ZARELDA
“’Reldy! Say, ’Reldy Za-rel-dy!”
The girl was walking rapidly, but she stopped at once and turned. She wore a cheap woolen dress of a dingy brown color. The sleeves were soiled at the wrists, but the narrow, inexpensive ruffle at the neck was white and fresh. Her thick brown hair was well brushed and clean. It was woven into a heavy, glistening braid which was looped up and tied with a rose-colored ribbon. Her shoes were worn out of shape and “run down” at the heels, and there were no gloves on the roughened hands clasped over the handle of her dinner-bucket.
“Oh, you?” she said, smiling.
“Yes, me,” said the other girl, with a high color, as she joined Zarelda. They walked along briskly together. “I’ve been tryin’ to ketch up with you for three blocks. Ain’t you early?”
“No; late. Heard the whistle blow ’fore I left home. Didn’t you hear it? Now own up, Em Brackett.”
“No, I didn’t—honest,” said the other girl, laughing. “I set the clock back las’ night an’ forgot to turn it ahead ag’in this mornin’.”
This young woman’s dress and manner differedfrom her companion’s. Her dress was cheap, but of flimsy, figured goods that under close inspection revealed many and large grease spots; the sleeves were fashionably puffed; and there were ruffles and frills and plaitings all over it. At the throat was a bit of satin ruffling that had once been pale blue. Half her hair had been cut off, making what she called her “bangs,” and this was tightly frizzed over her head as far back as her ears. Her back hair—coarse and broken from many crimpings—was braided and looped up like Zarelda’s, and tied with a soiled blue ribbon. She wore much cheap jewelry, especially amethysts in gaudy settings. She carried herself with an air and was popularly supposed by the young people of factory society to be very much of a belle and a coquette.
Zarelda turned and looked at her with sudden interest.
“What in the name o’ mercy did you turn the clock back for?”
Em tossed her head, laughing and blushing.
“Never you mind what for, ’Reldy Winser. It ain’t any o’ your funeral, I guess, if I did turn it back. I had occasion to—that’s all. You wasn’t at the dance up at Canemah las’ night, was you?” she added suddenly.
“No, I wasn’t. I didn’t have anybody to go with. You didn’t go, either, did you?”
“Unh-hunh; I did.”
Em nodded her head, looking up the river to the great Falls, with dreamy, remembering eyes. “We had a splendid time, an’ the walk home along the river was just fine.”
“Well, I could of gone with you if I’d of knew you was goin’. Couldn’t I? Maw was reel well las’ night, too.”
She waited for a reply, but receiving none, repeated rather wistfully—“Couldn’t I?”
Em took her eyes with some reluctance away from the river and looked straight before her.
“Why, I guess,” she said, slowly and with slight condescension. “At least, I wouldn’t of cared if my comp’ny wouldn’t; an’ I guess”—with a beautiful burst of generosity—“he wouldn’t of minded much.”
“Oh,” said Zarelda, “you had comp’ny, did you?”
“W’y, of course. You didn’t s’pose I went up there all alone of myself, did you?”
“You an’ me ust to go alone places, without any fellow, I mean,” said Zarelda. A little color came slowly into her face. She felt vaguely hurt by the other’s tone. “I thought mebbe you went with some o’ the other girls.”
“I don’t go around that way any more.” Em lifted her chin an inch higher. “When I can’t have an—escort”—she uttered the word withsome hesitation, fearing Zarelda might laugh at it—“I’ll stay home.”
Then she added abruptly in a reminiscent tone—“Maw acted up awful over my goin’ with him. Thought for a spell I wouldn’t get to go. But at last I flared all up an’ told her if I couldn’t go I’d just up an’ leave for good. That brought her around to the whipple-trees double quick, I can tell you. I guess she won’t say much agen my goin’ with him another time.”
“Goin’ with who?” said Zarelda. Em looked at her, smiling.
“For the land o’ love! D’ you mean to say you don’t know? I thought you’d of guessed. W’y, that’s what made maw so mad—she was just hoppin’, I tell you. That’s what made her act up so. Said all the neighbors ’u’d say I was tryin’ to get him away from you.”
