A Little Question in Ladies' Rights Part 2

"Oh, I do wish I had never et a single banana! And I knew all the time I oughtn't to eat so many, I knew it just as well! Oh, Willie, isn't it turrible the way a person does a thing even when they know they oughtn't to?"

All the way home Willie had very little to say, but he listened politely as Margery talked on and on, punctuating her sad moralizings with long labored breaths and weary headshakes.

"And then afterwards, Willie, if I had only sat still as Effie told me to, I might have got off all right. But no, I had to come racing off here in the hot sun and I knew I oughtn't to, and then I went into the blackberry patch and I knew I hadn't any right to, and all I got to say is, it's a wonder a hundred bees didn't sting me instead of one. . . ."

Willie looked at her curiously.

"Do you think you got stung because you picked those berries?"

"I just know that was why."

"Well, the gravedigger was getting it worse than you, and I guess he had a right to be there, hadn't he?"

For a moment Margery was stumped, but only for a moment.

"Yes, Willie," she said simply, "he had a right to chase us, but--he had no right to use such turrible langwedge. I'm not one bit surprised he got stung for it. You heard him yourself, Willie, you know you did."

Yes, Willie had heard him, and Margery was certainly right in intimating that the young gravedigger was exceptionally fluent in cuss words. With cause and effect so clearly demonstrated, Willie Jones had no further argument against Margery's conception of a prompt and well-deserved judgment. He was silent a moment, then went back to something else.

"So you think you oughtn't to have gone into the blackberry patch at all?"

"Why, of course I think so! I know so! Wasn't there a sign up not to?

Why, taking blackberries when there's a sign up is not much better than downright stealing!"

"H'm," murmured Willie Jones with interest. Then after a pause he said: "Now, Margery, listen here: if you feel as bad about it as all that I tell you what I'll do--I'll take your share of blame for the berries.

I'll tell everybody that I picked 'em all."

Margery turned heavy eyes on her companion and, sick as she was, saw through his little scheme at once. He was offering her a chance to give up her share of tainted profits.

"Thank you, Willie, thank you very much, but I guess I'll just tell the truth about the berries. It wouldn't be fair to you if I didn't."

Willie protested that it would be all right, but Margery was firm.

"No, Willie, I did pick half of them, that's all there is about it, and you mustn't pretend I didn't. . . . Oh, oh, I wonder do I look as sick as I feel?"

Willie scanned her colorless face and, under the delusion that sick folk desire to look as nearly well as possible, said: "No, you're looking all right." The expression of indignant protest which his cheerful remark excited showed him his mistake, and he added, rather lamely: "You do look kind of thin, though."

"Thin!" Margery snorted. "Why, Willie Jones, if you were one-half as sick as I am this minute, why, you--you'd be dead long ago! O-oh! My head, and my stummick, and my finger, too! But my finger's not as bad as my head and my stummick. Oh, how I wish that Effie was here!"

"Effie?"

"Yes, Effie. She'd have me well in two minutes."

"I hope you don't think we'll find Effie when we get home."

"Why not?"

"Don't you remember what she said when we started out? Don't you know she said she was going to her brother's house because we called her a hired girl?"

For the moment Margery had forgotten, and now, at this sudden reminder, she was so overcome she had to sit down for a few moments and rest on the curbstone.

"Oh," she groaned, "you don't think she really meant it, do you, Willie?

What'll I do if she's not there? There's no one else knows how to make me thr'up like Effie! She always does it for me. Why, I'll just die, I know I will, if she's not there!"

"I'm sorry, Margery, but even if she is there, I don't think she'll do anything for you this time. She's pretty mad at both of us."

"Willie Jones," Margery said, with sudden determination, "you've got to do something. You've just _got_ to!"

"What?"

"You've got to apologize to Effie for calling her a hired girl."

"Well, ain't she a hired girl?" Willie protested.

It was the same question Margery had asked herself earlier in the day.

Now, however, she was ready to answer it differently.

"No," she said firmly, "she's not a hired girl. She stays with us because she loves us and wants to take care of us. Once a lady sneaked in and tried to get Effie away from us, and do you know what Effie did?

She chased the lady out of the yard! So you see she's our true friend and just like one of the family, too. Now you're not friends with a person you call a hired girl, are you? Effie was just right not to let us call her that. Why, do you know, Willie Jones," Margery concluded impressively, "I love Effie much better than I do some of my relations!"

This seemed an irrefutable argument to Margery, but Willie Jones again protested.

"She's a hired girl even if you do love her."

"She's not, I say!" roared Margery. "And, Willie Jones, you stop arguing! You're making me sicker! Just see how my head wobbles!" She wobbled it shakily a moment to show, and then demanded sharply: "Now, then, Willie Jones, is Effie a hired girl or isn't she?"

Many a man before Willie Jones has been forced to make a choice between facts and a lady's increasing illness on the one hand and fancy and her smiles on the other. Like most of his kind, Willie Jones had not the moral courage to face the lady's increasing illness.

"Well, if you say she's not a hired girl, I guess she's not. You ought to know."

"And will you apologize to her for your mistake?"

"Yes, if you want me to."

"Well, I do want you to. So come on. I'm nearly dead now and I just tell you I can't stand it much longer."

When they reached the kitchen, they found Effie with nose a-tilt and eyes suspiciously red. At sight of them she burst into a loud and cheerful strain:

_"Wait till the clouds roll by, Nellie, Wait till the clouds roll by, . . ."_

"Effie," Margery began. Effie did not hear, so Margery had to try again.

"Effie!"

"Oh," remarked Effie, stopping her song and looking at them, as it were, for the first time. Then she asked, in her haughtiest tone: "Is it me yir talkin' to?"

"Willie Jones wants to say something to you, Effie."

Margery gave Willie a push and he began bravely: