might have been seen a +touching little spectacle passing along the main street of Rowe +about ten o'clock in the fore-noon. It was touching because it gave +evidence of that human vanity common to all, which strives to +perpetuate the few small, good things that come into the hard lives +of poor souls, and strives with such utter futility. Ellen held up +her fluffy skirts daintily, the wind caught her white ribbons and +the loose locks of her yellow hair under her white hat. She carried +Cynthia Lennox's basket of roses on her arm, and each of the others +was laden with bouquets. Little Amabel clasped both slender arms +around a great sheaf of roses; the thorns pricked through her thin +sleeves, but she did not mind that, so upborne with the elation of +the occasion was she. Her small, pale face gazed over the mass of +bloom with challenging of admiration from every one whom she met. +She was jealous lest any one should not look with full appreciation +of Ellen. + +Ellen was the one in the little procession who had not unmixed +delight in it. She had a certain shamefacedness about going through +the streets in such a fashion. She avoided looking at the people +whom she met, and kept her head slightly bent and averted, instead +of carrying it with the proud directness which was her habit. She +felt vaguely that this was the element of purely personal vanity +which degrades a triumph, and the weakness of delight and gloating +in the faces of her relatives irritated her. It was a sort of +unveiling of love, and the girl was sensitive enough to understand +it. "Oh, mother, I don't want to have us all go through the street +with all these flowers, and me in my white dress," she had said. She +had looked at her mother with a shrinking in her eyes which was +incomprehensible to the other coarser-natured woman. + +"Nonsense," she had said. "Sometimes you have real silly notions, +Ellen." Fanny said it adoringly, for even silliness in this girl +was in a way worshipful to her. Ellen, with her heart still softened +almost to grief by the love shown her on the day before, had +yielded, but she was glad when they arrived at the photograph +studio. She had particularly dreaded passing Lloyd's, for the +thought came to her that possibly young Mr. Lloyd might see her. She +supposed that he was likely to be in the office. When they passed +the office-windows she looked the other way, but before she was well +past, her aunt Eva hit her violently and laughed loudly. Ellen +shrank, coloring a deep crimson. Then her mother also laughed, and +even Amabel, shrilly, with precocious recognition of the situation. +Only Mrs. Zelotes stalked along in silent dignity. + +"Don't laugh so loud, he'll hear you," said she, severely. + +"It was that young man who was at the hall last night, and he was +looking at you awful sharp," said little Amabel to Ellen, squeezing +her warm arm, and sending out that shrill peal of laughter again. + +"Don't, dear," said Ellen. She felt humiliated, and the more so +because she was ashamed of being humiliated by her own mother and +aunt. "Why should I be so sensitive to things in which they see no +harm?" she asked herself, reprovingly. + +As for young Lloyd, he had, ever since he parted with the girl the +night before, that sensation of actual contact which survives +separation, and had felt the light pressure of her hand in his all +night, and along with it that ineffable pain of longing which would +draw the substance of a dream to actuality and cannot. He saw her +with her coarsely exultant relatives, the inevitable blur of her +environments, and felt himself not so much disillusioned as +confirmed. He had been constantly saying to himself, when the girl's +face haunted his eyes, and her hand in his own, that he was a fool, +that he had felt so before, that he must have, that there was no +sense in it, that he was Robert Lloyd, and she a good girl, a +beautiful girl, but a common sort of girl, born of common people to +a common lot. "Now," he said to himself, with a kind of bitter +exultation, "there, I told you so." The inconceivable folly of that +glance of the mother at him, then at Ellen, and the meaning +laughter, repelled him to the point of disgust. He turned his back +to the window and resumed his work, but, in spite of himself, the +pathos of the picture which he had seen began to force itself upon +him, and he thought almost tenderly and forgivingly that she, the +girl, had not once looked his way. He even wondered, pityingly, if +she had been mortified and annoyed by her mother's behavior. A great +anger on Ellen's behalf with her mother seized upon him. How pretty +she did look moving along in that little flower-laden procession, he +thought, how very pretty. All at once a desire for the photograph +which would be taken seized him, for he divined the photograph. +However, he said to himself that he would send back the valedictory +which he had not yet read by post, with a polite note, and that +would be the end. + +But it was only the next evening that Robert Lloyd with the +valedictory in hand got off the trolley-car in front of the Brewster +house. He had proved to himself that it was an act of actual +rudeness to return anything so precious and of so much importance to +the owner by the post, that he ought to call and deliver it in +person. When he regained his equilibrium from the quick sidewise +leap from the car, and stood hesitating a little, as one will do +before a strange house, for he was not quite sure as to his +bearings, he saw a white blur as of feminine apparel in the front +doorway. He advanced tentatively up the little path between two rows +of flowering bushes, and Ellen rose. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Lloyd," she said, in a slightly tremulous voice. + +"Oh, good-evening, Miss Brewster," he cried, quickly. "So I am +right! I was not sure as to the house." + +"People generally tell by the cherry-trees in the yard," replied +Ellen, taking refuge from her timidity in the security of +commonplace observation, as she had done the night before, giving +thereby both a sense of disappointment and elusiveness. + +"Won't you walk in?" she added, with the prim politeness of a child +who accosts a guest according to rule and precept. Ellen had never, +in fact, had a young man make a formal call upon her before. She +reflected now, both with relief and trepidation, that her mother was +away, having gone to her aunt Eva's. She had an instinct which she +resented, that her mother and this young man were on two parallels +which could never meet. Her father was at home, seated in the south +door with John Sargent and Nahum Beals and Joe Atkins, but she never +thought of such a thing as her father's receiving a young man +caller, though she would not have doubted so much his assimilating +with Robert Lloyd. She understood that the young man might look at +her mother with dissent, while she resented it, but with her father +it was different. + +The group of men at the south door were talking in loud, fervent +voices which seemed to rise and fall like waves. Nahum Beals's +strained, nervous tones were paramount. "Mr. Beals is talking about +the labor question, and he gets quite excited," Ellen remarked, +somewhat apologetically, as she ushered young Lloyd into the parlor. + +Lloyd laughed. "It sounds as if he were leading an army," he said. + +"He is very much in earnest," said the girl. + +She placed painstakingly for her guest the best chair, which was a +spring rocker upholstered with crush-plush. The little parlor was +close and stuffy, and the kerosene-lamp, with the light dimmed by a +globe decorated with roses, heated the room still further. This lamp +was Fanny's pride. It had, in her eyes, the double glory of high art +and cheapness. She was fond of pointing at it, and inquiring, "How +much do you think that cost?" and explaining with the air of one who +expects her truth to be questioned that it only cost forty-nine +cents. This lamp was hideous, the shape was aggressive, a discordant +blare of brass, and the roses on the globe were blasphemous. Somehow +this lamp was the first thing which struck Lloyd on entering the +room. He could not take his eyes from it. As for Ellen, long +acquaintance had dulled her eyes. She sat in the full glare of this +hideous lamp, and Lloyd considered that she was not so pretty as he +had thought last night. Still, she was undeniably very pretty. There +was something in the curves of her shoulders, in her pink-and-white +cotton waist, that made one's fingers tingle, and heart yearn, and +there was an appealing look in her face which made him smile +indulgently at her as he might have done at a child. After all, it +was probably not her fault about the lamp, and lamps were a minor +consideration, and he was finical, but suppose she liked it? Lloyd, +sitting there, began to speculate if it were possible for one's +spiritual nature to be definitely damaged by hideous lamps. Then he +caught sight of a plate decorated with postage-stamps, with a +perforated edge through which ribbons were run, and he wondered if +she possibly made that. + +"They are undoubtedly perfectly moral people," he told his aunt +Cynthia afterwards, "but I wonder that they keep such an immoral +plate." However, that was before he fell in love with Ellen, while +he was struggling with himself in his desire to do so, and making +all manner of sport of himself by way of hindrance. + +Ellen at that age could have had no possible conception of the +sentiment with which the young man viewed her environment. She was +sensitive to spiritual discords which might arise from meeting with +another widely different nature, but when it came to material +things, she was at a loss. Then, too, she was pugnaciously loyal to +the glories of the best parlor. She was innocently glad that she had +such a nice room into which to usher him. She felt that the +marble-top table, the plush lambrequin on the mantle-shelf, the +gilded vases, the brass clock, the Nottingham lace curtains, the +olive-and-crimson furniture, the pictures in cheap gilt frames, the +heavily gilded wall-paper, and the throws of thin silk over the +picture corners must prove to him the standing of her family. She +felt an ignoble satisfaction in it, for a certain measure of +commonness clung to the girl like a cobweb. She was as yet too young +to bloom free of her environment, her head was not yet over the +barrier of her daily lot; her heart never would be, and that was her +glory. Young Lloyd handed her the roll of valedictory as soon as he +entered. + +"I am very much obliged to you for allowing me to read it," he said. + +Ellen took it, blushing. Her heart sank a little. She thought to +herself that he probably did not like it. She looked at him proudly +and timidly, like a child half holding, half withdrawing its hand +for a sweet. It suddenly came to her that she would rather this +young man would praise her valedictory than any one else, that if he +had been present when she read it in the hall, and she had seen him +standing applauding, she could not have contained her triumph and +pride. She was not yet in love with him, but she began to feel that +in his approbation lay the best coin of her realm. + +"It is very well written, Miss Brewster," said Robert, and she +flushed with delight. + +"Thank you," she said. + +But the young man was looking at her as if he had something besides +praise in mind, and she gazed at him, shrinking a little as before a +blow whose motion she felt in the air. However, he laughed +pleasantly when he spoke. + +"Do you really believe that?" he asked. + +"What?" she inquired, vaguely. + +"Oh, all that you say in your essay. Do you really believe that all +the property in the world ought to be divided, that kings and +peasants ought to share and share alike?" + +She looked at him with round eyes. "Why, of course I do!" she said. +"Don't you?" + +Robert laughed. He had no mind to enter into an argument with this +beautiful girl, nor even to express himself forcibly on the opposite +side. + +"Well, there are a number of things to be considered," he said. "And +do you really believe that employer and employes should share +alike?" + +"Why not?" said she. + +Her blue eyes flashed, she tossed her head. Robert smiled at her. + +"Why not?" she repeated. "Don't the men earn the money?" + +"Well, no, not exactly," said Robert. "There is the capital." + +"The profit comes from the labor, not from the capital," said Ellen, +quickly. "Doesn't it?" she continued, with fervor, and yet there was +a charming timidity, as before some authority. + +"Possibly," replied Robert, guardedly; "but the question is how far +we should go back before we stop in searching for causes." + +"How far back ought we to go?" asked Ellen, earnestly. + +"I confess I don't know," said Robert, laughingly. "I have thought +very little about it all." + +"But you will have to, if you are to be the head of Lloyd's," Ellen +said, with a severe accent, with grave, blue eyes full on his face. + +"Oh, I am not the head of Lloyd's yet," he answered, easily. "My +uncle is far from his dotage. Then, too, you know that I was never +intended for a business man, but a lawyer, like my father, if there +had not been so little for my father's second wife and the +children--" He stopped himself abruptly on the verge of a +confidence. "I think I saw you on your way to the photographer +to-day," he said, and Ellen blushed, remembering her aunt Eva's +violent nudge, and wondering if he had noticed. She gave him a +piteous glance. + +"Yes," she said. "All the girls have their pictures taken in their +graduating dresses with their flowers." + +"You looked to me as if the picture would be a great success," said +Robert. He longed to ask for one and yet did not, for a reason +unexplained to himself. He knew that this innocent, unsophisticated +creature would see no reason on earth why he should not ask, and no +reason why she should not grant, and on that account he felt +prohibited. That night, after he had gone, Ellen wondered why he had +not asked for one of her pictures, and felt anxious lest he should +have seen the nudge. + +"Well," she said to herself, "if he finds any fault with anything +that my mother has done, I don't want him to have one." + +Robert stayed a long time. He kept thinking that he ought to go, and +also that he was bored, and yet he felt a singular unwillingness to +leave, possibly because of his sense that the visit was in a measure +forbidden by prudence. The longer he remained, the prettier Ellen +looked to him. New beauties of line and color seemed to grow +apparent in the soft glow from the hideous lamp. There was a +wonderful starry radiance in her eyes now and then, and when she +turned her head her eyeballs gleamed crimson and her hair seemed to +toss into flame. When she spoke, he was conscious of unknown depths +of sweetness in her voice, and it was so with her smile and her +every motion. There was about the girl a mystery, not of darkness +but of light, which seemed to draw him on and on and on without +volition. And yet she said nothing especially remarkable, for Ellen +was only a young girl, reared in a little provincial city in common +environments. She would have been a great genius had she more than +begun to glimpse the breadth and freedom of the outer world through +her paling of life. She was too young and too unquestioning of what +she had learned from her early loves. + +"Have you always lived here in Rowe?" asked Lloyd. + +"Yes," said she. "I was born here, and I have lived here ever +since." + +"And you have never been away?" + +"Only once. Once I went to Dragon Beach and stayed a fortnight with +mother." She said this with a visible sense of its importance. +Dragon Beach was some ten miles from Rowe, a cheap seashore place, +built up with flimsy summer cottages of factory hands. Andrew had +hired one for a fortnight once when Ellen was ailing, and it had +been the event of a lifetime to the family. They hereafter dated +from the year "we went to Dragon Beach." + +Lloyd looked with a quick impulse of compassionate tenderness at +this child who had been away from Rowe once to Dragon Beach. He had +his own impressions of Dragon Beach and also of Rowe. + +"I suppose you enjoyed that?" said he. + +"Very much. The sea is beautiful." + +So, after all, it was the sea which she had cared for at Dragon +Beach, and not the clam-bakes and merry-go-rounds and women in +wrappers in the surf. Robert felt rebuked for thinking of anything +but the sea in his memory of Dragon Beach; there was a wonderful +water-view there. + +All the time they sat there in the parlor, the murmur of +conversation at the south door continued, and now and again over it +swelled the fervid exhortations of Nahum Beals. Not a word could be +distinguished, but the meaning was beyond doubt. That voice was full +of denunciation, of frenzied appeal, of warning. + +"Who is it?" asked Lloyd, after an unusually loud burst. + +"Mr. Beals," replied Ellen, uneasily. She wished that he would not +talk so loud. + +"He sounds as if he were preaching fire and brimstone," said Robert. + +"No, he is talking about the labor question," replied Ellen. + +Then she looked confused, for she remembered that this young man's +uncle was the head of Lloyd's, that he himself would be the head of +Lloyd's some day. All at once, along with another feeling which +seemed about to conquer her, came a resentment against this young +man with his fine clothes and his gentle manners. Two men passed the +windows and one of them looked in, and when the electric-light +flashed on his face she saw Granville Joy, and the man with him was +in his shirt-sleeves. She saw those white shirt-sleeves swing into +the darkness, and felt at once antagonized against herself and +against Robert, and yet she knew that she had never seen a man like +him. + +"I suppose he has settled it," said Robert. + +"I don't know," replied Ellen. + +"He sounds dangerous." + +"Oh, no. He is a good man. He wouldn't hurt anybody. He has always +talked that way. He used to come here and talk when I was a child. +It used to frighten me at first, but it doesn't now. It is only the +way that poor people are treated that frightens me." + +Again Robert had a sensation of moving unobtrusively aside from a +direct encounter. He looked across the room and started at something +which he espied for the first time. + +"Pardon me," he said, rising, "but I am interested in dolls. I see +you still keep your doll, Miss Brewster." + +Ellen sat stupefied. All at once it dawned upon her what might +happen. In the corner of the parlor sat her beloved doll, still +beloved, though the mother and not the doll had outgrown her first +condition of love. The doll, in the identical dress in which she had +come from Cynthia's so many years ago, sat staring forth with the +fixed radiance of her kind, seated stiffly in a tiny rocking-chair, +also one of the treasures of Ellen's childhood. It was a curious +feature for the best parlor, but Ellen had insisted upon it. "She +isn't going to be put away up garret because I have outgrown her," +said she. "She's going to sit in the parlor as long as she lives. +Suppose I outgrew you, and put you up in the garret; you wouldn't +like it, would you, mother?" + +"You are a queer child," Fanny had said, laughing, but she had +yielded. + +When young Lloyd went close to examine the doll, Ellen's heart stood +still. Suppose he should recognize it? She tried to tell herself +that it was impossible. Could any young man recognize a doll after +all those years? How much did a boy ever care for a doll, anyway? +Not enough to think of it twice after he had given it up. It was +different with a girl. Her doll meant--God only knew what her doll +meant to her; perhaps it had a meaning of all humanity. But the boy, +what had he cared for the doll? He had gone away out West and left +it. + +But Lloyd remembered. He stared down at the doll a moment. Then he +took her up gingerly in her fluffy pink robes of an obsolete +fashion. He held her at arm's length, and stared and stared. +Suddenly he parted the flaxen wig and examined a place on the head. +Then he looked at Ellen. + +"Why, it is my old doll," he cried, with a great laugh of wonder and +incredulity. "Yes, it is my old doll! How in the world did you come +by my doll, Miss Brewster? Account for yourself. Are you a child +kidnapper?" + +Ellen, who had risen and come forward, stood before him, absolutely +still, and very pale. + +"Yes, it is my doll," said Lloyd, with another laugh. "I will tell +you how I know. Of course I can tell her face. Dolls look a good +deal alike, I suppose, but I tell you I loved this doll, and I +remember her face, and that little cast in her left eye, and that +beautiful, serene smile; but there's something besides. Once I +burned her head with the red-hot end of the poker to see if she +would wake up. I always had a notion when I was a child that it was +only a question of violence to make her wake up and demonstrate some +existence besides that eternal grin. So I burned her, but it made no +difference; but here is the mark now--see." + +Ellen saw. She had often kissed it, but she made no reply. She was +occupied with considerations of the consequences. + +"How did you come by her, if you don't mind telling?" said the young +man again. "It is the most curious thing for me to find my old doll +sitting here. Of course Aunt Cynthia gave her to you, but I didn't +know that she was acquainted with you. I suppose she saw a pretty +little girl getting around without a doll after I had gone, and sent +her, but--" + +Suddenly between the young man's face and the girl's flashed a look +of intelligence. Suddenly Robert remembered all that he had heard of +Ellen's childish escapade. He _knew_. He looked from her to the +doll, and back again. "Good Lord!" he said. Then he set the doll +down in her little chair all of a heap, and caught Ellen's hand, and +shook it. + +"You are a trump, that is what you are," he said; "a trump. So +she--" He shook his head, and looked at Ellen, dazedly. She did not +say a word, but looked at him with her lips closed tightly. + +"It is better for you not to tell me anything," he said; "I don't +want to know. I don't understand, and I never want to, how it all +happened, but I do understand that you are a trump. How old were +you?" Robert's voice took on a tone of tenderness. + +"Eight," replied Ellen, faintly. + +"Only a baby," said the young man, "and you never told! I would like +to know where there is another baby who would do such a thing." He +caught her hand and shook it again. "She was like a mother to me," +he said, in a husky voice. "I think a good deal of her. I thank +you." + +Suddenly to the young man looking at the girl a conviction as of +some subtle spiritual perfume came; he had seen her beauty before, +he had realized her charm, but this was something different. A +boundless approbation and approval which was infinitely more +precious than admiration seized him. Her character began to reveal +itself, to come in contact with his own; he felt the warmth of it +through the veil of flesh. He felt a sense of reliance as upon an +inexhaustibility of goodness in another soul. He felt something +which was more than love, being purely unselfish, with as yet no +desire of possession. "Here is a good, true woman," he said to +himself. "Here is a good, true woman, who has blossomed from a good, +true child." He saw a wonderful faithfulness shining in her blue +eyes, he saw truth itself on her lips, and could have gone down at +the feet of the little girl in the pink cotton frock. Going home he +tried to laugh at himself, but could not succeed. It is easy to +shake off the clasp of a hand of flesh, but not the clasp of another +soul. + +Ellen on her part was at once overwhelmed with delight and +confusion. She felt the fervor of admiration in the young man's +attitude towards her, but she was painfully conscious of her +undeservingness. She had always felt guilty about her silence and +disobedience towards her parents, and as for any self-approbation +for it, that had been the farthest from her thoughts. She murmured +something deprecatingly, but Lloyd cut her short. + +"It's no use crying off," said he; "you are one girl in a thousand, +and I thank you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It might +have made awful trouble. My aunt Lizzie told me what a commotion +there was over it." + +"I ran away," said Ellen, anxiously. Suddenly it occurred to her he +might think Cynthia worse than she had been. + +"Never mind," said Lloyd--"never mind. I know what you did. You held +your blessed little tongue to save somebody else, and let yourself +be blamed." + +The door which led into the sitting-room opened, and Andrew looked +in. + +He made a shy motion when he saw Lloyd; still, he came forward. His +own callers had gone, and he had heard voices in the parlor, and had +feared Granville Joy was calling upon Ellen. + +As he came forward, Ellen introduced him shyly. "This is Mr. Lloyd, +father," she said. "Mr. Lloyd, this is my father." Then she added, +"He came to bring back my valedictory." She was very awkward, but +it was the charming awkwardness of a beautiful child. She looked +exceedingly childish standing beside her father, looking into his +worn, embarrassed face. + +Lloyd shook hands with Andrew, and said something about the +valedictory, which he had enjoyed reading. + +"She wrote it all herself without a bit of help from the teacher," +said Andrew, with wistful pride. + +"It is remarkably well written," said Robert. + +"You didn't hear it read at the hall?" said Andrew. + +"No, I had not that good fortune." + +"You ought to have heard them clap," said Andrew. + +"Oh, father," murmured Ellen, but she looked innocently at her +father as if she delighted in his pride and pleasure without a +personal consideration. + +The front door opened. "That's your mother," said Andrew. + +Fanny looked into the lighted parlor, and dodged back with a little +giggle. + +Ellen colored painfully. "It is Mr. Lloyd, mother," she said. + +Then Fanny came forward and shook hands with Robert. Her face was +flaming--she cast involuntary glances at Andrew for confirmation of +her opinion. She was openly and shamelessly triumphant, and yet all +at once Robert ceased to be repelled by it. Through his insight into +the girl's character, he had seemed to gain suddenly a clearer +vision for the depths of human love and pity which are beneath the +coarse and the common. When Fanny stood beside her daughter and +looked at her, then at Robert, with the reflection of the beautiful +young face in her eyes of love, she became at once pathetic and +sacred. + +"It is all natural," he said to himself as he was going home. + + + + +Chapter XX + + +Robert Lloyd when he came to Rowe was confronted with one of the +hardest tasks in the world, that of adjustment to circumstances +which had hitherto been out of his imagination. He had not dreamed +of a business life in connection with himself. Though he had always +had a certain admiration for his successful uncle, Norman Lloyd, yet +he had always had along with the admiration a recollection of the +old tale of the birthright and the mess of pottage. He had expected +to follow the law, like his father, but when he had finished +college, about two years after his father's death, he had to face +the unexpected. The stocks in which the greater part of the elder +Lloyd's money had been invested had depreciated; some of them were +for the time being quite worthless as far as income was concerned. +There were two little children--girls--by his father's second +marriage, and there was not enough to support them and their mother +and allow Robert to continue his reading for the law. So he pursued, +without the slightest hesitation, but with bitter regret, the only +course which he saw open before him. He wrote to his uncle Norman, +and was welcomed to a position in his factory with more warmth than +he had ever seen displayed by him. In fact, Norman Lloyd, who had no +son of his own, saw with a quickening of his pulses the handsome +young fellow of his own race who had in a measure thrown himself +upon his protection. He had never shared his wife's longing for +children as children, and had never cared for Robert when a child; +but now, when he was a man grown and bore his name, he appealed to +him. + +Norman Lloyd was supposed to be heaping up riches, and wild stories +of his wealth were told in Rowe. He gave large sums to public +benefactions, and never stinted his wife in her giving within +certain limits. It would have puzzled any one when faced with facts +to understand why he had the name of a hard man, but he had it, +whether justly or not. "He's as hard as nails," people said. His +employes hated him--that is, the more turbulent and undisciplined +spirits hated him, and the others regarded him as slaves might a +stern master. When Robert started his work in his uncle's office he +started handicapped by this sentiment towards his uncle. He looked +like his uncle, he talked like him, he had his same gentle +stiffness, he was never unduly familiar. He was at once placed in +the same category by the workmen. + +Robert Lloyd did not concern himself in the least as to what the +employes in his uncle's factory thought of him. Nothing was more +completely out of his mind. He was conscious of standing on a firm +base of philanthropic principle, and if ever these men came directly +under his control, he was resolved to do his duty by them so far as +in him lay. + + +Ellen, since her graduation, had been like an animal which circles +about in its endeavors to find its best and natural place of +settlement. + +"What shall I do next?" she had said to her mother. "Shall I go to +work, or shall I try to find a school somewhere in the fall, or +shall I stay here, and help you with some work I can do at home? I +know father cannot afford to support me always at home." + +"I guess he can afford to support his only daughter at home a little +while after she has just got out of school," Fanny had returned +indignantly, with a keen pain at her heart. + +Fanny mentioned this conversation to Andrew that night after Ellen +had gone to bed. + +"What do you think--Ellen was asking me this afternoon what she had +better do!" said she. + +"What she had better do?" repeated Andrew, vaguely. He looked +shrinkingly at Fanny, who seemed to him to have an accusing air, as +if in some way he were to blame for something. And, indeed, there +were times when Fanny in those days did blame Andrew, but there was +some excuse for her. She blamed him when her own back was filling +her very soul with the weariness of its ache as she bent over the +seams of those grinding wrappers, and when her heart was sore over +doubt of Ellen's future. At those times she acknowledged to herself +that it seemed to her that Andrew somehow might have gotten on +better. She did not know how, but somehow. He had not had an +expensive family. "Why had he not succeeded?" she asked herself. So +there was in her tone an unconscious recrimination when she answered +his question about Ellen. + +"Yes--what she had better go to work at," said Fanny, dryly, her +black eyes cold on her husband's face. + +Andrew turned so white that he frightened her. "Go to work!" said +he. Then all at once he gave an exceedingly loud and bitter groan. +It betrayed all his pride in and ambition for his daughter and his +disgust and disappointment over himself. "Oh! my God, has it come to +this," he groaned, "that I cannot support my one child!" + +Fanny laid down her work and looked at him. "Now, Andrew," said she, +"there's no use in your taking it after such a fashion as this. I +told Ellen that it was all nonsense--that she could stay at home and +rest this summer." + +"I guess, if she can't--" said Andrew. He dropped his gray head into +his hands, and began to sob dryly. Fanny, after staring at him a +moment, tossed her work onto the floor, went over to him, and drew +his head to her shoulder. + +"There, old man," said she, "ain't you ashamed of yourself? I told +her there was no need for her to worry at present. Don't do so, +Andrew; you've done the best you could, and I know it, if I stop to +think, though I do seem sort of impatient sometimes. You've always +worked hard and done your best. It ain't your fault." + +"I don't know whether it is or not," said Andrew, in a high, +querulous voice like a woman's. "It seems as if it must be +somebody's fault. If it ain't my fault, whose is it? You can't blame +the Almighty." + +"Maybe it ain't anybody's fault." + +"It must be. All that goes wrong is somebody's fault. It can't be +that it just happens--that would be worse than the other. It is +better to have a God that is cruel than one that don't care, and it +is better to be to blame yourself, and have it your fault, than His. +Somehow, I have been to blame, Fanny. I must have. It would have +been enough sight better for you, Fanny, if you'd married another +man." + +"I didn't want another man," replied Fanny, half angrily, half +tenderly. "You make me all out of patience, Andrew Brewster. What's +the need of Ellen going to work right away? Maybe by-and-by she can +get an easy school. Then, we've got that money in the bank." + +Andrew looked away from her with his face set. Fanny did not know +yet about his withdrawal of the money for the purpose of investing +in mining-stocks. He never looked at her but the guilty secret +seemed to force itself between them like a wedge of ice. + +"Then Grandma Brewster has got a little something," said Fanny. + +"Only just enough for herself," said Andrew. Then he added, +fiercely, "Mother can't be stinted of her little comforts even for +Ellen." + +"I 'ain't never wanted to stint your mother of her comforts," Fanny +retorted, angrily. + +"She 'ain't got but a precious little, unless she spends her +principal," said Andrew. "She 'ain't got more'n a hundred and fifty +or so a year clear after her taxes and insurance are paid." + +"I ain't saying anything," said Fanny. "But I do say you're dreadful +foolish to take on so when you've got so much to fall back on, and +that money in the bank. Here you haven't had to touch the interest +for quite a while and it has been accumulating." + +It was agreed between the two that Ellen must say nothing to her +grandmother Brewster about going to work. + +"I believe the old lady would have a fit if she thought Ellen was +going to work," said Fanny. "She 'ain't never thought she ought to +lift her finger." + +So Ellen was charged on no account to say anything to her +grandmother about the possible necessity of her going to work. + +"Your grandmother's awful proud," said Fanny, "and she's always +thought you were too good to work." + +"I don't think anybody is too good to work," replied Ellen, but she +uttered the platitude with a sort of mental reservation. In spite of +herself, the attitude of worship in which she had always seen all +who belonged to her had spoiled her a little. She did look at +herself with a sort of compunction when she realized the fact that +she might have to go to work in the shop some time. School-teaching +was different, but could she earn enough school-teaching? There was +a sturdy vein in the girl. All the time she pitied herself she +blamed herself. + +"You come of working-people, Ellen Brewster. Why are you any better +than they? Why are your hands any better than their hands, your +brain than theirs? Why are you any better than the other girls who +have gone to work in the shops? Do you think you are any better than +Abby Atkins?" + +And still Ellen used to look at herself with a pitying conviction +that she would be out of place at a bench in the shoe-factory, that +she would suffer a certain indignity by such a course. The +realization of a better birthright was strong upon her, although she +chided herself for it. And everybody abetted her in it. When she +said once to Abby Atkins, whom she encountered one day going home +from the shop, that she wondered if she could get a job in her room +in the fall, Abby turned upon her fiercely. + +"Good Lord, Ellen Brewster, you ain't going to work in a shoe-shop?" +she said. + +"I don't see why not as well as you," returned Ellen. + +"Why not?" repeated the other girl. "Look at yourself, and look at +us!" + +As she spoke, Ellen saw projected upon her mental vision herself +passing down the street with the throng of factory operatives which +her bodily eyes actually witnessed. She had come opposite Lloyd's as +the six o'clock whistle was blowing. She saw herself in her clean, +light summer frock, slight and dainty, with little hands like white +flowers in the blue folds of her skirt, with her fine, sensitive +outlook of fair face, and her dainty carriage; and she saw +others--those girls and women in dingy skirts and bagging blouses, +with coarse hair strained into hard knots of exigency from patient, +or sullen faces, according to their methods of bearing their lots; +all of them rank with the smell of leather, their coarse hands +stained with it, swinging their poor little worn bags which had held +their dinners. There were not many foreigners among them, except the +Irish, most of whom had been born in this country, and a sprinkling +of fair-haired, ruddy Swedes and keen Polanders, who bore themselves +better than the Americans, being not so apparently at odds with the +situation. + +The factory employes in Rowe were a superior lot, men and women. +Many of the men had put on their worn coats when they emerged from +the factory, and their little bags were supposed to disguise the +fact of their being dinner satchels. And yet there was a difference +between Ellen Brewster and the people among whom she walked, and she +felt it with a sort of pride and indignation with herself that it +was so. + +"I don't see why I should be any better than the rest," said she, +defiantly, to Abby Atkins. "My father works in a shop, and you are +my best friend, and you do. Why shouldn't I work in a shop?" + +"Look at yourself," repeated the other girl, mercilessly. "You are +different. You ain't to blame for it any more than a flower is to +blame for being a rose and not a common burdock. If you've got to do +anything, you had better teach school." + +"I would rather teach school," said Ellen, "but I couldn't earn so +much unless I got more education and got a higher position than a +district school, and that is out of the question." + +"I thought maybe your grandmother could send you," said Abby. + +"Oh no, grandma can't afford to. Sometimes I think I could work my +own way through college, if it wasn't for being a burden in the mean +time, but I don't know." + +Suddenly Abby Atkins planted herself on the sidewalk in front of +Ellen, and looked at her sharply, while an angry flush overspread +her face. + +"I want to know one thing," said she. + +"What?" + +"It ain't true what I heard the other day, is it?" + +"I don't know what you heard." + +"Well, I heard you were going to be married." + +Ellen turned quite pale, and looked at the other girl with a steady +regard of grave, indignant blue eyes. + +"No, I am not," said she. + +"Well, don't be mad, Ellen. I heard real straight that you were +going to marry Granville Joy in the fall." + +"Well, I am not," repeated Ellen. + +"I didn't suppose you were, but I knew he had always wanted you." + +"Always wanted me!" said Ellen. "Why, he's only just out of school!" + +"Oh, I know that, and he's only just gone to work, and he can't be +earning much, but I heard it." + +The stream of factory operatives had thinned; many had taken the +trolley-cars, and others had gone to the opposite side of the +street, which was shady. The two girls were alone, standing before a +vacant lot grown to weeds, rank bristles of burdock, and slender +spikes of evanescent succory. Abby burst out in a passionate appeal, +clutching Ellen's arm hard. + +"Ellen, promise me you never will," she cried. + +"Promise you what, Abby?" + +"Oh, promise me you never will marry anybody like him. I know it's +none of my business--I know that is something that is none of +anybody's business, no matter how much they think of anybody; but I +think more of you than any man ever will, I don't care who he is. I +know I do, Ellen Brewster. And don't you ever marry a man like +Granville Joy, just an ordinary man who works in the shop, and will +never do anything but work in the shop. I know he's good, real good +and steady, and it ain't against him that he ain't rich and has to +work for his living, but I tell you, Ellen Brewster, you ain't the +right sort to marry a man like that, and have a lot of children to +work in shops. No man, if he thinks anything of you, ought to ask +you to; but all a man thinks of is himself. Granville Joy, or any +other man who wanted you, would take you and spoil you, and think +he'd done a smart thing." Abby spoke with such intensity that it +redeemed her from coarseness. Ellen continued to look at her, and +two red spots had come on her cheeks. + +"I don't believe I'll ever get married at all," she said. + +"If you've got to get married, you ought to marry somebody like +young Mr. Lloyd," said Abby. + +Then Ellen blushed, and pushed past her indignantly. + +"Young Mr. Lloyd!" said she. "I don't want him, and he doesn't want +me. I wish you wouldn't talk so, Abby." + +"He would want you if your were a rich girl, and your father was +boss instead of a workman," said Abby. + +Then she caught hold of Ellen's arm and pressed her own thin one in +its dark-blue cotton sleeve lovingly against it. + +"You ain't mad with me, are you, Ellen?" she said, with that +indescribable gentleness tempering her fierceness of nature which +gave her caresses the fascination of some little, untamed animal. +Ellen pressed her round young arm tenderly against the other. + +"I think more of you than any man I know," said she, fervently. "I +think more of you than anybody except father and mother, Abby." + +The two girls walked on with locked arms, and each was possessed +with that wholly artless and ignorant passion often seen between two +young girls. Abby felt Ellen's warm round arm against hers with a +throbbing of rapture, and glanced at her fair face with adoration. +She held her in a sort of worship, she loved her so that she was +fairly afraid of her. As for Ellen, Abby's little, leather-stained, +leather-scented figure, strung with passion like a bundle of +electric wire, pressing against her, seemed to inform her farthest +thoughts. + +"If I live longer than my father and mother, we'll live together, +Abby," said she. + +"And I'll work for you, Ellen," said Abby, rapturously. + +"I guess you won't do all the work," said Ellen. She gazed tenderly +into Abby's little, dark, thin face. "You're all worn out with work +now," said she, "and there you bought that beautiful pin for me with +your hard earnings." + +"I wish it had been a great deal better," said Abby, fervently. + +She had given Ellen a gold brooch for a graduating-gift, and had +paid a week's wages for it, and gone without her new dress, and +stayed away from the graduation, but that last Ellen never knew; +Abby had told her that she was sick. + + +That evening Robert Lloyd and his aunt Cynthia Lennox called on the +Brewsters. Ellen was under the trees in the west yard when she heard +a carriage stop in front of the house and saw the sitting-room lamp +travel through the front entry to the front door. She wondered +indifferently who it was. Carriages were not given to stopping at +their house of an evening; then she reflected that it might be some +one to get her mother to do some sewing, and remained still. + +It was a bright moonlight night; the whole yard was a lovely dapple +of lights and shadows. Ellen had a vivid perception of the beauty of +it all, and also that unrest and yearning which comes often to a +young girl in moonlight. This beauty and strangeness of familiar +scenes under the silver glamour of the moon gave her, as it were, an +assurance of other delights and beauties of life besides those which +she already knew, and along with the assurance came that wild +yearning. Ellen seemed to scent her honey of life, and at the same +time the hunger for it leaped to her consciousness. She had begun by +thinking of what Abby had said to her that afternoon, and then the +train of thought led her on and on. She quite ignored all about the +sordid ways and means of existence, about toil and privation and +children born to it. All at once the conviction was strong upon her +that love, and love alone, was the chief end and purpose of life, at +once its source and its result, the completion of its golden ring of +glory. Her thought, started in whatever direction, seemed to slide +always into that one all-comprehending circle--she could not get her +imagination away from it. She began to realize that the mind of +mortal man could not get away from the law which produced it. She +began to understand dimly, as one begins to understand any great +truth, that everything around her obeyed that unwritten fundamental +law of love, expressed it, sounded it, down to the leaves of the +trees casting their flickering shadows on the silver field of +moonlight, and the long-drawn chorus of the insects of the summer +night. She thought of Abby and how much she loved her; then that +love seemed the step which gave her an impetus to another love. She +began to remember Granville Joy, how he had kissed her that night +over the fence and twice since, how he had walked home with her from +entertainments, how he had looked at her. She saw the boy's face and +his look as plain as if he stood before her, and her heart leaped +with a shock of pain which was joy. + +Then she thought of Robert Lloyd, and his face came before her. +Ellen had not thought as much of Robert as he of her. For some two +weeks after his call she had watched for him to come again; she had +put on a pretty dress and been particular about her hair, and had +stayed at home expecting him; then when he had not come, she had put +him out of mind resolutely. When her mother and aunt had joked her +about him she had been sensitive and half angry. "You know it is +nothing, mother," she said; "he only came to bring back my +valedictory. You know he wouldn't think of me. He'll marry somebody +like Maud Hemingway." Maud Hemingway was the daughter of the +leading physician in Rowe, and regarded with a mixture of spite and +admiration by daughters of the factory operatives. Maud Hemingway +was attending college, and rode a saddle-horse when home on her +vacations. She had been to Europe. + +But that evening in the moonlight Ellen began thinking again of +Robert Lloyd. His face came before her as plainly as Granville +Joy's. She had arrived at that stage when life began to be as a +picture-gallery of love. Through this and that face the goddess +might look, and the look was what she sought; as yet, the man was a +minor quantity. + +All at once it seemed to Ellen, looking at her mental picture of +young Lloyd, that she could see love in his face yet more plainly, +more according to her conception of it, than in the other. She began +to build an air-castle which had no reference whatever to Robert's +position, and to his being the nephew of the richest factory-owner +in Rowe, and so far as that went he had not a whit the advantage of +Granville Joy in her eyes. But Robert's face wore to her more of the +guise of that for which the night and the moonlight, and her youth, +had made her long. So she began innocently to imagine a meeting with +him at a picnic which would be held some time at Liberty Park. She +imagined their walking side by side, through a lovely dapple of +moonlight like this, and saying things to each other. Then all at +once the man of her dreams touched her hand in a dream, and a +faintness swept over her. Then suddenly, gathering shape out of the +indetermination of the shadows and the moonlight, came a man into +the yard, and Ellen thought with awe and delight that it was he; but +instead Granville Joy stood before her, lifting his hat above his +soft shock of hair. + +"Hullo!" he said. + +"Good-evening," responded Ellen, and Granville Joy felt abashed. He +lay awake half the night reflecting that he should have greeted her +with a "Good-evening" instead of "Hullo," as he had been used to do +in their school-days; that she was now a young lady, and that Mr. +Lloyd had accosted her differently. Ellen rose with a feeling of +disappointment that Granville was himself, which is the hardest +greeting possible for a guest, involving the most subtle reproach in +the world--the reproach for a man's own individuality. + +"Oh, don't get up, Ellen," the young man said, awkwardly. +"Here--I'll sit down here on the rock." Then he flung himself down +on the ledge of rock which cropped out like a bare rib of the earth +between the trees, and Ellen seated herself again in her chair. + +"Beautiful night, ain't it?" said Granville. + +Ellen noticed that Granville said "ain't" instead of "isn't," +according to the fashion of his own family, although he was recently +graduated from the high-school. Ellen had separated herself, +although with no disparaging reflections, from the language of her +family. She also noticed that Granville presently said "wa'n't" +instead of "wasn't." "Hot yesterday, wa'n't it?" said he. + +"Yes, it was very warm," replied Ellen. That "wa'n't" seemed to +insert a tiny wedge between them. She would have flown at any one +who had found fault with her father and mother for saying "wa'n't," +but with this young man in her own rank and day it was different. It +argued something in him, or a lack of something. An indignation all +out of proportion to the offence seized her. It seemed to her that +he had in this simple fashion outraged that which was infinitely +higher than he himself. He had not lived up to her thought of him, +and fallen short by a little slip in English which argued a slip in +character. She wanted to reproach him sharply--to ask him if he had +ever been to school. + +He noticed her manner was cool, and was as far as the antipodes from +suspecting the cause. He never knew that he said "ain't" and +"wa'n't," and would die not knowing. All that he looked at was the +substance of thought behind the speech. And just then he was farther +than ever from thinking of it, for he was single-hearted with Ellen. + +The boy crept nearer her on the rock with a shy, nestling motion; +the moonlight shone full on his handsome young face, giving it a +stern quality. "Ellen, look at here," he said. + +Then he stopped. Ellen waited, not dreaming what was to follow. She +had never had a proposal; then, too, he had just been chased out of +her mental perspective by the other man. + +"Look at here, Ellen," said Granville. He stopped again; then when +he spoke his voice had an indescribably solemn, beseeching quality. +"Oh, Ellen," he said, reaching up and catching her hand. He dragged +himself nearer, leaned his cheek against her hand, which it seemed +to burn; then he began kissing it with soft, pouting lips. + +Ellen tried to pull her hand away. "Let my hand go this minute, +Granville Joy," she said, angrily. + +The boy let her hand go immediately, and stood up, leaning over her. + +"Don't be angry; I didn't mean any harm, Ellen," he whispered. + +"I shall be angry if you do such a thing again," said Ellen. "We +aren't children; you have no right to do such a thing, and you know +it." + +"But I thought maybe you wouldn't mind, Ellen," said Granville. Then +he added, with his voice all husky with emotion and a kind of fear: +"Ellen, you know how I feel about you. You know how I have always +felt." + +Ellen made no reply. It seemed inconceivable that she for the minute +should not know his meaning, but she was bewildered. + +"You know I've always counted on havin' you for my wife some day +when we were both old enough," said the boy, "and I've gone to work +now, and I hope to get bigger pay before long, and--" + +Ellen rose with sudden realization. "Granville Joy," cried she, with +something like panic in her voice, "you must not! Oh, if I had +known! I would not have let you finish. I would not, Granville." +She caught his arm, and clung to it, and looked up at him pitifully. +"You know I wouldn't have let you finish," she said. "Don't be hurt, +Granville." + +The boy looked at her as if she had struck him. + +"Oh, Ellen," he groaned. "Oh, Ellen, I always thought you would!" + +"I am not going to marry anybody," said Ellen. Her voice wavered in +spite of herself; the young man's look and voice were shaking her +through weakness of her own nature which she did not understand, but +which might be mightier than her strength. Something crept into her +tone which emboldened the young man to seize her hand again. "You +do, in spite of all you say--" he began; but just then a long shadow +fell athwart the moonlight, and Ellen snatched her hand away +imperceptibly, and young Lloyd stood before them. + + + + +Chapter XXI + + +Granville Joy was employed in Lloyd's, and Robert had seen him that +very day and spoken to him, but he did not recognize him, not until +Ellen spoke. "This is Mr. Joy, Mr. Lloyd," she said; "perhaps you +know him. He works in your uncle's shop." She said it quite simply, +as if it was a matter of course that Robert was on speaking terms +with all the employes in his uncle's factory. + +Granville colored. "I saw Mr. Lloyd this afternoon in the +cutting-room," he said, "and we had some talk together; but maybe he +don't remember, there are so many of us." Granville said "so many +of us" with an indescribably bitter emphasis. Suddenly his +gentleness seemed changed to gall. It was the terrible protest of +one of the herd who goes along with the rest, yet realizes it, and +looks ever out from his common mass with fierce eyes of individual +dissent at the immutable conditions of things. Immediately, when +Granville saw the other young man, this gentleman in his light +summer clothes, who bore about him no stain nor odor of toil, he +felt that here was Ellen's mate; that he was left behind. He looked +at him, not missing a detail of his superiority, and he saw himself +young and not ill-looking, but hopelessly common, clad in awkward +clothes; he smelled the smell of leather that steamed up in his face +from his raiment and his body; and he looked at Ellen, fair and +white in her dainty muslin, and saw himself thrust aside, as it +were, by his own judgment as to the fitness of things, but with no +less bitterness. When he said "there are so many of us," he felt the +impulse of revolution in his heart; that he would have liked to lead +the "many of us" against this young aristocrat. But Robert smiled, +though somewhat stiffly, and bowed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Joy," he +said; "I do remember, but for a minute I did not." + +"I don't wonder," said Granville, and again he repeated, "There are +so many of us," in that sullen, bitter tone. + +"What is the matter with the fellow?" thought Robert; but he said, +civilly enough; "Oh, not at all, Mr. Joy. I will admit there are a +good many of you, as you say, but that would not prevent my +remembering a man to whom I was speaking only a few hours ago. It +was only the half-light, and I did not expect to see you here." + +"Mr. Joy is a very old friend of mine," Ellen said, quickly, with a +painful impulse of loyalty. The moment she saw her old school-boy +lover intimidated, and manifestly at a disadvantage before this +elegant young gentleman, she felt a fierce instinct of partisanship. +She stood a little nearer to him. Granville's face lightened, he +looked at her gratefully, and Robert stared from one to the other +doubtfully. He began to wonder if he had interrupted a love-scene, +and was at once pained with a curious, new pain, and indignant. +Then, too, he scarcely knew what to do. He had been sent to ask +Ellen to come into the parlor. + +"My aunt is in the house," he said. + +"Your aunt?" + +"Yes, my aunt, Miss Lennox." + +Ellen gave a great start, and stared at him. "Does she want to see +me?" she asked, abruptly. + +Robert glanced at Granville. He was afraid of being rude towards +this possible lover, but the young man was quick to perceive the +situation. + +"I guess I must be going," he said to Ellen. + +"Must you hurry?" she returned, in the common, polite rejoinder of +her class in Rowe. + +"Yes, I guess I must," said Granville. He held out his hand towards +Ellen, then drew it away, but she extended hers resolutely, and so +forced his back again. "Good-night," she said, kindly, almost +tenderly, and again Robert thought with that sinking at his heart +that here was quite possibly the girl's lover, and all his dreams +were thrown away. + +As for Granville, he glowed with a sudden triumph over the other. +Again he became almost sure that Ellen loved him after all, that it +was only her maiden shyness which had led her to refuse him. He +pressed her hand hard, and held it as long as he dared; then he +turned to Robert. "I'll bid you good-evening, sir," he said, with +awkward dignity, and was gone. + +"I will go in and see your aunt," Ellen said to Robert, regarding +him as she spoke with a startled expression. It had flashed through +her mind that Miss Lennox had possibly come to confess the secret of +so many years ago, and she shrank with terror as before the lowering +of some storm of spirit. She knew how little was required to lash +her mother's violent nature into fury. "She was not--?" she began to +say to Robert, then she stopped; but he understood. "Don't be +afraid, Miss Brewster," he said, kindly. "It is not a matter of +by-gones, but the future. My aunt has a plan for you which I think +you will like." + +Ellen looked at him wonderingly, but she went with him across the +moonlit yard into the house. + +She found Miss Cynthia Lennox, fair and elegant in a filmy black +gown, and a broad black hat draped with lace and violets shading her +delicate, clear-cut face, and her father and mother. Fanny's eyes +were red. She looked as if she had been running--in fact, one could +easily hear her breathe across the room. "Ellen, here is Miss +Lennox," she said. Ellen approached the lady, who rose, and the two +shook hands. "Good-evening, Miss Brewster," said Cynthia, in the +same tone which she might have used towards a society acquaintance. +Ellen would never have known that she had heard the voice before. As +she remembered it, it was full of intensest vibrations of maternal +love and tenderness and protection beyond anything which she had +ever heard in her own mother's voice. Now it was all gone, and also +the old look from her eyes. Cynthia Lennox was, in fact, quite +another woman to the young girl from what she had been to the child. +In truth, she cared not one whit for Ellen, but she was possessed +with a stern desire of atonement, and far stronger than her love was +the appreciation of what that mother opposite must have suffered +during that day and night when she had forcibly kept her treasure. +The agony of that she could present to her consciousness very +vividly, but she could not awaken the old love which had been the +baby's for this young girl. Cynthia felt much more affection for +Fanny than for Ellen. When she had unfolded her plan for sending +Ellen to college, and Fanny had almost gone hysterical with delight, +she found it almost impossible to keep her tears back. She knew so +acutely how this other woman felt that she almost seemed to lose her +own individuality. She began to be filled with a vicarious adoration +of Ellen, which was, however, dissipated the moment she actually saw +her. She realized that this grown-up girl, who could no longer be +cuddled and cradled, was nothing to her, but her sympathy with the +mother remained. + +Ellen remained standing after she had greeted Cynthia. Robert went +over to the mantle-piece and stood leaning against it. He was +completely puzzled and disturbed by the whole affair. Ellen looked +at Cynthia, then at her parents. "Ellen, come here, child," said her +father, suddenly, and Ellen went over to him, sitting on the plush +sofa beside her mother. + +Andrew reached up and took hold of Ellen's hands, and drew her down +on his knee as if she had been a child. "Ellen, look here," he said, +in an intense, almost solemn voice, "father has got something to +tell you." + +Fanny began to weep almost aloud. Cynthia looked straight ahead, +keeping her features still with an effort. Robert studied the carpet +pattern. + +"Look here, Ellen," said Andrew; "you know that father has always +wanted to do everything for you, but he ain't able to do all he +would like to. God hasn't prospered him, and it seems likely that he +won't be able to do any more than he has done, if so much, in the +years to come. You know father has always wanted to send you to +college, and give you an extra education so you could teach in a +school where you would make a good living, and now here Miss Lennox +says she heard your composition, and she has heard a good deal about +you from Mr. Harris, how well you stood in the high-school, and she +says she is willing to send you to Vassar College." + +Ellen turned pale. She looked long at her father, whose pathetic, +worn, half-triumphant, half-pitiful face was so near her own; then +she looked at Cynthia, then back again. "To Vassar College?" she +said. + +"Yes, Ellen, to Vassar College, and she offers to clothe you while +you are there, but we thank her, and tell her that ain't necessary. +We can furnish your clothes." + +"Yes, we can," said Fanny, in a sobbing voice, but with a flash of +pride. + +"Well, what do you say to it, Ellen?" asked Andrew, and he asked it +with the expression of a martyr. At that moment indescribable pain +was the uppermost sensation in his heart, over all his triumph and +gladness for Ellen. First came the anticipated agony of parting with +her for the greater part of four years, then the pain of letting +another do for his daughter what he wished to do himself. No man +would ever look in Ellen's eyes with greater love and greater +shrinking from the pain which might come of love than Andrew at that +moment. + +"But--" said Ellen; then she stopped. + +"What, Ellen?" + +"Can you spare me for so long? Ought I not to be earning money +before that, if you don't have much work?" + +"I guess we can spare you as far as all that goes," cried Andrew. "I +guess we can. I guess we don't want you to support us." + +"I rather guess we don't," cried Fanny. + +Ellen looked at her father a moment longer with an adorable look, +which Robert saw with a sidewise glance of his downcast eyes, then +at her mother. Then she slid from her father's knee and crossed the +room and stood before Cynthia. "I don't know how to thank you +enough," she said, "but I thank you very much, and not only for +myself but for them"; she made a slight, graceful, backward motion +of her shoulder towards her parents. "I will study hard and try to +do you credit," said she. There was something about Ellen's direct, +childlike way of looking at her, and her clear speech, which brought +back to Cynthia the little girl of so many years ago. A warm flush +came over her delicate cheeks; her eyes grew bright with tenderness. + +[Illustration: I'll study hard and try to do you credit] + +"I have no doubt as to your doing your best, my dear," she said, +"and it gives me great pleasure to do this for you." + +With that, said with a graceful softness which was charming, she +made as if to rise, but Ellen still stood before her. She had +something more to say. "If ever I am able," she said--"and I shall +be able some day if I have my health--I will repay you." Ellen +spoke with the greatest sweetness, yet with an inflexibility of +pride evident in her face. Cynthia smiled. "Very well," she said, +"if you feel better to leave it in that way. If ever you are able +you shall repay me; in the mean time I consider that I am amply paid +in the pleasure it gives me to do it." Cynthia held out her slender +hand to Ellen, who took it gratefully, yet a little constrainedly. + +In the opposite corner the doll sat staring at them with eyes of +blank blue and her vacuous smile. A vague sense of injury was over +Ellen, in spite of her delight and her gratitude--a sense of injury +which she could not fathom, and for which she chided herself. +However, Andrew felt it also. + +After this surprising benefactress and Robert had gone, after +repeated courtesies and assurances of obligation on both sides, +Andrew turned to Fanny. "What does she do it for?" he asked. + +"Hush; she'll hear you." + +"I can't help it. What does she do it for? Ellen isn't anything to +her." + +Fanny looked at him with a meaning smile and nod which made her +tear-stained face fairly grotesque. + +"What do you mean lookin' that way?" demanded Andrew. + +"Oh, you wait and see," said Fanny, with meaning, and would say no +more. She was firm in her conclusion that Cynthia was educating +their girl to marry her favorite nephew, but that never occurred to +Andrew. He continued to feel, while supremely grateful and +overwhelmed with delight at this good fortune for Ellen, the +distrust and resentment of a proud soul under obligation for which +he sees no adequate reason, and especially when it is directed +towards a beloved one to whom he would fain give of his own strength +and treasure. + +As for Ellen, she was in a tumult of wonder and delight, but when +she looked at the doll in her corner there came again that vague +sense of injury, and she felt again as if in some way she were being +robbed instead of being made the object of benefit. + +After Ellen had gone to bed that night she wondered if she ought to +go to college, and maybe gain thereby a career which was beyond +anything her own loved ones had known, and if it were not better for +her to go to work in the shop after all. + + + + +Chapter XXII + + +When Mrs. Zelotes was made acquainted with the plan for sending +Ellen to Vassar she astonished Fanny. Fanny ran over the next +morning, after Andrew had gone to work, to tell her mother-in-law. +She sat a few minutes in the sitting-room, where the old lady was +knitting, before she unfolded the burden of her errand. + +"Cynthia Lennox came to our house last night with Robert Lloyd," she +said, finally. + +"Did they?" remarked Mrs. Zelotes, who had known perfectly well that +they had come, having recognized the Lennox carriage in the +moonlight, and having been ever since devoured with curiosity, which +she would have died rather than betray. + +"Yes, they did," said Fanny. Then she added, after a pause which +gave wonderful impressiveness to the news, "Cynthia Lennox wants to +send Ellen to college--to Vassar College." + +Then she jumped, for the old woman seemed to spring at her like +released wire. + +"Send her to college!" said she. "What does she want to send her to +college for? What right has Cynthia Lennox got to send Ellen +Brewster anywhere?" + +Fanny stared at her dazedly. + +"What right has she got interfering?" demanded Mrs. Zelotes again. + +"Why," replied Fanny, stammering, "she thought Ellen was so smart. +She heard her valedictory, and the school-teacher had talked about +her, what a good scholar she was, and she thought it would be nice +for her to go to college, and she should be very much obliged +herself, and feel that we were granting her a great pleasure and +privilege if we allowed her to send Ellen to Vassar." + +All unconsciously Fanny imitated to the life Cynthia's soft elegance +of speech and language. + +"Pshaw!" said Mrs. Zelotes; but still she said it not so much +angrily as doubtfully. "It's the first time I ever heard of Cynthia +Lennox doing such a thing as that," said she. "I never knew she was +given to sending girls to college. I never heard of her giving +anything to anybody." + +Fanny looked mysteriously at her mother-in-law with sudden +confidence. "Look here," she said. + +"What?" + +The two women looked at each other, and neither said a word, but the +meaning of one flashed to the other like telegraphy. + +"Do you s'pose that's it?" said Mrs. Zelotes, her old face relaxing +into half-shamed, half-pleased smiles. + +"Yes, I do," said Fanny, emphatically. + +"You do?" + +"Yes, I 'ain't a doubt of it." + +"He did act as if he couldn't take his eyes off her at the +exhibition," agreed Mrs. Zelotes, reflectively; "mebbe you're +right." + +"I know I'm right just as well as if I'd seen it." + +"Well, mebbe you are. What does Andrew say?" + +"Oh, he wishes he was the one to do it." + +"Of course he does--he's a Brewster," said his mother. + +"But he's got sense enough to be pleased that Ellen has got the +chance." + +"He ain't any more pleased than I be at anything that's a good +chance for Ellen," said the grandmother; but all the same, after +Fanny had gone, her joy had a sharp sting for her. She was not one +who could take a gift to heart without feeling its sharp edge. + +Had Ellen's sentiment been analyzed, she felt in something the same +way that her grandmother did. However, she had begun to dream +definitely about Robert, and the reflection had come, too, that this +might make her more his equal, as nearly his equal as Maud +Hemingway. + +Maud Hemingway went to college, and so would she. Of the minor +accessories of wealth she thought not so much. She looked at her +hands, which were very small and as delicately white as flowers, and +reflected with a sense of comfort, of which she was ashamed, that +she would not need ever to stain them with leather now. She looked +at the homeward stream of dingy girls from the shops, and thought +with a sense of escape that she would never have to join them; but +she was conscious of loving Abby better, and Maria, who had also +entered Lloyd's. Abby, when she heard the news about Vassar, had +looked at her with a sort of fierce exultation. + +"Thank the Lord, you're out of it, anyhow!" she cried, fervently, as +a soul might in the midst of flames. + +Maria had smiled at her with the greatest sweetness and a certain +wistfulness. Maria was growing delicate, and seemed to inherit her +father's consumptive tendencies. + +"I am so glad, Ellen," she said. Then she added, "I suppose we +sha'n't see so much of you." + +"Of course we sha'n't, Maria Atkins," interposed Abby, "and it won't +be fitting we should. It won't be best for Ellen to associate with +shop-girls when she's going to Vassar College." + +But Ellen had cast an impetuous arm around a neck of each. + +"If ever I do such a thing as that!" said she. "If ever I turn a +cold shoulder to either of you for such a reason as that! What's +Vassar College to hearts? That's at the bottom of everything in this +world, anyhow. I guess you'll see it won't make any difference +unless you keep on thinking such things. If you do--if you think I +can do anything like that--I won't love you so much." + +Ellen faced them both with gathering indignation. Suddenly this +ignoble conception of herself in the minds of her friends stung her +to resentment. But Abby seized her in two wiry little arms. + +"I never did, I never did!" she cried. "Don't I know what you are +made of, Ellen Brewster? Don't you think I know? But after all, it +might be better for you if you were worse. That was