In an instant the blood had flamed all over Zarelda’s face and neck.
“Get who away from me, Em Brackett?”
“As if there was so many to get!” said Em, laughing.
“Who are you a-talkin’ about?” said Zarelda, sternly. Her face was paling now. “What of I got to do with you an’ your comp’ny an’ your maw’s actin’-ups, I’d like to know. Whowasyour comp’ny?”
“Jim Sheppard; he”—
“Jim Sheppard!” cried Zarelda, furiously. She turned a white face to her companion, but her eyes were blazing. “What do I care for Jim Sheppard? Aigh? What do I care who he takes to dances up at Canemah? Aigh? You tell your maw, Em Brackett, that she needn’t to trouble to act up on my account. She can save her actin’-ups for somebody that needs ’em! You tell her that, will you?”
“Well, I will,” said Em, unmoved. “I’m glad you don’t mind, ’Reldy. I felt some uneasy myself, seein’ ’s how stiddy he’d been goin’ with you.”
“Well, that don’t hender his goin’ with somebody else, does it? I ain’t very likely to keep him from pleasin’ hisself, am I?”
“Don’t go to workin’ yourself up so, ’Reldy. If you don’t care, there’s no use in flarin’ up so. My! Just look at this em’rald ring in at Shindy’s. Ain’t that a beaut’?”
“I ain’t got time.” Zarelda walked on with her head up. “Don’t you see we’re late a’ready? The machin’ry’s all a-goin’, long ago.”
The two girls pushed through the swinging gate and ran up the half-dozen steps to the entrance of the big, brick woolen mills. A young man in a flannel shirt and brown overalls was passing through the outer hall. He was twirling a full, crimson rose in his hand.
As the girls hurried in, he paused and stood awkwardly waiting for them, with a red face.
“Good mornin’,” he said, looking first at Em and then, somewhat shamefacedly, at Zarelda.
“Good mornin’, Jim,” said Zarelda, coolly. She was still pale, but she smiled as she pressed on into the weaving-room. The many-tongued roar of the machinery burst through the open door to greet her. Em lingered behind a moment; and when she passed Zarelda’s loom there was a crimson rose in her girdle and two more in her cheeks.
Five hours of monotonous work followed. Zarelda stood patiently by her loom, unmindful of the toilers around her and the deafening noise; she did not lift her eyes from her work. She was the youngest weaver in the factory and one of the most careful and conscientious.
The marking-room was in the basement, and in its quietest corner was a large stove whereon the factory-girls were permitted to warm their lunches. When the whistle sounded at noon they ceased work instantly, seized their lunch baskets, and sped—pushing, laughing, jostling—down the stairs to the basement. There was a small, rickety elevator at the rear of the factory, and some of the more reckless ones leaped upon it and let themselves down with the rope.
Zarelda was timid about the elevator; but thatnoon she sprang upon it and giving the rope a jerk went spinning down to the ground. As she entered the marking-room one of the overseers saw her. “What!” he exclaimed, “Did you come down that elevator, ’Reldy? I thought you had more sense ’n some o’ the other girls. Why, it ain’t safe! You’re liable to get killed on it.”
“I don’t care,” said Zarelda, with a short, contemptuous laugh. “I’d just as soon go over the falls in an Indian dug-out.”
“You must want to shuffle off mighty bad,” said the overseer. Then he added kindly, for he and all the other overseers liked her—“What’s got into you, ’Reldy? Anything ail you?”
“No,” said the girl; “nothin’ ails me.” But his kind tone had brought sudden, stinging tears to her eyes.
She went on silently to the stove and set her bucket upon it. It contained thick vegetable soup, which, with soda crackers, constituted her dinner. She sat down to watch it, stirring it occasionally with a tin spoon. Twenty other girls were crowding around the stove. Em was among them. Zarelda saw the big red rose lolling in her girdle. She turned her eyes resolutely away from it, only to find them going back again and again.
