The speeches were at length over and by dodging and doubling, running from one "Imperial" girl only to have to run from another, Hertha escaped from Union Hall leaving no trace behind. Home at last, she looked with dismay at herself in the glass. The red quill was gone from her hat, her curly hair was tumbling about her face, her coat was a mass of wrinkles and she had caught her sleeve upon a nail and made a bad rent. In a minute, however, she laughed. Freedom had come to her. She would no longer spend her days in a noisy room bending over a machine. She could mend the rent and press the coat and there were other quills to be had in the shops. Life was before her again to do with as she pleased. She recalled Sophie's dramatic cry. "Those who will not be scabs, cross the line!"
"That's the second time I've done it," she said to herself.
Hertha and Kathleen were estranged. From enthusiastic, joyful praise at her courage and pluck in leaving the shop, Kathleen had changed to tiresome nagging because her friend would not picket. Seated opposite her at table in the evening by the lamp in the front room, the Irishwoman, once a successful, aggressive labor leader, would explain, sometimes impetuously, sometimes with slow emphasis as if to a child, the ethics of the strike. To go out, she declared, was but the beginning; the end was the winning of better conditions in the trade. What good was it that all these young strikers, many of them supporting mother or sister or brother, should lose their jobs, unless they might obtain them again under better conditions than before? Was it likely that the manufacturer of "Imperial" waists would go about asking his girls to return to him? Could not Hertha see that these workers were engaged in a desperate battle for better working-class conditions that, with good generalship, might result in victory; but that without sacrifice and heroism, and forgetfulness of self, would end in disastrous defeat? Then she pictured the defeat; the homes without food, the drawn, girlish faces, the bitter disappointment as the shop took on more and more scabs and continued to manufacture its goods. If the talk were in the morning at the late breakfast in which Hertha was reveling, it was, "There they are, dearie, out in the street in front of the building you left, waiting for you to come and help them in their weary work." Or if the hour were evening, "And to-morrow, mavourneen, I'll be getting a fine breakfast for you with a cup of coffee and the bacon with the egg the way you like it, and you'll go to your sisters who are doing their duty as pickets, trying to keep the scabs from taking their jobs."
But Hertha would not picket. She said little in response to Kathleen's explanations, her pleading or her upbraidings. It had never been her way to talk. Probably what Kathleen said was true but she was not going to picket. She loathed it from every point of view held up to her. She could not go to a girl whom she had never seen before and ask her not to take her job. It would be impertinent and rude and lastly ridiculous, for she was very glad that she had left the "Imperial" shop. Nor could she walk hour after hour up and down the street always keeping in motion lest the policeman call out at her that she was blocking the way. She shrank at the thought of the hundreds of eyes that she believed would be cast upon her. No, she would not picket.
Moreover she was beginning to think for herself. As Sophie Switsky had explained the ways of trade the whole thing was silly. She could not accept the ethics, or lack of ethics, in the relation of the worker to his task. That against which she rebelled the girls accepted as inevitable. She was glad to be out of the "Imperial," not primarily because of its hours or its wage but because she hated to be worked like a machine. The months of tortured speeding had made her detest the sight of a cotton shirtwaist. But the girls were picketing, not for a sane and attractive task but only for more money. When they got more they would work faster than ever with tired backs and straining eyes. She was sick at the thought of it. In her room at home doing her neglected mending, drawing the needle in a leisurely way through the cloth, she wondered whether all the girls in the city worked as they had worked at the 'Imperial' and if so whether any of them lived to become old? Well, the subject was beyond her fathoming. She had touched the labor world and now was well out of it. Had she gone on longer her back would have become tired, her eyes have smarted, her body have weakened under the unnatural strain of production demanded by the changing fashions. Life was before her again, and of one thing she was sure, she had closed the factory door.
Despite all her reasoning, however, there was a faint possibility that Kathleen might have put her on the picket-line, at least for a day, had Hertha as in the beginning of their acquaintance been quite alone, but Richard Brown was calling assiduously and his influence was not one that encouraged martyrdom. Thus on the Saturday morning after nine days of happy idleness when Kathleen was awakening in her an uneasy sense of her obligation to her little sisters (that name always brought up a picture of Ellen battling for her through heat and cold), a note from Dick, inviting her to go to the opera with him that evening, blotted out the little sisters and the cold. She told Kathleen of the invitation only to receive a lecture on the inequalities of this world. Hertha felt aggrieved. Certainly she had waited many years for this, her first opera, and she believed she had a right to it when it came.
It was not far to the great department store where she had wandered for many noon hours, and, with a sense of delightful importance, she entered the shop and purchased a shirtwaist—not of cotton like those she had helped manufacture, but of filmy silk. This, with a pair of white gloves, cost a week's earnings, but life to-day was not measured by wages. At home again, she got her own luncheon, for Kathleen was away for the day, and spent the afternoon in bed, dozing and day-dreaming and dozing again. She felt that she understood why rich people were lazy, but wondered whether an afternoon in bed would bring happiness unless many other afternoons and mornings had been spent in difficult toil.
"Gee," cried Richard Brown as, seated by him in the balcony of the opera house, she took off her hat and coat, "I ought to take a back seat to-night and get one of those swallow-tailed fellows downstairs to come up here by you."
Hertha smiled a negative to his suggestion, wishing nevertheless that his taste in neckties was a little less flamboyant and that he did not talk so loud. She determined however not to notice these things, and they discussed,—she, gently, he, with jovial outbursts,—the building, the audience and the opera that they were about to witness. Dick had bought the libretto, "Il Trovatore," but neither of them knew what was before them. He had seen a musical comedy or two but she was ignorant of every form of operatic music. Reading the plot to her companion she found him chagrined that he had come to a tragedy. "Shucks!" he exclaimed when she had finished, "I thought I was bringing you to something funny." Her assurance that this would be interesting and that she liked a sad story brought back his spirits. He chaffed her about her dress and her new gloves, until she was glad when the overture began and they were silent. And her heart gave a great bound of excitement when the curtain rose and she saw the courtyard of the palace with Ferrando calling to his men.
A first opera or a first play is a memorable event and those are fortunate whose introduction to the stage is neither trivial nor coarse. "Trovatore" might have grown a little threadbare to some in the audience, but to one it was a revelation of splendid scene, of exquisite melody, of the actor's art. That all this panorama of beautiful color and costume, of count and troubadour and lovely lady, should be gathered together under this roof was wonderful; but that it should be set to such harmony, that human beings clad in kingly robes should sing such heavenly music, was a miracle. Hertha's eyes grew big and her whole being responded to the story that was taking place before her on the spacious stage.
