WHAT EVERY LADY WANTS
All morning Rosie moved about the house preoccupied and silent, heaving
an occasional sigh, murmuring an occasional "Huh!"
At dinner she paid scant attention to her mother's market adventures,
and with difficulty heard Terry's orders concerning a new paper
customer. Her mind was too fully occupied with a problem of its own to
be interested in anything else.
On the whole it was a strange problem, and one that, after hours of
thought, remained unsolved. By mid-afternoon Rosie was ready to cast it
from her in disgust but she found that she could not. Like a bad
conscience, it stayed with her, dogging her steps even on her paper
route.
It had the effect of colouring everything that she saw or heard. When
she handed a paper to Mrs. Donovan, the policeman's wife, who exclaimed:
"What do you think of the beautiful new hammock that Mr. Donovan has
just gave me?" Rosie remarked in a tone that was almost sarcastic: "Oh,
ain't you lucky!" and to herself she added cynically: "And I'd like to
know who gave you that black-and-blue spot on your arm!"
She found one of the Misses Grey pale and haggard under the strain of a
hot-weather headache. Rosie forced her unwilling tongue to some
expression of sympathy; but, once on her way, she told her disgruntled
self that what she had wanted to say was: "Well, Miss Grey, I must say,
if I didn't know you was an old maid, I'd ha' taken you for a happy
married woman!"
Near the end of the route, she found old Danny Agin waiting, as usual,
for his paper. His little blue eyes twinkled Rosie a welcome, and his
jolly cracked voice called out: "How are you today, Rosie?"
For a moment Rosie gazed at him without speaking. Then she shook her
head, and sighed.
"You look all right, Danny Agin, just as kind and nice as can be, but I
guess Mis' Agin knows a few things about you!"
Danny blinked his eyes several times in quick succession. "What's this
ye're sayin', Rosie?"
"Oh, nuthin'. I was only saying what a nice day it was. Good-bye."
Rosie started resolutely away, then paused. She really wanted some one
with whom to talk out her perplexity, and here was Danny Agin, a man of
sound sense and quick sympathy, and her own sworn friend and ally.
Rosie turned back and, seating herself on the porch step at Danny's
feet, looked up into Danny's face.
"What's troublin' you, Rosie dear?" Danny's tone was kind and invited
confidence.
Rosie shook her head gloomily. "Danny, I'm just so mixed up that I don't
know where I'm at. You know Janet McFadden? Well----"
Rosie took a long breath and, beginning at the beginning, gave Danny a
full account of yesterday's discussion. She brought her story down to
that very morning when her mother had called her upstairs to tie the
broken corset string. At this point she paused and sighed, then looked
at Danny long and searchingly.
"And, Danny, listen here: _There wasn't any scar at all!_ I hunted over
every scrap of both shoulders and I felt 'em, too, and they were just as
round and smooth as a fat baby! And she said: 'A foot long at least and
two fingers deep.' And she even said it itched in rainy weather! Now
what do you know about that?"
Danny slowly shook out the folds of a large red handkerchief, dropped it
over his head and face, and bowed himself as though in prayer. No sound
came from behind the handkerchief, but Danny's body began to shake
convulsively. Either he was sobbing, or----
"Danny Agin, are you laughing?"
Danny slowly raised his head and, drawing off the handkerchief, began
wiping his eyes.
"Laughin', is it? Why, it's weepin' I am! Don't you see the tears?"
Rosie looked at him doubtfully. "I don't see what you're weeping about."
Danny shook his head mournfully. "It's a way I have, Rosie. A thought
came over me while we was talkin' and off I went. And--and here it comes
again!"
Danny reached for his handkerchief, but too late. The thought seemed to
hit him full in the stomach, and back he fell into his chair, rolling
and spluttering.
"Danny Agin, you are laughing!"
Danny wiped his eyes again. "Perhaps I am this time, Rosie. I'm took
different at different times."
Rosie frowned on him severely. "Well, I think you were laughing the
first time and you needn't deny it. And, what's more, I don't see
anything to laugh at."
"Whisht now, darlint, and I'll tell you. I'll talk to you like man to
man. 'Twas thought of the ladies."
"What ladies?"
"All o' them. They're all the same."
"Who are all the same?"
"The ladies, Rosie. Janet and your ma, and the rest o' them!"
"Danny, I don't see how you can say that. Ma and Janet are not a bit the
same. They're exactly different. There's ma who's got a kind husband,
and she goes telling that he chases her with a butcher-knife, and
there's Janet whose father is a drunken brute, and she goes pretending
he's the best ever."
"Precisely, Rosie. You couldn't have expressed it better. Now you'll
understand me when I tell you that they all want the same thing, which
is this: They want to be beat, and they don't want to be beat. Now let
me say it to you again, Rosie: They want to be beat, and they don't want
to be beat. There!"
Rosie put her hands to her head in distraction. "Danny Agin, I don't
know what you're talking about!"
"I'm talkin' about the ladies."
"Well, then, what I want to know is this: How can they want a thing when
they don't want it?"