all I meant." + +Ellen, one afternoon, set out in her pretty challis, a white ground +with long sprays of blue flowers running over it, and a blue ribbon +at her neck and waist, and her leghorn hat with white ribbons, and a +knot of forget-me-nots under the brim. She wore her one pair of nice +gloves, too, but those she did not put on until she reached the +corner of the street where Cynthia lived. Then she rubbed them on +carefully, holding up her challis skirts under one arm. + +Cynthia was at home, seated on the back veranda, in a rattan chair, +with a book which she was not reading. Ellen stood before her, in +her cheap attire, which she wore with an air which seemed to make it +precious, such faith she had in it. Ellen regarded her coarse +blue-flowered challis with an innocent admiration which seemed +almost able to glorify it into silk. Cynthia took in at a glance the +exceeding commonness of it all; she saw the hat, the like of which +could be seen in the milliners' windows at fabulously low prices; +the foam of spurious lace and the spray of wretched blue flowers +made her shudder. "The poor child, she must have something better +than that," she thought, and insensibly she also thought that the +girl must lose her evident faith in the splendor of such attire; +must change her standard of taste. She rose and greeted Ellen +sweetly, though somewhat reservedly. When the two were seated +opposite each other, Cynthia tried to talk pleasantly, but all the +time with a sub-consciousness as one will have of some deformity +which must be ignored. The girl looked so common to her in this +array that she began to have a hopeless feeling of disgust about it +all. Was it not manifestly unwise to try to elevate a girl who took +such evident satisfaction in a gown like that, in a hat like that? +Ellen wore her watch and chain ostentatiously. The watch was too +large for a chatelaine, but she had looped the heavy chain across +her bosom, and pinned it with the brooch which Abby Atkins had given +her, so it hung suspended. Cynthia riveted her eyes helplessly upon +that as she talked. + +"I hope you are having a pleasant vacation," said she, as she looked +at the watch, and all at once Ellen knew. + +Ellen replied that she was having a very pleasant vacation, then she +plunged at once into the subject of her call, though with inward +trembling. + +"Miss Lennox," said she--and she followed the lines of a little +speech which she had been rehearsing to herself all the way +there--"I am very grateful to you for what you propose doing for me. +It will make a difference to me during my whole life. I cannot begin +to tell you how grateful I am." + +"I am very grateful to be allowed to do it," replied Cynthia, with +her unfailing refrain of gentle politeness, but a kindly glance was +in her eyes. Something in the girl's tone touched her. It was +exceedingly earnest, with the simple earnestness of childhood. +Moreover, Ellen was regarding her with great, steadfast, serious +eyes, like a baby's who shrinks and yet will have her will of +information. + +"I wanted to say," Ellen continued--and her voice became insensibly +hushed, and she cast a glance around at the house and the leafy +grounds, as if to be sure that no one was within hearing--"that I +should never under any circumstances have said anything regarding +what happened so long ago. That I never have and never should have, +that I never thought of doing such a thing." + +Then the elder woman's face flushed a burning red, and she knew at +once what the girl had suspected. "You might proclaim it on the +house-tops if it would please you," she cried out, vehemently. "If +you think--if you think--" + +"Oh, I do not!" cried Ellen, in an agony of pleading. "Indeed, I do +not. It was only that--I--feared lest you might think I would be +mean enough to tell." + +"I would have told, myself, long ago if there had been only myself +to consider," said Cynthia, still red with anger, and her voice +strained. All at once she seemed to Ellen more like the woman of her +childhood. "Yes, I would," said she, hotly--"I will now." + +"Oh, I beg you not!" cried Ellen. + +"I will go with you this minute and tell your mother," Cynthia said, +rising. + +Ellen sprang up and moved towards her as if to push her back in her +chair. "Oh, please don't!" she cried. "Please don't. You don't know +mother; and it would do no good. It was only because I wondered if +you could have thought I would tell, if I would be so mean." + +"And you thought, perhaps, I was bribing you not to tell, with +Vassar College," Cynthia said, suddenly. "Well, you have suspected +me of something which was undeserved." + +"I am very sorry," Ellen said. "I did not suspect, really, but I do +not know why you do this for me." She said the last with her steady +eyes of interrogation on Cynthia's face. + +"You know the reasons I have given." + +"I do not think they were the only ones," Ellen replied, stoutly. "I +do not think my valedictory was so good as to warrant so much, and I +do not think I am so smart as to warrant so much, either." + +Cynthia laughed. She sat down again. "Well," she said, "you are not +one to swallow praise greedily." Then her tone changed. "I owe it +to you to tell you why I wish to do this," she said, "and I will. +You are an honest girl, with yourself as well as with other +people--too honest, perhaps, and you deserve that I should be honest +with you. I am not doing this for you in the least, my dear." + +Ellen stared at her. + +"No, I am not," repeated Cynthia. "You are a very clever, smart +girl, I am sure, and it will be a nice thing for you to have a +better education, and be able to take a higher place in the world, +but I am not doing it for you. When you were a little child I would +have done everything, given my life almost, for you, but I never +care so much for children when they grow up. I am not doing this for +you, but for your mother." + +"My mother?" said Ellen. + +"Yes, your mother. I know what agony your mother must have been in, +that time when I kept you, and I want to atone in some way. I think +this is a good way. I don't think you need to hesitate about letting +me do it. You also owe a little atonement to your mother. It was not +right for you to run away, in the first place." + +"Yes, I was very naughty to run away," Ellen said, starting. She +rose, and held out her hand. "I hope you will forgive me," she said. +"I am very grateful, and it will make my father and mother happier +than anything else could, but indeed I don't think--it is so long +ago--that there was any need--" + +"I do, for the sake of my own distress over it," Cynthia said, +shortly. "Suppose, now, we drop the subject, my dear. There is a +taint in the New England blood, and you have it, and you must fight +it. It is a suspicion of the motives of a good deed which will often +poison all the good effect from it. I don't know where the taint +came from. Perhaps the Pilgrim Fathers', being necessarily always on +the watch for the savage behind his gifts, have affected their +descendants. Anyway, it is there. I suppose I have it." + +"I am very sorry," said Ellen. + +"I also am sorry," said Cynthia. "I did you a wrong, and your mother +a wrong, years ago. I wonder at myself now, but you don't know the +temptation. You will never know how you looked to me that night." + +Cynthia's voice took on a tone of ineffable tenderness and yearning. +Ellen saw again the old expression in her face; suddenly she looked +as before, young and beautiful, and full of a boundless attraction. +The girl's heart fairly leaped towards her with an impulse of +affection. She could in that minute have fallen at her feet, have +followed her to the end of the world. A great love and admiration +which had gotten its full growth in a second under the magic of +a look and a tone shook her from head to foot. She went close to +Cynthia, and leaned over her, putting her round, young face down to +the elder woman's. "Oh, I love you, I love you," whispered Ellen, +with a fervor which was strange to her. + +But Cynthia only kissed her lightly on her cheek, and pushed her +away softly. "Thank you, my dear," she said. "I am glad you came +and spoke to me frankly, and I am glad we have come to an +understanding." + +Ellen, after she had taken her leave, was more in love than she had +ever been in her life, and with another woman. She thought of +Cynthia with adoration; she dreamed about her; the feeling of +receiving a benefit from her hand became immeasurably sweet. + + + + +Chapter XXIII + + +Ellen, under the influence of that old fascination which Cynthia had +exerted over her temporarily in her childhood, and which had now +assumed a new lease of life, would have loved to see her every day, +but along with the fascination came a great timidity and fear of +presuming. She felt instinctively that the fascination was an +involuntary thing on Cynthia's part. She kept repeating to herself +what she had said, that she was not sending her to Vassar because +she loved her. Strangely enough, this did not make Ellen unhappy in +the least, she was quite content to do all the loving and adoring +herself. She made a sort of divinity of the older woman, and who +expects a divinity to step down from her marble heights, and love +and caress? Ellen began to remember all Cynthia's ways and looks, as +a scholar remembers with a view to imitation. She became her +disciple. She began to move like Cynthia, and to speak like her, +though she did not know it. Her imitation was totally unconscious; +indeed, it was hardly to be called imitation; it was rather the +following out of the leading of that image of Cynthia which was +always present before her mind. Ellen saw Cynthia very seldom. Once +or twice she arrayed herself in her best and made a formal call of +gratitude, and once Fanny went with her. Ellen saw the incongruity +of her mother in Cynthia's drawing-room with a torture which she +never forgot. Going home she clung hard to her mother's arm all the +way. She was fairly fierce with love and loyalty. She was so +indignant with herself that she had seen the incongruity. "I think +our parlor is enough sight prettier than hers," she said, defiantly, +when they reached home and the hideous lamp was lighted. Ellen +looked around the ornate room, and then at her mother, as with a +challenge in behalf of loyalty, and of that which underlies +externals. + +"I rather guess it is," agreed Fanny, happily, "and I don't s'pose +it cost half so much. I dare say that mat on her hearth cost as much +as all our plush furniture and the carpet, and it is a dreadful +dull, homely thing." + +"Yes, it is," said Ellen. + +"I wish I'd been able to keep my hands as white as Miss Lennox's, +an' I wish I'd had time to speak so soft and slow," said Fanny, +wistfully. Then Ellen had her by both shoulders, and was actually +shaking her with a passion to which she very seldom gave rein. + +"Mother," she cried--"mother, you know better, you know there is +nobody in the whole world to me like my own mother, and never will +be. It isn't being beautiful, nor speaking in a soft voice, nor +dressing well, it's the being you--_you_. You know I love you best, +mother, you know, and I love my own home best, and everything that +is my own best, and I always will." Ellen was almost weeping. + +"You silly child," said Fanny, tenderly. "Mother knows you love her +best, but she wishes for your sake, and especially since you are +going to have advantages that she never had, that she was a little +different." + +"I don't, I don't," said Ellen, fiercely. "I want you just as you +are, just exactly as you are, mother." + +Fanny laughed tearfully, and rubbed her coarse black head against +Ellen's lovingly with a curious, cat-like motion, then bade her run +away or she would not get her dress done. A dressmaker was coming +for a whole week to the Brewster house to make Ellen's outfit. Mrs. +Zelotes had furnished most of the materials, and Andrew was to pay +the dressmaker. "You can take a little more of that money out of the +bank," Fanny said. "I want Ellen to go looking so she won't be +ashamed before the other girls, and I don't want Cynthia Lennox +thinking she ain't well enough dressed, and we ought to have let her +do it. As for being beholden to her for Ellen's clothes, I won't." + +"I rather guess not," said Andrew, but he was sick at heart. Only +that afternoon the man from whom he had borrowed the money to buy +Ellen's watch and chain had asked him for it. He had not a cent in +advance for his weekly pay; he could not see where the money for +Ellen's clothes was coming from. It was long since the "Golden Hope" +had been quoted in the stock-list, but the next morning Andrew +purchased a morning paper. He had stopped taking one regularly. He +put on his spectacles, and spread out the paper in his shaking +hands, and scrutinized the stock-list eagerly, but he could not find +what he wanted. The "Golden Hope" had long since dropped to a still +level below all record of fluctuations. A young man passing to his +place at the bench looked over his shoulder. "Counting up your +dividends, Brewster?" he asked, with a grin. + +Andrew folded up the paper gloomily and made no reply. + +"Irish dividends, maybe," said the man, with a chuckle at his own +wit, and a backward roll of a facetious eye. + +"Oh, shut up, you're too smart to live," said the man who stood next +at the bench. He was a young fellow who had been a school-mate of +Ellen in the grammar-school. He had left to go to work when she had +entered the high-school. His name was Dixon. He was wiry and alert, +with a restless sparkle of bright eyes in a grimy face, and he cut +the leather with lightning-like rapidity. Dixon had always thought +Ellen the most beautiful girl in Rowe. He looked after Andrew with a +sharp pain of sympathy when he went away with the roll of newspaper +sticking out of his pocket. + +"Poor old chap," he said to the facetious man, thrusting his face +angrily towards him. "He has had a devil of a time since he begun to +grow old. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Wait till you begin +to drop behind. It's what's bound to come to the whole boiling of +us." + +"Mind your jaw," said the first man, with a scowl. + +"You'd better mind yours," said Dixon, slashing furiously at the +leather. + +That noon Dixon offered Andrew, shamefacedly, taking him aside lest +the other men see, a piece of pie of a superior sort which his +mother had put into his dinner bag, but Andrew thanked him kindly +and refused it. He could eat nothing whatever that noon. He kept +thinking about the dressmaker, and how Fanny would ask him again to +take some of that money out of the bank to pay her, and how the +money was already taken out. + +That evening, when he sat down to the tea-table furnished with the +best china and frosted cake in honor of the dressmaker, and heard +the radiant talk about Ellen's new frills and tucks, he had a cold +feeling at his heart. He was ashamed to look at the dressmaker. + +"You won't know your daughter when we get her fixed up for Vassar," +she told Andrew, with a smirk which covered her face with a network +of wrinkles under her blond fluff of hair. + +"Do have some more cake, Miss Higgins," said Fanny. She was radiant. +The image of her daughter in her new gowns had gone far to +recompense her for all her disappointments in life, and they had not +been few. "What, after all, did it matter?" she asked herself, "if a +woman was growing old, if she had to work hard, if she did not know +where the next dollar was coming from, if all the direct personal +savor was fast passing out of existence, when one had a daughter who +looked like that?" Ellen, in a new blue dress, was ravishing. The +mother looked at her when she was trying it on, with the possession +of love, and the dressmaker as if she herself had created her. + +After supper Ellen had to try on the dress again for her father, and +turn about slowly that he might see all its fine points. + +"There, what do you think of that, Andrew?" asked Fanny, +triumphantly. + +"Ain't she a lady?" asked the dressmaker. + +"It is very pretty," said Andrew, smiling with gloomy eyes. Then he +heaved a great sigh, and went out of the south door to the steps. +"Your father is tired to-night," Fanny said to Ellen with a meaning +of excuse for the dressmaker. + +The dressmaker reflected shrewdly on Andrew's sigh when she was on +her way home. "Men don't sigh that way unless there's money to pay," +she thought. "I don't believe but he has been speculating." Then +she wondered if there was any doubt about her getting her pay, and +concluded that she would ask for it from day to day to make sure. + +So the next night after tea she asked, with one of her smirks of +amiability, if it would be convenient for Mrs. Brewster to pay her +that night. "I wouldn't ask for it until the end of the week," said +she, "but I have a bill to pay." She said "bill" with a murmur +which carried conviction of its deception. Fanny flushed angrily. +"Of course," said she, "Mr. Brewster can pay you just as well every +night if you need it." Fanny emphasized the "need" maliciously. +Then she turned to Andrew. "Andrew," said she, "Miss Higgins needs +the money, if you can pay her for yesterday and to-day." + +Andrew turned pale. "Yes, of course," he stammered. "How much?" + +"Six dollars," said Fanny, and in her tone was unmistakable meaning +of the dearness of the price. The dressmaker was flushed, but her +thin mouth was set hard. It was as much as to say, "Well, I don't +care so long as I get my money." She was unmarried, and her lonely +condition had worked up her spirit into a strong attitude of +defiance against all masculine odds. She had once considered men +from a matrimonial point of view. She had wondered if this one and +that one wanted to marry her. Now she was past that, and considered +with equal sharpness if this one or that one wanted to cheat her. +She had missed men's love through some failing either of theirs or +hers. She did not know which, but she was determined that she would +not lose money. So she bore Fanny's insulting emphasis with +rigidity, and waited for her pay. + +Andrew pulled out his old pocket-book, and counted the bills. Miss +Higgins saw that he took every bill in it, unless there were some in +another compartment, and of that she could not be quite sure. But +Andrew knew. He would not have another penny until the next week +when he received his pay. In the meantime there was a bill due at +the grocery store, and one at the market, and there was the debt for +Ellen's watch. However, he felt as if he would rather owe every man +in Rowe than this one small, sharp woman. He felt the scorn lurking +within her like a sting. She seemed to him like some venomous +insect. He went out to the doorstep again, and wondered if she would +want her pay the next night when she went home. + + + + +Chapter XXIV + + +Ellen had a flower-garden behind the house, and a row of sweet-peas +which was her pride. It had occurred to her that she might venture, +although Cynthia Lennox had her great garden and conservatories, to +carry her a bunch of these sweet-peas. She had asked her mother what +she thought about it. "Why, of course, carry her some if you want +to," said Fanny. "I don't see why you shouldn't. I dare say she's +got sweet-peas, but yours are uncommon handsome, and, anyway, it +ought to please her to have some given her. It ain't altogether +what's given, it's the giving." + +So Ellen had cut a great bouquet of the delicate flowers, selecting +the shades carefully, and set forth. She was as guiltily conscious +as a lover that she was making an excuse to see Miss Lennox. She +hurried along in delight and trepidation, her great bouquet shedding +a penetrating fragrance around her, her face gleaming white out of +the dusk. She had to pass Granville Joy's house on her way, and saw +with some dismay, as she drew near, a figure leaning over the gate. + +He pushed open the gate when she drew near, and stood waiting. + +"Good-evening, Ellen," he said. He was mindful not to say "Hullo" +again. He bowed with a piteous imitation of Robert Lloyd, but Ellen +did not notice it. + +"Good-evening," she returned, rather stiffly, then she added, in a +very gentle voice, to make amends, that it was a beautiful night. + +The young man cast an appreciative glance at the crescent moon in +the jewel-like blue overhead, and at the soft shadows of the trees. + +"Yes, beautiful," he replied, with a sort of gratitude, as if the +girl had praised him instead of the night. + +"May I walk along with you?" he asked, falling into step with her. + +"I am going to take these sweet-peas to Miss Lennox," said Ellen, +without replying directly. + +She was in terror lest Granville should renew his appeal of a few +weeks before, and she was in terror of her own pity for him, and +also of that mysterious impulse and longing which sometimes seized +her to her own wonder and discomfiture. Sometimes, in thinking of +Granville Joy, and his avowal of love, and the touch of his hand on +hers, and his lips on hers, she felt, although she knew she did not +love him, a softening of her heart and a quickening of her pulse +which made her wonder as to her next movement, if it might be +something which she had not planned. And always, after thinking of +Granville, she thought of Robert Lloyd; some mysterious sequence +seemed to be established between the two in the girl's mind, though +she was not in love with either. + +Ellen was just at that period almost helpless before the demands of +her own nature. No great stress in her life had occurred to awaken +her to a stanchness either of resistance or yielding. She was in the +full current of her own emotions, which, added to a goodly flood +inherited from the repressed passion of New England ancestors, had a +strong pull upon her feet. Sooner or later she would be given that +hard shake of life which precipitates and organizes in all strong +natures, but just now she was in a ferment. She walked along under +the crescent moon, with the young man at her side whose every +thought and imagination was dwelling upon her with love. She was +conscious of a tendency of her own imagination in his direction, or +rather in the direction of the love and passion which he +represented, and all the time her heart was filled with the ideal +image of another woman. She was prostrated with that hero-worship +which belongs to young and virgin souls, and yet she felt the +drawing of that other admiration which is more earthly and more +fascinating, as it shows the jewel tints in one's own soul as well +as in the other. + +As for Granville Joy, who had scrubbed his hands and face well with +scented soap to take away the odor of the leather, and put on a +clean shirt and collar, being always prepared for the possibility of +meeting this dainty young girl whom he loved, he walked along by her +side, casting, from time to time, glances which were pure admiration +at the face over the great bunch of sweet-peas. + +"Don't you want me to carry them for you?" he asked. + +"No, thank you," replied Ellen. "They are nothing to carry." + +"They're real pretty flowers," said Granville, timidly. + +"Yes, I think they are." + +"Mother planted some, but hers didn't come up. Mother has got some +beautiful nasturtiums. Perhaps you would like some," he said, +eagerly. + +"No, thank you, I have some myself," Ellen said, rather coldly. "I'm +just as much obliged to you." + +Granville quivered a little and shrank as a dog might under a blow. +He saw this dainty girl-shape floating along at his side in a +flutter of wonderful draperies, one hand holding up her skirts with +maddening revelations of whiteness. If a lily could hold up her +petals out of the dust she might do it in the same fashion as Ellen +held her skirts, with no coarse clutching nor crumpling, not +immodestly, but rather with disclosures of modesty itself. Ellen's +wonderful daintiness was one of her chief charms. There was an +immaculateness about her attire and her every motion which seemed to +extend to her very soul, and hedged her about with the lure of +unapproachableness. It was more that than her beauty which roused +the imagination and quickened the pulses of a young man regarding +her. + +Granville Joy did not feel the earth beneath his feet as he walked +with Ellen. The scent of the sweet-peas came in his face, he heard +the soft rustle of Ellen's skirts and his own heart-beats. She was +very silent, since she did not wish him to go with her, though she +was all the time reproaching herself for it. Granville kept casting +about for something to say which should ingratiate him with her. He +was resolved to say nothing of love to her. + +"It is a beautiful night," he said. + +"Yes, it is," agreed Ellen, and she looked at the moon. She felt the +boy's burning, timid, worshipful eyes on her face. She trembled, and +yet she was angry and annoyed. She felt in an undefined fashion that +she herself was the summer night and the flowers and the crescent +moon, and all that was fair and beautiful in the whole world to this +other soul, and shame seized her instead of pride. He seemed to +force her to a sight of her own pettiness, as is always the case +when love is not fully returned. She made an impatient motion with +the shoulder next Granville, and walked faster. + +"You said you were going to Miss Lennox's," he remarked, anxiously, +feeling that in some way he had displeased her. + +"Yes, to carry her some sweet-peas." + +"She must have been real good-looking when she was young," Granville +said, injudiciously. + +"When she was young," retorted Ellen, angrily. "She is beautiful +now. There is not another woman in Rowe as beautiful as she is." + +"Well, she is good-looking enough," agreed Granville, with +unreasoning jealousy. He had not heard of Ellen's good fortune. His +mother had not told him. She was a tenderly sentimental woman, and +had always had her fancies with regard to her son and Ellen +Brewster. When she heard the news she reflected that it would +perhaps remove the girl from her boy immeasurably, that he would be +pained, so she said nothing. Every night when he came home she had +watched his face to see if he had heard. + +Now Ellen told him. "You know what Miss Cynthia Lennox is going to +do for me," she said, abruptly, almost boastfully, she was so eager +in her partisanship of Cynthia. + +Granville looked at her blankly. They were coming into the crowded, +brilliantly lighted main street of the city, and their two faces +were quite plain to each other's eyes. + +"No, I don't," said he. "What is it, Ellen?" + +"She is going to send me to Vassar College." + +Granville's face whitened perceptibly. There was a queer sound in +his throat. + +"To Vassar College!" he repeated. + +"Yes, to Vassar College. Then I shall be able to get a good school, +and teach, and help father and mother." + +Granville continued to look at her, and suddenly an intense pity +sprang into life in the girl's heart. She felt as if she were +looking at some poor little child, instead of a stalwart young man. + +"Don't look so, Granville," she said, softly. + +"Of course I am glad at any good fortune which can come to you, +Ellen," Granville said then, huskily. His lips quivered a little, +but his eyes on her face were brave and faithful. Suddenly Ellen +seemed to see in this young man a counterpart of her own father. +Granville had a fine, high forehead and contemplative outlook. He +had been a good scholar. Many said that it was a pity he had to +leave school and go to work. It had been the same with her father. +Andrew had always looked immeasurably above his labor. She seemed to +see Granville Joy in the future just such a man, a finer animal +harnessed to the task of a lower, and harnessed in part by his own +loving faithfulness towards others. Ellen had often reflected that, +if it hadn't been for her and her mother, her father would not have +been obliged to work so hard. Now in Granville she saw another man +whom love would hold to the ploughshare. A great impulse of loyalty +as towards her own came over her. + +"It won't make any difference between me and my old friends if I do +go to Vassar College," she said, without reflecting on the dangerous +encouragement of it. + +"You can't get into another track of life without its making a +difference," returned Granville, soberly. "But I am glad. God knows +I'm glad, Ellen. I dare say it is better for you than if--" He +stopped then and seemed all at once to see projected on his mirror +of the future this dainty, exquisite girl, with her fine intellect, +dragging about a poor house, with wailing children in arm and at +heel, and suddenly a great courage of renunciation came over him. + +"It _is_ better, Ellen," he said, in a loud voice, like a hero's, as +if he were cheering his own better impulses on to victory over his +own passions. "It is better for a girl like you, than to--" + +Ellen knew that he meant to say, "to marry a fellow like me." Ellen +looked at him, the sturdy backward fling of his head and shoulders, +and the honest regard of his pained yet unflinching eyes, and a +great weakness of natural longing for that which she was even now +deprecating nearly overswept her. She was nearer loving him that +moment than ever before. She realized something in him which could +command love--the renunciation of love for love's sake. + +"I shall never forget my old friends, whatever happens," she said, +in a trembling voice, and it might have all been different had they +not then arrived at Cynthia Lennox's. + +"Shall I wait and go home with you, Ellen?" Granville asked, +timidly. + +"No, thank you. I don't know how long I shall stay," Ellen replied. +"You are real kind, but I am not a bit afraid." + +"It is sort of lonesome going past the shops." + +"I can take a car," Ellen said. She extended her hand to Granville, +and he grasped it firmly. + +"Good-night, Ellen; I am always glad of any good fortune that may +come to you," he said. + +But Granville Joy, going alone down the brilliant street, past the +blaze of the shop-windows and the knots of loungers on the corners, +reflected that he had seen the fiery tip of a cigar on the Lennox +veranda, that it might be possible that young Lloyd was there, since +Miss Lennox was his aunt, and that possibly the aunt's sending Ellen +to Vassar might bring about something in that quarter which would +not otherwise have happened, and he writhed at the fancy of that +sort of good fortune for Ellen, but held his mind to it resolutely +as to some terrible but necessary grindstone for the refinement of +spirit. "It would be a heap better for her," he said to himself, +quite loud, and two men whom he was passing looked at him curiously. +"Drunk," said one to the other. + +When he was on his homeward way he overtook a slender girl +struggling along with a kerosene-can in one hand and a package of +sugar in the other, and, seeing that it was Abby Atkins, he +possessed himself of both. She only laughed and did not start. Abby +Atkins was not of the jumping or screaming kind, her nerves were so +finely balanced that they recovered their equilibrium, after +surprises, before she had time for manifestations. There was a +curious healthfulness about the slender, wiry little creature who +was overworked and under-fed, a healthfulness which seemed to result +from the action of the mind upon a meagre body. + +"Hullo, Granville Joy!" she said, in her good-comrade fashion, and +the two went on together. Presently Abby looked up in his face. + +"Know about Ellen?" said she. Granville nodded. + +"Well, I'm glad of it, aren't you?" Abby said, in a challenging +tone. + +"Yes, I am," replied Granville, meeting her look firmly. + +Suddenly he felt Abby's little, meagre, bony hand close over the +back of his, holding the kerosene-can. "You're a good fellow, +Granville Joy," said she. + +Granville marched on and made no response. He felt his throat fill +with sobs, and swallowed convulsively. Along with this womanly +compassion came a compassion for himself, so hurt on his little +field of battle. He saw his own wounds as one might see a +stranger's. + +"Think of Ellen dogging around to a shoe-shop like me and the other +girls," said Abby, "and think of her draggin' around with half a +dozen children and no money. Thank the Lord she's lifted out of it. +It ain't you nor me that ought to grudge her fortune to her, nor +wish her where she might have been otherwise." + +"That's so," said the young man. + +Abby's hand tightened over the one on the kerosene-can. "You are a +good fellow, Granville Joy," she said again. + + + + +Chapter XXV + + +Robert Lloyd was sitting on the veranda behind the green trail of +vines when Ellen came up the walk. He never forgot the girl's face +looking over her bunch of sweet-peas. There was in it something +indescribably youthful and innocent, almost angelic. The light from +the window made her hair toss into gold; her blue eyes sought +Cynthia with the singleness of blue stars. It was evident whom she +had come to see. She held out her flowers towards her with a gesture +at once humble and worshipful, like that of some devotee at a +shrine. + +She said "Good-evening" with a shy comprehensiveness, then, to +Cynthia, like a child, "I thought maybe you would like some of my +sweet-peas." + +Both gentlemen rose, and Risley looked curiously from the young girl +to Cynthia, then placed his chair for her, smiling kindly. + +"The sweet-peas are lovely," Cynthia said. "Thank you, my dear. They +are much prettier than any I have had in my garden this year. Please +sit down," for Ellen was doubtful about availing herself of the +proffered chair. She had so hoped that she might find Cynthia alone. +She had dreamed, as a lover might have done, of a tete-a-tete with +her, what she would say, what Cynthia would say. She had thought, +and trembled at the thought, that possibly Cynthia might kiss her +when she came or went. She had felt, with a thrill of spirit, the +touch of Cynthia's soft lips on hers, she had smelt the violets +about her clothes. Now it was all spoiled. She remembered things +which she had heard about Mr. Risley's friendship with Cynthia, how +he had danced attendance upon her for half a lifetime, and thought +that she did not like him. She looked at his smiling, grizzled, +blond face with distrust. She felt intuitively that he saw straight +through her little subterfuge of the flowers, that he divined her +girlish worship at the shrine of Cynthia, and was making fun of her. + +"Do you object to a cigar, Miss Brewster?" asked Robert, and Risley +looked inquiringly at her. + +"Oh, no," replied Ellen, with the eager readiness of a child to fit +into new conditions. She thought of the sitting-room at home, blue +with the rank pipe-smoke of Nahum Beals and his kind. She pictured +them to herself sitting about on these warm evenings in their +shirt-sleeves, and she saw the two gentlemen in their light summer +clothes with their fragrant cigars at their lips, and all of a +sudden she realized that between these men and the others there was +a great gulf, and that she was trying to cross it. She did not +realize, as later, that the gulf was one of externals, and of width +rather than depth, but it seemed to her then that from one shore she +could only see dimly the opposite. A great fear and jealousy came +over her as to her own future accessibility to those of the other +kind among whom she had been brought up, like her father and +Granville. + +Ellen felt all this as she sat beside Cynthia, who was casting about +in her mind, in rather an annoyed fashion, for something to say to +this young beneficiary of hers which should not have anything to do +with the benefit. + +Finally she inquired if she were having a pleasant vacation, and +Ellen replied that she was. Risley looked at her beautiful face with +the double radiance of the electric-light and the lamp-light from +the window on it, giving it a curious effect. It suddenly occurred +to him to wonder why everybody seemed to have such an opinion as to +the talents of this girl. Why did Cynthia consider that her native +ability warranted this forcible elevation of her from her own sphere +and setting her on a height of education above her kind? She looked +and spoke like an ordinary young girl. She had a beautiful face, it +is true, and her shyness seemed due to the questioning attitude of a +child rather than to self-consciousness, but, after all, why did she +give people that impression? Her valedictory had been clever, no +doubt, and there was in it a certain fire of conviction, which, +though crude, was moving; but, after all, almost any bright girl +might have written it. She had been a fine scholar, no doubt, but +any girl with a ready intelligence might have done as well. Whence +came this inclination of all to rear the child upon a pedestal? +Risley wondered, looking at her, narrowing his keen, light eyes +under reflective brows, puffing at his cigar; then he admitted to +himself that he was one with the crowd of Ellen's admirers. There +was somehow about the girl that which gave the impression of an +enormous reserve out of all proportion to any external evidence. +"The child says nothing remarkable," he told Cynthia, after she had +gone that evening, "but somehow she gives me an impression of power +to say something extraordinary, and do something extraordinary. +There is electricity and steel behind that soft, rosy flesh of hers. +But all she does which is evident to the eye of man is to worship +you, Cynthia." + +"Worship me?" repeated Cynthia, vaguely. + +"Yes, she has one of those aberrations common to her youth and her +sex. She is repeating a madness of old Greece, and following you as +a nymph might a goddess." + +"It is only because she is grateful," returned Cynthia, looking +rather annoyed. + +"Gratitude may be a factor in it, but it is very far from being the +whole of the matter. It is one of the spring madnesses of life; but +don't be alarmed, it will be temporary in the case of a girl like +that. She will easily be led into her natural track of love. Do you +know, Cynthia, that she is one of the most normal, typical young +girls I ever saw, and that makes me wonder more at this impression +of unusual ability which she undoubtedly gives. She has all the +weaknesses of her age and sex, she is much younger than some girls +of her age, and yet there is the impression which I cannot shake +off." + +"I have it, too," said Cynthia, rather impatiently. + +"Cynthia Lennox, I don't believe you care in the least for this +young devotee of yours, for all you are heaping benefits upon her," +Risley said, looking at her quizzically. + +"I am not sure that I do," replied Cynthia, calmly. + +"Then why on earth--?" + +Suddenly Cynthia began speaking rapidly and passionately, +straightening herself in her chair. "Oh, Lyman, do you think I could +do a thing like that, and not repent it and suffer remorse for it +all these years?" she cried. + +"A thing like that?" + +"Like stealing that child," Cynthia replied, in a whisper. + +"Stealing the child? You did not steal the child." + +"Yes, I did." + +"Why, it was only a few hours that you kept her." + +"What difference does it make whether you steal anything for a few +hours or a lifetime? I kept her, and she was crying for her mother, +and her mother was suffering tortures all that time. Then I kept it +secret all these years. You didn't know what I have suffered, +Lyman." + +Cynthia regarded him with a wan look. + +Risley half laughed, then checked himself. "My poor girl, you have +the New England conscience in its worst form," he said. + +"You yourself told me it was a serious thing I was doing," Cynthia +said, half resentfully. "One does not wish one's sin treated lightly +when one has hugged its pricks to one's bosom for so long--it +detracts from the dignity of suffering." + +"So I did, but all those years ago!" + +"If you don't leave me my remorse, how can I atone for the deed?" + +"Cynthia, you are horribly morbid." + +"Maybe you are right, maybe it is worse than morbid. Sometimes I +think I am unnatural, out of drawing, but I did not make myself, and +how can I help it?" Cynthia spoke with a pathetic little laugh. + +She leaned her head back in her chair, and looked at a star through +a gap in the vines. The shadows of the leaves played over her long, +white figure. Again to Risley, gazing at her, came the conviction as +of subtle spiritual deformity in the woman; she was unnatural in +something the same fashion that an orchid is unnatural, and it was +worse, because presumably the orchid does not know it is an orchid +and regret not being another, more evenly developed, flower, and +Cynthia had a full realization and a mental mirror clear enough to +see the twist in her own character. + +Risley had never kissed her in his life, but that night, when they +parted, he laid a hand on her soft, gray hair, and smoothed it back +with a masculine motion of tenderness, leaving her white forehead, +which had a candid, childish fulness about the temples, bare. Then +he put his lips to it. + +"You are a silly girl, Cynthia," he said. + +"I wish I were different, Lyman," she responded, and, he felt, with +a double meaning. + +"I don't," he said, and stroked her hair with a great tenderness, +which seemed for the time to quite fill and satisfy his heart. He +was a man of measureless patience, born to a firm conviction of the +journey's end. + +"There are worse things than loving a good woman your whole life and +never having her," he said to himself as he went home, but he said +it without its full meaning. Risley's "nerves" were always lighted +by the lamp of his own hope, which threw a gleam over unknown seas. + + + + +Chapter XXVI + + +Robert Lloyd accompanied Ellen home, though she had said timidly +that she was not in the least afraid, that she would not trouble any +one, that she could take a car. Cynthia herself had insisted that +Robert should escort her. + +"It's too late for you to be out alone," she said, and the girl +seemed to perceive dimly a hedge of conventionality which she had +not hitherto known. She had often taken a car when she was alone of +an evening, without a thought of anything questionable. Some of the +conductors lived near Ellen, and she felt as if she were under +personal friendly escort. "I know the conductor on that car, and it +would take me right home, and I am not in the least afraid," she +said to Robert, as the car came rocking down the street when they +emerged from Cynthia's grounds. + +"It's a lovely night," Robert said, speaking quickly as they paused +on the sidewalk. "I am not going to let you go alone, anyway. We +will take the car if you say so, but what do you say to walking? +It's a lovely night." + +It actually flashed through Ellen's mind--to such small issues of +finance had she been accustomed--that the young man might insist +upon paying her car-fare if he went with her on the car. + +"I would like to walk, but I am sorry to put you to so much +trouble," she said, a little awkwardly. + +"Oh, I like to walk," returned Robert. "I don't walk half enough," +and they went together down the lighted street. Suddenly to Ellen +there came a vivid remembrance, so vivid that it seemed almost like +actual repetition of the time when she, a little child, maddened by +the sudden awakening of the depths of her nature, had come down this +same street. She saw that same brilliant market-window where she had +stopped and stared, to the momentary forgetfulness of her troubles +in the spectacular display of that which was entirely outside them. +Curiously enough, Robert drew her to a full stop that night before +the same window. It was one of those strange cases of apparent +telepathy which one sometimes notices. When Ellen looked at the +market-window, with a flash of reminiscence, Robert immediately drew +her to a stop before it. "That is quite a study in color," he said. +"I fancy there are a good many unrecognized artists among +market-men." + +"Yes, it is really beautiful," agreed Ellen, looking at it with eyes +which had changed very little from their childish outlook. Again she +saw more than she saw. The window differed materially from that +before which she had stood fascinated so many years ago, for that +was in a different season. Instead of frozen game and winter +vegetables, were the products of summer gardens, and fruits, and +berries. The color scheme was dazzling with great heaps of tomatoes, +and long, emerald ears of corn, and baskets of apples, and gold +crooks of summer squashes, and speckled pods of beans. + +"Suppose," said Robert, as they walked on, "that all the market-men +who had artistic tastes had art educations and set up studios and +painted pictures, who would keep the markets?" + +He spoke gayly. His manner that night was younger and merrier than +Ellen had ever seen it. She was naturally rather grave herself. What +she had seen of life had rather disposed her to a hush of respect +than to hilarity, but somehow his mood began to infect her. + +"I don't know," she answered, laughing, "I suppose somebody would +keep the markets." + +"Yes, but they would not be as good markets. That is, they would not +do as artistic markets, and they would not serve the higher purpose +of catering to the artistic taste of man, as well as to his bodily +needs." + +"Perhaps a picture like that is just as well and better than it +would be painted and hung on a wall," Ellen admitted, reflectively. + +"Just so--why is it not?" Robert said, in a pleased voice. + +"Yes, I think it is," said Ellen. "I do think it is better, because +everybody can see it there. Ever so many people will see it there +who would not go to picture-galleries to see it, and then--" + +"And then it may go far to dignify their daily needs," said Robert. +"For instance, a poor man about to buy his to-morrow's dinner may +feel his soul take a little fly above the prices of turnips and +cabbages." + +"Maybe," said Ellen, but doubtfully. + +"Don't you think so?" + +"The prices of turnips and cabbages may crowd other things out," +Ellen replied, and her tone was sad, almost tragic. "You see I am +right in it, Mr. Lloyd," she said, earnestly. + +"You mean right in the midst of the kind of people whom necessity +forces to neglect the aesthetic for the purely useful?" + +"Yes," said Ellen. Then she added, in an indescribably pathetic +voice, "People have to live first before they can see, and they +can't think until they are fed, and one needs always to have had +enough turnips and cabbages to eat without troubling about the +getting them, in order to see in them anything except food." + +Lloyd looked at her curiously. "Decidedly this child can think," he +reflected. He shrugged his arm, on which Ellen's hand lay, a little +closer to his side. + +Just then they were passing the great factories--Lloyd's, and +Briggs's, and Maguire's. Many of the windows in Briggs's and +Maguire's reflected light from the moon and the electric-lamps on +the street. Lloyd's was all dark except for one brilliant spark of +light, which seemed to be threading the building like a +will-o'-the-wisp. "That is the night-watchman," said Robert. "He +must have a dull time of it." + +"I should think he might be afraid," said Ellen. + +"Afraid of what?" + +"Of ghosts." + +"Ghosts in a shoe-shop?" asked Robert, laughing. + +"I don't believe there has been another building in the whole city +which has held so many heart-aches, and I always wondered if they +didn't make ghosts instead of dead people," Ellen said. + +"Do you think they have such a hard time?" + +"I know they do," said Ellen. "I think I ate the knowledge along +with my first daily bread." + +Robert Lloyd looked down at the light, girlish figure on his arm, +and again the resolution that he would not talk on such topics with +a young girl like this came over him. He felt a reluctance to do so +which was quite apart from his masculine scorn of a girl's opinion +on such matters. Somehow he did not wish to place Ellen Brewster on +the same level of argument on which another man might have stood. He +felt a jealousy of doing so. She seemed more within his reach, and +infinitely more for his pleasure, where she was. He looked +admiringly down at her fair face fixed on his with a serious, intent +expression. He was quite ready to admit that he might fall in love +with her. He was quite ready to ask now why he should not. She was a +beautiful girl, an uncommon girl. She was going to be thoroughly +educated. It would probably be quite possible to divorce her +entirely from her surroundings. He shuddered when he thought of her +mother and aunt, but, after all, a man, if he were firm, need not +marry the mother or aunt. And all this was in spite of a resolution +which he had formed on due consideration after his last call upon +Ellen. He had said to himself that it would not in any case be wise, +that he had better not see more of her than he could help. Instead +of going to see her, he had gone riding with Maud Hemingway, who +lived near his uncle's, in an old Colonial house which had belonged +to her great-grandfather. The girl was a good comrade, so good a +comrade that she shunted, as it were, love with flings of ready +speech and friendly greeting, and tennis-rackets and riding-whips +and foils. Robert had been teaching Maud to fence, and she had +fenced too well. Still, Robert had said to himself that he might +some day fall in love with her and marry her. He charged his memory +with the fact that this was a much more rational course than +visiting a girl like Ellen Brewster, so he stayed away in spite of +involuntary turnings of his thoughts in that direction. However, now +when the opportunity had seemed to be fairly forced upon him, what +was he to do? He felt that he was stirred as he had never been +before. The girl's very soul seemed to meet his when she looked up +at him with those serious blue eyes of hers. He knew that there had +never been any like her for him, but he felt as if in another +minute, if they did not drop topics which he might as well have +discussed with another man, this butterfly of femininity which so +delighted him would be beyond his hand. He wanted to keep her to her +rose. + +"But the knowledge must not imbitter your life," he said. "It is not +for a little, delicate girl to worry herself over the problems which +are too much for men." + +In spite of himself a tenderness had come into his voice. Ellen +looked down and away from him. She trembled. + +"It seems to me that the problems of life, like those in the algebra +we studied at school, are for everybody who can read them, whether +men or women," said she, but her voice was unsteady. + +"Some of them are for men to read and struggle with for the sake of +the women," said Robert. His voice had a tender inflection. They +were passing a garden full of old-fashioned flowers, bordered with +box. The scent of the box seemed fairly to clamor over the garden +fence, drowning out the smaller fragrances of the flowers, like the +clamor of a mob. Even the sweetness of the mignonette was faintly +perceived. + +"How strong the box is," said Ellen, imperceptibly shrinking a +little from Robert. + +When they reached the Brewster house Robert said, as kindly as +Granville Joy might have done, "Cannot we get better acquainted, +Miss Brewster? May I call upon you sometimes?" + +"I shall be happy to see you," Ellen said, repeating the formula of +welcome like a child, but she knew when she repeated it that it was +very true. After she had parted from young Lloyd, she went into the +sitting-room where were her mother and father, her mother sewing on +a wrapper, her father reading the paper. Both of them looked up as +the girl entered, and both stared at her in a bewildered way without +rightly knowing why. Ellen's cheeks were a wonderful color, her eyes +fairly blazed with blue light, her mouth was smiling in that +ineffable smile of a simple overflow of happiness. + +"Did you ride home on the car?" asked Fanny. "I didn't hear it +stop." + +"No, mother." + +"Did you come home alone?" asked Andrew, abruptly. + +"No," said Ellen, blinking before the glare of the lamp. Fanny +looked at Andrew. "Who did come home with you?" she asked, in a +foolish, fond voice. + +"Mr. Robert Lloyd. He was sitting on the piazza when I got there. I +told Miss Lennox I had just as soon come on the cars alone, but she +wouldn't let me, and then he said it would be pleasant to walk, +and--" + +"Oh, you needn't make so many excuses," said Fanny, laughing. + +Ellen colored until her face was a blaze of roses, she blinked +harder, and turned her head away impatiently. + +"I am not making excuses," said she, as if her modesty were +offended. "I wish you wouldn't talk so, mother. I couldn't help it." + +"Of course you couldn't," her mother called out jocularly, as Ellen +went into the other room to get her lamp to go to bed. + +Fanny was radiant with delight. After Ellen had gone up-stairs, she +kept looking at Andrew, and longing to confide in him her +anticipation with regard to Ellen and young Lloyd, but she +refrained, being doubtful as to how he would take it. Andrew looked +very sober. The girl's beautiful, metamorphosed face was ever before +his eyes, and it was with him as if he were looking after the flight +of a beloved bird into a farther blue which was sacred, even from +the following of his love. + + + + +Chapter XXVII + + +Ellen's first impulse, when she really began to love Robert Lloyd, +was not yielding, but flight; her first sensation, not happiness, +but shame. When he left her that night she realized, to her +unspeakable dismay and anger, that he had not left her, that he +would never in her whole life, or at least it seemed so, leave her +again. Everywhere she looked she saw his face projected by her +memory before her with all the reality of life. His face came +between her and her mother's and father's, it came between her and +her thoughts of other faces. When she was alone in her chamber, +there was the face. She blew out the lamp in a panic of resentment +and undressed in the dark, but that made no difference. When she lay +in bed, although she closed her eyes resolutely, she could still see +it. + +"I won't have it; I won't have it," she said, quite aloud in her +shame and rebellion. "I won't have it. What does this mean?" + +In spite of herself the sound of his voice was in her ears, and she +resented that; she fought against the feeling of utter rapture which +came stealing over her because of it. She felt as if she wanted to +spring out of bed and run, run far away into the freedom of the +night, if only by so doing she could outspeed herself. Ellen began +to realize the tyranny of her own nature, and her whole soul arose +in revolt. + +But the girl could no more escape than a nymph of old the pursuit of +the god, and there was no friendly deity to transform her into a +flower to elude him. When she slept at last she was overtaken in the +innocent passion of dreams, and when she awoke it was, to her angry +sensitiveness, not alone. + +When she went down-stairs all her rosy radiance of the night before +was eclipsed. She looked pale and nervous. She recoiled whenever her +mother began to speak. It seemed to her that if she said anything, +and especially anything congratulatory about Robert Lloyd, she would +fly at her like a wild thing. Fanny kept looking at her with loving +facetiousness, and Ellen winced indescribably; still, she did not +say anything until after breakfast, when Andrew had gone to work. +Andrew was unusually sober and preoccupied that morning. When he +went out he passed close to Ellen, as she sat at the table, and +tilted up her face and kissed her. "Father's blessin'," he +whispered, hoarsely, in her ear. Ellen nestled against him. This +natural affection, before which she need not fly nor be ashamed, +which she had always known, seemed to come before her like a shield +against all untried passion. She felt sheltered and comforted. But +Andrew passed Eva Tenny coming to the house on his way out of the +yard, and when she entered Fanny began at once: + +"Who do you s'pose came home with Ellen last night?" said she. She +looked at Eva, then at Ellen, with a glance which seemed to uncover +a raw surface of delicacy. Ellen flushed angrily. + +"Mother, I do wish--" she began; but Fanny cut her short. + +"She's pretendin' she don't like it," she said, almost hilariously, +her face glowing with triumph, "but she does. You ought to have seen +her when she came in last night." + +"I guess I know who it was," said Eva, but she echoed her sister's +manner half-heartedly. She was looking very badly that morning, her +face was stained, and her eye hard with a look as if tears had +frozen in them. She had come in a soiled waist, too, without any +collar. + +"For Heaven's sake, Eva Tenny, what ails you?" Fanny cried. + +Eva flung herself for answer on the floor, and fairly writhed. Words +were not enough expression for her violent temperament. She had to +resort to physical manifestations or lose her reason. As she +writhed, she groaned as one might do who was dying in extremity of +pain. + +Ellen, when she heard her aunt's groans, stopped, and stood in the +entry viewing it all. She thought at first that her aunt was ill, +and was just about to call out to know if she should go for the +doctor, all her grievances being forgotten in this evidently worse +stress, when her mother fairly screamed again, stooping over her +sister, and trying to raise her. + +"Eva Tenny, you tell me this minute what the matter is." + +Then Eva raised herself on one elbow, and disclosed a face distorted +with wrath and woe, like a mask of tragedy. + +"He's gone! he's gone!" she shrieked out, in an awful, shrill voice, +which was like the note of an angry bird. "He's gone!" + +"For God's sake, not--Jim?" + +"Yes, he's gone! he's gone! Oh, my God! my God! he's gone!" + +All at once the little Amabel appeared, slipping past Ellen +silently. She stood watching her mother. She was vibrating from head +to foot as if strung on wires. She was not crying, but she kept +catching her breath audibly; her little hands were twitching in the +folds of her frock; she winked rapidly, her lids obscuring and +revealing her eyes until they seemed a series of blue sparks. She +was no paler than usual--that was scarcely possible--but her skin +looked transparent, pulses were evident all over her face and her +little neck. + +"You don't mean he's gone with--?" gasped Fanny. + +Suddenly Eva raised herself with a convulsive jerk from the floor to +her feet. She stood quite still. "Yes, he has gone," she said, and +all the passion was gone from her voice, which was much more +terrible in its calm. + +"You don't mean with--?" + +"Yes; he has gone with Aggie." Eva spoke in a voice like a +deaf-mute's, quite free from inflections. There was something +dreadful about her rigid attitude. Little Amabel looked at her +mother's eyes, then cowered down and began to cry aloud. Ellen came +in and took her in her arms, whispering to her to soothe her. She +tried to coax her away, but the child resisted violently, though she +was usually so docile with Ellen. + +Eva did not seem to notice Amabel's crying. She stood in that +horrible inflexibility, with eyes like black stones fixed on +something unseeable. + +Fanny clutched her violently by the arm and shook her. + +"Eva Tenny," said she, "you behave yourself. What if he has run +away? You ain't the first woman whose husband has run away. I'd have +more pride. I wouldn't please him nor her enough. If he's as bad as +that, you're better off rid of him." + +Eva turned on her sister, and her calm broke up like ice under her +fire of passion. + +"Don't you say one word against him, not one word!" she shrieked, +throwing off Fanny's hand. "I won't hear one word against my +husband." + +Then little Amabel joined in. "Don't you say one word against my +papa!" she cried, in her shrill, childish treble. Then she sobbed +convulsively, and pushed Ellen away. "Go away!" she said, viciously, +to her. She was half mad with terror and bewilderment. + +"Don't you say one word against Jim," said Eva again. "If ever I +hear anybody say one word against him I'll--" + +"You don't mean you're goin' to stan' up for him, Eva Tenny?" + +"As long as I draw the breath of life, and after, if I know +anything," declared Eva. Then she straightened herself to her full +height, threw back her shoulders, and burst into a furious +denunciation like some prophetess of wrath. The veins on her +forehead grew turgid, her lips seemed to swell, her hair seemed to +move as she talked. The others shrank back and looked at her; even +little Amabel hushed her sobs and stared, fascinated. "Curses on the +grinding tyranny that's brought it all about, and not on the poor, +weak man that fell under it!" she cried. "Jim ain't to blame. He's +had bigger burdens put on his shoulders than the Lord gave him +strength to bear. He had to drop 'em. Jim has tried faithful ever +since we were married. He worked hard, and it wa'n't never his fault +that he lost his place, but he kept losin' it. They kept shuttin' +down, or dischargin' him for no reason at all, without a minute's +warnin'. An' it wa'n't because he drank. Jim never drank when he had +a job. He was just taken up and put down by them over him as if he +was a piece on a checker-board. He lost his good opinion of himself +when he saw others didn't set any more by him than to shove him off +or on the board as it suited their play. He began to think maybe he +wa'n't a man, and then he began to act as if he wasn't a man. And he +was ashamed of his life because he couldn't support me and Amabel, +ashamed of his life because he had to live on my little earnin's. He +was ashamed to look me in the face, and ashamed to look his own +child in the face. It was only night before last he was talkin' to +me, and I didn't know what he meant then, but I know now. I thought +then he meant something else, but now I know what he meant. He sat a +long time leanin' his head on his hands, whilst I was sewin' on +wrappers, after Amabel had gone to bed, and finally he looks up and +says, 'Eva, you was right and I was wrong.' + +"'What do you mean, Jim?' says I. + +"'I mean you was right when you thought we'd better not get married, +and I was wrong,' says he; and he spoke terrible bitter and sad. I +never heard him speak like it. He sounded like another man. I jest +flung down my sewin' and went over to him, and leaned his poor head +against my shoulder. 'Jim,' says I, 'I 'ain't never regretted it.' +And God knows I spoke the truth, and I speak the truth when I say it +now. I 'ain't never regretted it, and I don't regret it now." Eva +said the last with a look as if she were hurling defiance, then she +went on in the same high, monotonous key above the ordinary key of +life. "When I says that, he jest gives a great sigh and sort of +pushes me away and gets up. 'Well, I have,' says he; 'I have, and +sometimes I think the best thing I can do is to take myself out of +the way, instead of sittin' here day after day and seein' you +wearin' your fingers to the bone to support me, and seein' my child, +an' bein' ashamed to look her in the face. Sometimes I think you an' +Amabel would be a damned sight better off without me than with me, +and I'm done for anyway, and it don't make much difference what I do +next.' + +"'Jim Tenny, you jest quit talkin' in such a way as this,' says I, +for I thought he meant to make away with himself, but that wa'n't +what he meant. Aggie Bemis had been windin' her net round him, and +he wa'n't nothin' but a man, and all discouraged, and he gave in. +Any man would in his place. He ain't to blame. It's the tyrants +that's over us all that's to blame." Eva's voice shrilled higher. +"Curse them!" she shrieked. "Curse them all!--every rich man in this +gold-ridden country!" + +"Eva Tenny, you're beside yourself," said Fanny, who was herself +white to her lips, yet she viewed her sister indignantly, as one +violent nature will view another when it is overborne and carried +away by a kindred passion. + +"Wonder if you'd be real calm in my place?" said Eva; and as she +spoke the dreadful impassibility of desperation returned upon her. +It was as if she suffered some chemical change before their eyes. +She became silent and seemed as if she would never speak again. + +"You hadn't ought to talk so," said Fanny, weakly, she was so +terrified. "You ought to think of poor little Amabel," she added. + +With that, Eva's dreadful, expressionless eyes turned towards +Amabel, and she held out her hand to her, but the child fairly +screamed with terror and clung to Ellen. "Oh, Aunt Eva, don't look +at her so, you frighten her," Ellen said, trembling, and leaning her +cheek against Amabel's little, cold, pale one. "Don't cry, darling," +she whispered. "It is just because poor mother feels so badly." + +"I am afraid of my mamma, and I want papa!" screamed Amabel, +quivering, and stiffening her slender back. + +Eva continued to keep her eyes fixed upon her, and to hold out that +commanding hand. + +Fanny went close to her, seized her by both shoulders, and shook her +violently. "Eva Tenny, you behave yourself!" said she. "There ain't +no need of your acting this way if your man has run away with +another woman, and as for that child goin' with you, she sha'n't go +one step with any woman that looks and acts as you do. Actin' this +way over a good-for-nothin' fellow like Jim Tenny!" + +Again that scourge of the spirit aroused Eva to her normal state. +She became a living, breathing, wrathful, loving woman once more. +"Don't you dare say a word against Jim!" she cried out; "not one +word, Fanny Brewster; I won't hear it. Don't you dare say a word!" + +"Don't you say a word against my papa!" shrilled Amabel. Then she +left Ellen and ran to her mother, and clung to her. And Eva caught +her up, and hugged the little, fragile thing against her breast, and +pounced upon her with kisses, with a fury as of rage instead of +love. + +"She always looked like Jim," she sobbed out; "she always did. Aggie +Bemis shall never get her. I've got her in spite of all the awful +wrong of life; it's the good that had to come out of it whether or +no, and God couldn't help Himself. I've got this much. She always +looked like Jim." + +Eva set Amabel down and began leading her out of the room. + +"You ain't goin'?" said Fanny, who had herself begun to weep. "Eva, +you ain't goin'? Oh, you poor girl!" + +"Don't!