got youth, and all of the world at your feet. You've got beauty, and
confidence, and faith. And I--well, I'm getting to be an old woman! I
feel sometimes as if I've been sitting on the window sill, watching life
go by, for centuries. You mustn't--" She paused, and there was a sudden
change in her voice, "You're not tiring yourself, Rose-Marie? You're not
doing more than your strength will permit? If you could have read the
letter that your aunts sent to me, when you first came to the Settlement
House! I tell you, child, I've felt my responsibility keenly! I'd no more
think of letting you brush up against the sort of facts I'm facing, than
I would--"
Rose-Marie's cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, as she
interrupted.
"Somehow," she said, "I can't think that you and my aunts are quite
right about shielding me--about keeping me from brushing up against life,
and the real facts of life. It seems to me that there's only one way to
develop--really. And that way is to learn to accept things as they come;
to meet situations--no matter how appalling they may be, with one's eyes
open. If I," she was warming to her subject, "am never to tire myself
out, working for others, how am I to help them? If I am never to see
conditions as they are how am I ever to know the sort of a problem that
we, here at the Settlement House, are fighting? Dr. Blanchard wouldn't
try to treat a case if he had no knowledge of medicine--he wouldn't try
to set a broken leg if he had never studied anatomy. You wouldn't be in
charge, here, if you didn't know the district, if you didn't realize the
psychological reasons back of the things that the people of the district
say and do. Without the knowledge that you're trying to keep from me
you'd be as useless as"--she faltered--"as I am!"
The Superintendent's expression reflected all the tenderness of her
nature; the mother-instinct, which she had never known, made her smile
into the girl's serious face.
"My dear," she said, "you must not think that you're useless. You must
never think that! Look at the success you've had in your club
work--remember how the children that you teach have come to love you.
You've done more with them, because of the things that you don't know,
than I could ever do--despite the hard facts that I've had to brush up
against. Find content, dear, in being the sweet place in our garden--that
has so pitifully few flowers. Do not long for the hard, uncomfortable
places on the other side of the garden wall!"
Despite the Superintendent's expression--despite the gentle tone of her
voice, Rose-Marie felt a sudden desire to cry out against the irony of it
all. She was so tired of being classed with the flowers! "They toil not,
neither do they spin," came back to her, from a certain golden text that
she had learned, long ago, in Sunday-school. Even at the time it had
seemed to her as if the flowers enjoyed lives that were a shade too easy!
At the time it had seemed unfair that they, who were not workers, should
be beautiful--more beautiful than the ants, for instance, that
uncomplainingly toiled all day long for their existence.
"I don't want to be a flower," she exclaimed, almost fretfully, "I want
to be a worth while member of society--that's what I want! What's the use
of being a decoration in a garden! What's the use of knowing only the
sunshine? I want to know storms, too, and gales of wind. I want to share
the tempests that you go through!" She hesitated; and then--"I read a
book once," she said slowly, "I forget what it was--but I remember, in
one place, that a woman was being discussed. She was a very beautiful
elderly woman who, despite her age, had a face as unlined and calm as a
young girl's face could be. One character in the book commented upon the
woman's youth and charm, and another character agreed that she _was_
beautiful and charming, but that she'd be worth more if she had a few
lines on her face. 'She's never known tears,' the character said, 'she's
never lived _deeply_ enough to know tears! Her life has been just a
surface life. If you go down deep enough into the earth you find water,
always. If you go down deep enough into life you invariably find tears.
It's one of the unbreakable rules!'" Rose-Marie paused, for a moment, and
stole a covert glance at the Superintendent's face. "You don't want me to
be a woman whose life is only a surface life," she pleaded, "and it will
be just that if you keep me from helping, as I want to help! You don't
want me to have a perfectly unlined face when I'm eighty years old?"
All at once the Superintendent was laughing. "You child!" she exclaimed
when the first spasm of mirth had passed, "you blessed child! If you
could know how ridiculously young you looked, sitting there and talking
about lined faces--and yourself at eighty. Eighty is a long way off,
Rose-Marie--for you!"
The girl joined, a trifle shamefacedly, in the older woman's laughter.
"I reckon," she agreed, "that I do take myself too seriously! But--well,
there are families that I'm just dying to help--families that I've come
in contact with through the"--again she was forced to a slight
deceit--"through the Settlement House. I'm sure that I could help them if
you'd let me visit them, in their own homes. I'm sure that I'd be able to
reform ever so many people if you'd only let me go out and find them. The
city missionary who spoke once in our church, back home, told of
wonderful things that he'd done--of lives that he'd actually made over.
