The Portion of Labor Part 10

"Now, Andrew, you know it ain't. Here we own the house clear, and we've got that money in the savings-bank, and all that's your mother's is yours in the end. Of course we ain't always thinkin' of that, and I'm sure I hope she'll outlive me, but it's so. You know we sha'n't starve if you don't have work."

"We shall starve in the end, and you know I've been--" Andrew stopped suddenly as he heard Ellen and his sister-in-law coming. He shook his head at his wife with a warning motion that she should keep silence.

"Don't Eva know?" she whispered.

"No, she came out early. Do for Heaven's sake keep quiet till after supper."

Eva was sharp-eyed, and all through supper she watched Andrew, and the lines of melancholy on his face, which did not disappear even when he forced conversation.

"What in creation ails you, Andrew?" she burst out, finally. "You look like a walking funeral."

Andrew made no reply, and f.a.n.n.y volunteered an answer. "He's all tired out," she said; "he's got a little cold. Eat some more of the stew, Andrew; it'll do you good, it's nice and hot."

"You can't cheat me," said Eva. "There's something to pay." She took a mouthful, then she stared at Andrew, with a sudden pallor.

"It ain't anythin' about Jim, is it?" she gasped out. "Because if it is, there's no use in your waitin' to tell me, you might as well have it over at once. You won't make it any easier for me, I can tell you that."

"No, it ain't anything about Jim, in the way you mean, Eva," her sister said, soothingly. "Eat your supper and don't worry."

"What do you mean by that? Jim ain't sick?"

"No, I tell you; don't be a goose, Eva."

"He ain't been anywhere with--"

"Do keep still, Eva!" f.a.n.n.y cried, impatiently. "If I didn't have any more faith than that in a man, I'd give him up. I don't think you're fair to Jim. Of course he ain't been with that girl, when he's goin' to marry you next month."

"I'm just as fair to Jim as he deserves," Eva said, simply. "I think just as much of him, but what a man's done once he may do again, and I can't help it if I think of it, and he shouldn't be surprised.

He's brought it on himself. I've got as much faith in him as anybody can have, seein' as he's a man. Well, if it ain't that, Andrew Brewster, what is it?"

"Now, you let him alone till after supper, Eva," f.a.n.n.y said. "Do let him have a little peace."

"Well, I'll get it out of him afterwards," Eva said.

As soon as she got up from the table she pushed him into the sitting-room. "Now, out with it," said she. Ellen, who had followed them, stood looking at them both, her lips parted, her eyes full of half-alarmed curiosity.

"Lloyd's has shut down, if you want to know," Andrew said, shortly.

"Oh my G.o.d!" cried Eva. Andrew shrank from her impatiently. She made that e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n because she was a Loud, and had an off-streak in her blood. Not one of Andrew's pure New England stock would have so expressed herself. He sat down beside the lamp and took up the evening paper. Eva stood looking at him a minute. She was quite pale, she was weighing consequences. Then she went out to her sister. "Well, you know what's happened, Fan, I s'pose," she said.

"Yes, I'm awful sorry, but I tell Andrew it ain't so bad for us as for some; we sha'n't starve."

"I don't know as I care much whether I starve or not," said Eva.

"It's goin' to make me put off my weddin'; and if I do put it off, Jim and me will never get married at all; I feel it in my bones."

"Why, what should you have to put it off for?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

"Why? I should think you'd know why without askin'. Ain't I spent every dollar I have saved up on my weddin' fixin's, and Jim, he's got his mother on his hands, and she's been sick, and he ain't saved up anything. If you s'pose I'm goin' to marry him and make him any worse off than he is now you're mistaken."

"Well, mebbe Jim can work somewhere else, and mebbe Lloyd's won't be shut up long," f.a.n.n.y said, consolingly. "I wouldn't give up so, if I was you."

"I might jest as well," Eva returned. "It's no use, Jim and me will never get married." Eva's face was curiously set; she was not in the least loud nor violent as was usually the case when she was in trouble, her voice was quite low, and she spoke slowly.

f.a.n.n.y looked anxiously at her. "It ain't as though you hadn't a roof to cover you," she said, "for you've got mine and Andrew's as long as we have one ourselves."

"Do you think I'd live on Andrew long?" demanded Eva.

"You won't have to. Jim will get work in a week or two, and you'll get married. Don't act so. I declare, I'm ashamed of you, Eva Loud.

