FREDA
Freda met her father on the street three blocks from home. She saw him
coming, laden as usual with books, a package of papers from the
psychology class to correct--and the meat. The collar of his ulster was
turned up around his ears but Freda knew him even in the gathering
twilight, a block away. There was a dependency about Eric Thorstad’s
figure--about the meat--that was part of her life.
“Liver or veal?” she asked gayly, taking the fat package from under his
arm.
“It’s a secret.”
“Sausage,” she said, “I can tell by the feel and the smell.”
“Aren’t you late, Freda?”
“I went to the movies.”
“Again? I wish you wouldn’t go so often. What do you get out of them?”
“Thrills, father dear.”
“All unreal.”
She skipped into a stride that matched his.
“A thrill is a shiver of romance,” she declared, “it’s never unreal.”
“And what gives the shiver? The white sheet?”
“I’m open minded. Could be a well tailored garden, Nazimova’s gown, a
murder on a mountain.”
He laughed and they went along briskly until they came to the third in a
row of small yellow frame houses, and turned in at the scrap of cement
walk which led up to the porch.
In the kitchen Mrs. Thorstad turned from the stove to kiss them both.
“How was your meeting?” asked her husband.
A kind of glow came over Adeline Thorstad’s face.
“It was a lovely meeting. I am sure that it is significant that so many
women, even women like old Mrs. Reece will come to hear a talk on their
civic responsibilities. You should have managed to come, Freda.”
Freda put an arm about her mother’s shoulders.
“I couldn’t,” she said. “I’d have spoiled the circle of thought. I don’t
care whether women vote or not.”
She was six inches taller than her mother’s neat prettiness and at first
glance not nearly so attractive. Her rather coarse hair was too thick
and pulled back into a loose low knot and her features were heavier than
those of her mother’s, her skin less delicate. The neat pyramid of her
mother’s blond hair, her smooth, fair skin were almost as they had been
fifteen years before. But Freda showed more promise for fifteen years
hence. Her hair shaded from yellow to orange red, her eyes were deep
blue and her loose-hung, badly managed figure showed a broad
gracefulness that her mother’s lacked.
She had somehow taken the little qualities of her mother’s prettiness
and made them grander, so that she seemed to have been modeled from an
imperfect idea rather than a standard type. In her father was the
largeness of build which might have accounted for her, though not too
obviously for Mr. Thorstad stooped a little and days in the classroom
had drained his face of much natural color. Still he had carried over
from some ancestor a suggestion of power which he and his daughter
shared.
“Don’t talk like that, Freda. It’s so reactionary. Women nowadays--”
“I know. But I don’t especially approve of women nowadays,” teased
Freda. “I think that maybe we were a lot more interesting or delightful
or romantic as we were when we didn’t pretend to have brains.”
But her mother ignored her.
“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said. “Set the table and then I must tell you
my news.”
They were used to news from Mrs. Thorstad. She was full of the
indomitable energy that created little events and situations and exulted
in them. Victories in the intrigues of the district federated clubs,
small entanglements, intricate machinations were commonplaces to her
husband and daughter since Mrs. Thorstad had become district
vice-president.
So now when the sausage, flanked by its mound of mashed potatoes, came
sizzling to the table and Freda had satisfied her soul by putting three
sprays of red marsh-berries in a dull green bowl in the middle, they
looked forward to dinner with more anticipation than to Mrs. Thorstad’s
surprise. But she began impressively, and without delay.
“I think that this entrance of women into politics may alter the whole
course of our lives.”
Freda and her father exchanged a whimsical friendly glance in which no
disrespect blended.
“No doubt,” said Mr. Thorstad.
“If I were called to public office, think what a difference it would
make!”
“What difference?” asked Freda.
“Why--there’d be more money, more chances to better ourselves.”
Her husband seemed to shrink at the cheaply aspiring phrase, then
looked at her with something like the patience of one who refuses to be
hurt.
“So now you want to be the breadwinner too, my dear?”
Perhaps she took that for jocosity. She did not answer directly.
“I met Mrs. Brownley--the Mrs. Brownley--at a meeting not long ago. She
said she thought there would be a future for me.”
“No doubt,” said her husband, again.
He gazed into the sausage platter reflectively.
Twenty years ago, he might have remembered, Adeline Miller had thought
there was a future for him. She had intended to better herself through
him. She was teaching then in a little town and he was county
superintendent. They had met and been attracted and after a little she
had condoned the fact of his Swedish name and of the two parents who
spoke no English. She had exchanged the name of Miller for Thorstad,
soberly, definitely determined to better herself and profit by the
change.
Then there came Freda. Freda, who had stimulated them both as healthy
promising babies are likely to stimulate their parents. Thorstad had
become a High School instructor, then had left that position after eight
years to come as assistant to the professor of psychology in the Mohawk
State Normal School, at a slightly lower salary, but “bettering
himself.” Ten years ago, that was. He was head of his department now--at
three thousand a year. It was his natural height and he had attained
it--not a prospector in his work, but a good instructor always. It had
taken much labor to have come so far, nights of study, summers spent in
boarding houses near the University that he might get his degrees. And
Adeline had gone along her own path. During all these years in Mohawk
she had been busy too. First with little literary clubs, later with
civic councils, state federations, all the intricate machinery of
woman’s clubdom.
She had her rewards. Federation meetings in the cities, little speeches
which she made with increasing skill. She had been “speaking” for a long
time now. During the war she fortified her position with volunteer
speaking for Liberty Loans, War Saving Stamps. All this in the name of
“bettering others.” All this with that guiding impulse to “better
herself.”
Her husband made no demands on her time which interfered with any public
work. If it was necessary he could cook his own meals, make his own bed,
even do his own washing, and there had been times when he had done all
this for himself and Freda. Not that Mrs. Thorstad ever neglected her
family. The Family, like Democracy and the Cradle, were three strong
talking points always. She was a fair cook and a good housekeeper, a
little mechanical in her routine but always adequate. And when she was
away she always left a batch of bread and doughnuts and cookies. It was
never hard on Eric and he, unlike some men, was handy around the house.
He was handy with Freda too from the time he dressed her as a baby until
now. Now he was handy with her moods, with her incomprehensible
unwillingness to better herself by sharing in her mother’s plans.
Leaning a little toward her mother now, Freda brought the conversation
off generalities.
“But the news? We are all agog.”
“The news is that we are to have distinguished guests on Thursday. Mrs.
Brownley, Mrs. Gage Flandon, and Miss Margaret Duffield of New York are
making a tour of the country and they are to stop here for a day. I am
to arrange everything for them. There is no telling to what it may
lead.”
“They’re coming here?” Freda’s tone was disgusted. “A lot of women
spellbinders. Oh, Lord, save us. I’m going camping.”
“It is a great privilege,” said her mother, with a tight little motion
of her lips. “I shall need you, Freda.”