Sunshine Jane Part 8

Jane laughed merrily. "I'm never going to marry; I'm one of the new s.e.x, the creatures who are born to live alone and lend a hand anywhere.

Didn't you know that?"

"That's nonsense," said Susan; "no woman's made so."

"No. It's a big fact. One of the newest facts in the world. The New Woman, you know!"

"Mercy on us," said Susan, "don't you go in for any of that nonsense.

The idea of a girl like you deciding not to marry! I never heard of such a thing!"

"It's so, though," said Jane, smiling brightly; "you see, my little Order is a kind of Sisterhood. We're taught to want to help in so many homes and to never even think of a home of our own. We're taught to love all children so dearly that we mustn't limit ourselves to one family of little ones. We're trained to be so fond of the best in every man that we see more good to be done as sisters to men than as wives."

"I don't believe Mr. Rath will agree with you," said Susan, "nor any other real nice fellow."

Jane was cutting paper for the shelves. "Yes, he will," she said, nodding confidently; "men are so scarce nowadays that they are ready to agree with any one."

"Jane, _I_ think he's in love with you already." Susan's tone was very solemn.

Jane merely laughed.

Then the door-bell rang, and she had to run. Presently she was back, a little breathless. "It's Mrs. Mead and her daughter. Can you come down?"

"Yes, in a minute. You say, in a minute."

Jane ran down again with the message.

"Most remarkable," said Mrs. Mead, now dressed for calling, with her black hair put back in three even crinkles on either side, "about your aunt, you know, I mean. Why, we looked upon her as 'most dead. You know, Emily, we've always been given to understand she was nearing her end."

"It does an invalid a lot of good to have something new to think about,"

said Jane. "I'm very enlivening. Aunt Susan just couldn't help getting up, when she heard me upsetting her house in all directions."

"Yes, I expect it was enough to make her nervous," said Mrs. Mead, sincerely. "How long are you going to stay?"

"Until Aunt Matilda comes back."

"I don't believe she'll like these changes," said Mrs. Mead, gravely. "I should think that you'd feel a good deal of responsibility. It's no light matter to leave a shut-up house and an invalid in bed to a niece and come home to find the house open and the invalid all over it."

"And a man coming in and having waffles in the morning," said Emily Mead, with a smile meant to be arch.

Jane laughed. "That was dreadful, wasn't it?" she said, twinkling--"it was all so impromptu and funny. And everybody had such a good time. It just popped into my head, and you see it's my religion to have to do anything that you think will make people happy, if you see a chance."

"Yes, we've heard about your religion," said Mrs. Mead; "dear me, I should think you'd get into a lot of trouble! Waffles in the morning would upset some folks, except on Sunday."

"Perhaps most people haven't enough religion to manage them week-days,"

Jane suggested.

"My aunt, Mrs. Cowmull, says Mr. Rath could hardly eat any lunch,"

observed Emily, smiling some more.

"Oh, dear!" said Jane, "but I'm not surprised. Aunt Susan couldn't, either."

Mrs. Mead coughed significantly. "Susan Ralston's pretty delicate to stand many new ideas, I should think," she began, but stopped suddenly as Susan entered, and viewed her with an expression of shocked surprise.

"Why, Mrs. Ralston, I'd no idea you were so well. Where have you kept yourself these last years, if you were so well?"

"In my own room," said Susan, with dignity. "I didn't see no special call to come down. Matilda knew where everything was, but Jane doesn't, so I've changed my ways for a little."

Jane took her hand and pressed it affectionately. The sunshine seeds were sprouting finely. "Don't you want to come out into the garden with me?" she asked Emily Mead, and Emily rose at once. "I thought auntie would enjoy visiting alone with her old friend," she added, as they pa.s.sed through the hall.

"What are you, anyway?" Emily asked curiously. "I've heard you were a trained nurse,--are you?"

"I'm one of the brand-new women," said Jane; "not a Suffragette, nor an advanced anything, but just a creature who means to give her life up to teaching happiness as an art."

"Yes, I heard that. But how do you do it?" asked Emily Mead.

"By being happy and thinking happy thoughts and doing happy things."

Emily considered. "But don't you ever have hard things to do?"

"Never. I enjoy them all--I love to work."

Emily looked at her wonderingly. "But washing dishes?--We don't keep a girl, and I hate washing dishes. What would you say to them?"

Jane laughed. "What, those two lovely tin pans and that nice boiling kettle? And all the dirty plates sinking under the soap-suds and then piling up under the clean hot water. And the shining dryness and the putting them on the shelves all in their own piles. And then the knowing that G.o.d wanted those dishes washed, and that you've done them just exactly as He'd like to see them done. Why, I think dish-washing is grand!"

Emily opened her eyes widely. "How funny you are! I never heard such talk before! But, then, you've lived in a big city and learned to think in a big way. You wouldn't see dish-washing so if you'd done it all your life and never been told it was nice. You couldn't."

"But you've been told now," said Jane, "and no work need ever seem horrid to you again. Just look at it in my way after this."

"But all work seems horrid to me. I'd like to marry an awfully rich man and never see this place again. I hate it."

Jane thought a minute; then said in sweet, low, even tones: "You won't evolve any man fit to marry out of that spirit, you know."

The other girl stared at her. "Evolve!"

"Yes. Don't you know that every minute in this world is the result of all the minutes that have gone before, and that who we marry is part of a result--not just an accident?"

"_What?_"

"Don't you know that? Don't you understand?"

"Not a bit. Tell me what you mean?"

"It's too long to explain right this minute, because one can't tell such things quickly, and if you've never studied them, you haven't the brain-cells to receive them. You see brain-cells are the houses for thoughts, and they have to be built and ready before the thoughts can move in. That's what they told me, when I was learning."

Emily looked at her in bewilderment.

"It's very interesting," said Jane. "I think that it's the most interesting thing in the whole world. You see, I didn't have any life at all; I was an orphan and not very bright. And then I happened to get hold of a book that said that all the life there was in the world was mine, if I'd just take it. So I wrote to the man who wrote the book--"

"How did you ever dare?"