Julie leaned against the door of the room from which she had just been
summoned. Her black eyes flashed defiance into the eyes of the woman
watching her in sorrowful silence.
"Why you come here?" she cried. "Why you not leave me alone? I not want
to see you nor anyone. You no right to come here; you not my forewoman
now. You dismiss me in disgrace a week ago, you and that superintendent
in your factory over there. What you come for; to punish me some more?"
"My poor child," returned the other gently, "you must not hate me so.
Believe me, I love you, Julie, and I've come here as your friend."
"You a friend to me; me, Julie Benoit who is sent away from the factory
because I steal all that money! No, no, I know better than that, you no
friend to me, you despise me. All the girls point their finger at me,
for I steal that money. But I give it all back, do I not? And the
superintendent he say it is my first offense and he will not send me to
prison. Oh yes! he is very kind. Julie have give back the money, Julie
is forgiven, but she is a thief and cannot work with honest people. She
must go, and without a reference. No one could recommend a thief. Well,
Julie does go, so why you not let her alone?"
"Julie, Julie, listen to me," cried the forewoman almost in despair.
"Believe it or not as you please, I have come here to-day to help you if
I can. I have come because there was something in your face, a look in
your eyes, that day you left us that has haunted me ever since. I have
come because I feared you were in trouble and were too proud to tell us
so. Julie, for twenty years I have been forewoman of my department over
there in the factory. Many, many girls have worked with me, new ones
coming, old ones going all the time. Some have left for one reason, some
for another, but never before has one gone from me in anger or disgrace.
All my girls have loved me, Julie, and I loved them. Why was it I never
could win you, win your trust and confidence. Was I not kind to you,
child? I tried to be for I wanted your love and trust."
The flashing eyes and angry face of the girl softened a little as the
woman continued:
"I know you are not a bad girl, Julie. I know that you never before
stole anything. I have been thinking of you all this week and worrying
about you, for it must have been some great trouble which induced you to
take that money. Why did you take it, child? Won't you please tell me?"
"You ask me why I take it? Well, I will tell you. Do you know what is in
that room just behind this very door I lean against? It is my mother.
She will never move again, never speak to me again; she is dead. Yes,
she died last night but I not tell no one. If I tell, they will take her
away and bury her I not know where. I have no money to bury her myself.
Pretty soon I will have to tell, then they bury her in a pauper's grave
with other people poor like us. I not know where they put her; I never
can go and kneel at her grave and whisper to her that I have not
forgotten.
"You want to know why I steal that money? Well, a week ago poor mother
she is so very sick. They tell me she cannot live many days; but I think
if only I have money I can save her yet. I can have doctors to see her,
big doctors who will go to sick people only for very much money. I can
buy her food and medicine and perhaps send her away to some place where
the sun will shine for her, where she can breathe God's pure air. Why
even strong people can scarce live in a place like this where the
sunshine never come, where it is cold and damp all the time. How can the
poor little mother hope to grow well again in such a place, without good
food, often without a fire, the air not fit for anyone to breathe. I
think of it all the time. I lie awake at night and think of it, it is
before me all day at my work. Money, money, if only I have a little
money, I can save my mother yet. Then the chance come, the money is
there before me. I look at it, I take it. That is all.
"You ask me why I steal that money. I steal it for her, my mother; to
save her life. Yes, and for her, too, the blind grandmother, and for
them," and she pointed to a very old woman sitting close to the stove
and holding in her arms a whimpering child of four. At her side
crouched two more children, somewhat older, huddled together in a ragged
shawl. They wore neither shoes nor stockings and the small feet were
blue with cold.
"Oh, you poor child," exclaimed the forewoman, her eyes filling with
tears. "Why did you not tell me a week ago instead of taking that money,
for one wrong can never right another; why did you not tell me? We might
not have been able to save your mother, but we could have helped you.
Even after you took the money, if you had told me all, something might
have been done for you. I wish you had told me, Julie, I wish you had
told me."
The shocked grief of the woman's face and voice had their effect upon
the girl, and it was in a much more gentle tone that she continued:
"You can see for yourself how it is with us now, but we are not always
like this. If you care to listen and will sit down, I tell you all about
it.
