JANET USES STRONG LANGUAGE
Night brought back to Mrs. O'Brien her usual serenity. Given a little
time she always worked around to serenity, even after blows such as
Ellen's lost job. The next morning, while George Riley ate his
breakfast, she was able to talk about it without a trace of her first
despair.
"Have you heard, Jarge, the frightful experience poor Ellen had at that
office? Her boss was one of them unreasonable fussy old men that would
worry any poor girl to death. Ellen stood it for two days and then she
told him she'd just have to give up. They were so awfully sorry to lose
her that they paid her a whole week's wages. I tell her she done quite
right not trying to stick it out under such conditions. 'Twould make an
old woman of her in no time. As I says to her, 'The game ain't worth the
candle. And what's more,' says I, 'what with your fine looks and your
fine education you won't be any time getting another job.' And she
won't. I'm sure of that. She was awfully afraid we'd be blaming her, but
'Make your mind easy,' I says to her. 'You've done just exactly what
your poor da and I would have advised you to do.' Oh, I tell you,
Jarge, in these days a poor girl has to mind her P's and Q's or they'll
impose on her! You know that's so, Jarge."
Rosie sighed. Three weeks had made no change in her mother's character.
Whatever Ellen or any of her children might be guilty of, within
twenty-four hours Mrs. O'Brien would be sure to find them blameless and
even praiseworthy.
Rosie was glad to see that George Riley, in spite of his infatuation,
was not entirely taken in. He smiled to himself a little grimly. "So
she's lost her job already, has she?"
Mrs. O'Brien demurred: "'Tain't quite fair to the poor girl to say she
lost her job. What Ellen done was this: she resigned her position."
George glanced at Rosie and she, to make sure he understood, wrinkled
her nose and shook her head. "I'll tell you about it sometime," she
remarked carelessly.
"She's off shopping this morning," Mrs. O'Brien continued. "I told her
not to go back to them offices for a couple of days. She needs a little
rest and once she gets a good steady job goodness knows when she'll ever
again have a moment to herself. So I'm wanting her to get her shopping
done while she can."
"You see, Jarge," Rosie explained; "she needs a lot of new clothes and
now that she's making money she can buy them herself. She's going to get
a new hat, too. She doesn't like that last new hat." Rosie tried to use
a tone that would sound guileless to her mother and yet tell George all
there was to tell.
With her mother at least she was successful. "You must remember," Mrs.
O'Brien went on, "a girl in her position has got to dress mighty well or
they'll be taking advantage of her. So I says to her, 'Now, Ellen dear,
just get yourself a nice new hat and anything else you need. Don't mind
any board money this week.' You know, Jarge, she's going to begin paying
three dollars a week regular. Don't you call that pretty fine for a poor
girl who is just starting out in life? You mustn't forget, Jarge, that
all you pay yourself is five dollars a week."
"Yes, but the difference is he really pays it!" Rosie could not resist
stating this fact even at risk of hurting her mother's feelings.
The risk was a safe one. Mrs. O'Brien only smiled blandly. "'Tis no
difference at all, Rosie dear. Come next week, Ellen'll be really paying
it, too. She gave me her word she would."
A mother's faith in her offspring is touching and very beautiful. It is
even more: it is as it should be. Nevertheless it is usually wearisome
to outsiders. In this case, Rosie's point of view was that of an
outsider. She stood her mother's eulogy of Ellen as long as she could
and then, to avoid an outburst, she fled. She ventured back once or
twice but not to stay, as Ellen continued to be the theme of her
mother's conversation and George, poor victim, seemed not to realize how
bored he was.
Rosie began to think that her second day home was in a fair way of being
spoiled. As the morning wore away she found another grievance.
"Terry," she said, "I don't know what has become of Janet. She promised
to be here first thing this morning. I suppose her father's been beating
her up again."
"Did you know," Terry asked, "that Dave McFadden got pulled in while you
were away? He was fined ten dollars."
"Wisht he'd been sent up for ten years!" Rosie declared. "Mis' McFadden
and Janet would be much better off without him!"
Dear, dear! Taken by and large this poor old world is pretty full of
trouble! Rosie sighed deeply, wondering how she was going to bear the
burden of it all.
She waited for Janet until afternoon, when it was time for her to go
about her business as paper-carrier. She was sure now that something
serious had happened to Janet. To the child of a man like Dave McFadden
something serious might happen almost any time. On the first part of her
route Rosie gave herself up to all sorts of horrible imaginings. Then,
in the excitement of a long talk with Danny Agin on the subject of
George Riley, she forgot Janet and did not think of her again until she
reached home.
Janet was there on the porch awaiting her.
"Poor Janet's in trouble," Mrs. O'Brien began at once.
This was evident enough from the expression of Janet's face.
"What is it, Janet? What's happened?" Rosie put a sympathetic arm about
Janet's shoulder and peered anxiously into her somber eyes.
"Her poor ma's been took sick," Mrs. O'Brien continued.
"Oh, Janet, I'm sorry! Is it serious?"
"Horspital," Mrs. O'Brien announced.
"Hospital!" Rosie repeated. Then it was serious! "When did it happen,
Janet?"
"This morning." Janet spoke quietly in a tired colourless voice.
"Were you at home, Janet?"
"No. On the street."
"Did they send for an ambulance?"
"Yes."
"Did they take you to the hospital, too?"
"Yes."
"Well, Janet, what did the doctor say?"
"He said lots of things."
"Didn't he say your mother would be all right soon?"
"He said that depends."
"What does it depend on, Janet?"