"Deserto sulla terra."
Her love was calling to her, across the continent, across the whole world, telling of his longing to see her face, his passionate desire to hold her in his arms again. She heard him in every note of the wonderful song, and when the voice ceased and the audience began to applaud, she woke from her dream of his presence with a start of shame that turned to anger as she heard the frantic clapping and saw the actor drop his part and bow to the audience. To her it had been reality, but to these people it was only beautiful singing. But the applause stopped, the play went on; and Hertha, watching through Leonora's eyes, saw the fate of lovers whose station in life is not the same; saw the count, glowering, hateful; heard Leonora plead for the gipsy's son; and in a passion of excitement, watched the curtain drop upon the two men with swords drawn, upon the woman lying senseless on the ground.
"Some girl," said Dick when the lights came up and the people, ceasing their close attention, settled themselves more comfortably in their seats. "But the guy playing the banjo, I could give him points. If he doesn't want to die of apoplexy he'd better drop whisky and take to riding horseback."
"I say, won't you talk to a fellow?" he asked at the intermission between the third and last acts. "You just sit with your head buried in that book and all you'll say is how it's going to end. It sounds pretty crazy to me, burning the wrong baby! But of course, they must do something to make a story. Don't you want to go out into the hall and walk?"
It was the second time he had asked her, and she could not well refuse him, so, together they joined the throng of richly garbed men and women who promenaded up and down the corridor. She felt poorly clad as she noted the wonderful evening dresses of the women. Here were gowns such as she had seen on the figures in the department store, rainbow colors and with them thin lacy black and soft cream and ivory white. The people indeed seemed very like a show, a line of models moving up and down that they might be viewed each by the other; it was only when Dick, to hide his shyness at the strange scene, talked loudly and familiarly, that their amused glances made her appreciate they were fully alive.
"I'd like a gown like that," she said to Dick in a confidential tone as a pretty girl went by in a soft filmy blue silk.
"Shall I ask her for it?" He turned as though to stop the gown's owner.
"Don't be silly," was Hertha's sufficient answer.
"That's a grand fellow walking with her," Dick announced. "He might be a colonel out of uniform, but the girl isn't in it with you."
"Well, you needn't tell every one your opinion, please."
She blushed as she spoke for they had attracted the attention of the people about them. A middle-aged gentleman, whose seat she knew was behind Dick's, was smiling and she quite erroneously believed was enjoying her discomfiture. "Let's go back," she suggested, touching Dick lightly on the arm; and the youth, happy at even so slight a sign of favor, and anxious to do her least bidding, returned with her to their seats.
"You aren't going back to your old work again, now are you?" he asked.
"No."
"I was thinking, if you want to take up stenography, I know the best school in town. It's across the river, a mighty nice place, where you'll meet a good class of girls. It don't cost such a lot, and you can enter any time you want."
"Yes?"
"And there's something I want to talk with you about. It's really important. Won't you take a walk with me to-morrow?"
"I don't know, I haven't much time. You see, I want to go to church in the morning and I'm going out to dinner at night."
"Who are you going with?"
The question was asked with some imperiousness.
"With a friend."
"A gentleman friend?"
Defiantly. "I don't think that is anything you need to know."
"Oh, of course it's none of my business, you needn't tell me that. But say, won't you go out first with me? I'll be around at two o'clock and bring you back by five or six. That'll be in time for your little dinner, won't it now?"
"Perhaps so."
She buried herself again in her libretto. "Mr. Brown," she said after a minute. "Listen to what the last scene will be. It's a horrid dungeon, for Manrico and his mother are in prison. As she lies there on her bed she thinks of the mountains where she was born, and that she and her son will go back there together and live in peace. When she sings it, just think about the hills in your own home."
He looked at her in some surprise. "I will," he said, "just the way you say, and about my mother, too. It all seems real to you, don't it?"
"Very real!"
"Somehow it hasn't to me. I can't seem to think of people standing up and singing this way if they've anything to tell. It takes so everlastingly long. Just suppose that when I went to business to-morrow I should throw my hand out like this," with a broad, forward gesture that barely missed the head of the lady in front of him, "and sing:
Oh, Mr. Weinstein, it's nine o'clock, sir,Oh, don't you want me to walk down the block, sir?
Oh, Mr. Weinstein, it's nine o'clock, sir,Oh, don't you want me to walk down the block, sir?
And then he'd answer with his arms folded like this:
Oh, Mr. Brown, get on to your job——
Oh, Mr. Brown, get on to your job——
And there'd be some swearing in the last line. If you want to get anything over you've got to drop the poetry business. It isn't real like a play. Will you go with me to a play next week?"
"Thank you ever so much, but——"
"Oh, drop the 'but.' I'll get the tickets Monday. We'll go to something jolly."
"I shouldn't enjoy it as much as this. This is the most beautiful, the most wonderful thing, I've ever seen."
Dick flushed with pleasure and settled in his seat as the curtain rose upon the last act.
Even he was moved by theMiserere, and when the dungeon scene was reached he whispered, "Golly, I like that, I've heard it on the hand-organs. I never guessed though that it was about the mountains." He started to hum it but Hertha gently silenced him, and he was quiet and attentive until the curtain went down.
"Your first opera, young man?" said the middle-aged gentleman from behind, whom Hertha had noticed smiling at them.
Dick was helping her with her coat, and he answered as he pulled up her collar, "Right you are! I'm just that much of a jay."
"Come again," the man said cordially as though the place belonged to him.
Hertha started to express her gratitude as they stood outside her door but Dick waved it away. "You're the one who's been good," he said, "and I bet no one ever thought it was your coming-out party. I'll be here to-morrow at two; so long," and he was gone.
The next day found them together again walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.
"Ever done this before?" asked Dick.
"No," answered Hertha, "but isn't it wonderful?"
"You bet! Say, you're a good walker, though. I reckon you've walked a lot."
"Yes, I've often walked of a Sunday afternoon."
"Who with?"
"My brother."
There was a defiant tremor in her voice. Ever since her slip with Kathleen she had made up her mind that her past life should include a brother.
"Oh, if you've got a brother," turning on her abruptly, "why don't he take care of you?"
"He's too young; but anyway I wouldn't let him. I mean to support myself."
"Oh, I say, Miss Hertha, don't feel like that! Don't get like these modern girls up here who won't even let a man pick up a handkerchief for 'em. That isn't the kind of girl a man likes."
"Isn't it?"
