JANET TO HER OWN FATHER
When Rosie got back from the grocery, Dave McFadden was washing his face
at the sink. He paid no attention to Rosie and, in fact, seemed not to
see her until he sat down to breakfast. Then he looked at her in
surprise.
"Why, hello, Rosie! Where did you come from?"
He was a large powerfully built man, dark, with sombre cavernous eyes
and a gaunt face. His voice was not unkind nor was his glance.
Rosie spoke to him politely: "Good-morning, Mr. McFadden."
"Rosie's been here all night," Janet announced.
"All night!" Dave looked around a little startled. "Where's your
mother?"
"My mother?" Janet spoke indifferently. "Oh, she's at the hospital.
She's been there since yesterday morning. I tried to tell you about her
last night."
Dave put down his coffee cup heavily. "What's the matter with her?"
"The doctor said it was overwork and worry."
"Overwork and worry! What are you talking about? They don't put people
in the hospital for overwork and worry!" Dave spoke with a rising
irritation. "Can't you tell me something that's got some sense to it?"
Janet answered casually as though relating an adventure that in no way
touched herself. "I can tell you the whole thing if you want to hear it.
We were on the street going to Mrs. Lamont's for the washing when
suddenly ma jumped and her hands went up and she shook, and I looked
where she was looking because I thought there must be a snake or
something on the sidewalk. Then, before I knew what was happening, she
screamed and fell and her eyes began rolling and she bit with her mouth
until her lips were all bloody and her head jerked around and--and--it
was awful!" With a sob in which there was left no pretence of
indifference, Janet put her hands before her face to shut out the horror
of the scene.
The details were as new to Rosie as to Dave. Janet had not even hinted
that it was _this_ which had happened to her mother.
Dave McFadden breathed heavily. "Then what?"
Janet took her hands from her face and, with a fresh assumption of
indifference, continued: "Oh, a crowd gathered, of course, and after
while a policeman came, and then the ambulance. And while we were in the
ambulance she--had another. And when we got to the hospital--another. It
was awful!" Janet dropped her head on the table and sobbed.
"Well?" demanded Dave gruffly.
Janet stifled her sobs. "They undressed her and put her to bed and gave
her something and she went to sleep. Then the doctor took me into
another room and wrote down what he said was a history of ma's case and
he asked me questions about everything."
Dave McFadden's sombre gaze wandered off unhappily about the room. "What
did you tell him?"
Janet's answer came a little slowly: "I told him everything."
Dave looked at her sharply. "Tell me what you told him!"
"All right. I'll tell you." There was a hint of unsteadiness in Janet's
voice but no sign of wavering in her manner. Her eyes stared across at
her father as sombre almost as his own. "He said from the looks of her
he thought ma was all run down from overwork and worry. I told him she
was. Then he asked me why and I told him why.... I told him my father
made good money but boozed every cent. I told him my mother had to
support herself and me and even had to feed my father. I told him that
when my father was sober he was cross and grouchy but he didn't hurt us
and that, when he came home drunk, he'd kick us or beat us or do
anything he could to hurt us."
With a roar like the roar of an angry animal, Dave McFadden reached
across the table and clutched Janet roughly by the shoulder. "You told
him that, you--you little skunk!"
His fury, instead of cowing Janet, roused her to like fury.
"Yes!" she shouted shrilly. "That's exactly what I told him and it's
exactly what I'm going to tell everybody! I'm never going to tell
another lie about you, Dave McFadden! Do you hear me? Never!"
At the unexpectedness of her attack, Dave's anger and strength seemed to
flow from him like water. His clutch relaxed; he fell back weakly into
his chair. For a moment confusion covered him utterly. Then he tried to
speak and at last succeeded in voicing that ancient reproach with which
unworthy parenthood has ever sought to beguile the just reproof of
outraged offspring: "And is this the way you talk to your own father?
Your--own--father!" Had he been a little drunk, he would have wept. As
it was, even to himself, his words seemed not to ring very true.
