The Portion of Labor Part 39

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 f.a.n.n.y paid no attention to that.

"What is goin' to be done? Oh, my G.o.d, 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 n.o.body 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?" f.a.n.n.y 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 f.a.n.n.y.

"Yes, I've been a good, faithful wife," f.a.n.n.y 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 f.a.n.n.y 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 G.o.d, 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 f.a.n.n.y 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 a.s.serted itself over the hysterical nature of her daughter-in-law. f.a.n.n.y 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 pa.s.sed 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 x.x.xIII

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 pa.s.ses 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 f.a.n.n.y 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." f.a.n.n.y 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 f.a.n.n.y.

"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 f.a.n.n.y.

"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 f.a.n.n.y, 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 f.a.n.n.y. She went home before supper, urging a headache as an excuse. She was in reality afraid of f.a.n.n.y.

Andrew was inexpressibly relieved when he reached home to find that the dressmaker was gone, and f.a.n.n.y, 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 f.a.n.n.y, 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?"