--you said that like Jim," Eva cried, with a great groan of +pain. + +"Eva, you ain't goin'? Wait a little while, and let me do somethin' +for you." + +"You can't do anything. Come, Amabel." + +Eva and Amabel went away, the child rolling eyes of terror and +interrogation at them, Eva impervious to all her sister's pleading. + +When Andrew heard what had happened, and Fanny repeated what Eva had +said, his blame for Jim Tenny was unqualified. "I've had a hard time +enough, knocked about from pillar to post, and I know what she means +when she talks about a checker-board. God knows I feel myself +sometimes as if I wasn't anything but a checker-piece instead of a +man," he said, "but it's all nonsense blamin' the shoe-manufacturers +for his runnin' away with that woman. A man has got to use what +little freedom he's got right. It ain't any excuse for Jim +Tenny that he's been out of work and got discouraged. He's a +good-for-nothing cur, an' I'd like to tell him so." + +"It won't do for you to talk to Eva that way," said Fanny. They were +all at the supper-table. Ellen was listening silently. + +"She does right to stand up for her husband, I suppose," said +Andrew, "but anybody's got to use a little sense. It don't make it +any better for Jim, tryin' to shove blame off his shoulders that +belongs there. The manufacturers didn't make him run off with +another woman and leave his child. That was a move he made himself." + +"But he wouldn't have made that move if the manufacturers hadn't +made theirs," Ellen said, unexpectedly. + +"That's so," said Fanny. + +Andrew looked uneasily at Ellen, in whose cheeks two red spots were +burning, and whose eyes upon his face seemed narrowed to two points +of brightness. "There's nothing for you to worry about, child," he +said. + +All this was before the dressmaker, who listened with no particular +interest. Affairs which did not directly concern her did not awaken +her to much sharpness of regard. She had been forced by +circumstances into a very narrow groove of life, a little foot-path +as it were, fenced in from destruction by three dollars a day. She +could not, view it as keenly as she might, see that Jim Tenny's +elopement had anything whatever to do with her three dollars per +day. She, therefore, ate her supper. At first Andrew had looked +warningly at Fanny when she began to discuss the subject before the +dressmaker, but Fanny had replied, "Oh, land, Andrew, she knows all +about it now. It's all over town." + +"Yes, I heard it this morning before I came," said the dressmaker. +"I think a puff on the sleeves of the silk waist will be very +pretty, don't you, Mrs. Brewster?" + +Ellen looked at the dressmaker with wonder; it seemed to her that +the woman was going on a little especial side track of her own +outside the interests of her kind. She looked at her pretty new +things and tried them on, and felt guilty that she had them. What +business had she having new clothes and going to Vassar College in +the face of that misery? What was an education? What was anything +compared with the sympathy which love demanded of love in the midst +of sorrow? Should she not turn her back upon any purely personal +advantage as she would upon a moral plague? + +When Ellen's father said that to her at the supper-table she looked +at him with unchildlike eyes. "I think it is something for me to +worry about, father," she said. "How can I help worrying if I love +Aunt Eva and Amabel?" + +"It's a dreadful thing for Eva," said Fanny. "I don't see what she +is going to do. Andrew, pass the biscuits to Miss Higgins." + +"It seems to me that the one that is the farthest behind anything +that happens on this earth is the one to blame," said Ellen, +reverting to her line of argument. + +"I don't know but you've got to go back to God, then," said Andrew, +soberly, passing the biscuits. Miss Higgins took one. + +"No, you haven't," said Ellen--"you haven't, because men are free. +You've got to stop before you get to God. When a man goes wrong, you +have got to look and see if he is to blame, if he started himself, +or other men have been pushing him into it. It seems to me that +other men have been pushing Uncle Jim into it. I don't think +factory-owners have any right to discharge a man without a good +reason, any more than he has a right to run the shop." + +"I don't think so, either," said Fanny. "I think Ellen is right." + +"I don't know. It is all a puzzle," said Andrew. "Something's wrong +somewhere. I don't know whether it's because we are pushed or +because we pull. There's no use in your worrying about it, Ellen. +You've got to study your books." Andrew said this with a look of +pride at Ellen and sidelong triumph at the dressmaker to see if she +rightly understood the magnitude of it all, of the whole situation +of making dresses for this wonderful young creature who was going to +Vassar College. + +"I don't know but this is more important than books," said Ellen. + +"Oh, maybe you'll find out something in your books that will settle +the whole matter," said Andrew. Ellen was not eating much supper, +and that troubled him. Andrew always knew just how much Ellen ate. + +"I don't know what Aunt Eva and poor little Amabel will do," said +she. Ellen's lip quivered. + +"Pass the cake to Miss Higgins," said Fanny, sharply, to Andrew. She +gave him a significant wink as she did so, not to talk more about +it. + +"Try some of that chocolate cake, Miss Higgins." + +"Thank you," said Miss Higgins, unexcitedly. + +Andrew had his own cause of worry, and finally reverted to it, +eating his food with no more conception of the savor than if it were +in another man's mouth. He was sorry enough for his wife's sister, +and recognized it as an added weight to his own burden, but just at +present all he could think of was the question if Miss Higgins would +ask for her pay again that night. He had not a dollar in his pocket. +He had been dunned that afternoon by the man who had lent the money +to buy Ellen's watch, there were two new dunning letters in his +pocket, and now if that keen little dressmaker, who fairly looked to +him like a venomous insect, as she sat eating rather voraciously of +the chocolate cake, should ask him again for the three dollars due +her that night! He would not have cared so much, if it were not for +the fact that she would ask him before his wife and Ellen, and the +question about the money in the savings-bank, which was a species of +nightmare to him, would be sure to come to the front. + +Suddenly it struck Andrew that he might run away, that he might slip +out after supper, and either go into his mother's house or down the +street. He finally decided on the former, since he reasoned, with a +pitiful cunning, that if he went down the street he would have to +take off his slippers and put on his shoes, and that would at once +betray him and lead to the possible arrest of his flight. + +So after supper, while Miss Higgins was trying a waist on Ellen, and +Fanny was clearing the table, Andrew, bareheaded and in his +slippers, prepared to carry his plan into execution. He got out +without being seen, and hurried around the rear of the house, out of +view from the sitting-room windows, resolving on the way that in +order to avert the danger of a possible following him to the +sanctuary of his mother's house, he had perhaps better slip down +into the orchard behind it and see if the porter apples were ripe. +But when, stooping as if beneath some invisible shield, and moving +with a low glide of secrecy, he had gained the yard between the two +houses, the yard where the three cherry-trees stood, he heard +Fanny's high, insistent voice calling him, and knew that it was all +over. Fanny had her head thrust out of her bedroom window. "Andrew! +Andrew!" she called. + +Andrew stopped. "What is it?" he asked, in a gruff voice. He felt at +that moment savage with her and with fate. He felt like some +badgered animal beneath the claws and teeth of petty enemies which +were yet sufficient to do him to death. He felt that retreat and +defence were alike impossible and inglorious. He was aware of a +monstrous impatience with it all, which was fairly blasphemy. "What +is it?" he said, and Fanny realized that something was wrong. + +"Come here, Andrew Brewster," she said, from the bedroom window, and +Andrew pressed close to the window through a growth of sweetbrier +which rasped his hands and sent up a sweet fragrance in his face. +Andrew tore away the clinging vines angrily. + +"Well, what is it?" he said again. + +"Don't spoil that bush, Ellen sets a lot by it," said Fanny. "What +makes you act so, Andrew Brewster?" Then she lowered her voice. +"She wants to know if she can have her pay to-night," she whispered. + +"I 'ain't got a cent," replied Andrew, in a dogged, breathless +voice. + +"You 'ain't been to the bank to-day, then?" + +"No, I 'ain't." + +Fanny still suspected nothing. She was, in fact, angry with the +dressmaker for insisting upon her pay in such a fashion. "I never +heard of such a thing as her wantin' to be paid every night," she +whispered, angrily, "and I'd tell her so, if I wasn't afraid she'd +think we couldn't pay her. I'd never have had her; I'd had Miss +Patch, if I'd know she'd do such a mean thing, but, as it is, I +don't know what to do. I 'ain't got but a dollar and seventy-three +cents by me. You 'ain't got enough to make it up?" + +"No, I 'ain't." + +"Well, all is, I've got to tell her that it ain't convenient for me +to pay her to-night, and she shall have it all together to-morrow +night, and to-morrow you'll have to go to the bank and take out the +money, Andrew. Don't forget it." + +"Well," said Andrew. + +Fanny retreated, and he heard her high voice explaining to Miss +Higgins. He tore his way through the clinging sweetbrier bushes and +ran with an unsteady, desperate gait down to the orchard behind his +mother's home, and flung himself at full length in the dewy grass +under the trees with all the abandon, under stress of fate, of a +child. + + + + +Chapter XXVIII + + +Andrew Brewster, lying in the dewy grass under the apple-trees, +giving way for almost the first time since his childhood to impulses +which had hitherto, from his New England heredity, stiffened instead +of relaxed his muscles of expression, felt as if he were being stung +to death by ants. He was naturally a man of broad views, who felt +the indignity of coping with such petty odds. "For God's sake, if I +had to be done to death, why couldn't it have been for something?" +he groaned, speaking with his lips close to the earth as if it were +a listening ear. "Why need it all have been over so little? It's +just the little fight for enough to eat and wear that's getting the +better of me that was a man, and able to do a man's work in the +world. Now it has come to this! Here I am runnin' away from a woman +because she wants me to pay her three dollars, and I am afraid of +another woman because--I've been and fooled away a few hundred +dollars I had in the savings-bank. I'm afraid--yes, it has come to +this. I am afraid, afraid, and I'd run away out of life if I knew +where it would fetch me to. I'm afraid of things that ain't worth +being afraid of, and it's all over things that's beneath me." There +came over Andrew, with his mouth to the moist earth, feeling the +breath and the fragrance of it in his nostrils, a realization of the +great motherhood of nature, and a contempt for himself which was +scorching and scathing before it. He felt that he came from that +mighty breast which should produce only sons of might, and was +spending his whole life in an ignominy of fruitless climbing up +mole-hills. "Why couldn't I have been more?" he asked himself. "Oh, +my God, is it my fault?" He said to himself that if he had not +yielded to the universal law and longing of his kind for a home and +a family, it might have been better. He asked himself that question +which will never be answered with a surety of correctness, whether +the advancement of the individual to his furthest compass is more to +the glory of life than the blind following out of the laws of +existence and the bringing others into the everlasting problem of +advance. Then he thought of Ellen, and a great warmth of conviction +came over the loving heart of the man; all his self-contempt +vanished. He had her, this child who was above pearls and rubies, he +had her, and in her the furthest reach of himself and progression of +himself to greater distances than he could ever have accomplished in +any other way, and it was a double progress, since it was not only +for him, but also for the woman he had married. A great wave of love +for Fanny came over him. He seemed to see that, after all, it was a +shining road by which he had come, and he saw himself upon it like a +figure of light. He saw that he lived and could never die. Then, as +with a remorseless hurl of a high spirit upon needle-pricks of petty +cares, he thought again of the dressmaker, of the money for Ellen's +watch, of the butcher's bill, and the grocer's bills, and the money +which he had taken from the bank, and again he cowered beneath and +loathed his ignoble burden. He dug his hot head into the grass. "Oh, +my God! oh, my God!" he groaned. He fairly sobbed. Then he felt a +soft wind of feminine skirts caused by the sudden stoop of some one +beside him, and Ellen's voice, shrill with alarm, rang in his ears. +"Father, what is the matter? Father!" + +Such was the man's love for the girl that his first thought was for +her alarm, and he pushed all his own troubles into the background +with a lightning-like motion. He raised himself hastily, and smiled +at her with his pitiful, stiff face. "It's nothing at all, Ellen, +don't you worry," he said. + +But that was not enough to satisfy her. She caught hold of his arm +and clung to it. "Father," she said, in a tone which had in it, to +his wonder, a firm womanliness--his own daughter seemed to speak to +him as if she were his mother--"you are not telling me the truth. +Something is the matter, or you wouldn't do like this." + +"No, there's nothin', nothin' at all, dear child," said Andrew. He +tried to loosen her little, clinging hand from his arm. "Come, let's +go back to the house," he said. "Don't you mind anything about it. +Sometimes father gets discouraged over nothin'." + +"It isn't over nothing," said Ellen. "What is it about, father?" + +Andrew tried to laugh. "Well, if it isn't over nothin', it's over +nothin' in particular," said he; "it's over jest what's happened +right along. Sometimes father feels as if he hadn't made as much as +he'd ought to out of his life, and he's gettin' older, and he's +feelin' kind of discouraged, that's all." + +"Over money matters?" said Ellen, looking at him steadily. + +"Over nothin'," said her father. "See here, child, father's ashamed +that he gave way so, and you found him. Now don't you worry one mite +about it--it's nothing at all. Come, let's go back to the house," he +said. + +Ellen said no more, but she walked up from the field holding tightly +to her father's poor, worn hand, and her heart was in a tumult. To +behold any convulsion of nature is no light experience, and when it +is a storm of the spirit in one beloved the beholder is swept along +with it in greater or less measure. Ellen trembled as she walked. +Her father kept looking at her anxiously and remorsefully. Once he +reached around his other hand and chucked her playfully under the +chin. "Scared most to death, was she?" he asked, with a shamefaced +blush. + +"I know something is the matter, and I think it would be better for +you to tell me, father," replied Ellen, soberly. + +"There's nothing to tell, child," said Andrew. "Don't you worry your +little head about it." Between his anxiety lest the girl should be +troubled, and his intense humiliation that she should have +discovered him in such an abandon of grief which was almost like a +disclosure of the nakedness of his spirit, he was completely +unnerved. Ellen felt him tremble, and heard his voice quiver when he +spoke. She felt towards her father something she had never felt +before--an impulse of protection. She felt the older and stronger of +the two. Her grasp on his hand tightened, she seemed in a measure to +be leading him along. + +When they reached the yard between the houses Andrew cast an +apprehensive glance at the windows. "Has she gone?" he asked. + +"Who, the dressmaker?" + +"Yes." + +"She hadn't when I came out. I saw you come past the house, and I +thought you walked as if you didn't feel well, so I thought I would +run out and see." + +"I was all right," replied Andrew. "Have you got to try on anything +more to-night?" + +"No." + +"Well, then, let's run into grandma's a minute." + +"All right," said Ellen. + +Mrs. Zelotes was sitting at her front window in the dusk, looking +out on the street, as was her favorite custom. The old woman seldom +lit a lamp in the summer evening, but sat there staring out at the +lighted street and the people passing and repassing, with her mind +as absolutely passive as regarded herself as if she were travelling +and observing only that which passed without. At those times she +became in a fashion sensible of the motion of the world, and lost +her sense of individuality in the midst of it. When her son and +granddaughter entered she looked away from the window with the +expression of one returning from afar, and seemed dazed for a +moment. + +"Hullo, mother!" said Andrew. + +The room was dusky, and they moved across between the chairs and +tables like two shadows. + +"Oh, is it you, Andrew?" said his mother. "Who is that with +you--Ellen?" + +"Yes," said Ellen. "How do you do, grandma?" + +Mrs. Zelotes became suddenly fully awake to the situation; she +collected her scattered faculties; her keen old eyes gleamed in a +shaft of electric-light from the street without, which fell full +upon her face. + +"Set down," said she. "Has the dressmaker gone?" + +"No, she hadn't when I came out," replied Ellen, "but she's most +through for to-night." + +"How do your things look?" + +"Real pretty, I guess." + +"Sometimes I think you'd better have had Miss Patch. I hope she +'ain't got your sleeves too tight at the elbows." + +"They seem to fit very nicely, grandma." + +"Sleeves are very particular things; a sleeve wrong can spoil a +whole dress." + +Suddenly the old woman turned on Ellen with a look of extremest +facetiousness and intelligence, and the girl winced, for she knew +what was coming. "I see you goin' past with a young man last night, +didn't I?" said she. + +Ellen flushed. "Yes," she said, almost indignantly, for she had a +feeling as if the veil of some inner sacredness of her nature were +continually being torn aside. "I went over to Miss Lennox, to carry +some sweet-peas, and Mr. Robert Lloyd was there, and he came home +with me." + +"Oh!" replied her grandmother. + +Ellen's patience left her at the sound of that "Oh," which seemed to +rasp her very soul. "You have none of you any right to talk and act +as you do," said she. "You make me ashamed of you, you and mother; +father has more sense. Just because a young man makes me a call to +return something, and then walks home with me, because he happened +to be at the house where I call in the evening! I think it's a +shame. You make me feel as if I couldn't look him in the face." + +"Never mind, grandma didn't mean any harm," Andrew said, soothingly. + +"You needn't try to excuse me, Andrew Brewster," cried his mother, +angrily. "I guess it's a pretty to-do, if I can't say a word in joke +to my own granddaughter. If it had been a poor, good-for-nothing +young feller workin' in a shoe-factory, I s'pose she'd been tickled +to death to be joked about him, but now when it begins to look as if +somebody that was worth while had come along--" + +"Grandma, if you say another word about it, I will never speak to +Robert Lloyd again as long as I live," declared Ellen. + +"Never mind, child," whispered Andrew. + +"I do mind, and I mean what I say," Ellen cried. "I won't have it. +Robert Lloyd is nothing to me, and I am nothing to him. He is no +better than Granville Joy. There is nothing between us, and you make +me too ashamed to think of him." + +Then the old woman cried out, in a tone of triumph, "Well, there he +is, turnin' in at your gate now." + + + + +Chapter XXIX + + +Ellen rose without a word, and fled out of the room and out of the +house. It seemed to her, after what had happened, after what her +mother and grandmother had said and insinuated, after what she +herself had thought and felt, that she must. She longed to see +Robert Lloyd, to hear him speak, as she had never longed for +anything in the world, and yet she ran away as if she were driven to +obey some law which was coeval with the first woman and beyond all +volition of her individual self. + +When she reached the head of the little cross street on which the +Atkinses lived, she turned into it with relief. The Atkins house was +a tiny cottage, with a little kitchen ell, and a sagging piazza +across the front. On this piazza were shadowy figures, and the dull, +red gleam of pipes, and one fiery tip of a cigar. Joe Atkins, and +Sargent, and two other men were sitting out there in the cool of the +evening. Ellen hurried around the curve of the foot-path to the +kitchen door. Abby was in there, working with the swift precision of +a machine. She washed and wiped dishes as if in a sort of fury, her +thin elbows jerking, her mouth compressed. + +When Ellen entered, Abby stared, then her whole face lighted up, as +if from some internal lamp. "Why, Ellen, is that you?" she said, in +a surprisingly sweet voice. Sometimes Abby's sharp American voice +rang with the sweetness of a soft bell. + +"I thought I'd run over a minute," said Ellen. + +The other girl looked sharply at her. "Why, what's the matter?" she +said. + +"Nothing is the matter. Why?" + +"Why, I thought you looked sort of queer. Maybe it's the light. Sit +down; I'll have the dishes done in a minute, then we'll go into the +sitting-room." + +"I'd rather stay out here with you," said Ellen. + +Abby looked at her again. "There is something the matter, Ellen +Brewster," said she; "you can't cheat me. You would never have run +over here this way in the world. What has happened?" + +"Let's go up to your room after the dishes are done, and then I'll +tell you," whispered Ellen. The men's voices on the piazza could be +heard quite distinctly, and it seemed possible that their own +conversation might be overheard in return. + +"All right," said Abby. "Of course I have heard about your aunt," +she added, in a low voice. + +"Yes," said Ellen, and she felt shamed and remorseful that her own +affairs had been uppermost in her mind, and that Abby had supposed +that she might be disturbed over this great trouble of her poor +aunt's. + +"I think it is dreadful," said Abby. "I wish I could get hold of +that woman." By "that woman" she meant the woman with whom poor Jim +Tenny had eloped. + +"I do," said Ellen, bitterly. + +"But it's something besides that made you run over here," said Abby. + +"I'll tell you when we go up to your room," replied Ellen. + +When the dishes were finished, and the two girls in Abby's little +chamber, seated side by side on the bed, Ellen still hesitated. + +"Now, Ellen Brewster, what is the matter? You said you would tell, +and you've got to," said Abby. + +Ellen looked away from her, blushing. The electric-light from the +street shone full in the room, which was wavering with grotesque +shadows. + +"Well," said she, "I ran away." + +"You ran away! What for?" + +"Oh, because." + +"Because what?" + +"Because I saw somebody coming." + +"Saw who coming?" + +Ellen was silent. + +"Not Granville Joy?" + +Ellen shook her head. + +"Not--?" + +Ellen looked straight ahead. + +"Not young Mr. Lloyd?" + +Ellen was silent with the silence of assent. + +"Did he go into your house?" + +Ellen nodded. + +"Where were you?" + +"In grandma's." + +"And you ran away, over here?" + +Ellen nodded. + +"Why, Ellen Brewster, didn't you want to see him?" + +Ellen turned from Abby with an impatient gesture, buried her face in +the bed, and began to weep. + +Abby leaned over her caressingly. "Ellen dear," she whispered, "what +is the matter; what are you crying for? What made you run away?" + +Ellen sobbed harder. + +Abby looked at Ellen's prostrate figure sadly. "Ellen," she began; +then she stopped, for her own voice quivered. Then she went on, +quite steadily. "Ellen," she said, "you like him." + +"No, I don't," declared Ellen. "I won't. I never will. Nothing shall +make me." + +But Abby continued to look at her sadly and jealously. "There's a +power over us which is too strong for girls," said she, "and you've +come under it, Ellen, and you can't help it." Then she added, with +a great, noble burst of utter unselfishness: "And I'm glad, I'm +glad, Ellen. That man can lift you out of the grind." + +But Ellen sat up straight and faced her, with burning cheeks, and +eyes shining through tears. "I will never be lifted out of the grind +as long as those I love are in it," said she. + +"Do you suppose it would make it any better for your folks to see +you in it all your life along with them?" said Abby. "Suppose you +married a fellow like Granville Joy?" + + + + +Chapter XXX + + +Ellen looked at the other girl in a kind of rage of maidenly shame. +"Why have I got to get married, anyway?" she demanded. "Isn't there +anything in this world besides getting married? Why do you all talk +so about me? You don't seem so bent on getting married yourself. If +you think so much of marriage, why don't you get married yourself, +and let me alone?" + +"Nobody wants to marry me that I know of," replied Abby, quite +simply. Then she, too, blazed out. "Get married!" she cried. "Do you +really think I would get married to the kind of man who would marry +me? Do you think I could if I loved him?" A great wave of red +surged over the girl's thin face, her voice trembled with +tenderness. Ellen knew at once, with a throb of sympathy and shame, +that Abby did love some one. + +"Do you think I would marry him if I loved him?" demanded Abby, +stiffening herself into a soldier-like straightness. "Do you think? +I tell you what it is," she said, "I was lookin' only to-day at +David Mendon at the cutting-bench, cutting away with his poor little +knife. I'd like to know how many handles he's worn out since he +began. There he was, putting the pattern on the leather, and cuttin' +around it, standin' at his window, that's a hot place in summer and +a cold one in winter, and there's where he's stood for I don't know +how many years since before I was born. He's one of the few that +Lloyd's has hung on to when he's got older, and I thought to myself, +good Lord, how that poor man must have loved his wife, and how he +must love his children, to be willin' to turn himself into a machine +like that for them. He never takes a holiday unless he's forced into +it; there he stands and cuts and cuts. If I were his wife, I would +die of shame and pity that I ever led him into it. Do you think I +would ever let a man turn himself into a machine for me, if I loved +him? I guess I wouldn't! And that's why, when I see a man of another +sort that you won't have to break your own heart over, whether you +marry him or not, payin' attention to you, I am glad. It's a +different thing, marriage with a man like Robert Lloyd, and a man +like that would never think of me. I'm right in the ranks, and you +ain't." + +"I am," said Ellen, stoutly. + +"No, you ain't; you don't belong there, and when I see a chance for +you to get out where you belong--" + +"I don't intend to make marriage a stepping-stone," said Ellen. +"Sometimes--" She hesitated. + +"What?" asked the other girl. + +"Sometimes I think I would rather not go to college, after all." + +"Ellen Brewster, are you crazy? Of course, you will go to college +unless you marry Robert Lloyd. Perhaps he won't want to wait." Then +Abby, dauntless as she was, shrank a little before Ellen's wrathful +retort. + +"Abby Atkins, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she cried. +"There he's been to see me just twice, the first time on an errand, +and the next with his aunt, and he's walked home with me once +because he couldn't help it; his aunt told him to!" + +"But here he is again to-night," said Abby, apologetically. + +"What of that? I suppose he has come on another errand." + +"Then what made you run away?" + +"Because you have all made me ashamed of my life to look at him," +said Ellen, hotly. + +Then down went her head on the bed again, and Abby was leaning over +her, caressing her, whispering fond things to her like a lover. + +"There, there, Ellen," she whispered. "Don't be mad, don't feel bad. +I didn't mean any harm. You are such a beauty--there's nobody like +you in the world--that everybody thinks that any man who sees you +must want you." + +"Robert Lloyd doesn't, and if he did I wouldn't have him," sobbed +Ellen. + +"You sha'n't if you don't want him," said Abby, consolingly. + +After a while the two girls bathed their eyes with cold water, and +went down-stairs into the sitting-room. Maria was making herself a +blue muslin dress, and her mother was hemming the ruffles. There was +a cheap blue shade on the lamp, and Maria herself was clad in a blue +gingham. All the blue color and the shade on the lamp gave a curious +pallor and unreality to the homely room and the two women. Mrs. +Atkins's hair was strained back from her hollow temples, which had +noble outlines. + +"I'm going to walk a little way with Ellen, she's going home," said +Abby. + +"Very well," said her mother. Maria looked wistfully at them as they +went out. She went on sewing on her blue muslin, rather sadly. She +coughed a little. + +"Why don't you put up your sewing for to-night and go to bed, +child?" said her mother. + +"I might as well sit here and sew as go to bed and lie there. I +shouldn't sleep," replied Maria, with the gentlest sadness +conceivable. There was in it no shadow of complaining. Of late years +all the fire of resistance had seemed to die out in the girl. She +was unfailingly sweet, but nerveless. Often when she raised a hand +it seemed as if she could not even let it fall, as if it must remain +poised by some curious inertia. Still, she went to the shop every +day and did her work faithfully. She pasted linings in shoes, and +her slender little fingers used to fly as if they were driven by +some more subtle machine than any in the factory. Often Maria felt +vaguely as if she were in the grasp of some mighty machine worked by +a mighty operator; she felt, as she pasted the linings, as if she +herself were also a part of some monstrous scheme of work under +greater hands than hers, and there was never any getting back of it. +And always with it all there was that ceaseless, helpless, +bewildered longing for something, she was afraid to think what, +which often saps the strength and life of a young girl. Maria had +never had a lover in her life; she had not even good comrades among +young men, as her sister had. No man at that time would have ever +looked twice at her, unless he had fallen in love with her, and had +been disposed to pick her up and carry her along on the hard road +upon which they fared together. Maria was half fed in every sense; +she had not enough nourishing food for her body, nor love for her +heart, nor exercise for her brain. She had no time to read, as she +was forced to sew when out of the shop if she would have anything to +wear. When at last she went up-stairs to bed, before Abby returned, +she sat down by her window, and leaned her little, peaked chin on +the sill and looked out. The stars were unusually bright for a +summer night; the whole sky seemed filled with a constantly +augmenting host of them. The scent of tobacco came to her from +below. To the lonely girl the stars and the scent of the tobacco +served as stimulants; she formed a forcible wish. "I wish," she +muttered to herself, "that I was either an angel or a man." Then +the next minute she chided herself for her wickedness. A great wave +of love for God, and remorse for impatience and melancholy in her +earthly lot, swept over her. She knelt down beside her bed and +prayed. An exultation half-physical, half-spiritual, filled her. +When she rose, her little, thin face was radiant. She seemed to +measure the shortness of the work and woe of the world as between +her thumb and finger. The joy of the divine filled all her longing. +When Abby came home, who shared her chamber, she felt no jealousy. +She only inquired whether she had gone quite home with Ellen. "Yes, +I did," replied Abby. "I don't think it is safe for her to go past +that lonely place below the Smiths'." + +"I'm glad you did," said Maria, with an angelic inflection in her +voice. + +"Robert Lloyd came to see Ellen, and she ran away over here, and +wouldn't see him, because they had all been plaguing her about him," +said Abby. "I wish she wouldn't do so. It would be a splendid thing +for her to marry him, and I know he likes her, and his aunt is going +to send her to college." + +"That won't make any difference to Ellen, and everything will be all +right anyway, if only she loved God," said Maria, still with that +rapt, angelic voice. + +"Shucks!" said Abby. Then she leaned over her sister, caught her by +her little, thin shoulders and shook her tenderly. "There, I didn't +mean to speak so," said she. "You're awful good, Maria. I'm glad +you've got religion if it's so much comfort to you. I don't mean to +make light of it, but I'm afraid you ain't well. I'm goin' to get +you some more of that tonic to-morrow." + + + + +Chapter XXXI + + +When Ellen reached home that night she found no one there except her +father, who was sitting on the door-step in the north yard. Her +mother had gone to see her aunt Eva as soon as the dressmaker had +left. "Who was that with you?" Andrew asked, as she drew near. + +"Abby," replied Ellen. + +"So you went over there?" + +Ellen sat down on a lower step in front of her father. "Yes," said +she. She half laughed up in his face, like a child who knows she has +been naughty, yet knows she will not be blamed since she can count +so surely on the indulgent love of the would-be blamer. + +"Ellen, your mother didn't like it." + +"They had said so many things to me about him that I didn't feel as +if I could see him, father," she said. + +Andrew put a hand on her head. "I know what you mean," he replied, +"but they didn't mean any harm; they're only looking out for your +best good, Ellen. You can't always have us; it ain't in the course +of nature, you know, Ellen." + +There was a tone of inexorable sadness, the sadness of fate itself +in Andrew's voice. He had, as he spoke, the full realization of that +stage of progress which is simply for the next, which passes to make +room for it. He felt his own nothingness. It was the throe of the +present before the future; it was the pang of anticipatory +annihilation. + +"Don't talk that way, father," said Ellen. "Neither you nor mother +are old people." + +"Oh, well, it's all right, don't you worry," said Andrew. + +"How long did he stay?" asked Ellen. She did not look at her father +as she spoke. + +"Oh, he didn't stay at all, after they found out you had gone." + +Ellen sighed. After a second Andrew sighed also. "It's gettin' +late," said he, heavily; "mebbe we'd better go in before your mother +comes, Ellen. Mebbe you'll get cold out here." + +"Oh no, I shall not," said Ellen, "and I want to hear about poor +Aunt Eva. I don't see what she is going to do." + +"It's a dreadful thing makin' a mistake in marriage," said Andrew. + +"Uncle Jim was a good man if he hadn't had such a hard time." + +Andrew looked at her, then he spoke impressively. "Look here, +Ellen," he said, "you are a good scholar, and you are smarter in a +good many ways than father has ever been, but there's one thing you +want to remember; you want to be sure before you blame the Lord or +other men for a man's goin' wrong, if it ain't his own fault at the +bottom of things." + +"There's mother," cried Ellen; "there's mother and Amabel. Where's +Aunt Eva? Oh, father, what do you suppose has happened? Why do you +suppose mother is bringing Amabel home?" + +"I don't know," replied Andrew, in a troubled voice. + +He and Ellen rose and hastened forward to meet Fanny and Amabel. The +child hung at her aunt's hand in a curious, limp, disjointed +fashion; her little face, even in the half light, showed ghastly. +When she saw Ellen she let go of Fanny's hand and ran to her and +threw both her little arms around her in a fierce clutch as of +terror, then she began to sob wildly, "Mamma, mamma, mamma!" + +Fanny leaned her drawn face forward, and whispered to Andrew and +Ellen over Amabel's head, under cover of her sobs, "Hush, don't say +anything. She's gone mad, and, and--she tried to--kill Amabel." + + + + +Chapter XXXII + + +Amabel was a very nervous child, and she was in such terror from her +really terrific experience that she threatened to go into +convulsions. Andrew went over for his mother, whom he had always +regarded as an incontestable authority about children. She, after +one sharp splutter of wrath at the whole situation, went to work +with the resolution of an old soldier. + +"Heat some water, quick," said she to Andrew, "and get me a +wash-tub." + +Then she told Fanny to brew a mess of sage tea, and began stripping +off Amabel's clothes. + +"Let me alone! Mamma, mamma, mamma!" shrieked the child. She fought +and clawed like a little, wild animal, but the old woman, in whose +arms great strength could still arise for emergencies, and in whose +spirit great strength had never died, got the better of her. + +When Amabel's clothing was stripped off, and her little, spare body, +which was brown rather than rosy, although she was a blonde, was +revealed, she was as pitiful to see as a wound. Every nerve and +pulse in that tiny frame, about which there was not an ounce of +superfluous flesh, seemed visible. The terrible sensitiveness of the +child appeared on the surface. She shrank, and wailed in a low, +monotonous tone like a spent animal overtaken by pursuers. But Mrs. +Zelotes put her in the tub of warm water, and held her down, though +Amabel's face, emerging from it, had the expression of a wild thing. + +"There, you keep still!" said she, and her voice was tender enough, +though the decision of it could have moved an army. + +When Amabel had had her hot bath, and had drunk her sage tea by +compulsory gulps, and been tucked into Ellen's bed, her childhood +reasserted itself. Gradually her body and her bodily needs gained +the ascendancy over the unnatural strain of her mind. She fell +asleep, and lay like one dead. Then Ellen crept down-stairs, though +it was almost midnight, where her father and mother and grandmother +were still talking over the matter. Fanny seemed almost as bad as +her sister. It was evident that there was in the undisciplined Loud +family a dangerous strain if too far pressed. She was lying down on +the lounge, with Andrew holding her hand. + +"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Poor Eva!" she kept repeating. + +Then she threw off Andrew's hand, sprang to her feet, and began to +walk the room. + +"She'll be as bad as her sister if she keeps on," said Mrs. Zelotes, +quite audibly, but Fanny paid no attention to that. + +"What is goin' to be done? Oh, my God, what is goin' to be done?" +she wailed. "There she is locked up with two men watchin' her lest +she do herself a harm, and it's got to cost eighteen dollars a week, +unless she's put in with the State poor, and then nobody knows how +she'll be treated. Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva! Albert Riggs told me +there were awful things done with the State poor in the asylums. +He's been an attendant in one. He says we've got to pay eighteen +dollars a week if we want to have her cared for decently, and +where's the money comin' from?" Fanny raised her voice higher still. + +"Where's the money comin' from?" she demanded, with an impious +inflection. It was as if she questioned that which is outside of, +and the source of, life. Everything with this woman, whose whole +existence had been bound and tainted by the need of money, resolved +itself into that fundamental question. All her woes hinged upon it; +even her misery was deteriorated by mammon. + +"Where's the money comin' from?" she demanded again. "There's Jim +gone, and all his mother's got is that little, mortgaged place, and +she feeble, and there ain't a cent anywhere, unless--" She turned +fiercely to Andrew, clutching him hard by the arm. + +"You must take every cent of that money out of the savings-bank," +she cried, "every cent of it. I'm your wife, and I've been a good +wife to you, you can't say I haven't." + +"Yes, of course you have, poor girl! Don't, don't!" said Andrew, +soothingly. He was very pale, and shook from head to foot as he +tried to calm Fanny. + +"Yes, I've been a good, faithful wife," Fanny went on, in her high, +hysterical voice. "Even your mother can't say that I haven't; and +Eva is my own sister, and you ought to help her. Every cent of that +money will have to come out of the savings-bank, and the house here +will have to be mortgaged; it's only my due. I would do as much for +you if it was your sister. Eva ain't goin' to suffer." + +"I guess if you mortgage this house that you had from your father, +to keep a woman whose husband has gone off and left her," said Mrs. +Zelotes, "I guess if you don't go and get him back, and get the law +to tackle him!" + +Then Fanny turned on her. "Don't you say a word," said she. "My +sister ain't goin' to suffer, I don't care where the money comes +from. It's mine as much as Andrew's. I've half supported the family +myself sewin' on wrappers, and I've got a right to have my say. My +sister ain't goin' to suffer! Oh, my God, what's goin' to become of +her? Poor Eva, poor Eva! Eighteen dollars a week; that's as much as +Andrew ever earned. Oh, it was awful, it was awful! There, when I +got in there, she had a--knife, the--carving knife, and she had +Amabel's hair all gathered up in one hand, and her head tipped back, +and poor old mother Tenny was holding her arms, and screamin', and +it was all I could do to get the knife away," and Fanny stripped up +her sleeves, and showed a glancing cut on her arm. + +"She did that before I got it away from her," she said. "Think of +it, my own sister! My own sister, who always thought so much of me, +and would have had her own fingers cut to the bone before she would +have let any one touch me or Ellen! Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva! What is +goin' to become of her, what is goin' to become of her?" + +Mrs. Zelotes went out of the house with a jerk of angry decision, +and presently returned with a bottle half full of whiskey. + +"Here," said she to Ellen, "you pour out a quarter of a tumbler of +this, and fill it up with hot water. I ain't goin' to have the whole +family in an asylum because Jim Tenny has run off with another +woman, if I can help it!" + +The old woman's steady force of will asserted itself over the +hysterical nature of her daughter-in-law. Fanny drank the whiskey +and water and went to bed, half stupefied, and Mrs. Zelotes went +home. + +"You ring the bell in the night if she's taken worse, and I'll come +over," said she to her son. + +When Ellen and her father were left alone they looked at each other, +each with pity for the other. Andrew laid a tender, trembling hand +on the girl's shoulder. "Somehow it will all come out right," he +whispered. "You go to bed and go to sleep, and if Amabel wakes up +and makes any trouble you speak to father." + +"Don't worry about me, father," returned Ellen. "It's you who have +the most to worry over." Then she added--for the canker of need of +money was eating her soul, too--"Father, what is going to be done? +You can't pay all that for poor Aunt Eva. How much money have you +got in the bank?" + +"Not much, not much, Ellen," replied Andrew, with a groan. + +"It wouldn't last very long at eighteen dollars a week?" + +"No, no." + +"It doesn't seem as if you ought to mortgage the house when you and +mother are getting older. Father--" + +"What, Ellen?" + +"Nothing," said Ellen, after a little pause. It had been on her lips +to tell him that she must go to work, then she refrained. There was +something in her father's face which forbade her doing so. + +"Go to bed, Ellen, and get rested," said Andrew. Then he rubbed his +head against hers with his curious, dog-like method of caress, and +kissed her forehead. + +"You go to sleep and get rested yourself, father," said Ellen. + +"I guess I won't undress to-night, but I'll lay on the lounge," said +Andrew. + +"Well, you speak to me if mother wakes up and takes on again. Maybe +I can do something." + +"All right, dear child," said Andrew, lovingly and wearily. He had a +look as if some mighty wind had passed over him and he were beaten +down under it, except for that one single uprearing of love which no +tempest could fairly down. + +Ellen went up-stairs, and lay down beside poor little Amabel without +undressing herself. The child stirred, but not to awake, when she +settled down beside her, and reached over her poor little claw of a +hand to the girl, who clasped it fervently, and slipped a protecting +arm under the tiny shoulders. Then the little thing nestled close to +Ellen, with a movement of desperate seeking for protection. "There, +there, darling, Ellen will take care of you," whispered Ellen. But +Amabel did not hear. + + + + +Chapter XXXIII + + +The next afternoon poor Eva Tenny was carried away, and Andrew +accompanied the doctor who had her in charge, as being the only +available male relative. As he dressed himself in his Sunday suit, +he was aware--to such pitiful passes had financial straits brought +him--of a certain self-congratulation, that he would not be at home +when the dressmaker asked for money that night, and that no one +would expect him to go to the bank under such circumstances. But +Andrew, in his petty consideration as to personal benefit from such +dire calamity, reckoned without another narrow traveller. Miss +Higgins stopped him as he was going out of the door, looking as if +bound to a funeral in his shabby Sunday black, with his solemn, sad +face under his well-brushed hat. + +"I hate to say anything when you're in such trouble, Mr. Brewster," +said she, "but I do need the money to pay a bill, and I was +wondering if you could leave what was due me yesterday, and what +will be due me to-day." + +But Fanny came with a rush to Andrew's relief. She was in that state +of nervous tension that she was fairly dangerous if irritated. "Look +here, Miss Higgins," said she. "We hesitated a good deal about +havin' you come here to-day, anyway. Ellen wanted to send you word +not to. We are in such awful trouble, that she said it didn't seem +right for her to be thinkin' about new clothes, but I told her she'd +got to have the things if she was going to college, and so we +decided to have you come, but we 'ain't had any time nor any heart +to think of money. We've got plenty to pay you in the bank, but my +husband 'ain't had any time to go there this mornin', what with +seein' the doctor, and gettin' the certificate for my poor sister, +and all I've got to say is: if you're so dreadful afraid as all this +comes to, that you have to lose all sense of decency, and dun folks +so hard, in such trouble as we be, you can put on your things and go +jest as quick as you have a mind to, and I'll get Miss Patch to +finish the work. I've been more than half a mind to have her, +anyway. I was very strongly advised to. Lots of folks have talked to +me against your fittin', but I've always had you, and I thought I'd +give you the chance. Now if you don't want it, you jest pack up and +go, and the quicker the better. You shall have your pay as soon as +Mr. Brewster can get round after he has carried my poor sister to +the asylum. You needn't worry." Fanny said the last with a sarcasm +which seemed to reach out with a lash of bitterness like a whip. The +other woman winced, her eyes were hard, but her voice was appeasing. + +"Now, I didn't think you'd take it so, Mrs. Brewster, or I wouldn't +have said anything," she almost wheedled. "You know I ain't afraid +of not gettin' my pay, I--" + +"You'd better not be," said Fanny. + +"Of course I ain't. I know Mr. Brewster has steady work, and I know +your folks have got money." + +"We've got money enough not to be beholden to anybody," said Fanny. +"Andrew, you'd better be goin' along or you'll be late." + +Andrew went out of the yard with his head bent miserably. He had +felt ashamed of his fear, he felt still more ashamed of his relief. +He wondered, going down the street, if it might not be a happier lot +to lose one's wits like poor Eva, rather than have them to the full +responsibility of steering one's self through such straits of +misery. + +"I hope you won't think I meant any harm," the dressmaker said to +Fanny, quite humbly. + +There was that about the sister of another woman who was being +carried off to an insane asylum which was fairly intimidating. + +Miss Higgins sewed meekly during the remainder of the day, having +all the time a wary eye upon Fanny. She went home before supper, +urging a headache as an excuse. She was in reality afraid of Fanny. + +Andrew was inexpressibly relieved when he reached home to find that +the dressmaker was gone, and Fanny, having sent Amabel to bed, was +chiefly anxious to know how her sister had reached the asylum. It +was not until the latter part of the evening that she brought up the +subject of the bank. "Do look out to-morrow, Andrew Brewster, and be +sure to take that money out of the bank to pay Miss Higgins," she +said. "As for being dunned again by that woman, I won't! It's the +last time I'll ever have her, anyway. As far as that is concerned, +all the money will have to come out of the bank if poor Eva is to be +kept where she is. How much money was there that she had?" + +"Just fifty-two dollars and seventy cents," replied Andrew. "Jim had +left a little that he'd scraped together somehow, with the letter he +wrote to her, and he told her if he had work he'd send her more." + +"I'd die before I'd touch it," said Fanny, fiercely. Then she looked +at Andrew with sudden pity. "Poor old man," she said; "it's mighty +hard on you when you're gettin' older, and you never say a word to +complain. But I don't see any other way than to take that money, do +you?" + +"No," said Andrew. + +"And you don't think I'm hard to ask it, Andrew?" + +"No." + +"God knows if it was your sister and my money, I would take every +dollar. You know I would, Andrew." + +"Yes, I know," replied Andrew, hoarsely. + +"Mebbe she'll get better before it's quite gone," said Fanny. "You +say the doctor gave some hope?" + +"Yes, he did, if she was taken proper care of." + +"Well, she shall be. I'll go out and steal before she sha'n't have +proper care. Poor Eva!" Fanny burst into the hysterical wailing +which had shaken her from head to foot at intervals during the last +twenty-four hours. Andrew shuddered, thinking that he detected in +her cries a resemblance to her sister's ravings. "Don't, don't, +Fanny," he pleaded. "Don't, poor girl." He put his arm around her, +and she wept on his shoulder, but with less abandon. "After all, +we've got each other, and we've got Ellen, haven't we, Andrew?" she +sobbed. + +"Yes, thank God," said Andrew. "Don't, Fanny." + +"That--that's more than money, more than all the wages for all the +labor in the world, and that we've got, haven't we, Andrew? We've +got what comes to us direct from God, haven't we? Don't think I'm +silly, Andrew--haven't we?" + +"Yes, yes, we have--you are right, Fanny," replied Andrew. + +"I guess I am, too," she assented, looking up in Andrew's poor, worn +face with eyes of sudden bravery. "We'll get along somehow--don't +you worry, old man. I guess we'll come out all right, somehow. We'll +use that money in the bank as far as it goes, and then I guess some +way will be opened." + +Then there came over Andrew's exaltation, to which Fanny's words had +spurred his flagging spirit, a damper of utter mortification and +guilt. He felt that he could bear this no longer. He opened his +mouth to tell her what he had done with the money in the bank, when +there came a knock on the door, and Fanny fled into the bedroom. She +had unfastened her dress, and her face was stained with tears. She +shut the bedroom door tightly as Andrew opened the outer one. + +The man who had loaned him the money to buy Ellen's watch stood +there. His name was William Evarts, and he worked in the +stitching-room of McGuire's factory, in which Andrew was employed. +He was reported well-to-do, and to have amassed considerable money +from judicious expenditures of his savings, and to be strictly +honest, but hard in his dealings. He was regarded with a covert +disfavor by his fellow-workmen, as if he were one of themselves who +had somehow elevated himself to a superior height by virtue of their +backs. If William Evarts had acquired prosperity through gambling in +mines, they would have had none of that feeling; they would have +recognized the legitimacy of luck in the conduct of affairs. He was +in a way a reproach to them. "Why can't you get along and save as +well as William Evarts?" many a man's monitor asked of him. "He +doesn't earn any more than you do, and has had as many expenses in +his family." The man not being able to answer the question to his +own credit, disliked William Evarts who had instigated it. + +Andrew, who had in his character a vein of sterling justice, yet +felt that he almost hated William Evarts as he stood there before +him, small and spare, snapping as it were with energy like electric +wires, the strong lines in his clean-shaven face evident in the +glare of the street-lamp. + +"Good-evening," Andrew said, and he spoke like a criminal before a +judge, and at that moment he felt like one. + +"Good-evening," responded the other man. Then he added, in a hushed +voice at first, for he had fineness to appreciate a sort of +indecency in dunning, in asking a man for even his rightful due, and +he had a regard for possible listening ears of femininity, "I was +passing by, and I thought I'd call and see if it was convenient for +you to pay me that money." + +"I'm sorry," Andrew responded, with utter subjection. He looked and +felt ignoble. "I haven't got it, Evarts." + +"When are you going to have it?" asked the other, in a slightly +raised, ominous voice. + +"Just as soon as I can possibly get it," replied Andrew, softly and +piteously. Ellen's chamber was directly overhead. He thought of the +possibility of her overhearing. + +"Look at here, Andrew Brewster," said the other man, and this time +with brutal, pitiless force. When it came to the prospect of losing +money he became as merciless as a machine. Something diabolical in +remorselessness seemed to come to the surface, and reveal wheels of +grinding for his fellow-men. "Look at here," he said, "I want to +know right out, and no dodging. Have you got the money to pay +me--yes or no?" + +"No," said Andrew then, with a manliness born of desperation. +He had the feeling of one who will die fighting. He wished that +Evarts would speak lower on account of Ellen, but he was prepared +to face even that. The man's speech came with the gliddering +rush of an electric car; it was a concentration of words into +one intensity of meaning; he elided everything possible, he +ran all his words together. He spoke something in this wise: +"GoddamnyouAndrewBrewster, for comin'to borrow money to buy +your girl a watch when you had nothin' to pay for't with, +whatbusinesshadyourgirlwithawatchanyhow,I'dliket'know? My +girl'ain'tgotno watch. I'veputmymoneyinthebank. It'srobbery. +I'llhavethelawonye. I'llsueyou. I'll--" + +At that moment something happened. The man, William Evarts, who was +talking with a vociferousness which seemed cutting and lacerating to +the ear, who was brandishing an arm for emphasis in a circle of +frenzy, fairly jumped to one side. The girl, Ellen Brewster, in a +light wrapper, which she had thrown over her night-gown, came with +such a speed down the stairs which led to the entry directly before +the door, that she seemed to be flying. White ruffles eddied around +her little feet, her golden hair was floating out like a flag. She +came close to William Evarts. "Will you please not speak so loud," +said she, in a voice which her father had never heard from her lips +before. It was a voice of pure command, and of command which carried +with it the consciousness of power to enforce. She stood before +William Evarts, and her fine smallness seemed intensified by her +spirit to magnificence. The man shrank back a little, he had the +impression as of some one overtowering him, and yet the girl came +scarcely to his shoulder. "Please do not speak so loud, you will +wake Amabel," she said, and Evarts muttered, like a dog under a +whip, that he didn't want to wake her up. + +"You must not," said Ellen. "Now here is the watch and chain. I +suppose that will do as well as your money if you cannot afford to +wait for my father to pay you. My father will pay you in time. He +has never borrowed anything of any man which he has not meant to pay +back, and will not pay back. If you cannot afford to wait, take the +watch and chain." + +The man looked at her stupefied. + +"Here," said Ellen; "take it." + +"I don't want your watch an' chain," muttered Evarts. + +"You have either got to take them or wait for your money," said +Ellen. + +"I'll wait," said Evarts. He was looking at the girl's face with +mingled sentiments of pity, admiration, and terror. + +"Very well, then," said Ellen. "I will promise you, and my father +will, that you shall have your money in time, but how long do you +want to wait?" + +"I'll wait any time. I ain't in any straits for the money, if I get +it in the end," said Evarts. + +"You will get it in the end," said Ellen. Evarts turned to Andrew. + +"Look here, give me your note for six months," said he, "and we'll +call it all right." + +"All right," said Andrew, again. + +"If you are not satisfied with that," said Ellen, with a tone as if +she were conferring inestimable benefits, so proud it was, "you can +take the watch and chain. It is not hurt in the least. Here." She +was fairly insolent. Evarts regarded her with a mixture of +admiration and terror. He told somebody the next day that Andrew +Brewster had a stepper of a daughter, but he did not give his +reasons for the statement. He had a sense of honor, and he had been +in love with a girl as young before he married his wife, who had +been a widow older than he, worth ten thousand dollars from her +first husband. He could no more have taken the girl's watch and +chain than he would have killed her. + +"I'm quite satisfied," he replied to her, making a repellant +motion towards the watch and dangling chain glittering in the +electric-light. + +"Very well, then," said Ellen, and she threw the chain over her +neck. + +"You just bring that I O U to the shop to-mor-mor," said Evarts to +Andrew; then, with a "Good-evening," he was off. They heard him hail +an electric-car passing, and that, although he never took a car, but +walked to save the fare. He had been often heard to say that he for +one did not support the street railroad. + +After he had gone, Ellen turned to her father, and flung a silent +white arm slipping from her sleeve loose around his neck, and pulled +his head to her shoulder. "Now look here, father," she said, "you've +been through lots to-day, and you'd better go to bed and go to +sleep. I don't think mother was waked up--if she had been, she would +have been out here." + +"Look here, Ellen, I want to tell you," Andrew began, pitifully. He +was catching his breath like a child with sobs. + +"I don't want to hear anything," replied Ellen, firmly. "Whatever +you did was right, father." + +"I ought to tell you, Ellen!" + +"You ought to tell me nothing," said Ellen. "You are all tired out, +father. You can't do anything that isn't right for me. Now go to bed +and go to sleep." + +Ellen stroked her father's thin gray hair with exactly the same +tender touch with which he had so often stroked her golden locks. It +was an inheritance of love reverting to its original source. She +kissed him on his lined forehead with her flower-like lips, then she +pushed him gently away. "Go softly, and don't wake mother," +whispered she; "and, father, there's no need to trouble her with +this. Good-night." + + + + +Chapter XXXIV + + +Ellen's deepest emotion was pity for her father, so intense that it +was actual physical pain. + +"Poor father! Poor father! He had to borrow the money to buy me my +watch and chain," she kept repeating to herself. "Poor father!" + +To her New England mind, borrowing seemed almost like robbing. She +actually felt as if her father had committed a crime for love of +her, but all she looked at was the love, not the guilt. Suddenly a +conviction which fairly benumbed her came over her--the money in the +savings-bank; that little hoard, which had been to the imagination +of herself and her mother a sheet-anchor against poverty, must be +gone. "Father must have used if for something unbeknown to mother," +she said to herself--"he must, else he would not have told Mr. +Evarts that he could not pay him." It was a hot night, but the girl +shivered as she realized for the first time the meaning of the wolf +at the door. "All we've got left is this house--this house +and--and--our hands," thought Ellen. She saw before her her father's +poor, worn hands, her mother's thin, tired hands, jerking the thread +in and out of those shameful wrappers; then she looked at her own, +as yet untouched by toil, as white and small and fair as flowers. +She thought of the four years before her at college, four years +before she could earn anything--and in the mean time? She looked at +the pile of her school-books on the table. She had been studying +hard all summer. The thirst for knowledge was as intense in her as +the thirst for stimulants in a drunkard. + +"I ought to give up going to college, and go to work in the shop," +Ellen said to herself, and she said it as one might drive a +probing-knife into a sore. "I ought to," she repeated. And yet she +was far from resolving to give up college. She began to argue with +herself the expediancy, supposing that the money in the bank was +gone, of putting a mortgage on the house. If her father continued to +have work, they might get along and pay for her aunt, who might, as +the doctor had said, not be obliged to remain long in the asylum if +properly cared for. Would it not, after all, be better, since by a +course at college she would be fitted to command a larger salary +than she could in any other way. "I can support them all," reflected +Ellen. At that time the thought of Robert Lloyd, and that awakening +of heart which he had brought to pass, were in abeyance. Old powers +had asserted themselves. This love for her own blood and their need +came between her and this new love, half of the senses, half of the +spirit. + +Amabel waked up in the early sultry dawn of the summer day with the +bewilderment of one in a new world. She stared at the walls of the +room, at the shaft of sunlight streaming in the window, then at +Ellen. + +"Where am I?" she inquired, in a loud, querulous plaint. Then she +remembered, but she did not cry; instead, her little face took on a +painfully old look. + +"You are here with cousin Ellen, darling, don't you know?" Ellen +replied, leaning over her, and kissing her. + +Amabel wriggled impatiently away, and faced to the wall. "Yes, I +know," said she. + +That morning Amabel would not eat any breakfast, and Fanny suggested +that Ellen take her for a ride on the street-cars. "We can get along +without you for an hour," she whispered, "and I am afraid that child +will be sick." + +So Ellen and Amabel set out, leaving Fanny and the dressmaker at +work, and when they were returning past the factories the noon +whistles were blowing and the operatives were streaming forth. + +Ellen was surprised to see her father among them as the car swept +past. He walked down the street towards home, his dinner-bag +dangling at his side, his back more bent than ever. + +She wondered uneasily if her father was ill, for he never went home +to dinner. She looked back at him as the car swept past, but he did +not seem to see her. He walked with an air of seeing nothing, +covering the ground like an old dog with some patient, dumb end in +view, heeding nothing by the way. It puzzled her also that her +father had come out of Lloyd's instead of McGuire's, where he had +been employed all summer. Ellen, after she reached home, watched +anxiously for her father to come into the yard, but she did not see +him. She assisted about the dinner, which was a little extra on +account of the dressmaker, and all the time she glanced with covert +anxiety at the window, but her father did not pass it. Finally, when +she went out to the pump for a pitcher of water, she set the pitcher +down, and sped to the orchard like a wild thing. A suspicion had +seized her that her father was there. + +Sure enough, there he was, but instead of lying face down on the +grass, as he had done before, he was sitting back against a tree. He +had the air of having settled into such a long lease of despair that +he had sought the most comfortable position for it. His face was +ghastly. He looked at Ellen as she drew near, and opened his mouth +as if to speak, but instead he only caught his breath. He stared +hard at her, then he closed his eyes as if not to see her, and +motioned her away with one hand with an inarticulate noise in his +throat. + +But Ellen sat down beside him. She caught his two hands and looked +at him. "Father, look at me," said she, and Andrew opened his eyes. +The expression in them was dreadful, compounded of shame and despair +and dread, but the girl's met them with a sort of glad triumph and +strength of love. "Now look here, father," she said, "you tell me +all about it. I didn't want to know last night. Now I want to know. +What is the matter?" + +Andrew continued to look at her, then all at once he spoke with a +kind of hoarse shout. "I'm discharged! I'm discharged," he said, +"from McGuire's; they've got a boy who can move faster in my +place--a boy for less pay, who can move faster. I hurried over to +Lloyd's to see if they would take me on again; I've always thought I +should get back into Lloyd's, and I saw the foreman, and he told me +to my face that I was too old, that they wanted younger men. And I +went into the office to see Lloyd, pushed past the foreman, with him +damning me, and I saw Lloyd." + +"Was young Mr. Lloyd there?" asked Ellen, with white lips. + +"No; I guess he had gone to dinner. And Lloyd looked at me, and I +believe he counted every gray hair in my head, and he saw my back, +and he saw my hands, and he said--he said I was too old." + +Andrew snatched his hands from Ellen's grasp, pressed them to his +face, and broke into weeping. "Oh, my God, I'm too old, I'm too +old!" he sobbed; "I'm out of it! I'm too old!" + +Ellen regarded him, and her face had developed lines of strength +hitherto unrevealed. There was no pity in it, hardly love; she +looked angry and powerful. "Father, stop doing so, and look at me," +she said. She dragged her father's hands from his face, and he +stared at her with his inflamed eyes, half terrified, half +sustained. At that moment he realized a strength of support as from +his own lost youth, a strength as of eternal progress which was more +to be relied upon than other human strength. For the first time he +leaned on his child, and realized with wonder the surety of the +stay. + +"Now, father, you stop doing so," said Ellen. "You can get work +somewhere; you are not old. Call yourself old! It is nonsense. Are +you going to give in and be old because two men tell you that you +are? What if your hair is gray! Ever so many young men have gray +hair. You are not old, and you can get work somewhere. McGuire's and +Lloyd's are not the only factories in the country." + +"That ain't all," said Andrew, with eyes like a beseeching dog's on +her face. + +"I know that isn't all," said Ellen. "You needn't be afraid to tell +me, father. You have taken the money out of the savings-bank for +something." + +Again Andrew would have snatched his hands from the girl's and +hidden his face, but she held them fast. "Yes, I have," he admitted, +in a croaking voice. + +"Well, what if you have?" asked Ellen. "You had a right to take it +out, didn't you? You put it in. I don't know of anybody who had a +better right to take it out than you, if you wanted to." + +Andrew stared at her, as if he did not hear rightly. "You don't know +what I did with it, Ellen," he stammered. + +"It is nobody's business," replied Ellen. She had an unexplained +sensation as if she were holding fast to her father's slipping +self-respect which was dragging hard at her restraining love. + +"I put it in a worthless gold-mine out in Colorado--the same one +your uncle Jim lost his money in," groaned Andrew. + +"Well, it was your money, and you had a perfect right to," said +Ellen. "Of course you thought the mine was all right or you wouldn't +have put the money into it." + +"God knows I did." + +"Well, the best business men in the world make mistakes. It is +nobody's business whether you took the money out or not, or what you +used it for, father." + +"I don't see how the bills are going to be paid, and there's your +poor aunt," said Andrew. He was leaning more and more heavily upon +this new tower of strength, this tender little girl whom he had +hitherto shielded and supported. The beautiful law of reverse of +nature had come into force. + +Ellen set her mouth firmly. "Don't you worry, father," said she. "We +will think of some way out of it. There's a little money to pay for +Aunt Eva, and maybe she won't be sick long. Does mother know, +father?" + +"She don't know about anything, Ellen," replied Andrew, wretchedly. + +"I know she doesn't know about your getting thrown out of work--but +about the bank?" + +"No, Ellen." + +Ellen rose. "You stay here, where it is cool, till I ring the +dinner-bell, father," she said. + +"I don't want any dinner, child." + +"Yes, you do, father. If you don't eat your dinner you will be sick. +You come when the bell rings." + +Andrew knew that he should obey, as he saw the girl's light dress +disappear among the trees. + +Ellen went back to the pump, and carried her pitcher of water into +the house. Her mother met her at the door. "Where have you been all +this time, Ellen Brewster?" she asked, in a high voice. "Everything +is getting as cold as a stone." + +Ellen caught her mother's arm and drew her into the kitchen, and +closed the door. Fanny turned pale as death and looked at her. +"Well, what has happened now?" she said. "Is your father killed?" + +"No," said Ellen, "but he is out of work, and he can't get a job at +Lloyd's, and he took all that money out of the savings-bank a long +time ago, and put it into that gold-mine that Uncle Jim lost in." + +Fanny clutched the girl's arm in a grasp so hard that it left a blue +mark on the tender flesh. She looked at her, but did not speak one +word. + +"Now, mother," said Ellen, "you must not say one word to father to +scold him. He's got enough to bear as it is." + +Fanny pushed her away with sudden fierceness. "I guess I don't need +to have my own daughter teach me my duty to my husband," said she. +"Where is he?" + +"Down in the orchard." + +"Well, ring the bell for dinner loud, so he can hear it." + +When Andrew came shuffling wearily up from the orchard, Fanny met +him at the corner of the house, out of sight from the windows. She +was flushed and perspiring, clad in a coarse cotton wrapper, +revealing all her unkempt curves. She went close to him, and thrust +one large arm through his. "Look here, Andrew," said she, in the +tenderest voice he had ever heard from her, a voice so tender that +it was furious, "you needn't say one word. What's done's done. We +shall get along somehow. I ain't afraid. Come in and eat your +dinner!" + +The dressmaking work went on as usual after dinner. Andrew had +disappeared, going down the road towards the shop. He tried for a +job at Briggs's, with no success, then drifted to the corner +grocery. + +Ellen sat until nearly three o'clock sewing. Then she went up-stairs +and got her hat, and went secretly out of the back door, through the +west yard, that her mother should not see her. However, her +grandmother called after her, and wanted to know where she was +going. + +"Down street, on an errand," answered Ellen. + +"Well, keep on the shady side," called her grandmother, thinking the +girl was bound to the stores for some dressmaking supplies. + +That night Miss Higgins did not ask for her pay; she had made up her +mind to wait until her week was finished. She went away after +supper, and Ellen followed her to the door. "We won't want you +to-morrow, Miss Higgins," said she, "and here is your pay." With +that she handed a roll of bills to the woman, who stared at her in +amazement and growing resentment. + +"If my work ain't satisfactory," said she-- + +"Your work is satisfactory," said Ellen, "but I don't want any more +work done. I am not going to college." + +There was something conclusive and intimidating about Ellen's look +and tone. The dressmaker, who had been accustomed to regard her as a +child, stared at her with awe, as before a sudden revelation of +force. Then she took her money, and went down the walk. + +When Ellen re-entered the sitting-room her father and mother, who +had overheard every word, confronted her. + +"Ellen Brewster, what does this mean?" + +Andrew looked as if he would presently fall to the floor. + +"It means," said Ellen--and she looked at her parents with the brave +enthusiasm of a soldier on her beautiful face--she even laughed--"it +means that I am going to work--I have got a job in Lloyd's." + +When Ellen made that announcement, her mother did a strange thing. +She ran swiftly to a corner of the room, and stood there, staring at +the girl, with back hugged close to the intersection of the walls, +as if she would withdraw as far as possible from some threatening +ill. At that moment she looked alarmingly like her sister; there was +something about Fanny in her corner, calculated, when all +circumstances were taken into consideration, to make one's blood +chill, but Andrew did not look at her. He was intent upon Ellen, and +the facing of the worst agony of his life, and Ellen was intent upon +him. She loved her mother, but the fear as to her father's suffering +moved her more than her mother's. She was more like her father, and +could better estimate his pain under stress. Andrew rose to his feet +and stood looking at Ellen, and she at him. She tried to meet the +drawn misery and incredulousness of his face with a laugh of +reassurance. + +"Yes, I've got a job in Lloyd's," said she. "What's the matter, +father?" + +Then Andrew made an almost inarticulate response; it sounded like a +croak in an unknown tongue. + +Ellen continued to look at him, and to laugh. + +"Now look here, father," said she. "There is no need for you and +mother to feel bad over this. I have thought it all over, and I have +made up my mind. I have got a good high-school education now, and +the four years I should have to spend at Vassar I could do nothing +at all. There is awful need of money here, and not only for us, but +for Aunt Eva and Amabel." + +"You sha'n't do it!" Andrew burst out then, in a great shout of +rage. "I'll mortgage the house--that'll last awhile. You sha'n't, I +say! You are my child, and you've got to listen. You sha'n't, I +say!" + +"Now, father," responded Ellen's voice, which seemed to have in it a +wonderful tone of firmness