The Portion of Labor Part 74

"Well, maybe you're right," said he, evasively. "I suppose some might call her good-looking."

As he spoke he glanced out of the window at Ellen's retreating figure, moving away over the snow-path with an almost dancing motion of youth and courage, though she was sorely hurt. The girl had scarcely ever had a hard word said to her in her whole life, for she had been in her humble place a petted darling. She had plenty of courage to bear the hard words now, but they cut deeply into her unseasoned heart.

Ellen went on past the factories to the main street of Rowe. She had no idea of giving up her efforts to obtain employment. She said to herself that she must have work. She thought of the stores, that possibly she might obtain a chance to serve as a sales-girl in one of them. She actually began at the end of the long street, and worked her way through it, with her useless inquiries, facing proprietors and superintendents, but with no success. There was not a vacancy in more than one or two, and there they wished only experienced hands. She found out that her factory record told against her. The moment she admitted that she had worked in a factory the cold shoulder was turned. The position of a shop-girl was so far below that of a sales-lady that the effect upon the superintendent was almost as if he had met an unworthy aspirant to a throne. He would smile insultingly and incredulously, even as he regarded her.

"You would find that our goods are too fine to handle after leather.

Have you tried all the shops?"

At last Ellen gave that up, and started homeward. She paused once as she came opposite an intelligence office. There was one course yet open to her, but from that she shrank, not on her own account, but she dared not--knowing what would be the sufferings of her relatives should she do so--apply for a position as a servant.

As for herself, strained as she was to her height of youthful enthusiasm for a great cause, as she judged it to be, clamping her feet to the topmost round of her ladder of difficulty, she would have essayed any honest labor with no hesitation whatever. But she thought of her father and mother and grandmother, and went on past the intelligence office.

When she came to her old school-teacher's--Miss Mitch.e.l.l's--house, she paused and hesitated a moment, then she went up the little path between the snow-banks to the front door, and rang the bell. The door was opened before the echoes had died away. Miss Mitch.e.l.l had seen her coming, and hastened to open it. Miss Mitch.e.l.l had not been teaching school for some years, having retired on a small competency of her savings. Her mortgage was paid, and there was enough for herself and her mother to live upon, with infinite care as to details of expenditure. Every postage-stamp and car-fare had its important part in the school-teacher's system of economy; but she was quite happy, and her large face wore an expression of perfect peace and placidity.

She was a woman who was not tortured by any strong, ungratified desires. Her allotment of the gifts of the G.o.ds quite satisfied her.

When Ellen entered the rather stuffy sitting-room--for Miss Mitch.e.l.l and her mother were jealous of any breath of cold air after the scanty fire was kindled--it was like entering into a stratum of peace. It seemed quite removed from the turmoil of her own life. The school-teacher's old mother sat in her rocker close to the stove, stouter than ever, filling up her chair with those wandering curves and vague outlines which only the over-fleshy human form can a.s.sume.

She looked as indefinite as a quivering jelly until one reached her face. That wore a fixedness of amiability which accentuated the whole like a high light. She had not seen Ellen for a long time, and she greeted her with delight.

"Bless your heart!" said she, in her sweet, throaty, husky voice.

"Go and get her some of them cookies, f.a.n.n.y, do." The old woman's faculties were not in the least impaired, although she was very old, neither had her hands lost their cunning, for she still retained her skill in cookery, and prepared the simple meals for herself and daughter, seated in a high chair at the kitchen table to roll out pastry or the famous little cookies which Ellen remembered along with her childhood.

There was something about these cookies which Miss Mitch.e.l.l presently brought to her in a pretty china plate, with a little, fine-fringed napkin, which was like a morsel of solace to the girl.

With the first sweet crumble of the cake on her plate, she wished to cry. Sometimes the rush of old, kindly, tender a.s.sociations will overcome one who is quite equal to the strain of present emergency.

But she did not cry; she ate her cookies, and confided to Miss Mitch.e.l.l and her mother her desire to obtain a position elsewhere, since her factory-work had failed her. It had occurred to her that possibly Miss Mitch.e.l.l, who was on the school-board, might know of a vacancy in a primary school for the coming spring term, and that she might obtain it.

"I think I know enough to teach a primary school," Ellen said.

"Of course you do, bless your heart," said old Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l. "She knows enough to teach any kind of a school, don't she, f.a.n.n.y? You get her a school, dear, right away."

But Miss Mitch.e.l.l knew of no probable vacancy, since one young woman who had expected to be married had postponed her marriage on account of the strike in Lloyd's, and the consequent throwing out of employment of her sweetheart. Then, also, Miss Mitch.e.l.l owned with hesitation, in response to Ellen's insistent question, that she supposed that the fact that she had worked in a shop might in any case interfere with her obtaining a position in a school.