Of course, I couldn't do the sort of work he did, but I'm sure--if you'd
only give me a chance--" She paused.
The Superintendent was silent for a moment. And then--
"Maybe you're right, dear," she said, "and maybe you're wrong. Maybe I am
cramping your ambitions--maybe I am hampering your mental and spiritual
growth. But then, again, maybe I'm right! And I'm inclined to think that
I am right. I'm inclined to adhere to my point, that it will be better
for you to wait, until you're older, before you go into many
tenements--before you do much reforming outside of the Settlement House.
When you're older and more experienced I'll be glad to let you do
anything--"
She was interrupted by a rap upon the door. It was a gentle rap, but it
was, above all, a masculine one. There was real gladness on her face as
she rose to answer it.
"I didn't expect Billy Blanchard--he thought he had an all-night case,"
she told Rose-Marie. "How nice!"
But Rose-Marie was rising to her feet.
"I don't think that I'll stay," she said hurriedly, "I'm too tired, after
all! I think--"
The Superintendent had paused in her progress to the door. Her voice was
surprisingly firm, of a sudden; firmer than Rose-Marie had ever heard it.
"No, my dear," said the Superintendent, "you're not too tired! You just
don't want to be civil to a very fine boy--who has had a harder day than
either of us. You came to the slums, Rose-Marie, to help people--to show
that you were a Christian. I think that you can show it, to-night, by
forgetting a silly quarrel that happened weeks ago--by forgetting the
words Dr. Blanchard said that he never really meant, inside. If he
thought that these people weren't worth it, do you suppose he'd stay
here, at the Settlement House, for a mere pittance? He's had many a
chance to go to fashionable hospitals, up-town!"
Rose-Marie, bewildered, and not a little ashamed, sank back into her seat
as the Superintendent swung open the door.
The Young Doctor came in with a springing step, but there were gray lines
that spoke of extreme fatigue about his mouth, and his eyes were darkly
circled. His surprise, at the sight of Rose-Marie, was evident--though he
tried to hide it by the breeziness of his manner.
"You'll be glad to know," he told the Superintendent, "that the stork has
called on the Stefan family. It's a boy--nine pounds--with lots of dark
hair. There have been three girls, in the Stefan family," he explained to
Rose-Marie, "and so they are wild with joy at this latest addition. Papa
Stefan is strutting about like a proud turkey, with his chest out. And
Mamma Stefan is trying to sing a lullaby. I feel something like a tool in
the hand of Providence, to-night!" He threw himself upon the sofa.
There was deep, motherly affection in the Superintendent's face as she
smiled at him.
"We're all of us mental and physical wrecks this evening, Billy!" she
said. "I think that I've never been so utterly worn out before. Katie"
(Katie was the stolid maid) "is making chocolate for us!"
"Chocolate!" The Young Doctor's glance answered the affection that shone
out of the Superintendent's face--"You _are_ a dear!" He smiled at her,
and then--all at once--turned swiftly to Rose-Marie.
"Don't let's squabble to-night," he said childishly, "not about anything!
We're dog-tired, all three of us, and we're not up to even a tiny
quarrel. I'm willing to admit anything you want me to--even that I'm
wrong on a lot of subjects. And I want you to admit, yourself, that you'd
rather be here, with the two of us, than out in some den of
iniquity--reforming people. Am I right?"
Rose-Marie felt a glow of friendship toward the Young Doctor. Why
couldn't he always be like this--confiding and boyish and approachable?
She smiled at him, very sweetly, as she answered.
"You're right," she admitted. "I'm afraid that I haven't the heart to
think of reforming any one, this evening! I'm just glad--glad from the
very soul of me--to be here with you all, in the very center of
this--island!"
The Superintendent's face was puzzled--the Superintendent's eyes were
vague--as she asked a question.
"You said--_island_?" she questioned.
Rose-Marie laughed with a shade of embarrassment.
"I didn't really mean to say island," she explained, "but--well, you
remember what Dr. Blanchard told us, once, about the little bugs that
fastened together--first one and then another until there were billions?
And how, at last, they made an island?" She paused and, at their nods of
assent, went on. "Ever since then," she told them slowly, "I've thought
of us, here at the Settlement House, as the first little bugs--the ones
that the others must hold to. And I've felt, though many of them don't
realize it, though we hardly realize it ourselves, that we're building an
island together--_an island of faith_!"