against which his agonized vociferousness +broke as against a rock, "this is nonsense. You must not mortgage +the house. The house is all you have got for your and mother's old +age. Do you think I could go to college, and let you give up the +house in order to keep me there? And as for grandma Brewster, you +know what's hers is hers as long as she lives--we don't want to +think of that. I have got this job now, which is only three dollars +a week, but in a year the foreman said I might earn fifteen or +eighteen, if I was quick and smart, and I will be quick and smart. +It is the best thing for us all, father." + +"You sha'n't!" shouted Andrew. "I say you sha'n't!" + +Suddenly Andrew sank into a chair, his head lopped, he kept moving a +hand before his eyes, as if he were brushing away cobwebs. Then +Fanny came out of her corner. + +"Get the camphor, quick!" she said to Ellen. "I dun'no' but you've +killed your father." + +Fanny held her husband's head against her shoulder, and rubbed his +hands frantically. The awful strained look had gone from her face. +Ellen came with the camphor, and then went for water. Fanny rubbed +Andrew's forehead with the camphor, and held the bottle to his nose. +"Smell it, Andrew," she said, in a voice of ineffable tenderness and +pity. Ellen returned with a glass of water, and Andrew swallowed a +little obediently. Finally he made out to stagger into the bedroom +with Fanny's and Ellen's assistance. He sat down weakly on the bed, +and Fanny lifted his legs up. Then he sank and closed his eyes as if +he were spent. In fact, he was. At that moment of Ellen's +announcement some vital energy in him suddenly relaxed like +overstrained rubber. His face, sunken in the pillow, was both +ghastly and meek. It was the face of a man who could fight no more. +Ellen knelt down beside him, sobbing. + +"Oh, father!" she sobbed, "I think it is for the best. Dear father, +you won't feel bad." + +"No," said Andrew, faintly. There was a slight twitching in his +hand, as if he wished to put it on her head, then it lay thin and +inert on the coverlid. He tried to smile, but his face settled into +that look of utter acquiescence of fate. + +"I s'pose it's the best you can do," he muttered. + +"Have you told Miss Lennox?" gasped Fanny. + +"Yes." + +"What did she say?" + +"She was sorry, but she made no objection," replied Ellen, +evasively. + +Fanny came forward abruptly, caught up the camphor-bottle, and began +bathing Andrew's forehead again. + +"We won't say any more about it," said she, in a harsh voice. "You'd +better go over to your grandma Brewster's and see if she has got any +whiskey. I think your father needs to take something." + +"I don't want anything," said Andrew, feebly. + +"Yes, you do, too, you are as white as a sheet. Go over and ask her, +Ellen." + +Ellen ran across the yard to her grandmother's, and the old woman +met her at the door. She seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of +trouble. + +"What's the matter?" she asked. + +"Father's a little faint, and mother wants me to borrow the +whiskey," said Ellen. She had not at that time the courage to tell +her grandmother what she had done. + +Mrs. Zelotes ran into the house, and came out with the bottle. + +"I'm comin' over," she announced. "I'm kind of worried about your +father; he 'ain't looked well for some time. I wonder what made him +faint. Maybe he ate something which hurt him." + +Ellen said nothing. She fled up-stairs to her chamber, as her +grandmother entered the bedroom. She felt cowardly, but she thought +that she would let her mother tell the news. + +She sat down and waited. She knew that presently she would hear the +old woman's voice at the foot of the stairs. She was resolved upon +her course, and knew that she could not be shaken in it, yet she +dreaded unspeakably the outburst of grief and anger which she knew +would come from her grandmother. She felt as if she had faced two +fires, and now before the third she quailed a little. + +It was not long before the expected summons came. + +"Ellen--Ellen Brewster, come down here!" + +Ellen went down. Her grandmother met her at the foot of the stairs. +She was trembling from head to foot; her mouth twisted and wavered +as if she had the palsy. + +"Look here, Ellen Brewster, this ain't true?" she stammered. + +"Yes, grandma," answered Ellen. "I have thought it all over, and it +is the only thing for me to do." + +Her grandmother clutched her arm, and the girl felt as if she were +in the grasp of another will, which was more conclusive than steel. + +"You sha'n't!" she said, whispering, lest Andrew should hear, but +with intense force. + +"I've got to, grandma. We've got to have the money." + +"The money," said the old woman, with an inflection of voice and a +twist of her features indicative of the most superb scorn--"the +money! I guess you ain't goin' to lose such a chance as that for +money. I guess I've got two hundred and ten dollars a year income, +and I'll give up a half of that, and Andrew can put a mortgage on +the house, if that Tenny woman has got to be supported because her +husband has run off and left her and her young one. You sha'n't go +to work in a shop." + +"I've got to, grandma," said Ellen. + +The old woman looked at her. It was like a duel between two strong +wills of an old race. "You sha'n't," she said. + +"Yes, I shall, grandma." + +Then the old woman turned upon her in a fury of rage. + +"You're a Loud all over, Ellen Brewster," said she. "You 'ain't got +a mite of Brewster about you. You 'ain't got any pride! You'd just +as soon settle down and work in a shop as do anything else." + +Fanny pushed before her. "Look here, Mother Brewster," said she, +"you can just stop! Ellen is my daughter, and you 'ain't any right +to talk to her this way. I won't have it. If anybody is goin' to +blame her, it's me." + +"Who be you?" said Mrs. Zelotes, sniffing. + +Then she looked at them both, at Ellen and at her mother. + +"If you go an' do what you've planned," said she to Ellen, "an' if +you uphold her in it," to Fanny, "I've done with you." + +"Good riddance," said Fanny, coarsely. + +"I ain't goin' to forget that you said that," cried Mrs. Zelotes. +She held up her dress high in front and went out of the door. "I +ain't comin' over here again, an' I'll thank you to stay at home," +said she. Then she went away. + +Soon after Fanny heard Ellen in the dining-room setting the table +for supper, and went out. + +"Where did you get that money you paid the dressmaker with?" she +asked, abruptly. + +"I borrowed it of Abby," replied Ellen. + +"Then she knows?" + +"Yes." + +Fanny continued to look at Ellen with the look of one who is +settling down with resignation under some knife of agony. + +"Well," said she, "there's no need to talk any more about it before +your father. Now I guess you had better toast him some bread for his +supper." + +"Yes, I will," replied Ellen. She looked at her mother pitifully, +and yet with that firmness which had seemed to suddenly develop in +her. "You know it is the best thing for me to do, mother?" she said, +and although she put it in the form of a question, the statement was +commanding in its assertiveness. + +"When are you--goin' to work?" asked Fanny. + +"Next Monday," replied Ellen. + + + + +Chapter XXXV + + +When Ellen had gone to the factory to apply for work neither of the +Lloyds were in the office, only a girl at the desk, whom she knew +slightly. Ellen had hesitated a little as she approached the girl, +who looked around with a friendly smile. + +"I want to see--" Ellen began, then she stopped, for she did not +exactly know for whom she should ask. The girl, who was blond and +trim, clad coquettishly in a blue shirt-waist and a duck skirt, with +a large, cheap rhinestone pin confining the loop of her yellow +braids, looked at her in some bewilderment. She had heard of Ellen's +good-fortune, and knew she was to be sent to Vassar by Cynthia +Lennox. She did not dream that she had come to ask for employment. + +"You want to see Mr. Lloyd?" she asked. + +"Oh no!" replied Ellen. + +"Mr. Robert Lloyd?" The girl, whose name was Nellie Stone, laughed +a little meaningly as she said that. + +Ellen blushed. "No," she said. "I think I want to see the foreman." + +"Which foreman?" + +"I don't know," replied Ellen. "I want to get work if I can. I don't +know which foreman I ought to see." + +"To get work?" repeated the girl, with a subtle change in her +manner. + +"Yes," said Ellen. She could hear her heart beat, but she looked at +the other girl's pretty, common face with the most perfect calmness. + +"Mr. Flynn is the one you want to see, then," said the girl. "You +know Ed Flynn, don't you?" + +"A little," replied Ellen. He had been a big boy when she entered +the high-school, and had left the next spring. + +"Well, he's the one you want," said Nellie Stone. Then she raised +her voice to a shrill peal as a boy passed the office door. + +"Here, you, Jack," said she, "ask Mr. Flynn to come here a minute, +will you?" + +"He don't want to see you," replied the boy, who was small and +spare, laden heavily with a great roll of wrapping paper borne +bayonet fashion over his shoulder. His round, impish face grinned +back at the girl at the desk. + +"Quit your impudence," she returned, half laughing herself. "I don't +want to see him; it is this young lady here; hurry up." + +The boy gave a comprehensive glance at Ellen. "Guess he'll come," he +called back. + +Flynn appeared soon. He was handsome, well shaven and shorn, and he +held himself smartly. He also dressed well in a business suit which +would not have disgraced the Lloyds. His face lit up with +astonishment and pleasure when he saw Ellen. He bowed and greeted +her in a rich voice. He was of Irish descent but American born. Both +his motions and his speech were adorned with flourishes of grace +which betrayed his race. He placed a chair for Ellen with a sweep +which would have been a credit to the stage. All his actions had a +slight exaggeration as of fresco painting, which seemed to fit them +for a stage rather than a room, and for an audience rather than +chance spectators. + +"No, thank you," replied Ellen. Then she went straight to the matter +in hand. "I have called to see if I could get a job here?" she said. +She had been formulating her speech all the way thither. Her first +impulse was to ask for employment, but she was sure as to the manner +in which a girl would ordinarily couch such a request. So she asked +for a job. + +Flynn stared at her. "A job?" he repeated. + +"Yes, I want very much to get one," replied Ellen. "I thought there +might be a vacancy." + +"Why, I thought--" said the young man. He was very much astonished, +but his natural polish could rise above astonishment. Instead of +blurting out what was in his mind as to her change of prospects, he +reasoned with incredible swiftness that the change must be a hard +thing to this girl, and that she was to be handled the more tenderly +and delicately because she was such a pretty girl. He became twice +as polite as before. He moved the chair nearer to her. + +"Please sit down," he said. He handed to her the wooden arm-chair as +if it had been a throne. Nellie Stone bent frowning over her +day-book. + +"Now let me see," said the young man, seriously, with perfect +deference of manner, only belied by the rollicking admiration in his +eyes. "You have never held a position in a factory before, I think?" + +"No," replied Ellen. + +"There is at present only one vacancy that I can think of," said +Flynn, "and that does not pay very much, but there is always a +chance to rise for a smart hand. I am sure you will be that," he +added, smiling at her. + +Ellen did not return the smile. "I shall be contented to begin for a +little, if there is a chance to rise," she said. + +"There's a chance to rise to eighteen dollars a week," said Flynn. +He smiled again, but it was like smiling at seriousness itself. +Ellen's downright, searching eyes upon his face seemed almost to +forbid the fact of her own girlish identity. + +"What is the job you have for me?" said she. + +"Tying strings in shoes," answered Flynn. "Easy enough, only child's +play, but you won't earn more than three dollars a week to begin +with." + +"I shall be quite satisfied with that," said Ellen. "When shall I +come?" + +"Why, to-morrow morning; no, to-morrow is Friday. Better come next +Monday and begin the week. That will give you one day more off, and +the hot wave a chance to get past." Flynn spoke facetiously. It was +a very hot day, and the air in the office like a furnace. He wiped +his forehead, to which the dark rings of hair clung. The girl at the +desk glanced around adoringly at him. + +"I would rather not stop for that if you want me to begin at once," +said Ellen. + +Flynn looked abashed. "Oh, we'd rather have you begin on the even +week--it makes less bother over the account," he said. "Monday +morning at seven sharp, then." + +"Yes," said Ellen. + +Flynn walked off with an abrupt duck of his head. He somehow felt +that he had been rebuffed, and Ellen rose. + +"I told you you'd get one," said the girl at the desk. "Catch Ed +Flynn not giving a pretty girl a job." She said it with an accent +of pain as well as malice. Ellen looked at her with large, indignant +eyes. She had not the least idea what she meant, at least she +realized only the surface meaning, and that angered her. + +"I suppose he gave me the job because there was a vacancy," she +returned, with dignity. + +The other girl laughed. "Mebbe," said she. + +Ellen continued to look at her, and there was something in her look +not only indignant, but appealing. Nellie Stone's expression changed +again. She laughed uneasily. "Land, I didn't mean anything," said +she. "I'm glad for you that you got the job. Of course you wouldn't +have got it if there hadn't been a chance. One of the girls got +married last week, Maud Millet. I guess it's her place you've got. +I'm real glad you've got it." + +"Thank you," said Ellen. + +"Good-bye," said the girl. + +"Good-bye," replied Ellen. + +On Monday morning the heat had broken, and an east wind with the +breath of the sea in it was blowing. Ellen started for her work at +half-past six. She held her father's little, worn leather-bag, in +which he had carried his dinner for so many years. The walk was so +long that it would scarcely give her time to come home at noon, and +as for taking a car, that was not to be thought of for a moment on +account of the fare. + +Ellen walked along briskly, the east wind blew in her face, she +smelled the salt sea, and somehow it at once soothed and stimulated +her. Without seeing the mighty waste of waters, she seemed to +realize its presence; she gazed at the sky hanging low with a scud +of gray clouds, which did not look unlike the ocean, and the sense +of irresponsibility in the midst of infinity comforted her. + +"I am not Ellen Brewster after all," she thought. "I am not anything +separate enough to be worried about what comes to me. I am only a +part of greatness which cannot fail of reaching its end." She +thought this all vaguely. She had no language for it, for she was +very young; it was formless as music, but as true to her. + +When she reached the cross-street where the Atkinses lived Abby and +Maria came running out. + +"My land, Ellen Brewster," said Abby, half angrily, "if you don't +look real happy! I believe you are glad to go to work in a +shoe-shop!" + +Ellen laughed. Maria said nothing, but she pressed close to her as +she walked along. She was coughing a little in the east wind. There +had been a drop of twenty degrees in the night, and these drops of +temperature in New England mean steps to the tomb. + +"You make me mad," said Abby. Her voice broke a little. She dashed +her hand across her eyes angrily. "Here's Granville Joy," said she; +"you'll be in the same room with him, Ellen." She said it +maliciously. Distress over her friend made her fairly malicious. + +Ellen colored. "You are hard to talk to," said she, in a low voice, +for Granville was coming nearer, gaining on them from behind. + +"She don't mean it," whispered Maria. + +When Granville caught up with them, Ellen pressed so close to Maria +that he was forced to walk with Abby or pass on. She returned his +"Good-morning," then did not look at him again. Presently Willy +Jones appeared, coming so imperceptibly that he seemed almost +impossible. + +"Where did he come from?" whispered Ellen to Maria. + +"Hush," replied Maria; "it's this way 'most every morning. All at +once he comes, and he generally walks with me, because he's afraid +Abby won't want him, but it's Abby." + +This morning, Willy Jones, aroused, perhaps, to self-assertion by +the presence of another man, walked three abreast with Abby and +Granville, but on the other side of Granville. Now and then he +peered around the other man at the girl, with soft, wistful blue +eyes, but Abby never seemed to see him. She talked fast, in a harsh, +rather loud voice. She uttered bitter witticisms which made her +companions laugh. + +"Abby is so bright," whispered Maria to Ellen, "but I wish she +wouldn't talk so. Abby doesn't feel the way I wish she did. She +rebels. She would be happier if she gave up rebelling and believed." + Maria coughed as she spoke. + +"You had better keep your mouth shut in this east wind, Maria," her +sister called out sharply to her. + +"I'm not talking much, Abby," replied Maria. + +Presently Maria looked at Ellen lovingly. "Do you feel very badly +about going to work?" she asked, in a low voice. + +"No, not now. I have made up my mind," replied Ellen. The east wind +was bringing a splendid color to her cheeks. She held up her head as +she marched along, like one leading a charge of battle. Her eyes +gleamed as with blue fire, her yellow hair sprung and curled around +her temples. + +They were now in the midst of a great, hurrying procession bound for +the factories. Some of the men walked silently, with a dogged stoop +of shoulders and shambling hitch of hips; some of the women moved +droopingly, with an indescribable effect of hanging back from the +leading of some imperious hand of fate. Many of them, both men and +women, walked alertly and chattered like a flock of sparrows. Ellen +moved with this rank and file of the army of labor, and all at once +a sense of comradeship seized her. She began to feel humanity as she +had never felt it before. The sense of her own littleness aroused +her to a power of comprehension of the grandeur of the mass of which +she was a part. She began to lose herself and sense humanity. + +When the people reached the factories, two on one side of the road, +one, Lloyd's, on the other, they began streaming up the outside +stairs and disappearing like swarms of bees in hives. Two flights of +stairs, one on each side, led to a platform in front of the entrance +of Lloyd's. + +When Ellen set her foot on one of these stairs the seven-o'clock +steam-whistle blew, and a mighty thrill shot through the vast +building. Ellen caught her breath. Abby came close to her. + +"Don't get scared," said she, with ungracious tenderness; "there's +nothing to be scared at." + +Ellen laughed. "I'm not scared," said she. Then they entered the +factory, humming with machinery, and a sensation which she had not +anticipated was over her. Scared she was not; she was fairly +exultant. All at once she entered a vast room in which eager men +were already at the machines with frantic zeal, as if they were +driving labor herself. When she felt the vibration of the floor +under her feet, when she saw people spring to their stations of +toil, as if springing to guns in a battle, she realized the might +and grandeur of it all. Suddenly it seemed to her that the greatest +thing in the whole world was work and that this was one of the +greatest forms of work--to cover the feet of progress of the +travellers of the earth from the cradle to the grave. She saw that +these great factories, and the strength of this army of the sons and +daughters of toil, made possible the advance of civilization itself, +which cannot go barefoot. She realized all at once and forever the +dignity of labor, this girl of the people, with a brain which +enabled her to overlook the heads of the rank and file of which she +herself formed a part. She never again, whatever her regret might +have been for another life for which she was better fitted, which +her taste preferred, had any sense of ignominy in this. She never +again felt that she was too good for her labor, for labor had +revealed itself to her like a goddess behind a sordid veil. Abby and +Maria looked at her wonderingly. No other girl had ever entered +Lloyd's with such a look on her face. + +"Are you sick?" whispered Abby, catching her arm. + +"No," said Ellen. "No, don't worry me, Abby. I think I shall like +it." + +"I declare you make me mad," said Abby, but she looked at her +adoringly. "Here's Ed Flynn," she added. "He'll look out for you. +Good-bye, I'll see you at noon." Abby went away to her machine. She +was stitching vamps by the piece, and earning a considerable amount. +The Atkinses were not so distressed as they had been, and Abby was +paying off a mortgage. + +When the foreman came towards Ellen she experienced a shock. His +gay, admiring eyes on her face seemed to dispel all her exaltation. +She felt as if her feet touched earth, and yet the young man +was entirely respectful, and even thoughtful. He bade her +"Good-morning," and conducted her to the scene of her labor. One +other girl was already there at work. She gave a sidewise glance at +Ellen, and went on, making her fingers fly. Mr. Flynn showed Ellen +what to do. She had to tie the shoes together with bits of twine, +laced through eyelet holes. Ellen took a piece of twine and tied it +in as Flynn watched her. He laughed pleasantly. + +"You'll do," he said, approvingly. "I've been in here five years, +and you are the first girl I ever saw who tied a square knot at the +first trial. Here's Mamie Brady here, she worked a solid month +before she got the hang of the square knot." + +"You go along," admonished the girl spoken of as "Mamie Brady." Her +words were flippant, even impudent, but her tone was both dejected +and childish. She continued to work without a glance at either of +them. Her fingers flew, tying the knots with swift jerks. + +"Well, you help Miss Brewster, if she needs any help," said Flynn, +as he went away. + +"We don't have any misses in this shop," said the girl to Ellen, +with sarcastic emphasis. + +"I don't care anything about being called miss," replied Ellen, +picking up another piece of string. + +"What's your first name?" + +"Ellen." + +"Oh, land! I know who you be. You read that essay at the high-school +graduation. I was there. Well, I shouldn't think you would want to +be called miss if you feel the way you said you did in that." + +"I don't want to," said Ellen. + +The girl gave a swift, comprehensive glance at her as her fingers +manipulated the knots. + +"You won't earn twenty cents a week at the rate you're workin'," she +said; "look at me." + +"I don't believe you worked any faster than I do when you hadn't +been here any longer," retorted Ellen. + +"I did, too; you can't depend on a thing Ed Flynn says. You're awful +slow. He praises you because you are good-lookin'." + +Ellen turned and faced her. "Look here," said she. + +The other girl looked at her with unspeakable impudence, and yet +under it was that shadow of dejection and that irresponsible +childishness. + +"Well, I am lookin'," said she, "what is it?" + +"You need not speak to me again in that way," said Ellen, "and I +want you to understand it. I will not have it." + +"My, ain't you awful smart," said the other girl, sneeringly, but +she went on with her work without another word. Presently she said +to Ellen, kindly enough: "If you lay the shoes the way I do, so, you +can get them faster. You'll find it pays. Every little saving of +time counts when you are workin' by the piece." + +"Thank you," said Ellen, and did as she was instructed. She began to +work with exceeding swiftness for a beginner. Her fingers were +supple, her nervous energy great. Flynn came and stood beside her, +watching her. + +"If you work at that rate, you'll make it pretty profitable," he +said. + +"Thank you," said Ellen. + +"And a square knot every time," he added, with almost a caressing +inflection. Mamie Brady tied in the twine with compressed lips. +Granville Joy passed them, pushing a rack full of shoes to another +department, and he glanced at them jealously. Still he was not +seriously alarmed as to Flynn, who, although he was good-looking, +was a Catholic. Mrs. Zelotes seemed an effectual barrier to that. + +"Ed Flynn talks that way to everybody," Mamie Brady said to Ellen, +after the foreman had passed on. She said it this time quite +inoffensively. Ellen laughed. + +"If I _do_ tie the knots square, that is the main thing," she said. + +"Then you don't like him?" + +"I never spoke two words to him before the day I applied for work," +Ellen replied, haughtily. She was beginning to feel that perhaps the +worst feature of her going to work in a factory would be this girl. + +"I've known girls who would be willing to go down on their knees and +tie his shoes when they hadn't seen more of him than that," said the +girl. "Ed Flynn is an awful masher." + +Ellen went on with her work. The girl, after a side glance at her, +went on with hers. + +Gradually Ellen's work began to seem mechanical. At first she had +felt as if she were tying all her problems of life in square knots. +She had to use all her brain upon it; after a while her brain had so +informed her fingers that they had learned their lesson well enough +to leave her free to think, if only the girl at her side would let +her alone. The girl had a certain harsh beauty, coarsely curling red +hair, a great mass of it, gathered in an untidy knot, and a +brilliant complexion. Her hands were large and red. Ellen's +contrasted with them looked like a baby's. + +"You 'ain't got hands for workin' in a shoe-shop," said Mamie Brady, +presently, and it was impossible to tell from her tone whether she +envied or admired Ellen's hands, or was proud of the superior +strength of her own. + +"Well, they've got to work in a shoe-shop," said Ellen, with a short +laugh. + +"You won't find it so easy to work with such little mites of hands +when it comes to some things," said the girl. + +It began to be clear that she exulted in her large, coarse hands as +being fitted for her work. + +"Maybe mine will grow larger," said Ellen. + +"No, they won't. They'll grow all bony and knotty, but they won't +grow any bigger." + +"Well, I shall have to get along with them the best way I can," +replied Ellen, rather impatiently. This girl was irritating to a +degree, and yet there was all the time that vague dejection about +her, and withal a certain childishness, which seemed to insist upon +patience. The girl was really older than Ellen, but she was +curiously unformed. Some of the other girls said openly that she was +"lacking." + +"You act stuck up. Are you stuck up?" asked Mamie Brady, suddenly, +after another pause. + +Ellen laughed in spite of herself. "No," said she, "I am not. I know +of no reason that I have for being stuck up." + +"Well, I don't know of any either," said the other girl, "but I +didn't know. You sort of acted as if you felt stuck up." + +"Well, I don't." + +"You talk stuck up. Why don't you talk the way the rest of us do? +Why do you say 'am not,' and 'ar'n't'; why don't you say 'ain't'?" + +The girl mimicked Ellen's voice impishly. + +Ellen colored. "I am going to talk the way I think best, the way I +have been taught is right, and if that makes you think I am stuck +up, I can't help it." + +"My, don't get mad. I didn't mean anything," said the other girl. + +All the time while Ellen was working, and even while the exultation +and enthusiasm of her first charge in the battle of labor was upon +her, she had had, since her feminine instincts were, after all, +strong with her, a sense that Robert Lloyd was under the same great +factory roof, in the same human hive, that he might at any moment +pass through the room. That, however, she did not think very likely. +She fancied the Lloyds seldom went through the departments, which +were in charge of foremen. Mr. Norman Lloyd was at the mountains +with his wife, she knew. They left Robert in charge, and he would +have enough to do in the office. She looked at the grimy men working +around her, and she thought of the elegant young fellow, and the +utter incongruity of her being among them seemed so great as to +preclude the possibility of it. She had said to herself when she +thought of obtaining work in Lloyd's that she need not hesitate +about it on account of Robert. She had heard her father say that the +elder Lloyd almost never came in contact with the men, that +everything was done through the foremen. She reasoned that it would +be the same with the younger Lloyd. But all at once the girl at her +side gave her a violent nudge, which did not interrupt for a second +her own flying fingers. + +"Say," she said, "ain't he handsome?" + +Ellen glanced over her shoulder and saw Robert Lloyd coming down +between the lines of workmen. Then she turned to her work, and her +fingers slipped and bungled, her ears rang. He passed without +speaking. + +Mamie Brady openly stared after him. "He's awful handsome, and an +awful swell, but he's awful stuck up, just like the old boss," said +she. "He never notices any of us, and acts as if he was afraid we'd +poison him. My, what's the matter with you?" + +"Nothing," said Ellen. + +"You look white as a sheet; ain't you well?" + +Ellen turned upon her with sudden fury. She had something of the +blood of the violent Louds and of her hot-tempered grandmother. She +had stood everything from this petty, insistent tormentor. + +"Yes, I am well," she replied, "and I will thank you to let me +alone, and let me do my work, and do your own." + +The other girl stared at her a minute with curiously expressive, +uplifted eyebrows. + +"Whew!" she said, in a half whistle then, and went on with her work, +and did not speak again. + +Ellen was thankful that Robert Lloyd had not spoken to her in the +factory, and yet she was cut to the quick by it. It fulfilled her +anticipations to the letter. "I was right," she said to herself; "he +can never think of me again. He is showing it." Somehow, after he +had passed, her enthusiasm, born of a strong imagination, and her +breadth of nature failed her somewhat. The individual began to press +too closely upon the aggregate. Suddenly Ellen Brewster and her own +heartache and longing came to the front. She had put herself out of +his life as completely as if she had gone to another planet. Still, +feeling this, she realized no degradation of herself as a cause of +it. She realized that from his point of view she had gone into a +valley, but from hers she was rather on an opposite height. She on +the height of labor, of skilled handiwork, which is the +manifestation in action of brain-work, he on the height of pure +brain-work unpressed by physical action. + +At noon, when she was eating her dinner with Abby and Maria, Abby +turned to her and inquired if young Mr. Lloyd had spoken to her when +he came through the room. + +"No, he didn't," replied Ellen. + +Abby said nothing, but she compressed her lips and gave her head a +hard jerk. A girl who ran a machine next to Abby's came up, munching +a large piece of pie, taking clean semicircular bites with her +large, white teeth. + +"Say," she said, "did you see the young boss's new suit? Got up +fine, wasn't he?" + +"I'd like to see him working where I be for an hour," said a young +fellow, strolling up, dipping into his dinner-bag. He was black and +greasy as to face and hands and clothing. "Guess his light pants and +vest would look rather different," said he, and everybody laughed +except the Atkins girls and Ellen. + +"I guess he washed his hands, anyway, before he ate his dinner," +said Abby, sharply, looking at the young man's hands with meaning. + +The young fellow colored, though he laughed. "There ain't a knife in +this shop so sharp as some women's tongues," said he. "I pity the +man that gets you." + +"There won't be any man get me," retorted Abby. "I've seen all I +want to see of men, working with 'em every day." + +"Mebbe they have of you," called back the young fellow, going away. + +"The saucy thing!" said the girl who stitched next to Abby. + +"There isn't any excuse for a man's eating his dinner with hands +like that," said Abby. "It's worse to poison yourself with your own +dirt than with other folks'. It hurts your own self more." + +"He ain't worth minding," said the girl. + +"Do you suppose I do mind him?" returned Abby. Maria looked at her +meaningly. The young man, whose name was Edison Bartlett, had once +tried to court Abby, but neither she nor Maria had ever told of it. + +"His clothes were a pearl gray," said the girl at the +stitching-machine, reverting to the original subject. + +"Good gracious, who cares what color they were?" cried Abby, +impatiently. + +"He looked awful handsome in 'em," said the girl. "He's awful +handsome." + +"You'd better look at handsome fellows in your own set, Sadie Peel," +said Abby, roughly. + +The girl, who was extremely pretty, carried herself well, and +dressed with cheap fastidiousness, colored. + +"I don't see what we have to think about sets for," said she. "I +guess way back the Peels were as good as the Lloyds. We're in a free +country, where one is as good as another, ain't we?" + +"No one is as good as another, except in the sight of the Lord, in +any country on the face of this earth," said Abby. + +"If you are as good in your own sight, I don't see that it makes +much difference about the sight of other human beings," said Ellen. +"I guess that's what makes a republic, anyway." + +Sadie Peel gave a long, bewildered look at her, then she turned to +Abby. + +"Do you know where I can get somebody to do accordion-plaiting for +me?" she asked. + +"No," said Abby. "I never expect to get to the height of +accordion-plaiting." + +"I know where you can," said another girl, coming up. She had light +hair, falling in a harsh, uncurled bristle over her forehead; her +black gown was smeared with paste, and even her face and hands were +sticky with it. + +"There's a great splash of paste on your nose, Hattie Wright," said +Abby. + +The girl took out a crumpled handkerchief and began rubbing her nose +absently while she went on talking about the accordion-plaiting. + +"There's a woman on Joy Street does it," said she. "She lives just +opposite the school-house, and she does it awful cheap, only three +cents a yard." She thrust the handkerchief into her pocket. + +"You haven't got it half off," said Abby. + +"Let it stay there, then," said the girl, indifferently. "If you +work pasting linings in a shoe-shop you've got to get pasted +yourself." + +Ellen looked at the girl with a curious reflection that she spoke +the truth, that she really was pasted herself, that the soil and the +grind of her labor were wearing on her soul. She had seen this girl +out of the shop--in fact, only the day before--and no one would have +known her for the same person. When her light hair was curled, and +she was prettily dressed, she was quite a beauty. In the shop she +was a slattern, and seemed to go down under the wheels of her toil. + +"On Joy Street, you said?" said Sadie Peel. + +"Yes. Right opposite the school-house. Her name is Brackett." + +Then the one-o'clock whistle blew, and everybody, Ellen with the +rest, went back to their stations. Robert Lloyd did not come into +the room again that afternoon. Ellen worked on steadily, and gained +swiftness. Every now and then the foreman came and spoke +encouragingly to her. + +"Look out, Mamie," he said to the girl at her side, "or she'll get +ahead of you." + +"I don't want to get ahead of her," said Ellen, unexpectedly. + +Flynn laughed. "If you don't, you ain't much like the other girls in +this shop," said he, passing on with his urbane, slightly important +swing of shoulders. + +"Did you mean that?" asked Mamie Brady. + +"Yes, I did. It seems to me you work fast enough for any girl. A +girl isn't a machine." + +"You're a queer thing," said Mamie Brady. "If I were you, I would +just as soon get ahead as not, especially if Ed Flynn was goin' to +come and praise me for it." + +Ellen shrugged her shoulders and tied another knot. + +"You're a queer thing," said Mamie Brady, while her fingers flew +like live wires. + + + + +Chapter XXXVI + + +That night, when Ellen went down the street towards home with the +stream of factory operatives, she computed that she must have earned +about fifty cents, perhaps not quite that. She was horribly tired. +Although the work in itself was not laborious, she had been all day +under a severe nervous tension. + +"You look tired to death, Ellen Brewster," Abby said, in a +half-resentful, half-compassionate tone. "You can never stand this +in the world." + +"I am no more tired than any one would be the first day," Ellen +returned, stoutly, "and I'm going to stand it." + +"You act to me as if you liked it," said Abby, with an angry switch +like a cat. + +"I do," Ellen returned, almost as angrily. Then she turned to Abby. +"Look here, Abby Atkins, why can't you treat me half-way decent?" +said she. "You know I've got to do it, and I'm making the best of +it. If anybody else treated me the way you are doing, I don't know +what you would do." + +"I would kill them," said Abby, fiercely; "but it's different with +me. I'm mad to have you go to work in the shop, and act as if you +liked it, because I think so much of you." Abby and Ellen were +walking side by side, and Maria followed with Sadie Peel. + +"Well, I can't help it if you are mad at me," said Ellen. "I've had +everything to contend against, my father and mother, and my +grandmother won't even speak to me, and now if you--" Ellen's voice +broke. + +Abby caught her arm in a hard grip. + +"I ain't," said she; "you can depend on me. You know you can, in +spite of everything. You know why I talk so. If you've set your +heart on doing it, I won't say another word. I'll do all I can to +help you, and I'd like to hear anybody say a word against you for +going to work in the shop, that's all." + +Ellen and Abby almost never kissed each other; Abby was not given to +endearments of that kind. Maria was more profuse with her caresses. +That night when they reached the corner of the cross street where +the Atkinses lived, Maria went close to Ellen and put up her face. + +"Good-night," said she. Then she withdrew her lips suddenly, before +Ellen could touch them. + +"I forgot," said she. "You mustn't kiss me. I forgot my cough. They +say it's catching." + +Ellen caught hold of her little, thin shoulders, held her firmly, +and kissed her full on her lips. + +"Good-night," said she. + +"Good-night, Ellen," called Abby, and her sharp voice rang as sweet +as a bird's. + +When Ellen came in sight of her grandmother's house, she saw a +window-shade go down with a jerk, and knew that Mrs. Zelotes had +been watching for her, and was determined not to let her know it. +Mrs. Pointdexter came out of her grand house as Ellen passed, and +took up her station on the corner to wait for a car. She bowed to +Ellen with an evasive, little, sidewise bow. Her natural amiability +prompted her to shake hands with her, call her "my dear," and +inquire how she had got on during her first day in the factory, but +she was afraid of her friend, whose eye she felt upon her around the +edge of the drawn curtain. + +It was unusually dark that night for early fall, and the rain came +down in a steady drizzle, as it had come all day, and the wind blew +from the ocean on the east. The lamp was lighted in the kitchen when +Ellen turned into her own door-yard, and home had never looked so +pleasant and desirable to her. For the first time in her life she +knew what it was to come home for rest and shelter after a day of +toil, and she seemed to sense the full meaning of home as a refuge +for weary labor. + +When she opened the door, she smelled at once a particular kind of +stew of which she was very fond, and knew that her mother had been +making it for her supper. There was a rush of warm air from the +kitchen which felt grateful after the damp chill outside. + +Ellen went into the kitchen, and her mother stood there over the +stove, stirring the stew. She looked up at the girl with an +expression of intense motherliness which was beyond a smile. + +"Well, so you've got home?" she said. + +"Yes." + +"How did you get along?" + +"All right. It isn't hard work. Not a bit hard, mother." + +"Ain't you tired?" + +"Oh, a little. But no more than anybody would be at first. I don't +look very tired, do I?" Ellen laughed. + +"No, you don't," said Fanny, looking at her cheeks, reddened with +the damp wind. The mother's look was admiring and piteous and brave. +No one knew how the woman had suffered that day, but she had kept +her head and heart above it. The stew for Ellen's supper was a proof +of that. + +"Where's father?" asked Ellen, taking off her hat and cape, and +going to the sink to wash her face and hands. Fanny saw her do that +with a qualm. Ellen had always used a dainty little set in her own +room. Now she was doing exactly as her father had always done on his +return from the shop--washing off the stains of leather at the +kitchen sink. She felt instinctively that Ellen did it purposely, +that she was striving to bring herself into accord with her new life +in all the details. + +Little Amabel came running out of the dining-room, and threw her +arms around Ellen's knees as she was bending over the sink. "I've +set the table!" she cried. + +"Look out or you'll get all splashed," laughed Ellen. + +"And I dusted," said Amabel. + +"She's been as good as a kitten all day, and a sight of help," said +Fanny. + +"She's a good girl," said Ellen. "Cousin Ellen will kiss her as soon +as she gets her face washed." + +She caught hold of a fold of the roller towel, and turned her +beautiful, dripping face to her mother as she did so. + +"That stew does smell so good," said she. "Where did you say father +was?" + +"I thought we'd just have some bread and milk for dinner, and +somethin' hearty to-night, when you came home," said Fanny. "I +thought maybe a stew would taste good." + +"I guess it will," said Ellen, stooping down to kiss Amabel. "Where +did you say father was?" + +"Uncle Andrew has been lyin' down all day most," whispered Amabel. + +"Isn't he well?" Ellen asked her mother, in quick alarm. + +"Oh yes, he's well enough." Fanny moved close to the girl with a +motion of secrecy. "If I were you I wouldn't say one word about the +shop, nor what you did, before father to-night; let him kind of get +used to it. Amabel mustn't talk about it, either." + +"I won't," said Amabel, with a wise air. + +"You know father had set his heart on somethin' pretty different for +you," said Fanny. + +Fanny hushed her voice as Andrew came out of the dining-room, +staggering a little as if the light blinded him. His nervous +strength of the morning had passed and left him exhausted. He moved +and stood with a downward lope of every muscle, expressing +unutterable patience, which had passed beyond rebellion and +questioning. + +He stood before Ellen like some old, spent horse. He was expecting +to hear something about the shop--expecting, as it were, a touch on +a sore, and he waited for it meekly. + +Ellen turned her lovely, glowing face towards him. + +"Father," she said, as if nothing out of the common had happened, +"are you going down-town to-night?" + +Andrew brightened a little. "I can if you want anything, Ellen," he +said. + +"Well, I don't want you to go on purpose, but I do want a book from +the library." + +"I'd just as soon go as not, Ellen," said Andrew. + +"It'll do him good," whispered Fanny, as she passed Ellen, carrying +the dish of stew to the dining-room. + +"Well, then, I'll give you my card after supper," said Ellen. +"Supper is ready now, isn't it, mother? I'm as hungry as a bear." + +Andrew, when he was seated at the table and was ladling out the +stew, had still that air of hopeless and defenceless apology towards +life, but he held his head higher, and his frown of patient gloom +had relaxed. + +Then Ellen said something else. "Maybe I can write a book some +time," said she. + +A sudden flash illumined Andrew's face. It was like the visible +awakening of hope and ambition. + +"I don't see why you can't," he said, eagerly. + +"Maybe she can," said Fanny. "Give her some more of the potatoes, +Andrew." + +"I'll have plenty of time after--evenings," said Ellen. + +"I guess lots of folks write books that sell, and sell well, that +don't have any more talent than you," said Andrew. "Only think how +they praised your valedictory." + +"Well, it can't do any harm to try," said Ellen, "and you could copy +it for me, couldn't you, father? Your writing is so fine, it would +be as good as a typewriter." + +"Of course I can," said Andrew. + +When Andrew went down to the library, passing along the drenched +streets, seeing the lamps through shifting veils of heavy mist, he +was as full of enthusiasm over Ellen's book as he had been over the +gold-mine. The heart of a man is always ready to admit a ray of +sunshine, and it takes only a small one to dispel the shadows when +love dwells therein. + + + + +Chapter XXXVII + + +Ellen actually went to work, with sheets of foolscap and a new +bottle of ink, on a novel, which was not worth the writing; but no +one could estimate the comfort and encouragement it was to Andrew. +Ellen worked an hour or two every evening on the novel, and next day +Andrew copied it in a hand like copperplate--large, with ornate +flourishes. Andrew's handwriting had always been greatly admired, +and, strangely enough, it was not in the least indicative of his +character, being wholly acquired. He had probably some ability for +drawing, but this had been his only outlet. + +At the head of every chapter of Ellen's novel were birds and flowers +done in colored inks, and every chapter had a tail-piece of elegant +quirls and flourishes. Fanny admired it intensely. She was not quite +so sure of Ellen's work as she was of her husband's. She felt +herself a judge of one, but not of the other. + +"If Ellen could only write as well as you copy, it will do," she +often said to Andrew. + +"What she is writing is beautiful," said Andrew, fervently. He was +quite sure in his own mind that such a book had never been written, +and his pride in his decorations was a minor one. + +Ellen, although she was not versed in the ways of books, yet had +enough of a sense of the fitness of things, and of the ridiculous, +to know that the manuscript, with its impossible pen-and-ink birds +and flowers heading and finishing every chapter, was grotesque in +the extreme. She felt divided between a desire to laugh and a desire +to cry whenever she looked at it. About her own work she felt more +than doubtful; still, she was somewhat hopeful, since her taste and +judgment, as well as her style, were alike crude. She told Abby and +Maria what she was doing, under promise of strict secrecy, and after +a while read them a few chapters. + +"It's beautiful," said Maria--"perfectly beautiful. I had a +Sunday-school book this week which I know wasn't half as good." + +Ellen looked at Abby, who was silent. The three girls were up in +Ellen's room. It was midwinter, some months after she had gone to +work in the shop, and she had a fire in her little, air-tight stove. + +"Well, what do you think of it, Abby?" asked Ellen. Ellen's cheeks +were flushed as if with fever. She looked eagerly at the other girl. + +"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" asked Abby, bluntly. + +"Yes, of course I do." + +"Well, then, I don't know a thing about books, and I'd knock anybody +else down that said it, but it seems to me it's trash." + +"Oh, Abby," murmured Maria. + +"Never mind," said Ellen, though she quivered a little, "I want to +know just how it looks to her." + +"It looks to me just like that," said Abby--"like trash. It sounds +as if, when you began to write it, you had mounted upon stilts, and +didn't see things and people the way they really were. It ain't +natural." + +"Do you think I had better give it up, then?" asked Ellen. + +"No, I don't, on account of your father." + +"I believe it would about break father's heart," said Ellen. + +"I don't know but it's worth as much to write a book for your +father, to please him, and keep his spirits up, as it is to write +one for the whole world," said Abby. + +"Only, of course, she can't get any money for it," said Maria. "But +I don't believe Abby is right, and don't you get discouraged, Ellen. +It sounds beautiful to me." + +"Well, I suppose it is worth keeping on with for father's sake," +said Ellen; but she had a discouraged air. She never again wrote +with any hope or heart; she had faith in Abby's opinion, for she +knew that she was always predisposed to admiration in her case. + +Ellen at that time was earning more, for she had advanced, and had +long ago left her station beside Mamie Brady; and now in a month or +two she would have a machine. The girls, many of them, said openly +that her rapid promotion was due to favoritism, and that Ed Flynn +wouldn't do as much for anybody but Ellen Brewster. Flynn hung about +her in the shop a good deal, but he had made no efforts to pay her +decided attention. His religion was the prime factor for his +hesitation. He could not see his way clear towards open addresses +with a view to marriage. Still, he had a sharp eye for other +admirers, and Ellen had not been in the factory two months before +Granville Joy was sent into another room. Robert Lloyd, to whom the +foreman appealed for confirmation of the plan, coincided with +readiness. + +"That fellow ain't strong enough to run that machine he's doing +now," said Flynn. + +"Then put him on another," Robert said, coloring. It was not quite +like setting his rival in the front of the battle; still, he felt +ashamed of himself. Quicker than lightning it had flashed through +his mind that young Joy could thus be sent into a separate room from +Ellen Brewster. + +"I think he had better take one of the heel-shaving machines below," +said Flynn, "and let that big Swede, that's as strong as an ox, and +never jumped at anything in his life, take his place here." + +"All right," said Lloyd, assuming a nonchalant air. "Make the change +if you think it advisable, Flynn." + +While such benevolence towards a possible rival had its suspicious +points, yet there was, after all, some reason for it. Granville Joy, +who was delicately organized as to his nerves, was running a machine +for cutting linings, and this came down with sharp thuds which shook +the factory, and it was fairly torture to him. Every time the knife +fell he cringed as if at a cannon report. He had never grown +accustomed to it. His face had acquired a fixed expression of being +screwed to meet a shock of sound. He was manifestly unfit for his +job, but he received the order to leave with dismay. + +"Hasn't my work been satisfactory?" he asked Flynn. + +"Satisfactory enough," replied the foreman, genially, "but it's too +hard for you, man." + +"I 'ain't complained," said Joy, with a flash of his eyes. He +thought he knew why this solicitude was shown him. + +"I know you 'ain't," said Flynn, "but you 'ain't got the muscle and +nerve for it. That's plain enough to see." + +"I 'ain't complained, and I'd rather stay where I be," said Joy, +angrily. + +"You'll go where you are sent in this factory, or be damned," cried +Flynn, walking off. + +Joy looked after him with an expression which transformed his face. +But the next morning the stolid Swede, who would not have started at +a bomb, was at his place, and he was below, where he could not see +Ellen. + +Robert never spoke to Ellen in the factory, and had never called +upon her since she entered. Now and then he met her on the street +and raised his hat, that was all. Still, he began to wonder more and +more if his aunt had not been mistaken in her view of the girl's +motive for giving up college and going to work. Then, later on, he +learned from Lyman Risley that a small mortgage had been put on the +Brewster house some time before. In fact, Andrew, not knowing to +whom to go, and remembering his kindness when Ellen was a child, had +applied to him for advice concerning it. "He had to do it to keep +his wife's sister in the asylum," he told Robert; "and that poor +girl went to work because she was forced into it, not because she +preferred it, you may be sure of that." + +The two men were walking down the street one wind-swept day in +December, when the pavement showed ridges of dust as from a mighty +broom, and travellers walked bending before it with backward-flying +garments. + +"You may be right," said Robert; "still, as Aunt Cynthia says, so +many girls have that idea of earning money instead of going to +school." + +"I know the pitiful need of money has tainted many poor girls with a +monstrous and morbid overvalue of it," said Risley, "and for that I +cannot see they are to blame; but in this case I am sure it was not +so. That poor child gave up Vassar College and went to work because +she was fairly forced into it by circumstances. The aunt's husband +ran away with another woman, and left her destitute, so that the +support of her and her child came upon the Brewsters; and Brewster +has been out of work a long time now, I know. He told me so. That +mortgage had to be raised, and the girl had to go to work; there was +no other way out of it." + +"Why didn't she tell Aunt Cynthia so?" asked Robert. + +"Because she is Ellen Brewster, the outgrowth of the child who would +not--" Risley checked himself abruptly. + +"I know," said Robert, shortly. + +The other man started. "How long have you known--she did not tell?" + +Robert laughed a little. "Oh no," he replied. "Nobody told. I went +there to call, and saw my own old doll sitting in a little chair in +a corner of the parlor. She did not tell, but she knew that I knew. +That child was a trump." + +"Well, what can you expect of a girl who was a child like that?" +said Risley. "Mind you, in a way I don't like it. This power for +secretiveness and this rigidity of pride in a girl of that age +strike me rather unpleasantly. Of course she was too proud to tell +Cynthia the true reason, and very likely thought they would blame +her father, or Cynthia might feel that she was in a measure hinting +to her to do more." + +"It would have looked like that," said Robert, reflecting. + +"Without any doubt that was what she thought; still, I don't like +this strength in so young a girl. She will make a more harmonious +woman than girl, for she has not yet grown up to her own character. +But depend upon it, that girl never went to work of her own free +choice." + +"You say the father is out of work?" Robert said. + +"Yes, he has not had work for six months. He said, with the most +dejected dignity and appeal that I ever saw in my life, that they +begin to think him too old, that the younger men are preferred." + +"I wonder," Robert began, then he stopped confusedly. It had been on +his tongue to say that he wondered if he could not get some +employment for him at Lloyd's; then he remembered his uncle, and +stopped. Robert had begun to understand the older man's methods, and +also to understand that they were not to be cavilled at or disputed, +even by a nephew for whom he had undoubtedly considerable affection. + +"It is nonsense, of course," said Risley. "The man is not by any +means old or past his usefulness, although I must admit he has that +look. He cannot be any older than your uncle. Speaking of your +uncle, how is Mrs. Lloyd?" + +"I fear Aunt Lizzie is very far from well," replied Robert, "but she +tries to keep it from Uncle Norman." + +"I don't see how she can. She looked ghastly when I met her the +other day." + +"That was when Uncle Norman was in New York," said Robert. "It is +different when he is at home." As he spoke, an expression of +intensest pity came over the young man's face. "I wonder what a +woman who loves her husband will not do to shield him from any +annoyance or suffering," he said. + +"I believe some women are born fixed to a sort of spiritual rack for +the sake of love, and remain there through life," said Risley. "But +I have always liked Mrs. Lloyd. She ought to have good advice. What +is it, has she told you?" + +"Yes," said Robert. + +"It will be quite safe with me." + +Robert whispered one word in his ear. + +"My God!" said Risley, "that? And do you mean to say that she has +had no advice except Dr. Story?" + +"Yes, I took her to New York to a specialist some time ago. Uncle +Norman never knew it." + +"And nothing can be done?" + +"She could have an operation, but the success would be very +doubtful." + +"And that she will not consent to?" + +"She has not yet." + +"How long?" + +"Oh, she may live for years, but she suffers horribly, and she will +suffer more." + +"And you say he does not know?" + +"No." + +"Why, look here, Robert, dare you assume the responsibility? What +will he say when he finds out that you have kept it from him?" + +"I don't care," said Robert. "I will not break an oath exacted by a +woman in such straits as that, and I don't see what good it could do +to tell him." + +"He might persuade her to have the operation." + +"His mere existence is persuasion enough, if she is to be persuaded. +And I hope she may consent before long. She has seemed a little more +comfortable lately, too." + +"I suppose sometimes those hideous things go away as mysteriously as +they come," said Risley. + +"Yes," replied Robert. "Going back to our first subject--" + +Risley laughed. "Here she is coming," he said. + +In fact, at that moment they came abreast the street that led to the +factories, and the six-o'clock whistle was just dying away in a long +reverberation, and the workmen pouring out of the doors and down the +stairs. Ellen had moved quickly, for she had an errand at the +grocery-store before she went home. She was going to get some +oysters for a hot stew for supper, of which her father was very +fond. She had a little oyster-can in her hand when she met the two +gentlemen. She had grown undeniably thinner since summer, but she +was charming. Her short black skirt and her coarse gray jacket +fitted her as well as if they had been tailor-made. There was +nothing tawdry or slatternly about her. She looked every inch a +lady, even with the drawback of an oyster-can, and mittens instead +of gloves. + +Both Risley and Robert raised their hats, and Ellen bowed. She did +not smile, but her face contracted curiously, and her color +obviously paled. Risley looked at Robert after they had passed. + +"I have called on her twice," said Robert, as if answering a +question. His relations with the older man had become very close, +almost like those of father and son, though Risley was hardly old +enough for that relation. + +"And you haven't been since she went to work?" + +"No." + +"But you would have, had she gone to college instead of going to +work in a shoe-factory?" Risley's voice had a tone of the gentlest +conceivable sarcasm. + +Robert colored. "Yes, I suppose so," he said. Then he turned to +Risley with a burst of utter frankness. "Hang it! old fellow," he +said, "you know how I have been brought up; you know how she--you +know all about it. What is a fellow to do?" + +"Do what he pleases. If it would please me to call on that splendid +young thing, I should call if I were the Czar of all the Russias." + +"Well, I will call," said Robert. + + + + +Chapter XXXVIII + + +The very next evening Robert Lloyd went to call on Ellen. As he +started out he was conscious of a strange sensation of shock, as if +his feet had suddenly touched firm ground. All these months since +Ellen had been working in the factory he had been vacillating. He +was undoubtedly in love with her; he did not for a moment cheat +himself as to that. When he caught a glimpse of her fair head among +the other girls, he realized how unspeakably dear she was to him. +Ellen never entered nor left the factory that he did not know it. +Without actually seeing her, he was conscious of her presence +always. He acknowledged to himself that there was no one like her +for him, and never would be. He tried to interest himself in other +young women, but always there was Ellen, like the constant refrain +of a song. All other women meant to him not themselves, but Ellen. +Womanhood itself was Ellen for his manhood. He knew it, and yet that +strain of utterly impassionate judgment and worldly wisdom which was +born in him kept him from making any advances to her. Now, however, +the radicalism of Risley had acted like a spur to his own +inclination. His judgment was in abeyance. He said to himself that +he would give it up; he would go to see the girl--that he would win +her if he could. He said to himself that she had been wronged, that +Risley was right about her, that she was good and noble. + +As the car drew near the Brewsters, his tenderness seemed to +outspeed the electricity. The girl's fair face was plain before his +eyes, as if she were actually there, and it was idealized and haloed +as with the light of gold and precious stones. All at once, since he +had given himself loose rein, he overtook, as it were, the true +meaning of her. "The dear child," he thought, with a rush of +tenderness like pain--"the dear child. There she gave up everything +and went to work, and let us blame her, rather than have her father +blamed. The dear, proud child. She did that rather than seem to beg +for more help." + +When Robert got off the car he was ready to fall at her feet, to +push between her and the roughness of life, between her and the +whole world. + +He went up the little walk between the dry shrubs and rang the bell. +There was no light in the front windows nor in the hall. Presently +he heard footsteps, and saw a glimmer of light advancing towards him +through the length of the hall. There were muslin-curtained +side-lights to the door. Then the door opened, and little Amabel +Tenny stood there holding a small kerosene lamp carefully in both +hands. She held it in such a manner that the light streamed up in +Robert's face and nearly blinded him. He was dimly conscious of a +little face full of a certain chary innocence and pathos regarding +him. + +"Is Miss Ellen Brewster at home?" asked Robert, smiling down at the +little thing. + +"Yes, sir," replied Amabel. + +Then she remained perfectly still, holding the lamp, as if she had +been some little sculptured light-bearer. She did not return his +smile, and she did not ask him in. She simply regarded him with her +sharp, innocent, illuminated face. Robert felt ridiculously +nonplussed. + +"Did you say she was in, my dear?" he asked. + +"Yes, sir," replied Amabel, then relapsed into silence. + +"Can I see her?" asked Robert, desperately. + +"I don't know," replied Amabel. Then she stood still, as before, +holding the lamp. + +Robert began to wonder what he was to do, when he heard a woman's +voice calling from the sitting-room at the end of the hall, the door +of which had been left ajar: + +"Amabel Tenny, what are you doin'? You are coldin' the house all +off! Who is it?" + +"It's a man, Aunt Fanny," called Amabel. + +"Who is the man?" asked the voice. Then, much to Robert's relief, +Fanny herself appeared. + +She colored a flaming red when she saw him. She looked at Amabel as +if she had an impulse to shake her. + +"Why, Mr. Lloyd, is it you?" she cried. + +"Good-evening, Mrs. Brewster; is--is your daughter at home?" asked +Robert. He felt inclined to roar with laughter, and yet a curious +dismay was beginning to take possession of him. + +"Yes, Ellen is at home," replied Fanny, with alacrity. "Walk in, Mr. +Lloyd." She was blushing and smiling as if she had been her own +daughter. It was foolish, yet pathetic. Although Fanny asked the +young man to walk in, and snatched the lamp peremptorily from +Amabel's hand, she still hesitated. Robert began to wonder if he +should ever be admitted. He did not dream of the true reason for the +hesitation. There was no fire in the parlor, and in the sitting-room +were Andrew, John Sargent, and Mrs. Wetherhed. It seemed to her +highly important that Ellen should see her caller by herself, but +how to take him into that cold parlor? + +Finally, however, she made up her mind to do so. She opened the +parlor door. + +"Please walk in this way, Mr. Lloyd," said she, and Robert followed +her in. + +It was a bitter night outside, and the temperature in the unused +room was freezing. The windows behind the cheap curtains were +thickly furred with frost. + +"Please be seated," said Fanny. + +She indicated the large easy-chair, and Robert seated himself +without removing his outer coat, yet the icy cold of the cushions +struck through him. + +Fanny ignited a match to light the best lamp with its painted globe. +Her fingers trembled. She had to use three matches before she was +successful. + +"Can't I assist you?" asked Robert. + +"No, thank you," replied Fanny; "I guess the matches are damp. I've +got it now." Her voice shook. She turned to Robert when the lamp +was lighted, still holding the small one, which she had set for the +moment on the table. The strong double light revealed her face of +abashed delight, although the young man did not understand it. It +was the solicitude of the mother for the child which dignified all +coarseness and folly. + +"I guess you had better keep on your overcoat a little while till I +get the fire built," said she. "This room ain't very warm." + +Robert tried to say something polite about not feeling cold, but the +lie was too obvious. Instead, he remarked that his coat was very +warm, as it was, indeed, being lined with fur. + +"I'll have the fire kindled in a minute," Fanny said. + +"Now don't trouble yourself, Mrs. Brewster," said Robert. "I am +quite warm in this coat, unless," he added, lamely, "I could go out +where you were sitting." + +"There's company out there," said Fanny, with embarrassed +significance. She blushed as she spoke, and Robert blushed also, +without knowing why. + +"It's no trouble at all to start a fire," said Fanny; "this chimney +draws fine. I'll speak to Ellen." + +Robert, left alone in the freezing room, felt his dismay deepen. +Barriers of tragedy are nothing to those of comedy. He began to +wonder if he were not, after all, doing a foolish thing. The hall +door had been left ajar, and he presently became aware of Amabel's +little face and luminous eyes set therein. + +Robert smiled, and to his intense astonishment the child made a +little run to him and snuggled close to his side. He lifted her up +on his knee, and wrapped his fur coat around her. Amabel thrust out +one tiny hand and began to stroke the sable collar. + +"It's fur," said she, with a bright, wise look into Robert's face. + +"Yes, it's fur," said he. "Do you know what kind?" + +She shook her head, with bright eyes still on his. + +"It is sable," said Robert, "and it is the coat of a little animal +that lives very far north, where it is as cold and colder than this +all the time, and the ice and snow never melts." + +Suddenly Amabel slipped off his knee, pushing aside his caressing +arm with a violent motion. Then she stood aloof, eying him with +unmistakable reproof and hostility. Robert laughed. + +"What is the matter?" he said. + +"What does he do without his coat if it is as cold as that where he +lives?" asked Amabel, severely. There was almost an accent of horror +in her childish voice. + +"Why, my dear child," said Robert, "the little animal is dead. He +isn't running around without his coat. He was shot for his fur." + +"To make you a coat?" Amabel's voice was full of judicial severity. + +"Well, in one way," replied Robert, laughing. "It was shot to get +the fur to make somebody a coat, and I bought it. Come back here and +have it wrapped round you; you'll freeze if you don't." + +Amabel came back and sat on his knee, and let him wrap the fur-lined +garment around her. A strange sensation of tenderness and protection +came over the young man as he felt the little, slender body of the +child nestle against his own. He had begun to surmise who she was. +However, Amabel herself told him in a moment. + +"My mamma's sick, and they took her to an asylum. And my papa has +gone away," she said. + +"You poor little soul," said Robert, tenderly. Amabel continued to +look at him with eyes of keenest intelligence, while one little +cheek was flattened against his breast. + +"I live with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Fanny now," said she, "and I +sleep with Ellen." + +"But you like living here, don't you, you dear?" asked Robert. + +"Yes," said Amabel, "and I like to stay with Ellen, but--but--I want +to see my mamma and papa," she wailed, suddenly, in the lowest and +most pitiful wail imaginable. + +"Poor little darling," said Robert, stroking her flaxen hair. Amabel +looked up at him with her little face all distorted with grief. + +"If you had been my papa, would you have gone away and left Amabel?" +she asked, quiveringly. Robert gathered her to him in a strong clasp +of protection. + +"No, you little darling, I never should," he cried, fervently. + +At that moment he wished devoutly that he had the handling of the +man who had deserted this child. + +"I like you most as well as my own papa," said Amabel. "You ain't so +big as my papa." She said that in a tone of evident disparagement. + +Then the sitting-room door opened, and Fanny and Ellen and Andrew +appeared, the last with a great basket of wood and kindlings. + +Robert set down Amabel, and sprang to his feet to greet Andrew and +Ellen. Andrew, after depositing his basket beside the stove, shook +hands with a sort of sad awkwardness. Robert saw that the man had +aged immeasurably since he had last seen him. + +"It is a cold night, Mr. Brewster," he said, and knew the moment he +said it that it was not a happy remark. + +"It is pretty cold," agreed Andrew, "and it's cold here in this +room." + +"Oh, it'll be warm in a minute; this stove heats up quick," cried +Fanny, with agitated briskness. She began pulling the kindlings out +of the basket. + +"Here, you let me do that," said Andrew, and was down on his knees +beside her. The two were cramming the fuel into the little, +air-tight stove, while Robert was greeting Ellen. The awkwardness of +the situation was evidently overcoming her. She was quite pale, and +her voice trembled as she returned his good-evening. Amabel left the +young man, and clung tightly to Ellen's hand, drawing her skirt +around her until only her little face was visible above the folds. + +[Illustration: The awkwardness of the situation was evidently overcoming +her] + +The fumes from a match filled the room, and the fire began to roar. + +"It'll be warm in a minute," said Fanny, rising. "You leave the +register open till it's real good and hot, Ellen, and there's plenty +more wood in the basket. Here, Amabel, you come out in the other +room with Aunt Fanny." + +But