“Hey! Where ’d you get your rose at, Em Brackett?” cried one of the girls.
“Jim Sheppard gave it to her,” trebled another, before Em could reply. “I see him have it pinned onto his flannel shirt before the whistle blew.”
“Jim Sheppard!Oh, my!”
There was a subdued titter behind Zarelda’s back. She stirred the soup without lifting her eyes. “She went livid, though, an’ then she went white!” one of the girls who read yellow novels declared afterward, tragically.
“Well,” said Matt Wilson, sitting down on a bench and commencing to eat a great slice of bread thinly covered with butter, “who went to the dance up at Stringtown las’ night?”
All the girls but two flung unclean hands above their heads. There was a merry outcry of “I did! I did!”
“Well, I didn’t,” said Matt. “My little lame sister coaxed me to wheel her down town, an’ then it was too late.”
“Why wasn’t you there, Zarelda Winser?” cried Belle Church, opening her dinner-bucket and examining the contents with the air of an epicurean.
For a second or two Zarelda wished honestly that she had a lame sister or an invalid mother. Then she said, quite calmly—“I didn’t have any body to go with. That’s why.” She turned and faced them all as she spoke.
With a fine delicacy which was certainly not acquiredby education, every girl except Matt looked away from Zarelda’s face. Matt, not having been to the dance, was not in the secret.
But Zarelda did not change countenance. She sat calmly eating her soup from the bucket with the tin spoon. She took it noisily from the point of the spoon; it was so thick that it was like eating a vegetable dinner.
“Didn’t have anybody to go with?” repeated Matt, laughing loudly. “I call that good. A girl that’s had steady comp’ny for a year! Comp’ny that’s tagged her closer ’n her shadder! An’ I did hear”—she shattered the shell of a hard-boiled egg by hammering it on the bench, and began picking off the pieces—“that your maw was makin’ you up a whole trunkful o’ new underclo’s—all trimmed up with tattin’ an’ crochet an’ serpentine braid—with insertin’ two inches wide on ’em, too. You didn’t have anybody to go with, aigh? What’s the matter with Jim Sheppard?”
Zarelda set her eyes on the red rose, as if that gave her courage.
“He took Em Brackett.”
“Not much!” said Matt, turning sharply. “Honest? Well, then, he only took her because you couldn’t go an’ ast him to take her instid.”
“Why, the idee!” exclaimed Em, coloring angrily and fluttering until the rose almost fellout of her girdle. “Zarelda Winser, you tell her that ain’t so!”
“No, it ain’t so,” said Zarelda, composedly, finishing her soup and beginning on a soda cracker. “He didn’t ask me at all. He asked Em hisself.”
“My!” said Net Carter, who had not been giving attention to the conversation. “What larrapin’ good lunches you do have, Em Brackett. Chicken sandwich, an’ spiced cur’nts, an’ cake! My!”
Em Brackett looked out of the cobwebbed window at a small dwelling between the factory and the river. “I wonder why Mis’ Allen don’t hide up that ugly porch o’ her’n with vines,” she said, frostily. In factory society “larrapin” was not considered a polite word and a snub invariably awaited the unfortunate young woman who used it. The line must be drawn.
When the whistle blew the girls started leisurely for the stairs. There would be fifteen minutes during which they might stand around the halls and talk to the young men. Zarelda fell back, permitting all to precede her. Em looked back once or twice to see where she was.
“Well, if that ’Reldy Winser ain’t grit!” whispered Nell Curry to Min Aster. “Just as good as acknowledgin’ he’s threw off on her, an’ her a-holdin’ up her head that way. There ain’t anothergirl in the factory c’u’d do that—without flinchin’, too.”
When Zarelda reached the first hall she looked about her deliberately for Jim Sheppard. It had been his custom to meet her at the head of the stairs and going with her to one of the windows overlooking the Falls, to talk until the second whistle sent them to their looms. With a resolute air she joined Em Brackett, who was looking unusually pretty with a flush of excitement on her face and a defiant sparkle in her eyes.