"No. A man likes a girl he can help over places, whether they're out walking together just for the day or for life."
"I suppose you think a man never wants to be helped."
"Yes, he does, lots of ways. They're no end of ways a woman helps a man, to keep him straight and all that." He reddened a little. "But he ought to do the hard work, all the dirty jobs, and it's a dirty job going out to earn your living. And if it isn't dirty, it's too hard. Women ought not to have long hours like men. I bet your brother's reckoning on caring for you when he gets old enough."
Hertha was silent.
"Isn't he?"
"I reckon he'd like to."
"You let him then. Only likely you'll be married long before that."
They reached the end of the bridge and were rushed along in an elevated train until they got out at Prospect Park.
The March day was clear and almost warm, and as they walked down a pleasant path by the lake, Hertha was sure that she saw signs of the spring. Buds were swelling, the willow trees showed faint touches of yellow, while on a bare elm tree branch perched a bluebird.
"How lovely it will be here later," she said.
"There, that's exactly what I want to talk with you about," Dick Brown exclaimed. "Isn't this a lot nicer now than off the Bowery?"
The girl glanced at him questioningly.
"It's going to be mighty hot where you are as soon as summer comes. I'm right sure of it. And noise! Think of the noise when you have to sit with your windows open. Now, over in this part of the town it's always quiet, and there are trees and pleasant places to go for a walk. Won't it be bully here when spring comes! There's a robin, see him? And the folks say the flowers in the park are great; some of the bushes will be bright yellow, and then will come honeysuckle and no end of things."
"What are you driving at?"
"Just turn down this path, won't you? There's a little summerhouse at the end where we can sit down and look out over the lake."
They reached the summerhouse and by a bit of good fortune found it empty. The artificial pond was very muddy, and to two young people from the country the set, pretty outlook was a poor substitute for the coming spring by the woods and streams at home. But a substitute may be better than nothing, and as with hungry eyes they viewed the brown water and saw the sun glowing on the trunks of the bare trees, they felt refreshed and nourished. For the first time since Hertha had met him, Richard Brown was ready to sit quite still, looking into the treetops and beyond to the blue sky with its floating clouds.
At length he turned and told her what he had done. It seemed an old friend had turned up for a week in New York, and introduced him to a southern woman who had a house at the park's edge and who took a few boarders. She had not been especially successful with her rooms, and partly to help her, partly because he'd hated his stupid hall bedroom ever since he'd been sick in it, he had moved over here. It was a good way from work, but that didn't matter. There was rapid transit, and it didn't hurt him to stand up a few minutes night and morning. It was a lot better than living in the noisy, ugly city that they had just left. Mrs. Pickens, his landlady, was the nicest person to cheer a fellow up, and care for him if he needed it. It was a pleasant house with good board, the sort of cooking you got at home, plenty of gravy on your meat, beaten biscuit for breakfast, and the best coffee in the city. She had a room left to rent, looking over the park where you could see the trees. She would enjoy to meet Miss Ogilvie, and if Hertha would go there this afternoon, just look in and see what the house was like, she'd be doing a favor to everybody. Of course she needn't decide now, but wasn't it worth considering? And he was sure he had found the best school at which she could study stenography and shorthand, only a few minutes in the cars from here.
So he talked, and Hertha, looking out over the lake to the tall trees, watched the purple grackles flying back and forth and wished that she did not have to decide so many things.
Was Dick Brown growing to be fond of her? She hoped that he was not, for he was the last man in the world for whom she could ever care. But if he really was learning to love her, what a nuisance to live in the same house with him; how demanding he would be, and how she would have to plan to get rid of him! No, it would be far better to stay on in the noisy little tenement with Kathleen.
"And I've one more thing to tell you, Miss Hertha," Dick said as though he believed it would be wise to change the subject. "My boss says that he's going to send me on the road this spring."
"On the road?"
"Yes, to sell goods. It means an advancement. Aren't you glad for me?"
"Why, of course, if you're glad."
"I'm glad of anything that means more money. Up here in New York that's the one thing to have. If you haven't money you'd better get up and go home. Look at those men at the opera last night! Why, they can give their women anything, all the music they want, silk clothes and pretty slippers, and automobiles to ride home in. It's slick here if you've plenty of cash, but it's bum if you haven't. So I feel fine to think there's going to be more cash for me."
They left the summerhouse, and retracing their steps walked out upon a pleasant street where Dick led the way up a stoop, and pulled out a latchkey.
"I didn't say I'd go in," Hertha exclaimed.
"You aren't coming to look for a room if you don't want it," Dick pleaded; "but please come in and see Mrs. Pickens. She's admiring to meet you."
He swung open the door and before Hertha had made any decision she found herself in the hallway, with Mrs. Pickens, who had been watching for them from the window, holding out her hand.
Dick's landlady was a small woman of about fifty, with blonde hair that was fading in color, and a complexion from which the color, if there had ever been any, had fled. Her eyes no longer looked bright, but her smile was cordial and kindly, and her voice almost caressing as she gave her greeting.
"Dick tells me that you came to the city this autumn to make your way. It's a big place, isn't it? Sometimes I feel like I never want to go out in it again. I took this house here so as to be near something green and quiet; but after I got settled, do you know I missed the noise!"
She led Hertha into her parlor, a singularly ugly room, the floor covered with a series of brightly colored, cheap rugs, the walls decorated with colored lithographs that might have been bought by the dozen at some store, so little did they show any individual taste. And not only did every variety of color leap up from the floor and shine down from the walls, but the furniture also was bright, the wood a high varnish in imitation of mahogany, the upholstering in gay green with lines of yellow.
"I like this room," Dick said emphatically as he seated himself; "it's so jolly. Now there's a picture for every season of the year. The Spring's right over your head, Miss Hertha; apple blossoms and a pretty girl sitting under the tree. And there's Winter in the farther corner with the snow on the ground like we found it that Sunday morning. It's fine to have a lot of stories like this hanging on the wall. And Mrs. Pickens is better than any story, the way she looks after us. There aren't many here. Only old Mrs. Wood and her daughter and me, and I hope you."
He had chosen the largest chair, crossed his legs, and looked quite at home. Mrs. Pickens, beaming at him from the other side of the room, evidently made much of her one masculine guest. Hertha could see him as he would come back from work at night, loud-voiced, a little domineering, wanting attention, demanding that every one laugh at his least joke. Decidedly, she would not leave Kathleen.