Amabel, instead of obeying, made a dart towards Robert, who +caught her up, laughing, and smuggled her into the depths of his +fur-lined coat. + +"Come right along, Amabel," said Fanny. + +But Amabel clung fast to Robert, with a mischievous roll of an eye +at her aunt. + +"Amabel," said Fanny, authoritatively. + +"Come, Amabel," said Andrew. + +"Oh, let her stay," Robert said, laughing. "I'll keep her in my coat +until it is warm." + +"I'm afraid she'll bother you," said Fanny. + +"Not a bit," replied Robert. + +"You are a naughty girl, Amabel," said Fanny; but she went out of +the room, with Andrew at her heels. She did not know what else to +do, since the young man had expressed a desire to keep the child. +She had thought he would have preferred a _tete-a-tete_ with Ellen. +Ellen sat down on the sofa covered with olive-green plush, beyond +the table, and the light of the hideous lamp fell full upon her +face. She was thin, and much of her lovely bloom was missing between +her agitation and the cold; but Robert, looking at her, realized how +dear she was to him. There was something about that small figure, +and that fair head held with such firmness of pride, and that soul +outlooking from steady blue eyes, which filled all his need of life. +His love for the pearl quite ignored its setting of the common and +the ridiculous. He looked at her and smiled. Ellen smiled back +tremulously, then she cast down her eyes. The fire was roaring, but +the room was freezing. The sitting-room door was opened a crack, and +remained so for a second, then it was widened, and Andrew peeped in. +Then he entered, tiptoeing gingerly, as if he were afraid of +disturbing a meeting. He brought a blue knitted shawl, which he put +over Ellen's shoulders. + +"Mother thinks you had better keep this on till the room gets warm," +he whispered. Then he withdrew, shutting the door softly. + +Robert, left alone with Ellen in this solemnly important fashion, +felt utterly at a loss. He had never considered himself especially +shy, but an embarrassment which was almost ridiculous was over him. +Ellen sat with her eyes cast down. He felt that the child on his +knee was regarding them both curiously. + +"If you have come to see Ellen, why don't you speak to her?" +demanded Amabel, suddenly. Then both Robert and Ellen laughed. + +"This is your aunt's little girl, isn't she?" asked Robert. + +Amabel answered before Ellen was able. "My mamma is sick, and they +carried her away to the asylum," she told Robert. "She--she tried to +hurt Amabel; she tried to"--Amabel made that hideous gesture with +her tiny forefinger across her throat. "Mamma was sick or she +wouldn't," she added, challengingly, to Robert. + +"Of course she wouldn't, you poor little soul," said Robert. + +Suddenly Amabel burst into tears, and began to wriggle herself free +from his arms. "Let me go," she demanded; "let me go. I want Ellen." + +When Robert loosened his grasp she fled to Ellen, and was in her lap +with a bound. + +"I want my mamma--I want my mamma," she moaned. + +Ellen leaned her cheek against the poor little flaxen head. "There, +there, darling," she whispered, "don't. Mamma will come home as soon +as she gets better." + +"How long will that be, Ellen?" + +"Pretty soon, I hope, darling. Don't." + +Poor Eva Tenny had been in the asylum some four months, and the +reports as to her condition were no more favorable. Ellen's voice, +in spite of herself, had a hopeless tone, which the child was quick +to detect. + +"I want my mamma," she repeated. "I want her, Ellen. It has been +to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow after that, and the +to-morrows are yesterdays, and she hasn't come." + +"She will come some time, darling." + +Robert sat eying the two with intensest pity. "Do you like +chocolates, Amabel?" he asked. + +The child repeated that she wanted her mother still, as with a sort +of mechanical regularity of grief, but she fastened her eyes on him. + +"Because I am going to send you a big box of them to-morrow," said +Robert. + +Amabel turned to Ellen. "Does he mean it?" she asked. + +"I guess so," replied Ellen, laughing. + +Amabel, looking from one to the other, also began to laugh +unwillingly. + +Then the sitting-room door opened, and Fanny called sharply and +imperatively, "Amabel, Amabel; come!" + +Amabel clung more tightly to Ellen, who began to gently loosen her +arms. + +"Amabel Tenny, come this minute. It is your bed-time," said Fanny. + +"I guess you had better go, darling," whispered Ellen. + +"I don't want to go to bed till you do, Ellen," whispered the child. + +Ellen gently but firmly unclasped the clinging arms. "Run along, +dear," she whispered. + +"I will send those chocolates to-morrow," suggested Robert. + +Amabel seemed to do everything by sudden and violent impulses. All +at once she ceased resisting. She slid down from Ellen's lap as +quickly as she had gotten into it. She clutched her neck with two +little wiry arms, kissed her hard on the mouth, darted across the +room to Robert, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, then +flew out of the room. + +"She is an interesting child," said Robert, who felt, like most +people, the delicate flattery of a child's unsolicited caresses. + +"I am very fond of her," replied Ellen. + +Then the two were silent. Robert suddenly realized that there was +little to say unless he ventured on debatable ground. It would be +too absurd of him to commence making love at once, and as for asking +Ellen about her work, that seemed a subject better let alone. + +Ellen herself opened the conversation by inquiring for his aunt. + +"Aunt Cynthia is very well," replied Robert. "I was in there last +evening. You have not been to see her lately, Miss Brewster." + +Robert realized as soon as he had said that that he had made a +mistake. + +"No," replied Ellen. She obviously paled a little, and looked at him +wistfully. The young man could not stand it any longer, so straight +into the heart of the matter he lunged. + +"Look here, Miss Brewster," he said, "why on earth didn't you tell +Aunt Cynthia?" + +"Tell her?" repeated Ellen, vaguely. + +"Yes; make a clean breast of it to her. Tell her just why you went +to work, and gave up college?" + +Ellen colored, and looked at him half defiantly, half piteously. "I +told her all I ought to," she said. + +"But you did not; pardon me," said Robert, "you did not tell her +half enough. You let her think that you actually of your own free +choice went to work in the factory rather than go to college." + +"So I did," replied Ellen, looking at him proudly. + +"Of course you did, in one sense, but in another you did not. You +deliberately chose to make a sacrifice; but it was a sacrifice. You +cannot deny that it was a sacrifice." + +Ellen was silent. + +"But you gave Aunt Cynthia the impression that it was not a +sacrifice," said Robert, almost severely. + +Ellen's face quivered a little. "I saw no other way to do," she +said, faintly. The authoritative tone which this young man was +taking with her stirred her as nothing had ever stirred her in her +life before. She felt like a child before him. + +"You have no right to give such a false impression of your own +character," said Robert. + +"It was either that or a false impression of another," returned +Ellen, tremulously. + +"You mean that she might have blamed your parents, and thought that +they were forcing you into this?" + +Ellen nodded. + +"And I suppose you thought, too, that maybe Aunt Cynthia would +suspect, if you told her all the difficulties, that you were hinting +for more assistance." + +Ellen nodded, and her lip was quivering. Suddenly all her force of +character seemed to have deserted her, and she looked more like a +child than Amabel. She actually put both her little fists to her +eyes. After all, the girl was very young, a child forced by the +stress of circumstances to premature development, but she could +relapse before the insistence of another nature. + +Robert looked at her, his own face working, then he could bear it no +longer. He was over on the sofa beside Ellen and had her in his +arms. "You poor little thing," he whispered. "Don't. I have loved +you ever since the first time I saw you. I ought to have told you so +before. Don't you love me a little, Ellen?" + +But Ellen released herself with a motion of firm elusiveness and +looked at him. The tears still stood in her eyes, but her face was +steady. "I have been putting you out of my mind," said she. + +"But could you?" whispered Robert, leaning over her. + +Ellen did not reply, but looked down and trembled. + +"Could you?" repeated Robert, and there was in his voice that +masculine insistence which is a true note of nature, and means the +subjugation of the feminine into harmony. + +Ellen did not speak, but every line in her body betrayed helpless +yielding. + +"You know you could not," said Robert with triumph, and took her in +his arms again. + +But he reckoned without the girl, who was, after all, stronger than +her natural instincts, and able to rise above and subjugate them. +She freed herself from him resolutely, rose, and stood before him, +looking at him quite unfalteringly and accusingly. + +"Why do you come now?" she asked. "You say you have loved me from +the first. You came to see me, you walked home with me, and said +things to me that made me think--" She stopped. + +"Made you think what, dear?" asked Robert. He was pale and +indescribably anxious and appealing. It was suddenly revealed to him +that this plum was so firmly attached to its bough of individuality +that possibly love itself could not loosen it. + +"You made me think that perhaps you did care a little," said Ellen, +in a low but unfaltering voice. + +"You thought quite right, only not a little, but a great deal," said +Robert, firmly. + +"Then," said Ellen, "the moment I gave up going to college and went +to work you never came to see me again; you never even spoke to me +in the shop; you went right past me without a look." + +"Good God! child," Robert interposed, "don't you know why I did +that?" + +Ellen looked at him bewildered, then a burning red overspread her +face. "Yes," she replied. "I didn't. But I do now. They would have +talked." + +"I thought you would understand that," said Robert. "I had only the +best motives for that. I cannot speak to you in the factory any more +than I have done. I cannot expose you to remark; but as for my not +calling, I believed what you said to my aunt and to me. I thought +that you had deliberately preferred a lower life to a higher +one--that you preferred earning money to something better. I +thought--" + +Robert fairly started as Ellen began talking with a fire which +seemed to make her scintillate before his eyes. + +"You talk about a lower and a higher life," said she. "Is it true? +Is Vassar College any higher than a shoe-factory? Is any labor which +is honest, and done with the best strength of man, for the best +motives, to support the lives of those he loves, or to supply the +needs of his race, any higher than another? Where would even books +be without this very labor which you despise--the books which I +should have learned at college? Instead of being benefited by the +results of labor, I have become part of labor. Why is that lower?" + +Robert stared at her. + +"I have come to feel all this since I went to work," said Ellen, +speaking in a high, rapid voice. "When I went to work, it was, as +you thought, for my folks, to help them, for my father was out of +work, and there was no other way. But since I have been at work I +have realized what work really is. There is a glory over it, as +there is over anything which is done faithfully on this earth for +good motives, and I have seen the glory, and I am not ashamed of it; +and while it was a sacrifice at first, now, while I should like the +other better, I do not think it is. I am proud of my work." + +The girl spoke with a sort of rapt enthusiasm. The young man stared, +bewildered. + +Robert caught Ellen's little hands, which hung, tightly clinched, in +the folds of her dress, and drew her down to his side again. "See +here, dear," he said, "maybe you are right. I never looked at it in +this way before, but you do not understand. I love you; I want to +marry you. I want to make you my wife, and lift you out of this +forever." + +Then again Ellen freed herself, and straightened her head and faced +him. "There is nothing for me to be lifted out of," said she. "You +speak as if I were in a pit. I am on a height." + +"My God! child, how many others feel as you, do you think, out of +the whole lot?" cried Robert. + +"I don't know," replied Ellen, "but it is true. What I feel is +true." + +Robert caught up her little hand and kissed it. Then he looked at +its delicate outlines. "Well, it may be true," he said, "but look at +yourself. Can't you see that you are not fashioned for manual labor? +Look at this little hand." + +"That little hand can do the work," Ellen replied, proudly. + +"But, dear," said Robert, "admitting all this, admitting that you +are not in a position to be lifted--admitting everything--let us +come back to our original starting-point. Dear, I love you, and I +want you for my wife. Will you marry me?" + +"No, I never can," replied Ellen, with a long, sobbing breath of +renunciation. + +"Why not? Don't you love me?" + +"Yes. I think it must be true that I do. I said I wouldn't; I have +tried not to, but I think it must be true that I do." + +"Then why not marry me?" + +"Because it will be impossible for my father and mother to get along +and support Amabel and Aunt Eva without my help," said Ellen, +directly. + +"But I--" began Robert. + +"Do you think I will burden you with the support of a whole family?" +said Ellen. + +"Ellen, you don't know what I would be willing to do if I could have +you," cried the young man, fervently. And he was quite in earnest. +At that moment it seemed to him that he could even come and live +there in that house, with the hideous lamp, and the crushed-plush +furniture, and the eager mother; that he could go without anything +and everything to support them if only he could have this girl who +was fairly storming his heart. + +"I wouldn't be willing to have you," said Ellen, firmly. "As things +are now I cannot marry you, Mr. Lloyd. Then, too," she added, "you +asked me just now how many people looked at all this labor as I do, +and I dare say not very many. I know not many of your kind of +people. I know how your uncle looks at it. It would hurt you +socially to marry a girl from a shoe-shop. Whether it is just or +not, it would hurt you. It cannot be, as matters are now, Mr. +Lloyd." + +"But you love me?" + +Ellen suddenly, as if pushed by some mighty force outside herself, +leaned towards him, and he caught her in his arms. He tipped back +her face and kissed her, and looked down at her masterfully. + +"We will wait a little," he said. "I will never give you up as long +as I live if you love me, Ellen." + + + + +Chapter XXXIX + + +When Ellen went out into the sitting-room that evening, after Robert +Lloyd had taken leave, her father and mother were still there, +although the callers had gone. Both of them looked furtively at her +as she went through the room to the kitchen to get a lamp, then they +looked at each other. Fanny was glowing with half shamefaced +triumph; Andrew was pale. Ellen did not re-enter the room, but +simply paused at the door, before going up-stairs, and they had a +vision of a face in a tumult of emotions, with eyes and hair +illuminated to excess of brilliancy by the lamp which she held. + +"Good-night," she called, and her voice did not sound like her own. + +"Something has happened," Fanny whispered to Andrew, when Ellen's +chamber door had closed. + +"Do you suppose she's goin' to?" whispered Andrew, in a sort of +breathless fashion. His eyes on his wife's face were sad and +wistful. + +"Hush! How do I know?" asked Fanny. "I always told you he liked +her." + +However, Fanny looked disturbed. Presently she went out in the +kitchen to mix up some bread, and she wept a little, standing in a +corner, with her face hidden in the folds of an old shawl which hung +there on a peg. Dictatorial towards circumstances as she was when +her beloved daughter came in question, and proud as she was at the +prospect of an advantageous marriage for her, she remembered her +sister in the asylum, she remembered how Andrew was out of work, and +she could not understand how it was to be managed. And all this was +aside from the grief which she would have felt in any case at losing +Ellen. + +As for Andrew, the next morning he put on his best clothes and went +by trolley-cars to the next manufacturing town, not a city like +Rowe, but a busy little place with two large factories, and tried in +vain to get a job there. As he came home on the crowded car, his +face was so despairing that the people looked curiously at him. +Andrew had always been mild and peaceable, but at that moment +anarchistic principles began to ferment in him. When a portly man, +swelling ostentatiously with broadcloth and fine linen, wearing a +silk hat, and carrying a gold-headed cane like a wand of office, got +into the car, Andrew looked at him with a sidelong glance which was +almost murderous. The spiritual bomb, which is in all our souls for +our fellow-men, began to swell towards explosion. This man was the +proprietor of one of the great factories in Leavitt, the town where +Andrew had vainly sought a job. He had been in the office when +Andrew entered, and the latter had heard his low voice of +instruction to the foreman that the man was too old. The +manufacturer, who weighed heavily, and described a vast curve of +opulence from silk hat to his patent-leathers, sat opposite, his +gold-headed cane planted in the aisle, his countenance a blank of +complacent power. Andrew felt that he hated him. + +The man's face was not intellectual, not as intellectual as +Andrew's. He gave the impression of the force of matter oncoming and +irresistible, some inertia which had started Heaven knew how. This +man had inherited great wealth, as Andrew knew. He had capital with +which to begin, and he had strength to roll the accumulating ball. +Andrew felt more and more how he hated this man. He had told his +foreman that Andrew was too old, and Andrew knew that he was no +older, if as old, as the man himself. + +"If I had been born under the Czar, and done with it, I should have +felt differently," he told himself. "But who is this man? What right +has he to say that his fellow-men shall or shall not? Does even his +own property give him the right of dictation over others? What is +property? Is it anything but a temporary lease while he draws the +breath of life? What of it in the tomb, to which he shall surely +come? Shall a temporary possession give a man the right to wield +eternal power? For the power of giving or withholding the means of +life may produce eternal results." + +When the man rose and moved down the car, oscillating heavily, +steadying himself with his gold-headed cane, and got out in front of +a portentous mansion, Andrew would scarcely have recognized the look +in his own eyes had he seen himself in a mirror. + +"That chap is pretty well fixed," said a man next him, to one on the +other side. + +"A cool half-million," replied the other. + +"More than that," said the first speaker. "His father left him half +a million to start with, besides the business, and he's been piling +up ever since." + +"Do you work there?" + +"Did, but I had what was mighty nigh a sunstroke last summer; had to +quit. It was damned hot up there under the roof. It's the same old +factory his father had." + +"Goin' to work again?" + +"Next week, if I'm able, but I dun'no' whether I can stay there +longer than till spring. It's damned hot up there under the roof." + +The man who spoke had a leaden hue of face, something ghastly, as if +the deadly heat had begun a work of decomposition. Andrew looked at +him, and his hatred against the rich man who had built himself a +stately mansion, and kept his fellow-creatures at work for him in an +unhealthy factory in tropical heat, and had condemned him for being +too old, was redoubled. + +"Andrew Brewster, where have you been?" Fanny asked, when he got +home. + +"I've been to Leavitt," answered Andrew, shortly. + +"To see if you could get a job there?" + +"Yes." + +Fanny did not ask if he had been successful. She sighed, and took +another stitch in the wrapper which she was making. That sigh almost +drove Andrew mad. + +"I don't see what has got you into such a habit of sighing," he +said, brutally. + +Fanny looked at him with reproachful anger. "Andrew Brewster, you +ain't like yourself," said she. + +"I can't help it." + +"There's no need for you to pitch into me because you can't get +work; I ain't to blame. I'm doing all I can. I won't stand it, and +you might as well know it first as last." + +Fanny glared angrily at her husband, then the tears sprang to her +eyes. + +Andrew hesitated a moment, then he leaned over her and put his thin +cheek against her rough black hair. "The Lord knows I don't mean to +be harsh to you, you poor girl," said he, "but I wish I was dead." + +Fanny seemed to spring into resistance like a wire. "Then you are a +coward, Andrew Brewster," said she, hotly. "Talk about wishin' you +was dead. I 'ain't got time to die. You'd 'nough sight better go out +into the yard and split up some of that wood." + +"I didn't mean to speak so, Fanny," said Andrew, "but sometimes I +get desperate, and I've been thinking of Ellen." + +"Don't you suppose I have?" asked Fanny, angrily. + +"Well, there's one thing about it; we won't stand in her way," said +Andrew. + +"No, we won't," replied Fanny. "I'll go out washing first." + +"She hasn't said anything?" + +"No." + +As time went on Ellen still said nothing. She had made a curious +compact for a young girl with her lover. She had stipulated that no +engagement was to exist, that she should be perfectly free--when she +said that she thought of Maud Hemingway, but she said it without a +tremor--and if years hence both were free and of the same mind they +might talk of it again. + +Robert had rebelled strenuously. "You know this will shut me off +from seeing much of you," he said. "You know I told you how it will +be about my even talking much to you in the factory." + +"Yes, I understand that now," replied Ellen, blushing; "and I +understand, too, that you cannot come to see me very often under +such circumstances without making talk." + +"How often?" Robert asked, impetuously. + +Ellen hesitated, her lip quivered a little, but her voice was firm. +"Not oftener than two or three times a year, I am afraid," said she. + +"Great Scott!" cried Robert. Then he caught her in his arms again. +"Do you suppose I can stand that?" he whispered. "Ellen, I cannot +consent to this!" + +"It is the only way," said she. She freed herself from him enough to +look into his eyes with a brave, fearless gaze of comradeship, which +somehow seemed to make her dearer than anything else. + +"But to see you to speak to only two or three times a year!" groaned +Robert. "You are cruel, Ellen. You don't know how I love you." + +"There isn't any other way," said Ellen. Then she looked up into his +face with a brave innocence of confession like a child. "It hurts +me, too," said she. + +Robert had her in his arms, and was covering her face with kisses. +"You darling," he whispered. "It shall not be long. Something will +happen. We cannot live so. We will let it go so a little while, but +something will turn up. I shall have a more responsible place and a +larger salary, then--" + +"Do you think I will let you?" asked Ellen, with a great blush. + +"I will, whether you will let me or not," cried Robert; and at that +moment he felt inclined to marry the entire Brewster family rather +than give up this girl. + +However, as he went home, walking that he might think the better, he +had to confess to himself that the girl was right; that, as matters +were, anything definite was out of the question. He had to admit +that it might be a matter of years. + + + + +Chapter XL + + +When Ellen had been at work in the factory a year, she was running a +machine and working by the piece, and earning on an average eighteen +dollars a week. Of course that was an unusual advance for a girl, +but Ellen was herself unusual. She came to work in those days with +such swiftness and unswerving accuracy that she seemed fairly a part +of the great system of labor itself. While she was at her machine, +her very individuality seemed lost; she became an integral part of a +system. + +"She's one of the best hands we ever had," Flynn told Norman Lloyd +one day. + +"I am glad to hear that," Lloyd responded, smiling with that +peculiar smile of his which was like a cold flash of steel. + +"Curse him, he thinks no more of anybody in this shop than he does +of the machine they work," Flynn thought as he watched the +proprietor walking with his stately descent down the stairs. The +noon whistle was blowing, and the younger Lloyd went leaping down +the stairs and joined his uncle, then the two walked down the +street, away from the factory. The factory at that time of year +began to present, in spite of its crude architecture, quite a +charming appearance, from the luxuriant vines which covered it and +were beginning to get autumnal tints of red and russet. All the +front of Lloyd's was covered with vines, which had grown with +amazing swiftness. Mrs. Lloyd often used to look at them and reflect +upon them with complacency. + +"I should think it would make it pleasanter for the men to work in +the factory, when it looks so pretty and green," she told her +husband one of the hottest days of the preceding summer. As she +spoke she compressed her lips in a way which was becoming habitual +to her. It meant the endurance of a sharp stab of vital pain. There +was a terrible pathos in the poor woman's appearance at that time. +She still kept about. Her malady did not seem to be on the increase, +but it endured. Her form had changed indescribably. She had not lost +flesh, but she had a curious, distorted look, and one on seeing her +had a bewildered feeling, and looked again to be sure that he had +seen aright. Her ghastly pallor she concealed in a manner which she +thought distinctly sinful. She painted and powdered. She did not +dare purchase openly the concoctions which were used for improving +her complexion, but she went to a manicure and invested in a colored +salve for her finger-nails. This, with rather surprising skill for +such a conscience-pricked tyro, she applied to the pale curves of +her cheeks and her blue lips. She took more pains than ever before +with her dress, and it was all to deceive her husband, that he +should not be annoyed. She felt a desperate shame because of her +illness; she felt it to be a direct personal injury to this +masculine power which had been set over her gentle femininity. It +was not so much because she was afraid of losing his affection that +she concealed her affliction from him, as because she felt that the +affliction itself was somehow an act of disloyalty. Her terrible +malady had in a way affected her reasoning powers, so that they had +become distorted by a monstrous growth of suffering, like her body. +She would not give up going about as usual, and was never absent +from church. She drove about with her husband in his smart trap. +Twice she had gone with Robert to consult the New York specialist, +taking times when Norman was away on business. She still would not +consent to an operation, and lately the specialist had been lukewarm +in advising it. He had indeed been doubtful from the first. + +Mrs. Lloyd treated Robert with a soft affection which was almost +like that of a mother. One night, when he returned late from a call +on Ellen, she sat up waiting for him. He had not called on Ellen +before for several months, and it was nearly midnight when he +returned. + +"Why, Aunt Lizzie, are you up?" he cried, as he entered the library +door and saw his aunt's figure, clad in shining black satin, +gleaming with jet, in the depths of an easy-chair. + +Mrs. Lloyd looked up at him with an expression of patient suffering. +"I couldn't go to sleep if I went to bed, Robert," she replied, in a +hushed voice. She found it a comfort sometimes to confess her pain +to him. Robert went over to her, and drew her large, crinkled, blond +head to his shoulder as if she had been a child. + +"Poor thing," he whispered, stroking her face pitifully. "Is it very +terrible?" he asked, with his lips close to her ear. + +"Terrible," she whispered back. "Oh, Robert, you do not know; pray +God you may never know." + +"I wish to God I could bear it for you, Aunt Lizzie," Robert said, +fervently. + +"Oh, hush! If you or Norman had to bear anything like this, I should +curse God and die," she answered, and she shut her mouth hard, and +her whole face was indicative of a repressed shriek. + +"Aunt Lizzie, don't you think you ought to go to New York, that you +ought--" Robert began, but she stopped him with an almost fierce +peremptoriness. "Robert Lloyd, I have trusted you," she said. "For +God's sake, don't forsake me. Don't say a word to me about that; +when I can I will. It means my death, anyhow. Dr. Evarts thought so; +you can't deny it." + +"I think he thought there was a chance, Aunt Lizzie," Robert +returned, but he said it faintly. + +"You can't cheat me," replied Mrs. Lloyd. "I know." She had a lapse +from pain, and her features began to assume their natural +expression. She looked at him almost smiling, and as if she turned +her back upon her own misery. "Where have you been, Robert?" she +asked. + +Robert colored a little, but he answered directly enough. "I have +been to make a call on Miss Brewster," he said. + +"You don't go there very often," said Mrs. Lloyd. + +"No, not very often." + +"She's a beautiful girl, as beautiful a girl as I ever laid eyes on, +if she does work in the shop," said Mrs. Lloyd, "and she's a good +girl, too; I know she is. She was the sweetest little thing when she +was a child, and she 'ain't altered a mite!" Then Mrs. Lloyd looked +with a sort of wistful curiosity at Robert. + +"I think it is all true, what you say, Aunt Lizzie," replied Robert. + +Mrs. Lloyd continued to look at him with that wistful scrutiny. + +"Robert," she began, then she hesitated. + +"What, Aunt Lizzie?" + +"If--ever you wanted to marry that girl, I don't see any reason why +you shouldn't, for my part." + +Robert pulled a chair close to his aunt, and sat down beside her, +still holding her hand. + +"I've a good mind to tell you the whole story, Aunt Lizzie," he +said. + +"I wish you would, Robert. You know I think as much of you as if you +were my own son, and I won't tell anybody, not even your uncle, if +you don't want me to." + +"Well, then, it is all in a nutshell," said Robert. "I like her, you +know, and I think I have ever since I saw her in her little white +gown at the high-school exhibition." + +"Wasn't she sweet?" said his aunt. + +"And she likes me, too, I think." + +"Of course she does." + +"But you know what my salary is, and her whole family is in a +measure dependent upon her." + +"Hasn't her father got work?" + +"No." + +"I'll speak to Norman," cried Mrs. Lloyd, quickly. "I know he would +do it for me." + +"But even then, Aunt Lizzie, there is the aunt in the asylum, and +the child, and--" + +"Your uncle will pay you more." + +"It isn't altogether that; in fact, it isn't that at all which is at +the bottom of the difficulty. The difficulty is with Ellen herself. +She will never consent to my marrying her, and having to support her +family, while matters are as now. You don't know how proud she is, +Aunt Lizzie." + +"She is a splendid girl." + +"As far as I am concerned I would marry the whole lot on a little +more than I have now, but she would not let me do it. There's +nothing to do but to wait." + +"Perhaps the aunt will get well and her husband will come back; and +I will see, anyway, if Norman won't give her father work," said Mrs. +Lloyd. + +"I think you had better not, Aunt Lizzie." + +"Why not, Robert?" + +"There are reasons why I think you had better not." Robert would +not tell her that Ellen had begged him not to use any influence of +his to get her father work. + +"After the way father has been turned off, I can't stand it," she +had said, with a sort of angry dignity which was unusual to her. In +fact, her father himself had begged her not to make use of Robert in +any way for his own advancement. + +"If they don't want me for my work, I don't want to crawl in because +the nephew of the boss likes my daughter," he had said. This speech +was fairly rough for him, but Ellen had understood. + +"I know what you mean, father," she said. + +"I'd rather work in the road," said Andrew. That autumn he was +getting jobs of clearing up yards of fallen leaves, and gathering +feed-corn and pumpkins, and earning a pittance. Fanny continued to +work on her wrappers. "It's a mercy wrappers don't go out of +fashion," she often said. + +"I suppose things that folks can get for nothing ain't so apt to go +out of fashion," Andrew retorted, bitterly. He hated the wrappers +with a deadly hatred. He hated the sight of the limp row of them on +his bedroom wall. Nobody knew how the family pinched and screwed in +those days. + +They were using the small fund which they secured from the house +mortgage, Ellen's earnings, and Fanny's and Andrew's, and every cent +had to be counted, but there was something splendid in their loyalty +to poor Eva in the asylum. The thought of deserting her in her +extremity never occurred to them. + +Mrs. Lloyd spoke of her that night, when she and Robert were talking +together in the library. + +"They are good folks, to keep on doing for that poor woman in the +asylum," she said. + +"They would never desert a dog that belonged to them," Robert +answered, fervently. "I tell you that trait is worth a good many +others, Aunt Lizzie." + +"I guess it is," said his aunt. Then another paroxysm of pain seized +her. She looked at Robert with a convulsed, speechless face. He held +her hands more tightly, his own face contracting in sympathy, and +watched his aunt with a sort of angry helplessness. But he felt as +if he wanted to fight something for the sake of this poor, +oppressed, innocent creature; indeed, he felt fairly blasphemous. +But this time the pain passed quickly, and Mrs. Lloyd looked at her +nephew with an expression of relief and gentleness which was almost +angelic. When the pain was over she thought again of the Brewsters, +and how they would not have forsaken her in her misery, had she +belonged to them, any more than they had forsaken the insane aunt. + +"They are good folks," said she, "and that is the main thing. That +is the main thing to consider when you are marrying into a family, +Robert. It is more than riches and position. The power they've got +of loving and standing by each other is worth more than anything +else." + +"You are right, Aunt Lizzie, I guess there's no doubt of that," said +Robert. + +"And that girl's beautiful," said Mrs. Lloyd. She gazed at the young +man with a delicate understanding and sympathy which was almost +beyond that of a sweetheart. Robert felt as if a soft hand of +tenderness and blessing were laid on his inmost heart. He looked at +her like a grateful child. + +"There isn't anybody like her, is there, Aunt Lizzie?" he asked. + +"No, I don't think there is, dear boy," said Mrs. Lloyd. "I do think +she is the sweetest little thing I ever saw in my life." + +Robert brought his aunt's hand to his lips and kissed it. It seemed +to him for a minute as if the love and sympathy of this martyr were +almost more precious than the love of Ellen herself. + +He realized when he was in his own room, and the house was quiet, +how much he loved his aunt, and how hard her pain and probably +inevitable doom were for him to bear. Then something came to him +which he had never felt before--a great, burning anxiety and +tenderness and terror over Ellen, because she was of the weaker half +of creation, which is born to the larger share of pain in the world. +He felt that he would almost have given her up, yielded up forever +all his delight in her, to spare her; for the pain of knighthood, +which is in every true lover, awoke in his heart. + + + + +Chapter XLI + + +Nahum Beals was a laster in Lloyd's. Late in the autumn, when Ellen +had been in the factory a little over a year, there began to be a +subtle condition of discontent and insubordination. Men gathered in +muttering groups, of which Nahum Beals seemed always to be the +nucleus. His high, rampant voice, restrained by no fear of +consequences, always served as the key-note to the chorus of +rebellion. Ellen paid little attention to it. She was earning good +wages, and personally she had nothing of which to complain. She had +come to regard Beals as something of a chronic fanatic, but as she +knew that the lasters were fairly paid, she had not supposed it +meant anything. However, one night, going home from the factory, her +eyes were opened. Abby and Maria Atkins and Mamie Brady were with +her, and shortly after they had left the shop Abby stopped Granville +Joy, Frank Dixon, and Willy Jones, who with another young man were +swinging past without noticing the girls, strange to say. Abby +caught Joy by the arm. + +"Hold on a minute, Granville Joy," said she. "I want to know what's +up with the lasters." + +Granville laughed, with an uneasy, sidelong, deprecating glance at +Ellen. "Oh, nothing much," said he. + +Willy Jones stood still, coloring, gazing at Abby with a +half-terrified expression. Dixon walked on, and the other young man, +Amos Lee, who was dark and slight and sinewy, stared from one to the +other with quick flashes of black eyes. He looked almost as if he +had gypsy blood in him, and he came of a family which was further on +the outskirts of society than the Louds had been. + +When Granville replied "nothing much" to Abby's question, Amos Lee +frowned with a swift contraction of dissent, but did not speak until +Abby had retorted. "You needn't talk that way to me, Granville Joy," +said she. "You can't cheat me. I know something's up." + +"It ain't nothin', Abby," said Granville, but it was quite evident +that he was lying. + +Then Lee spoke up, in a sudden fury of enthusiasm. "There is +somethin' up," said he, "and I don't care if you do know it. +There's--" he stopped as Granville clutched his arm violently and +whispered something. + +"Well, maybe you're right," said Lee to Joy. "Look here," he +continued to Abby, "you and Ellen come along here a little ways, and +I'll tell you." + +After Maria and Mamie had passed on, Joy and Jones and Lee, standing +close to the two girls, began to talk, Lee leading. + +"Well, look here," he said, in a hushed voice. "We've found out--no +matter how, but we've found out--that the boss is goin' to dock the +lasters' pay." + +"How much?" asked Abby. + +"Fifteen per cent." + +"Good Lord!" said Abby. + +"We ain't going to stand it," said Lee. + +"I don't see how we can stand it," said Willy Jones, with a slightly +interrogative tone directed towards Abby. Granville looked at Ellen. + +"Are you sure?" she asked. + +"Perfectly sure," replied Granville. "What do you think about it, +Ellen?" + +"What are you going to do?" asked Ellen, thoughtfully. + +"Strike for fifteen per cent. more before he has a chance to dock +us," cried Lee, with a hushed vehemence, looking about warily to +make sure that no one overheard. + +"The worst of it is, I know it all comes from Nahum Beals, and he's +half cracked," said Abby, bluntly. + +"He's got the right of it, anyhow," said Lee. + +The two girls walked on, while the men lingered behind to talk. + +"Do you suppose it is true, Abby?" asked Ellen. + +"I don't know. I should, if it wasn't for that Lee fellow. I can't +bear him. And that Nahum Beals, I believe he's half mad." + +"I feel the same way about him," said Ellen; "but think what it +would mean, fifteen per cent. less on their wages." + +"It doesn't mean so much for those young fellows, except Willy +Jones; he's got enough on his shoulders." + +"No, but ever so many of the lasters have large families." + +"I hope they don't drag Willy Jones into it," said Abby. She looked +back as she spoke. Willy, in the little knot of men, was looking +after her, and their eyes met. Abby colored. + +"It's a shame to dock his wages," she said. + +"Whose--Willy Jones's?" + +"Yes. I hope he won't get into any trouble. I can't bear that Lee." + +"Still, to dock their wages fifteen per cent.," said Ellen, +thoughtfully. + +"What right has Mr. Lloyd?" + +"I suppose he'd say he has the right because he has the capital." + +"I don't see why that gives him the right." + +"You'd better go and talk to him," said Abby. "As for me, I made up +my mind when I went to work in the shop that I'd got to be a +bond-slave, all but my soul. That can kick free, thank the Lord." + +"I didn't make up my mind to it," said Ellen. "I am not going to be +a slave in any way, and I am not going to approve of others being +slaves." + +"You think they ought to strike?" + +"Yes, if it is true that Mr. Lloyd is going to dock their wages, but +I don't feel sure that it is true. Mr. Beals is a queer man. +Sometimes I have thought he was dangerous." + + + + +Chapter XLII + + +Tuesday evening was one of those marvellously clear atmospheres of +autumn which seem to be clearer from the contrast to the mists of +the recent summer. The stars swarmed out in unnumbered hosts. + +"Seems to me I never saw so many stars," one would say to another. +The air had the sharp cleave of the frost in it. Everything was +glittering with a white rime--the house roofs, and the levels of +fields on the outskirts of the little city. + +Ellen had an errand down-town that evening, and she wrapped herself +up warmly, putting on a fur collar which she had not worn since the +winter before. She felt strangely nervous and disturbed as she set +out. + +"Don't you want your father to go with you?" asked Fanny, for in +some occult fashion the girl's perturbation seemed to be +communicated to her. She followed her to the door. + +"Seems kind of lonesome for you to go alone," she said, anxiously. + +"As if I minded! Why, it is as bright as day with the +electric-lights, and there are houses almost all the way," laughed +Ellen. + +"Your father could go with you, or he could go for you." + +"No, he couldn't go for me. I want to get one of the new catalogues +at the library and pick out a book, and there is no sense in +dragging father out. He has a cold, too. Why, there is nothing in +the world to be afraid of, mother." + +"Well, don't be any longer than you can help," said Fanny. + +Ellen, as she passed her grandmother's house, saw a curtain drawn +with a quick motion. That happened nearly every time she passed. She +knew that the old woman was always on the lookout for her, and +always bent on concealing it. Mrs. Zelotes never went into her son's +house, and never spoke to Ellen in those days. She had aged rapidly +during the past year, and even her erect carriage had failed her. +She stooped rigidly when she walked. She was fairly racked with love +and hatred of Ellen. She adored her, she could have kissed the +ground she walked on, and yet she was so full of wrath against her +for thwarting her hopes for her own advancement that she was +conscious of cruel impulses in her direction. + +Ellen walked along rapidly under the vast canopy of stars, about +which she presently began to have a singular impression. She felt as +if they were being augmented, swelled as if by constantly oncoming +legions of light from the space beyond space, and as if her little +space of individuality, her tiny foothold of creation, was being +constantly narrowed by them. + +"I never saw so many stars," she said to herself. She looked with +wonder at the Milky Way, which was like a zone of diamond dust. +Suddenly a mighty conviction of God, which was like the blazing +forth of a new star, was in her soul. Ellen was not in a sense +religious, and had never united with the Congregational Church, +which she had always attended with her parents; she had never been +responsive to efforts made towards her so-called conversion, but all +at once, under the stars that night, she told herself with an +absolute certainty of the truth of it. "There is something beyond +everything, beyond the stars, and beyond all poor men, and beyond +me, which is enough for all needs. We shall have our portion in the +end." + +She had been feeling discouraged lately, although she would not own +it even to herself. She saw Robert but seldom, and her aunt was no +better. She often wondered if there could be anything before her but +that one track of drudgery for daily bread upon which she had set +out. She wondered if she ought not to say positively to Robert that +there must be no thought of anything between them in the future. She +wondered if she were not wronging him. Once or twice she had seen +him riding with Miss Hemingway, and thought that, after all, that +was a girl better suited to him, and perhaps if he had no hope +whatever of her he might turn to the other to his own advantage. But +to-night, with the clear stimulus of the frost in her lungs, and her +eyes and soul dazzled with the multiplicity of stars, she began to +have a great impetus of courage, like a soldier on the morning of +battle. She felt as if she could fight for her joy and the joy of +others, and victory would in the end be certain; that the chances of +victory ran to infinity, and could not be measured. + +However, all the while, in spite of her stimulation of spirits, +there was that vague sense of excitement, as over some impending +crisis. That she could not throw off. Suddenly she found herself +searching the road ahead of her, and often turning at the fancied +sound of a footstep. She began to wish that her father had come with +her; then she told herself how foolish she was, for he had a cold, +and this keen air would have been sure to give him more. The +electric-car passed her, and she had a grateful sense of +companionship. She looked after its diminishing light in the +distance, and almost wished that she had stopped it, but car-fares +had to be counted carefully. + +She began to dread unspeakably passing the factories. She told +herself that there was no sense in it, that it was not late, that +the electric-light made it like high noon, that there was a watchman +in each building, that there was nothing whatever to fear; but it +was in vain. It was only by a great effort of her will that she did +not turn and go back home when she reached Lloyd's. + +Lloyd's came first; then, a few rods farther, on the other side of +the street, McGuire's, and then Briggs's. + +Ellen had a library book under her arm, and she clutched her +dress-skirt firmly. A terror as to the supernatural was stealing +over her. She felt as she had when waking in the night from some +dreadful dream, though all the time she was dinning in her ears how +foolish she was. She saw the lantern of the night-watchman in +Lloyd's moving down a stair which crossed a window. + +She came opposite Lloyd's, and, just as she did so, saw a dark +figure descending the right-hand flight of stairs from the entrance +platform. She thought, from something in the carriage, that it was +Mr. Lloyd, and hung back a little, reflecting that she would keep +behind him all the way to town. + +The man reached the ground at the foot of the stairs, then there was +a flash of fire from the shadow underneath, and a shot rang out. +Ellen did what she could never have counted upon herself for doing. +She ran straight towards the man, who had fallen prostrate like a +log, and was down on the ground beside him, with his head on her +lap, shouting for the night-watchman, whose name was McLaughlin. + +"McLaughlin!" she shouted. But there was no need of it, for he had +heard the shot. The cry had not left Ellen's lips before she was +surrounded by men, one of whom was Granville Joy, one was Dixon, and +one was John Sargent. + +Joy and Sargent had met down-town, and were walking home together, +when the shot rang out, and they had rushed forward. Then there was +McLaughlin, the watchman of Lloyd's, and the two watchmen from +Briggs's and McGuire's came pelting down their stairs, swinging +their lanterns. + +They all stood around the wounded man and Ellen, and stared for a +second. They were half stupefied. + +"My God! this is a bad job," said Dixon. + +"Go for a doctor," cried Ellen, hoarsely. + +"We're a pack of fools," ejaculated Sargent, suddenly. Then he gave +Granville Joy a push on the back. "Run for your life for the first +doctor," he cried, and was down on his knees beside the wounded man. +Lloyd seemed to be quite insensible. There was a dark spot which was +constantly widening in a hideous circle of death on his shirt-front +when Sargent opened his coat and vest tenderly. + +"Is he--" whispered Ellen. She held one of Lloyd's hands in a firm +clutch as if she would in such wise hold him to life. + +"No, not yet," whispered Sargent. Dixon knelt down on the other +side, and took Lloyd's other hand and felt his pulse. McLaughlin was +rushing aimlessly up and down, talking as he went. + +"I never heard a thing till that shot came," he kept repeating. +"He'd jest been in to get his pocketbook he'd left in the office. I +never heard a thing till I heard that shot." + +Sargent was opening Lloyd's shirt. "McLaughlin, for God's sake stop +talking and run for another doctor, in case Joy does not get one at +once," he cried; "then go to his house, and tell young Lloyd, but +don't say anything to his wife." + +"Poor Mrs. Lloyd," whispered Ellen. + +The sick man sighed audibly. It seemed as if he had heard. The other +watchmen stood looking on helplessly. + +"Why in thunder don't you two scatter, and see if you can't catch +him," cried Dixon to them. "He can't be far off." + +But the words had no sooner left his mouth than up came a great +Swede who was one of the workmen in Lloyd's, and he had Nahum Beals +in a grasp as imperturbable as fate. The assassin, even with the +strength of his fury of fanaticism, was as a reed in the grasp of +this Northern giant. The Swede held him easily, walking him before +him in a forced march. He had a hand of Nahum's in each of his, and +he compelled Nahum's right hand to retain the hold of the discharged +pistol. There was something terrible about the Swede as he drew +near, a captor as unyielding and pitiless as justice itself. He was +even smiling with a smile which showed his gums from ear to ear, but +there was no joy in his smile, and no triumph. His blue eyes +surveyed them all with the placid content of achievement. + +"I have him," he said. "I heard him shoot, and I heard him run, and +I stood still until he ran into my arms. I have him." + +Nahum, in the grasp of this fate, was quivering from head to foot, +but not from fear. + +"Is he dead?" he shouted, eagerly. + +"Hush up, you murderer," cried Dixon. "We didn't want any such work +as this, damn you. Keep fast hold of him, Olfsen." + +"I will keep him fast," replied the Swede, smiling. + +Then there was a swift clatter of wheels, and two doctors drove up, +and men came running. The space in front of Lloyd's was black with +men. Robert Lloyd was among them. Granville Joy had met him on the +street. + +"You'd better go down to the factory, quick," he had said, hoarsely. +"There's trouble there; your uncle--" + +Robert pushed through the crowd, which made way respectfully for +him. He knelt down beside the wounded man. "Is he--" he whispered to +Sargent. + +"Not yet," whispered Sargent, "but I'm afraid it's pretty bad." + +"You here?" Robert said to Ellen. + +"Yes," she answered, "I was passing when I heard the shot." + +"See here," said Robert, "I don't know but I am asking a good deal, +but will you get into Dr. James's buggy, and let his man drive you +to my aunt's, and you break it to her? She likes you. I must stay +with him. I don't want her to know it first when he is brought +home." + +"Yes, that will be the best way," said the other physician, who was +the one regularly employed by the Lloyds. "Some one must tell her +first, and if she knows this young lady--" + +"I will go," said Ellen. + +Dr. Story whispered something to Ellen as she was getting into the +buggy. Then Dr. James's man drove her away down the street. + +There was a little black mare harnessed to the buggy, and she went +with nervous leaps of speed. When Ellen reached the Lloyd house she +saw that it was blazing with light. Norman Lloyd was fond of +brilliant light, and would have every room in his house illuminated +from garret to cellar. + +As Ellen went up the stone steps she saw a woman's figure in the +room at the right, which moved to an attitude of attention when she +rang the bell. + +Before Ellen could inquire for Mrs. Lloyd of the maid who answered +her ring there was a shrill cry from the room on the right. + +"Who is it? Who is it?" demanded the voice. + +Then, before Ellen could speak, Mrs. Lloyd came running out. + +"What is it?" she said. "Tell me quick. I know something has +happened. Tell me quick. You came in Dr. James's buggy, and the man +was driving fast. Tell me." + +"Oh, Mrs. Lloyd," said Ellen. Then she could say no more, but the +other woman knew. + +"Is he dead?" she asked, hoarsely. + +"Oh, no, no, not dead." + +"Hurt?" + +Ellen nodded, trembling. + +"How?" + +"He was shot." + +"Who shot him?" + +"One of the workmen. They have him. Carl Olfsen found him." + +"One of the workmen, when he has always been so good!" + +Suddenly Mrs. Lloyd seemed to gather herself together into the +strength of action. + +"Are they bringing him home?" she asked Ellen, in a sharp, decisive +voice. + +"I think they must be by this time." + +"Then I've got to get ready for him. Come, quick." + +There was by that time a man and two women servants standing near +them, aghast. Mrs. Lloyd turned to the man. + +"Go down to the drug-store and get some brandy, there isn't any in +the house," said she; "then come back as quick as you can. Maggie, +you see that there is plenty of hot water. Martha, you and Ellen +come up-stairs with me, quick." + +Ellen followed Mrs. Lloyd and the maid up-stairs, and, before she +knew what she was doing, was assisting to put the room in perfect +readiness for the wounded man. The maid was weeping all the time she +worked, although she had never liked Mr. Lloyd. There was something +about her mistress which was fairly abnormal. She kept looking at +her. This gentle, soft-natured woman had risen above her own pain +and grief to a sublime strength of misery. + +"Get the camphor, quick, Martha," she said to the maid, who flew +out, with the tears streaming. Ellen stood on one side of the bed, +and Mrs. Lloyd on the other. Mrs. Lloyd had stripped off the +blankets, and was pinning the sheet tightly over the mattress. She +seemed to know instinctively what to do. + +"I wish you would bring that basin over here, and put it on the +stand," said Mrs. Lloyd. "Martha, you fetch more towels, and, +Maggie, you run up garret and bring down some of those old sheets +from the trunk under the window, quick." + +This maid, who was as large and as ample as her mistress, fled out +of the room with heavy, noiseless pads of flat feet. + +All the time Mrs. Lloyd worked she was evidently listening. She paid +no attention to Ellen except to direct her. All at once she gave a +great leap and stood still. + +"They're coming," said she, though Ellen had heard nothing. Ellen +went close to her, and took her two fat, cold hands. She could say +nothing. Then she heard the roll of carriage-wheels in the street +below. + +Mrs. Lloyd pulled her hands away from Ellen's and went to the head +of the stairs. + +"Bring him right up here," she ordered, in a loud voice. + +Ellen stood back, and the struggling procession with the prostrate +man in the midst labored up the broad stairs. + +"Bring him in here," said Mrs. Lloyd, "and lay him on the bed." + +When Lloyd was stretched on the bed, the crowd drew back a little, +and she bent over him. + +Then she turned with a sort of fierceness to the doctors. + +"Why don't you do something?" she demanded. She raised a hand with a +repellant gesture towards the other men. + +"You had better go now," said she. "I thank you very much. If there +is anything you can do, I will let you know." + +When Mrs. Lloyd was left with the two doctors and a young assistant, +Robert, and Ellen, she said, cutting her words short as if she +released every one from a mental grip: + +"I have got everything ready. Shall I go out now?" + +"I think you had better, Mrs. Lloyd," said the family physician, +pityingly. He went close to Ellen. + +"Can't you stay with her a little while?" he whispered. + +Ellen nodded. + +Then the physician spoke quite loudly and cheerfully to Mrs. Lloyd. + +"We are going to probe for the ball," he said. "We must all hope for +the best, Mrs. Lloyd." + +Mrs. Lloyd made no reply. She bent again over her husband with a +rigid face, and kissed him on his white lips, then she went out, +with Ellen following. + +Norman Lloyd lived only two hours after he was shot. The efforts to +remove the ball had to be abandoned. He was conscious only a few +minutes. He suddenly began to look about him with comprehension. + +"Robert," he said, in a far-away voice. + +Robert stooped closely over his uncle. The dying man looked up at +him with an expression which he had never worn in life. + +"That man was insane," whispered he, faintly. Then he added, "Look +out for her, if she has to go through the operation. Take care of +her. Make it as easy for her as you can." + +"Then you know, Uncle Norman," gasped Robert. + +"All the time, but it--pleased her to think I--did not. Don't let +her know I knew. Take care--" + +Then Norman Lloyd relapsed into unconsciousness, and the whole room +and the whole house became clamorous with his stertorous breathing. +Mrs. Lloyd and Ellen came and stood in the doorway. The doctor +whispered to them. Then the breathing ceased, although at first it +was inconceivable that the silence did not continue to ring with it, +and Mrs. Lloyd came into the room. + + + + +Chapter XLIII + + +When Mrs. Lloyd entered the room, the attention of every one was +taken from the dead man on the bed and concentrated upon the woman. +Dr. Story, a nervous, intense, elderly man with a settled frown of +perplexity over keen eyes, which he had gotten from a struggle of +forty years with unanswerable problems of life and death, stepped +towards her hastily. Robert pressed close to her side. Ellen came +behind her, holding in a curious, instinctive fashion to a fold of +the older woman's gown, as if she had been a mother holding back a +child from a sudden topple to its hurt. Everybody expected her to +make some heart-breaking manifestation. She did nothing. At that +moment the sublime unselfishness of the woman, which was her one +strength of character, seemed actually to spread itself, as with +wings, before them all. She moved steadily, close to her husband on +the bed. She gazed at that profile of rigid calmness and enforced +peace, which, although the head lay low, seemed to have an effect of +upward motion, as if it were cleaving the mystery of space. Mrs. +Lloyd laid her hand upon her husband's forehead; she felt a slight +incredulousness of death, because it was still warm. She took his +hands, drew them softly together, and folded them upon his breast. +Then she turned and faced them all with an angelic expression. + +"He did not realize it to suffer much?" she said. + +"No, Mrs. Lloyd," replied Dr. Story, quickly. "No, I assure you that +he suffered very little." + +"He seemed very happy when he died, Aunt Lizzie," said Robert, +huskily. + +Mrs. Lloyd looked away from them all around the room. It was a +magnificent apartment. Norman Lloyd had had an artistic taste as +well as wealth. The furnishings had always been rather beyond Mrs. +Lloyd's appreciation, but she admired them kindly. She took in every +detail; the foam of rich curtains at the great windows, the +cut-glass and silver on the dressing-table, the pale softness of a +polar-bear skin beside the bed, the lifelike insistence of the +costly pictures on the walls. + +"He's gone where it is a great deal more beautiful," she said to +them, like a child. "He's gone where there's better treasures than +these which he had here." + +They all looked at her in amazement. It actually seemed as if, for +the moment, the woman's sole grief was over the loss to her husband +of those things which he had on earth--the treasures of his mortal +state. + +Robert took hold of his aunt's arm and led her, quite unresisting, +from the room, and as she went she felt for Ellen's hand. "It is +time she was home," she said to Robert. "Her folks will be worried +about her. She's been a real comfort to me." + +It was the first time that Ellen had ever seen death, that she had +ever seen the living confronted with it. She felt as if a wave were +breaking over her own head as she clung fast to Mrs. Lloyd's hand. + +"Sha'n't I stay?" she whispered, pitifully, to her. "If I can send +word to my mother--" + +"No, you dear child," replied Mrs. Lloyd, "you've done enough, and +you will have to be up early in the morning." Then she checked +herself. "I forgot," said she to Robert; "the factory will be closed +till after the funeral, won't it?" + +"Of course it will, Aunt Lizzie." + +"And the workmen will be paid just the same, of course," said Mrs. +Lloyd. "Now, can't you take her home, Robert?" + +"Oh, don't mind about me," cried Ellen. + +"You can have a horse put into the buggy," said Mrs. Lloyd. + +"Oh, you mustn't leave her now," Ellen whispered to Robert. "Let +somebody else take me--Dr. James--" + +"I would rather you took her," said Mrs. Lloyd. "And you needn't +worry about his leaving me, dear child; the doctor will stay until +he comes back." + +As Robert was finally going out his aunt caught his arm and looked +at him with a radiant expression. "He will never know about _me_ +now," said she, "and it won't be long before I-- Oh, I feel as if I +had gotten rid of my own death." + +She was filled with inexpressible thankfulness that she had herself +to bear what she had dreaded for her husband. "Only think how hard +it would have been for Norman," she said to Cynthia, the next day. + +Cynthia looked at her wonderingly. She could have understood this +feeling over a dearly beloved child. "You are a good woman, Lizzie," +she said, in a tone of pitiful respect. + +"Not half as good a woman as he was a man," returned Mrs. Lloyd, +jealously. "Norman wasn't a professor, I know, but he was a +believer. You don't think it is necessary to be a professor in order +to be saved, do you, Cynthia?" + +"I certainly do not," Cynthia replied. "I wish you would go and lie +down, Lizzie." + +"Oh, I can't. I wouldn't let anybody do these things but me, for the +whole world." Mrs. Lloyd was arranging flowers, tuberoses and white +carnations, in vases, and the whole house was scented with them. She +looked ghastly, yet still unconquerably happy. She had now no reason +to conceal the ravages of disease, and her color was something +frightful. Still, she did not suffer as much, for her mind had +overborne her body to such an extent that she had the mastery for +the time, to a certain extent, of those excruciating stabs of pain. +People looked at her incredulously. They could not believe that she +felt as she talked, that she was as happy and resigned as she +looked, but it was all true. It was either an abnormal state into +which her husband's death had thrown her, or one too normal to be +credited. She looked at it all with a supreme childishness and +simplicity. She simply believed that her husband was in heaven, +where she should join him; that he was beyond all suffering which +might have come to him through her, and all that troubled her was +the one consideration of his having been forced to leave his +treasures of earth. She looked at various things which had been +prized by the dead man, and found her chief comfort in saying to the +minister or Cynthia or Robert that Norman had loved these, but he +would have that which was infinitely more precious. She even gazed +out of the window, that Tuesday night, and saw her nephew driving +away with Ellen, and reflected, with pain, that her husband had been +fond and proud of that bay. She was a little at a loss to conceive +what could make up to her husband for that in another world, but she +succeeded, and evolved from her own loving fancy, and her +recollection of the Old Testament, a conception of some wonderful +creature, shod with thunder and maned with a whirlwind. Her disease, +and a drug she had been taking of late, stimulated her imagination +to results of grotesque pathos, but she was comforted. + +That night when they were alone, Robert turned to the girl at his +side with a sudden motion. It was no time for love-making, for that +was in the mind of neither of them, but the bereavement of this +other woman, and the tragedy of her state, filled him with a sort of +protective pain towards the girl who might some time have to suffer +through him the same loss. + +"Are you all tired out, dear?" he said, and passed his free arm +around her waist. + +"No," replied Ellen. Then, since she was only a girl, and +overwrought, having been through a severe strain, she broke down, +and began to cry. + +Robert drew her closer, and she hid her face on his shoulder. "Poor +little girl, it has been very hard for you," he whispered. + +"Oh, don't think of me," sobbed Ellen. "But I can't bear it, the way +she acts and looks. It is sadder than grief." + +"She is not going to live long herself, dear," said Robert, in a +stifled voice. + +"And he--did not know?" + +"Hush! yes; but you must never tell any one. She tried to keep it +from him. That is her comfort." + +"Oh," said Ellen. She looked up at the white face of the young man +bending over her, and suddenly the realization of a love that was +mightier than all the creatures who came of it and all who followed +it was over her. + + + + +Chapter XLIV + + +When Ellen did not return, there was some alarm in the Brewster +household. Mrs. Zelotes came over, finally, in a quiver of anxiety. + +"Maybe I had better start out and see if I can find her," said +Andrew. + +"I think you had better," returned his mother. "She went before +eight o'clock, and it's most midnight, and I've set at my window +watchin' ever since. I don't see what you've been thinkin' about, +waitin' all this time. I guess if I was a man I shouldn't have +waited." + +"I think she may have gone in to see Abby Atkins--it's on the +way--and not realized how late it was," said Fanny, obstinately, but +with a very white face. She drew her thread through with a jerk. It +knotted, and she broke it off viciously. + +"Fiddlesticks!" said her mother-in-law. + +"There's no use imaginin' things," said Fanny, angrily; "but I think +myself you'd better go now, Andrew, and see if you can see anything +of her." + +"I'm goin' with him," announced Mrs. Zelotes. + +"Now, mother, you'd better stay where you be," said Andrew, putting +on his hat. Then the door flew open, and Amos Lee, who had seen the +light in the windows, and was burning to impart the news of the +tragedy, rushed in. + +"Heard what's happened?" he cried out. + +They all thought of Ellen. "What?" demanded Andrew, in a terrible +voice. Fanny dropped her work and stared at him, with her chin +falling as if she were dying. Mrs. Zelotes made a queer gurgling +noise in her throat. Lee stared at them a second, bewildered by the +effect of his own words, although they had for him such a tragic +import. Andrew caught hold of him in a grasp like the clamp of a +machine. "What?" he demanded again. + +"The boss has been shot," cried Lee, getting his breath. + +Andrew dropped his arm, and they all stared at him. Lee went on +fluently, as if he were a fakir at a fair. + +"Nahum Beals did it. The boss went back to the office to get his +pocketbook; McLaughlin saw him; then he went down the stairs; Nahum, +he--he fired; he had been hidin' underneath the stairs. Carl Olfsen +caught him, and he's in jail. Your daughter she was there when the +shot came, and run up and held his head. The young boss he sent her +in Dr. James's buggy to Mrs. Lloyd to break the news. She 'ain't got +home?" + +"No," gasped Andrew. + +"The boss has been shot; he's dead by this time," repeated Lee. +"Beals did it; they've got him." There was the most singular +evenness and impartiality in his tone, although he was evidently +strained to a high pitch of excitement. It was impossible to tell +whether he exulted in or was aghast at the tragedy. + +"Oh, that poor woman!" cried Fanny. + +"I'd like to know what they'll do next," cried Mrs. Zelotes. "I +should call it pretty work." + +"Nahum Beals has acted to me as if he was half crazy for some time," +said Fanny. + +"No doubt about it," said Lee; "but I shouldn't wonder if he had to +swing." + +"It's dreadful," said Fanny. "I wonder when she's comin' home." + +"Seems as if they might have got somebody besides that girl to have +gone there," said Mrs. Zelotes. + +"She happened to be right on the spot," said Lee, importantly. + +Andrew seemed speechless; he leaned against the mantel-shelf, gazing +from one to the other, breathing hard. He had had bitter feelings +against the murdered man, and a curious sense of guilt was over him. +He felt almost as if he were the murderer. + +"Andrew, I dun'no' but you'd better go up there and see if she's +comin' home," said Fanny; and he answered heavily that maybe he had +better, when they heard wheels, which stopped before the house. + +"They're bringin' her home," said Lee. + +Andrew ran and threw open the front door. He had a glimpse of +Robert's pale face, nodding to him from the buggy as he drove away, +and Ellen came hastening up the walk. + +"Well, Ellen, this is pretty dreadful news," said her father, +tremulously. + +"So you have heard?" + +"Amos Lee has just come in. It's a terrible thing, Ellen." + +"Yes, it's terrible," returned Ellen, in a quick, strained voice. +She entered the sitting-room, and when she met her mother's anxious, +tender eyes, she stood back against the wall, with her hands to her +face, sobbing. Fanny ran to her, but her grandmother was quicker. +She had her arms around the girl before the mother had a chance. + +"If they couldn't get somebody besides you," she said, in a voice of +intensest love and anger, "I should call it pretty work. Now you go +straight to bed, Ellen Brewster, and I'm goin' to make a bowl of +sage tea, and bring it up, and see if it won't quiet your nerves. I +call it pretty work." + +"Yes, you'd better go to bed, Ellen," said Andrew, gulping as if he +were swallowing a sob. + +Mrs. Zelotes fairly forced Ellen towards the door, Fanny following. + +"Don't talk and wake Amabel," whispered Ellen, forcing back her +sobs. + +"Was he dead when you got there, Ellen?" called out Lee. + +Mrs. Zelotes turned back and looked at him. "It's after midnight, +and time for you to be goin' home," she said. Then the three +disappeared. Lee grinned sheepishly