"There is no sense in it, dear child, I know," she said, "but it might be so."

"Yes, I supposed so," replied Ellen, bitterly. "They would all say that a shop-girl had no right to try to teach school. Well, I'm much obliged to you, Miss Mitch.e.l.l."

"What are you going to do?" Miss Mitch.e.l.l asked, anxiously, following her to the door.

"I'm going to Mrs. Doty, to get some of the wrappers that mother works on, until something else turns up," replied Ellen.

"It seems a pity."

Ellen smiled bravely. "Beggars mustn't be choosers," she said. "If we can only keep along, somehow, I don't care."

There came a vehement pound of a stick on the floor, for that was the way the old woman in the sitting-room commanded attention. Miss Mitch.e.l.l opened the door on a crack, that she might not let in the cold air.

"What is it, mother?" she said.

"You get Ellen a school right away, f.a.n.n.y."

"All right, mother; I'll do my best."

"Get her the grammar-school you used to have."

"All right, mother."

There was something about the imperative solicitude of the old woman which comforted Ellen in spite of its futility as she went on her way. The good-will of another human soul, even when it cannot be resolved into active benefits, has undoubtedly a mighty force of its own. Ellen, with the sweet of the cookies still lingering on her tongue, and the sweet of the old woman's kindness in her soul, felt refreshed as if by some subtle spiritual cake and wine. She even went to the door of Mrs. Doty's house. Mrs. Doty was the woman who let out wrappers to her impecunious neighbors with an undaunted heart. She had no difficulty there. The demand for cheap wrappers was not on the wane, even in the hard times. When Ellen reached her grandmother's house, with a great parcel under her arm, Mrs. Zelotes opened her side door.

"What have you got there, Ellen Brewster?" she called out sharply.

"Some wrappers," replied Ellen, cheerfully.

"Are you going to work on wrappers?"

"Yes, grandma."

The door was shut with a loud report.

When Ellen entered the house and the sitting-room, her mother looked up from a pink wrapper which she was finis.h.i.+ng.

"What have you got there?" she demanded.

"Some wrappers."

"Why, I haven't finished the last lot."

"These are for me to make, mother."

Andrew got up and went out of the room. f.a.n.n.y shut her mouth hard, and drew her thread through with a jerk.

"Well," she said, in a second, "take off your things, and let me show you how to start on them. There's a little knack about it."

Chapter LVI

That was a hard winter for Rowe. Aside from the financial stress, the elements seemed to conspire against the people who were so ill-prepared to meet their fury. It was the coldest winter which had been known for years; coal was higher, and the poor people had less coal to burn. Storm succeeded storm; then, when there came a warm spell, there was an epidemic of the grippe, and doctors' bills to pay and quinine to buy--and quinine was very dear.

The Brewsters managed to keep up the interest on the house mortgage, but their living expenses were reduced to the smallest possible amount. In those days there was no wood laid ready for kindling in the parlor stove, since there was neither any wood to spare nor expectation of Robert's calling. Ellen and her mother sat in the dining-room, for even the sitting-room fire had been abolished, and they heated the dining-room whenever the weather admitted it from the kitchen stove, and worked on the wrappers for their miserable pittance.

The repeated storms were in a way a boon to Andrew, since he got many jobs clearing paths, and thus secured a trifle towards the daily expenses.

In those days Mrs. Zelotes watched the butcher-cart anxiously when it stopped before her son's house, and she knew just what a tiny bit of meat was purchased, and how seldom. On the days when the cart moved on without any consultation at the tail thereof, the old woman would buy an extra portion, cook it, and carry some over to her son's.

Times grew harder and harder. Few of the operatives who had struck in Lloyd's succeeded in obtaining employment elsewhere, and most of them joined the union to enable them to do so. There was actual privation. One evening, when the strike was some six weeks old, Abby Atkins came over in a pouring rain to see Ellen. There were a number of men in the dining-room that night. Amos Lee and Frank Dixon were among them. It was a singular thing that Andrew, taking, as he had done, no active part in any rebellion against authority, should have come to see his house the headquarters for the rallies of dissension. Men seemed to come to Andrew Brewster's for the sake of bolstering themselves up in their hard position of defiance against tremendous odds, though he sat by and seldom said a word. As for Ellen, she and her mother on these occasions sat out in the kitchen, sewing on the endless seams of the endless wrappers. Sometimes it seemed to the girl as if wrappers enough were being made to clothe not only the present, but future generations of poor women. She seemed to see whole armies of hopeless, overburdened women, all arrayed in these slouching garments, crowding the foreground of the world.