The Portion of Labor Part 42

"Down in the orchard."

"Well, ring the bell for dinner loud, so he can hear it."

When Andrew came shuffling wearily up from the orchard, f.a.n.n.y met him at the corner of the house, out of sight from the windows. She was flushed and perspiring, clad in a coa.r.s.e cotton wrapper, revealing all her unkempt curves. She went close to him, and thrust one large arm through his. "Look here, Andrew," said she, in the tenderest voice he had ever heard from her, a voice so tender that it was furious, "you needn't say one word. What's done's done. We shall get along somehow. I ain't afraid. Come in and eat your dinner!"

The dressmaking work went on as usual after dinner. Andrew had disappeared, going down the road towards the shop. He tried for a job at Briggs's, with no success, then drifted to the corner grocery.

Ellen sat until nearly three o'clock sewing. Then she went up-stairs and got her hat, and went secretly out of the back door, through the west yard, that her mother should not see her. However, her grandmother called after her, and wanted to know where she was going.

"Down street, on an errand," answered Ellen.

"Well, keep on the shady side," called her grandmother, thinking the girl was bound to the stores for some dressmaking supplies.

That night Miss Higgins did not ask for her pay; she had made up her mind to wait until her week was finished. She went away after supper, and Ellen followed her to the door. "We won't want you to-morrow, Miss Higgins," said she, "and here is your pay." With that she handed a roll of bills to the woman, who stared at her in amazement and growing resentment.

"If my work ain't satisfactory," said she--

"Your work is satisfactory," said Ellen, "but I don't want any more work done. I am not going to college."

There was something conclusive and intimidating about Ellen's look and tone. The dressmaker, who had been accustomed to regard her as a child, stared at her with awe, as before a sudden revelation of force. Then she took her money, and went down the walk.

When Ellen re-entered the sitting-room her father and mother, who had overheard every word, confronted her.

"Ellen Brewster, what does this mean?"

Andrew looked as if he would presently fall to the floor.

"It means," said Ellen--and she looked at her parents with the brave enthusiasm of a soldier on her beautiful face--she even laughed--"it means that I am going to work--I have got a job in Lloyd's."

When Ellen made that announcement, her mother did a strange thing.

She ran swiftly to a corner of the room, and stood there, staring at the girl, with back hugged close to the intersection of the walls, as if she would withdraw as far as possible from some threatening ill. At that moment she looked alarmingly like her sister; there was something about f.a.n.n.y in her corner, calculated, when all circ.u.mstances were taken into consideration, to make one's blood chill, but Andrew did not look at her. He was intent upon Ellen, and the facing of the worst agony of his life, and Ellen was intent upon him. She loved her mother, but the fear as to her father's suffering moved her more than her mother's. She was more like her father, and could better estimate his pain under stress. Andrew rose to his feet and stood looking at Ellen, and she at him. She tried to meet the drawn misery and incredulousness of his face with a laugh of rea.s.surance.

"Yes, I've got a job in Lloyd's," said she. "What's the matter, father?"

Then Andrew made an almost inarticulate response; it sounded like a croak in an unknown tongue.

Ellen continued to look at him, and to laugh.

"Now look here, father," said she. "There is no need for you and mother to feel bad over this. I have thought it all over, and I have made up my mind. I have got a good high-school education now, and the four years I should have to spend at Va.s.sar I could do nothing at all. There is awful need of money here, and not only for us, but for Aunt Eva and Amabel."

"You sha'n't do it!" Andrew burst out then, in a great shout of rage. "I'll mortgage the house--that'll last awhile. You sha'n't, I say! You are my child, and you've got to listen. You sha'n't, I say!"

"Now, father," responded Ellen's voice, which seemed to have in it a wonderful tone of firmness against which his agonized vociferousness broke as against a rock, "this is nonsense. You must not mortgage the house. The house is all you have got for your and mother's old age. Do you think I could go to college, and let you give up the house in order to keep me there? And as for grandma Brewster, you know what's hers is hers as long as she lives--we don't want to think of that. I have got this job now, which is only three dollars a week, but in a year the foreman said I might earn fifteen or eighteen, if I was quick and smart, and I will be quick and smart.

It is the best thing for us all, father."

"You sha'n't!" shouted Andrew. "I say you sha'n't!"

Suddenly Andrew sank into a chair, his head lopped, he kept moving a hand before his eyes, as if he were brushing away cobwebs. Then f.a.n.n.y came out of her corner.

"Get the camphor, quick!" she said to Ellen. "I dun'no' but you've killed your father."

f.a.n.n.y held her husband's head against her shoulder, and rubbed his hands frantically. The awful strained look had gone from her face.

Ellen came with the camphor, and then went for water. f.a.n.n.y rubbed Andrew's forehead with the camphor, and held the bottle to his nose.

"Smell it, Andrew," she said, in a voice of ineffable tenderness and pity. Ellen returned with a gla.s.s of water, and Andrew swallowed a little obediently. Finally he made out to stagger into the bedroom with f.a.n.n.y's and Ellen's a.s.sistance. He sat down weakly on the bed, and f.a.n.n.y lifted his legs up. Then he sank and closed his eyes as if he were spent. In fact, he was. At that moment of Ellen's announcement some vital energy in him suddenly relaxed like overstrained rubber. His face, sunken in the pillow, was both ghastly and meek. It was the face of a man who could fight no more.

Ellen knelt down beside him, sobbing.

"Oh, father!" she sobbed, "I think it is for the best. Dear father, you won't feel bad."

"No," said Andrew, faintly. There was a slight twitching in his hand, as if he wished to put it on her head, then it lay thin and inert on the coverlid. He tried to smile, but his face settled into that look of utter acquiescence of fate.

"I s'pose it's the best you can do," he muttered.

"Have you told Miss Lennox?" gasped f.a.n.n.y.

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"She was sorry, but she made no objection," replied Ellen, evasively.

f.a.n.n.y came forward abruptly, caught up the camphor-bottle, and began bathing Andrew's forehead again.

"We won't say any more about it," said she, in a harsh voice. "You'd better go over to your grandma Brewster's and see if she has got any whiskey. I think your father needs to take something."

"I don't want anything," said Andrew, feebly.

"Yes, you do, too, you are as white as a sheet. Go over and ask her, Ellen."

Ellen ran across the yard to her grandmother's, and the old woman met her at the door. She seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of trouble.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Father's a little faint, and mother wants me to borrow the whiskey," said Ellen. She had not at that time the courage to tell her grandmother what she had done.

Mrs. Zelotes ran into the house, and came out with the bottle.

"I'm comin' over," she announced. "I'm kind of worried about your father; he 'ain't looked well for some time. I wonder what made him faint. Maybe he ate something which hurt him."

Ellen said nothing. She fled up-stairs to her chamber, as her grandmother entered the bedroom. She felt cowardly, but she thought that she would let her mother tell the news.

She sat down and waited. She knew that presently she would hear the old woman's voice at the foot of the stairs. She was resolved upon her course, and knew that she could not be shaken in it, yet she dreaded unspeakably the outburst of grief and anger which she knew would come from her grandmother. She felt as if she had faced two fires, and now before the third she quailed a little.

It was not long before the expected summons came.

"Ellen--Ellen Brewster, come down here!"

Ellen went down. Her grandmother met her at the foot of the stairs.

She was trembling from head to foot; her mouth twisted and wavered as if she had the palsy.