X.

But Ettie Berton did not die. Perhaps it would have been quite as well

for her if she had died before the impotent and frantic rage of

her father had still further darkened the pathetically appealing,

love-hungry little heart, whose every beat had been a throbbing, eager

desire to be liked, to please, to acquiesce; to the end that she should

escape blame, that she might sail on the smooth and pleasant sea of

general praise and approval.

Alas, the temperament which had brought her the dangerous stimulus of

praise, for self-effacement, had joined hands with opportunity to wreck

the child's life--and no one was more bitter in his denunciation than

her father's friend and her aforetime admirer--Representative King.

"If she was a daughter o' mine I'd kill her," he repeated to his own

household day after day. "She sh'd never darken _my_ door agin. That's

mighty certain. It made me mad the other day to hear Berton talk about

takin' her back home. The old fool! What does he want of her? An' what

kind of an example that I'd like t' know t' set t' decent girls? I told

him right then an' there if he let his soft heart do him that a'way I

was done with him for good an' all, n' if I ketch you a goin' up there

t' see her agin, you can just stay away from here, that's all!" This

last had been to Francis, and Francis had shut her teeth together very

hard, and the glitter in her eyes might have indicated to a wiser man

that it was not chiefly because of his presence there that this daughter

cared to return to her home after her clandestine visits to Ettie

Berton. A wiser man, too, might have guessed that the prohibition would

not prohibit, and that poor little Ettie Berton would not be deserted by

her loyal friend because of his displeasure.

"I have told her that she may live with us by and by," said Gertrude to

Seldon Avery one afternoon; "but that is no solution of the problem.

And besides it is her father's duty to care for her and to do it without

hurting the child's feelings, too. Can't you go to him and have a talk

with him? You say he seems a kind-hearted, well-meaning, easily-led man.

Beside, he has no right to blame her. He has done more than any one else

in this state to make the path of the cashier easy and smooth. If it

were not for poor little Ettie I should be heartily glad of it all--of

the lesson for him. Can't you go to him and to that Mr. King and make

them see the infamy of their work, and force them to undo it? Can't you?

Is there no way?"

Avery had gone. He argued in vain. "Why do you blame the cashier," he

had said to Berton. "He has committed no legal offence. Our laws say he

has done no wrong. Then why blame him? Why blame Ettie? She is a mere

yielding, impulsive child, and, surely, if he has done no wrong she has

not. If--"

"Now look a-here, Mr. Avery," said John Berton, hotly, "I know what

you're a-hittin' at an' you can jest save your breath. I didn't help

pass that law t' apply to _my_ girl, n' you know it damned well. I ain't

in no mood just now t' have you throw it up to me that she was about

the first one it ketched, neather. How was I a-goin' to know that? That

there bill wasn't intended t' apply t' _my_ girl, I tell you. An' then

she hadn't ought to a said she went with him willin'ly, either. If she

hadn't a said that we could a peppered him, but as it is he's all right,

an--"

"That is what the law contemplates, isn't it?--for other girls, of

course, not for yours," began Avery, whose natural impulses of kindness

and generosity he was holding back.

"Now you hold on!" exclaimed Berton, feebly groping about for a reply.

"You know I never got up that bill. You know mighty well the man that

got it up an' come there an' lobbied for it, was one o' _your_ own

kind--a silk stocking.

"You know I only started it 'n' sort o' fathered it for _him_. I ain't

no more to blame than the others. Go 'n talk t' them. I've had my dose.

Go 'n talk t' King. He says yet that it's a mighty good bill--but I

ain't so damned certain as I was. It don't look 's reasonable t' me's it

did last session." Avery left him, in the hope that a little later on

he would conclude that his present attitude toward his daughter might

undergo like modification, with advantage to all concerned. It was early

in the evening, and Avery concluded to step into a workingman's club on

his way to his lodgings. He had no sooner entered the door, than someone

recognized him as the candidate of a year ago. There was an immediate

demand that he give them a speech. He had had no thought of speaking,

but the opening tempted him, and the hand clapping was indent. The

chairman introduced him as "the only kid-glove member in the last

Legislature who didn't sell his soul, to monopoly, and put a mortgage on

his heavenly home at the behest of Wall Street."

The applause which met this sally was long sustained, and the laughter,

while hearty, was not altogether pleasant of tone. Avery stood until

there was silence. Then he began with a quiet smile.

"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen." He paused, and looked over the room again.