"No, indeed, we are not always like this. I can remember when father is
alive how happy we all are. He is a mason, good and steady, and he work
for us all the time. We live in a pretty little flat, it is bright and
clean and mother keep it so and make everything look nice for us. She
sing and she laugh and she look so pretty in those days. I go to school
and Marie also, dear Marie who died one year ago. Antoine, too, he go to
school with Marie and me. Lorraine there, she too little; she stay at
home with mother and with grandmother.
"Well, we are all so happy until one day father is brought home to us.
He is dead, killed at his work by a falling derrick. That same day poor
little Baptiste, him there on grandmother's lap, he come into this cruel
world. Mother is sick, so very sick for a long time after. It is weeks
and weeks before she can walk around again. By the time she does, the
little money she had saved is all gone; there is not a cent in the house
and the landlord puts us out into the street.
"I am only twelve at the time but I go to work in a factory--not your
factory, but one away off the other side of the river. I have to walk
long, long distance in the cold, dark morning, and walk back again at
night, but I am happy for I earn money to help at home. Mother she go to
work too, in a great steam laundry where she stand all day at a big
machine. She very thin and pale, and so tired at night she can hardly
walk home. But she, too, is content; for she have work to do and work
means money to buy food for the little ones and for the blind
grandmother.
"We get along pretty well for almost three years. Then, just a year ago,
the factory I work for shuts down. Times are hard, there is no more work
for us, we must go. We do go. We try first one place, then another, to
find work. It is the same story everywhere, times are hard and there is
no work for us.
"Then mother gets that dreadful cold. The laundry where she works is
always so very hot. She come out at night into the cold air; her coat is
thin for she cannot buy a warm one and she get a dreadful chill one
night as she comes home. She cough all the time after that. It shake her
nearly all to pieces; but she still go to her work till one day she fall
beside her machine. They bring her home and we put her into bed and she
never leave it again.
"What to do then we know not. One, two, three days pass; at last there
is a day when grandmother and I eat nothing. We give the last scraps of
bread to the children and spend the last two pennies on milk for
mother. There is nothing left for us. We not sleep that night; we sit by
the empty stove and we think all night. Grandmother is praying all the
time; she is, oh so good, that grandmother. She pray and she pray, and
she tell me God is kind and good, He will show us a way. Me, I am not
good like that. I say to her God cannot be kind and merciful, or he
would not treat us so. What have we done that He punish us like that?
She say to me:
"'Hush, child, hush; you very bad, very wicked. God is good and kind and
loving. He not try us any more than we can bear; He send us help soon if
we trust in Him.'
"Next morning is cold, very cold; we have no fire and no food. I have
been everywhere to look for work and find nothing. But I put on my hat
to go out and try once more. Grandmother ask me what I do. I tell her I
go again to look for work. She say: 'No, child, you stay here with your
mother to-day; it is my turn now.'
"She is old; she is blind and I fear to have her go out alone, but she
is firm and will go. She take her stick and she go out. She come back
later with bread for the children and a little money to buy coal. I not
ask her where she get it; I know. She beg it on the street. Every day
she go out like that, and when she bring back food and money she not say
one word and I not ask her where she get it; I know.
"She keeps us from starving for a few weeks and then, at last, I find
work in your factory. For a time, I am almost happy again, for now
grandmother need beg no more; my pay will keep us in food and fire. Even
mother seems better for a little while, and I think perhaps she will get
well and we will all be happy once again. But mother is soon very, very
sick, and I see her dying day by day and can do nothing to help her.
"Then, that day last week, a party of ladies come to visit the factory.
The wife of the superintendent is with them. She very handsome, very
rich; she beautifully dressed. She stop near my table to take off her
coat, the room is warm and the fur coat heavy. She lay her purse down on
my table while she remove the garment; one of the ladies call to her and
she go away, leaving the purse behind her on my table.
"Mother is very sick that morning; she not sleep all night, but cough,
cough, cough. There is the purse before me. No one is looking; I pick it
up and open it. It is filled with money, the money that may save my
mother's life. That lady will never miss it. I slip the purse inside my
dress and go on with my work. I can hardly keep from screaming with joy
I am so happy to think I have the money which is going to save my
mother's life. The ladies go away and I feel that I am safe; she has
forget about her purse. I want to rush away at once, but I must stay at
my work so no one will suspect.