"Won't you show Miss Hertha your vacant room, Mrs. Pickens?" Dick said as, leaning back in his chair, he stroked the gleaming knob at the end of the arm. "If you'd just look at it, please?" he added, changing his tone to one of entreaty as he addressed Hertha.
"I should be glad to," Mrs. Pickens answered. And Hertha, not wishing to be rude, followed the woman upstairs.
When she turned into the vacant room on the second story at the back, she gave a start of surprise. Nothing could have been more unlike the many-hued parlor that she had left. Here was simple furnishing, a white bed and plain white chairs, a soft gray rug, white curtains, no color save in the pretty flowered paper that covered the pictureless wall. A vacant lot in the rear gave an outlook across the next street to the park, where a long line of trees would soon begin to show their first blossoms.
"I don't wonder you're surprised," Mrs. Pickens said, "after the parlor. Don't imagine that this house is my taste. I rent it from an agent, and am not responsible for anything in it, good or bad. My theory is that the couple who bought the furnishings settled upon a simple method of suiting their diametrically different tastes. One took one half of the house and the other the other, and made a dwelling that's part an installment plan furniture shop and part a hospital. I was sure you would like the hospital, just as I knew our friend Dick wouldn't. Sit down in this chair, won't you, while I run off a minute to see whether I can do anything for Mrs. Wood. Her daughter is away and I promised I'd look in during the afternoon."
Left to herself Hertha did sit down, and looking out of the window upon the pleasant landscape, tried to make some decision. A moment before she had definitely put aside any thought of staying here; but the lovely room, the cordial greeting, the sense of companionship, made her hesitate. After all, it was nice to have a man to go out with once in a while, and it had been very lonely often at Kathleen's. This was a second turning point in her life. Her legacy was almost untouched since she had drawn upon it to come North, but it would be used lavishly if she decided to devote some months to learning a profession. To enter upon a new career was a great venture, and it might be that it would more easily be carried out if she were in new surroundings, under unfamiliar conditions. Looking out into the street and on to the treetops beyond, or glancing around the pretty room, thinking of Kathleen and her kindness, of Dick and his devotion, of the perversity of both of them in not understanding that there are many times when one wants not to talk but to sit silent; feeling suddenly a great homesickness for a Sunday afternoon out with Tom, strolling quietly, dreamily, among the pines; uncertain yet expectant, Hertha sat and meditated, letting her thoughts wander, while Dick crossed and uncrossed his knees in his big chair downstairs.
"Well?"
"I said I'd let her know Wednesday."
"Good! You'll say yes, I bet you will. And you'll go to the theater with me Monday."
"No, not Monday."
"Tuesday, then."
"No, I don't want to go this week. Good-by."
"What do you mean?" Dick looked with amazement at Hertha's outstretched hand. "Think I'm going to bring you here and then leave you to go back alone?"
"I don't need you. I know the way from here and I'd rather go alone."
"Say," said Dick much perturbed, "what have I done?"
"You haven't done anything, but I want to go back by myself. All I have to do is to change when I'm over the bridge. I'll let you and Mrs. Pickens know when I decide."
She pushed her fare in at the ticket-window, moved through the turnstile, and without looking around hurried down the platform and boarded the incoming train. Dick, deciding that this was a time to let a girl have her own way, however foolish it might be, turned back to his home and indulged in delicious thoughts of the future with Hertha each morning opposite him at table and each evening going with him somewhere, it mattered not where, so long as they were together.
What to do? What to do? The bumping cars gave no answer to the riddle. To go to this new home or to stay in the old one? How could she decide which was best when there were advantages and disadvantages in both? It was a nuisance to weigh and balance. Perhaps the suggestion she had made in talking with Ellen was worth something. She could not go ahead and plan things, but if she waited things would happen. She had not planned the strike but it had relieved her of overtaxing work; she had not thought of moving but Dick Brown had, and unquestionably he had found an attractive home. Probably he was right, too, regarding the business school. Why not let other people do the planning and fall in with their schemes if they seemed good? If there was anything odious it was having to make changes, but if a change were made for you, you might accept it as the easiest thing to do. And yet she did not want to leave Kathleen.
But Kathleen did not help her case as she and Hertha and William Applebaum sat together at the little dinner that had so disturbed the mind of Richard Brown. It was a usual enough affair, at the Frenchtable d'hôtethat they all three liked, and Madame and her daughters waited on the table and saw to it that the meat and vegetables were upon hot plates and the salad upon cold ones. But this evening, Hertha, tired from her previous night of excitement, without an opportunity to rest after her outing with Dick, found her Irish friend's propaganda regarding capital and labor wearying and even unkind. Applebaum, appreciating her fatigue, tried to turn the conversation into indifferent channels, but Kathleen would not be moved from her course. She had learned that the girls were in danger of losing their strike, that the "Imperial" was succeeding in securing reliable non-union help, and she longed to send Hertha out to redeem the situation. Perhaps her confidence in her new friend was excessive, certainly she exaggerated her activity at the walkout, but she knew that a shy, attractive girl, without ambition for position, could sometimes wield a greater influence than the best organizer. Only the shy girl would so seldom use her power.
"A strike," she said, putting down her soup-spoon, "a strike is the one power the lords of the universe, meaning the capitalists, leave us. They can take away fresh air and sunlight, they can rob us of our childhood like they done me when I was a little girl in the country up-state, but they can't make us work. If I stop, and the rest of the workers stop with me, it's starvation for the world until we start to work again."
"Did you live in the country when you were a child?" Hertha asked, interested at once.
"That I did," Kathleen answered.
"Didn't you love it? The sky is so big in the country—you get such miserable smoky patches here—and there are great stretches of earth. You feel like running with your arms thrown out and singing; and while you're feeling the air and the sky and the big things you look down at your feet and see the little spring flowers."
"Is it like that?" asked Kathleen. "Do you know I hardly remember it."
"Did you leave when you were so young?"
"Eleven."
"But, Kathleen——"
"The sky and air and flowers were dear where I lived, they were only for the rich. For a little girl like me, who slaved in the factory from sun to sun, they were luxuries that came Sundays and holidays and that she was too weary to enjoy."
"At work in the factory at eleven?"
"I worked when I was eight. I remember how my teacher looked when she met me one Sunday and asked why I didn't come to school. I told her my mother had put me to work in the cotton mill. 'It's a sin,' she said and the tears in her eyes. And then she went on to tell how I was her best pupil, and my mother must leave me with her. But that was all come of it, just words. Words from her and the mill for me."