Janet laughed, a weak pathetic little laugh that had no mirth in it. "He
said she might get well again if she didn't have to work or worry any
more. Huh! It's easy to say a thing like that to a poor woman that's got
to work or starve, but it would be a good deal more sensible if they'd
say right out: 'You better go drown yourself!'"
"Why, Janet!" Mrs. O'Brien's hands went up in shocked amazement.
"I mean it!" Janet insisted fiercely. "Do you suppose my mother works
like she does because she wants to? I'd like to see that doctor married
to a drunk and have some one say to him: 'Now don't work or worry and
you'll be all right.'"
Mrs. O'Brien was much distressed. "Why, Janet dear, you surprise me to
be talkin' so about that poor doctor."
"The doctor!" Janet turned on Mrs. O'Brien passionately. "I'm not
talking about the doctor! I'm talking about my father!" She paused an
instant, then flung out a terrible epithet which even in the mouth of a
rough man would have been shocking.
Instinctively Rosie shrank and Mrs. O'Brien raised a startled,
disapproving hand.
Janet tossed her head defiantly. "I don't care!" she insisted. "It's all
his fault, the drunken brute, and if my mother dies tonight, it'll be
him that's murdered her!" She ended with a sob and hid her face on
Rosie's shoulder.
Mrs. O'Brien, still scandalised, opened her mouth to speak. But the
right word which would express both reproof and commiseration was slow
in coming, and at last she was forced to meet the difficulty by fleeing
it. "I--I think I must be going in. I think I hear Geraldine. Sit still,
Rosie dear." And then, her heart getting the better of her, she ended
with: "Poor child! She's not herself today! Comfort her, Rosie!"
Rosie scarcely needed her mother's admonition. "There now, Janet dear,
don't cry! Your mother's going to be all right--I know she is! She's
been sick before and got over it."
Janet was not a person of tears. She swallowed her sobs now and slowly
dried her eyes. "I'm sorry I used such strong language, Rosie, honest I
am. And before your mother, too! You've got to excuse me. I know it
wasn't ladylike."
"That's all right, Janet. You really didn't mean it."
"Yes, I did mean it," Janet declared truthfully. "If you only knew it,
Rosie, there are lots of times I don't feel a bit ladylike! I often use
cuss words inside to myself. Don't you?"
No, most emphatically, Rosie did not! She was saved, however, the
necessity of having to acknowledge so embarrassing an evidence of
feminine weakness by Janet's further pronouncement:
"I tell you what, Rosie, when you come to a place where you want to
smash things up, a good big cuss word just helps an awful lot! Don't you
think so?"
Rosie cleared her throat a little nervously. "Yes, Janet, I suppose it
does."
"You bet it does! And what's more, women have got just as much right to
use it as men, haven't they?"
Rosie wanted to cry out: "I don't think they want to! I know I don't!"
but, under Janet's fiery glance, the words that actually spoke
themselves were: "Yes, of--of course they have."
With the hearty agreement of every one present, there was no more to be
said on that subject. Janet turned to another.
"Rosie, will you do something for me? Come and stay all night with me.
I'll be so lonely I don't know what I'll do."
Rosie's heart sank. If she spent the night with Janet, she'd have no
chance to talk to George Riley, for she'd be gone long before he got
home. Besides, there was Dave McFadden, and the thought of sleeping near
him was almost terrifying.
"But, Janet dear, how about your father?"
"Oh, I suppose he'll come in soused as usual. But you won't be bothered.
I'll get him off to bed before you come and he'll be safe till morning.
Please say you'll come, Rosie. I need you, honest I do."
That was true: Janet did need her. George Riley would have to wait.
"All right, Janet. I'll come."
"Thanks, Rosie. I knew you would." Janet paused. "And, Rosie, do you
think you could lend me a quarter? I've got to have some money for
breakfast. Mother had a dollar in her pocket but I forgot about it at
the hospital."
"I haven't a cent, Janet, but I'll raise a quarter somewhere, from Terry
or from dad, and I'll bring it with me tonight."
Janet stood up to go. "Come about eight o'clock, Rosie."
Rosie looked at her friend compassionately. "Why don't you stay here for
supper?"
Janet shook her head. "I'd like to but I don't think I'd better. He
probably won't come home, but he might come and I better be on hand."
Janet started off slowly and reluctantly. Twice she turned back a face
so woebegone and desolate that it went to Rosie's heart and, after a few
moments, sent her flying for comfort to her mother's ample bosom.
Mrs. O'Brien gathered her in as if were the most natural thing in the
world. "What is it, Rosie darlint? What's troublin' you?"
"Ma," she sobbed, "you're well, aren't you?"
"Me, Rosie dear, am I well, do you say?" Mrs. O'Brien looked into
Rosie's tearful eyes in astonishment.
"Yes, Ma, you! I want you to be well--always--all the time! You see, Ma,
Janet's poor mother----"
"Ah, and is it that that's troublin' you?" Mrs. O'Brien crooned,
rocking Rosie from side to side as though she were Geraldine. "Don't you
be worryin' your little head about your poor ma. I'm fine and well,
thank God, and your poor da is well, and Terry's well, and Jackie's
well, and poor wee Geraldine is well, and dear Ellen's well, and we're
all----"
"Ellen!" snorted Rosie, her tears abruptly ceasing to flow and her body
drawing itself away from her mother's embrace.
"Dear Ellen's well, too," Mrs. O'Brien in all innocence repeated.
"Oh, I know she's well all right!" Rosie declared in tones which even
her mother recognised as sarcastic.
"Why, Rosie," Mrs. O'Brien began, "I'm surprised----"
But Rosie, without waiting to hear the end of her mother's reproach,
marched resolutely off with all the dignity of a high chin and a stiff
military gait.