There was silence for a moment. And then the Young Doctor spoke. His
voice was a trifle husky.
"You've made me more than a bit ashamed of myself, Miss Rose-Marie," he
said, "and I want to thank you for putting a real symbolism into my
chance words. After all"--suddenly he laughed, and then--"after all," he
said, "I wouldn't be surprised if you are right! I had a curious
experience, this afternoon, that would go to prove your theory."
The Superintendent was leaning back, shielding her eyes from the light.
"Tell us about your experience, Billy," she said.
The chocolate had come, and the Young Doctor took an appreciative sip
before he answered.
"Just as I was going out this afternoon," he said, at last, "I ran into a
dirty little boy in the hall. He was fondling a kitten--that thin gray
one that you brought to the Settlement House, Miss Rose-Marie. I asked
him what he was doing and he told me that he was hunting for a Scout Club
that he'd heard about. I"--the Young Doctor chuckled--"I engaged him in
conversation. And he told me that his ambition was to be a combination of
St. George and King Arthur and all the rest of those fellows. He said
that, some day, he wanted to be a good husband and father. When I asked
him where he got his large ambitions he told me that a lady had given
them to him."
Rose-Marie was leaning forward. "Did he tell you the lady's name?"
she breathed.
The Young Doctor shook his head.
"Not a thing did he tell me!" he said dramatically. "The lady's name
seemed to be something in the nature of a sacred trust to him. But his
big dark eyes were full of the spirit that she'd given him. And his funny
little crooked mouth was--" He paused, suddenly, his gaze fixed upon
Rose-Marie. "What's the matter?" he queried. "What's the matter? You look
as if somebody'd just left you a million dollars!"
Rose-Marie's face was flushed and radiant. Her eyes were deep
wells of joy.
"I have every reason in the world," she said softly, "to be happy!" And
she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to realize that a sudden cloud
had crept across the brightness of the Young Doctor's face.
XIII
ELLA MAKES A DECISION
And then the climax of Ella's life--the crash that Rose-Marie had been
expecting--happened. It happened when Ella came furiously into the Volsky
flat, early one afternoon, and--ignoring the little Lily, who sat
placidly on Rose-Marie's lap--hurried silently into her own room. Mrs.
Volsky, bending over the wash-tubs, straightened up as if she could
almost feel the electric quality of the air, as Ella passed her, but
Rose-Marie only held tighter to Lily--as if, somehow, the slim little
body gave her comfort.
"I wonder what's the matter?" she ventured, after a moment.
Mrs. Volsky, again bending over the wash-tubs, answered.
"Ella, she act so funny, lately," she told Rose-Marie, "an' there is some
feller; Bennie, he tell me that he have seen her wit' some feller! A rich
feller, maybe; maybe he puts Ella up to her funny business!"
There were sounds of activity from the inner room, as if clothing was
being torn down from hooks--as if heavy garments were being flung into
bags. Rose-Marie listened, apprehensively, to the sounds before she
spoke again.
"Perhaps I'd better go in and see what's the matter," she suggested.
Mrs. Volsky, looking back over her shoulder, gave a helpless little
shrug. "If you t'inks best," she said hopelessly. "But Ella--she not
never want to take any help..."
Only too well Rose-Marie knew what Mrs. Volsky meant by her twisted
sentence. Only too well she understood that Ella would never allow
herself to be biased by another's judgment,--that Ella would not allow
herself to be moved by another's plea. And yet she set Lily gently down
upon the floor and rose to her feet.
"I'll see what she's doing," she told Mrs. Volsky, and pushed open the
inner door.
Despite all of the time that she had spent in the Volsky flat,
Rose-Marie had never been past the front room with its tumbled heaps of
bedding, and its dirt. She was surprised to see that the inner room,
shared by Ella and Lily, was exquisitely neat, though tiny. There were
no windows--the only light came from a rusty gas fixture--but
Rose-Marie, after months in the slums, was prepared for that. It was the
geranium, blooming on the shabby table, that caught her eye; it was the
clean hair-brush, lying on the same table, and the framed picture of a
Madonna, upon the wall, that attracted her. She spoke of them, first, to
the girl who knelt on the floor, packing a cheap suit-case--spoke of
them before she questioned gently:
"You're not going away, are you, Ella?"
Ella glanced up from her packing.
"Yes. I'm going away!" she said, shortly. And then, as if against her
will, she added:
"I got th' flower an' th' picture for Lily. Oh, sure, I know that she
can't see 'em! But I sorter feel that she knows they're here!"
