When Francis King told Mr. Avery that she could and would leave her
father's home and live upon the money she earned, and had heretofore
looked upon as merely a resource to save her pride, she did not take
into consideration certain very important facts, not the least of which
was, perhaps, that her presence at the store was not wholly a pleasant
thing for the cashier to contemplate under existing circumstances.
Francis King was not a diplomat. The cashier was not a martyr. These two
facts, added to the girl's scornful eyes, rendered the position in the
trimming department far less secure than she had grown to believe.
So when she came to the little room which Gertrude Foster had provided
as a temporary home for Ettie Berton, she felt that she came as a help
and protector and not at all as a possible encumbrance.
"I've had a terrible blow-out with pa," she said, bitterly. "I can't
go home any more if I wanted to--and I don't want to. I told him what I
thought of him, and of your--and of the kind of men that make mean laws
they are ashamed to have their own folks know about and live by. He was
awful mad. He said laws was none o' my business, and he guessed men knew
best what was right an' good for women."
"Of course they do," said Ettie with her ever ready acquiescence. "I
reckon you didn't want t' deny _that,_ did you Fan? You 'n your pa must
a' shook hands for once anyhow," she laughed. "How'd it feel? Didn't you
like agreein' with him once?" Francis looked at the child--this pitiful
illustration of the theory of yielding acquiescence; this legitimate
blossom of the tree of ignorance and soft-hearted dependence; this poor
little dwarf of individuality; this helpless echo of masculine measures,
methods, and morals--and wondered vaguely why it was that the more
helpless the victim, the more complete her disaster, the more certain
was she to accept, believe in, and support the very cause and root of
her undoing.
Francis King's own mental processes were too disjointed and
ill-formulated to enable her to express the half-formed thoughts that
came to her. Her heart ached for her little friend to whom to-day was
always welcome, and to whom to-morrow never appeared a possibility other
than that it would be sunshiny, and warm, and comfortable.
Francis saw a certain to-morrow which should come to Ettie, far more
clearly than did the child herself, and seeing, sighed. Her impulse was
to argue the case hotly with Ettie, as she had done with her father; but
she looked at her face again, and then, as a sort of safety-valve for
her own emotion, succinctly said: "Ettie Berton, you are the biggest
fool I ever saw."
Ettie clapped her hands.
"Right you are, says Moses!" she exclaimed, laughing gleefully, "and you
like me for it. Folks with sense like fools. Sense makes people so awful
uncomfortable. Say, where'd you get that bird on your hat? Out 'o stock?
Did that old mean thing make you pay full price? Goodness! how I do wish
I could go back t' store!"
"Ettie, how'd you like for me to come here an live with you? Do you
'spose Miss Gertrude would care?"
"Hurrah for Cleveland!" exclaimed Ettie, springing to her feet and
throwing her arms about Francis. "Hurrah for Grant! Gracious, but I'm
glad! I'm just so lonesome I had to make my teeth ache for company," she
rattled on. "Miss Gertrude 'll be glad, too. She said she wisht I had
somebody 't take care of me. But, gracious! I don't need that. They
ain't nothing to do but just set still n' wait. It's the waitin' now
that makes me so lonesome. I want t' hurry 'n get back t' the store,
'n--"
She noticed Francis's look of surprise, not unmixed with frank scorn;
but she did not rightly interpret it.
"My place ain't gone is it, Fan?" she asked, in real alarm. "He said
he'd keep it for me."
"Ettie Berton, you are the biggest fool I ever saw," said Francis,
again, this time with a touch of hopelessness and pathos in her voice,
and at that moment there was a rap at the door. It was one of the cash
girls from the store. She handed Francis a note, and while Ettie and
the visitor talked gaily of the store, Francis read and covered her
pale face with her trembling hands. She was discharged "owing to certain
necessary changes to be made in the trimming department." She went and
stood by the window with her back to the two girls. She understood the
matter perfectly, and she did not dare trust herself to speak. It could
not be helped, she thought, and why let Ettie know that she had brought
this disaster upon her friend, also. Francis was trying to think. She
was raging within herself. Then it came to her that she had boldly
asserted that she would help protect and support Ettie. Now she was
penniless, helpless, and homeless herself. There were but two faces that
stood out before her as the faces of those to whom she could go for help
and counsel, and she was afraid to go to even these. She was ashamed,
humiliated, uncertain.
