ELLEN
"I don't know what's keepin' poor Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien remarked as the
family gathered at supper that evening. "They're awful busy at them
down-town offices, I'm thinkin'. Ellen was expectin' to be home at six
o'clock sharp but something important must have come in and they need
her. Ah, say what you will, a poor girl's got to work mighty hard these
days."
"Huh!" grunted Terry.
There was a slam at the front door, at sound of which Mrs. O'Brien's
face lighted up. "Ah, there she is now, the poor dear!"
Yes, it was Ellen. She swept at once into the kitchen and stood a moment
glowering on the family with all the blackness of a storm-cloud. Then,
without a word, she flung herself into a chair.
"Why, Ellen dear," her mother gasped, "what's ailin' you?"
Beyond twitching her shoulders impatiently, Ellen made no answer.
"How do you do, Ellen?" Rosie spoke formally, in the tone of one not at
all certain as to how her own civility would be received.
Ellen glanced at her sharply. "Huh! So you're back, are you?"
"Ellen, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien cried reprovingly, "is that the way you
talk to poor little Rosie and her just in from the country? And she
brought you two nice dressed chickens and a basket of fine fresh
vegetables and a box----"
Ellen cut her mother short with an impatient, "Aw, Ma, you dry up!"
"What's the matter, Ellen?" Terry drawled out. "Lost your job?"
For answer Ellen snatched off her hat and flung it angrily into the
corner.
"Ellen, Ellen!" Mrs. O'Brien cried. "Your new hat!" She started forward
to rescue the hat, then paused as the significance of Terry's question
reached her understanding. Her fluttering hands fell limp, her face took
on an expression at once scared and appealing. "Oh, Ellen dear, you
haven't lost your job, have you? Don't tell me you've lost your job!"
Ellen scowled at her mother darkly. "You bet your life I've lost my job!
I wouldn't have staid in that office another day for a thousand dollars!
They're nothing but a set of old grannies--every one of them!"
"Oh, Ellen!" Mrs. O'Brien dropped back helplessly into her chair. A look
of overwhelming disappointment settled on her face; her mouth quivered;
her eyes overflowed. "Oh, Ellen," she repeated, "how does it come that
ye've lost it?"
"Well, I guess you'd have lost it, too!" Ellen glared about the table
defiantly. "Any one would with that old fogy, old man Harrison, worrying
you to death with his old-maidish ways. He thinks people won't read his
old letters if every word ain't spelled just so and every comma and
period put in just right. The old fool! I'd like to know who cares about
spelling nowadays! I did one letter over for him today six times and the
sixth copy he tore up right in front of my face for nothing at all--a
t-h-e-i-r for a t-h-e-r-e and a couple of little things like that. I
tell you it made me hot under the collar and I just up and told him what
I thought of him."
"Ellen!" Mrs. O'Brien gasped weakly.
"Well, I did!" Ellen repeated. "I just says to him, 'Since you're so
mighty particular, Mr. Harrison, I don't see why you don't do your own
typing!'" Ellen stood up and, indicating an imaginary Mr. Harrison,
showed her family the pose she had taken.
"Well," asked Terry, "what did he say?"
"What did he say? He flew off the handle and shouted out: 'There's one
thing sure: I'll never have you type another letter!' Just that way, as
if I was nothing but an old errand boy! And after I had just done over
his old letter for him six times, too!" Aggrieved and injured, Ellen
appealed to her father: "Say, Dad, what do you know about that?"
Jamie O'Brien slowly cleared his throat. "Is that the way they teach you
at the Business College to talk to your employer?"
The reproof in Jamie's words was entirely lost upon Ellen. She tossed
her head scornfully. "Oh, us girls are on to his kind all right! We give
it to them straight from the shoulder! That's the only way to treat
'em--the fussy old women! Then they respect you!"
"Ellen, Ellen, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien wailed forlornly, "what makes you
talk that way?"
Terence drew Ellen back to her story: "Well, Sis, after that, what did
you say and what did he say?"
Ellen's ill humour was fast disappearing. Under the magic of her own
recital, she was beginning to see herself in a new and flattering light.
Instead of the inefficient stenographer who, a few moments before, had
sought to hide her discomfiture in a bluster of abuse, she was now a
poor deserving working-girl who had been put upon by an unscrupulous
employer. Conscious of her own worth and made courageous by that
consciousness, she had been able, it now seemed to her, to hold her own
in a manner which must excite the admiration of her family.
"Well, when he used such language to me, I saw all right what kind of a
man he was and I just gave it to him straight. 'I see what you're
after,' I says to him. 'You think you're going to bounce me before my
week's up and you think I'm so meek that I'll leave without saying a
word! But I just won't!' I says to him. 'You hired me for a week and if
you think you can throw me out without paying me a week's salary, you're
mighty mistaken! I've got a father,' I says to him, 'and he'll make it
hot for you!'"
Upon Mrs. O'Brien at least the effect of the story was almost
terrifying. "Ellen, Ellen," she wailed, "what makes you talk so? You
didn't really say that to the gentleman, did you?"