Hertha was silent; but she pictured a little girl, with clear gray eyes and bright hair, holding her thumb tight on her book while she read from its pages, or playing tag at recess; and again, sober, tired-eyed, walking slowly in the twilight back from the factory to her home. "I didn't know such things happened in the North," she said.
"They don't now, thanks to the unions. To-day's children have a better chance than I had. But that's why the sky and flowers aren't so close to my memory as the walls of the spinning-room and the whirring bobbins."
"Do eat your soup, Kathleen," Applebaum said, looking from his empty plate. "It's quite cold."
"Well, if it's cold I won't bother with it. Yes, Miss Marie, you can take it away. And who's that coming in? Major Hayes, I do believe! Come over here and sit with us, Major. It's a long day since you've been here."
An old man, walking slowly but with a soldierly bearing, came to where Kathleen sat. He greeted her quietly, responded silently to her introduction of Applebaum and Hertha, and, taking the fourth place at the table, applied himself assiduously to his dinner. Hertha welcomed his advent as relieving her of Kathleen's labor talk. He sat at her right, and she noted his thin, aristocratic face, his high forehead and long straight nose, his clear blue eyes and soft white hair. She thought him the handsomest old gentleman she had ever seen—a little like old Mr. Merryvale but with more of wisdom and worldliness. There was little talk for a time, only Applebaum occasionally making pleasant if unilluminating remarks on the day's happenings; but with the coming of dessert and coffee Kathleen took command of the conversation and resumed her charge. The Irishwoman, true to her race, was always ready for a fight and could never see when she was beaten.
"We were talking of factories and unions before you came in," she said turning to the Major. "Miss Ogilvie here went out on strike not long since, the 'Imperial' shop. She led the girls out——"
"I did not," Hertha interrupted.
She was angry that Kathleen should represent her as doing anything so aggressive.
"Well, you helped to, I'm proud to say. But I was telling them how I worked in the mill when I was a kid. I was starting on the story of my first strike, and I leading it, when the sight of you put it out of my head."
"Tell it to us all now, Kitty," the Major said.
It was a pleasant time to hear a story. The room was quiet, for most of the diners had left. Madame sat at the desk in the corner counting her receipts, while a couple of elderly men in the middle of the room played at dominoes. There was an air of homelikeness about the place. Major Hayes and William Applebaum, lighting their cigars, leaned back in their chairs to listen, while Hertha sipped her coffee that she knew she should not drink, and looked with apprehension, but with admiration also, into Kathleen's face. What wonderful gray eyes this Irishwoman had, and how whole-heartedly she flung herself into whatever she had to say! She was like a bright beam of sunlight falling suddenly into a dull room; or, again, like a flash of lightning that carried with it an ominous rumble of thunder. The world would be a wonderful, sublimely happy place when it let the sunlight triumph in lives like Kathleen's.
"I was eleven years old," she began, "when I led out the spinning-room in the factory up in the hills in this glorious old state. We were all a lot of children, some bigger than me, some smaller, and we worked from sun to sun. For wages, we had none, not that we ever knew, and I doubt if our fathers or mothers ever saw a penny from us, for what with the rent and the bills at the company store, it's little money they ever handled. But every morning we went into the huge building that shut out the world from us and turned our red lips white, and every night we came back, the boys too tired to throw stones at a stray hen.
"Well, one day when we started work we found a new foreman. The man before him had been a decent sort of chap, rough after his fashion, pulling our ears maybe to make us work faster, or batting a boy over the head, but with a heart in his body. But this morning he was gone, and in his place a great giant of a creature named Hicks who roared at us in a voice that made our hearts jump. Not but what we was always ruled by terror. It was do as you were bid or death, and no incarnation, but forever and ever annihilation. But Hicks was the very ogre of the story book, and we expected to hear him call out any minute:
"'Fee, fi, fo, fum,I smell the blood of an Irishman!"
"'Fee, fi, fo, fum,I smell the blood of an Irishman!"
And make a pounce on one of us. And we weren't mistaken, for soon the pounce came.
"It's hard work in the spinning-room and I wonder now how such children as we ever managed to do it at all. I suppose our strength and power, that ought to have gone out into lessons at school, and learning to keep house at home, and baseball and fishing and swimming, went into watching the spools as they whirled on the spindles or keeping our eyes open to catch the broken threads. How I used to see those spools, hundreds there were that I took care of, twirling around and around before my eyes when I'd lie down to go to sleep! Some of us was quicker than others, but to do the work right we needed to keep together a bit and it was when Jules Claire, a little French Canadian, got ahead of us at doffing time, that trouble began.
"Jules was a born Frenchman. There was a gesture in everything he did, and he couldn't live without showing off. He was the fastest worker in the room, and when we were taking the full spools off and putting the empty ones on, one child one side the frame, the other the other, Jules must go ahead of his mate. We tried to stop him for we didn't want the foreman to think we could all work at that pace, but he was an artist and must do things his own way. So he hurries down his line, his little hands moving like lightning, and when he comes to the end, and we still plodding, he jumps on an empty truck and stamping with his bare feet, gives himself three cheers.
"Then the ogre sees him, and the great hulking sneak jumps on the boy, clouts him over the head, and kicks him with his boot. All he saw was an idle child. The little fellow was too surprised to cry. 'My God,' he whispers coming to me, 'did you see dat?' 'I did,' I answers, 'and you got what was coming to you for going ahead of the rest!' But while I said it I laid my plans, for there was fire in my heart.
"There's one way a child can always leave her place whether at the mill or the school and that's by asking for a drink of water. The good Lord must have made the little ones so dry that they would be sure of moving about once in a while during the long day. After a time, when Hicks had us whiter than the cotton we was working on, I got permission to get a drink. That meant I must go through another room to where the bucket of water was. After I'd drunk my fill I walked back, and there were the two girls in charge of the warper looking out of the window, the machines going merrily all the while. They glanced around at me and then turned to the window again, and just then I slipped my roller-hook into a nice place in the machinery where I thought it would do me some good, and, as innocent looking as a cat that's stole the cream, went back to the spinning-room.
"It isn't but three or four minutes before one of the two girls come to the old ogre to say something's wrong with the machinery. The man gives an oath and leaves us. I knew he'd be some minutes finding the trouble, and I began talking to my mates. There was a big window near where I worked that looked out on an embankment, and one by one I called the boys and girls to me, and explained that we must go on a strike. We oughtn't to work for a man that beat and hollered at us the way Hicks did. 'Twas the time now to show our strength and get out of this dirty hole.
"I don't remember my arguments very well. I think they were somewhat hurried, with one eye on the window and the other on the door where the ogre might come back. But the children got into the spirit of the thing, and it was jump out of the window and the strike was on!