It was Danny's turn to look distracted. "Rosie, Rosie, ye'll drive me
mad with yir questions! If I could tell you how they do, I would and
gladly. But I can't. All I can tell you is they do."
"But, Danny, what sense has a thing like that got? 'They want to be
beat, and they don't want to be beat.' That's exactly like saying: It's
winter and it's summer at the same time. It's not good sense to say a
thing like that."
"Sense, Rosie?" Danny looked at her reproachfully. "It's not sense I'm
talkin' about. It's not the logic of the ladies I'm impressin' on you,
mind--it's their feelin's. I'm tellin' you the kind o' man every lady's
on the lookout for--a fine brute of a fella that would as soon knock
her down as look at her, and yet would never raise a finger against
her."
Rosie's hands dropped limply into her lap. "Danny Agin, do you know
sometimes I get so mixed up that I feel just like I was crazy! That's
how I feel now."
Danny nodded sympathetically. "Small wonder, Rosie. 'They want to be
beat, and they don't want to be beat.' I defy any man to say that over
fifty times and not go mad! And what would you say, Rosie, to a poor man
havin' to live, day in and day out, for forty years with an everlastin'
conthradiction like that? Ah, Mary's a fine woman, but I tell you,
Rosie, in all confidence, I've had me own troubles. Many's the time I've
seen her just achin' for a good sound beatin', but, if ever I'd laid the
tip o' me finger upon her, her heart would ha' broke, and she'd ha' felt
the shame of it the longest day of her life. And they're all the same,
Rosie; take me word for it, they're all the same. They want their
menfolks to be lions, and they want them to be lambs."
_Lions and lambs!_ Her mother's very words! Upon Rosie the light began
to break. "Why, Danny!" she gasped.
"Take yir own case, Rosie dear. There's yir own da, a meek lamb of a
man----"
"But, Danny, I like my father because he's so kind!"
"Whisht, now, darlint, and listen. Wouldn't it be fine if he was the
size of that sthrappin' polisman, Pete Donovan, with the lump of a
diamond in his shirt front as big as an egg, and a great black mustache
coverin' the red lips of him, and a roar in his voice that'd send the
b'ys a-scatterin' for blocks around!"
The figure evoked was certainly one of heroic proportions, and Rosie, as
she gazed at it, involuntarily gave a little sigh.
Danny chuckled. "Ha, ha, Rosie! Ye're like the rest o' them!"
"No, I'm not, Danny Agin! Honest I'm not! I'm glad my father's kind. I
wouldn't love him if he wasn't, and you needn't think I would!"
Rosie struggled hard to convince Danny, but in vain. The more she
protested, the louder Danny chuckled.
"Only think, Rosie dear, the pride in yir heart, if this great brute of
a man, rampin' about like a lion, tearin' to pieces everybody that stood
in his way, in yir own prisence, wee bit of a woman that ye are, should
turn into a tame lamb!"
"Oh, Danny!"
In spite of herself, Rosie faced the world with something of the
conscious air of a lion-tamer. Danny's chuckle recalled her to herself,
and she watched him with growing resentment, as he continued:
"You see, Rosie, it's this way: The worse brute a man is, the greater
glory he brings to the woman that tames him. Rosie, me advice to any
young man that is courtin' a girl is to roar--not to roar at her, mind,
but at everybody else when she's within hearin'. What a fine feelin' it
must give a girl to have a roarin' bull of a young fella come softly up
to her and eat out of her hand! And think of the great game it is to
keep him tame! Rosie, take me word for it, these here soft-spoken men
like yir own poor da and like meself--I take shame to confess it--make a
great mistake. Many's the time it had been better for me peace of mind
afterward had I let out a roar just for appearances' sake. I see it
now."
Danny wagged his head and sighed.
"It's lucky for you, Rosie, that you have me to tell you all this, for
ye'd never hear it from the ladies themselves. They never let out a
whisper about it, but carry on just like Janet and yir own ma. Ah, don't
tell me! I know them! They's some kind of a mystic sisterhood among
them--I dunno just what, and in some few things they never give each
other away."
"Don't they, Danny?"
"They do not."
Rosie regarded the old man thoughtfully. One could see the very
processes of a new idea slowly working in her mind. Danny watched her
curiously. At length he asked: "Well, Rosie, what is it?"
Rosie paused impressively before answering: "I was just thinking, Danny
Agin, that you're right about yourself, but you're making a great
mistake about my father." Rosie nodded significantly. "He's not as quiet
as you think he is, in spite of his quiet ways. Sometimes he's just
awful."
For a moment Danny was taken in. "Why, Rosie, aren't you just afther
tellin' me about the scar that wasn't there?"
"Yes, and I'm sorry now I told you." There was a gleam in Rosie's eye
which declared very emphatically that the sequel to that story would
never again be related. "Listen here, Danny Agin! Now I understand--if
my mother made up something about that scar, it was just to hide
something else that was worse!"