"I didn't, eh?" Ellen tossed her head defiantly. "You just bet I did!"
"Then what did he say?" It was Terry who again asked the question that
would help the narrative on.
Ellen smiled triumphantly. "He had nothing more to say to me. He just
called the book-keeper over to him and says: 'Pay this young woman a
week's wages and let her go.' Yes, that was every word he said. Then,
without even looking at me, he turned his back and began sorting the
papers on his desk. Fine manners for a gentleman, I say!"
Before she finished, every member of the family had looked up in quick
surprise.
"Do you mean," Mrs. O'Brien quavered, "do you mean, Ellen dear, that he
paid you?"
Ellen glanced at her mother scornfully. "Of course I mean he paid me!
Here!" She opened her handbag and exhibited a wad of bills. "One five
and three ones! Pretty good pay for two days' work--what?"
Mrs. O'Brien turned devout eyes to heaven. "Thank God, Ellen dear, he
paid you! I was a-fearin' all your hard work was going for nuthin'!
Thank God, you'll be able to start in this week payin' your board like
you intended."
Ellen looked at her mother coldly. "Say, Ma, what do you think I am? I
told you I'd begin paying three dollars a week as soon as I got a good
steady job. Well, have I got a good steady job? No. In fact, I'm out of
a job. So you'll just have to wait like everybody else."
"But, Ellen dear,"--Mrs. O'Brien stretched out an appealing, indefinite
hand--"what's this you're saying when you've got the money right there?
It's only Tuesda' now and if you start out bright and early tomorrow
hunting a new job, what with your fine looks and your fine education,
you'll be sure to land one by the end of the week. And then, don't you
see, there won't be any break in your payroll at all."
Ellen waved her mother airily aside. "Say, Ma, you don't know anything
about it. If you think I'm going to start out again tomorrow morning,
you make a mighty big mistake. I'm going to take a couple of days off, I
am. I think I deserve them. I guess I've earned my living for this week.
Besides, I've got some shopping to do. I need a new hat and a lot of
things."
"A new hat, Ellen? What's this ye're sayin'? Why, ye've not been wearing
this last one a day longer than two weeks. It's a beautiful hat if ye'd
not abuse it." Mrs. O'Brien lifted it carefully from the floor where it
still lay and held it up for general inspection. "Why, Ellen, ye don't
know how becomin' it is to you. Just the other morning, while I was
shelling peas, Jarge Riley says to me----"
"Just cut out George Riley!" Ellen interrupted sharply. "I don't care
what George Riley says! I'm going to get some decent clothes and that's
all there is about it!"
Terry grunted derisively. "Say, Rosie, ain't we winners?"
Ellen flushed, conscious for the first time of Terry's disapproval. She
looked at him angrily, then turned to her mother. "Now, Ma, just listen
to that! He's always nagging at me and you never say a word!"
"Terry, Terry," Mrs. O'Brien murmured wearily, "why do ye be talkin'
that way of your own sister? The next time she gets a job, I'm sure
she'll begin payin' board the first thing, won't you, Ellen dear?"
"Say, Ma, you and Ellen are a team." Terry eyed his mother meditatively.
"You take her guff every time. Not a day goes by that she don't pay you
dirt, but you keep on trusting her just the same."
"Ah, Terry lad, how can you talk so? Perhaps Ellen has made a few
mistakes, but you oughtn't to forget she's your own sister."
"I don't." Terry spoke shortly and rose from his chair. "Come on, Rosie,
no use hanging around here any longer."
Rosie hesitated. "I think I'll wait to do the dishes first. Ma's all
tired out."
"Indeed, and you'll do no such thing!" Mrs. O'Brien declared. "You're
company for today, Rosie, so make the most of it."
"Ellen will do the dishes, won't you, Ellen dear?" Terry spoke
facetiously with his mother's intonation.
"Of course Ellen will," Mrs. O'Brien said. "I'm sure she will, for if
she's not working tomorrow she'll not be having to save herself."
Rosie, willing to accept this assurance, allowed Terry to draw her away
from the kitchen and out to the little front porch. "But you know,
Terry, of course she won't."
Terry laughed a little grimly. "Of course not!" He paused a moment in
thought. "Say, Rosie, don't it beat all the way she goes along doing
just as she pleases? Hardly any one calls her bluff. I can see just how
it was in that office today. She put up such an ugly fight that they
were glad to shell out an extra five spot that she hadn't begun to earn
just to get rid of her. And look at her here at home. She wouldn't hand
out a nickel to the rest of us if we were starving. She'd spend it on
an ice-cream soda for herself."
Rosie sighed. "I don't mind about us. We can take care of ourselves. But
poor old Jarge Riley, Terry. Living right here with us wouldn't you
suppose he'd get to know her?"
"Well,"--Terry spoke in a tone somewhat didactic--"you forget one thing,
Rosie: Jarge is in love."
"But why is he in love?" Rosie persisted.
Terry shook his head gloomily. "Search me."