Janet regarded him scornfully. "Yes, that's exactly the way I talk to my
own father!" She paused and her eyes blazed anew. "And there's one
thing, Dave McFadden, that I want to tell you." She stood up from the
table and walked around to her father's place. "When you come in sober,
as cross as a bear and without a word in your mouth for any one, ma and
me hustle about to make you comfortable and don't even talk to each
other for fear of riling you. Yes, we're so thankful you're not drunk
that we crawl around like two little dogs just waiting to lick your hand
and tell you how good you are. Then, when you come home drunk, wanting
to kill some one, we do our best to coax you in here to keep you from
getting mixed up with the neighbours. We're terribly careful to save the
neighbours, and why? So's you won't get arrested. But do we ever save
ourselves? There's never a time when I'm not black and blue all over
with the bruises you give me--kicking me and pinching me and knocking me
down."
In his senses Dave McFadden was not an unkind man, but most of the time
he was not in his senses. Janet's tirade now seemed to be affecting him
much as cheap whiskey did. He staggered to his feet and raised
threatening hands.
"You little slut! If you don't shut up, I--I'll choke you!"
But Janet was far past any intimidation. She stood her ground calmly.
"All right! Go ahead and choke! The thing I've made up my mind to tell
you, Dave McFadden, is this: I'll never again lick your boots when
you're sober nor run from you when you're drunk. Kill me now if you want
to! Go on! You've probably killed ma and if she's lying there in the
hospital dead this minute, I wish you would kill me! Then you could go
drown yourself and that would be the end of all of us!"
Dave McFadden groaned. "For God's sake," he implored, "can't you let up
on me?"
Janet looked at him steadily. "Have you ever let up on us?"
He stared about helplessly and asked, with the querulousness, almost, of
a child: "What is it you want me to do? Do you want me to go to the
hospital to see her?"
Janet laughed drearily. "They wouldn't let you in. I asked the doctor
did he want you to come and he said, no, the sight of you would probably
give her another attack."
Dave shuffled uneasily. "Then I suppose I might as well go to work."
"Yes," Janet agreed, "you might as well go to work. But before you go,
will you please give me a quarter? I borrowed a quarter from Rosie to
buy your breakfast."
Dave put his hand in his pocket and found a quarter. He flipped it
across the table. "Here's your money, Rosie."
"And if you want me to get any supper for you," Janet went on, "you'll
have to give me some money, too."
Dave hesitated. He was not accustomed to paying the household expenses.
Before he realized what he was saying, he asked: "Hasn't your mother any
money?" Under the instant fire of Janet's scorn, he saw his mistake and
reddened with shame.
"Yes," Janet told him grimly, "she's got one dollar and I'll see you
starve to death before I touch one cent of it for you! If you want any
supper, you pay for it yourself; and you'll pay for mine, too, if I get
any. If I don't get any, it won't be the first time."
Dave slowly emptied his pocket. He had a two-dollar bill, a fifty-cent
piece, and some small change. "Here," he said, offering Janet the bill
and the fifty-cent piece. "Will that suit you?"
Janet took the money but refused to be placated. "It ain't what will
suit me or won't suit me. You know as well as I do what's fair and
square, and that's all there is to it. And while we're on money," she
continued, "I might as well tell you if you don't pay five dollars on
the rent we'll be dispossessed next Monday. On account of ma being sick
so much lately we've dropped behind four weeks and the agent won't wait
any longer."
Dave swallowed hard. "This is all I got till Saturday."
"Are you sure you'll have any more on Saturday?"
Dave looked hurt. "Won't I have a whole week's wages?"
"I don't know." Janet spoke without any feeling as one merely stating a
fact. "Most weeks, you know, you're in debt to the saloon, and when you
pay up there on Saturday afternoon you haven't much left by night."
Dave smothered an oath. It was plain that he thought he had done a very
handsome thing in passing over the greater part of his money. It was
also plain that he had expected a grateful "Thank you." And what did he
feel he was receiving? An insult! He looked at Janet in sullen
resentment. "You're a nice one, you are, talking that way to your own
father! I tell you one thing, though: you wouldn't talk that way if your
mother was around. She's got a heart, she has! All you've got is a
turnip!"
At mention of her mother, Janet choked a little. "My mother don't think
my heart's a turnip and Rosie don't, either. All I've got to say is, if
it looks like a turnip to you, it's because you've changed it into one
yourself."
To this Dave made no answer. Without further words he could better
preserve the expression of grieved and unappreciated parenthood.