"I beg your pardon. I am accustomed to face men only. Mr. Chairman,

_ladies_ and gentlemen." There was a ripple of laughter over the room.

"Let me say how glad I am to make that amendment, and how glad I shall

be, for one, when I am able to make it in the body to which I have the

honor to belong--the Legislature." Some one said: "ah, there," but he

did not pause. "You labor men have taken the right view of it in this

club. There is not a question, not one, in all the domain of labor or

legislation which does not strike at woman's welfare as vitally as it

does at man's; not one." There was feeble applause. "But I will go

further. I will say, there is not only not an economic question which is

not _as_ vital to her, but it is far _more_ vital than it is to man. The

very fact of her present legal status rests upon the other awful fact of

her absolute financial dependence upon men." Someone laughed, and Avery

fired up. "This one fact has made sex maniacs of men, and peopled this

world with criminals, lunatics, and liars! This one fact! This one

fact!"

His intensity had at last forced silence, and quieted those members who

were at first inclined to take as a gallant joke his opening remarks.

"Let me take a text, for what I want to say to you on the economic

question, from the Bible.

"Oh, give us a rest!"

"Suffer little children!"

"Remember the Sabbath day!" and like derisive calls, mingled with a

laugh and distinct hisses. The gavel beat in vain; Avery waited. At last

there was silence, and he said: "I was not joking. The fact that you

all know me as a freethinker misled you; but although I did say that

I wished to take as a sort of text a passage from the Bible, I was in

earnest. This is the text: 'The rich man's wealth is his strong city;

the destruction of the poor is their poverty.' Again there was a laugh,

with a different ring to it, and clapping of hands.

"I think that I may assume," he went on, "that no audience before

which I am likely to appear, will suspect me of accepting the Bible as

altogether admirable. Some of the prophets and holy men of old, as I

read of their doings in the scriptures, always impress me as having been

long overdue at the penitentiary."

There was laughter and applause at this sally, and the intangible

something which emanates from an audience which tells a speaker that he

now has a mental grasp upon his hearers, made itself felt. The slight

air of resentment which arose when he had said that he should refer for

his authority to the Bible subsided, and he went on.

"But notwithstanding these facts and opinions, one sometimes finds in

the Bible things that are true. Sometimes they are not only true, but

they are also good. Again they are good in fact, in sentiment, and in

diction. Now when this sort of conjunction occurs, I am strongly moved

to drop for the time such differences as I may have with other portions

and sentiments, and give due credit where credit is due.

"Therefore, when I find in the tenth chapter of Proverbs this: 'The rich

man's wealth is his strong city; the destruction of the poor is their

poverty,' I shake hands with the author, and travel with him for this

trip at least. The prophet does not say that their destruction is

ignorance, or vice, or sin, or any of the ordinary blossoms of poverty

which it is the fashion to refer to as its root. He tells us the

truth--the destruction of the poor _is_ their _poverty._

"And who are the poor? Are they not those who, in spite of their labor,

their worth, and their value to the state as good citizens are still

dependent upon the good-will--the charity, I had almost said--of someone

else who has power over the very food they have earned a hundred times

over, and the miserable rags they are allowed to wear instead of the

broadcloth they have earned? Are they not those who, because of economic

conditions, are suppliants where they should be sovereign citizens,

dependents where they should be free and independent and self-respecting

persons?"

"Right you are!" "Drive it home!" came with the applause from the

audience.

"Are they not those who must obey oppressive laws made by those who

legislate against the helpless and in favor of the powerful? Are they

not those whose voices are silenced by subjection, whose wishes and

needs are trampled beneath the feet of the controlling class?"

The applause was ready now and instant. Avery paused. There was silence.

"And who are these?" he asked, and paused again.

"What class of people more than any other--more than all others--fits

and fills each and every one of these queries?" "Laboring men!" shouted

several. "All of us!" "No," said Avery, "you are wrong. To all of

you--to all so-called laboring men they do apply; but more than to

these, in more insidious ways, do they apply to laboring women. To all

women, in fact; for no matter how poor a man is, his wife and daughters

are poorer; no matter how much of a dependent he is, the woman is more

so, for she is the dependent of a dependent, the serf of a slave, the

chattel of a chattel! The suppliant, not only for work and wage, but the

suppliant at the hands of sex power for equality with even the man who

is under the feet and the tyranny of wealth. They share together that

tyranny and poverty, but he thrusts upon her alone the added outrage of

sex subjugation and legal disability." He paused, and held up his hand.