"Presently the superintendent he come in and he talk to you and you look
very grave. Then he say one of the ladies have left her purse on a table
in this room. Will the girls be kind enough to stop work and search for
it? He will give five dollars reward to the one who finds it. We all
search but no purse is found, and he go away again. Pretty soon he come
back and the lady with him. She look around for a few moments, then she
walk straight over to my table. The superintendent ask is she sure,
quite sure. She say she is perfectly sure. She lay her purse on that
table in order to remove her coat, then forget to take it up again when
she go away; and she look very hard at me.
"The superintendent ask me if I have seen the purse and I say no. I
suppose he know by my face that I am lying for he tell you to take me to
the dressing-room and search. Then I know there is no hope for me; if
you search you find the purse, so I take it out and hand it to him. He
talk to me about my wickedness but I not answer him. He discharge me,
but I not say one word. You talk to me, but I not speak to you either, I
am too heartbroken, too despairing. My mother she will die now, she will
surely die; and grandmother she will have to go out begging once again.
"I come home and I tell them I am discharged. I not tell them why, for
they very good and stealing is a sin. They be so shocked and sorry. I
sit beside my mother, despair in my heart, and I watch her dying, dying,
dying.
"Her pain is all over now; she leave me last night and she never come
back again. I watch with her in there when you come. I watch with her
some more when you go; then I must tell that she is gone, that she is
dead, and they come and take her away," and she threw herself on the
floor by the door of her mother's room in a perfect agony of grief.
In a moment the kind-hearted woman was on her knees beside the
heartbroken girl, whom she gathered into her motherly arms, murmuring
words of comfort all the while. Gradually the dreadful sobbing subsided,
and after a time the girl was once more standing before that door she
guarded so jealously. Seeing that she was her own calm self again, the
forewoman said gently:
"My poor child, again I say that I wish you had told me a week ago. So
much suffering would have been saved. However, this is no time for vain
regrets, it is the time for action. I must leave you at once, Julie, but
I will be back, and will, I hope, bring you good news. In the meantime
do you say nothing to anyone about your mother. You will believe that I
will help you? You will do as I say?"
"You very good," replied Julie simply, laying her hand in that of the
forewoman; "when you want me, you find me there," and she pointed to the
door behind which her mother's silent form was resting.
Two days later, the forewoman, seated at her desk, was apparently
absorbed in the newspaper she was reading while leisurely disposing of
her noonday lunch. In reality she was covertly watching an excited group
of girls on the other side of the room who were discussing some matter
of evident importance. Without doubt, something was wrong. The forewoman
rather surmised what the trouble was and smiled behind the shelter of
her newspaper. She knew these girls and was quite sure that the
difficulty, whatever it was, would be brought to her for settlement. As
she had said to Julie, she loved her girls, and they in turn loved and
trusted her.
In this instance she had not long to wait. Presently the girls cast
aside napkins and lunch boxes and moved toward the corner of the room
where their forewoman was waiting. She watched their approach in smiling
silence. Slightly in advance of the others came a small, impetuous
figure, a painfully thin, cross-eyed girl of fifteen, whose abundant
crop of freckles had earned for her the sobriquet of "Speckles." She had
answered to that name for so long now that she had almost forgotten she
ever owned any other. She was impulsive, good-hearted, and a general
favorite in spite of her rather sharp little tongue. Rushing up to the
forewoman's desk, she said excitedly:
"Miss Merton, it can't be true, what Louise has just been telling us,
that you are going to let that horrid Julie Benoit come back again. You
surely wouldn't take her back, would you, Miss Merton?"
"Yes, it is perfectly true," replied the forewoman calmly. "Julie will
return to us next Monday, and I hope all my girls will do everything
they can to make her feel that we are glad to have her back."
"But we're not glad. We don't want her back," cried one girl.
"Why it's impossible after what she did," added another.
"I, for one, wouldn't work in the same room with a girl like that," said
a third, with a toss of her head. "I wouldn't dare leave any of my
belongings out of my sight for a single instant."
"That's just the trouble," chimed several all at once. "We wouldn't feel
safe for a moment knowing there was a thief amongst us."
During this outburst the forewoman sat quietly watching the indignant
faces before her. Then she said very gravely:
"Girls, I think we all misjudged Julie, and really almost owe her an
apology. I have asked her pardon, and though I do not expect you to do
the same, I do ask you to receive her back with kindness."
"Misjudged her! Apology!" gasped Speckles. "She took that money, didn't
she?"
"Yes."