In a moment Jim Sheppard came in. He hesitated when he saw the two girls together. A dull red went over his face. Then he crossed the hall and deliberately ignoring Zarelda, smiled into Em’s boldly inviting eyes and said, distinctly—“Em, don’t you want to take a little walk? There’s just time.”
“Why, yes,” said Em, with a flash of poorly concealed triumph. “’Reldy, if you’re a-goin’ on upstairs, would you just as lieve pack my bucket up?”
“I’d just as lieve.” Zarelda took the bucket, and the young couple walked away airily.
This was the way the factory young men had of disclosing their preferences. It was considered quite proper for a young man and a young woman to “go together” for months, or even years, and for one to “throw off” on the other, when attractedby a fresher face, with no explanation or apology.
“Well,” whispered Belle Church, “I guess there ain’t one of us but’s been threw off on some time or other, so we know how it feels. But this is worse. He’s been goin’ with her more’n a year—an then to stop off so sudden!”
“It’s better to stop off sudden than slow,” said Matt Wilson, with an air of grim wisdom. “It hurts worse, but it don’t hurt so long. Well, if I ever! Just look at that!”
Out of sheer pity Frank Haddon had sidled out of a group of young men and made his way hesitatingly to Zarelda. “’Reldy,” he said, “don’t you want to—want to—take a walk, too?”
The girl’s eyes flamed at him. She knew that he was pitying her, and she was not of a nature to accept pity meekly. “No!” she flashed out, with scorn. “I don’t want to—want to”—mimicking his tone—“take a walk, too. If I did, I guess I know the road.”
She went upstairs, holding her head high.
When Zarelda went home that evening she found the family already at the supper table. The Winsers were not very particular about their home manners.
“We don’t wait on each other here,” Mrs. Winser explained, frequently, with pride, to her neighbors. “When a meal’s done, on the table it goesin a jiffy, an’ such of us as is here, eat. I just put the things back in the oven an’ keep ’em hot for them that ain’t on hand.”
Zarelda was compelled to pass through the kitchen to reach the stairs.
“Well, ’Reldy,” said her mother, “you’re here at last, be you? Hurry up an’ wash yourself. Your supper’s in the oven, but I guess the fire’s about out. It does beat all how quick it goes out. Paw, I do wish you’d hump yourself an’ git some dry wood. It ’u’d try the soul of a saint to cook with that green stuff. Sap fairlyoozesout of it!”
“I don’t want any supper, maw,” said Zarelda.
“You don’t want any supper! What ails you? Aigh?”
“I don’t feel hungry. I got a headache.”
She passed the table without a glance and went upstairs. Her mother arose, pushing back her chair with decision and followed her. When she reached Zarelda’s room, the girl was on her knees before her trunk. She had taken out a small writing-desk and was fitting a tiny key in the lock. Her hat was still on her head, but pushed back.
She started when the door opened, and looked over her shoulder, flushing with embarrassment and annoyance. Then, without haste or nervousness,she replaced the desk and closing the trunk, stood up calmly and faced her mother.
“Why don’t you want any supper?” Mrs. Winser took in the trunk, the desk, and the blush at one glance. “Be you sick?”
“I got a headache.” Zarelda took off her hat and commenced drawing the pins out of her hair. She untied the red ribbon and rolled it tightly around three fingers to smooth out the creases.
“Well, you wasn’t puttin’ your headache ’n your writin’-desk, was you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Now, see here, ’Reldy,” said Mrs. Winser, very kindly, coming closer and resting one large hand on the bureau; “there’s somethin’ ails you besides a headache, an’ you ain’t a-goin’ to pull any wool over my eyes. You’ve hed lots an’ lots o’ headaches an’ et your supper just the same. What ails you?”
“Nothin’ ails me, maw.”
“There does, too, somethin’ ail you. I guess I know. Now, what is it? You might just as well spit it right out an’ be done with it.”
Zarelda was silent. She began brushing her hair with a dingy brush from which tufts of bristles had been worn in several places. Her mother watched her patiently for a few moments, then she said—“Well, ’Reldy, be you goin’ to tell me what ails you?”