at Andrew. + +"Your mother is a stepper of an old woman," said he. + +"It's awful news," said Andrew, soberly. "Whatever anybody may have +felt, nobody expected--" + +"Of course they didn't," retorted Lee, quickly. "Nahum went a step +too far." He started for the door as he spoke. + +"Well, he was crazy, without any doubt!" said Andrew. + +"He'll have to swing for it all the same," said Lee, going out. + +"It don't seem right, if he wasn't himself when he did it." + +"Lord, we're all crazy when it comes to things like that," returned +Lee. Before closing the door he flashed his black eyes and white +teeth at Andrew, who felt repelled. + +He sat down beside the table and leaned his head upon it. To his +fancy all creation seemed to circle about that one dead man. Mr. +Lloyd had been for years the arbiter of his destiny, almost of his +life. Andrew had regarded him with almost feudal loyalty and +admiration, and lately with bitter revolt and hatred, and now he was +dead. He felt no sorrow, but rather a terrible remorse because he +felt no sorrow. All the bitter thoughts which he had ever had +against Lloyd seemed to marshal themselves before him like an +accusing legion of ghosts. And with it all there was a sense of +desolation, as if some force which had been necessary to his full +living had gone out of creation. + +"It's over thirty years since I went to work under him," Andrew +thought, and he gave a dry sob. At that moment a wonderful pity and +sorrow for the dead man seemed to spring up in his soul like a +light. He felt as if he loved him. + + +Norman Lloyd's funeral was held in the First Baptist Church of Rowe. +It was crowded. Mr. Lloyd had been the most prominent manufacturer +and the wealthiest man in the city. His employes filled up a great +space in the body of the church. + +Andrew went with his mother and wife. They arrived quite early. When +Andrew saw the employes of Lloyd's marching in, he drew a great +sigh. He looked at the solemn black thing raised on trestles before +the pulpit with an emotion which he could not himself understand. +"That man 'ain't treated me well enough for me to care anything +about him," he kept urging upon himself. "He never paid any more +attention to me than a gravel-stone under his feet; there ain't any +reason why I should have cared about him, and I don't; it can't be +that I do." Yet arguing with himself in this way, he continued to +eye the casket which held his dead employer with an unyielding +grief. + +Mrs. Zelotes sat like a black, draped statue at the head of the pew, +but her eyes behind her black veil were sharply observant. She +missed not one detail. She saw everything; she counted the wreaths +and bouquets on the casket, and stored in her mind, as vividly as +she might have done some old mourning-piece, the picture of the near +relatives advancing up the aisle. + +Mrs. Lloyd came leaning on her nephew's arm, and there were Cynthia +Lennox and a distant cousin, an elderly widow who had been summoned +to the house of death. + +Ellen sat in the body of the church, with the employes of Lloyd's, +between Abby Atkins and Maria. She glanced up when the little +company of mourners entered, then cast her eyes down again and +compressed her lips. Maria began to weep softly, pressing her +handkerchief to her eyes. Ellen's mother had begged her not to sit +with the employes, but with her and her father and grandmother in +their own pew, but the girl had refused. + +"I must sit where I belong," said she. + +"Maybe she thinks it would look as if she was putting on airs on +account of--" Fanny said to Andrew when Ellen had gone out. + +"I guess she's right," returned Andrew. + +The employes had contributed money for a great floral piece composed +of laurel and white roses, in the shape of a pillow. Mamie Brady, +who sat behind Ellen, leaned over, and in a whisper whistled into +her ear. + +"Ain't it handsome?" said she. "Can you see them flowers from the +hands?" + +Ellen nodded impatiently. The great green and white decoration was +in plain view from her seat, and as she looked at it she wondered if +it were a sarcasm or poetic truth beyond the scope of the givers, +the pillow of laurel and roses, emblematic of eternal peace, +presented by the hard hands of labor to dead capital. + +Of course the tragic circumstances of Norman Lloyd's death increased +the curiosity of the public. Gradually the church became crowded by +a slow and solemn pressure. The aisles were filled. The air was +heavy with the funeral flowers. The minister spoke at length, +descanting upon the character of the deceased, his uprightness and +strict integrity in business, avoiding pitfalls of admissions of +weaknesses with the expertness of a juggler. He was always regarded +as very apt at funerals, never saying too much and never too little. +The church was very still, the whole audience wrapped in a solemn +hush, until the minister began to pray; then there was a general +bending of heads and devout screening of faces with hands. Then all +at once a sob from a woman sounded from the rear of the church. It +was hysterical, and had burst from the restraint of the weeper. +People turned about furtively. + +"Who was that?" whispered Mamie Brady, after a prolonged stare over +her shoulders from under her red frizzle of hair. "It ain't any of +the mourners." + +Ellen shook her head. + +"Do keep still, Mamie Brady," whispered Abby Atkins. + +The sob came again, and this time it was echoed from the pew where +sat the members of the dead man's family. Mrs. Lloyd began weeping +convulsively. Her state of mind had raised her above natural +emotion, and yet her nerves weakly yielded to it when given such an +impetus. She wept like a child, and now and then a low murmur of +heart-broken complaint came from her lips, and was heard distinctly +over the church. Other women began to weep. The minister prayed, and +his words of comfort seemed like the air in a discordant medley of +sorrow. + +Andrew Brewster's face twitched; he held his hands clutched tightly. +Fanny was weeping, but the old woman at the head of the pew sat +immovable. + +When the services were over, and the great concourse of people had +passed around the casket and viewed the face of the dead, with keen, +sidewise observation of the funeral flowers, Mrs. Zelotes pressed +out as fast as she was able without seeming to crowd, and caught up +with Mrs. Pointdexter, who had sat in the rear of the church. + +She came alongside as they left the church, and the two old women +moved slowly down the sidewalk, with lingering glances at the +funeral procession drawn up in front of the church. + +"Who was that cryin' so in back; did you see?" asked Mrs. Zelotes of +Mrs. Pointdexter, whose eyes were red, and whose face bore an +expression of meek endurance of a renewal of her own experience of +sorrow. + +"It was Joe Martin's wife," said she. "I sat just behind her." + +"What made her?" + +Then both started, for the woman who had sobbed came up behind them, +her brother, an elderly man, trying to hold her back. + +"You stop, John," she cried. "I heard what she said, and I'm goin' +to tell her. I'm goin' to tell everybody. Nobody shall stop me. +There the minister spoke and spoke and spoke, and he never said a +word as to any good he'd done. I'm goin' to tell. I wanted to stan' +right up in the church an' tell everybody. He told me not to say a +word about it, an' I never did whilst he was livin', but now I'm +goin' to stan' up for the dead." The woman pulled herself loose +from her brother, who stood behind her, frightened, and continually +thrusting out a black-gloved hand of remonstrance. People began to +gather. The woman, who was quite old, had a face graven with hard +lines of habitual restraint, which was now, from its utter abandon, +at once pathetic and terrible. She made a motion as if she were +thrusting her own self into the background. + +"I'm goin' to speak," she said, in a high voice. "I held my tongue +for the livin', but I'm goin' to speak for the dead. My poor husband +died twenty years ago, got his hand cut in a machine in Lloyd's, and +had lockjaw, and I was left with my daughter that had spinal +disease, and my little boy that died, and my own health none too +good, and--and he--he--came to my house, one night after the +funeral, and--and told me he was goin' to look out for me, and he +has, he has. That blessed man gave me five dollars every week of my +life, and he buried poor Annie when she died, and my little boy, and +he made me promise never to say a word about it. Five dollars every +week of my life--five dollars." + +The woman's voice ended in a long-drawn, hysterical wail. The other +women who had been listening began to weep. Mrs. Pointdexter, when +she and Mrs. Zelotes moved on, was sobbing softly, but Mrs. +Zelotes's face, though moved, wore an expression of stern +conjecture. + +"I'd like to know how many things like that Norman Lloyd did," said +she. "I never supposed he was that kind of a man." + +She had a bewildered feeling, as if she had to reconstruct her own +idea of the dead man as a monument to his memory, and reconstruction +was never an easy task for the old woman. + + + + +Chapter XLV + + +A Short time after Norman Lloyd's death, Ellen, when she had reached +the factory one morning, met a stream of returning workmen. They +swung along, and on their faces were expressions of mingled +solemnity and exultation, as of children let out to play because of +sorrow in the house, which will not brook the jarring inconsequence +of youth. + +Mamie Brady, walking beside a young man as red-haired as herself, +called out, with ill-repressed glee, "Turn round, Ellen Brewster; +there ain't no shop to-day." + +The young man at her side, nervously meagre, looked at Ellen with a +humorous contortion of this thin face, then he caught Mamie Brady by +the arm, and swung her into a hopity-skip down the sidewalk. Just +behind them came Granville Joy, with another man. Ellen stopped. +"What is it?" she said to him. "Why is the shop closed?" + +Granville stopped, and let the stream of workmen pass him and Ellen. +They stood in the midst of it, separating it, as rock will separate +a current. "Mrs. Lloyd is dead," Granville replied, soberly. + +"I heard she was very low last night," Ellen returned, in a hushed +voice. + +Then she passed Granville, who stood a second gazing wistfully after +her, before he resumed his homeward way. He told himself quite +accurately that she had purposely refrained from turning, in order +to avoid walking with himself. A certain resentment seized him. It +seemed to him that something besides his love had been slighted. +"She needn't have thought I was going to make love to her going home +in broad daylight with all these folks," he reflected, and he threw +up his head impatiently. + +The man with whom he had been walking when Ellen appeared lingered +for him to rejoin him. "Wonder how many shops they'd shut up for you +and me," said the man, with a sort of humorous bitterness. He had a +broad face, seemingly fixed in an eternal mask of laughter, and yet +there were hard lines in it, and a forehead of relentless judgment +overhung his wide bow of mouth and his squat and wrinkled nose. + +"Guess not many," replied Granville, echoing the man in a way +unusual to him. + +"And yet if it wa'n't for us they couldn't keep the shop running at +all," said the man, whose name was Tom Peel. + +"That's so," said Granville, with a slight glance over his shoulder. + +Ellen had met the Atkins girls, and had turned, and was coming back +with them. It was as he had thought. + +"If the new boss cuts down fifteen per cent., as the talk is, what +be you goin' to do?" asked Tom Peel. + +"I ain't goin' to stand it," replied Granville, fiercely. + +"Ain't goin' to be swept clean by the new broom, hey?" said the man, +with a widened grin. + +"No!" thundered Granville--"not by him, nor any one like him. Damn +him!" + +Tom Peel's grin widened still further into an intense but silent +laugh. + +Meantime Ellen was walking with Abby and Maria. + +"I wonder how we're going to get along with young Lloyd," said Abby. + +Ellen looked at her keenly. "Why?" she said. + +"Oh, I heard the men talking the other night after I'd gone to bed. +Maybe it isn't true that he's thinking of cutting down the wages." + +"It can't be," said Ellen. + +"I say so, too," said Maria. + +"Well, I hope not," said Abby. "You can't tell. Some chimneys always +have the wind whistling in them, and I suppose it's about so with a +boot and shoe shop. It don't follow that there's going to be a +hurricane." + +They had come to the entrance of the street where the Atkins sisters +lived, and Ellen parted from them. + +She kept on her way quite alone. They had walked slowly, and the +other operatives had either boarded cars or had gone out of sight. + +Ellen, when she turned, faced the northwest, out of which a stiff +wind was blowing. She thrust a hand up each jacket-sleeve, folding +her arms, but she let the fierce wind smite her full in the face +without blenching. She had a sort of delight in facing a wind like +that, and her quick young blood kept her from being chilled. The +sidewalk was frozen. There was no snow, and the day before there had +been a thaw. One could see on this walk, hardened into temporary +stability, the footprints of hundreds of the sons and daughters of +labor. Read rightly, that sidewalk in the little manufacturing city +was a hieroglyphic of toil, and perhaps of toil as tending to the +advance of the whole world. Ellen did not think of that, for she was +occupied with more personal considerations, thinking of the dead +woman in the great Lloyd house. She pictured her lying dead on that +same bed whereon she had seen her husband lie dead. All the ghastly +concomitants of death came to her mind. "They will turn off all that +summer heat, and leave her alone in this freezing cold," she +thought. She remembered the sound of that other woman's kind voice +in her ears, and she saw her face when she told her the dreadful +news of her husband's death. She felt a sob rising in her throat, +but forced it back. What Abby had told concerning Mrs. Lloyd's +happiness in the face of death seemed to her heart-breaking, though +she knew not why. That enormous, almost transcendent trust in that +which was absolutely unknown seemed to engulf her. + +When she reached home, her mother looked at her in astonishment. She +was sewing on the interminable wrappers. Andrew was paring apples +for pies. "What be you home for--be you sick?" asked Fanny. Andrew +gazed at her in alarm. + +"No, I am not sick," replied Ellen, shortly. "Mrs. Lloyd is dead, +and the factory's closed." + +"I heard she was very low--Mrs. Jones told me so yesterday," said +Fanny, in a hushed voice. Andrew began paring another apple. He was +quite pale. + +"When is the funeral to be, did you hear?" asked Fanny. Ellen was +hanging up her hat and coat in the entry. + +"Day after to-morrow." + +"Have you heard anything about the hands sending flowers?" + +"No." + +"I suppose they will," said Fanny, "as long as they sent one to him. +Well, she was a good woman, and it's a mark of respect, and I 'ain't +anything to say against it, but I can't help feeling as if it was a +tax." + + + + +Chapter XLVI + + +It was some time after Mrs. Lloyd's death. Ellen had not seen Robert +except as she had caught from time to time a passing glimpse of him +in the factory. One night she overheard her father and mother +talking about him after she had gone to bed, the sitting-room door +having been left ajar. + +"I thought he'd come and call after his aunt died," she heard Fanny +say. "I've always thought he liked Ellen, an' here he is now, with +all that big factory, an' plenty of money." + +"Mebbe he will," replied Andrew, with a voice in which were +conflicting emotions, pride and sadness, and a struggle for +self-renunciation. + +"It would be a splendid thing for her," said Fanny. + +"It would be a splendid thing for _him_," returned Andrew, with a +flash. + +"Land, of course it would! You needn't be so smart, Andrew Brewster. +I guess I know what Ellen is, as well as you. Any man might be proud +to get her--I don't care who--whether he's Robert Lloyd, or who, but +that don't alter what I say. It would be a splendid chance for +Ellen. Only think of that great Lloyd house, and it must be full of +beautiful things--table linen, and silver, and what-not. I say it +would be a splendid thing for her, and she'd be above want all her +life--that's something to be considered when we 'ain't got any more +than we have to leave her, and she workin' the way she is." + +"Yes, that's so," assented Andrew, with a heavy sigh, as of one who +looks upon life from under the mortification of an incubus of fate. + +"We'd ought to think of her best good," said Fanny, judiciously. +"I've been thinkin' every evening lately that he'd be comin'. I've +had the fire in the parlor stove all ready to touch off, an' I've +kept dusted in there. I know he liked her, but mebbe he's like all +the rest of the big-bugs." + +"What do you mean?" asked Andrew, with an inward qualm of repulsion. +He always hated unspeakably to hear his wife say "big-bugs" in that +tone. Although he was far from being without humility, he was +republican to the core in his estimate of his own status in his own +free country. In his heart, as long as he kept the law of God and +man, he recognized no "big-bugs." It was one of the taints of his +wife's ancestry which grated upon him from time to time. + +"Oh, well, mebbe he don't want to be seen callin' on a shop-girl." + +"Then he'd better keep away, that's all!" cried Andrew, furiously. + +"Oh, well, mebbe it ain't so," said Fanny. "He's always seemed to me +like a sensible feller, and I know he's liked Ellen, an' lots of +girls that work in shops marry rich. Look at Annie Graves, married +that factory boss over to Pemberton, an' has everythin'. She'd +worked in his factory years. Mebbe it ain't that." + +"Ellen don't act as if she minded anything about his not comin'," +said Andrew, anxiously. + +"Land, no; she ain't that kind. She's too much like her grandmother, +but there 'ain't been a night lately that she 'ain't done her hair +over when she got home from the shop and changed her dress." + +"She always changes her dress, don't she?" said Andrew. + +"Oh yes, she always has done that. I guess she likes to get rid of +the leather smell for a while; but she has put on that pretty, new, +red silk waist, and I've seen her watchin', though she's never said +anything." + +"You don't suppose she--" began Andrew, in a voice of intensest +anxiety and indignant tenderness. + +"Land, no; Ellen Brewster ain't a girl to fret herself much over any +man unless she's sure he wants her; trust her. Don't you worry about +that. All I mean is, I know she's had a kind of an idea that he +might come." + +Ellen, up-stairs, lay listening against her will, and felt herself +burning with mortified pride and shame. She said to herself that she +would never put on that red silk waist again of an evening; she +would not even do her hair over. It was quite true that she had +thought that Robert might come, that he might renew his offer, now +that he was so differently situated, and the obstacles, on his side, +at least, removed. She told herself all the time that the obstacles +on her own were still far from removed. She asked herself how could +she, even if this man loved her and wished to marry her, allow him +to support all her family, although he might be able to do so. She +often told herself that she ought perhaps to have pride enough to +refuse, and yet she watched for him to come. She had reflected at +first that it was, of course, impossible for him to seem to take +advantage of the deaths which had left him with this independence, +that he must stay away for a while from motives of delicacy; but now +the months were going, and she began to wonder if he never would +come. Every night, when she took off the pretty, red silk waist, +donned in vain, and let down her fair lengths of hair, it was with +a sinking of her heart, and a sense of incredulous unhappiness. +Ellen had always had a sort of sanguinity of happiness and of the +petting of Providence as well as of her friends. However, the girl +had, in spite of her childlike trust in the beauty of her life, +plenty of strength to meet its refutal, and a pride equal to her +grandmother's. In case Robert Lloyd should never approach her again, +she would try to keep one face of her soul always veiled to her +inmost consciousness. + +The next evening she was careful not to put on her red silk waist, +but changed her shop dress for her old blue woollen, and only +smoothed her hair. She even went to bed early in order to prove to +her mother that she expected nobody. + +"You ain't goin' to bed as early as this, Ellen?" her mother said, +as she lighted her lamp. + +"Yes, I'm going to bed and read." + +"Seems as if somebody might be in," said Fanny, awkwardly. + +"I don't know who," Ellen returned, with a gentle haughtiness. + +Andrew colored. He was at his usual task of paring apples. Andrew, +in lieu of regular work outside, assisted in these household tasks, +that his wife might have more time to sew. He looked unusually worn +and old that night. + +"If anybody does come, Ellen will have to get up, that's all," said +Fanny, when the girl had gone up-stairs. Then she pricked up her +ears, for the electric-car had stopped before the house. Then it +went on, with a sharp clang of the bell and a gathering rush of +motion. + +"That car stopped," Fanny said, breathlessly, her work falling from +her fingers. Andrew and she both listened intently, then footsteps +were heard plainly coming around the path at the side of the house. + +Fanny's face fell. "It's only some of the men," said she, in a low +voice. Then there came a knock on the side door, and Andrew ushered +in John Sargent, Joe Atkins, and Amos Lee. Nahum Beals did not come +in those days, for he was in prison awaiting trial for the murder of +Norman Lloyd. However, Amos Lee's note was as impressive as his. He +called often with Sargent and Atkins. They could not shake him off. +He lay in wait for them at street corners, and joined them. He never +saw Ellen alone, and did not openly proclaim his calls as meant for +her. She prevented him from doing that in a manner which he could +not withstand, full of hot and reckless daring as he was. When he +entered that night he looked around with keen furtiveness, and was +evidently listening and watching for her, though presently his voice +rose high in discussion with the others. After a while the man who +lived next door dropped in, and his wife with him. She and Fanny +withdrew to the dining-room with their sewing--for the woman also +worked on wrappers--and left the sitting-room to the men. + +"It beats all how they like to talk," said the woman, with a +large-minded leniency, "and they never get anywhere," she added. +"They work themselves all up, and never get anywhere; but men are +all like that." + +"Yes, they be," assented Fanny. + +"Jest hear that Lee feller," said the woman. + +Amos Lee's voice was audible over the little house, and could have +been heard in the yard, for it had an enormous carrying quality. It +was the voice of a public ranter. Ellen, up in her chamber, lying in +her bed, with a lamp at her side, reading, closely covered from the +cold--for the room was unheated--heard him with a shiver of disgust +and repulsion, and yet with a fierce sympathy and loyalty. She could +not distinguish every word he said, but she knew well what he was +talking about. + +Mrs. Lloyd's death had made a certain hush in the ferment of revolt +at Lloyd's, but now it was again on the move. There was a strong +feeling of dislike to young Lloyd among the workmen. His uncle had +heaped up ill-feeling as well as wealth as a heritage for him. The +older Lloyd had never been popular, and Robert had succeeded to all +his unpopularity, and was fast gathering his own. He was undoubtedly +disposed to follow largely his uncle's business methods. He had +admired them, they had proved successful, and he had honestly seen +nothing culpable in them as business methods go; so it was not +strange that he tried to copy them when he came into charge of +Lloyd's. He was inclined to meet opposition with the same cool +inflexibility of persistency in his own views, and was disposed to +consult his own interests and carry out his own plans with no more +brooking of interference than the skipper of a man-o'-war. +Therefore, when it happened, shortly after his aunt's death, that he +conceived a dissatisfaction with some prominent spirits among union +men, he discharged them without the slightest reference to the fact +that they were old and skilful workmen, and employed non-union men +from another town in their places. He had, indeed, the object of +making in time his factory entirely non-union. He said to himself +that he would be dictated to by no labor organization under the sun, +and that went a step beyond his uncle, inasmuch as the elder Lloyd +had always made his own opinion subservient to good business policy; +but Robert was younger and his blood hotter. It happened, also, a +month later, when he began to see that business had fallen off +considerably (indeed, it was the beginning of a period of extreme +business depression), and that he could no longer continue on the +same scale with the same profits, that instead of assembling the men +in different departments, communicating the situation to them, and +submitting them a reduced price-list for consideration, as was the +custom with the more pacific of the manufacturers in the vicinity, +he posted it up in the different rooms with no ado whatever. That +had been his uncle's method, but never in the face of such brewing +discontent as was prevalent in Lloyd's at that time. It was an +occasion when the older man would have shut down, but Robert had, +along with his arbitrary impetuosity, a real dislike to shut down on +account of the men, for which they would have been the last to give +him credit. "Poor devils," he told himself, standing in the office +window one night, and seeing them pour out and disappear into the +early darkness beyond the radius of the electric-lights, "I can't +turn them adrift without a dollar in midwinter. I'll try to run the +factory a while longer on a reduced scale, if I only meet expenses." + +He saw Ellen going out, descending the steps with the Atkins girls, +and as she passed the light, her fair head shone out for a second +like an aureole. A great wave of tenderness came over him. He +reflected that it would make no difference to her, that it was only +a question of time before he lifted her forever out of the ranks of +toil. The impulse was strong upon him to go to see her that night, +but he had set himself to wait three months after his aunt's death, +and the time was not yet up. He had a feeling that he might seem to +be, and possibly would be, taking advantage of his bereavement if he +went sooner, and that Ellen herself might think so. + +It was that very night that Ellen had gone to bed early, to prove +not only to her mother but to herself that she did not expect him, +and the men came to see Andrew. Once she heard Amos Lee's voice +raised to a higher pitch than ever, and distinguished every word. + +"I tell you he's goin' to cut the wages to-morrow," said he. + +There was a low rumble of response, which Ellen could not +understand, but Lee's answer made it evident. + +"How do I know?" he thundered. "It is in the air. He don't tell any +more than his uncle did; but you wait and see, that's all." + +"I don't believe it," the girl up-stairs said to herself, +indignantly and loyally. "He can't cut the wages of all those poor +men, he with all his uncle's money." + +But the next morning the reduced price-list was posted on the walls +of the different rooms in Lloyd's. + + + + +Chapter XLVII + + +There was a driving snow-storm the next day. When Ellen started for +the factory the white twilight of early morning still lingered. +Everywhere were the sons and daughters of toil plodding laboriously +and noiselessly through the snow, each keeping in the track of the +one who went before. There was no wind blowing, and the snow was in +a blue-white level; the trees bent stiffly and quietly beneath a +heavy shag of white, and now and then came a clamor of birds, which +served to accentuate the silence and peace. Ellen could always be +forced by an extreme phase of nature to forgetfulness of her own +stresses. For the time being she forgot everything; her vain +watching for Robert, the talk of trouble in the factory, the +disappointment in her home--all were forgotten in the contemplation, +or rather in the absorbing, of this new-old wonder of snow. + +There was a survival of the old Greek spirit in the girl, and had +she come to earth without her background of orthodox traditions, she +might have easily found her own deities in nature. The peace of the +snow enveloped her soul as well as the earth, and she became a +beneficiary of the white storm; the graceful droop of the pine +boughs extended to her thoughts, and the clamor of the birds aroused +in her a winged freedom, so that she felt at once peace and a sort +of ecstasy. She walked in the track of a stolidly plodding man +before her, as different a person as if she were an inhabitant of +another planet. He was digesting the soggy, sweet griddle-cakes +which he had eaten for breakfast, and revolving in his mind two +errands for his wife--one, a pail of lard; the other, three yards of +black dress braid; he was considering the surface scum of existence, +that which pertained solely to his own petty share of it; the girl, +the clear residue of life which was, and had been, and would be. +Each was on the way to humble labor for daily bread, but with a +difference of eternity between them. + +But when Ellen reached the end of the cross street where the Atkins +girls lived, she heard a sound which dispelled her rapt state. Her +far vision became a near one; she saw, as it were, the clouded +window-glass between her mortal eyes and the beyond, and the sound +of a cough brought it about. Abby and Maria were coming towards her +through the snow. Maria was coughing violently, and Abby was +scolding her. + +"I don't care anything about it, Maria Atkins," Abby was saying, +"you ought to be ashamed of yourself coming out such a morning as +this. There isn't any sense in it. You know you'll catch cold, and +then there'll be two of you to take care of. You don't help a mite +doing so, you needn't think you do." + +When Abby caught sight of Ellen she hastened forward, while Maria, +still coughing, trailed behind, lifting her little, heavy, +snow-bound feet wearily. + +"Ellen, I wish you'd tell Maria to turn around and go home," she +said. "Just hear her cough, and out in all this snow, and getting +her skirts draggled. She hasn't got common-sense, you tell her so." + +Ellen stopped, nodding assentingly. "I think she's right, Maria," +she said. "You ought not to be out such a morning as this. You had +better go home." + +Maria came up smiling, though her lips were quite white, and she +controlled her cough to convulsive motions of her chest. + +"I am no worse than usual," said she. "I feel better than I +generally do in the morning. I haven't coughed any more, if I have +as much, and I am holding my dress up high, and you know how warm +the factory is. It will be enough sight warmer than it is at home. +It is cold at home." + +"Lloyd don't have to save coal," said Abby, bitterly, "but that +don't alter the fact of your getting your skirts draggled." + +Maria pulled up her skirts so high that she exposed her slender +ankles, then seeing that she had done so, she let them fall with a +quick glance at two men behind them. + +"The snow will shake right off; it's light, Abby," she said. + +"It ain't light. I should think you might listen to Ellen, if you +won't to me." + +Ellen pressed close to Maria, and pulled her thin arm through her +own. "Look here," she said, "don't you think--" + +Then Maria burst out with a pitiful emphasis. "I've got to go," she +said. "Father had a bad spell last night; he can't get out. He'll +lose his place this time, we are afraid, and there's a note coming +due that father says he's paid, but the man didn't give it up, and +he's got to pay it over again; the lawyer says there is no other +way, and we can't let John Sargent do everything. He's got a sister +out West he's about supporting since her husband died last fall. +I've got to go to work; we've got to have the money, Ellen, and as +for my cough, I have always coughed. It hasn't killed me yet, and I +guess it won't yet for a while." Maria said the last with a +reckless gayety which was unusual to her. + +Abby trudged on ahead with indignant emphasis. "I'd like to know +what good it is going to do to work and earn and pay up money if +everybody is going to be killed by it?" she said, without turning +her head. + +Ellen pulled up Maria's coat-collar around her neck and put an extra +fold of her dress-skirt into her hand. + +"There, you can hold it up as high as that, it looks all right," +said she. + +"I wish Robert Lloyd had to get up at six o'clock and trudge a mile +in this snow to his work," said Abby, with sudden viciousness. +"He'll be driven down in his Russian sleigh by a man looking like a +drum-major, and cut our poor little wages, and that's all he cares. +Who's earning the money, he or us, I'd like to know? I hate the +rich!" + +"If it's true, what you say," said Maria, "it seems to me it's like +hating those you have given things to, and that's worse than hating +your enemies." + +"Don't say given, say been forced to hand over," retorted Abby, +fiercely; "and don't preach, Maria Atkins, I hate preaching; and do +have sense enough not to talk when you are out in this awful storm. +You can keep your mouth shut, if you can't do anything else!" + +Ellen had turned quite white at Abby's words. + +"You don't think that he means to cut the wages?" she said, eagerly. + +"I know he does. I had it straight. Wait till you get to the shop." + +"I don't believe it." + +"You wait. Norman Lloyd was as hard as nails, and the young one is +just like him." Abby looked relentlessly at Ellen. + +"Maybe it isn't so," whispered Maria to Ellen. + +"I don't believe it is," responded Ellen, but Abby heard them, and +turned with a vicious jerk. + +"Well, you wait!" said she. + +The moment Ellen reached the factory she realized that something +unwonted had happened. There were groups of men, talking, oblivious +even of the blinding storm, which was coming in the last few minutes +with renewed fury, falling in heavy sheets like dank shrouds. + +Ellen saw one man in a muttering group throw out an arm, whitened +like a branch of a tree, and shake a rasped, red fist at the +splendid Russian sleigh of the Lloyd's, which was just gliding out +of sight with a flurry of bells and a swing of fur tails, the whole +surmounted by the great fur hat of the coachman. Abby turned and +looked fiercely at Ellen. + +"What did I tell you?" she cried. + +Even then Ellen would not believe. She caught a glimpse of Robert's +fair head at the office window, and a great impulse of love and +loyalty came over her. + +"I don't believe it," she said aloud to Maria. Maria held her arm +tightly. + +"Maybe it isn't so," she said. + +But when they entered the room where they worked, there was a sullen +group before a placard tacked on the wall. Ellen pressed closely, +and saw what it was--a reduced wage-list. Then she went to her +machine. + + + + +Chapter XLVIII + + +Ellen had a judicial turn of mind, as her school-master had once +said of her. She was able to look at matters from more than one +stand-point, but she reasoned with a New Testament clearness of +impartiality. She was capable of uncompromising severity, since she +brought such a clear light of youth and childhood to bear upon even +those things which needed shadows for their true revelation. +Everything was for her either black or white. She had not lived long +enough, perhaps she never would, for a comprehension of half-tones. +The situation to her mind was perfectly simple, and she viewed it +with a candor which was at once terrible and cruel, for it involved +cruelty not only to Robert but to herself. She said to herself, here +was this rich man, this man with accumulation of wealth, not one +dollar of which he had earned himself, either by his hands or his +brains, but which had been heaped up for his uncle by the heart and +back breaking toil of all these poor men and women; and now he was +going to abuse his power of capital, his power to take the bread out +of their mouths entirely, by taking it out in part. He was going to +reduce their wages, he was deliberately going to cause privation, +and even suffering where there were large families. She felt the +most unqualified dissent and indignation, and all the love which she +had for the man only intensified it. Love, with a girl like this, +tended to clearness of vision instead of blindness. She judged him +as she would have judged herself. As she stood working at her +machine, stitching linings to vamps, she kept a sharply listening +ear for what went on about her, but there was very little to hear +after work had fairly commenced and the great place was in full hum. +The demand of labor was so imperative that the laborers themselves +were merged in it; they ceased to be for the time, and, instead of +living, they became parts of the struggle for life. A man hustling +as if the world were at stake to get his part of a shoe finished as +soon as another man, so as not to clog and balk the whole system, +had no time for rebellion. He was in the whirlpool which was +mightier than himself and his revolt. After all, a man is a small +and helpless factor before his own needs. For a time those whirring +machines, which had been evolved in the first place from the brains +of men, and partook in a manner of both the spirit and the grosser +elements of existence, its higher qualities and its sordid +mechanism, like man himself, had the best of it. The swart arms of +the workmen flew at their appointed tasks, they fed those +unsatisfied maws, the factory vibrated with the heavy thud of the +cutting-machines like a pulse, the racks with shoes in different +stages of completion trundled from one department to another, +propelled by men with tense arms and doggedly bent heads. + +Ellen worked with the rest, but she was one of the few whose brain +could travel faster than her hands. She thought as she worked, for +her muscles did not retard her mind. She was composed of two +motions, one within the other, and the central motion was so swift +that it seemed still. + +Ed Flynn came down the room and bent over her. + +"Good-morning," he said. He was too gayly confident to be entirely +respectful, but he had always a timidity of bearing which sat oddly +upon him before Ellen. He looked half boldly, half wistfully at her +fair face, and challenged her with gay eyes, which had in their +depths a covert seriousness. + +Ellen stood between Abby Atkins and Sadie Peel at her work. Sadie +Peel turned on the foreman coquettishly and said, "You'd better go +an' talk to Mamie Brady, she's got on a new blue bow on her red +hair. Why don't you give her some better work than tying those old +shoes? Here she's been workin' in this shop two years. You needn't +come shinin' round Ellen an' me! We don't want you." + +Flynn colored angrily and shot a vicious glance at the girl. + +"It's a pretty hard storm," he said to Ellen, as if the other girl +had not spoken. + +"You needn't pretend you don't hear me, Ed Flynn," called out the +girl. Her cheap finery was in full force that morning, not a lock of +her brown hair was unstudied in its arrangement, and she was as +conscious of her pose before her machine as if she had been on the +stage. She knew just how her slender waist and the graceful slope of +her shoulders appeared to the foreman, and her voice, in spite of +its gay rallying and audacity, was wheedling. + +Flynn caught hold of her shoulders, round and graceful under her +flannel blouse, and shook her, half in anger, half in weakness. + +"You shut up, you witch," said he. Then he turned to Ellen again, +and his whole manner and expression changed. + +"I'm sorry about that new list," he said, very low, in her ear. +Ellen never looked at him, and did not make a motion as if she +heard. + +"It's a hard storm," the foreman said again, almost appealingly. + +"Yes, it is very hard," replied Ellen, slipping another shoe under +the needles. + +"What on earth ails you this morning, Ellen Brewster?" Sadie Peel +said to her, when the foreman had gone. "You look queer and act +queer." + +"Ellen ain't in the habit of joking with Ed Flynn," said Abby +Atkins, on the other side, with sarcastic emphasis. + +"My, don't you feel big!" sneered Sadie Peel. There was always a +jarring inconsequence about this girl, she was so delicately pretty +and refined in appearance, her ribbons were so profuse and cheap, +and her manners were so recklessly coarse. + +Ellen said nothing, but worked steadily. + +"Mame Brady's just gone on Ed Flynn, and he goes with her just +enough to keep her hangin', and I don't believe he means to marry +her, and I think it's mean," said Sadie Peel. + +"She ought to have more sense than to take any stock in him," said +Abby. + +"She ain't the only one," said Sadie. "Nellie Stone in the office +has been daft over him since she's been there, and he don't look at +her. I don't see what there is about Ed Flynn, for my part." + +"I don't," said Abby, dryly. + +"Well, I don't know. He's pretty good-looking," said Sadie Peel, +"and he's got a sort of a way with him." All the time the girl was +talking her heart was aching. The foreman had paid her some little +attention, which she had taken seriously, but nobody except her +father had known it, or known when he had fallen off. Sometimes +Flynn, meeting the father's gaze as he passed him at his work at the +cutting-bench, used to waver involuntarily, though he asked himself +with perfect good faith what was it all about, for he had done the +girl no harm. He felt more guilty concerning Mamie Brady. + +Ellen worked on, with her fingers flying and her forehead tense with +thought. The chatter of the girls ceased. They were too busy to keep +it up. The hum of work continued. Once Ellen knew, although she did +not see him, by some subtle disturbance of the atmosphere, a little +commotion which was perfectly silent, that Robert Lloyd had entered +the room. She knew when he passed her, and she worked more swiftly +than ever. After he had gone out there was a curiously inarticulate +sound like a low growl of purely animal dissent over the room; a +word of blasphemy sounded above the din of the machines. Then all +went on as before until the noon whistle blew. + +Even then there was not so much discussion as might have been +expected. Robert, since the storm was so heavy, remained in the +office, and sent a boy out for a light luncheon, and the foremen +were much in evidence. There was always an uncertainty about their +sentiments, occupying as they did a position half-way between +employer and employes; and then, too, they were not affected by the +cut in wages. The sentiments of the unaffected are always a matter +of suspicion to those who suffer themselves. There were grumblings +carried on in a low key behind Flynn's back, but the atmosphere for +the most part was one of depression. Ellen ate her luncheon with +Maria and Abby. Willy Jones came up timidly when they were nearly +finished, feeling his way with a remark about the storm, which was +increasing. + +"All the cars are tied up," he said, "and the noon train isn't in." + +He leaned, with a curious effort at concealment from them all and +himself, upon the corner of the bench near Abby. Then a young man +passed them, with such an air of tragedy and such a dead-white face +that they all stared after him. + +"What in the world ails you, Ben Simmons?" called out Sadie Peel. +But he did not act as if he heard. He crossed vehemently to the +other side of the room, and stood at a window, looking out at the +fierce white slant of the storm. + +"What in creation ails him?" cried Sadie Peel. + +"I guess I know," Willy Jones volunteered, timidly. + +"What?" + +"He was going to get married, and this cut in his wages is going to +put a stop to it. I heard him say so this morning." + +"Married! Who to?" asked Sadie Peel. + +"Floretta Vining." + +"My land!" cried Sadie Peel. "So she did take up with him after the +school-teacher went away. I always said she would. I always knew +Edward Harris wouldn't marry her, and I always said Ben Simmons +would get her if he hung on long enough. Floretta was bound to marry +somebody; she wasn't going to wind up an old maid; and if she +couldn't get one, she'd take another. I suppose Ben has got that +sick sister of his to do for since her father died, and thinks he +can't get married with any less pay. Floretta won't make a very +cheap wife. She's bound to have things whether or no, and Ben 'ain't +never earned so much as some. He's awful steady, but he's slow as +cold molasses, and he won't let his sister suffer for no Floretta." + +"That's so; I don't believe he would," said Abby. "What any man in +his senses wants a doll like that for enough to look as if he was +dead when he's got to put off marrying her!" + +"That's because you ain't a man, Abby Atkins," said Sadie Peel. "All +the men think of is looks, and little fine airs and graces." + +"It seems as if they might get along," ventured Willy Jones, "as if +they might do with less for a while." + +Then Ellen turned to him unexpectedly. "There's no use in talking +about doing with less when every single cent has to count," said +she, sternly. "Ben Simmons has his taxes and insurance, and a steady +doctor's bill for his sister, and medicines to buy. He can't have +laid up a cent, for he's slow, though he's a good workman. You can't +do with less when you haven't any more than enough." + +"That's so," said Abby. Then she turned a tender, conciliating, +indulgent gaze on the young man at her side. "If I were Floretta +Vining," said she, "and if Ellen were, we would go without things, +and never know it. We'd go to work; but Floretta, she's different. +We went to school with Floretta Vining." + +"Floretta Vining is dreadful fond of men, but she wouldn't go +without a yard of ribbon for one if he was dying," said Sadie Peel, +conclusively. "It's awful hard on Ben Simmons, and no mistake." + +"What?" said Amos Lee, coming up. + +"Oh, what's hard on all of us? What's the use of asking?" said the +girl, with a bitter coquetry. "I shouldn't think any man with +horse-sense would ask what's hard on us when he's seen the ornaments +tacked up all over the shop this morning." + +"That's so," said Lee, with a glance over his shoulder. Flynn was at +the other end of the room. Granville Joy, Dixon, and one or two +other men were sauntering up. For a second the little group looked +at one another. + +"What are you going to do?" asked Ellen, in a low voice, which had +an intonation that caused the others to start. + +"I know what I'll do, if I can get enough to back me," cried Lee, in +a loud voice. + +"Hush up!" said Sadie Peel. Then her father came along smiling his +imperturbable smile on his wide face, which had a Slavonic cast, +although he was New England born and bred. He looked from one to the +other without saying a word. + +"We're deciding whether to strike or not, father," said Sadie, in a +flippant manner. She raised a hand and adjusted a stray lock of hair +as she spoke, then she straightened her ribbon stock. Her father +said nothing, but his face assumed a stolidity of expression. + +"I know what I'll do," proclaimed Amos Lee again. + +"Hush up!" cried Sadie Peel again, with a giggle. "Here's Ed Flynn." + And the foreman came sauntering up as the one-o'clock whistle blew, +and the workers sprang to their posts of work. + + + + +Chapter XLIX + + +The snow increased all day. When the six-o'clock whistle blew, and +the workmen streamed out of the factories, it was a wild waste of +winter and storm. The wind had come up, and the light snow arose in +the distance like white dancers of death, spinning furiously over +the level, then settling into long, gravelike ridges. Ellen glanced +into the office as she passed the door, and saw Robert Lloyd talking +busily with Flynn and another foreman by the name of Dennison. As +she passed, Robert turned with a look as if he had been watching for +her, and came forward hastily. + +"Miss Brewster!" he called. + +Mamie Brady, following close behind, gave Ellen an admonishing +nudge. "Boss wants to see you," she whispered, loudly. Ellen +stopped, and Robert came up. + +"Please step in here a moment, Miss Brewster," he said, and colored +a little. + +Granville Joy, who was following Ellen, looked keenly at him, some +one sniggered aloud, and a girl said quite audibly, "My land!" + +Ellen followed Robert into the office, and he bent over her, +speaking rapidly, in a low voice. + +"You must not walk home in this snow," he said, "and the cars are +not running. You must let me take you. My sleigh is at the door." + +Ellen turned white. Somehow this protecting care for herself, in the +face of all which she had been considering that day, gave her a +tremendous shock. She felt at once touched and more indignant than +she had ever been in her whole life. She had been half believing +that Robert was neglecting her, that he had forgotten her; all day +she had been judging his action of cutting the wages of the workmen +from her unswerving, childlike, unshadowed point of view, and now +this little evidence of humanity towards her, in the face of what +she considered wholesale inhumanity towards others, made her at once +severe to him and to herself, and she forced back sternly the leap +of pleasure and happiness which this thought of her awakened. "No, +thank you," she said, shortly; "I am much obliged, but I would +rather walk." + +"But you cannot, in this storm," pleaded Robert, in a low voice. + +"Yes, I can; it is no worse for me than for others. There is Maria +Atkins, she has been coughing all day." + +"I will take her too. Ellen, you cannot walk. You must let me take +you." + +"I am much obliged, but I would rather not," replied Ellen, in an +icy tone. She looked quite hard in his face. + +Robert looked at her perplexed. "But it is drifting," he said. + +"It is no worse for me than for the others." Ellen turned to go. +Her attitude of rebuff was unmistakable. + +Robert colored. "Very well; I will not urge you," he said, coldly. +Then he returned to his desk, and Ellen went out. She caught up with +Maria Atkins, who was struggling painfully through the drifts, +leaning on Abby's arm, and slipped a hand under her thin shoulder. + +"I expect nothing but she'll get her death out in this storm," +grumbled Abby. "What did he want, Ellen?" + +"Nothing in particular," replied Ellen. Uppermost in her mind at +that moment was the charge of cruelty against Robert for not taking +her hint as to Maria. "He can ask me to ride because he has amused +himself with me, but as for taking this poor girl, whom he does not +love, when it may mean life or death to her, he did not think +seriously of doing that for a moment," she thought. + +Maria was coughing, although she strove hard to smother the coughs. +Granville Joy, who was plodding ahead, turned and waited until they +came up. + +"You had better let me carry you, Maria," he said, jocularly, but +his honest eyes were full of concern. + +"He is enough sight kinder than Robert Lloyd," thought Ellen; "he +has a better heart." And then the splendid Lloyd sleigh came up +behind them and stopped, tilting to a drift. Robert, in his +fur-lined coat, sprang out and went up to Maria. + +"Please let me take you home," he said, kindly. "You have a cold, +and this storm is too severe for you to be out. Please let me take +you home." + +Maria looked at him, fairly gasping with astonishment. She tried to +speak, but a cough choked her. + +"You had better go if Mr. Lloyd will take you," Abby said, +decisively. "Thank you, Mr. Lloyd; she isn't fit to be out." She +urged her sister towards the sleigh, and Robert assisted her into +the fur-lined nest. + +"I can sit with the driver," said Robert to Abby, "if you will come +with your sister." + +"No, thank you," replied Abby. "I am able to walk, but I will be +much obliged if you will take Maria home." + +Robert sprang in beside Maria, and the sleigh slid out of sight. + +"I never!" said Abby. Ellen said nothing, but plodded on, her eyes +fixed on the snowy track. + +"I am glad she had a chance to ride," said Granville Joy, in a +tentative voice. He looked uneasily at Ellen. + +"It beats the Dutch," said Abby. She also regarded Ellen with +sympathy and perplexity. When they reached the street where she +lived, up which the sleigh had disappeared, she let Granville go on +ahead, and she spoke to Ellen in a low tone. "Why didn't he ask +you?" she said. + +"He did," replied Ellen. + +"In the office?" + +"Yes." + +"And you wouldn't?" + +"No." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't care to accept favors from a man who oppresses all my +friends!" + +"He was good to take in Maria," said Abby, in a perplexed voice. +"His uncle would never have thought of it." + +Ellen made no reply. She stood still in the drifting snow, with her +mouth shut hard. + +"You feel as if this cutting wages was a pretty hard thing?" said +Abby. + +"Yes, I do." + +"Well, so do I. I wonder what they will do about it. I don't know +how the men feel. Somehow, folks can't seem to think or plan much in +a storm like this. There's the sleigh coming back." + +"Good-night," Ellen said, hurriedly, and trudged on as fast as she +was able in order not to have the Lloyd sleigh pass her; it had to +turn after reaching the end of the street. Ellen caught up with +Granville Joy. Robert, glancing over the waving fringe of fur tails, +saw disappearing in the pale gleam of the electric-light the two dim +figures veiled by the drifting snow. He thought to himself, with a +sharp pain, that perhaps, after all, Granville Joy was the reason +for her rebuff. It never occurred to him that his action in cutting +the wages could have anything to do with it. + +Ellen went along with Granville, who was anxious to offer her his +arm, but did not quite dare. He kept thrusting out an elbow in her +direction, and an inarticulate invitation died in his throat. +Finally, when they reached an unusually high drift of snow, he +plucked up sufficient courage. + +"Take my arm, won't you?" he said, with a pitiful attempt at ease, +then stared as if he had been shot, at Ellen's reply. + +"No, thank you," she said. "I think it is easier to walk alone in +snow like this." + +"Maybe it is," assented Granville, dejectedly. He walked on, +scuffling as hard as he could to make a path for Ellen with the +patient faithfulness of a dog. + +"What are you going to do about the cut in wages?" Ellen asked, +presently. + +Granville started. The sudden transition from personalities to +generalities confused him. + +"What?" he said. + +Ellen repeated her question. + +"I don't know," said Granville. "I don't think the boys have made up +their minds. I don't know what they will do. They have been weeding +out union men. I suppose the union would have something to say about +it otherwise. I don't know what we will do." + +"I shouldn't think there would be very much doubt as to what to do," +said Ellen. + +Granville stared at her over his shoulder in a perplexed, admiring +fashion. "You mean--?" he asked. + +"I shouldn't think there would be any doubt." + +"Well, I don't know. It is a pretty serious thing to get out of work +in midwinter for a good many of us, and as long as the union isn't +in control, other men can come in. I don't know." + +"I know," said Ellen. + +"You mean--?" + +"I mean that I do not think it right, that it is unjust, and I +believe in resisting injustice." + +"Men have resisted injustice ever since the Creation," said +Granville, in a bitter voice. + +"Well, resistance can continue as long as life lasts," returned +Ellen. Just then came a fiercer blast than ever, laden with a +stinging volley of snow, and seemed to sweep the words from the +girl's mouth. She bent before it involuntarily, and the conviction +forced itself upon her that, after all, resistance to injustice +might be as futile as resistance to storm, that injustice might be +one of the primal forces of the world, and one of the conditions of +its endurance, and yet with the conviction came the renewed +resolution to resist. + +"What can poor men do against capital unless they are backed up by +some labor organization?" asked Granville. "And I don't believe +there are a dozen in the factory who belong to the union. There has +been an understanding, without his ever saying so that I know of, +that the old boss didn't approve of it. So lots of us kept out of +it, we wanted work so bad. What can we do against such odds?" + +"When right is on your side, you have all the odds," said Ellen, +looking back over her snow-powdered shoulder. + +"Then you would strike?" + +"I wouldn't submit." + +"Well, I don't know how the boys feel," said Granville. "I suppose +we'll have to talk it over." + +"I shouldn't need to talk it over," said Ellen. "You've gone past +your house, Granville." + +"I ain't going to let you go home alone in such a storm as this," +said Granville, in a tender voice, which he tried to make facetious. +"I wouldn't let any girl go home alone in such a storm." + +Ellen stopped short. "I don't want you to go home with me, thank +you, Granville," she said. "Your mother will have supper ready, and +I can go just as well alone." + +"Ellen, I won't let you go alone," said the young man, as a wilder +gust came. "Suppose you should fall down?" + +"Fall down!" repeated Ellen, with a laugh, but her regard of the +young man, in spite of her rebuff, was tender. He touched her with +his unfailing devotion; the heavy trudging by her side of this poor +man meant, she told herself, much more than the invitation of the +rich one to ride behind his bays in his luxurious sleigh. This meant +the very bone and sinew of love. She held out her little, mittened +hand to him. + +"Good-night, Granville," she said. + +Granville caught it eagerly. "Oh, Ellen," he murmured. + +But she withdrew her hand quickly. "We have always been good +friends, and we always will be," said she, and her tone was +unmistakable. The young man shrank back. + +"Yes, we always will, Ellen," he said, in a faithful voice, with a +note of pain in it. + +"Good-night," said Ellen again. + +"Good-night," responded Granville, and turned his plodding back on +the girl and retraced his laborious steps towards his own home, +which he had just passed. There come times for all souls when the +broad light of the path of humanity seems to pale to insignificance +before the intensity of the one little search-light of personality. +Granville Joy felt as if the eternal problem of the rich and poor, +of labor and capital, of justice and equality, was as nothing before +the desire of his heart for that one girl who was disappearing from +his sight behind the veil of virgin snow. + + + + +Chapter L + + +When Ellen came in sight of her house that night she saw her +father's bent figure moving down the path with sidewise motions of a +broom. He had been out at short intervals all the afternoon, that +she should not have to wade through drifts to the door. The +electric-light shone full on this narrow, cleared track and the +toiling figure. + +"Hullo, father!" Ellen called out. Andrew turned, and his face lit +with love and welcome and solicitude. + +"Be you dreadful snowy?" he asked. + +"Oh no, father, not very." + +"It's an awful storm." + +"Pretty bad, but I got along all right. The snow-plough has been +out." + +"Wait a minute till I get this swept," said Andrew, sweeping +violently before her. + +"You needn't have bothered, father," said Ellen. + +"I 'ain't anything else to do," replied Andrew, in a sad voice. + +"There's mother watching," said Ellen. + +"Yes, she's been diggin' at them wrappers all day." + +"I suppose she has," Ellen returned, in a bitter tone. Her father +stared at her. Ellen never spoke like that. For the first time she +echoed him and her mother. Something like terror came over him at +the sound of that familiar note of his own life from this younger +one. He seemed to realize dimly that a taint of his nature had +descended upon his child. + +When Ellen entered the house, the warm air was full of savory odors +of toast and tea and cooking meat and vegetables. + +"You'd better go right up-stairs and put on a dry dress, Ellen," +said Fanny. "I put your blue one out on your bed, and your shoes are +warming by the sitting-room stove. I've been worrying as to how you +were going to get home all day." Then she stopped short as she +caught sight of Ellen's face. "What on earth is the matter, Ellen +Brewster?" she said. + +"Nothing," said Ellen. "Why?" + +"You look queer. Has anything happened?" + +"Yes, something has happened." + +"What?" + +Andrew turned pale. He stood in the entry with his snowy broom in +hand, staring from one to the other. + +"Nothing that you need worry about," said Ellen. "I'll tell you when +I get my dress changed." + +Ellen pulled off her rubbers, and went up-stairs to her chamber. +Fanny and Andrew stood looking at each other. + +"You don't suppose--" whispered Andrew. + +"Suppose what?" responded Fanny, sharply. + +They continued to look at each other. Fanny answered Andrew as if he +had spoken, with that jealous pride for her girl's self-respect +which possessed her even before the girl's father. + +"Land, it ain't that," said she. "You wouldn't catch Ellen lookin' +as if anything had come across her for such a thing as that." + +"No, I suppose she wouldn't," said Andrew; and he actually blushed +before his wife's eyes. + +That afternoon Mrs. Wetherhed had been in, and told Fanny that she +had heard that Robert Lloyd was to be married to Maud Hemingway; and +both Andrew and Fanny had thought of that as the cause of Ellen's +changed face. + +"You'd better take that broom out into the shed, and get the snow +off yourself, and come in and shut the door," Fanny said, shortly. +"You're colding the house all off, and Amabel has got a cold, and +she's sitting right in the draught." + +"All right," replied Andrew, meekly, though Fanny had herself been +holding the sitting-room door open. In those days Andrew felt below +his moral stature as head of the house. Actually, looking at Fanny, +who was earning her small share towards the daily bread, she seemed +to him much taller than he, though she was a head shorter. He +thought so little of himself, he seemed to see himself as through +the wrong end of a telescope. Fanny went into the sitting-room and +shut the door with a bang. Amabel did not look up from her book. She +was reading a library book much beyond her years, and sniffing +pathetically with her cold. Amabel had begun to discover an +omnivorous taste for books, which stuck at nothing. She understood +not more than half of what she read, but seemed to relish it like +indigestible food. + +When Ellen came down-stairs, and sat beside the coal stove to change +her shoes, she looked at the book which Amabel was reading. "You +ought not to read that book, dear," she said. "Let Ellen get you a +better one for a little girl to-morrow." + +But Amabel, without paying the slightest heed to Ellen's words, +looked up at her with amazement, as Andrew and Fanny had done. +"What's the matter, Ellen?" she asked, in her little, hoarse voice. + +Fanny and Andrew, who had just entered, stood waiting. Ellen bent +over her shoe, drawing in the strings firmly and evenly. + +"Mr. Lloyd has reduced the wage-list," she said. + +"How much?" asked Andrew, in a hoarse voice. + +"Ten per cent." + +There was a dead silence. Andrew and Fanny looked at Ellen like +people who are uncertain of their next move; Amabel stared from one +to the other with her weak, watery eyes. Ellen continued to lace her +shoes. + +"What do you think about it, Ellen?" asked Andrew, almost timidly. + +"I know of only one thing to think," replied Ellen, in a dogged +voice. + +As she spoke she pulled the tag off a shoe-string because it would +not go through the eyelet. + +"What is that?" asked Fanny, in a hard voice. + +"I think it is cruelty and tyranny," said Ellen, pulling the rough +end of the string through the eyelet. + +"I suppose the times are pretty hard," ventured Andrew; but Ellen +cut him short. + +"Robert Lloyd has half a million, which has been accumulated by the +labor of poor men in prosperous times," said she, with her childlike +severity and pitilessness. "There is no question about the matter." + +Then Fanny flung all self-interest to the wind and was at her +daughter's side like a whirlwind. The fact that the two were of one +blood was never so strongly evident. Red spots glowed in the elder +woman's cheeks and her black eyes blazed. + +"Ellen's right," said she; "she's right. For a man worth half a +million to cut down the wages of poor, hard-working folks in +midwinter is cruelty. I don't care who does it." + +"Yes, it is," said Ellen. + +Fanny opened her mouth to tell Ellen of the rumor concerning +Robert's engagement to Maud Hemingway, then she refrained, for some +reason which she could not analyze. In her heart she did not believe +the report to be true, and considered the telling of it a slight to +Ellen, but it influenced her in her indignation against Robert for +the wage-cutting. + +"What are they going to do?" asked Andrew. + +"I don't know," replied Ellen. + +"Did he--young Lloyd--talk to the men?" + +"No; notices were tacked up all over the shop." + +"That was the way his uncle would have done," said Andrew, in a +curious voice of bitterness and respect. + +"So you don't know what they are going to do?" said Fanny. + +"No." + +"Well, I know what I would do," said Fanny. "I never would give in, +if I starved--never!" + + + + +Chapter LI + + +When Ellen started for the factory the next morning the storm had +not ceased; the roads were very heavy, although the snow-plough had +been out at intervals all night, and there was a struggling line of +shovelling men along the car-track, but the cars were still unable +to penetrate the drifts. When Ellen passed her grandmother's house +the old woman tapped sharply on the window and motioned her back +frantically with one bony hand. The window was frozen to the sill +with the snow, and she could not raise it. Ellen shook her head, +smiling. Her grandmother continued to wave her back, the lines of +forbidding anxiety in her old face as strongly marked as an etching +in the window frame. This love, which had at once coerced and +fondled the girl since her birth, was very precious to her. This +protection, which she was forced to repel, smote her like a pain. + +"Poor old grandmother!" she thought; "there she will worry about me +all day because I have gone out in the storm." She turned back and +waved her hand and nodded laughingly; but the old woman continued +that anxiously imperative backward motion until Ellen was out of +sight. + +Ellen walked in the car-track, as did everybody else, that being +better cleared than the rest of the road. She was astonished that +she heard nothing of the cut in wages from the men. There seemed to +be no excitement at all. They merely trudged heavily along, their +whitening bodies bent before the storm. There was an unusual +doggedness about this march to the factory this morning, but that +was all. Ellen returned the muttered greeting of several, and walked +along in silence with the rest. Even when Abby Atkins joined her +there was little said. Ellen asked for Maria, and Abby replied that +she had taken more cold yesterday, and could not speak aloud; then +relapsed into silence, making her way through the snow with a sort +of taciturn endurance. Ellen looked at the struggling procession of +which she was a part, all slanting with the slant of the storm, and +a fancy seized her that rebellion and resistance were hopeless, that +those parallel lines of yielding to the onslaughts of fate were as +inevitable as life itself, one of its conditions. Men could not help +walking that way when the bitter storm-wind was blowing; they could +not help living that way when fate was in array against their +progress. Then, thinking so, a mightier spirit of revolt than she +had ever known awoke within her. She, as she walked, straightened +herself. She leaned not one whit before the drive of the storm. She +advanced with no yielding in her, her brave face looking ahead +through the white blur of snow with a confidence which was almost +exultation. + +"What do you think the men will do?" she said to Abby when they came +in sight of Lloyd's, shaggy with fringes and wreaths and overhanging +shelvings of snow, roaring with machinery, with the steady stream of +labor pouring in the door. + +"Do?" repeated Abby, almost listlessly. "Do about what?" + +"About the cut in wages?" + +Abby turned on her with sudden fire. "Oh, my God, what can they do, +Ellen Brewster?" she demanded. "Haven't they got to live? Hasn't +Lloyd got it all his own way? How are men to live in weather like +this without work? Bread without butter is better than none at all, +and life at any cost is better than death for them you love. What +can they do?" + +"It seems to me there is only one thing to do," replied Ellen. + +Abby stared at her wonderingly. "You don't mean--" she said, as they +climbed up the stairs. + +"I mean I would do anything, at whatever cost to myself, to defeat +injustice," said Ellen, in a loud, clear voice. + +Several men turned and looked back at her and laughed bitterly. + +"It's easy talking," said one to another. + +"That's so," returned the other. + +The people all settled to their work as usual. One of the foremen +(Dennison), who was anxious to curry favor with his employer, +reported to him in an undertone in the office that everything was +quiet. Robert nodded easily. He had not anticipated anything else. +In the course of the morning he looked into the room where Ellen was +employed, and saw with relief and concern her fair head before her +machine. It seemed to him that he could not bear it one instant +longer to have her working in this fashion, that he must lift her +out of it. He still tingled with his rebuff of the night before, but +he had never loved her so well, for the idea that the cut in wages +affected her relation to him never occurred to him. As he walked +through the room none of the workers seemed to notice him, but +worked with renewed energy. He might have been invisible for all the +attention he seemed to excite. He looked with covert tenderness at +the back of Ellen's head, and passed on. He reflected that he had +adopted the measure of wage-cutting with no difficulty whatever. + +"All it needs is a little firmness," he thought, with a boyish +complacency in his own methods. "Now I can keep on with the factory, +and no turning the poor people adrift