Whatever he may have done or may not have done in the past, just now he
had been noble and generous. And would his own child acknowledge this?
No! He bore her no grudge; his face very plainly said so; but he was
hurt, deeply hurt. Under cover of the hurt, he opened the door quietly
and made his escape.
In Janet the fires of indignation flickered and went out, leaving her
cold and lifeless. She threw herself into a chair and folded her hands.
"You certainly did give it to him straight, Janet!" Rosie spoke in tones
of deep admiration.
Janet laughed scornfully. "Give it to him straight! Oh, yes, I gave it
to him straight all right!" She shivered and clenched her hands. "I can
talk! That's where we come in strong. Take the women in this tenement
and they've all got tongues as sharp as ice-picks. Any one of them can
talk a man to death. But what does it all amount to? Nothing! I tell
you, Rosie, they've got the bulge on us, for, as soon as we make things
hot for them, all they've got to do is clear out!" Janet sighed
unhappily. "Then they pay us back by not coming home and when they get
injured or pulled in it all comes out that it's our fault because we
haven't made home pleasant for them. Huh! They always make it so awful
pleasant for us, don't they?"
Rosie felt helpless and uncomfortable. Her own life had problems of its
own but, compared to Janet's, how trivial they seemed, how
inconsequential. And, by a like comparison, how inviting her own home
suddenly appeared. She thought of it, ordinarily, as an overcrowded
untidy little house where everybody was under every one else's feet. Not
so this morning. This morning it was home as home should be, the centre
of a very real family life supported by a father's industry and a
mother's devotion. They were poor, of course, but not overwhelmingly so,
for they had enough to eat and enough to wear. And, best of all, they
loved each other. In the past Rosie had not always known this, but she
knew it now. They loved each other and, without thinking anything about
it, they were ready to stand by each other. Beneath all family discord
there was a harmony, a family harmony, the burden of which was: all for
one and one for all. A wave of homesickness swept over Rosie. She wanted
to be off without the loss of another moment. Her hands reached out
eagerly for the many tasks, the dear, the wearying tasks that were
awaiting them.
"Well, Janet, I'm sorry, but I think I must go. You know Geraldine has
to have her bath and I've got to go marketing. If you hurry, though,
I'll help with the dishes first."
"No," Janet said. "You run along if you have to. I can do the dishes
alone."
Rosie paused a moment longer. "You know if you want to you can come and
have dinner with us, Janet."
Janet shook her head. "Thanks, but I won't have time. I've got to go to
all of mother's customers and tell them she's sick, and I go to the
hospital early in the afternoon."
"Then when will I see you?"
"I don't know unless you come and sleep with me again tonight."
"I don't see how I can, Janet." At that moment the thought of spending
another night away from her beloved family was more than Rosie could
bear. "You know, Janet, I've got so many things to do at home.
Geraldine needs me all the time and so does ma and----"
"Yes, yes, Rosie, I understand. And I don't blame you one bit for liking
it better at home."
"I didn't mean that at all!" Rosie declared; "honest I didn't!"
"That's all right," Janet assured her. "I like it better over at your
house myself. It was good of you coming last night. I was kind o' scared
last night and I didn't want to be alone with him."
Rosie was concerned. "You won't be scared tonight, will you?"
"Do you mean of him?"
Rosie nodded.
"No. And what's more, Rosie, I don't believe I'll ever again be scared
of him. He's not going to bother me any more. Couldn't you see that this
morning?... Funny thing, Rosie: I used to think if only I wasn't afraid
of him I'd be perfectly happy and now, when I'm not afraid of him any
longer and when he'll probably never touch me again, I don't seem to
care much."
Rosie shook her head emphatically. "Well, I tell you one thing, Janet
McFadden: I care. I couldn't go to sleep tonight if I thought you were
here alone getting beaten up."
Janet looked at her friend affectionately. "You needn't worry about me.
I'll be all right. Good-bye, Rosie dear, and thanks."
"Good-bye, Janet, and come when you can."
From the speed with which Rosie hurried home, it would never have been
guessed that she was merely returning to a round of endless duties and
petty worries. Her eyes shone, her little woman face was all aglow with
the joyous eagerness of one whose course was leading straight to
happiness.