She supposed that Gertrude Foster could help her if she would. She had
that vague miscomprehension of facts which makes the less fortunate look
upon the daughters of wealth and luxury and love as possessed of a magic
wand which they need but stretch forth to compass any end. She did not
dream that at that very moment Gertrude Foster was revolving exactly the
same problem in her own mind, and reaching out vainly for a solution.
"What shall I do? what ought I to do? what can I do?" were questions
as real and immediate to Gertrude, in the new phase of life and thought
which had come to her, as they were to Francis in her extremity. It is
true that the greater part of the problem in Francis's mind dealt with
the physical needs of herself and her little friend, and with her own
proud and fierce anger toward her father and the cashier. It is also
true that these features touched Gertrude but lightly; but the highest
ideals, beliefs, aspirations, and love of her soul were in conflict
within her, and the basis of the conflict was the same with both girls.
Each had, in following the best that was within herself, come into
violent contact with established prejudice and prerogative, and each
was beating her wings, the one against the bars of a gilded cage draped
lovingly in silken threads, and the other was feeling her helplessness
where iron and wrath unite to hold their prey.
The other face that arose before Francis brought the blood back to her
face. She had not seen him since she had kissed his hand that night, and
she wondered what he thought of her. She felt ashamed to go to him for
help. She had talked so confidently to him that night of her own powers,
and of her determination that Ettie should not again live under the same
roof, and be subject to the will of the father whom she insisted was
a disgrace to the child. "I reckon _he_ could get me another place to
work--in a store," she thought. "But--" She shook her head, and a fierce
light came into her eyes. She had learned enough to know that a girl who
had left home under the wrath of her father, would best not appeal for
a situation under the protection and recommendation of a young gentleman
not of her own caste or condition in life. She thought of all this and
of what it implied, and it seemed to her that her heart would burst with
shame and rage.
Was she not a human being? Were there not more reasons than one why
another human unit should be kind to her and help her? If she were a boy
all this shame would be lifted from her shoulders, all these suspicions
and repression and artificial barriers would be gone. She wondered
if she could not get a suit of men's clothes, and so solve the whole
trouble. No one would then question her own right of individual and
independent action or thought. No one would then think it commendable
for her to be a useless atom, subordinating her whole individuality to
one man, to whose mental and moral tone she must bend her own, until
such time as he should turn her over to some other human entity,
whereupon she would be required to readjust all her mental and moral
belongings to accommodate the new master. How comfortable it would be,
she thought, to go right on year after year, growing into and out of
herself. Expanding her own nature, and finding the woman of to-morrow
the outcome of the girl of yesterday. She had once heard a teacher
explain about the chameleon with its capacity to adjust itself to and
take on the color of other objects. It floated into her mind that
girls were expected to be like chameleons. Instead of being John King's
daughter, with, of course, John King's ideas, status and aspirations, or
William Jones's wife--now metamorphosed into a tepid reflex of William
Jones himself--she thought how pleasant it would be to continue to be
Francis King, and not feel afraid to say so. The idea fascinated her.
Yes, she would get a suit of men's clothes, and henceforth have and feel
the dignity of individual responsibility and development. She slipped
out of the room and into the street. She thought she would order the
clothes as if "for a brother just my size." She could pay for a cheap
suit. She paused in front of a shop window, and the sight of her own
face in a glass startled her. She groaned aloud. She knew as she looked
that she was too handsome to pass for a man. It was a woman's face.
Then, too, how could she live with and care for Ettie? "No, _I'll_
have to go to _them_ for help," she said, desperately to herself, and
turning, faced Selden Avery coming across the street. The color flew
into her face, but she saw at a glance that he did not think of their
last meeting--or, at least, not of its ending. "I was just wishing I
could see you and Miss Gertrude," she said, bluntly, her courage coming
back when he paused, recognizing that she wished to speak further with
him than a mere greeting.
"Were you?" he said, smiling. "Our thoughts were half-way the same then,
for I was wishing to see her, too."
She thought how pleasant and soft his voice was, and she tried to modify
the tones of her own.
"I was goin't' ask you--her--what to do about--about something," she
said, falteringly.
"So was I," he smiled back, showing his perfect teeth. "She will have to
be very, very wise to advise us both, will she not? Shall we go to her
now? And together? Perhaps our united wisdom may solve both your problem
and mine. Three people ought to be three times as wise as one, oughtn't
they?"