"Jules went first. We made him, but he was game for it anyway. And then the rest of us dropped down the few feet on the grass and away to the hills at the back of the town.
"Ah, that was a great day! I can see it now! The apple trees were in blossom and the grass was thick with violets, while in the woods were frail blue and white flowers. Everything smelled of the sunshine and the fresh earth, and we little white-faced youngsters swung in the trees, and picked the flowers, and played tag, and called and shouted to one another. Some of the boys gathered stones and made a barricade and when any one from the town came to get us, he was so pelted with rocks that he beat a quick retreat. So we played on through the long spring day, while in the spinning-room the spools twirled round and round, and the cotton tangled and knotted and broke, and enough damage was done to take days to set right again. It was a great time! But every day must come to an end, and the sun went down on our day, until at last, tired and rosy and hungry we turned with lagging and timid steps toward home."
When Kathleen ceased speaking there was a little murmur of applause throughout the room. Every one had been listening—Madame at her desk, the men at their table, their dominoes dropped from their hands, Marie in the doorway. Kathleen's own guests had been wholly absorbed. To all, from this time, child labor would no longer be an academic question but a vivid reality.
The Major was the first to break the silence. "That was a fine tale," he said, bowing gravely to the story-teller who sat opposite him, her cheeks rosy with excitement, one hand drumming the Marseillaise on the table cloth. "Thank you for letting me hear it."
"I told it for Hertha," Kathleen said pointedly.
"Yes?" The Major looked at the southern girl, not for the first time that evening, and was struck anew by her beauty and her repose. While evidently embarrassed, she said nothing in reply to Kathleen, but sat, a quiet listener, her hands in her lap. The city, he realized, had not yet taught her to think in flashes or to move in jerks.
"What has Miss Ogilvie to learn from this strike?" the old man asked. "Didn't you tell me that she had already led one out?"
"Led it out only to leave it," Kathleen answered vehemently. "The girls are in the street now working to keep their clothes from being snatched off their backs by a lot of dirty scabs."
Seeing that an explanation was demanded of her, Hertha turned to the Major and said with a blush, "I am not willing to picket." Then, with more animation in her manner, she questioned her friend. "You didn't tell us how your strike ended. What happened after the children went home?"
"Well, I'm not saying how their fathers and mothers took it, but they won at the mill all right. The ogre was given another job."
"I'm glad of that," with a pleasant, propitiatory smile; "I was afraid you had only won a holiday."
But Kathleen would not be cajoled. "No, indeed," she answered; "we got our rights by standing out for them."
"Don't be a fool, Kitty," the Major remarked abruptly.
Kathleen looked at him, bewildered and aggrieved. Formerly he had been her champion when in this same room she had been attacked by bourgeois guests armed with conventional arguments. Then he had spoken more bitterly than she and had been placed by her among her revolutionists. For him to turn upon her now was not only unkind but treacherous. What did she know about him after all, she thought? Only the common talk of this place where he was accounted one familiar with strange lands who could speak in any tongue that sounded over Madame's tables.
"You're an old man, Major," she said a little stiffly, "and I was counting you a good comrade. Maybe you'll show me the folly in saying that you get your rights by standing out for them."
"You didn't get your rights," was the blunt answer. "When you led the children out you merely exchanged one foreman for another a little less brutal. You did not win the sunshine and the fresh air for every day."
"But that has come now," Applebaum said.
Leaning back in his chair, smoking a good cigar, the younger man had listened tolerantly to the talk. He spoke now, not to defend Kathleen who, he knew, was a captain in dialectics where he was a cabin boy, but to sound his note of confident optimism.
"The good time has come to more children than formerly," the Major answered, "but those who can really bask in the sunshine are few."
"They are very many." The young man spoke in a cheerful, assertive manner. "And the others will later receive their due. We must wait for the slow processes of evolution."
He looked about the company, his pleasant mouth smiling, his eyes shining good-will; but when his glance encountered the Major his countenance dropped. That former soldier eyed him as he might in the old days have eyed a sentry caught asleep at his post.
"The slow processes of evolution," the Major said, contempt in every drawling word. "Did man wait for the slow processes of evolution that you are so glib about, when he invented the machinery that sucked up and still sucks up the life of the child? If you're not incredibly ignorant you know that man does not leave nature to go her slow way, but makes changes with the rapidity of lightning. Two things, though, never change," lifting up two long fingers, "poverty and greed."
Applebaum put down his cigar, his face flushed with anger; but, looking across at Hertha, his brow cleared. She was smiling at him—a grateful smile—as though to thank him for drawing the fire from her quarter. Kathleen, too, had a relieved expression upon her face. Girding up his loins, he decided to continue the discussion though he might later be forced to retreat. It was scarcely a fair fight when one of the contestants had the handicap of venerable age.
"Surely," he said augmentatively, "times have improved with some rapidity. There are fewer of the poor and oppressed than there were one hundred years ago."
"How do you know?" the Major asked.
While Applebaum drew breath to summon his facts in proof of progress, the Major answered his own question as though his opponent were already disposed of.
"Small thievery is controlled," he said; "held in check better than formerly. Sturdy beggars are not so often seen in the market-place. But these men rarely stole from the poor. Your powerful thief, however, never had so good a chance as to-day. There's no government he cannot buy, and our rapid means of transportation make it possible for him to gather a harvest from more fields than were gleaned by his cleverest and most rapacious predecessors."
"But, granting for the sake of argument that he may not always get his money honestly, doesn't he give a fair share of all he gathers to the poor?" Applebaum asked.
"To the producers, you mean, the men who made his wealth? Not such a noble portion as you might think. I was in India once, during a famine. Children lay dead by the wayside, their thin little arms stiff at their sides. At night when you went by a native hut you heard a baby sobbing as it pulled at an empty breast, or you listened to that saddest cry in the world, a mother wailing for her dead child."
"Bad crops?" Billy questioned.
"Thievery!" the Major answered in a tone that made Madame jump at her distant table, while the three immediate listeners felt as though a bomb had exploded. Then in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice, as though narrating a commonplace: "Down at the coast I saw ships laden with grain for England, loaded by those people who you feel give a fair share of what they gather to the poor."
"That's like the English!" Kathleen cried, her Irish blood asserting itself. "They're the oppressors of the world!"
"Nonsense," the Major retorted, "you don't know what you're talking about. When the English conquered India the natives exchanged one master for another, that was all. If the native princes and rajahs stole less than the British, and I don't know that this was the case, it was stupidity not kindliness that kept them from making a complete job."