in midwinter." + +At noon Robert put on his fur-lined coat and left the factory, +springing into the sleigh, which had drawn up before the door with a +flurry of bells. He had an errand in the next town that afternoon, +and was not going to return. When the sleigh had slid swiftly out of +sight through the storm, which was lightening a little, the people +in the office turned to one another with a curious expression of +liberty, but even then little was said. Nellie Stone was at the desk +eating her luncheon; Ed Flynn and Dennison and one of the lasters, +who had looked in and then stepped in when he saw Lloyd was gone, +were there. The laster, who was young and coarsely handsome, had an +admiration for the pretty girl at the desk. Presently she addressed +him, with her mouth full of apple-pie. + +"Say, George, what are you fellows going to do?" she asked. + +Dennison glanced keenly from one to the other; Flynn shrugged his +shoulders and looked out of the window. + +"Looks as if it was clearing up," he remarked. + +"What are you going to do?" asked Nellie Stone again, with a +coquettish flirt of her blond fluff of hair. + +"Grin and bear it, I s'pose," replied the young laster, with an +adoring look at her. + +"My land! grin and bear a cut of ten per cent.? Well, I don't think +you've got much spunk, I must say. Why don't you strike?" + +"Who's going to feed us?" replied the laster, in a tender voice. + +"Feed you? Oh, you don't want much to eat. Join the union. It's +ridiculous so few of the men in Lloyd's belong to it, anyway; and +then the union will feed you, won't it?" + +"The union did not do what it promised in the Scarboro strike," +interposed Dennison, curtly. + +"Oh, we all know where you are, Frank Dennison," said the girl, with +a soft roll of her blue eyes. "Besides, it's easy to talk when you +aren't hit. Your wages aren't cut. But here is George May here, he's +in a different box." + +"He's got nobody dependent on him, anyway," said Flynn. + +"If I wasn't going to get married I'd strike," cried the young man, +with a fervent glance at the girl. She colored, half pleased, half +angry, and the other men chuckled. She took another bite of pie to +conceal her confusion. She preferred Flynn to the laster, and while +she was not averse to proving to the former the triumph of her +charms over another man, did not like too much concessions. + +"You'd better go and eat your dinner, George May," she said, in her +sweet, shrill voice. "First thing you know the whistle will blow. +Here's yours, Ed." With that she pulled out a leather bag from +under the desk, where she had volunteered to place it for warmth and +safety against the coil of steam-pipes. + +"I don't believe your coffee is very cold, Ed," said she. + +The laster glared from one to the other jealously. Dennison went +towards a shelf where he had stored away his luncheon, when he +stopped suddenly and listened, as did the others. There came a great +uproar of applause from the next room beyond. Then it subsided, and +a girl's clear, loud voice was heard. + +"What is going on?" cried Nellie Stone. She jumped up and ran to the +door, still eating her pie, and the men followed her. + +At the end of one of the work-rooms, backed against a snowy window, +clung about with shreds of the driving storm, stood Ellen Brewster, +with some other girls around her, and a few men on the outskirts, +and a steady, curious movement of all the other workmen towards her, +as of iron filings towards a magnet, and she was talking. + +Her voice was quite audible all over the great room. It was +low-pitched, but had a wonderful carrying quality, and there was +something marvellous in its absolute confidence. + +"If you men will do nothing, and say nothing, it is time for a girl +to say and act," she proclaimed. "I did not dream for a minute that +you would yield to this cut in wages. Why should you have your wages +cut?" + +"The times are pretty hard," said a doubtful voice among her +auditors. + +"What if the times are hard? What is that to you? Have you made them +hard? It is the great capitalists who have made them hard by +shifting the wealth too much to one side. They are the ones who +should suffer, not you. What have you done, except come here morning +after morning in cold or heat, rain or shine, and work with all your +strength? They who have precipitated the hard times are the ones who +should bear the brunt of them. Your work is the same now as it was +then, the strain on your flesh and blood and muscles is the same, +your pay should be the same." + +"That's so," said Abby Atkins, in a reluctant, surly fashion. + +"That's so," said another girl, and another. Then there was a +fusilade of hand-claps started by the girls, and somewhat feebly +echoed by the men. + +One or two men looked rather uneasily back towards Dennison and +Flynn and two more foremen who had come forward. + +"It ain't as though we had something to fall back on," said a man's +grumbling voice. "It's easy to talk when you 'ain't got a wife and +five children dependent on you." + +"That's so," said another man, doggedly. + +"That has nothing to do with it," said Ellen, firmly. "We can all +club together, and keep the wolf from the door for those who are +hardest pressed for a while; and as for me, if I were a man--" + +She paused a minute. When she spoke again her voice was full of +childlike enthusiasm; it seemed to ring like a song. + +"If I were a man," said she, "I would go out in the street and +dig--I would beg, I would steal--before I would yield--I, a free man +in a free country--to tyranny like this!" + +There was a great round of applause at that. Dennison scowled and +said something in a low voice to another foreman at his side. Flynn +laughed, with a perplexed, admiring look at Ellen. + +"The question is," said Tom Peel, slouching on the outskirts of the +throng, and speaking in an imperturbable, compelling, drawling +voice, "whether the free men in the free country are going to kick +themselves free, or into tighter places, by kicking." + +"If you have got to stop to count the cost of bravery and standing +up for your rights, there would be no bravery in the world," +returned Ellen, with disdain. + +"Oh, I am ready to kick," said Peel, with his mask-like smile. + +"So am I," said Granville Joy, in a loud voice. Amos Lee came +rushing through the crowd to Ellen's side. He had been eating his +dinner in another room, and had just heard what was going on. He +opened his mouth with a motion as of letting loose a flood of +ranting, but somebody interposed. John Sargent, bulky and +irresistible in his steady resolution, put him aside and stood +before him. + +"Look here," he said to them all. "There may be truth in what Miss +Brewster says, but we must not act hastily; there is too much at +stake. Let us appoint a committee and go to see Mr. Lloyd this +evening, and remonstrate on the cutting of the wages." He turned to +Ellen in a kindly, half-paternal fashion. "Don't you see it would be +better?" he said. + +She looked at him doubtfully, her cheeks glowing, her eyes like +stars. She was freedom and youth incarnate, and rebellious against +all which she conceived as wrong and tyrannical. She could hardly +admit, in her fire of enthusiasm, of pure indignation, of any +compromise or arbitration. All the griefs of her short life, she had +told herself, were directly traceable to the wrongs of the system of +labor and capital, and were awakening within her as freshly as if +they had just happened. + +She remembered her father, exiled in his prime from his place in the +working world by this system of arbitrary employment; she remembered +her aunt in the asylum; poor little Amabel; her own mother toiling +beyond her strength on underpaid work; Maria coughing her life away. +She remembered her own life twisted into another track from the one +which she should have followed, and there was for the time very +little reason or justice in her. That injustice which will arise to +meet its kind in equal combat had arisen in her heart. Still, she +yielded. "Perhaps you are right," she said to Sargent. She had +always liked John Sargent, and she respected him. + +"I am sure it is the best course," he said to her, still in that +low, confidential voice. + +It ended in a committee of four--John Sargent, Amos Lee, Tom Peel, +and one of the older lasters, a very respectable man, a deacon in +the Baptist Church--being appointed to wait on Robert Lloyd that +evening. + +When the one-o'clock whistle blew, Ellen went back to her machine. +She was very pale, but she was conscious of a curious steadiness of +all her nerves. Abby leaned towards her, and spoke low in the roar +of wheels. + +"I'll back you up, if I die for it," she said. + +But Sadie Peel, on the other side, spoke quite openly, with a laugh +and shrug of her shoulders. "Land," she said, "father'll be with +you. He's bound to strike. He struck when he was in McGuire's. Catch +father givin' up anything. But as for me, I wish you'd all slow up +an' stick to work, if you do get a little less. If we quit work I +can't have a nearseal cape, and I've set my heart on a nearseal cape +this winter." + + + + +Chapter LII + + +Ellen resolved that she would say as little as possible about the +trouble at home that night. She did not wish her parents to worry +over it until it was settled in one way or another. + +When her mother asked what they had done about the wage-cutting, she +replied that a committee had been appointed to wait on Mr. Lloyd +that evening, and talk it over with him; then she said nothing more. + +"He won't give in if he's like his uncle," said Fanny. + +Ellen went on eating her supper in silence. Her father glanced at +her with sharp solicitude. + +"Maybe he will," said he. + +"No, he won't," returned Fanny. + +Ellen was very pale and her eyes were bright. After supper she went +to the window and pressed her face against the glass, shielding her +eyes from the in-door light, and saw that the storm had quite +ceased. The stars were shining and the white boughs of the trees +lashing about in the northwest wind. She went into the entry, where +she had hung her hat and coat, and began putting them on. + +"Where are you going, Ellen?" asked her mother. + +"Just down to Abby's a minute." + +"You don't mean to say your are goin' out again in this snow, Ellen +Brewster? I should think you were crazy." When Fanny said crazy, +she suddenly started and shuddered as if she had struck herself. She +thought of Eva. Always the possibility of a like doom was in her own +mind. + +"It has stopped snowing, mother," Ellen said. + +"Stopped snowing! What if it has? The roads ain't cleared. You can't +get down to Abby Atkins's without gettin' wet up to your knees. I +should think if you got into the house after such a storm you'd have +sense enough to stay in. I've worried just about enough." + +Ellen took off her coat and hat and hung them up again. "Well, I +won't go if you feel so, mother," she said, patiently. + +"It seems as if you might get along without seein' Abby Atkins till +to-morrow mornin', when you'd seen her only an hour ago," Fanny went +on, in the high, nagging tone which she often adopted with those +whom she loved the dearest. + +"Yes, I can," said Ellen. It seemed to her that she must see +somebody with whom she could talk about the trouble in the factory, +but she yielded. There was always with the girl a perfect surface +docility, as that she seemed to have no resistance, but a little way +down was a rock-bed of firmness. She lighted her lamp, and took her +library book and went up-stairs to bed to read. But she could not +read, and she could not sleep when she had put aside her book and +extinguished her lamp. She could think of nothing except Robert, and +what he would say to the committee. She lay awake all night thinking +of it. Ellen was a girl who was capable of the most devoted love, +and the most intense dissent and indignation towards the same +person. She could love in spite of faults, and she could see faults +in spite of love. She thought of Robert Lloyd as of the one human +soul whom she loved best out of the whole world, whom she put before +everybody else, even her own self, and she also thought of him with +a wrath which was pitiless and uncompromising, and which seemed to +tear her own heart to pieces, for one cannot be wroth with love +without a set-back of torture. "If he does not give in and raise the +wages, I shall hate him," thought Ellen; and her heart stung her as +if at the touch of a hot iron, and then she could have struck +herself for the supposition that he would not give in. "He must," +she told herself, with a great fervor of love. "He must." + +But when she went down to breakfast the next morning her mother +stared at her sharply. + +"Ellen Brewster, what is the matter with you?" she cried. + +"Nothing. Why?" + +"Nothing! You look like a ghost." + +"I feel perfectly well," said Ellen. She made an effort to eat as +much breakfast as usual in order that her mother should not suspect +that she was troubled. When at last she set out for the factory, in +the early morning dusk, she was chilled and trembling with +excitement. + +The storm had quite ceased, and there was a pale rose-and-violet +dawn-light in the east, and presently came effects like +golden-feathered shafts shooting over the sky. The road was alive +with shovelling men, construction-cars of the railroad company were +laboring back and forth to clear the tracks, householders were +making their way from their doors to their gates, clearing their +paths, lifting up the snow in great, glittering, blue-white blocks +on their clumsy shovels. Everywhere were the factory employes +hastening to their labor; the snow was dropping from the overladen +tree branches in great blobs; there was an incessant, shrill chatter +of people, and occasional shouts. It was the rally of mankind after +a defeat by a primitive force of nature. It was the eternal +reassertion of human life and a higher organization over the +elemental. Men who had walked doggedly the morning before now moved +with a spring of alacrity, although the road was very heavy. There +was a new light in their eyes; their cheeks glowed. Ellen had no +doubt whatever that if Robert Lloyd had not yielded the attitude of +the employes of Lloyd's would be one of resistance. She herself +seemed to breathe in resistance to tyranny, and strength for the +right in every breath of the clear, crisp morning air. She felt as +if she could trample on herself and her own weakness, for the sake +of justice and the inalienable good of her kind, with as little +hesitation as she trampled on the creaking snow. Yet she trembled +with that deadly chill before a sense of impending fate. When she +returned the salutations of her friends on the road she felt that +her lips were stiff. + +"You look dreadful queer, Ellen," Abby Atkins said, anxiously, when +she joined her. Maria also was out that morning. + +"Have you heard what they are going to do?" Ellen asked, in a sort +of breathless fashion. + +"You mean about the wage-cutting? Don't look so, Ellen." + +Maria pressed close to Ellen, and slid her thin arm through hers. + +"Yes," said Ellen. "What did John Sargent say when he got home last +night?" + +Abby hesitated a second, looking doubtfully at Ellen. "I don't see +that there is any need for you to take all this so much to heart," +she said. + +"What did he say?" + +"Well," Abby replied, reluctantly, "I believe Mr. Lloyd wouldn't +give in. Ellen Brewster, for Heaven's sake, don't look so!" + +Ellen walked on, her head high, her face as white as death. Maria +clung closely to her, her own lips quivering. + +"What are the men going to do, do you think?" asked Ellen, +presently, in a low voice. + +"I don't know," replied Abby. "John Sargent seems to think they'll +give in. He says he doesn't know what else they can do. The times +are hard. I believe Amos Lee and Tom Peel are for striking, but he +says he doesn't believe the men will support them. The amount of it +all is, a man with money has got it all his own way. It's like +fighting with bare hands to oppose him, and getting yourself cut, +and not hurting him at all. He's got all the weapons. We simply +can't go without work all winter. It is better to do with less than +with nothing at all. What can a man like Willy Jones do if he hasn't +any work? He and his mother would actually suffer. What could we +do?" + +"I don't think we ought to think so much about that," said Ellen. + +"What do you think we ought to think about, for goodness' sake?" + +"Whether we are doing right or not, whether we are furthering the +cause of justice and humanity, or hindering it. Whether it is for +good in the long run or not. There have always been martyrs; I don't +see why it is any harder for us to be martyrs than for those we read +about." + +Sadie Peel came pressing up behind eagerly, her cheeks glowing, +holding up her dress, and displaying a cheap red petticoat. "Ellen +Brewster," she exclaimed, "if you dare say anything more to-day I'm +goin' to talk. Father is tearing, though he goes around looking as +if he wouldn't jump at a cannon-ball. Do, for Heaven's sake, keep +still; and if you can't get what you want, take what you can get. I +ain't goin' to be cheated out of my nearseal cape, nohow." + +"Sadie Peel, you make me tired," cried Abby Atkins. "I don't say +that I'm striking, but I'd strike for all a nearseal cape. I'm +ashamed of you." + +"I don't care if you be," said the girl, tossing her head. "A +nearseal cape means as much to me as some other things to you. I +want Ellen Brewster to hold her tongue." + +"Ellen Brewster will hold her tongue or not, just as she has a mind +to," responded Abby, with a snap. She did not like Sadie Peel. + +"Oh, stick up for her if you want to, and get us all into trouble." + +"I shall stick up for her, you can be mighty sure of that," declared +Abby. + +Ellen walked on as if she heard nothing of it at all, with little +Maria clinging closely to her. Robert Lloyd got out of his sleigh +and went up-stairs just before they reached the factory, and she +heard a very low, subdued mutter of execration. + +"They don't mean to strike," she told herself. "They mean to +submit." + +All went to their tasks as usual. In a minute after the whistle blew +the great pile was in the full hum of labor. Ellen stood for a few +moments at her machine, then she left it deliberately, and made her +way down the long room to where John Sargent stood at his bench +cutting shoes, with a swift faithfulness born of long practice. She +pressed close to him, while the men around stared. + +"What is going to be done?" she asked, in a low voice. + +Sargent turned and looked at her in a troubled fashion, and spoke in +a pacific, soothing tone, as her father might have done. He was much +older than Ellen. + +"Now look here, child," he said, "I don't dare take the +responsibility of urging all these men into starvation this kind of +weather. The times are hard. Lloyd has some reason--" + +Ellen walked away from him swiftly and went to the row of +lasting-machines where Amos Lee and Tom Peel stood. She walked up to +them and spoke in a loud, clear voice. + +"You are not going to give in?" said she. "You don't mean to give +in?" + +Lee turned and gave her one stare, and left his machine. + +"Not another stitch of work will I do under this new wage-list, so +help me, God!" he proclaimed. + +Tom Peel stood for a second like an automaton, staring at them both. +Then he turned back to his post. + +"I'm with ye," he said. + +The lasters, for some occult reason, were always the most turbulent +element in Lloyd's. In less than three minutes the enthusiasm of +revolt had spread, and every laster had left his machine. In a +half-hour more there was an exodus of workmen from Lloyd's. There +were very few left in the factory. Among them were John Sargent, the +laster who was a deacon and had formed one of the consulting +committee, Sadie Peel, who wanted her nearseal cape, and Mamie +Brady, who would do nothing which she thought would displease the +foreman, Flynn. + +"If father's mind to be such a fool, it's no reason why I should," +said Sadie Peel, stitching determinedly away. Mamie Brady looked at +Flynn, when he came up to her, with a gentle, wheedling smile. There +was no one near, and she fancied that he might steal a kiss. But +instead he looked at her, frowning. + +"No use you tying away any longer, Mamie," he said. "The strike's +on." + + + + +Chapter LIII + + +That was one of the strangest days which Ellen had ever passed. The +enforced idleness gave her an indefinite sense of guilt. She tried +to assist her mother about the household tasks, then she tried to +sew on the wrappers, but she was awkward about it, from long disuse. + +"Do take your book and sit down and read and rest a little, now +you've got a chance," said Fanny, with sharp solicitude. + +She said never one word concerning it to Ellen, but all the time she +thought how Ellen had probably lost her lover. It was really +doubtful which suffered the more that day, the mother or the +daughter. Fanny, entirely faithful to her own husband, had yet that +strange vicarious affection for her daughter's lover, and a +realization of her state of mind, of which a mother alone is +capable. It is like a cord of birth which is never severed. Not one +shadow of sad reflection passed over the bright enthusiastic face of +the girl but was passed on, as if driven by some wind of spirit, +over the face of the older woman. She reflected Ellen entirely. + +As for Andrew, his anxiety was as tender, and less subtle. He did +not understand so clearly, but he suffered more. He was clumsy with +this mystery of womanhood, but he was unremitting in his efforts to +do something for the girl. Once he tiptoed up to Fanny and +whispered, when Ellen was in the next room, that he hoped she hadn't +made any mistake, that it seemed to him she looked pretty pale. + +"Mistake?" cried Fanny, tossing her head, and staring at him +proudly. "Haven't you got any spirit, and you a man, Andrew +Brewster?" + +"I ain't thinking about myself," said Andrew. + +And he was quite right. Andrew, left to himself and his purely +selfish interests, could have struck with the foremost. He would +never have considered himself when it came to a question of a +conscientious struggle against injustice, though he was so prone to +look upon both sides of an argument that his decision would have +been necessarily slow; but here was Ellen to consider, and she was +more than himself. While he had been, in the depths of his heart, +fiercely jealous of Robert Lloyd, yet the suspicion that his girl +might suffer because of her renunciation of him hurt him to the +quick. Ellen had told him all she had done in the interests of the +strike, and he had no doubt that her action would effectually put an +end to all possible relations between the two. He tried to imagine +how a girl would feel, and being a man, and measuring all passion by +the strength of his own, he exaggerated her suffering. He could eat +nothing, and looked haggard. He remained out-of-doors the greater +part of the day. After he had cleared his own paths, he secured a +job clearing some for a more prosperous neighbor. Andrew in those +days grasped eagerly at any little job which could bring him in a +few pennies. He worked until dark, and when he went home he saw with +a great throb of excitement the Lloyd sleigh waiting before his +door. + +Robert had heard from Dennison of Ellen's attitude about the strike. +He had been incredulous at first, as indeed he had been incredulous +about the strike. He had looked out of the office window with the +gaze of one who does not believe what he sees when he had heard that +retreating tramp of the workmen on the stairs. + +"What does all this mean?" he said to Dennison, who entered, pale to +his lips. + +"It means a strike," replied Dennison. Nellie Stone rolled her +pretty eyes around at the two men from under her fluff of blond +hair. Flynn came in and stood in a curious, non-committal attitude. + +"A strike!" repeated Robert, vaguely. "What for?" + +It seemed incredible that he should ask, but he did. The calm +masterfulness of his uncle, which could not even imagine opposition, +had apparently descended upon him. + +Both foremen stared at him. Nellie Stone smiled a little covertly. + +"Why, you know you had a committee wait upon you last night, Mr. +Lloyd," replied Dennison. + +Flynn looked out of the window at the retreating throngs of workmen, +and gave a whistle under his breath. + +"Have they struck because of the wage-cutting?" asked Robert, in a +curious, boyish, incredulous, aggrieved tone. Then all at once he +colored violently. "Let them strike, then!" he cried. He threw +himself into a chair and took up the morning paper, with its glaring +headlines about the unprecedented storm, as if nothing had happened. +Nellie Stone, after a sly wink at Flynn, which he did not return, +began writing again. Flynn went out, and Dennison remained +standing in a rather helpless attitude. A strike in Lloyd's was +unprecedented, but this manner of receiving the news was more +unprecedented still. The proprietor was apparently reading the +morning paper with much interest, when two more foremen, heads of +other departments, came hurrying in. + +"I have heard already," said Robert, in response to their gasped +information. Then he turned another page of the paper. + +"What's to be done, sir?" said one of the new-comers, after a +prolonged stare at his companion and Dennison. He was a spare man, +with a fierce glimmer of blue eyes under bent brows. + +"Let them strike if they want to," replied Robert. + +It was in his mind to explain at length to these men his reasons for +cutting the wages--for his own attitude as he knew it himself was +entirely reasonable--but the pride of a proud family was up in him. + +"The strike would never have been on, for the men went to work +quietly enough, if it hadn't been for that Brewster girl," Dennison +said, presently, but rather doubtfully. He was not quite sure how +the information would be received. + +Robert dropped his paper, and stared at him with angry incredulity. + +"What are you talking about?" he said. "What had Miss Brewster to do +with it?" + +He said "Miss Brewster" with a meaning emphasis of respect, and +Dennison was quick to adopt the hint. + +"Oh, nothing," he replied, uneasily, "only she talked with them." + +"You mean that Miss Brewster talked to the men?" + +"Yes; she said a good deal yesterday, and to-day the men would not +have struck if it had not been for her. It only needs a spark to set +them off sometimes." + +Robert was very pale. "Well," he said, coolly, "there is no need for +you to remain longer, since the factory is shut down. You may as +well go." + +"The engineer is seeing to the fires, Mr. Lloyd," said Dennison. + +"Very well." Robert turned to the girl at the desk. "The factory is +closed, Miss Stone," he said; "there is no need for you to remain +longer to-day. Come to-morrow at ten o'clock, and I will have +something for you to do with regard to settling up accounts. There +is nothing in shape now." + +That afternoon Robert went to see Ellen. He could not wait until +evening. + +Fanny greeted him at the door, and there was the inevitable flurry +about lighting the parlor stove, and presently Ellen entered. + +She had changed the gown which she had worn at her factory-work for +her last winter's best one. Her young face was pale, almost severe, +and she met him in a way which made her seem a stranger. + +Robert realized suddenly that she had, as it were, closed the door +upon all their old relations. She seemed years older, and at the +same time indefinably younger, since she was letting the childish +impulses, which are at the heart of all of us untouched by time and +experience, rise rampant and unchecked. She was following the lead +of her own convictions with the terrible unswerving of a child, even +in the face of her own hurt. She was, metaphorically, bumping her +own head against the floor in her vain struggles for mastery over +the mighty conditions of her life. + +She bowed to Robert, and did not seem to see his proffered hand. + +"Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked, almost humbly, although +his own wrath was beginning to rise. + +"No, I would rather not," she replied, with a straight look at him. +Her blue eyes did not falter in the least. + +"May I sit down?" he said. "I have something I would like to say to +you." + +"Certainly, if you wish," she replied. Then she seated herself on +the sofa, with Robert opposite in the crushed-plush easy-chair. + +The room was still very cold, and the breath could be seen at the +lips of each in white clouds. Robert had on his coat, but Ellen had +nothing over her blue gown. It was on Robert's tongue to ask if she +were not cold, then he refrained. The issues at stake seemed to make +the question frivolous to offensiveness. He felt that any approach +to tenderness when Ellen was in her present mood would invoke an +indignation for which he could scarcely blame her, that he must try +to meet her on equal fighting-ground. + +Ellen sat before him, her little, cold hands tightly folded in her +lap, her mouth set hard, her steady fire of blue eyes on his face, +waiting for him to speak. + +Robert felt a decided awkwardness about beginning to talk. Suddenly +it occurred to him to wonder what there was to say. It amounted to +this: they were in their two different positions, their two points +of view--would either leave for any argument of the other? Then he +wondered if he could, in the face of a girl who wore an expression +like that, stoop to make an argument, for the utter blindness and +deafness of her very soul to any explanation of his position was too +evident in her face. + +"I called to tell you, if you will permit me, how much I regret the +unfortunate state of affairs at the factory," Robert said, and the +girl's eyes met his as with a flash of flame. + +"Why did you not prevent it, then?" asked she. Ellen had all the +fire of her family, but a steadiness of manner which never deserted +her. She was never violent. + +"I could not prevent it," replied Robert, in a low voice. + +Ellen said nothing. + +"You mistake my position," said Robert. It was in his mind then to +lay the matter fully before her, as he had disdained to do before +the committee, but her next words deterred him. + +"I understand your position very fully," said she. + +Robert bowed. + +"There is only one way of looking at it," said Ellen, in her +inexpressibly sweet, almost fanatical voice. She tossed her head, +and the fluff of fair hair over her temples caught a beam of +afternoon sunlight. + +"She is only a child," thought Robert, looking at her. He rose and +crossed over to the sofa, and sat down beside her with a masterful +impatience. "Look here, Ellen," he said, leaving all general issues +for their own personal ones, "you are not going to let this come +between us?" + +Ellen sat stiff and straight, and made no reply. + +"All this can make very little difference to you," Robert urged. +"You know how I feel. That is, it can make very little difference to +you if you still feel as you did. You must know that I have only +been waiting--that I am eager and impatient to lift you out of it +all." + +Ellen faced him. "Do you think I would be lifted out of it now?" she +said. + +"Why, but, Ellen, you cannot--" + +"Yes, I can. You do not know me." + +"Ellen, you are under a total misapprehension of my position." + +"No, I am not. I apprehend it perfectly." + +"Ellen, you cannot let this separate us." + +Ellen looked straight ahead in silence. + +"You at least owe it to me to tell me if, irrespective of this, your +feelings have changed," Robert said, in a low voice. + +Ellen said nothing. + +"You may have come to prefer some one else," said Robert. + +"I prefer no one before my own, before all these poor people who are +a part of my life," Ellen cried out, suddenly, her face flaming. + +"Then why do you refuse to let me act for their final good? You must +know what it means to have them thrown out of work in midwinter. You +know the factory will remain closed for the present on account of +the strike." + +"I did not doubt it," said Ellen, in a hard voice. All the bitter +thoughts to which she would not give utterance were in her voice. + +"I cannot continue to run the factory at the present rate and meet +expenses," said Robert; "in fact, I have been steadily losing for +the last month." He had, after all, descended to explanation. "It +amounts to my either reducing the wage-list or closing the factory +altogether," he continued. "For my own good I ought to close the +factory altogether, but I thought I would give the men a chance." + +Robert thought by saying that he must have finally settled matters. +It did not enter his head that she would really think it advisable +for him to continue losing money. The pure childishness of her +attitude was something really beyond the comprehension of a man of +business who had come into hard business theories along with his +uncle's dollars. + +"What if you do lose money?" said Ellen. + +Robert stared at her. "I beg your pardon?" said he. + +"What if you do lose money?" + +"A man cannot conduct business on such principles," replied Robert. +"There would soon be no business to conduct. You don't understand." + +"Yes, I do understand fully," replied Ellen. + +Robert looked at her, at the clear, rosy curve of her young cheek, +the toss of yellow hair above a forehead as candid as a baby's, at +her little, delicate figure, and all at once such a rage of +masculine insistence over all this obstinacy of reasoning was upon +him that it was all he could do to keep himself from seizing her in +his arms and forcing her to a view of his own horizon. He felt +himself drawn up in opposition to an opponent at once too delicate, +too unreasoning, and too beloved to encounter. It seemed as if the +absurdity of it would drive him mad, and yet he was held to it. He +tried to give a desperate wrench aside from the main point of the +situation. He leaned over Ellen, so closely that his lips touched +her hair. + +"Ellen, let us leave all this," he pleaded; "let me talk to you. I +had to wait a little while. I knew you would understand that, but +let me talk to you now." + +Ellen sat as rigid as marble. "I wish to talk of nothing besides the +matter at hand, Mr. Lloyd," said she. "That is too close to my heart +for any personal consideration to come between." + + + + +Chapter LIV + + +When Robert went home in the winter twilight he was more miserable +than he had ever been in his life. He felt as if he had been +assaulting a beautiful alabaster wall of unreason. He felt as if +that which he could shatter at a blow had yet held him in defiance. +The idea of this girl, of whom he had thought as his future wife, +deliberately setting herself against him, galled him inexpressibly, +and in spite of himself he could not quite free his mind of +jealousy. On his way home he stopped at Lyman Risley's office, and +found, to his great satisfaction, that he was alone, writing at his +desk. Even his stenographer had gone home. He turned around when +Robert entered, and looked at him with his quizzical, yet kindly, +smile. + +"Well, how are you, boy?" he said. + +Robert dropped into the first chair, and sat therein, haunched up as +in a lapse of despair and weariness. + +"What is the matter?" asked Risley. + +"You have heard about the trouble in the factory?" + +For answer Risley held up a night's paper with glaring head-lines. + +"Yes, of course it is in the papers," assented Robert, wearily. + +Risley stared at him in a lazily puzzled fashion. "Well," he said, +"what is it all about? Why are you so broken up about it?" Risley +laid considerable emphasis on the _you_. + +"Yes," cried Robert, in a sudden stress of indignation. "You look at +it like all the rest. Why are all the laborers to be petted and +coddled, and the capitalists held up to execration? Good Lord, isn't +there any pity for the rich man without his drop of water, in the +Bible or out? Are all creation born with blinders on, and can they +only see before their noses?" + +"What are you talking about, Robert?" said Risley, laughing a +little. + +"I say why should all the sympathy go to the workmen who are acting +like the pig-headed idiots they are, and none for the head of the +factory, who has the sharp-edged, red-hot brunt of it all to bear?" + +"You wouldn't look at it that way if you were one of the poor men +just out on strike such weather as this," said Risley, dryly. He +glanced as he spoke at the window, which was beginning to be thickly +furred with frost in spite of the heat of the office. Robert +followed his gaze, and noted the spreading fairy jungle of +crystalline trees and flowers on the broad field of glass. + +"Do you think that is the worst thing in the world to bear?" he +demanded, angrily. + +"What? Cold and hunger not only for yourself, but for those you +love?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I think it is pretty bad," replied Risley. + +"Well, suppose you had to bear that, at least for those you loved, +and--and--" said the young man, lamely. + +Risley remained silent, waiting. + +"If I had been my uncle instead of myself I should simply have shut +down with no ado," said Robert, presently, in an angry, +argumentative voice. + +"I suppose you would; and as it was?" + +"As it was, I thought I would give them a chance. Good God, Risley, +I have been running the factory at a loss for a month as it is. With +this new wage-list I should no more than make expenses, if I did +that. What was it to me? I did it to keep them in some sort of work. +As for myself, I would much rather have shut down and done with it, +but I tried to keep it running on their account, poor devils, and +now I am execrated for it, and they have deliberately refused what +little I could offer." + +"Did you explain all this to the committee?" asked Risley. + +"Explain? No! I told them my course was founded upon strict business +principles, and was as much for their good as for mine. They +understood. They know how hard the times are. Why, it was only last +week that Weeks & McLaughlin failed, and that meant a heavy loss. I +didn't explain." Then Robert hesitated and colored. "I have just +explained to her," he said, with a curious hang of his head, like a +boy, "and if my explanation was met in the same fashion by the +others in the factory I might as well have addressed the north wind. +They are all alike; they are a different race. We cannot help them, +and they cannot help themselves, because they are themselves." + +"You mean by her, Ellen Brewster?" Risley said. + +Robert nodded gloomily. + +"That is all in the paper," said Risley--"what she said to the men." + +Robert made an impatient move. + +"If ever there was a purely normal outgrowth, a perfect flower of +her birth and environments and training, that girl is one," said +Risley, with an accent of admiration. + +"She is infected with the ranting idiocy of those with whom she has +been brought in daily contact," said Robert; but even as he spoke he +seemed to see the girl's dear young face, and his voice faltered. + +"Even as you may be infected with the conservatism of those with +whom you are brought in contact," said Risley, dryly. + +"What a democrat you are, Risley!" said Robert, impatiently. "I +believe you would make a good walking delegate." + +Risley laughed. "I think I would myself," he said. "Wouldn't she +listen to you, Robert?" + +"She listened with such utter dissent that she might as well have +been dumb. It is all over between us, Risley." + +"How precipitate you are, you young folks!" said the other, +good-humoredly. + +"How precipitate? Do you mean to say--?" + +"I mean that you are forever thinking you are on the brink of +nothingness, when the true horizon-line is too far for you ever to +reach in your mortal life." + +"Not in this case," said Robert. + +"You know nothing about it. But if you will excuse me, it seems to +me that the matter of all these people being reduced to starvation +in a howling winter is of more importance than the coming together +of two people in the bonds of wedlock. It is the aggregate against +the individual." + +"I don't deny that," said Robert, doggedly, "but I am not +responsible for the starvation, and the aggregate have brought it on +themselves." + +"You have shut down finally?" + +"Yes, I have. I would rather shut down than not, as far as I am +concerned. It is distinctly for my interest. The only one objection +is losing experienced workmen, but in a community like this, and in +times like this, that objection is reduced to a minimum. I can hire +all I want in the spring if I wish to open again. I should run a +risk of losing on every order I should have to fill in the next +three months, even with the reduced list. I would rather shut down +than not; I only reduced the wages for them." + +Robert rose as he spoke. He felt in his heart that he had gotten +scant sympathy and comfort. The older man looked with pity at the +young fellow's handsome, gloomy face. + +"There's one thing to remember," he said. + +"What?" + +"All the troubles of this world are born with wings." Risley +laughed, as he spoke, in his half-cynical fashion. + +As Robert walked home--for there was no car due--he felt completely +desolate. It seemed to him that everybody was in league against him. +When he reached his uncle's splendid house and entered, he felt such +an isolation from his kind in the midst of his wealth that something +like an actual terror of solitude came over him. + +The impecunious cousin of his aunt's who had come to her during her +last illness acted as his housekeeper. There was something +inexpressibly irritating about this woman, who had suffered so much, +and was now nestling, with a sense of triumph over the passing of +her griefs, in a luxurious home. + +She asked Robert if it were true that the factory was closed, and he +felt that she noted his gloomy face, and realized a greater extent +of comfort from her own exemption from such questions. + +"Business must be a great care," said she, and a look of utter +peaceful reflection upon her own lot overspread her face. + +After supper Robert went down to his aunt Cynthia's. He had not been +there for a long time. The minute he entered she started up with an +eagerness which had been completely foreign to her of late years. + +"What is the matter, Robert?" she asked, softly. She took both his +hands as she spoke, and her look in his face was full of delicate +caressing. + +Robert succumbed at once to this feminine solicitude, of which he +had had lately so little. He felt as if he had relapsed into +childhood. A sense of injury which was exquisite, as it brought +along with it a sense of his demand upon love and sympathy, seized +him. + +"I am worried beyond endurance, Aunt Cynthia," said he. + +"About the strike? I have read the night papers." + +"Yes; I tried to do what was right, even at a sacrifice to myself, +and--" + +Cynthia had read about Ellen, but she was a woman, and she said +nothing as to that. + +"I tried to do what was right," Robert said, fairly broken down +again. + +Cynthia had seated herself, and Robert had taken a low foot-stool at +her side. It came over him as he did so that it had been a favorite +seat of his when a child. As for Cynthia, influenced by the +appealing to the vulnerable place of her nature, she put her slim +hands on her nephew's head, and actually seemed to feel his baby +curls. + +"Poor boy," she whispered. + +Robert put both his arms around her and hid his face on her +shoulder, for love is a comforter, in whatever guise. + + + + +Chapter LV + + +On the day after the strike Ellen went to McGuire's and to Briggs's, +the two other factories in Rowe, to see if she could obtain a +position; but she was not successful. McGuire had discharged some of +his employes, reducing his force to its smallest possible limits, +since he had fewer orders, and was trying in that way to avert the +necessity of a cut in wages, and a strike or shut-down. McGuire's +was essentially a union factory, as was Briggs's. Ellen would have +found in either case difficulty about obtaining employment, because +she did not belong to the union, if for no other reason. At Briggs's +she encountered the proprietor himself in the office, and he +dismissed her with a bluff, almost brutal, peremptoriness which hurt +her cruelly, although she held up her head high as she left. Briggs +turned to a foreman who was standing by before she was well out of +hearing. + +"I like that!" he said. "Mrs. Briggs read about that girl in the +paper last night, and the strike wouldn't have been on at Lloyd's if +it hadn't been for her. I would as soon take a lighted match into a +powder-magazine." + +The foreman grinned. "She's a pretty, mild-looking thing," he said; +"doesn't look as if she could say boo to a goose." + +"That's all you can tell," returned Briggs. "Deliver me from a +light-complexioned woman. They're all the very devil. Mrs. Briggs +says it's the same girl that read that composition that made such a +stir at the high-school exhibition. She'd make more trouble in a +factory than a dozen ordinary girls, and just now, when everything +is darned ticklish-looking." + +"That's so," assented the foreman, "and all the more because she's +good-looking." + +"I don't know what you call good-looking," returned Briggs. + +He had two daughters, built upon the same heavy lines as himself and +wife, and he adored them. Insensibly he regarded all more delicate +feminine beauty as a disparagement of theirs. As Briggs spoke, the +foreman seemed to see in the air before his eyes the faces of the +two Briggs girls, large and massive, and dull of hue, the feminine +counterpart of their father's. + +"Well, maybe you're right," said he, evasively. "I suppose some +might call her good-looking." + +As he spoke he glanced out of the window at Ellen's retreating +figure, moving away over the snow-path with an almost dancing motion +of youth and courage, though she was sorely hurt. The girl had +scarcely ever had a hard word said to her in her whole life, for she +had been in her humble place a petted darling. She had plenty of +courage to bear the hard words now, but they cut deeply into her +unseasoned heart. + +Ellen went on past the factories to the main street of Rowe. She had +no idea of giving up her efforts to obtain employment. She said to +herself that she must have work. She thought of the stores, that +possibly she might obtain a chance to serve as a sales-girl in one +of them. She actually began at the end of the long street, and +worked her way through it, with her useless inquiries, facing +proprietors and superintendents, but with no success. There was not +a vacancy in more than one or two, and there they wished only +experienced hands. She found out that her factory record told +against her. The moment she admitted that she had worked in a +factory the cold shoulder was turned. The position of a shop-girl +was so far below that of a sales-lady that the effect upon the +superintendent was almost as if he had met an unworthy aspirant to a +throne. He would smile insultingly and incredulously, even as he +regarded her. + +"You would find that our goods are too fine to handle after leather. +Have you tried all the shops?" + +At last Ellen gave that up, and started homeward. She paused once as +she came opposite an intelligence office. There was one course yet +open to her, but from that she shrank, not on her own account, but +she dared not--knowing what would be the sufferings of her relatives +should she do so--apply for a position as a servant. + +As for herself, strained as she was to her height of youthful +enthusiasm for a great cause, as she judged it to be, clamping her +feet to the topmost round of her ladder of difficulty, she would +have essayed any honest labor with no hesitation whatever. But she +thought of her father and mother and grandmother, and went on past +the intelligence office. + +When she came to her old school-teacher's--Miss Mitchell's--house, +she paused and hesitated a moment, then she went up the little path +between the snow-banks to the front door, and rang the bell. The +door was opened before the echoes had died away. Miss Mitchell had +seen her coming, and hastened to open it. Miss Mitchell had not been +teaching school for some years, having retired on a small competency +of her savings. Her mortgage was paid, and there was enough for +herself and her mother to live upon, with infinite care as to +details of expenditure. Every postage-stamp and car-fare had its +important part in the school-teacher's system of economy; but she +was quite happy, and her large face wore an expression of perfect +peace and placidity. + +She was a woman who was not tortured by any strong, ungratified +desires. Her allotment of the gifts of the gods quite satisfied her. + +When Ellen entered the rather stuffy sitting-room--for Miss Mitchell +and her mother were jealous of any breath of cold air after the +scanty fire was kindled--it was like entering into a stratum of +peace. It seemed quite removed from the turmoil of her own life. The +school-teacher's old mother sat in her rocker close to the stove, +stouter than ever, filling up her chair with those wandering curves +and vague outlines which only the over-fleshy human form can assume. +She looked as indefinite as a quivering jelly until one reached her +face. That wore a fixedness of amiability which accentuated the +whole like a high light. She had not seen Ellen for a long time, and +she greeted her with delight. + +"Bless your heart!" said she, in her sweet, throaty, husky voice. +"Go and get her some of them cookies, Fanny, do." The old woman's +faculties were not in the least impaired, although she was very old, +neither had her hands lost their cunning, for she still retained her +skill in cookery, and prepared the simple meals for herself and +daughter, seated in a high chair at the kitchen table to roll out +pastry or the famous little cookies which Ellen remembered along +with her childhood. + +There was something about these cookies which Miss Mitchell +presently brought to her in a pretty china plate, with a little, +fine-fringed napkin, which was like a morsel of solace to the girl. +With the first sweet crumble of the cake on her plate, she wished to +cry. Sometimes the rush of old, kindly, tender associations will +overcome one who is quite equal to the strain of present emergency. +But she did not cry; she ate her cookies, and confided to Miss +Mitchell and her mother her desire to obtain a position elsewhere, +since her factory-work had failed her. It had occurred to her that +possibly Miss Mitchell, who was on the school-board, might know of a +vacancy in a primary school for the coming spring term, and that she +might obtain it. + +"I think I know enough to teach a primary school," Ellen said. + +"Of course you do, bless your heart," said old Mrs. Mitchell. "She +knows enough to teach any kind of a school, don't she, Fanny? You +get her a school, dear, right away." + +But Miss Mitchell knew of no probable vacancy, since one young woman +who had expected to be married had postponed her marriage on account +of the strike in Lloyd's, and the consequent throwing out of +employment of her sweetheart. Then, also, Miss Mitchell owned with +hesitation, in response to Ellen's insistent question, that she +supposed that the fact that she had worked in a shop might in any +case interfere with her obtaining a position in a school. + +"There is no sense in it, dear child, I know," she said, "but it +might be so." + +"Yes, I supposed so," replied Ellen, bitterly. "They would all say +that a shop-girl had no right to try to teach school. Well, I'm much +obliged to you, Miss Mitchell." + +"What are you going to do?" Miss Mitchell asked, anxiously, +following her to the door. + +"I'm going to Mrs. Doty, to get some of the wrappers that mother +works on, until something else turns up," replied Ellen. + +"It seems a pity." + +Ellen smiled bravely. "Beggars mustn't be choosers," she said. "If +we can only keep along, somehow, I don't care." + +There came a vehement pound of a stick on the floor, for that was +the way the old woman in the sitting-room commanded attention. Miss +Mitchell opened the door on a crack, that she might not let in the +cold air. + +"What is it, mother?" she said. + +"You get Ellen a school right away, Fanny." + +"All right, mother; I'll do my best." + +"Get her the grammar-school you used to have." + +"All right, mother." + +There was something about the imperative solicitude of the old woman +which comforted Ellen in spite of its futility as she went on her +way. The good-will of another human soul, even when it cannot be +resolved into active benefits, has undoubtedly a mighty force of its +own. Ellen, with the sweet of the cookies still lingering on her +tongue, and the sweet of the old woman's kindness in her soul, felt +refreshed as if by some subtle spiritual cake and wine. She even +went to the door of Mrs. Doty's house. Mrs. Doty was the woman who +let out wrappers to her impecunious neighbors with an undaunted +heart. She had no difficulty there. The demand for cheap wrappers +was not on the wane, even in the hard times. When Ellen reached her +grandmother's house, with a great parcel under her arm, Mrs. Zelotes +opened her side door. + +"What have you got there, Ellen Brewster?" she called out sharply. + +"Some wrappers," replied Ellen, cheerfully. + +"Are you going to work on wrappers?" + +"Yes, grandma." + +The door was shut with a loud report. + +When Ellen entered the house and the sitting-room, her mother looked +up from a pink wrapper which she was finishing. + +"What have you got there?" she demanded. + +"Some wrappers." + +"Why, I haven't finished the last lot." + +"These are for me to make, mother." + +Andrew got up and went out of the room. Fanny shut her mouth hard, +and drew her thread through with a jerk. + +"Well," she said, in a second, "take off your things, and let me +show you how to start on them. There's a little knack about it." + + + + +Chapter LVI + + +That was a hard winter for Rowe. Aside from the financial stress, +the elements seemed to conspire against the people who were so +ill-prepared to meet their fury. It was the coldest winter which had +been known for years; coal was higher, and the poor people had less +coal to burn. Storm succeeded storm; then, when there came a warm +spell, there was an epidemic of the grippe, and doctors' bills to +pay and quinine to buy--and quinine was very dear. + +The Brewsters managed to keep up the interest on the house mortgage, +but their living expenses were reduced to the smallest possible +amount. In those days there was no wood laid ready for kindling in +the parlor stove, since there was neither any wood to spare nor +expectation of Robert's calling. Ellen and her mother sat in the +dining-room, for even the sitting-room fire had been abolished, and +they heated the dining-room whenever the weather admitted it from +the kitchen stove, and worked on the wrappers for their miserable +pittance. + +The repeated storms were in a way a boon to Andrew, since he got +many jobs clearing paths, and thus secured a trifle towards the +daily expenses. + +In those days Mrs. Zelotes watched the butcher-cart anxiously when +it stopped before her son's house, and she knew just what a tiny bit +of meat was purchased, and how seldom. On the days when the cart +moved on without any consultation at the tail thereof, the old woman +would buy an extra portion, cook it, and carry some over to her +son's. + +Times grew harder and harder. Few of the operatives who had struck +in Lloyd's succeeded in obtaining employment elsewhere, and most of +them joined the union to enable them to do so. There was actual +privation. One evening, when the strike was some six weeks old, Abby +Atkins came over in a pouring rain to see Ellen. There were a number +of men in the dining-room that night. Amos Lee and Frank Dixon were +among them. It was a singular thing that Andrew, taking, as he had +done, no active part in any rebellion against authority, should have +come to see his house the headquarters for the rallies of +dissension. Men seemed to come to Andrew Brewster's for the sake of +bolstering themselves up in their hard position of defiance against +tremendous odds, though he sat by and seldom said a word. As for +Ellen, she and her mother on these occasions sat out in the kitchen, +sewing on the endless seams of the endless wrappers. Sometimes it +seemed to the girl as if wrappers enough were being made to clothe +not only the present, but future generations of poor women. She +seemed to see whole armies of hopeless, overburdened women, all +arrayed in these slouching garments, crowding the foreground of the +world. + +That evening little Amabel, who had developed a painful desire to +make herself useful, having divined the altered state of the family +finances, was pulling out basting-threads, with a puckered little +face bent over her work. She was a very thin child, but there was an +incisive vitality in her, and somehow Fanny and Ellen contrived to +keep her prettily and comfortably clothed. + +"I've got to do my duty by poor Eva's child, if I starve," Fanny +often said. + +When the side door opened, Ellen and her mother thought it was +another man come to swell the company in the dining-room. + +"It beats all how men like to come and sit round and talk over +matters; for my part, I 'ain't got any time to talk; I've got to +work," remarked Fanny. + +"That's so," rejoined Ellen. She looked curiously like her mother +that night, and spoke like her. In her heart she echoed the sarcasm +to the full. She despised those men for sitting hour after hour in a +store, or in the house of some congenial spirit, or standing on a +street corner, and talking--talking, she was sure, to no purpose. As +for herself, she had done what she thought right; she had, as it +were, cut short the thread of her happiness of life for the sake of +something undefined and rather vague, and yet as mighty in its +demands for her allegiance as God. And it was done, and there was no +use in talking about it. She had her wrappers to make. However, she +told herself, extenuatingly, "Men can't sew, so they can't work +evenings. They are better off talking here than they would be in the +billiard-saloon." Ellen, at that time of her life, had a slight, +unacknowledged feeling of superiority over men of her own class. She +regarded them very much as she regarded children, with a sort of +tolerant good-will and contempt. Now, suddenly, she raised her head +and listened. "That isn't another man, it's a woman--it's Abby," she +said to her mother. + +"She wouldn't come out in all this rain," replied Fanny. As she +spoke, a great, wind-driven wash of it came over the windows. + +"Yes, it is," said Ellen, and she jumped up and opened the +dining-room door. + +Abby had entered, as was her custom, without knocking. She had left +her dripping umbrella in the entry, and her old hat was flattened on +to her head with wet, and several damp locks of her hair straggled +from under it and clung to her thin cheeks. She still held up her +wet skirts around her, as she had held them out-of-doors, but she +was gesticulating violently with her other hand. She was repeating +what she had said before. Ellen had heard her indistinctly through +the door. + +"Yes, I mean just what I say," she cried. "Get up and go to work, if +you are men! Stop hanging around stores and corners, and talking +about the tyranny of the rich, and go to work, and make them pay you +something for it, anyhow. This has been kept up long enough. Get up +and go to work, if you don't want those belonging to you to starve." + +Abby caught sight of Ellen, pale and breathless, in the door, with +her mother looking over her shoulder, and she addressed her with +renewed violence. "Come here, Ellen," she said, "and put yourself on +my side. We've got to give in." + +"You go away," cried little Amabel, in a shrill voice, looking +around Ellen's arm; but nobody paid any attention to her. + +"I never will," returned Ellen, with a great flash, but her voice +trembled. + +"You've got to," said Abby. "I tell you there's no other way." + +"I'll die before I give up," cried Lee, in a loud, threatening +voice. + +"I'm with ye," said Tom Peel. + +Dixon and the young laster who sat beside him looked at each other, +but said nothing. Dixon wrinkled his forehead over his pipe. + +"Then you'd better go to work quick, before some that I know of, who +are enough sight better worth saving than you are, starve," replied +Abby, unshrinkingly. "If I could I would go to Lloyd's and open it +on my own account to-morrow. I believe in bravery, but nothing +except fools and swine jump over precipices." + +Abby passed through the room, sprinkling rain-drops from her +drenched skirts, and went into the kitchen with Ellen. Fanny cast an +angry glance at her, then a solicitous one at her dripping garments. + +"Abby Atkins, you haven't got any rubbers on," said she. + +"Rubbers!" repeated Abby. + +"You just slip off those wet skirts, and Amabel will fetch you down +Ellen's old black petticoat and brown dress. Amabel--" + +But Abby seated herself peremptorily before the kitchen stove and +extended one soaked little foot in its shabby boot. "I'm past +thinking or caring about wet skirts," said she. "Good Lord, what do +wet skirts matter? We can't make wrappers any longer. We had to sell +the sewing-machine yesterday to pay the rent or be turned out, and +we haven't got a thing to eat in the house except potatoes and a +little flour. We haven't had any meat for a week. Nice fare for a +man like poor father and a girl like Maria! We have come down to the +kitchen fire like you, but we can't keep it burning as late as this. +The rest went to bed an hour ago to keep warm. Maria has got more +cold. She did seem better one spell, but now she's worse again. Our +chamber is freezing cold, and we haven't had a fire in it since the +strike. John Sargent has ransacked every town within twenty miles +for work, but he can't get any, and his sick sister keeps sending to +him for money. He looks as if he was just about done, too. He went +off somewhere after supper. A great supper! He don't smoke a pipe +nowadays. Father don't get the medicine he ought to have, and that +cold spell he just about perished for a little whiskey. The bedroom +was like ice with no fire in the sitting-room, and he didn't sleep +warm. It's one awful thing after another happening. Did you know +Mamie Brady took laudanum last night?" + +"Good land!" said Fanny. + +"Yes, she did. Ed Flynn has been playing fast and loose with her for +a long time, and she's none too well balanced, and when it came to +her not having enough to eat, and to keep her warm, and her mother +nagging at her all the time--you know what an awful hard woman her +mother is--she got desperate. She gulped it down when the last car +went past and Ed Flynn hadn't come; she had been watchin' out for +him; then she told her mother, and her mother shook her, then run +for Dr. Fox, and he called in Dr. Lord, and they worked with a +stomach-pump till morning, and she isn't out of danger yet. Then +that isn't all. Willy Jones's mother is failing. He was over to our +house last evening, telling us about it, and he fairly cried, poor +boy. He said he actually could not get her what she needed to make +her comfortable this awful winter. It was all he could do with odd +jobs to keep the roof over their heads, that she hadn't actually +enough to eat and keep her warm. It seemed as if he would die when +he told about it. And that isn't all. Those little Blake children +next door are fairly starving. They are going around to the +neighbors' swill-buckets--it's a fact--just like little hungry dogs, +and it's precious little they find in them. Mrs. Wetherhed has let +her sewing-machine go, and Edward Morse is going to be sold out for +taxes. And that isn't all." Abby lowered her voice a little. She +cast an apprehensive glance at the door of the other room, and at +Amabel. "Mamie Bemis has gone to the bad. I had it straight. She's +in Boston. She didn't have enough to pay for her board, and got +desperate. I know her sister did wrong, but that was no reason why +she should have, and I don't believe she would if it hadn't been for +the strike. It's all on account of the strike. There's no use +talking: before the sparrow flies in the eyes of the tiger, he'd +better count the cost." + +Fanny, quite white, stood staring from Abby to Ellen, and back +again. + +Amabel was holding fast to a fold of Ellen's skirt. Ellen looked +rigid. + +"I knew it all before," she said, in a low voice. + +Suddenly Abby jumped up and caught the other girl in a fierce +embrace. "Ellen," she sobbed--"Ellen, isn't there any way out of it? +I can't see--" + +Ellen freed herself from Abby with a curious imperative yet gentle +motion, then she opened the door into the other room again. The loud +clash of voices hushed, and every man faced towards her standing on +the threshold, with her mother and Abby and little Amabel in the +background. "I want to say to you all," said Ellen, in a clear +voice, "that I think I did wrong. I have been wondering if I had not +for some time, and growing more and more certain. I did not count +the cost. All I thought of was the principle, but the cost is a part +of the principle in this world, and it has to be counted in with it. +I see now. I don't think the strike ought ever to have been. It has +brought about too much suffering upon those who were not responsible +for it, who did not choose it of their own free will. There are +children starving, and people dying and breaking their hearts. We +have brought too much upon ourselves and others. I am sorry I said +what I did in the shop that day, if I influenced any one. Now I am +not going to strike any longer. Let us all accept Mr. Lloyd's terms, +and go back to work." + +But Ellen's voice was drowned out in a great shout of wrath and +dissent from Lee. He directly leaped to the conclusion that the girl +took this attitude on account of Lloyd, and his jealousy, which was +always smouldering, flamed. + +"Well, I guess not!" he shouted. "I rather guess not! I've struck, +and I'm going to stay struck! I ain't goin' to back out because a +girl likes the boss, damn him!" + +Andrew and the young laster rose and moved quietly before Ellen. Tom +Peel said nothing, but he grinned imperturbably. + +"I 'ain't had a bit of tobacco, and the less said about what I've +had to eat the better," Lee went on, in a loud, threatening voice, +"but I ain't going to give up. No, miss; you've het up the fightin' +blood in me, and it ain't so easy coolin' of it down." + +The door opened, and Granville Joy entered. He had knocked several +times, but nobody had heard him. He looked inquiringly from one to +another, then moved beside Andrew and the laster. + +Dixon got up. "It looks to me as if it was too soon to be giving up +now," he said. + +"It's easy for a man who's got nobody dependent upon him to talk," +cried Abby. + +"I won't give up!" cried Dixon, looking straight at Ellen, and +ignoring Abby. + +"That's so," said Lee. "We don't give up our rights for bosses, or +bosses' misses." + +As he said that there was a concerted movement of Andrew, the +laster, and Granville. Granville was much slighter than Lee, but +suddenly his right arm shot out, and the other man went down like a +log. Andrew followed him up with a kick. + +"Get out of my house," he shouted, "and never set foot in it again! +Out with ye!" + +Lee was easily cowed. He did not attempt to make any resistance, but +gathered himself up, muttering, and moved before the three into the +entry, where he had left his coat and hat. Dixon and Peel followed +him. When the door was shut, Ellen turned to the others, with a +quieting hand on Amabel's head, who was clinging to her, trembling. + +"I think it will be best to talk to John Sargent," said she. "I +think a committee had better be appointed to wait upon Mr. Lloyd +again, and ask him to open the factory. I'm not going to strike any +longer." + +"I'm sure I'm not," said Abby. + +"Abby and I are not going to strike any longer," said Ellen, in an +indescribably childlike way, which yet carried enormous weight with +it. + + + + +Chapter LVII + + +Ellen had not arrived at her decision with regard to the strike as +suddenly as it may have seemed. All winter, ever since the strike, +Ellen had been wondering, not whether the principle of the matter +was correct or not, that she never doubted; she never swerved in her +belief concerning the cruel tyranny of the rich and the helpless +suffering of the poor, and their good reason for making a stand, but +she doubted more and more the wisdom of it. She used to sit for +hours up in her chamber after her father and mother had gone to bed, +wrapped up in an old shawl against the cold, resting her elbows on +the window-sill and her chin on her two hands, staring out into the +night, and reflecting. Her youthful enthusiasm carried her like a +leaping-pole to conclusions beyond her years. "I wonder," she said +to herself, "if, after all, this inequality of possessions is not a +part of the system of creation, if the righting of them is not +beyond the flaming sword of the Garden of Eden? I wonder if the one +who tries to right them forcibly is not meddling, and usurping the +part of the Creator, and bringing down wrath and confusion not only +upon his own head, but upon the heads of others? I wonder if it is +wise, in order to establish a principle, to make those who have no +voice in the matter suffer for it--the helpless women and children?" + She even thought with a sort of scornful sympathy of Sadie Peel, +who could not have her nearseal cape, and had not wished to strike. +She reflected, as she had done so many times before, that the world +was very old--thousands of years old--and inequality was as old as +the world. Might it not even be a condition of its existence, the +shifting of weights which kept it to its path in the scheme of the +universe? And yet always she went back to her firm belief that the +strikers were right, and always, although she loved Robert Lloyd, +she denounced him. Even when it came to her abandoning her position +with regard to the strike, she had not the slightest thought of +effecting thereby a reconciliation with Robert. + +For the first time, that night when she had gone to bed, after +announcing her determination to go back to work, she questioned her +affection for Robert. Before she had always admitted it to herself +with a sort of shamed and angry dignity. "Other women feel so about +men, and why should I not?" she had said; "and I shall never fail to +keep the feeling behind more important things." She had accepted +the fact of it with childlike straightforwardness as she accepted +all other facts of life, and now she wondered if she really did care +for him so much. She thought over and over everything Abby had said, +and saw plainly before her mental vision those poor women parting +with their