"And a person who takes money that belongs to someone else is a thief,
isn't she?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Well then, I say a thief is a thief, and I don't see where any
misjudging comes in," and Speckles looked defiantly from one to another.
A tall blonde whose thoughtful blue eyes had been studying the
forewoman's face, laid her hand on the excited girl's arm, remarking
gently:
"Let's not judge too hastily, Speckles dear. I think Miss Merton has
something to tell us. For my part I used to pity Julie, she seemed so
weak and sickly and so terribly alone. She was with us but she was not
one of us."
"Pity your grandmother," cried Speckles the irrepressible. "If she was
alone all the time, it was her own fault. She was a stuck-up old thing
and wouldn't make friends with any of us. If you'd speak to her she'd
only stare at you with those fierce black eyes of hers and answer yes or
no just as short and snappy as you please."
"I doubt if we tried very hard, any of us, to win her friendship, the
poor little thing. And she did seem so forlorn and lonely at times,"
answered the blonde. "But there, girls, let's all keep quiet if we can
for I know Miss Merton has something to tell us."
"You are right, Louise, I have a little story to tell you, the story of
Julie Benoit," and she told them Julie's story as she had heard it from
Julie herself. In conclusion, she added: "When I left that poor child
beside her dead mother, I went at once to the superintendent and told
him the whole story. You girls know how kind he is; many of you have had
personal experience of his charity. He called in his wife and together
they planned to bury Julie's mother as a Catholic should be buried, they
to stand all the expense. They have also undertaken to see that the
younger children are sent to school and the grandmother properly cared
for, and Julie is to return to her place here on Monday.
"I wish you could have seen her face when I went back to those two
dreadful rooms in the alley where she lives and told her what the
superintendent and his wife had said. She stared at me, amazed,
incredulous; then said slowly in an awed whisper:
"'They do all that for me, Julie Benoit the thief! You tell the lady it
is I who steal her money but she forgive and have my mother buried like
a Christian. She have her taken into church where the priest will bless
her and pray over her. She have her buried where I can go and kneel
beside her grave and tell her that I love her still and that I forget
her never, no never. The lady do all that for me who steal her money.
But she is good, she is kind to forgive me.'
"After a moment's thought, she added: 'You think God will forgive me
too? I very bad, very wicked; I say all those dreadful things about Him,
but He will forgive me, is it not so? Grandmother say He good and kind.
You think He will forgive me if I ask Him?'
"It was a very different Julie that I left that night; oh! very
different from the girl who met me with such fierceness earlier in the
evening. Just as I was leaving, she said to me very humbly: 'The girls
at the factory, you think they will forgive me also? I very rude to
them; I say I hate them all. You think they will forgive me?'
"So now, my girls, your welcome to Julie on Monday morning will be the
best answer to that question."
"Will we forgive her, the poor girl!" cried Speckles impulsively. "You
bet we will. If there's any one here who won't be kind to that poor
little Julie, she'll just have to reckon with me. I think it is we who
should ask her to forgive us, for I must admit we were all rather
hateful to her. Oh, I say, girls! I've just got an idea," she continued.
"Here, Louise, just hand me one of those empty boxes from that shelf
over your head. There you are. Now then, this is a hat and I pass it
around to each one of you, so. I say to each one of you: 'Did you notice
that poor Julie has been wearing a thin summer coat all this bitter
winter weather? It used to make me shiver just to look at her. Did any
of you notice that her shoes were all broken through and even in rain
or snow storms she never had any rubbers to wear over them?' Suppose
each one of us chip in a few pennies, we can all spare a little, and
have Miss Merton give it to her to buy shoes or something for herself.
I'll start with fifty cents."
The box was passed from one to another, each contributing what she
could, and each contribution meaning more or less of a sacrifice to the
donor. In this way a goodly sum was collected and laid on Miss Merton's
table.
"There, girls," said the triumphant Speckles. "That will show Julie
whether we have forgiven her or not. And now, do you hear that musical
whistle calling us back to our places? We'd better hustle for the
machines will start up in a minute or two. Machines are like time and
the tide, they wait for no man. Nor woman, either, not even for Julie
Benoit," and with a laugh, Speckles was off like the wind.
As the girls departed, each to her own machine or work-table, Miss
Merton looked after them, a tear in her eye and a smile upon her lips.
"God bless my girls," she said to herself. "Their hearts are in the
right place, every one of them. I need have no fear of the welcome they
will give my poor little Julie Benoit."