"I don't believe they were such hypocrites as the English," Kathleen muttered.
She felt much aggrieved. Customarily she held the floor and her listeners either contented themselves with silent dissent or uttered short, ineffectual protests. To-night a friend, a revolutionist like herself, characterized her ideas as foolish and nonsensical, while the audience she was accustomed to routing looked on delighted at her discomfiture. She was mistaken in her interpretation of Applebaum's feeling. He was grieved that any one should show her rudeness; but Hertha, it is to be confessed, was pleased at the turn events were taking. She looked at the Major for another broadside, but to her surprise, he nodded acquiescence to Kathleen's last remark.
"You're right about that," he said, "though hypocrisy isn't English, it belongs to civilization. When you do wrong and know it, but desire to go on in wrong-doing, if you are a savage you continue without apology. If you are civilized you begin the process, the slow, evolutionary process," nodding his head at Applebaum, "of deceiving yourself. It's a process that takes longer with some than with others, but after a while wrong becomes right in your mind and you can do evil from the highest motives. And after you deceive yourself you deceive others, using good people for your tools. The devil always chooses the best people to do his work."
"And isn't it because of this," Kathleen rushed in, believing that she would secure recognition at last, "that we're fighting in the unions and in the Party [there was but one political party to Kathleen] to down the oppressor and to take possession of the earth?"
"Whom are you going to do it with?" the Major asked dryly. "Why do you think one set of men will be better than another? It's all right for you to try, but you will never succeed. Just when your impetus is at its best, rapacious leaders will appear and steal all that you have given your lives to gain."
"There is no animal so easily deceived as man," he went on. "Stupidity," and he looked hard at Applebaum, "is the most noticeable of human traits. You can trap a man with a piece of tainted meat that a wolf would despise. Give him a symbol, it matters not what—a delphic oracle, a church, an empire—and he will rally to the call of greed and fight its battles manfully. With the cry of victory on their lips I could, and have led native troops to destroy their own homes."
"Oh, Major dear!" Kathleen cried incredulously.
"Of course they didn't know what they were doing," the old man said. A smile lit up his face and in a moment he looked so handsome and venerable that two of his listeners, at least, forgot his rudeness. "Most men do not see the end of the road. My father was a soldier and sincerely religious. He thought when fighting in the service that he was bringing Christ to the heathen; but when he got home and read of his achievements he found that he had only forced China to trade in opium."
William Applebaum could no longer keep silent. "Why will you show only the rotten side of things?" he asked, real passion in his voice. "All wars are not actuated by greed and all men are not dupes. My grandfather fought here in this country. He was a colonel and he battled to free the slave."
"Yes?" said the Major. He turned and looked at Hertha. "You're from the South?"
She nodded in affirmation.
"I heard it in your speech. Now how many colonels might there have been in your family?"
"More than I can count," Hertha made answer, smiling. But the smile was not for him but for her own cleverness.
"You hear?" the Major turned to Applebaum. "And those young colonels fought with the same ardor, the same unselfish courage as your ancestor, though he battled for freedom and they gave their lives that men might go on buying black people as they bought horses and sheep."
Applebaum looked indignant but made no further attempt at an answer.
"It's a strange world!" The old man spoke now more to himself than to the others. "I have known men of every color and caste, I have eaten the coolie's rice and slept in the black man's hut, I have been a commander and ruled my kingdom, but everywhere life looms the same. Nature makes a few leaders and of these the crafty and unscrupulous become the lords of all. First they win to their side those of ability, giving them high places. Next they turn to the stupid, and in the name of God show them how to do the devil's bidding. And last they find a few whom they cannot down or deceive, men who see goodness so clearly that nothing can blind them to its light, and these they imprison or kill. It's a simple method and has been practised since the caveman drew his gods upon his cavern walls. Man has a finer mentality than the beast, and he uses it to give this wilderness of beauty that we call the earth to the few. Why, the foxes have holes——"
He stopped, ashamed of his emotion, and as he stopped looked into Hertha's face. He had aroused her attention by his words upon the Negro and she was following him now, eagerly, questioningly. Was this terrible thing that he was saying true? Would Ellen's and Kathleen's dreams remain always dreams? Would the few forever bruise the hearts of the many?
"What are you thinking about?" the Major's tone, though kindly, held a command. He had ceased to be interested in his other listeners, he knew their types too well; but this silent, beautiful girl piqued his curiosity.
She on her part felt impelled to answer him. The picture had flashed before her eyes of other Sunday evenings with her colored father reading from the New Testament as they sat about the table at home. She could see his finger moving slowly down the page.
"Don't you believe," she questioned the old soldier, "that the meek shall inherit the earth?"
He answered gravely: "That was the prophecy of a noble youth, whose life was soon blotted out. But before his day a wiser man, wiser because he lived in a kindlier state that permitted him to grow old, said the same thing. But even he was killed at last, since there is nothing so hateful, so much to be feared, as a wise and gentle life."
Hertha's brow clouded, and dropping his irony the Major went on gently:
"Before he died, however, this old man, in talking with his friend, pronounced his golden rule: 'We should never repay wrong with wrong nor do harm to any man no matter how much we may have suffered from him.' But mark Socrates' wisdom. 'I know,' he added, 'few men hold or ever will hold this opinion.' That was over two thousand years ago, my dear, and you see the meek have not inherited the earth. They still drink the cup of hemlock or are nailed upon the cross."
"Don't!" Kathleen cried. She was shaken by his speech and the tears were on her cheeks. "Major, dear, I'm not meek. I'm fighting with my comrades for the new world. What is there for me?"
"Defeat!" the old man answered gravely, shaking his head. "Defeat. And yet, there will be the joy of battle, and who knows but that the struggle is better than any possible heaven of achievement? But for your friend," and his face lightened as he looked at Hertha's appealing beauty, "for her there is the joy of youth." He rose and addressed himself directly to Hertha. "My child," he said, "don't let them make you picket. Get all the joy you can out of life. Dance to beautiful music. The springtime is coming, play with your mates. Grasp whatever of happiness you can, and, above all, keep out of the conflict. Don't forget, keep out of the conflict."
With a nod of good-by he picked up his hat and coat and left them.
"Kitty," William Applebaum said as he bade her good-night, "don't believe that terrible man."
He was standing in the hall of the flat. Hertha had gone to her room and quite evidently Kathleen was impatient to have him leave.
"Oh, shut up," was her answer.