Rose-Marie's voice was very soft, as she spoke again.
"I'm glad that you chose the picture you did," she said, "the picture of
the Christ Child and His Mother!"
Ella wadded a heavy dress into the suit-case.
"I don't hold much with religious pictures," she said, without looking
up; "religion never did much fer me! I only got it 'cause th' Baby had
hair like Lily's hair!"
Rose-Marie crouched down, suddenly, upon the floor beside the girl. She
laid her hand upon the suit-case.
"Where are you going, Ella?" she asked abruptly. "Where are you
going--and when will you be back?"
Ella's lips drew up into the semblance of a smile--a very bitter one--as
she answered.
"It's none of yer business where I'm goin'," she said, "an' I may not
ever come back--see?"
Rose-Marie caught her breath in a kind of sob. It was as she had
guessed--and feared!
"Ella," she asked slowly, "are you going alone?"
The girl's face coloured swiftly, with a glorious wave of crimson. She
tossed her head with a defiant movement.
"No, I ain't goin' alone!" she told Rose-Marie. "You kin betcha life I
ain't goin' alone!"
Rose-Marie--sitting beside her on the floor--asked God, silently, for
help before she spoke again. She felt suddenly powerless, futile.
"_Why_ are you going, dear?" she questioned, at last.
Ella dropped the shoes that she had been about to tuck into the
suit-case. Her eyes were grim.
"Because," she said, "I'm tired of all o' this," Her finger pointed in
the direction of the outer room. "I'm tired o' dirt, and drunken people,
and Jim's rotten talk. I'm tired o' meals et out o' greasy dishes, an'
cheap clothes, and jobs that I hate--an' that I can't nohow seem ter
hold! I'm tired, dog-tired, o' life. All that's ever held me in this
place is Lily. An' sometimes, when I look at her, I don't think that
she'd know the difference whether I was here 'r not!"
Rose-Marie was half sobbing in her earnestness.
"Ah, but she would know the difference," she cried. "Lily loves you with
all of her heart. And your mother is really trying to be neater, to make
a better home for you! She hasn't a pleasant time of it, either--your
mother. But she doesn't run away. She stays!"
There was scorn in the laugh that came, all at once, from Ella's twisted
mouth. Her great eyes were somberly sarcastic.
"Sure, she stays," said Ella, "'cause she ain't got enough gumption ter
be gettin' out! I know."
In her heart Rose-Marie was inclined to agree with Ella. She knew,
herself, that Mrs. Volsky would never have the courage to make any sort
of a definite decision. But she couldn't say so--not while Ella was
staring at her with that cynical expression.
"I guess," she said bravely, "that we'd better leave your mother out of
this discussion. After all, it's between you--and your conscience."
"Say," Ella's face was suddenly drawn and ugly, "say, where do you get
off to pull this conscience stuff? You've always had a nice home, an'
pretty clothes, an' clean vittles, an'--an' love! I ain't had any of it.
But," her eyes flamed, "I'm goin' to! Don't you dast ter pull this
conscience stuff on me--I've heard you profess'nal slummers talk
before--a lot o' times. What good has a conscience ever done me--huh?"
Rose-Marie had been watching the girl's face. Of a sudden she shot her
thunderbolt.
"Are you running away to be married, Ella?" she asked.
A second flush ran over Ella's face, and receded slowly--leaving it very
pale. But her head went up rather gallantly.
"No, I ain't," she retorted. "Marriage," she said the words parrot-like,
"was made fer th' sort o' folks who can't stick at nothin' unless they're
tied. I ain't one of those folks!"
Across the nearly forgotten suit-case, Rose-Marie leaned toward Ella
Volsky. Her eyes were suddenly hot with anger.
"Who gave you that sort of an argument?" she demanded. "Who has been
filling your head with lies? You never thought of that yourself, Ella--I
know you never thought of that yourself!"
Ella's eyes met Rose-Marie's angry glance. Her words, when she spoke,
came rapidly--almost tumbled over each other. It was as if some
class-resentment, long repressed, were breaking its bounds.
"How d' you know," she demanded passionately, "that I didn't think of
that myself? How do you know? You're th' only one, I s'pose," her tone
was suddenly mocking, "that knows how t' think! No"--as Rose-Marie
started to interrupt--"don't try t' pull any alibi on me! I know th' way
you Settlement House _ladies_"--she accented the word--"feel about _us_.
