CRAZY WITH THE HEAT
Rosie was spoken of in the family as a good cook, but this afternoon
there was so little of any housewifely pride left in her that she fried
the potatoes as carelessly as Ellen would have fried them, and she
scorched the ham. She set the table after some fashion, and then, when
all was ready, went through the house calling, "Supper's ready! Supper's
ready!"
As the family straggled in, Rosie went on to her next duty of putting
George Riley's supper into a tin pail.
"Better hurry," Terence warned her. "You'll be missing Jarge's car."
"I can't hurry any faster," Rosie murmured; but she did, nevertheless,
snatch up the pail and start off.
It seemed to her the street was even hotter and more breathless than the
smoky kitchen. The late afternoon sun was still beating down on
pavements and houses and people, fiercely, unceasingly, as it had been
since early morning, and all things alike looked worn and dusty and
utterly fatigued. Little shop-girls were trailing listlessly home, their
hats crooked, their black waists limp with perspiration, their hair
hanging about their pale faces in shiny, damp strings. Yet, tired as
they were, they were still attempting forlorn, giggly little jokes and
friendly greetings.
One girl called out in passing: "Gee, Rosie, ain't this the limit?"
Another asked facetiously: "Well, kid, how does this weather suit you?"
and a third stopped her to exclaim breathlessly: "Say, Rosie, ain't you
just crazy with the heat!"
Rosie reached the corner in good time for George's car. There was a
slight congestion in traffic and George had a moment or two before
dashing back to his place on the rear platform. He looked dirty and hot.
His collar was in a soft welt, his face streaked with dust and
perspiration. His expression, usually good-natured, was gloomy and
irritable.
"What you got tonight?" he asked, lifting the lid of the pail. "What!
Ham again? Ham! What do you think I am? It's ham, ham, ham, every night
of the week till I'm sick and tired of it! Here! Take it back--I don't
want it! I'll buy me something decent to eat!"
"Why, Jarge!" Rosie had never heard him talk that way before. She hadn't
supposed he could talk that way to her. The unexpectedness of it was
like a blow. For the first time in their acquaintance she shrank from
him. Her face quivered, her eyes filled with tears. "Why, Jarge!" she
stammered again.
The motorman of George's car sounded his gong in warning and George,
without another word, dropped the pail at Rosie's feet and jumped
aboard.
Rosie, dazed and crushed, stood where she was until the car disappeared.
At first she was too hurt to cry out; too surprised by the suddenness of
the attack to formulate her protest in words. One thing only was clear,
namely, that George Riley had failed her. She could never again believe
in him blindly, implicitly, as heretofore. There she had been supposing
him so much better than any one else, and he wasn't at all. Probably he
wasn't as good!... One little corner of her heart pleaded for him,
whispering that poor George must have forgotten himself for the moment
because, like the rest of the world, he was crazy with the heat. But
Rosie silenced the whisper by exclaiming passionately: "Even if he was,
I don't see why he had to go and take it out on me! I'm sure I'm not to
blame!"
After a pause her heart again sought weakly to excuse him by suggesting
that perhaps Mrs. O'Brien did serve fried ham with a certain monotonous
regularity. Rosie was not to be taken in by that. "Well," she demanded
grimly, "what does he expect on a five-dollar-a-week board, with meat
the price it is! Lamb chops and porterhouse steak?" After that her heart
said nothing more, realizing, apparently, that so long as Rosie cared to
nurse her grievance, she could find reasons in plenty. And Rosie did
care to nurse it, and by the act of nursing soon changed it from a
feeling of bewildered woe to one of mounting indignation.... If George
Riley wanted to act that way, very well, let him do so. But he better
not think that she, Rosie O'Brien, would stand for any such treatment,
for she just wouldn't!
At home she was able to explain quietly enough that George hadn't wanted
any supper. Jack at once called out: "Give me his ham! Aw, please, now,
Rosie, give it to me! Give it to me!"
"No, Jackie, you're too little to have meat at supper," Rosie explained.
"This is for Terry. Here, Terry."
Terence accepted the windfall with a gallant, "Thanks, Rosie." Then he
added: "But don't you want a piece of it yourself?"
"No, Terry, I'm not hungry. Besides, ma has saved me a little piece."
"And here it is, ye poor lamb." Mrs. O'Brien touched her affectionately
on the cheek. "Sit right down and eat it before Geraldine wakes. Ye've
hardly had a bite all day."