"But I mean it," Applebaum went on earnestly. "What does he know about life? Just because he's traveled, why should you think he tells the truth? He's irreligious and he's unwholesome. I hate that kind of thing, it's the talk of the devil."
Then, to Kathleen's utter amazement, he kissed her. He had never been so daring before and, overcome by his temerity, he rushed down the stairs. But before she had closed the door he called back, "Don't believe anything he said except about the joy of youth." And then the outer door slammed.
"Good heavens," cried Kathleen, "did that red ink claret go to his head!"
Hertha was so tired that she went at once to her room, but the coffee that she had taken kept her long awake. Since the night before she had experienced a series of vivid impressions; the music of the opera with its passion of love and tragic sorrow; the home she had visited that afternoon, its white bedroom looking out into the trees that would soon be green; the great stone towers of the bridge from which hung innumerable threads of steel; and, last, the little table with Billy opposite and this strange old man reciting his doctrine of eternal defeat. "Keep out of the conflict!" That was what he had said. That ought not to be a difficult thing to do. When she was colored she was in the conflict, a part of the great problem of an oppressed race. But to-day she was white and free; and since this was so, and she could go where she would, was it not foolish to stay in this atmosphere of turmoil, of noisy street and strenuous talk? She shut her eyes and tried to think of quiet nothings, and after much tossing she dropped off to sleep.
She was awakened by a bright light in her room. "What is it?" she called sitting upright in bed.
"It's me, dear," said Kathleen coming to her.
The Irish girl was dressed and had her hat and coat on. "I'm called on a case," she explained, "way up in the Bronx. It's pneumonia and I'm afraid I shan't be home for some days."
"Oh," Hertha cried, in real distress, "why must you go now? I want you myself."
"You're not sick, are you?"
"No, but I'm worried. I wanted to talk with you."
Kathleen sat down by the side of the bed. "I'm sorry that I've bothered you so, Hertha," she said in her pleasantest voice. "There's something in what the Major said to-night. You're young and it's not for me to push you into anything just because I think it's right. You ought to be your own judge. Perhaps you'll soon decide on a new trade and the factory will drop out of your life."
"Yes, Kathleen," Hertha said hesitating, "I am thinking of something new. I believe I'll study stenography."
"That's a good trade if you've the education, and I don't doubt you have. There's many in it, but not many like you."
"Mr. Brown has been looking up schools for me."
"Has he?"
There was silence. Kathleen had not taken a fancy to Mr. Brown.
"The school that he likes the best is in Brooklyn, and——" Hertha swallowed hard. If she were going to say anything it must be now. "To-day I looked at a room over there, near the school."
"In Brooklyn, good Lord! Why, nobody goes to Brooklyn except to be buried! You can't mean Brooklyn! What do you want to be leaving here for anyway?"
Kathleen got off the bed. As Hertha remained silent she moved out of the little alcove. "Of course, if you're wanting to go, Hertha, it's not for me to keep you."
"I want to talk with you about it. I haven't decided yet, and I don't want to leave you, but there're so many things to think about."
Hertha's voice was plaintive, for she was almost in tears.
"I suppose it's that long-legged southern chap. Well, if it's a man trying to get you away, there's no hope for me. But how you can like that thin-nosed, sallow-faced son of a snuff-dipping mother is beyond me."
Kathleen did not see Hertha's flushed cheeks, but she felt her silent protest. Remembering the words of the Major, the call of youth and springtime, she went back and again seated herself by Hertha's side.
"It's a shame they should be calling me out to-night and you and me needing a long talk together. But that's my life and perhaps it's lonely here for a young girl like you."
"I am lonely," Hertha declared, "when you are away."
It was the first time she had confessed to her dislike to be so much by herself. And while she said it she knew that though she might be timid at being alone she minded more being unable ever to get away from people. If she went to a boarding-house, perhaps she would never be really alone. The memory of the Merryvale household and its paying guests came back to her, and she tried to recall whether the northern women who stopped there were able to secure the privacy that she craved.
"With the summer, dear," Kathleen was saying, "I'm not likely to be away so much and there's many good times we could have together. Away to the country, perhaps, for a Sunday, or down at the beach where the waves knock you off your feet one second and pound the breath out of you the next."
Hertha gave a little rueful laugh. "That must be jolly," she assented.
"And as for business schools that will fit you for a job in two months or two days, according to the cash you've got, there's as many of them in New York, I'll be bound, as in Brooklyn. You don't have to cross the river to go to school."
"No."
"I asked Billy to bring one of the fellows who works where he does around with him next Sunday. He's a nice little chap, though he doesn't know a mockingbird from a jack rabbit."
"I don't have to have young men around. I'm not going because of Dick Brown."
"Oh, so it's settled then. Well, I wish you good-by."
The Irish girl rose and stood stiffly by the bed.
"It isn't settled," Hertha cried, "I can't settle things quickly. Oh, I do wish everything wasn't so difficult."
"I must be going," said Kathleen. "Good-night."
Hertha dragged her friend toward her and threw her arms about her neck. "If I do go to Brooklyn," she said, "I can still see you sometimes, and you'll come to see me."
"There was a New York man once, Hertha, and he had two daughters, one lived in Australia and one in Brooklyn, and he made one visit in his life to each."
"That's silly!"
"Perhaps. But it's a big city, and if you leave here and go to foreign parts of it, I'm afraid it's good-by."
"Well, it isn't good-by for me, wherever I go." Hertha kissed her friend and held her close. "It's never going to be good-by like that. I love you, Kathleen."
The older woman returned the embrace. "Play with your mates!" she heard in her ears. "Grasp whatever of happiness you can."
"Have you money?" she questioned.
"Yes, enough for my education."
"Oh, how will I ever get along with you away!"
And with this cry Kathleen put out the light and went away to a difficult and sorrowful night.
When she returned on Wednesday evening, snatching a few hours from her harassing case, she hurried up the stairs and into the front room. One glance told her that her friend had left. The framed picture was there and the curtains that Hertha had bought and made herself. On the table was the magazine out of which she had read a story the week before; but the room was desolate, for in the alcove all the little things that belonged to a young girl's dress were missing. The stiff, unnatural order of bed and bureau mocked the looker-on. Going into the kitchen, Kathleen saw a letter addressed to herself, but she made no attempt to read it. Wearily entering her bedroom, she changed her gown and more wearily returned to cook her dinner. The water hissed at her in the kettle as she set her solitary place.
"Why does everybody leave me just when I've learned to love them?" she asked herself. And, receiving no answer, she sat down in the rocker by the red geraniums and buried her face in her hands.