I thought you had more sense, to give up discouraged at no more than this. I don't see why you jump way ahead into trouble before you get to it."

"I've got to it, and I can feel the steam of it in my face," Eva said, with unconscious imagery. Then she lit a lamp, and went up-stairs to change her dress before Jim Tenny arrived.

It was snowing hard. Ellen sat in her place by the window and watched the flakes drive past the radiance of the street-lamp on the corner, and past the reflection of the warm, bright room. Now she could see, since the light was in the room where she sat, her father beside the table reading his paper, and shadowy images of all the familiar things projecting themselves like a mirage of home into the night and storm. Ellen could see, even without turning round, that her father looked very sober, and did not seem to be much interested in his paper, and a vague sense of calamity oppressed her. She did not know just what might be involved in Lloyd's shutting down, but she saw that her father and aunt were disturbed, and her imaginings were half eclipsed by a shadow of material things. Ellen dearly loved this early evening hour when she could stare out into the mystery of the night, herself sheltered under the wing of home, and the fancies which her childish brain wove were as a garment of spirit for the future; but to-night she did not dream so much as she wondered and reflected. Pretty soon Ellen saw a man's figure plodding through the fast-gathering snow, and heard her aunt Eva make a soft, heavy rush down the front stairs, and she knew the man was Jim Tenny, and her aunt had been watching for him. Ellen wondered why she had watched up in her cold room, why she had not sat down-stairs where it was warm, and let Jim ring the door-bell.

Ellen liked Jim Tenny, but there was often that in her aunt's eyes regarding him which made Ellen look past him and above him to see if there was another man there. Ellen heard the fire crackling in the parlor-stove, and saw the light shining under the parlor threshold, and heard the soft hum of voices. Her mother, having finished washing up the supper dishes, came in presently and seated herself beside the lamp with her needle-work.

"You don't feel any wind comin' in the window?" she said, anxiously, to Ellen.

"No, ma'am," replied Ellen.

Andrew looked up quickly. "You're sure you don't?" he said.

"No, sir."

Ellen watched her mother sewing out in the snowy yard, then a dark shadow came between the reflection and the window, then another. Two men treading in the snow in even file, one in the other's foot-tracks, came into the yard.

"Somebody's comin'," said Ellen, as a knock, came on the side door.

"Did you see who 'twas?" f.a.n.n.y asked, starting up.

"Two men."

"It's somebody to see you, Andrew," f.a.n.n.y said, and Andrew tossed his paper on the table and went to the door.

When the door was opened Ellen heard a man cough.

"I should think anybody was crazy to come out such a night as this, coughin' that way," murmured f.a.n.n.y. "I do believe it's Joe Atkins; sounds like his cough." Then Andrew entered with the two men stamping and shaking themselves.

"Here's Joseph Atkins and Nahum Beals," Andrew said, in his melancholy voice, all unstirred by the usual warmth of greeting. The two men bowed stiffly.

"Good-evenin'," f.a.n.n.y said, and rose and pushed forward the rocking-chair in which she had been seated to Joseph Atkins, who was a consumptive man with an invalid wife, and worked next Andrew in Lloyd's.

"Keep your settin', keep your settin'," he returned in his quick, nervous way, as if his very words were money for dire need, and sat himself down in a straight chair far from the fire. The other man, Nahum Beals, was very young. He seated himself next to Joseph, and the two side by side looked with gloomy significance at Andrew and f.a.n.n.y. Then Joseph Atkins burst out suddenly in a rattling volley of coughs.

"You hadn't ought to come out such a night as this, I'm afraid, Mr.

Atkins," said f.a.n.n.y.

"He's been out jest as bad weather as this all winter," said the young man, Nahum Beals, in an unexpectedly deep voice. "The workers of this world can't afford to take no account of weather. It's for the rich folks to look out betwixt their lace curtains and see if it looks lowery, so they sha'n't git their gold harnesses and their shiny carriages, an' their silks an' velvets an' ostrich feathers wet. The poor folks that it's life and death to have to go out whether or no, no matter if they've got an extra suit of clothes or not. They've got to go out through the drenchin' rain and the snow-drifts, to earn money so that the rich folks can have them gold-plated harnesses and them silks and velvets. Joe's been out all winter in weather as bad as this, after he's been standin' all day in a shop as hot as h.e.l.l, drenched with sweat. One more time won't make much difference."

"It would be 'nough sight better for me if it did," said Joseph Atkins, chokingly, and still with that same seeming of hurry.