You have clubs for us, an' parties, an' uplift meetin's. You pray fer
us--an' with us. You tell us who t' marry, an' how t' bring up our
children, an' what butcher t' buy our meat off of. But when it comes t'
understandin' us--an' likin' us! Well, you're too good, that's all." She
paused, staring at Rose-Marie's incredulous face with insolent eyes.
"You're like all th' rest," she went on, after a moment, "just like
all th' rest. I was beginnin' t' think that you was diff'rent. You've
been so white about Bennie. An' you washed Ma's hair--I wouldn't 'a'
done that myself! But now--now it sticks out all over you; th'
I'm-better-'n-you-are stuff. I never could think of a thing, _I_
couldn't. But you--you're smart, you are. You could think--"
Rose-Marie's cheeks were flushed with a very real resentment, as she
interrupted the girl's flow of half-articulate speech.
"Ella," she said, and her words, too, came rapidly, "you know that you're
not being fair--you know it! I've never held apart from you in any way.
Oh, I realize that we've been brought up in different--surroundings. And
it's made us different from each other in the unimportant things. But
we're both girls, Ella--we're both young and we've both got all of life
before us. And so, perhaps, we can understand each other"--she was
fumbling mentally for words, in an effort to make clear her
meaning--"more than either of us realize. I wasn't, for one moment,
trying to patronize you when I said what I did. I was only wondering how
you happened to say something that I wouldn't ever dream of saying--that
no nice girl, who had a real understanding of life"--she wondered, even
as she spoke the words, what the Young Doctor would think if he could
hear them issuing from her lips--"would dream of saying. You're a nice
girl, Ella--or you wouldn't be in the same family with Bennie and Lily.
And you're a sensible girl, so you must realize how important and sacred
marriage is. Who told you that it was a mistake, Ella? Who," her childish
face was very grave, indeed, "who told you such a terrible thing?"
Ella's eyes were blazing--Rose-Marie almost thought that the girl
was going to strike her! But the blazing eyes wavered, after a
moment, and fell.
"My gentleman fren' says marriage is wrong," said Ella. "He knows a lot.
And he has _so_ much money"--she made a wide gesture with her hands--"I
can have a nice place ter live, Miss Rose-Marie, an' pretty clothes.
Lookit Ma; she's married an' she ain't got nothin'! I can have coats an'
hats an'--"
Rose-Marie touched Ella's hand, timidly, with her cool fingers.
"But you'll have to pay for them, Ella," she said. "Think, dear; will the
coats and hats be worth the price that you'll have to pay? Will they be
worth the price of self-respect--will they be worth the price of
honourable wifehood and--motherhood? Will the pretty clothes, Ella, make
it easier for you to look into the face of some other woman--who has kept
straight? Will they?"
Ella raised her eyes and, in their suddenly vague expression, Rose-Marie
saw a glimmering of the faded, crushed mother. She hurried on.
"What kind of a chap is this gentleman friend," she raged, "to ask so
much of you, dear? Is there--is there any reason why he can't marry you?
Is he tied to some one else?"
All at once Ella was sobbing, with gusty, defiant sobs.
"Not as far as I've heard of, there ain't nobody else," she sobbed. "I
don't know much about him, Miss Rose-Marie. Jim gimme a knockdown ter
him, one night, in a dance-hall. I thought he was all right--Jim said he
was ... An' he said he loved me, an'"--wildly--"I love him, too! An' I
hate it all, here, except Lily--"
Rose-Marie, thinking rapidly, seized her advantage.
"Will going away with him," she asked steadily, "be worth never seeing
Lily again? For you wouldn't be able to see her again--you wouldn't feel
able to touch her, you know, if your hands weren't--clean. You bought
her a religious picture, Ella, and a flower. Why? Because you know, in
your heart, that she's aware of religion and beauty and sweetness! Going
away with this man, Ella, will separate you from Lily, just as
completely as an ocean--flowing between the two of you--would make a
separation! And all of your life you'll have to know that she's
suffering somewhere, perhaps; that maybe somebody's hurting her--that
her dresses are dirty and her hair isn't combed! Every time you hear a
little child crying you'll think of Lily--who can't cry aloud. Every
time a pair of blue eyes look into your face you'll think of her
eyes--that can't see. Will going away with him be worth never knowing,
Ella, whether she's alive or dead--"
Ella had stopped sobbing, but the acute misery of her face was somehow
more pitiful than tears. Rose-Marie waited, for a moment, and then--as
Ella did not speak--she got up from her place beside the suit-case, and
going to the dividing door, opened it softly.