Still there was no reply.
“You ain’t turned off in the fact’ry, be you?”
Zarelda shook her head.
“Well, then,” said Mrs. Winser slowly, as if reluctantly admitting a thought that she had been repelling, “it’s somethin’ about Jim Sheppard.”
The girl paled and brushed her hair over her face to screen it from her mother’s searching gaze.
“Have you fell out with him?”
“No, I ain’t fell out with him. Hadn’t you best eat your supper before it gets cold, maw?”
“No, I hadn’t best. I ain’t a-goin’ to budge a blessed step out o’ this here room tell I know what ails you. Not if I have to stay here tell daylight.” After a brief reflection she added—“Now, don’t you tell me he’s been cuttin’ up any! I always said he was a fine young man, an’ I say so still.”
“He ain’t been cuttin’ up any,” said Zarelda. “At least, not as I know of.”
She laid down the brush and pushing her hair all back with both hands, fronted her mother suddenly, pale but resolute.
“If you want to know so bad,” she said, “I’ll tell you. He’s threw off on me.”
Mrs. Winser sunk helplessly into a chair. “Threw off on you!” she gasped.
“Yes, threw off on me.” Zarelda kept herdry, burning eyes on her mother’s face. “D’ you feel any better for makin’ me tell it?”
Certainly her revenge for the persecution was all that heart could desire. Her mother sat limp and motionless, save for the slow, mechanical sliding back and forth of one thumb on the arm of her chair.
After a while Zarelda resumed the hair-brushing, calmly. Then her mother revived.
“Who—who in the name of all that’s merciful has he took up with now?” she asked, weakly.
“Em Brackett.”
“What!” Mrs. Winser almost screamed. “That onery hussy! ’Reldy Winser, be you a-tellin’ me the truth?”
“Yes, maw. He took her to the dance up at Canemah las’ night, an’ she told me about it this mornin’!”
“The deceitful jade. Smiled sweet as honey at me when she went by. You’d of thought sugar wouldn’t melt in her mouth. I answered her ’s short as lard pie-crust—I’m glad of it now. Has he took her any place else?”
“He took her walkin’ at noontime. Stepped right up when she was standin’ alongside o’ me an’ never looked at me, an’ ast her—right out loud so’s all of ’em could hear, too.”
“Well, he’d ought to be ashamed of hisself! After bein’ your stiddy comp’ny for more’n a year—wellonto two years—an’ a-lettin’ all of us think he was serious!”
“He never said he was, maw.”
“He never said he was, aigh? ’Reldy Winser, you ain’t got enough spunk to keep a chicken alive, let alone a woman! ‘He never said he was,’ aigh? Well, ain’t he been a-comin’ here three nights a week nigh onto two year, an’ a-takin’ you every place, an’ never a-lookin’ at any other girl? An’ didn’t he give you an amyfist ring las’ Christmas, an’ a reel garnet pin on your birthday? An’ didn’t he come here one evenin’, a-laffin’ an’ a-actin’ up foolish in a great way an’ holler out—‘Hello, maw Winser?’ Now, don’t you go a-tellin’ me he never meant anything serious.”
“Well, he never said so,” said the girl, stubbornly.
“I don’t care if heneversaid so. He acted so. Why, for pity’s sake! You’ve got a grease-spot on your dress. I never see you with a grease-spot before—you’re so tidy. How’d you get it on?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Benzine’ll take it out. Well—I’m a-goin’ to give him a piece o’ my mind!”
Zarelda lifted her body suddenly. She looked tall. Her eyes flamed out their proud fire.