Rosie took her place at the table and tried to eat. It was no use; and
suddenly, as much to her own surprise as to the others', she burst out
crying.
"Mercy on us!" Mrs. O'Brien threw up astonished hands. "What's happened
now?"
"N-nothing," Rosie quavered, pushing her plate away and dropping her
head upon the table.
"What's ailin' you, Rosie?" her father asked gently.
"E-E-Ellen's got to do the dishes tonight. I-I-I'm too tired."
"I'm awful sorry," Ellen began, "but tonight, Rosie, I got to go out
early. I got to go over to Hattie Graydon's for a note-book."
"Note-book nuthin'!" Terence glared at Ellen angrily. "That's the way
you get out of everything, with your note-books and your Hattie Graydons
and your old business college! Listen here, Ellen O'Brien: you'll do
those dishes tonight or I'll know why!"
"Huh!" snorted Ellen. "From the way you talk, a person would suppose you
were my father."
"Wish I was your father for ten minutes--long enough to give you a good
beatin'!... Who do you think you are, anyway? A real live lady?
Everybody else in the family's got to work, but not you!"
"Ah, now, Terry," Mrs. O'Brien expostulated, "you mustn't be talkin'
that way to your poor sister Ellen. She's got her own work to do at
school and I'm sure it's hard work, ain't it, Ellen dear?"
"Say, Ma, you fade away!" Terence waved his hand suggestively. "What you
don't know about Ellen's a-plenty! Just look at her, the big lazy lump!
There she's been sitting in a comfortable cool room all day long with a
fan in one hand and a pencil in the other and her mouth full of
chewing-gum, pretending to study, and you and Rosie have been up here
in this hot little hole working like niggers. Aw, why do you let her
fool you? Why don't you make her do something?"
Ellen, her head tossed high, appealed to her mother. "Ma, will you
please explain to Mr. Terence O'Brien that I'd be perfectly willing to
wash and wipe the dishes every night of my life if it wasn't for my
hands. If ever I'm to be a stenog, I've got to take care of my hands."
"What about Rosie's hands?" Reaching over, Terence drew one out from
beneath Rosie's face and held it up. At that moment it was a pathetic
little hand, shaken by sobs and wet with tears, but its roughened skin
and short, stubby nails were evidence enough of the work that it did.
"Well, what about them?" Ellen, at least, was unmoved by the exhibit.
"Rosie's not going to be a stenog, is she?"
Terence almost choked in fury, but before he could find an answer
sufficiently crushing, his father spoke.
"See here, Ellen, we've had talk enough. You'll be doing the dishes
tonight before you go after the note-book. That ends it."
"Very well!" Ellen flounced out of the room, then flounced back. "But if
I don't get my certificate next month, you'll know whose fault it is!"
"Ain't she the limit?" Terry addressed his inquiry to the gas-jet, and
small Jack, taking up the word, called after her: "Ellen, you're the
limit! You're the limit!"
"Fie on you, Jackie!" Mrs. O'Brien said reprovingly. "You mustn't be
talkin' that way to your sister."
But Jack, hopping about the kitchen like mad, kept shouting, "You're the
limit! You're the limit!" until there was a sudden wail from the front
of the house.
"Now see what ye've done, ye naughty b'y! Ye've waked up Geraldine!"
Jack subsided abruptly and Rosie, with a sigh, stood up.
Her mother looked at her compassionately. "Sit where you are, Rosie
dear, and rest, and I'll take care of Geraldine."
"No, I'll go."
Rosie carried the child outside to the little front porch, where she
rocked and crooned in the gathering darkness until Geraldine grew quiet.
Then she put her to bed and later, at the proper time, gave her a last
bottle. After that Rosie's day was done.
To be near Geraldine, Rosie was sleeping downstairs for the present, on
the floor of the front room. Just as George Riley got home she was ready
to retire.
"Good-night, everybody," she said.
George, looking a little sheepish, called after her: "Aren't you going
to kiss me good-night, Rosie?"
Without turning back, Rosie made answer: "It's too hot to kiss." Then
she told herself grimly: "There, now! I guess that'll jar him! If he
thinks he can treat me like a nigger and then kiss me good-night, he's
mightily mistaken." She closed the door of the room with a determined
click and stood for a moment with her head high. Then she sank to the
floor, a very miserable little heap of a girl who sobbed to herself:
"But I wish he wasn't so mean to me!"