cherished possessions, the little starving children +snatching at the refuse-buckets at the neighbors' back doors. She +saw with incredulous shame, and something between pity and scorn, +Mamie Bemis, who had gone wrong, and Mamie Brady, who had taken her +foolish, ill-balanced life in her own hands. She remembered every +word which she had said to the men on the morning of the strike, and +how they had started up and left their machines. "I did it all," she +told herself. "I am responsible for it all--all this suffering, for +those hungry little children, for that possible death, for the ruin +of another girl." Then she told herself, with a stern sense of +justice, that back of her responsibility came Robert Lloyd's. If he +had not cut the wages it would never have been. It seemed to her +that she almost hated him, and that she could not wait to strive to +undo the harm which she had done. She could not wait for morning to +come. + +She lay awake all night in a fever of impatience. When she went +down-stairs her eyes were brilliant, there were red spots on her +cheeks, her lips were tense, her whole face looked as if she were +strained for some leap of action. She took hold of everything she +touched with a hard grip. Her father and mother kept watching her +anxiously. Directly after breakfast Ellen put on her hat and coat. + +"What are you going to do?" asked Fanny. + +"I am going over to see John Sargent, and ask him to get some other +men and go to see Mr. Lloyd, and tell him we are willing to go to +work again," replied Ellen. + +Ellen discovered, when she reached the Atkins house, that John +Sargent had already resolved upon his course of action. + +"The first thing he said when he came in last night was that he +couldn't stand it any longer, and he was going to see the others, +and go to Lloyd, and ask him to open the shop on his own terms," +said Abby. "I told him how we felt about it." + +"Yes, I am ready to go back whenever the factory is opened," said +Ellen. "I am glad he has gone." + +Ellen did not remain long. She was anxious to return and finish some +wrappers she had on hand. Abby promised to go over and let her know +the result of the interview with Lloyd. + +It was not until evening that Abby came over, and John Sargent with +her. Lloyd had not been at home in the morning, and they had been +forced to wait until late afternoon. The two entered the +dining-room, where Ellen and her mother sat at work. + +Abby spoke at once, and to the point. "Well," said she, "the shop's +going to be opened to-morrow." + +"On what terms?" asked Ellen. + +"On the boss's, of course," replied Abby, in a hard voice. + +"It's the only thing to do," said Sargent, with a sort of stolid +assertion. "If we are willing to be crushed under the Juggernaut of +principle, we haven't any right to force others under, and that's +what we are doing." + +"Bread without butter is better than no bread at all," said Abby. +"We've got to live in the sphere in which Providence has placed us." + The girl said "Providence" with a sarcastic emphasis. + +Andrew was looking at Sargent. "Do you think there will be any +trouble?" he asked. + +Sargent hesitated, with a glance at Fanny. "I don't know; I hope +not," said he. "Lee and Dixon are opposed to giving in, and they are +talking hard to-night in the store. Then some of the men have joined +the union since the strike, and of course they swear by it, because +it has been helping them, and they won't approve of giving up. But I +doubt if there will be much trouble. I guess the majority want to go +to work, even the union men. The amount of it is, it has been such a +tough winter it has taken the spirit out of the poor souls." +Sargent, evidently, in yielding was resisting himself. + +"You don't think there will be any danger?" Fanny said, anxiously, +looking at Ellen. + +"Oh no, there's no danger for the girls, anyhow. I guess there's +enough men to look out for them. There's no need for you to worry, +Mrs. Brewster." + +"Mr. Lloyd did not offer to do anything better about the wages?" +asked Ellen. + +Sargent shook his head. + +"Catch him!" said Abby, bitterly. + +Ellen had a feeling as if she were smiting in the face that image of +Robert which always dwelt in her heart. + +"Well," said Abby, with a mirthless laugh, "there's one thing: +according to the Scriptures, it is as hard for the rich man to get +into heaven as it is for the poor men to get into their factories." + +"You don't suppose there will be any danger?" Fanny said again, +anxiously. + +"Danger--no; who's afraid of Amos Lee and a few like him?" cried +Abby, contemptuously; "and Nahum Beals is safe. He's going to be +tried next month, they say, but they'll make it imprisonment for +life, because they think he wasn't in his right mind. If he was here +we might be afraid, but there's nobody now that will do anything but +talk. I ain't afraid. I'm going to march up to the shop to-morrow +morning and go to work, and I'd like to see anybody stop me." + +However, before they left, John Sargent spoke aside with Andrew, and +told him of a plan for the returning workmen to meet at the corner +of a certain street, and go in a body to the factory, and suggested +that there might be pickets posted by the union men, and Andrew +resolved to go with Ellen. + +The next morning the rain had quite ceased, and there was a faint +something, rather a reminiscence than a suggestion, of early spring +in the air. People caught themselves looking hard at the elm +branches to see if they were acquiring the virile fringe of spring +or if their eyes deceived them, and wondered, with respect to the +tips of maple and horse-chestnut branches, whether or not they were +swollen red and glossy. Sometimes they sniffed incredulously when a +soft gust of south wind seemed laden with fresh blossom fragrance. + +"I declare, if I didn't know better, I should think I smelled apple +blossoms," said Maria. + +"Stuff!" returned Abby. She was marching along with an alert, +springy motion of her lean little body. She was keenly alive to the +situation, and scented something besides apple blossoms. She had +tried to induce Maria to remain at home. "I don't know but there'll +be trouble, and if there is, you'll be just in the way," she told +her before they left the house, but not in their parents' hearing. + +"Oh, I don't believe there'll be any. Folks will be too glad to get +back to work," replied Maria. She had a vein of obstinacy, gentle as +she was; then, too, she had a reason which no one suspected for +wishing to be present. She would not yield when John Sargent begged +her privately not to go. It was just because she was afraid there +might be trouble, and he was going to be in it, that she could not +bear to stay at home herself. + +Andrew had insisted upon accompanying Ellen in spite of her +remonstrances. "I've got an errand down to the store," he said, +evasively; but Ellen understood. + +"I don't think there is any danger, and there wouldn't be any danger +for me--not for the girls, sure," she said; but he persisted. + +"Don't you say a word to your mother to scare her," he whispered. +But they had not been gone long before Fanny followed them, Mrs. +Zelotes watching her furtively from a window as she went by. + +All the returning employes met, as agreed upon, at the corner of a +certain street, and marched in a solid body towards Lloyd's. The men +insisted upon placing the girls in the centre of this body, although +some of them rebelled, notably Sadie Peel. She was on hand, laughing +and defiant. + +"I guess I ain't afraid," she proclaimed. "Father's keepin' on +strikin', but I guess he won't see his own daughter hurt; and now +I'm goin' to have my nearseal cape, if it is late in the season. +They're cheaper now, that's one good thing. On some accounts the +strike has been a lucky thing for me." She marched along, swinging +her arms jauntily. Ellen and Maria and Abby were close together. +Andrew was on the right of Ellen, Granville Joy behind; the young +laster, who had called so frequently evenings, was with him. John +Sargent and Willy Jones were on the left. They all walked in the +middle of the street like an army. It was covertly understood that +there might be trouble. Some of the younger men from time to time +put hands on their pockets, and a number carried stout sticks. + +The first intimation of disturbance came when they met an +electric-car, and all moved to one side to let it pass. The car was +quite full of people going to another town, some thirty miles +distant, to work in a large factory there. Nearly every man and +woman on the car belonged to the union. + +As this car slid past a great yell went up from the occupants; men +on the platforms swung their arms in execration and derision. +"Sc-ab, sc-ab!" they called. A young fellow leaped from the rear +platform, caught up a stone and flung it at the returning Lloyd men, +but it went wide of its mark. Then he was back on the platform with +a running jump, and one of the Lloyd men threw a stone, which missed +him. The yell of "Scab, scab!" went up with renewed vigor, until it +died out of hearing along with the rumble of the car. + +"Sometimes I wish I had joined the union and stuck it out," said one +of the Lloyd men, gloomily. + +"For the Lord's sake, don't show the white feather now!" cried a +young fellow beside him, who was striding on with an eager, even +joyous outlook. He had fighting blood, and it was up, and he took a +keen delight in the situation. + +"It's easy to talk," grumbled the other man. "I don't know but all +our help lies in the union, and we've been a pack of fools not to go +in with them, because we hoped Lloyd would weaken and take us back. +He hasn't weakened; we've had to. Good God, them that's rich have it +their own way!" + +"I'd have joined the union in a minute, and got a job, and got my +nearseal cape, if it hadn't been for father," said Sadie Peel, with +a loud laugh. "But, my land! if father'd caught me joinin' the union +I dun'no' as there would have been anything left of me to wear the +cape." + +They all marched along with no disturbance until they reached the +corner of the street into which they had to turn in order to +approach Lloyd's. There they were confronted by a line of pickets, +stationed there by the union, and the real trouble began. Yells of +"Scab, scab!" filled the air. + +"Good land, I ain't no more of a scab than you be!" shrieked Sadie +Peel, in a loud, angry voice. "Scab yourself! Touch me if you +dasse!" + +Many young men among the returning force had stout sticks in their +hands. Granville Joy was one of them. Andrew, who was quite unarmed, +pressed in before Ellen. Granville caught him by the arm and tried +to draw him back. + +"Look here, Mr. Brewster," he said, "you keep in the background a +little. I am young and strong, and here are Sargent and Mendon. +You'd better keep back." + +But Ellen, with a spring which was effectual because so utterly +uncalculated, was before Granville and her father, and them all. She +reasoned it out in a second that she was responsible for the strike, +and that she would be in the front of whatever danger there was in +consequence. Her slight little figure passed them all before they +knew what she was doing. She was in the very front of the little +returning army. She saw the threatening faces of the pickets; she +half turned, and waved an arm of encouragement, like a general in a +battle. "Strike if you want to," she cried out, in her sweet young +voice. "If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save +herself and her friends from starvation, do it. I am not afraid! But +kill me, if you must kill anybody, because I am the one that started +the strike. Strike if you want to." + +[Illustration: If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save +herself from starvation, do it!] + +The opposing force moved aside with an almost imperceptible motion. +Ellen looked like a beautiful child, her light hair tossed around +her rosy face, her eyes full of the daring of perfect confidence. +She in reality did not feel one throb of fear. She passed the +picket-line, and turned instinctively and marched backward with her +blue eyes upon them all. Abby Atkins sprang forward to Ellen's side, +with Sargent and Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew. Andrew kept calling +to Ellen to come back, but she did not heed him. + +The little army was several rods from the pickets before a shot rang +out, but that was fired into the air. However, it was followed by a +fierce clamor of "Scab" and a shower of stones, which did little +harm. The Lloyds marched on without a word, except from Sadie Peel. +She turned round with a derisive shout. + +"Scab yourselves!" she shrieked. "You dassen't fire at me. You're +scabs yourselves, you be!" + +"Scabs, scabs!" shouted the men, moving forward. + +"Scab yourself!" shouted Sadie Peel. + +Abby Atkins caught hold of her arm and shook her violently. "Shut +up, can't you, Sadie Peel," she said. + +"I'll shut up when I get ready, Abby Atkins! I ain't afraid of them +if you be. They dassen't hit me. Scab, scab!" the girl yelled back, +with a hysteric laugh. + +"Don't that girl know anything?" growled a man behind her. + +"Shut up, Sadie Peel," said Abby Atkins. + +"I ain't afraid if you be, and I won't shut up till I get ready, for +you or anybody else. I'm goin' to have my nearseal cape! Hi!" + +"I ain't afraid," said Abby, contemptuously, "but I've got sense." + +Maria pressed close to Sadie Peel. "Please do keep still, Sadie," +she pleaded. "Let us get into the factory as quietly as we can. +Think, if anybody was hurt." + +"I ain't afraid," shrieked the girl, with a toss of her red fringe, +and she laughed like a parrot. Abby Atkins gripped her arm so +fiercely that she made her cry out with pain. "If you don't keep +still!" she said, threateningly. + +Willy Jones was walking as near as he could, and he carried his +right arm half extended, as if to guard her. Now and then Abby +turned and gave him a push backward. + +"They won't trouble us girls, and you might as well let us and the +men that have sticks go first," she said in a whisper. + +"If you think--" began the young fellow, coloring. + +"Oh, I know you ain't afraid," said Abby, "but you've got your +mother to think of, and there's no use in running into danger." + +The pickets were gradually left behind; they were, in truth, +half-hearted. Many of them had worked in Lloyd's, and had small mind +to injure their old comrades. They were not averse to a great show +of indignation and bluster, but when it came to more they hesitated. + +Presently the company came into the open space before Lloyd's. +Robert and Lyman Risley and several foremen were standing at the +foot of the stairs. The windows of the factory were filled with +faces, and derisive cries came from them. Lloyd's tall shaft of +chimney was plumed with smoke. The employes advanced towards the +stairs, when suddenly Amos Lee, Dixon, and a dozen others appeared, +coming with a rush from around a corner of the building, and again +the air was filled with the cry of "Scab!" Ellen and Abby linked +arms and sprang forward before the men with an impetuous rush, with +Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew following. Ellen, as she rushed on +towards the factory stairs, was conscious of no fear at all, but +rather of a sort of exaltation of courage. It did not really occur +to her that she could be hurt, that it could be in the heart of Lee +or Dixon, or any of them, actually to harm her. She was throbbing +and intense with indignation and resolution. Into that factory to +her work she was bound to go. All that intimidated her in the least +was the fear for her father. She rushed as fast as she could that +her father might not get before her and be hurt in some way. + +"Scab! scab!" shouted Lee and the others. + +"Scab yourself!" shrieked Sadie Peel. Her father was one of the +opposing party, and that gave her perfect audacity. "Look out you +don't hit me, dad," she cried to him. "I'm goin' to get my nearseal +cape. Don't you hit your daughter, Tom Peel!" She raced on with a +sort of hoppity-skip. She caught a young man near her by the arm and +forced him into the same dancing motion. + +They were at the foot of the stairs, when Robert, watching, saw Lee +with a pistol in his hand aim straight at Ellen. He sprang before +her, but Risley was nearer, and the shot struck him. When Risley +fell, a great cry, it would have been difficult to tell whether of +triumph or horror, went up from the open windows of the other +factories, and men came swarming out. Lee and his companions +vanished. + +A great crowd gathered around Risley until the doctors came and +ordered them away, and carried him in the ambulance to the hospital. +He was not dead, but evidently very seriously injured. + +When the ambulance had rolled out of sight, the Lloyd employes +entered the factory, and the hum of machinery began. + +Fanny and Andrew stood together before the factory after Ellen had +entered. Andrew had started when he had seen his wife. + +"You here?" he said. + +"I rather guess I'm here," returned Fanny. "Do you s'pose I was +goin' to stay at home, and not know whether you and her were shot +dead or not?" + +"I guess it's all safe now," said Andrew. He was very pale. He +looked at the blood-stained place where Lyman Risley had lain. "It's +awful work," he said. + +"Who did it?" asked Fanny, sharply. "I heard the shot just before I +got here." + +"I don't know for sure, and guess it's better I don't," replied +Andrew, sternly. + +Then all at once as they stood there a woman came up with a swift, +gliding motion and a long trail of black skirts straight to Fanny, +who was the only woman there. There were still a great many men and +boys standing about. The woman, Cynthia Lennox, caught Fanny's arm +with a nervous grip. Her finely cut face was very white under the +nodding plumes of her black bonnet. + +"Is he in there?" she asked, in a strained voice, pointing to the +shop. + +Fanny stared at her. She was half dazed. She did not know whether +she was referring to the wounded man or Robert. + +Andrew was quicker in his perceptions. + +"They carried him off to the hospital in the ambulance," he told +her. Then he added, as gently as if he had been addressing Ellen: "I +guess he wasn't hurt so very bad. He came to before they took him +away." + +"You don't know anything about it," Fanny said, sharply. "I heard +them say something about his eyes." + +"His eyes!" gasped Cynthia. She held tightly to Fanny, who looked at +her with a sudden passion of sympathy breaking through her +curiosity. + +"Oh, I guess he wasn't hurt so very bad; he _did_ come to. I heard +him speak," she said, soothingly. She laid her hard hand over +Cynthia's slim one. + +"They took him to the hospital?" + +"Yes, in the ambulance." + +"Is--my nephew in there?" + +"No; he went with him." + +Cynthia looked at the other woman with an expression of utter +anguish and pleading. + +"Look here," said Fanny; "the hospital ain't very far from here. +Suppose we go up there and ask how he is? We could call out your +nephew." + +"Will you go with me?" asked Cynthia, with a heart-breaking gasp. + +If Ellen could have seen her at that moment, she would have +recognized her as the woman whom she had known in her childhood. She +was an utter surprise to Fanny, but her sympathy leaped to meet her +need like the steel to the magnet. + +"Of course I will," she said, heartily. + +"I would," said Andrew--"I would go with her, Fanny." + +"Of course I will," said Fanny; "and you had better go home, I +guess, Andrew, and see how I left the kitchen fire. I don't know but +the dampers are all wide open." + +Fanny and Cynthia hastened in one direction towards the hospital, +and Andrew towards home; but he paused for a minute, and looked +thoughtfully up at the humming pile of Lloyd's. The battle was over +and the strike was ended. He drew a great sigh, and went home to see +to the kitchen fire. + + + + +Chapter LVIII + + +Lyman Risley was very seriously injured. There was, as the men had +reported, danger for his eyes. When Robert was called into the +reception-room of the hospital to see his aunt, he scarcely +recognized her. Her soft, white hair was tossed about her temples, +her cheeks were burning. She ran up to him like an eager child and +clutched his arm. + +"How is he?" she demanded. "Tell me quick!" + +"They are doing everything they can for him. Why, don't, poor Aunt +Cynthia!" + +"His eyes, they said--" + +"I hope he will come out all right. Don't, dear Aunt Cynthia." The +young man put his arm around his aunt and spoke soothingly, blushing +like a girl before this sudden revelation of an under-stratum of +delicacy in a woman's heart. + +Cynthia lost control of herself completely; or, rather, the true +self of her rose uppermost, shattering the surface ice of her +reserve. "Oh," she said--"oh, if he--if he is--blind, if he +is--I--I--will lead him everywhere all the rest of his life; I will, +Robert." + +"Of course you will, dear Aunt Cynthia," replied Robert, soothingly. + +Suddenly Cynthia's face took on a new expression. She looked at +Robert, deadly pale, and her jaw dropped. "He will not--die," she +said, with stiff lips. "It is not as bad as that?" + +"Oh no, no; I am sure he will not," Robert cried, wonderingly and +pityingly. "Don't, Aunt Cynthia." + +"If he dies," she said--"if he dies--and he has loved me all this +time, and I have never done anything for him--I cannot bear it; I +will not bear it; I will not, Robert!" + +"Oh, he isn't going to die, Aunt Cynthia." + +"I want to go to him," she said. "I _will_ go to him." + +Robert looked helplessly from her to Fanny. "I am afraid you can't +just now, Aunt Cynthia," he replied. + +Fanny came resolutely to his assistance. "Of course you can't, Miss +Lennox," she said. "The doctors won't let you see him now. You would +do him more harm than good. You don't want to do him harm!" + +"No, I don't want to do him harm," returned Cynthia, in a wailing, +hysterical voice. She threw herself down upon a sofa and began +sobbing like a child, with her face hidden. + +A young doctor entered and stood looking at her. + +Robert turned to him. "It is my aunt, and she is agitated over Mr. +Risley's accident," he said, coloring a little. + +Instantly the young physician's face lost its expression of +astonishment and assumed the soothing gloss of his profession. "Oh, +my dear Miss Lennox," he said, "there is no cause for agitation, I +assure you. Everything is being done for Mr. Risley." + +"Will he be blind?" gasped Cynthia, with a great vehemence of woe, +which seemed to gainsay the fact of her years. It seemed as if such +an outburst of emotion could come only from a child all unacquainted +with grief and unable to control it. + +The young doctor laughed blandly. "Blind? No, indeed," he replied. +"He might have been blind had this happened twenty-five years ago, +but with the resources of the present day it is a different matter. +Pray don't alarm yourself, dear Miss Lennox." + +"Can you call a carriage for my aunt?" asked Robert. He went close +to Cynthia and laid a hand on her slender shoulder. "I am going to +have a carriage come for you, and perhaps Mrs. Brewster will be +willing to go home with you in it." + +"Of course I will," replied Fanny. + +"You hear what Dr. Payson says, that there is nothing to be alarmed +about," Robert said, in a low voice, with his lips close to his +aunt's ear. + +Cynthia made no resistance, but when the carriage arrived, and she +was being driven off, with Fanny by her side, she called out of the +window with a fierce shamelessness of anxiety, "Robert, you must +come and tell me how he is this afternoon, or I shall come back here +and see him myself." + +"Yes, I will, Aunt Cynthia," he replied, soothingly. He met the +doctor's curious eyes when he turned. The young man had a gossiping +mind, but he forbore to say what he thought, which was to the effect +that--why under the heavens, if that woman cared as much as that for +that man, she had not married him, instead of letting him dangle +after her so many years? But he merely said: + +"There is no use in saying anything to excite a woman further +when she is in such a state of mind, but--" Then he paused +significantly. + +"You think the chances of his keeping his eyesight are poor?" said +Robert. + +"Mighty poor," replied the doctor. + +Robert stood still, with his pale, shocked face bent upon the +carpet. He could not seem to comprehend at once the enormity of it +all; his mind was grasping at and trying to assimilate the horrible +fact with an infinite pain. + +"Have they got the man that did it?" asked the doctor. + +"I don't know. I had to see to poor Risley," replied Robert. "I hope +to God they have." Then all at once he thought, with keen anxiety, +of Ellen. Who knew what new tragedy had happened? "I must go back to +the factory," he said, hurriedly. "I will be back here in an hour or +so, and see how he is getting on. For Heaven's sake, do all you +can!" + +Robert was desperately impatient to be back at the factory. He was +full of vague anxiety about Ellen. He could not forget that the shot +which had hit poor Risley had been meant for her, and he remembered +the look on the man's face as he aimed. He found a carriage at the +street corner, and jumped in, and bade the man drive fast. + +When Robert entered the great building, and felt the old vibration +of machinery, he had a curious sensation, one which he had never +before had and which he had not expected. For the first time in his +life he knew what it was to have a complete triumph of his own will +over his fellow-men. He had gotten his own way. All this army of +workmen, all this machinery of labor, was set in motion at his +desire, in opposition to their own. He realized himself a leader and +a conqueror. He went into the office, and Flynn and Dennison came +forward, smiling, to greet him. + +"Well," said Dennison, "we're off again." He spoke as if the +factory were a ship which had been launched from a shoal. + +"Yes," replied Robert, gravely. + +Nellie Stone, at the desk, was glancing around, with a half-shy, +half-coquettish look. + +"How is Mr. Risley?" asked Flynn. + +"He is badly hurt," replied Robert. "Have they found the man? Do you +know what has been done about it?" + +"They've got all the police force of the city out," replied Flynn, +"but it's no use. They'll never catch Amos Lee. His mother was a +gypsy, I've always heard. He knows about a thousand ways out of +traps, and there's plenty to help him. They've got Dixon under +arrest, and Tom Peel; but they didn't have any fire-arms on 'em, and +they can't prove anything. Peel says he's ready to go back to work." + Flynn had a somewhat seedy and downcast appearance, although he +fought hard for his old jaunty manner. His impulsive good-nature had +gotten the better of his judgment and his own wishes, and he had +gone to Mamie Brady and offered to marry her out of hand if she +recovered from her attempted suicide. The night before he had +watched, turn and turn about, with her mother. He gave a curious +effect of shamefaced and melancholy virtue. He followed Robert to +one side when he was hanging up his hat and coat. "I'm going to tell +you, Mr. Lloyd," he said, rather awkwardly; "maybe you won't be +interested in the midst of all this, but it all came from the +strike. She's better this morning, and I'm going to marry her, poor +girl." + +Robert looked at him in a dazed fashion. For a moment he had not the +slightest idea what he was talking about. + +"I'm going to marry Mamie Brady," explained Flynn. "She took +laudanum. It all happened on account of the strike. I'll own I'd +been flirting some with her, but she'd never done it if she hadn't +been out of work, too. She said so. Her mother made her life a hell. +I'm going to marry her, and take her out of it." + +"It's mighty good of you," Robert said, rather stupidly. + +"There ain't no other way for me to do," replied Flynn. "She thinks +the world of me, and I suppose I'm to blame." + +"I hope she'll make you a good wife and you'll be happy," said +Robert. + +"She thinks all creation of me," replied Flynn, with the simplest +vanity and acquiescence in the responsibility laid upon him in the +world. "That shot wasn't meant for Mr. Risley," said Flynn, as +Robert approached the office door. His eyes flashed. He himself +would gladly have been shot for the sake of Ellen Brewster. He was +going to marry, and try to fulfill his simple code of honor, but all +his life he would be married to one woman, with another ideal in his +heart; that was inevitable. + +"I know it wasn't," Robert replied, grimly. + +"Everything is quiet now," said Dennison, with his smooth smile. +Robert made no reply, but entered the great work-room. "He's mighty +stand-offish, now he's got his own way," Dennison remarked in a +whisper to Nellie Stone. He leaned closely over her. Flynn had +followed Robert. The girl glanced up at the foreman, who was +unmarried, although years older than she, and her face quivered a +little, but it seemed due to a surface sensitiveness. + +"I want to know if you've heard that Ed is going to marry Mamie +Brady, after all," she whispered. + +Dennison nodded. + +She knitted her forehead over a column of figures. Dennison leaned +his face so close that his blond-bearded cheek touched hers. She +made a little impatient motion. + +"Oh, go long, Jim Dennison," she said, but her tone was +half-hearted. + +Dennison persisted, bending her head gently backward until he kissed +her. She pushed him away, but she smiled weakly. + +"You didn't want Ed Flynn. Why, he's a Roman Catholic, and you're +Baptist, Nell," he said. + +"Who said I did?" she retorted, angrily. "Why, I wouldn't marry Ed +Flynn if he was the last man in the world." + +"You'd 'nough sight better marry me," said Dennison. + +"Go along; you're fooling." + +"No, I ain't. I mean it, honest." + +"I don't want to marry anybody yet awhile," said Nellie Stone; but +when Dennison kissed her again she did not repulse him, and even +nestled her head with a little caressing motion into the hollow of +his shoulder. + +Then they both started violently apart as Flynn entered. + +"Say!" he proclaimed, "what do you think? The boss has just told the +hands that he'll split the difference and reduce the wages five +instead of ten per cent." + + + + +Chapter LIX + + +When Robert Lloyd entered the factory that morning he experienced +one of those revulsions which come to man in common with all +creation. As the wind can swerve from south to east, and its +swerving be a part of the universal scheme of things, so the +inconsistency of a human soul can be an integral part of its +consistency. Robert, entering Lloyd's, flushed with triumph over his +workmen, filled also with rage whenever he thought of poor Risley, +became suddenly, to all appearances, another man. However, he was +the same man, only he had come under some hidden law of growth. All +at once, as he stood there amidst those whirring and clamping +machines, and surveyed those bowed and patient backs and swaying +arms of labor, standing aside to allow a man bending before a heavy +rack of boots to push it to another department, he realized that his +triumph was gone. + +Not a man or woman in the factory looked at him. All continued +working with a sort of patient fierceness, as if storming a +citadel--as, indeed, they were in one sense--and waging incessant +and in the end hopeless warfare against the destructive forces of +life. Robert stood in the midst of them, these fellow-beings who had +bowed to his will, and saw, as if by some divine revelation, in his +foes his brothers and sisters. He saw Ellen's fair head before her +machine, and she seemed the key-note of a heart-breaking yet +ineffable harmony of creation which he heard for the first time. He +was a man whom triumph did not exalt as much as it humiliated. Who +was he to make these men and women do his bidding? They were working +as hard as they had worked for full pay. Without doubt he would not +gain as much comparatively, but he was going to lose nothing +actually, and he would not work as these men worked. He saw himself +as he never could have seen himself had the strike continued; and +yet, after all, he was not a woman, to be carried away by a sudden +wave of generous sentiment and enthusiasm, for his business +instincts were too strong, inherited and developed by the force of +example. He could not forget that this had been his uncle's factory. + +He shut his mouth hard, and stood looking at the scene of toil, then +he resolved what to do. + +He spoke to Flynn, who could not believe his ears, and asked him +over. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. + +"Go and speak to the engineer, and tell him to shut down," said +Robert. + +"You ain't going to turn them out, after all?" gasped Flynn. He was +deadly white. + +"No, I am not. I only want to speak to them," replied Robert, +shortly. + +When the roar of machinery had ceased, Robert stood before the +employes, whose faces had taken on an expression of murder and +menace. They anticipated the worst by this order. + +"I want to say to you all," said Robert, in a loud, clear voice, +"that I realize it will be hard for you to make both ends meet with +the cut of ten per cent. I will make it five instead of ten per +cent., although I shall actually lose by so doing unless business +improves. I will, however, try it as long as possible. If the hard +times continue, and it becomes a sheer impossibility for me to +employ you on these terms without abandoning the plant altogether, I +will approach you again, and trust that you will support me in any +measures I am forced to take. And, on the contrary, should business +improve, I promise that your wages shall be raise to the former +standard at once." + +The speech was so straightforward that it sounded almost boyish. +Robert, indeed, looked very young as he stood there, for a generous +and pitying impulse does tend to make a child of a man. The workmen +stared at him a minute, then there was a queer little broken chorus +of "Thank ye's," with two or three shrill crows of cheers. + +Robert went from room to room, repeating his short speech, then work +recommenced. + +"He's the right sort, after all," said Granville Joy to John +Sargent, and his tone had a quality of heroism in it. He was very +thin and pale. He had suffered privations, and now came additional +worry of mind. He could not help thinking that this might bring +about an understanding between Robert and Ellen, and yet he paid his +spiritual dues at any cost. + +"It's no more than he ought to do," growled a man at Granville's +right. "S'pose he does lose a little money?" + +"It ain't many out of the New Testament that are going to lose a +little for the sake of their fellow-men, I can tell you that," said +John Sargent. He was cutting away deftly and swiftly, and thinking +with satisfaction of the money which he would be able to send his +sister, and also how the Atkins family would be no longer so +pinched. He was a man who would never come under the grindstone of +the pessimism of life for his own necessities, but lately the +necessities of others had almost forced him there. Now and then he +glanced across the room at Maria, whose narrow shoulders he could +see bent painfully over her work. He was in love with Maria, but no +one suspected it, least of all Maria herself. + +"Lord! don't talk about the New Testament. Them days is past," +growled the man on the other side of Joy. + +"They ain't past for me," said John Sargent, stoutly. A dark flush +rose to his cheek as if he were making a confession of love. + +"Lord! don't preach," said the other man, with a sneer. + +Ellen had stopped work with the rest when Robert addressed them. +Then she recommenced her stitching without a word. Her thoughts were +in confusion. She had so long held one attitude towards him that she +could not readily adjust herself to another. She was cramped with +the extreme narrowness of the enthusiasm of youth. At noontime she +heard all the talk which went on about him. She heard some praise +him, and some speak of him as simply doing his manifest duty, and +some say openly that he should have put the wages back upon the +former footing, and she did not know which was right. He did not +come near her, and she was very glad of that. She felt that she +could not bear it to have him speak to her before them all. + +When she went home at night the news had preceded her. Fanny and +Andrew looked up eagerly when she entered. "I hear he has +compromised," said Andrew, with doubtful eyes on the girl's face. + +"Yes; he has cut the wages five instead of ten per cent.," replied +Ellen, and it was impossible to judge of her feelings by her voice. +She took off her hat and smoothed her hair. + +"Well, I am glad he has done that much," said Fanny, "but I won't +say a word as long as you ain't hurt." + +With that she went into the kitchen, and Ellen and Andrew heard the +dishes rattle. "Your mother's been dreadful nervous," whispered +Andrew. He looked at Ellen meaningly. Both of them thought of poor +Eva Tenny. Lately the reports with regard to her had been more +encouraging, but she was still in the asylum. + +Suddenly, as they stood there, a swift shadow passed the window, and +they heard a shrill scream from up-stairs. It sounded like "Mamma, +mamma!" "It's Amabel!" cried Ellen. She clutched her father by the +arm. "Oh, what is it--who is it?" she whispered, fearfully. + +Andrew was suddenly white and horror-stricken. He took hold of +Ellen, and pushed her forcibly before him into the parlor. "You stay +in there till I call you," he said, in a commanding voice, the like +of which the girl had never heard from him before; then he shut the +door, and she heard the key turn in the lock. + +"Father, I can't stay in here," cried Ellen. She ran towards the +other door into the front hall, but before she could reach it she +heard the key turn in that also. Andrew was convinced that Eva had +escaped from the asylum, and thus made sure of Ellen's safety in +case she was violent. Then he rushed out into the kitchen, and there +was Amabel clinging to her mother like a little wild thing, and +Fanny weeping aloud. + +When Andrew entered Fanny flew to him. "O Andrew--O Andrew!" she +cried. "Eva's come out! She's well! she's cured! She's as well as +anybody! She is! She says so, and I know she is! Only look at her!" + +"Mamma, mamma!" gasped Amabel, in a strange, little, pent voice, +which did not sound like a child's. There was something fairly +inhuman about it. "Mamma," as she said it, did not sound like a word +in any known language. It was like a cry of universal childhood for +its parent. Amabel clung to her mother, not only with her slender +little arms, but with her legs and breast and neck; all her slim +body became as a vine with tendrils of love and growth around her +mother. + +As for Eva, she could not have enough of her. She was intoxicated +with the possession of this little creature of her own flesh and +blood. + +"She's grown; she's grown so tall," she said, in a high, panting +voice. It was all she could seem to realize--the fact that the child +had grown so tall--and it filled her at once with ineffable pain and +delight. She held the little thing so close to her that the two +seemed fairly one. "Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel again. + +"She has--grown so tall," panted Eva. + +Fanny went up to her and tried gently to loosen her grasp of the +little girl. In her heart she was not yet quite sure of her. This +fierceness of delight began to alarm her. "Of course she has grown +tall, Eva Tenny," she said. "It's quite a while since you +were--taken sick." + +"I ain't sick now," said Eva, in a steady voice. "I'm cured now. The +doctors say so. You needn't be afraid, Fanny Brewster." + +"Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel. Eva bent down and kissed the little, +delicate face; then she looked at her sister and at Andrew, and her +own countenance seemed fairly illuminated. "I 'ain't _told_ you +all," said she. Then she stopped and hesitated. + +"What is it, Eva?" asked Fanny, looking at her with increasing +courage. The tears were streaming openly down her cheeks. "Oh, you +poor girl, what have you been through?" she said. "What is it?" + +"I 'ain't got to go through anything more," said Eva, still with +that rapt look over Amabel's little, fair head. "He's--come back." + +"Eva Tenny!" + +"Yes, he has," Eva went on, with such an air of inexpressible +triumph that it had almost a religious quality in it. "He has. He +left her a long time ago. He--he wanted to come back to me and +Amabel, but he was ashamed, but finally he came to the asylum, and +then it all rolled off, all the trouble. The doctors said I had been +getting better, but they didn't know. It was--Jim's comin' back. +He's took me home, and I've come for Amabel, and--he's got a job in +Lloyd's, and he's bought me this new hat and cape." Eva flirted her +free arm, and a sweep of jetted silk gleamed, then she tossed her +head consciously to display a hat with a knot of pink roses. Then +she kissed Amabel again. "Mamma's come back," she whispered. + +"Mamma, mamma!" cried Amabel. + +Andrew and Fanny looked at each other. + +"Where is he?" asked Andrew, in a slow, halting voice. + +Eva glanced from one to the other defiantly. "He's outside, waitin' +in the road," said she; "but he ain't comin' in unless you treat him +just the same as ever. I've set my veto on that." Eva's voice and +manner as she said that were so unmistakably her own that all +Fanny's doubt of her sanity vanished. She sobbed aloud. + +"O God, I'm so thankful! She's come home, and she's all right! O +God, I'm so thankful!" + +"What about Jim?" asked Eva, with her old, proud, defiant look. + +"Of course he's comin' in," sobbed Fanny. "Andrew, you go--" + +But Andrew had already gone, unlocking the parlor door on his way. +"It's your aunt Eva, Ellen," he said as he passed. "She's come home +cured, and your uncle Jim is out in the yard, and I'm goin' to call +him in. I guess you'd better go out and see her." + + + + +Chapter LX + + +Lloyd's had been running for two months, and spring had fairly +begun. It was a very forward season. The elms were leafed out, the +cherry and peach blossoms had fallen, and the apple-trees were in +full flower. There were many orchards around Rowe. The little city +was surrounded with bowing garlands of tenderest white and rose, the +well-kept lawns in the city limits were like velvet, and +golden-spiked bushes and pink trails of flowering almond were beside +the gates. Lilacs also, flushed with rose, purpled the walls of old +houses. One morning Ellen, on her way to the factory, had for the +first time that year a realization of the full presence of the +spring. All at once she knew the goddess to be there in her whole +glory. + +"Spring has really come," she said to Abby. As she spoke she jostled +a great bush of white flowers, growing in a yard close to the +sidewalk, and an overpowering fragrance, like a very retaliation of +sweetness, came in her face. + +"Yes," said Abby; "it seems more like spring than it did last night, +somehow!" Abby had gained flesh, and there was a soft color on her +cheeks, so that she was almost pretty, as she glanced abroad with a +sort of bright gladness and a face ready with smiles. Maria also +looked in better health than she had done in the winter. She walked +with her arm through Ellen's. + +Suddenly a carriage, driven rapidly, passed them, and Cynthia +Lennox's graceful profile showed like a drooping white flower in a +window. + +Sadie Peel came up to them with a swift run. "Say!" she said, "know +who that was?" + +"We've got eyes," replied Abby Atkins, shortly. + +"Who said you hadn't? You needn't be so up an' comin', Abby Atkins; +I didn't know as you knew they were married, that's all. I just +heard it from Lottie Snell, whose sister works at the dressmaker's +that made the wedding fix. Weddin' fix! My land! Think of a weddin' +without a white dress and a veil! All she had was a gray silk and a +black velvet, and a black lace, and a travellin'-dress!" + +Abby Atkins eyed the other girl sharply, her curiosity getting the +better of her dislike. "Who did she marry?" said she, shortly. "I +suppose she didn't marry the black velvet, or the lace, or the +travelling-dress. That's all you seem to think about." + +"I _thought_ you didn't know," replied Sadie Peel, in a tone of +triumph. "They've kept it mighty still, and he's been goin' there so +long, ever since anybody can remember, that they didn't think it was +anything more now than it had been right along. Lyman Risley and +Cynthia Lennox have just got married, and they've gone down to Old +Point Comfort. My land, it's nice to have money, if you be half +blind!" + +Ellen looked after the retreating carriage, and made no comment. + +She was pale and thin, and moved with a certain languor, although +she held up her head proudly, and when people asked if she were not +well, answered quickly that she had never been better. Robert had +not been to see her yet. She had furtively watched for him a long +time, then she had given it up. She would not acknowledge to herself +or any one else that she was not well or was troubled in spirit. Her +courage was quite equal to the demand upon it, yet always she was +aware of a peculiar sensitiveness to all happenings, whether +directly concerned with herself or not, which made life an agony to +her, and she knew that her physical strength was not what it had +been. Only that morning she had looked at her face in the glass, and +had seen how it was altered. The lovely color was gone from her +cheeks, there were little, faint, downward lines about her mouth, +and, more than that, out of her blue eyes looked the eternal, +unanswerable question of humanity, "Where is my happiness?" + +It seemed to her when she first set out that she could not walk to +the factory. That sense of the full presence of the spring seemed to +overpower her. All the revelation of beauty and sweetness seemed a +refinement of torture worse to bear than the sight of death and +misery would have been. Every blooming apple-bough seemed to strike +her full on the heart. + +"Only look at that bush of red flowers in that yard," Maria said +once, and Ellen looked and was stung by the sight as by the contact +of a red flaming torch of spring. "What ails you, dear; don't you +like those flowers?" Maria said, anxiously. + +"Yes, of course I do; I think they are lovely," replied Ellen, +looking. + +She looked after the carriage which contained the bridal party; she +thought how the bridegroom had almost lost his eyesight to save her, +and her old adoration of Cynthia seemed to rise to a flood-tide. +Then came the thought of Robert, how he must have ceased to love +her--how some day he would be starting off on a bridal trip of his +own. Maud Hemingway, with whom she had often coupled him in her +thoughts, seemed to start up before her, all dressed in bridal +white. It seemed to her that she could not bear it all. She +continued walking, but she did not feel the ground beneath her feet, +nor even Maria's little, clinging fingers of tenderness on her arm. +She became to her own understanding like an instrument which is +played upon with such results of harmonies and discords that all +sense of the mechanism is lost. + +"Well, Ellen Brewster," said Sadie Peel, in her loud, strident +voice, "I guess you wouldn't have been walkin' along here quite so +fine this mornin' if it hadn't been for Mr. Risley. You'd ought to +send him a weddin'-present--a spoon, or something." + +"Shut up," said Abby Atkins; "Ellen has worried herself sick over +him as it is." She eyed Ellen anxiously as she spoke. Maria clung +more closely to her. + +"Shut up yourself, Abby Atkins," returned Sadie Peel. "He's got a +wife to lead him around, and I don't see much to worry about. A +great weddin'! My goodness, if I don't get married when I'm young +enough to wear a white dress and veil, catch me gettin' married at +all!" + +Sadie Peel sped on with her news to a group of girls ahead, and the +wheels of the carriage flashed out of sight in the spring sunlight. +It was quite true that Risley and Cynthia had been married that +morning. He had not entirely lost his vision, although it would +always be poor, and he would live happily, although in a measure +disappointedly, feeling that his partial helplessness was his chief +claim upon his wife's affection. He had gotten what he had longed +for for so many years, but by means which tended to his humiliation +instead of his pride. But Cynthia was radiant. In caring for her +half-blind husband she attained the spiritual mountain height of her +life. She possessed love in the one guise in which he appealed to +her, and she held him fast to the illumination of her very soul. + +After the carriage had passed out of sight Abby came close on the +other side of Ellen and slid her arm through hers. "Say!" she began. + +"What is it?" asked Ellen. + +Abby blushed. "Oh, nothing much," she replied, in a tone unusual for +her. She took her arm away from Ellen's, and laughed a little +foolishly. + +Ellen stared at her with grave wonder. She had not the least idea +what she meant. + +Abby changed the subject. "Going to the park opening to-night, +Ellen?" she asked. + +"No, I guess not." + +"You'd better. Do go, Ellen." + +"Yes, do go, Ellen; it will do you good," said Maria. She looked +into Ellen's face with the inexpressibly pure love of one innocent +girl for another. + +The park was a large grove of oaks and birch-trees which had +recently been purchased by the street railway company of Rowe, and +it was to be used for the free entertainment of the people, with an +undercurrent of consideration for the financial profit of the +company. + +"I'm afraid I can't go," said Ellen. + +"Yes, you can; it will do you good; you look like a ghost this +morning," said Abby. + +"Do go, Ellen," pleaded Maria. + +However, Ellen would not have gone had it not been for a whisper of +Abby's as they came out of the factory that night. + +"Look here, Ellen, you'd better go," said she, "just to show folks. +That Sadie Peel asked me this noon if it was true that you had +something on your mind, and was worrying about--well, you know +what--that made you look so." + +Ellen flushed an angry red. "I'll stop for you and Maria to-night," +she answered, quickly. + +"All right," Abby replied, heartily; "we'll go on the eight-o'clock +car." + +Ellen hurried home, and changed her dress after supper, putting on +her new green silk waist and her spring hat, which was trimmed with +roses. When she went down-stairs, and told her mother where she was +going, she started up. + +"I declare, I'd go too if your father had come home," she said. "I +don't know when I've been anywhere; and Eva was in this afternoon +and said that she and Jim were going." + +"I wonder where father is?" said Ellen, uneasily. "I don't know as I +ought to go till he comes home." + +"Oh, stuff!" replied Fanny. "He's stopped to talk at the store. Oh, +here he is now. Andrew Brewster, where in the world have you been?" +she began as he entered; but his mother was following him, and +something in their faces stopped her. Fanny Brewster had lived for +years with this man, but never before had she seen his face with +just that expression of utter, unreserved joy; although joy was +scarcely the word for it, for it was more than that. It was the look +of a man who has advanced to his true measure of growth, and +regained self-respect which he had lost. All the abject bend of his +aging back, all the apologetic patience of his outlook, was gone. +She stared at him, hardly believing her eyes. She was as frightened +as if he had looked despairing instead of joyful. "Andrew Brewster, +what is it?" she asked. She tried to smile, to echo the foolish +width of grimace on his face, but her lips were too stiff. + +Ellen looked at him, trembling, and very white under her knot of +roses. Andrew held out a paper and tried to speak, but he could not. + +"For God's sake, what is it?" gasped Fanny. + +Then Mrs. Zelotes spoke. "That old mining-stock has come up," said +she, in a harsh voice. "He'd never ought to have bought it. I should +have told him better if he had asked me, but it's come up, and it's +worth considerable more than he paid for it. I've just been down to +Mrs. Pointdexter's, and Lawyer Samson was in there seeing her about +a bond she's got that's run out, and he says the mine's going to pay +dividends, and for Andrew to hold on to part of it, anyhow. I bought +this paper, and it's in it. He never ought to have bought it, but +it's come up. I hope it will learn him a lesson. He's had enough +trouble over it." + +Nothing could exceed the mixture of recrimination and exultation +with which the old woman spoke. She eyed Fanny accusingly; she +looked at Andrew with grudging triumph. "Lawyer Samson says it will +make him rich, he guesses; at any rate, he'll come out whole," said +she. "I hope it will learn you a lesson." + +Andrew dropped into a chair. His face was distended with a foolish +smile like a baby's. He seemed to smile at all creation. He looked +at his wife and Ellen; then his face again took on its expression of +joyful vacuity. + +Fanny went close to him and laid a firm hand on his shoulder. "You +'ain't had a mite of supper, Andrew Brewster," said she; "come right +out and have something to eat." + +Andrew shook his head, still smiling. His wife and daughter looked +at him alarmedly, then at each other. Then his mother went behind +him, laid a hard, old hand on each shoulder, and shook him. + +"If you _have_ got a streak of luck, there's no need of your actin' +like a fool about it, Andrew Brewster," said she. "Go out and eat +your supper, and behave yourself, and let it be a lesson to you. +There you had worked and saved that little money you had in the +bank, and you bought an old mine with it, and it might have turned +out there wasn't a thing in it, no mine at all, and there was. Just +let it be a lesson to you, that's all; and go out and eat your +supper, and don't be too set up over it." + +Andrew looked at his wife and mother and daughter, still with that +expression of joy, so unreserved that it was almost idiotic. They +had all stood by him loyally; he had their fullest sympathy; but had +one of them fully understood? Not one of them could certainly +understand what was then passing in his mind, which had been +straitened by grief and self-reproach, and was now expanding to hold +its full measure of joy. That poor little sum in the bank, that +accumulation of his hard earnings, which he had lost through his own +bad judgment, had meant much more than itself to him, both in its +loss and its recovery. It was more than money; it was the value of +money in the current coin of his own self-respect. + +His mother shook him again, but rather gently. "Get up this minute, +and go out and eat your supper," said she; "and then I don't see why +you can't go with Fanny and me to the park opening. They say lots of +folks are goin', and there's goin' to be fireworks. It'll distract +your mind. It ain't safe for anybody to dwell too much on good luck +any more than on misfortune. Go right out and eat your supper; it's +most time for the car." + +Andrew obeyed. + + + + +Chapter LXI + + +The new park, which had been named, in honor of the president of the +street railway company, Clemens Park, was composed of a light growth +of oak and birch trees. With the light of the full moon, like a +broadside of silvery arrows, and the frequent electric-lights +filtering through the young, delicate foliage, it was much more +effective than a grove of pine or hemlock would have been. + +When the people streamed into it from the crowded electric-cars, +there were exclamations of rapture. Women and girls fairly shrieked +with delight. The ground, which had been entirely cleared of +undergrowth, was like an etching in clearest black and white, of the +tender dancing foliage of the oaks and birches. The birches stood +together in leaning, white-limbed groups like maidens, and the +rustling spread of the oaks shed broad flashes of silver from the +moon. In the midst of the grove the Hungarian orchestra played in a +pavilion, and dancing was going on there. Many of the people outside +moved with dancing steps. Children in swings flew through the airs +with squeals of delight. There was a stand for the sale of ice-cream +and soda, and pretty girls blossomed like flowers behind the +counters. There were various rustic adornments, such as seats and +grottos, and at one end of the grove was a small collection of wild +animals in cages, and a little artificial pond with swans. Now and +then, above the chatter of the people and the music of the +orchestra, sounded the growl of a bear or the shrill screech of a +paroquet, and the people all stopped and listened and laughed. This +little titillation of the unusual in the midst of their sober walk +of life affected them like champagne. Most of them were of the +poorer and middle classes, the employes of the factories of Rowe. +They moved back and forth with dancing steps of exultation. + +"My, ain't it beautiful!" Fanny said, squeezing Andrew's arm. He had +his wife on one arm, his mother on the other. For him the whole +scene appeared more than it really was, since it reflected the joy +of his own soul. There was for him a light greater than that of the +moon or electricity upon it--that extreme light of the world--the +happiness of a human being who blesses in a moment of prosperity the +hour he was born. He knew for the first time in his life that +happiness is as true as misery, and no mere creation of a fairy +tale. No trees of the Garden of Eden could have outshone for him +those oaks and birches. No gold or precious stones of any mines on +earth can equal the light of the little star of happiness in one +human soul. + +Fanny, as they walked along, kept looking at her husband, and her +own face was transfigured. Mrs. Zelotes, also, seemed to radiate +with a sort of harsh and prickly delight. She descanted upon the +hard-earned savings which Andrew had risked, but she held her old +head very high with reluctant joy, and her bonnet had a rakish cant. + +Ellen, with Abby and Maria, walked behind them. + +Presently Andrew met another man who had also purchased stock in the +mine, and stopped to exchange congratulations. The man's face was +flushed, as if he had been drinking, but he had not. On his arm hung +his wife, a young woman with a showy red waist and some pink ribbon +bows on her hat. She was teetering a little in time to the music, +while a little girl clung to her skirts and teetered also. + +"Well, old man," said the new-comer, with a hoarse sound in his +throat, "they needn't talk to us any more, need they?" + +"That's so," replied Andrew, but his joy in prosperity was not like +the other man's. It placed him heights above him, although from the +same cause. Prosperity means one thing to one man, and another to +his brother. + +Presently they met Jim Tenny and Eva and Amabel. They were walking +three abreast, Amabel in the middle. Jim Tenny looked hesitatingly +at them, although his face was widened with irrepressible smiles. +Eva gazed at them with defiant radiance. "Well," said she, "so luck +has turned?" + +Amabel laughed out, and her laugh trilled high with a note of +silver, above the chatter of the crowd and the blare and rhythmic +trill of the orchestra. "I've had an ice-cream, and I'm going to +have a new doll and a doll-carriage," said she. "Oh, Ellen!" She +left her father and mother for a second and clung to Ellen, kissing +her; then she was back. + +"Well, Andrew?" said Jim. He had a shamed face, yet there was +something brave in it struggling for expression. + +"Well, Jim?" said Andrew. + +The two shook hands solemnly. Then they walked on together, and the +sisters behind, with Amabel clinging to her mother's hand. "Jim's +goin' to work if he _has_ had a little windfall," said Eva, proudly. +"Oh, Fanny, only think what it means!" + +"I hope it will be a lesson to both of them," said Mrs. Zelotes, +stalking along after, but she smiled harshly. + +"Oh, land, don't croak, if you've got a chance to laugh! There's few +enough chances in this world," cried Eva, with boisterous good +humor. "As for me, I've come out of deep waters, and I'm goin' to +take what comfort I can in the feel of the solid ground under my +feet." She began to force Amabel into a dance in time with the +music, and the child shrieked with laughter. + +"S'pose she's all right?" whispered Mrs. Zelotes to Fanny. + +"Land, yes," replied Fanny; "it's just like her, just the way she +used to do. It makes me surer than anything else that she's cured." + +The girls behind were loitering. Abby turned to Ellen and pointed to +a rustic seat under a clump of birches. + +"Let's sit down there a minute, Ellen," said she. + +"All right," replied Ellen. When she and Abby seated themselves, +Maria withdrew, standing aloof under an oak, looking up at the +illumined spread of branches with the rapt, innocent expression of a +saint. + +"Why don't you come and sit down with us, Maria?" Ellen called. + +"In a minute," replied Maria, in her weak, sweet voice. Then John +Sargent came up and joined her. + +"She'll come in a minute," Abby said to Ellen. "She--she--knows I +want to tell you something." + +Abby hesitated. Ellen regarded her with wonder. + +"Look here, Ellen," said Abby; "I don't know what you're going to +think of me after all I've said, but--I'm going to get married to +Willy Jones. His mother has had a little money left her, and she +owns the house clear now, and I'm going to keep right on working; +and--I never thought I would, Ellen, you know; but I've come to +think lately that all you can get out of labor in this world is the +happiness it brings you, and--the love. That's more than the money, +and--he wants me pretty bad. I suppose you think I'm awful, Ellen +Brewster." Abby spoke with triumph, yet with shame. She dug her +little toe into the shadow-mottled ground. + +"Oh, Abby, I hope you'll be real happy," said Ellen. Then she choked +a little. + +"I've made up my mind not to work for nothing," said Abby; "I've +made up my mind to get whatever work is worth in this world if I +can, and--to get it for him too." + +"I hope you will be very happy," said Ellen again. + +"There he is now," whispered Abby. She rose as Willy Jones +approached, laughing confusedly. "I've been telling Ellen Brewster," +said Abby, with her perfunctory air. + +Ellen held out her hand, and Willy Jones grasped it, then let it +drop and muttered something. He looked with helpless adoration at +Abby, who put her hand through his arm reassuringly. + +"Let's go and see the animals," said she; "I haven't seen the +animals." + +"I guess I'll go and see if I can find my father and mother," +returned Ellen. "I want to see my mother about something." + +"Oh, come with us." Abby grasped Ellen firmly around the waist and +kissed her. "I don't love him a mite better than I do you," she +whispered; "so there! You needn't think you're left out, Ellen +Brewster." + +"I don't," replied Ellen. She tried to laugh, but she felt her lips +stiff. And unconquerable feeling of desolation was coming over her, +and in spite of herself her tone was somewhat like that of a child +who sees another with all the cake. + +"I suppose you know Floretta got married last night," said Abby, +moving off with Willy Jones. John Sargent and Maria had long since +disappeared from under the oak. + +Ellen, left alone, looked for a minute after Abby and Willy, and +noted the tender lean of the girl's head towards the young man's +shoulder; then she started off to find her father and mother. She +could not rid herself of the sense of desolation. She felt blindly +that if she could not get under the shelter of her own loves of life +she could not bear it any longer. She had borne up bravely under +Robert's neglect, but now all at once, with the sight of the +happiness of these others before her eyes, it seemed to crush her. +All the spirit in her seemed to flag and faint. She was only a young +girl, who would fall to the ground and be slain by the awful law of +gravitation of the spirit without love. "Anyway, I've got father and +mother," she said to herself. + +She rushed on alone through the merry crowd. The orchestra was +playing a medley. The violins seemed to fairly pierce thought. A +Roman-candle burst forth on the right with a great spluttering, and +the people, shrieking with delight, rushed in that direction. Then a +rocket shot high in the air with a splendid curve, and there was a +sea of faces watching with speechless admiration the dropping stars +of violet and gold and rose. + +Ellen kept on, moving as nearly as she could in the direction in +which her party had gone. Then suddenly she came face to face with +Robert Lloyd. + +She would have passed him without a word, but he stood before her. + +"Won't you speak to me?" he asked. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Lloyd," returned Ellen. + +Then she tried to move on again, but Robert still stood before her. + +"I want to say something to you," he said, in a low voice. "I was +coming to your house to-night, but I saw you on the car. Please come +to that seat over there. There is nobody in that direction. They +will all go towards the fireworks now." + +Ellen looked at him hesitatingly. At that moment she seemed to throw +out protecting antennae of maidenliness; and, besides, there was +always the memory of the cut in wages, for which she still judged +him; and then there was the long neglect. + +"Please come," said Robert. He looked at her at once like a +conqueror and a pleading child. Ellen placed her hand on his arm, +and they went to the seat under the clump of birches. They were +quite alone, for the whole great company was streaming towards the +fireworks. A fiery wheel was revolving in the distance, and rockets +shot up, dropping showers of stars. Ellen gazed at them without +seeing them at all. + +Robert, seated beside her, looked at her earnestly. "I am going to +put back the wages on the old basis to-morrow," he said. + +Ellen made no reply. + +"Business has so improved that I feel justified in doing so," said +Robert. His tone was almost apologetic. Never as long as he lived +would he be able to look at such matters from quite the same +standpoint as that of the girl beside him. She knew that, and yet +she loved him. She never would get his point of view, and yet he +loved her. "I have waited until I was able to do that before +speaking to you again," said Robert. "I knew how you felt about the +wage-cutting. I thought when matters were back on the old basis that +you might feel differently towards me. God knows I have been sorry +enough for it all, and I am glad enough to be able to pay them full +wages again. And now, dear?" + +"It has been a long time," said Ellen, looking at her little hands, +clasped in her lap. + +"I have loved you all the time, and I have only waited for that," +said Robert. + + +Later on Robert and Ellen joined Fanny and the others. It was +scarcely the place to make an announcement. After a few words of +greeting the young couple walked off together, and left the +Brewsters and Tennys and Mrs. Zelotes standing on the outskirts of +the crowd watching the fireworks. Granville Joy stood near them. He +had looked at Robert and Ellen with a white face, then he turned +again towards the fireworks with a gentle, heroic expression. He +caught up Amabel that she might see the set piece which was just +being put up. "Now you can see, Sissy," he said. + +Eva looked away from the fireworks after the retreating pair, then +meaningly at Fanny and Andrew. "That's settled," said she. + +Andrew's face quivered a little, and took on something of the same +look which Granville Joy's wore. All love is at the expense of love, +and calls for heroes. + +"It'll be a great thing for her," said Fanny, in his ear; "it'll be +a splendid thing for her, you know that, Andrew." + +Andrew gazed after the nodding roses on Ellen's hat vanishing +towards the right. Another rocket shot up, and the people cried out, +and watched the shower of stars with breathless enjoyment. Andrew +saw their upturned faces, in which for the while toil and trial were +blotted out by that delight in beauty and innocent pleasure of the +passing moment which is, for human souls, akin to the refreshing +showers for flowers of spring; and to him, since his own vision was +made clear by his happiness, came a mighty realization of it all, +which was beyond it all. Another rocket described a wonderful golden +curve of grace, then a red light lit all the watching people. Andrew +looked for Ellen and Robert, and saw the girl's beautiful face +turning backward over her lover's shoulder. All his life Andrew had +been a reader of the Bible, as had his father and mother before him. +To-day, ever since he had heard of his good fortune, his mind had +dwelt upon certain verses of Ecclesiastes. Now he quoted from them. +"Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the +life of thy vanity, which He hath given thee under the sun, all the +days of thy vanity, for that is thy portion in this life and in thy +labor which thou takest under the sun." + +Ellen saw her father, and smiled and nodded, then she and her lover +passed out of sight. Another rocket trailed its golden parabola +along the sky, and dropped with stars; there was an ineffably sweet +strain from the orchestra; the illuminated oaks tossed silver and +golden boughs in a gust of fragrant wind. Andrew quoted again from +the old King of Wisdom--"I withheld not my heart from any joy, for +my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and that was my portion of +labor." Then Andrew thought of the hard winter which had passed, as +all hard things must pass, of the toilsome lives of those beside +him, of all the work which they had done with their poor, knotted +hands, of the tracks which they had worn on the earth towards their +graves, with their weary feet, and suddenly he seemed to grasp a new +and further meaning for that verse of Ecclesiastes. + +He seemed to see that labor is not alone for itself, not for what it +accomplishes of the tasks of the world, not for its equivalent in +silver and gold, not even for the end of human happiness and love, +but for the growth in character of the laborer. + +"That is the portion of labor," he said. He spoke in a strained, +solemn voice, as he had done before. Nobody heard him except his +wife and mother. His mother gave a sidewise glance at him, then she +folded her cape tightly around her and stared at the fireworks, but +Fanny put her hand through his arm and leaned her cheek against his +shoulder. + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Portion of Labor, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORTION OF LABOR *** + +***** This file should be named 18011.txt or 18011.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/1/18011/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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