The Portion of Labor Part 2

"She wouldn't ever do such a thing," moaned f.a.n.n.y.

"Where's that pattern?"

"What pattern?" f.a.n.n.y said, faintly.

"That little dress pattern. Her little dress pattern, the one you cut over my dress for her by."

"In the bureau drawer in my room. Oh, she wouldn't."

Eva went into the bedroom, returned with the pattern, got the scissors from f.a.n.n.y's work-basket, and threw her best silk dress in a rustling heap upon the table.

f.a.n.n.y stopped moaning and looked at her with wretched wonder. "What be you goin' to do?"

"Do?" cried Eva, fiercely--"do? I'm goin' to cut this dress over for her."

"You ain't."

"Yes, I be. If I drove her away from home, scoldin' because you cut over that other old thing of mine for her, I'm goin' to make up for it now. I'm goin' to give her my best blue silk, that I paid a dollar and a half a yard for, and 'ain't worn three times. Yes, I be. She's goin' to have a dress cut out of it, an' she's comin' back to wear it, too. You'll see she is comin' home to wear it."

Eva cut wildly into the silk with mad slashes of her gleaming shears, while two neighboring women, who had just come into the room, stared aghast, and even f.a.n.n.y was partly diverted from her sorrow.

"She's crazy," whispered one of the women, backing away as she spoke.

"Oh, Eva, don't; don't do so," pleaded f.a.n.n.y, tremulously.

"I be," said Eva, and she cut recklessly up the front breadth.

"You ain't cutting it right," said the other neighbor, who was skilful in such matters, and never fully moved from her own household grooves by any excitement. "If you are a-goin' to cut it at all, you had better cut it right."

"I don't care how I cut it," returned Eva, thrusting the woman away.

"Oh, I don't care how I cut it; I want to waste it. I will waste it."

The other neighbor backed entirely out of the room, then turned and fled across the yard, her calico wrapper blowing wildly and lashing about her slender legs, to her own house, the doors of which she locked. Presently the other woman followed her, stepping with the ponderous leisure which results from vastness of body and philosophy of mind. The autumn wind, swirling in impetuous gusts, had little effect upon her broadside of woollen shawl. She had not come out on that raw evening with nothing upon her head. She shook the kitchen door of her friend, and smiled with calm rea.s.surance when it was cautiously set ajar to disclose a wide-eyed and open-mouthed face of terror. "Who is it?"

"It's me. What have you got your door locked for?"

"I think that Eva Loud is raving crazy. I'm afraid of her."

"Lord! you 'ain't no reason to be 'fraid of her. She ain't crazy.

She's only lettin' the birds that fly over your an' my heads settle down to roost. You and me, both of us, if we was situated jest as she is, might think of doin' jest what she's a-doin', but we won't neither of us do it. We'd let our best dresses hang in the closet, safe and sound, while we cut them up in our souls; but Eva, she's different."

"Well, I don't care. I believe she's crazy, and I'm going to keep my doors locked. How do you know she hasn't killed Ellen and put her in the well?"

"Stuff! Now you're lettin' your birds roost, Hattie Monroe."

"I read something that wasn't any worse than that in the paper the other day. I should think they would look in the well. Have Mrs.

Jones and Miss Cross gone home?"

"No; they are over there. There's poor Andrew coming now; I wonder if he has heard anything?"

Both women eyed hesitatingly poor Andrew Brewster's dejected figure creeping up the road in the dark.

"You holler and ask him," said the woman in the door.

"I hate to, for I know by his looks he 'ain't heard anything of her.

I know he's jest comin' home to rest a minute, so he can start again. I know he 'ain't eat a thing since last night. Well, Maria has got some coffee all made, and a nice little piece of steak ready to cook."

"You holler and ask him."

"What is the use? Just see the way he walks; I know without askin'."

However, as Andrew neared his house he involuntarily quickened his pace, and his head and shoulders became suddenly alert. It had occurred to him that possibly f.a.n.n.y and Eva might have had some news of Ellen during his absence. Possibly she might have come home even.

Then he was hailed by the stout woman standing at the door of the next house. "Heard anything yet, Andrew?"

Andrew shook his head, and looked with despairing eyes at the windows where he used to see Ellen's little face. She had not come, then, for these women would have known it. He entered the house, and f.a.n.n.y greeted him with a tremulous cry. "Have you heard anything; oh, have you heard anything, Andrew?"

Eva sprang forward and clutched him by the arm.

"Have you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eva sprang forward and clutched him by the arm]

Andrew shook his head, and moved her hand from his arm, and pushed past her roughly.

f.a.n.n.y stood in his way, and threw her arms around him with a wild, sobbing cry, but he pushed her away also with sternness, and went to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. The four women--his wife, her sister, and the two neighbors--stood staring at him; his face was terrible as he dipped the water from the pail on the sink corner, and the terribleness of it was accentuated by the homely and every-day nature of his action.

They all stared, then f.a.n.n.y burst out with a loud and desperate wail. "He won't speak to me, he pushes me away, when it is our child that's lost--his as well as mine. He hasn't any feelings for me that bore her. He only thinks of himself. Oh, oh, my own husband pushes me away."

Andrew went on washing his hands and his ghastly face, and made no reply. He had actually at that moment not the slightest sympathy with his wife. All his other outlets of affection were choked by his concern for his lost child; and as for pity, he kept reflecting, with a cold cruelty, that it served her right--it served both her and her sister right. Had not they driven the child away between them?

He would not eat the supper which the neighbors had prepared for him; finally he went across the yard to his mother's. It seemed to him at that time that his mother could enter into his state of mind better than any one else.

When he went out, f.a.n.n.y called after him, frantically, "Oh, Andrew, you ain't going to leave me?"

When he made no response, she gazed for a second at his retreating back, then her temper came to her aid. She caught her sister's arm, and pulled her away out of the kitchen. "Come with me," she said, hoa.r.s.ely. "I've got n.o.body but you. My own husband leaves me when he is in such awful trouble, and goes to that old woman, that has always hated me, for comfort."

The sisters went into f.a.n.n.y's bedroom, and sat down on the edge of the bed, with their arms round each other. "Oh, f.a.n.n.y!" sobbed Eva; "poor, poor f.a.n.n.y! if Andrew turns against you, I will stand by you as long as I live. I will work my fingers to the bone to support you and Ellen. I will never get married. I will stay and work for you and her. And I will never get mad with you again as long as I live, f.a.n.n.y. Oh, it was all my fault, every bit my fault, but, but--"

Eva's voice broke; suddenly she clasped her sister tighter, and then she went down on her knees beside the bed, and hid her tangled head in her lap. "Oh, f.a.n.n.y," she sobbed out miserably, "there ain't much excuse for me, but there's a little. When Jim Tenny stopped goin'

with me last summer, my heart 'most broke. I don't care if you do know it. That's what made me so much worse than I used to be. Oh, my heart 'most broke, f.a.n.n.y! He's treated me awful, but I can't get over it; and now little Ellen's gone, and I drove her away!"

f.a.n.n.y bent over her sister, and pressed her head close to her bosom.

"Don't you feel so bad, Eva," said she. "You wasn't any more to blame than I was, and we'll stand by each other as long as we live."

"I'll work my fingers to the bone for you and Ellen, and I'll never get married," said Eva again.