The Forerunner Part 65

Thank you for your offer just the same."

"Peculiarly offensive young person!" said Mrs. Thaddler to her husband.

"Looks to me like one of these literary imposters. Mrs. p.o.r.ne will probably appear in the magazines before long."

Mr. Thaddler instantly conceived a liking for the young person, "sight unseen."

Diantha acquired quite a list of offers; places open to her as soon as she was free; at prices from her present seven dollars up to the proposed doubling.

"Fourteen dollars a week and found!--that's not so bad," she meditated.

"That would mean over $650 clear in a year! It's a wonder to me girls don't try it long enough to get a start at something else. With even two or three hundred ahead--and an outfit--it would be easier to make good in a store or any other way. Well--I have other fish to fry!"

So she pursued her way; and, with Mrs. p.o.r.ne's permission--held a sort of girl's club in her spotless kitchen one evening a week during the last three months of her engagement. It was a "Study and Amus.e.m.e.nt Club." She gave them short and interesting lessons in arithmetic, in simple dressmaking, in easy and thorough methods of housework. She gave them lists of books, referred them to articles in magazines, insidiously taught them to use the Public Library.

They played pleasant games in the second hour, and grew well acquainted.

To the eye or ear of any casual visitor it was the simplest and most natural affair, calculated to "elevate labor" and to make home happy.

Diantha studied and observed. They brought her their poor confidences, painfully similar. Always poverty--or they would not be there. Always ignorance, or they would not stay there. Then either incompetence in the work, or inability to hold their little earnings--or both; and further the Tale of the Other Side--the exactions and restrictions of the untrained mistresses they served; cases of withheld wages; cases of endless requirements; cases of most arbitrary interference with their receiving friends and "followers," or going out; and cases, common enough to be horrible, of insult they could only escape by leaving.

"It's no wages, of course--and no recommendation, when you leave like that--but what else can a girl do, if she's honest?"

So Diantha learned, made friends and laid broad foundations.

The excellence of her c.o.c.king was known to many, thanks to the weekly "entertainments." No one refused. No one regretted acceptance. Never had Mrs. p.o.r.ne enjoyed such a sense of social importance.

All the people she ever knew called on her afresh, and people she never knew called on her even more freshly. Not that she was directly responsible for it. She had not triumphed cruelly over her less happy friends; nor had she cried aloud on the street corners concerning her good fortune. It was not her fault, nor, in truth anyone's. But in a community where the "servant question" is even more vexed than in the country at large, where the local product is quite unequal to the demand, and where distance makes importation an expensive matter, the fact of one woman's having, as it appeared, settled this vexed question, was enough to give her prominence.

Mrs. Ellen A. Dankshire, President of the Orchardina Home and Culture Club, took up the matter seriously.

"Now Mrs. p.o.r.ne," said she, settling herself vigorously into a comfortable chair, "I just want to talk the matter over with you, with a view to the club. We do not know how long this will last--"

"Don't speak of it!" said Mrs. p.o.r.ne.

"--and it behooves us to study the facts while we have them."

"So much is involved!" said little Mrs. Ree, the Corresponding Secretary, lifting her pale earnest face with the perplexed fine lines in it. "We are all so truly convinced of the sacredness of the home duties!"

"Well, what do you want me to do?" asked their hostess.

"We must have that remarkable young woman address our club!" Mrs.

Dankshire announced. "It is one case in a thousand, and must be studied!"

"So n.o.ble of her!" said Mrs. Ree. "You say she was really a school-teacher? Mrs. Thaddler has put it about that she is one of these dreadful writing persons--in disguise!"

"O no," said Mrs. p.o.r.ne. "She is perfectly straightforward about it, and had the best of recommendations. She was a teacher, but it didn't agree with her health, I believe."

"Perhaps there is a story to it!" Mrs. Ree advanced; but Mrs. Dankshire disagreed with her flatly.