Then he said, slowly, making each word stand alone:--

"And I tell you, gentlemen, with my one term's experience in the

Legislature and what it has taught me--I tell you that there is no

outrage which wealth and power can commit upon man that it cannot and

does not commit doubly upon woman! There is no cruelty upon all this

cruel earth half so terrible as the tyranny of sex! And again, I tell

you that to woman every man is a capitalist in wealth and in power, and

I reiterate:--the destruction of the poor is their _poverty._ It has

been doubly woman's destruction. Her absolute financial dependence upon

men has given him the power and--alas, that I should be compelled to say

it!--the will, to deny her all that is best and loftiest in life,

and even to crush out of her the love of liberty and the dignity of

character which cares for the better things. Look at her education! Look

at the disgraceful 'annexes' and side shifts which are made to prevent

our sisters from acquiring even the same, or as good, an education as we

claim for ourselves. Look--" He paused and lowered his voice. "Look at

the awful, the horrible, the beastly laws we pass for women, while

we carefully keep them in a position where they cannot legislate for

themselves. Do you know there is no law in any state--and no legislature

would dare try to pass one--which would bind a ten-year-old boy to any

contract which he might have been led, driven, or coaxed into, or have

voluntarily made, if that contract should henceforth deprive him of all

that gives to him the comforts, joys, or decencies of life! All men hold

that such a boy is not old enough to make such a contract. That any

one older than he, who leads him into a crime or misdemeanor, or the

transfer of property, or his personal rights and liberty, is guilty of

legal offence. The boy is without blame, and his contract is absolutely

void--illegal. But in more than one state we hold that a little girl of

ten may make the most fatal contract ever made by or for woman, and that

she is old enough to be held legally responsible for her act and for her

judgment. The one who leads her into it, though he be forty, fifty, or

sixty years old, is guiltless before the law. I tell you, gentlemen,

there is no crime possible to humanity that is as black as that infamous

law, sought to be re-enacted by our own state at this very time, and

which has already passed one house!" He explained, as delicately as he

could, the full scope and meaning of the bill. Surprise, consternation,

swept over the room. Men, a few of whom had heard of the bill before,

but had given it scant attention, saw a horror and disgust in the

eyes of the women which aroused for the first time in their minds, a

flickering sense of the enormity of such a measure. No one present

was willing that any woman should believe him guilty of approving such

legislation, and yet Avery impressed anew upon them that the bill had

passed one house with a good majority. On his way out of the room, a

tall girl stepped to his side.

For the moment he had not recognized her. It was Francis King. She

looked straight at him.

"Did my father vote for that bill?" she asked, without a prelude of

greeting. Avery hesitated.

"Oh, is it you, Miss King?" he asked, "I did not see you before. Do you

come here often?"

"Not very," she said, still looking at him, and with fire gathering in

her eyes. "Did my father vote for that bill?" she repeated.

"Ah--I--to tell you the truth," began Avery, but she put out her hand

and caught firm hold of his arm.

"Did my father vote for that bill?" she insisted, and Avery said:

--"Yes, I'm sorry to say, he did, Miss King; but--so many did, you know.

The fact is--"

Her fingers grasped his arm like a vice, and her lips were drawn. "Did

Ettie's pa?" she demanded.

Avery saw the drift of her thought.

"God forgive him! yes," he said, and his own eyes grew troubled and

sympathetic.

"God may forgave him if he's a mind to," exclaimed Francis, "but I don't

want no such God around me, if he does. Any God that wants to forgive

men for such work as that ain't fit to associate with no other kind of

folks _but_ such men; but I don't mean to allow a good little girl like

Ettie to live in the same house with a beast if I know it. She shan't

go home again now, not if her pa begs on his knees. He ain't fit to wipe

her shoes. 'N my pa!" she exclaimed, scornfully. "My pa talkin' about

Ettie being bad, and settin' bad examples for decent girls! Him a

talkin'! Him livin' in the same house with my little sister 'n me! Him!"

The girl was wrought to a frenzy of scorn, and contempt, and anger. They

had passed out with the rest into the street.

"Shall I walk home with you?" asked Avery. "Are you alone?"