"Why, Rosie! Ye don't say so!" For a moment Danny looked at her in
astonishment. Then he lay back with a wheezy guffaw. "Rosie, ye'll be
the death o' me yet! I suppose if the truth was known, Jamie beats yir
ma every night of her life to a black-and-blue jelly! Don't he now?"
Rosie covered herself with an air of distant reserve. "I'm not going to
tell you what he does. That's a family matter. But I will say one thing:
You think Terry's awful nice, don't you? Everybody does. But do you know
what he'd do to me if I was to lose one of his paper customers? He'd
just beat the puddin' out o' me--yes, he would!"
"Why, Rosie!" Danny looked shocked. "What's this ye're sayin'? I
thought you and Terry were great friends."
"Great friends? Oh, yes, we're great friends all right. You can always
be great friends with a fellow like Terry as long as you run your legs
off for him. But just let something happen, and then----"
Rosie ended with a "Huh!" and shook her head gloomily.
Danny gasped. "You don't say so, Rosie!"
There was the sound of an opening screen, and Danny, knowing that his
wife must be coming, with a wheezy chuckle called out:
"Mary, Mary, do ye know who's here? It's Rosie O'Brien, and she's one of
ye! She's fallen into line!"
Mrs. Agin came out on the porch, and stood for a moment looking from
Danny to Rosie. She was a tall, gaunt old woman with thick white hair
and thick eyebrows, which were still dark. She gave one the impression
of great tidiness and cleanliness, together with the possibility of that
caustic speech which so often characterizes the good housekeeper.
Rosie appealed to her eagerly: "Mis' Agin, I think Danny's just awful!"
Mrs. Agin glanced sharply at Danny, and then, with a seemingly
clairvoyant understanding that the subject under discussion related
somehow to the eternal war of the sexes, she went over to Rosie's side
at once.
"What's he been sayin' to you, dear?"
"He's making fun of me because I told him if I was to lose one of my
paper customers, Terry would beat me. And he would, too!"
Mrs. Agin turned on Danny severely. "Take shame to yourself, Dan Agin,
to be teasin' Rosie O'Brien!"
"And listen here, Mis' Agin," Rosie continued. "He's been sayin' just
awful things about us!"
"About us, Rosie? Do you mean about both of us?"
"About all of us, Mis' Agin--us ladies."
Rosie sat up very straight and severe.
Danny seemed to think the situation amusing, but he was the only one who
did. Mrs. Agin glared at him darkly.
"Dan Agin, what's this ye've been sayin' to Rosie?"
Danny continued to shake with silent mirth, so Rosie answered for him:
"He says what all of us ladies wants is this: We want to be beat, and we
don't want to be beat. Now, isn't that the silliest thing you ever
heard, Mis' Agin? And he says when we marry a brute of a man, we pretend
that he's kind and nice, and when we marry a nice, kind man, we let on
he's a brute."
"Dan Agin, what do ye mean, puttin' such nonsense into Rosie's head?
Answer me that now!"
"And listen, Mis' Agin," Rosie went on. "Just because he's that kind of
a man himself, he thinks everybody else is. And they're not! Every one
thinks my father's so quiet and nice, but I guess I know him! Sometimes
he's just awful! And Terry, too! But Danny here, he thinks they're every
one of them just as harmless as he is. I guess he's so scared himself
that that's the reason he tries to make out that other men are, too!"
Mrs. Agin glared at Danny a moment in silence. Then she spoke:
"Dan Agin, how dare ye go blastin' the reputation of decent men! There
are others like ye, do ye say? There are not! There's not another woman
in Ameriky that's stood what I've stood for forty years! Ah, many's the
time it was just one black murtherin' look I was cravin' from ye to bear
out me story that I had married a man, instead of a joke! And did ever I
get it from ye, Dan Agin! I did not--bad cess to ye for a soft-hearted,
good-for-nuthin' of a man that'd let a woman thrample ye in the dust if
she wanted to! 'Twas yir luck that ye little deserved to marry a decent,
quiet woman like meself!"
"Ye're right, Mary!" Danny murmured meekly. "Ye're a fine woman!"
"Hold yir tongue, Dan Agin, or, cripple that ye are, I'll be givin' you
the lickin' that I've wanted to give you these forty years every time
ye've let me have me own way when I oughtn't have had it!"
Rosie stood up to go. "I have one more paper to deliver, Mis' Agin, so
I'll have to say good-bye. If Terry was to know that I stopped to talk
before I had delivered all my papers, he'd beat me half to death."
Mrs. Agin smiled on her affectionately. "Good-bye, Rosie dear. And mind,
now, if ever again Danny goes talkin' such nonsense, ye're to call me,
and I'll soon settle him. Now run along, or that brute of a Terry'll be
after you."
"Good-bye, Rosie," Danny called out, in a tone of hypocritical meekness
that made Rosie's blood boil anew.
Rosie stopped and turned about to give him the look of scorn that he
deserved.
"Danny Agin, you just ought to be ashamed o' yourself the way you treat
poor Mis' Agin!"
"I am, Rosie," Danny gasped in a voice of mock tears exasperating beyond
words.