"The young woman has a theory, I believe, and she is working it out. I respect her for it. Now what we want to ask you, Mrs. p.o.r.ne, is this: do you think it would make any trouble for you--in the household relations, you know--if we ask her to read a paper to the Club? Of course we do not wish to interfere, but it is a remarkable opportunity--very. You know the fine work Miss Lucy Salmon has done on this subject; and Miss Frances Kellor. You know how little data we have, and how great, how serious, a question it is daily becoming! Now here is a young woman of brains and culture who has apparently grappled with the question; her example and influence must not be lost! We must hear from her. The public must know of this."

"Such an enn.o.bling example!" murmured Mrs. Ree. "It might lead numbers of other school-teachers to see the higher side of the home duties!"

"Furthermore," pursued Mrs. Dankshire, "this has occured to me. Would it not be well to have our ladies bring with them to the meeting the more intelligent of their servants; that they might hear and see the--the dignity of household labor--so ably set forth?

"Isn't it--wouldn't that be a--an almost dangerous experiment?" urged Mrs. Ree; her high narrow forehead fairly creped with little wrinkles: "She might--say something, you know, that they might--take advantage of!"

"Nonsense, my dear!" replied Mrs. Dankshire. She was very fond of Mrs.

Ree, but had small respect for her judgment. "What could she say? Look at what she does! And how beautifully--how perfectly--she does it! I would wager now--_may_ I try an experiment Mrs. p.o.r.ne?" and she stood up, taking out her handkerchief.

"Certainly," said Mrs. p.o.r.ne, "with pleasure! You won't find any!"

Mrs. Dankshire climbed heavily upon a carefully selected chair and pa.s.sed her large clean plain-hemmed handkerchief across the top of a picture.

"I knew it!" she proclaimed proudly from her eminence, and showed the cloth still white. "That," she continued in ponderous descent, "that is Knowledge, Ability and Conscience!"

"I don't see how she gets the time!" breathed Mrs. Ree, shaking her head in awed amazement, and reflecting that she would not dare trust Mrs.

Dankshire's handkerchief on her picture tops.

"We must have her address the Club," the president repeated. "It will do worlds of good. Let me see--a paper on--we might say 'On the True Nature of Domestic Industry.' How does that strike you, Mrs. Ree?"

"Admirable!" said Mrs. Ree. "So strong! so succinct."

"That certainly covers the subject," said Mrs. p.o.r.ne. "Why don't you ask her?"

"We will. We have come for that purpose. But we felt it right to ask you about it first," said Mrs. Dankshire.

"Why I have no control over Miss Bell's movements, outside of working hours," answered Mrs. p.o.r.ne. "And I don't see that it would make any difference to our relations. She is a very self-poised young woman, but extremely easy to get along with. And I'm sure she could write a splendid paper. You'd better ask her, I think."

"Would you call her in?" asked Mrs. Dankshire, "or shall we go out to the kitchen?"

"Come right out; I'd like you to see how beautifully she keeps everything."

The kitchen was as clean as the parlor; and as prettily arranged. Miss Bell was making her preparation for lunch, and stopped to receive the visitors with a serenely civil air--as of a country store-keeper.

"I am very glad to meet you, Miss Bell, very glad indeed," said Mrs.

Dankshire, shaking hands with her warmly. "We have at heard so much of your beautiful work here, and we admire your att.i.tude! Now would you be willing to give a paper--or a talk--to our club, the Home and Culture Club, some Wednesday, on The True Nature of Domestic Industry?"

Mrs. Ree took Miss Bell's hand with something of the air of a Boston maiden accosting a saint from Hindoostan. "If you only would!" she said. "I am sure it would shed light on this great subject!"

Miss Bell smiled at them both and looked at Mrs. p.o.r.ne inquiringly.

"I should be delighted to have you do it," said her employer. "I know it would be very useful."

"Is there any date set?" asked Miss Bell.

"Any Wednesday after February," said Mrs. Dankshire.

"Well--I will come on the first Wednesday in April. If anything should happen to prevent I will let you know in good season, and if you should wish to postpone or alter the program--should think better of the idea--just send me word. I shall not mind in the least."

They went away quite jubilant, Miss Bell's acceptance was announced officially at the next club-meeting, and the Home and Culture Club felt that it was fulfilling its mission.