"Yes, I'm alone," she said, with a little dry sob. "I'm alone, an' I

ain't goin' home any more. Not while he lives there. It's no decent

place for a girl--living in the house with a man like that. I ain't

goin' home. I'm goin' to--" It rushed over her brain that she had no

other place to go. She held her purse in her hand; it had only two

dollars and a few cents in it. She had bought her new dress with the

rest. Her step faltered, but her eyes were as fiery and as hard as ever.

"You'd better go home," said Avery, softly. "It will only be the harder

for you, if you don't. I'm sorry--"

She turned on him like a tigress. They were in Union Square now. "Even

_you_ think it is all right for good girls to be under the control and

live with men like that! Even _you_ think I ought to go home, an' let

him boss me an' make rules fer me, an' me pretend to like it an believe

as he does, an' look up to him, an' think his way's right an' best! Even

_you!_"

"No, no," said Avery, softly. "You must be fair, Miss King. I don't

think it's right; but--but--I said it was best just now, for--what else

can you do?" The girl was facing him as they stood near the fountain in

the middle of the square.

"That's just what I was meaning to show to-night when I said what I

did to the club, of the financial dependence of women; it is their

destruction; it destroys their self-respect; it forces them to accept a

moral companionship which they'd scorn if they dared; it forces them to

seem to condone and uphold such things themselves; it forces them to

be the companions and subordinates of degraded moral natures, that hold

wives and daughters to a code which they will not apply to themselves,

and which they seek to make void for other wives and daughters;

it--" "You told me to go home," she said, stubbornly. "I'm not goin'! I

make money enough to live on. I always spent it on--on things to wear;

but--but I can live on it, an' I'm goin' to. I ain't goin' to live in

the house with no such a man. He ain't _fit_ to live with. I won't tell

ma an' the girls--yet; not till--"

She paused, and peered toward the clock in the face of the great stone

building across the street. "Do you think it's too late fer me t' talk

a minute with Miss Gertrude?" she asked, with her direct gaze, again.

"She'd let me stay there one night, I guess, n' she'd tell me--I c'd

talk to her some."

"If you won't go home," he said, slowly, "I suppose it would be best

for you to go there, but--it is rather late. Go home for to-night, Miss

Francis! I wish you would. Think it over to-night, please. Let me take

you home to-night. Go to Miss Gertrude to-morrow, and talk it over." His

tone had grown gentle and more tender than he knew. He took the hand she

had placed on his arm in his own, and tried to turn toward her street.

She held stubbornly back. "For my sake, to please me--because I think

it is best--won't you go home to-night?" She looked at him again, and

a haze came in her eyes. She did not trust herself to speak, but she

turned toward her own street, and they walked silently down the square.

His hand still held her own as it lay on his arm.

"Thank you," he said, and pressed her fingers more firmly for an instant

and then released them. He had taken his glove off in the hall and had

not replaced it. When they reached the door of her father's house, she

suddenly grasped his ungloved hand and kissed it, and ran sobbing up the

steps and into the house without a word.

"Poor girl," thought Avery, "she is not herself to-night. She has never

respected nor loved her father much, but this was a phase of his nature

she had not suspected before. Poor child! I hope Gertrude--" and in the

selfishness of the love he bore for Gertrude, he allowed his thoughts

to wander, and it did not enter his mind to place anything deeper than

a mere emotional significance upon the conduct of the intense, tall,

dark-eyed girl who had just left him.

He did not dream that at that moment she lay face down on her bed

sobbing as if her heart would break, and yet, that a strange little

flutter of happiness touched her heart as she held her gloved hand

against her flushed cheek or kissed it in the darkness. It was the hand

Avery had held so long within his own, as it lay upon his arm. At last

the girl drew the glove off, and going to her drawer, took out her

finest handkerchief and lay the glove within, wrapping it softly and

carefully. She was breathing hard, and her face was set and pained.

At two o'clock she had fallen asleep, and under her tear-stained cheek

there was a glove folded in a bit of soft cambric. Poor Francis King!

The world is a sorry place for such as you, and even those who would be

your best friends often deal the deadliest wounds. Poor Francis King!

Has life nothing to offer you but a worn glove and a tear-stained bit

of cambric? Is it true? Need it be true? Is there no better way? Have

we built your house with but one door, and with no window? Smile at the

fancies of your sleep, child; to-morrow will bring memory, reality,

and tears. You are a woman now. Yesterday you were but an unformed,

strong-willed girl. Poor Francis King! sleep late to-morrow, and dream

happily if you can. Poor Francis King, to-morrow is very near!