“Now, see here, maw,” she said, “you don’tsay a word to him—not a word. This ain’t your affair; it’s mine. It’s the fashion in fact’ry society for a girl an’ a fellow to go together, an’ give each other things, without bein’ real engaged; an’ she has to take her chances o’ some other girl gettin’ him away from her. If he wants to throw off on her, all he’s got to do ’s to take some other girl to a dance or out walkin’. An’ then, if he’s give her a ring or anything, it’s etiquette for her to send it back to him, an’ he’ll most likely give it to the other girl. I don’t think it’s right, an’ I don’t say but what it’s hard—” her voice trembled and broke, but she conquered her emotion stubbornly and went on—“but it’s the way in fact’ry society. There ain’t a girl in the fact’ry but what’s had to stand it some time or other, an’ I guess I can. You don’t want me to be a laffin’-stawk, do you?”
“No, I don’t.” Her mother looked at her in a kind of admiring despair. “But I never hear tell of such fashions an’ such doin’s in all my born days. It’s shameful. Your paw an’ me ’d set our minds on your a-marryin’ him an’ gettin’ a home o’ your own. It’s been a burden off o’ our minds for a year past—”
“Oh, maw!”
“Just to feel that you’d be fixed so’s you could take care o’ your little sisters in case we dropped off. An’ there I’ve went an’ made up all themunderclo’s!” She leaned her head upon her hand and sat looking at the floor with a forlornly reminiscent expression. “An’ put tattin’ on three sets, an’ crochet lace on three, an’ serpentine edgin’ on three. An’ inserting on all of ’em! That ain’t the worst of it. I’veworked his initial in button-hole stitchon every blessed thing!”
“Oh, maw, you never did that, did you?”
“Yes, I did. An’ what’s more, I showed ’em all to old Miss Bradley, too.”
“You might just as well of showed ’em to the whole town!” said poor Zarelda, bitterly.
“They looked so nice I had to show ’em to somebody.”
“Sister,” piped a little voice at the foot of the stairs, “Mis’ Riley’s boy’s come to find out how soon you’re a-comin’ over to set up with the sick baby.”
“Oh, I’d clear forgot.” Zarelda braided her hair rapidly. “Tell him I’ll be over ’n a few minutes.”
“Now, see here, ’Reldy,” said her mother, getting up and laying her hand affectionately on the girl’s arm, “you ain’t a-goin’ to budge a single step over there to-night. You just get to bed an’ put an arnicky plaster on your forehead—”
Zarelda laughed in a kind of miserable mirth.
“Oh, you can laff, but it’ll help lots. I’ll go over an’ set up with that baby myself.”
“No, you won’t, maw.” She slipped the last pin in her hair and set her hat firmly on the glistening braids. “I said I’d set up with the baby, an’ I will. I ain’t goin’ to shirk just because I’m in trouble.”
She went out into the cool autumn twilight. Her mother followed her and stood looking after her with sympathetic eyes. At last she turned and went slowly into the poor and gloomy house; as she closed the door she put all her bitterness and disappointment into one heavy sigh.
The roar of the Falls came loudly to Zarelda as she walked along rapidly. The dog-fennel was still in blossom, and its greenish snow was drifted high on both sides of her path. Still higher were billows of everlasting flowers, undulating in the soft wind. The fallen leaves rustled mournfully as she walked through them. Some cows were feeding on the commons near by; she heard their deep breathing on the grass before they tore and crushed it with their strong teeth; she smelled their warm, fragrant breaths.
She came to a narrow bridge under the cotton-woods where she saw the Willamette, silver and beautiful, moving slowly and noiselessly between its emerald walls. The slender, yellow sickle of the new moon quivered upon its bosom.
Zarelda stood still. The noble beauty of the night—all its tenderness, all its beating passion—shook her to the soul. Her life stretched out before her, hard and narrow as the little path running through the dog-fennel—a life of toil and duty, of clamor and unrest, of hurried breakfasts, cold lunches and half-warm suppers, of longing for knowledge that would never be hers—the hard and bitter treadmill of the factory life.
A sob came up into her dry throat, but it did not reach her lips.
“I won’t!” she said, setting her teeth together hard. “I hate people who whine after what they can’t have, instead o’ makin’ the best o’ what they’ve got.”
She lifted her head and went on. Her face was beautiful; something sweeter than moonlight shone upon it. She walked proudly and the dry leaves whirled behind her.