Supper was over, and the dishes washed and put away. It was rather later
than usual, on account of Frankie’s talkativeness, and the old lady
announced that she was going “right straight to bed.” To her great
surprise, Minnie stopped her.
“Please, Grandma,” she said, “I want to talk to you for a minute.
Frankie too. Please come into the parlour.”
They followed her and waited while she lighted the blue china lamp on
the centre table; then, at her request, they sat down. The occasion, as
she intended it should, had taken on a solemn and important air; she
faced them, flushed, serious, dogged.
“Grandma,” she began, “I’ve been thinking a great deal.... I don’t think
we ought to go on like this.... Frankie and I aren’t children now, you
know.... I think--we ought to know how things stand.”
The old lady looked at her but said nothing; she was waiting for a more
definite challenge. She got it at once.
“I mean,” said Minnie, stoutly, “what have we got to live on?”
“What’s this!” cried the old lady tartly.
“I _know_ we’re in debt. People are getting--horrid. They don’t want
your--our trade. Really, Grandma, you ought to talk things over with
Frankie and me.”
The old lady was almost unable to speak.
“I _never_!” she repeated, again and again, “I _never_! At my time of
life ... talking things over with two girls of your age!”
“We only want to help,” said Minnie, ingeniously including her sister.
“I’ve got on pretty well for seventy-five years without your
assistance,” said the old lady.
“Well,” observed Minnie, “it’s not what _I_ call getting on. Grandma,
we’ve got to have some sort of method. I ... do please let us know--what
there is?”
“Really, Grandma, I do think it would be better,” Frankie interposed,
“Minnie’s a wonderful manager, and I’m sure she could help you ever so
much.”
“Two children! It’s outrageous! I’ve managed....”
“Grandma,” Minnie interrupted solemnly, “Mr. Simms spoke to me.”
This was a telling blow; the old lady winced under it.
“He was in a very bad temper,” Minnie went on, “and he said to me, in
the rudest way, ‘How many _years_ longer is this bill going to run,
anyway?’”
Frances was distressed by the idea of debts.
“Oh, dear!” she cried, “That’s too bad! Do let’s talk it over, Grandma
dear, and see what can be done.”
But Minnie met with an obstinacy inflexible as her own. Not one detail
could they extract from the old lady. She took refuge in bitter
reproach.
“I’ve worked for you both, day in and day out, for more than two years,”
she said, “and whatever money I’ve spent was my own. I’m not
accountable to anyone for it.” And she called them undutiful,
ungrateful, unkind.
“Very well, then,” said Minnie at last, “if you’re going to take it that
way ... if you refuse to--to co-operate, Grandma, then I’ll have to
accept an offer I had of a position in an office.”
“What office?” Frankie asked, with interest.
“Mr. Petersen’s. He says I can have your place. I’ll go down to the
village to-morrow and find a girl to stay with Grandma while I’m away.”
Now, both Frances and Minnie knew that, on account of her liability to
those mysterious “attacks,” it wouldn’t do to leave the old lady alone,
and they wouldn’t have done so under any circumstances, but she, poor
old soul, terrified before their confident youth, not knowing what
resources they had, felt them to be capable of everything. She pictured
herself, solitary again, ill perhaps, with a strange servant prowling
about, prying into everything, pilfering, undoubtedly setting the house
on fire....
It was a most painful scene; she broke down, cried, surrendered. Minnie,
although with tears in her eyes, saw her opportunity and pressed her
point.
“Grandma dear,” she said, “tell us just what you have, and we’ll arrange
some way to manage.”
The old lady confessed resentfully to a sole income of twenty-five
dollars a month. They were incredulous.
“But in that case,” said Frances, “you must.... Why, there must be....”
“About how much do you suppose--we--owe?” asked Minnie.
This question the old lady couldn’t answer, because she actually did not
know. She had never attempted to calculate; it was a topic she did not
care to think about. She mentioned a number of tradespeople who had
been “very nice”; in fact, she deluded herself into the belief they
enjoyed serving a Defoe. They were, she assured the girls, perfectly
willing to wait. Wait for Heaven knows what!
“Mr. Petersen, too, I suppose,” Minnie asked with a frown, “I suppose we
owe him money?”
“Dear me, child, he’s only too pleased to have someone living here. He
told me so himself. He couldn’t rent this place to anyone else; he’d
simply have to pay a caretaker.”
“Why did he buy it then?” enquired Frankie.
The subject was not pursued, however, for Minnie had got up, a little
pale as her great minute approached.
“Now then, Grandma and Frankie,” she said, “here’s my plan. I want to
take charge of the housekeeping and--and the money.... I’ll keep things
going and try to pay off the debts.”
“Nonsense, child! What are you going to pay them off with? How far do
you imagine----”
“I’ve found a boarder,” she said.
“A boarder!” they both cried, simultaneously.
“A literary gentleman,” she explained, “from New York. He’ll only pay
eight dollars a week, but he’s a start, anyway.”
“But, my dear,” Frances objected, “where could you put him?”
“Nowhere in _my_ house!” cried the old lady. “I won’t hear of it! It’s
disgraceful! It’s vulgar! I won’t have it!”
“I _must_!” said Minnie, “I’ve made up my mind. I can’t and won’t go on
this way. Either you’ll let me have this boarder or I’ll have to go into
Mr. Petersen’s office.”
They argued, wrangled, remonstrated. It was of vital importance to them
both. To the old lady a boarder meant incalculable loss of dignity, it
meant degradation. She defended her position vehemently, fought to the
last ditch for her honour.
But Minnie won. Her grandmother’s resistance crumpled at last before her
iron determination. She went up to bed that night in a sort of ecstasy
of triumph, drunk with her first victory. Her career had begun. The
tiger had tasted blood.