RICH MAN--POOR MAN
When spring came above the icy shores of the inland seas, Mary Warren
had been out of work for more than three months. She was ill; ill of
body, ill of mind, ill of heart. Her splendid, resilient courage had
at last begun to break. She was facing the thought that she could not
carry her own weight in the world.
She sat alone once more one evening in the little room which after all
thus far she and Annie had been able to retain. Her oculist had taken
much from her scanty store of money. She held in her hand his last
bill--unpaid; and though she had paid a score of his bills, yet her
eyesight now was nearly gone. Her doctor called it "retinal failure";
and it had steadily advanced, whatever it was. Now she knew that there
was no hope.
She greeted the homecoming of her room-mate each nightfall with
eagerness. Annie by this time had found harder and worse paid work in
another factory. She came in with her hands scarred and torn, her
nails broken and stained. She had grown more reticent of late.
"Well, how are things coming along, Sis?" said she this evening on her
return, after she had thrown her wrap across a chair back. "How much
money have you got left? You look to me like you was counting it."
"Not very much, Annie--not very much. The doctor--you see, I can't
take his time and not pay him."
"You're too thin-skinned. What are doctors for?"
"But, Annie, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. That's the truth
about it--I'm scared!"
Her companion smiled, with her new slow and cynical smile. "Some of us
go to the lake--or to a man--or to men," said she, succinctly. "Look
over the stock of goods that's within your means. Bargains. Odds and
Ends."
"What could I _do_?"
"Suppose you got married to your gentle and chivalrous rancher out
West. Maybe you'd be able to stand it after a while, even if he dyed
his hair, or had his neck shaved round. Mostly they have false
teeth--before they'll advertise. Probably he's a widower. Object:
matrimony; that mostly is a widower's main object in life; and you
can't show 'em nothing except when you bury 'em."
"I'd die before I'd answer that sort of a thing!" said Mary Warren
hotly.
"You would," replied Annie. "I know that. I knew it all along.
That's why I had to take it into my own hands." Again the cynical
smile of Annie Squires, twenty-two.
"Your own hands--what do you mean by that?"
"I might as well tell you. I've been writing to him in your name!
I've sent him a _picture_ of you--I got it in the bureau drawer. And
he's crazy over you!"
Mary Warren looked at her with wrath, humiliation and offended dignity
showing in her reddened cheeks.
"You had the audacity to do that, Annie! How _dared_ you? How _could_
you?"
"Well, I was afraid of the lake for you, and I knew that something had
to be done, and you wouldn't do it. I've got quite a batch of letters
from him. He's got three hundred and twenty acres of land, eight cows,
a horse and a mule. He has a house which is all right except it lacks
the loving care of a woman! Well, stack that up against this room.
And we can't even keep this for very long.
"Listen, Mary," she said, coming over and putting both her broken hands
on her friend's shoulders. "God knows, if I could keep us both going I
would, but I don't make money enough for myself, hardly, let alone you.
You don't belong where you've been--you wouldn't, even if you was well
and fit, which you ain't. Mollie, Mollie, my dear, what is there ahead
for you? We _got_ to do some thinking. It's up to us right now.
You're too good for the lake or the poor farm--or--why, you _belong_ in
a home. Keep house? I wish't I knew as much as you do about that."
"I'll tell you," she resumed suddenly. "I'll tell you what let's do!
A stenographer down at our office does all these letters for me--she's
a bear, come to correspondence like that. Now, I'll have her get out a
letter from you to him that will sort of bring this thing to a head one
way or the other. We'll say that you can't think of going out there to
marry a man sight-unseen----"
"No," said Mary Warren. "The lake, first." She was wringing her
hands, her cheeks hot.
"But now, as a housekeeper----" After a long and perturbed silence
Annie spoke again. "That's the real live idea, Sis! That's the dope!
You might _think_ of going out there as a housekeeper, just to see how
things _looked_--just so that you could look things _over_, couldn't
you? You wouldn't marry any man in a hurry. You could say you'd only
do your best as a sincere, honest woman--why, I have to tell that
stenographer what to write, all the time. She's sloppy."
"But _look_ at me, Annie--I wouldn't be worth anything as a
housekeeper." Mary Warren was arguing! "As to marrying that way----"
--"Letter'll say you're not asking any pay at all. You don't promise
anything. You don't ask _him_ to promise anything. You don't want any
wages. You don't let him pay your railroad fare out--not at all! You
ain't taking any chances nor asking him to take any chances,--unless
she falls in love with you for fair. Which I wouldn't wonder if he
did. You're a sweet girl, Mollie. Put fifteen pounds on you, and
you'd be a honey. You are anyway. Men always look at you--it's your
figure, part, maybe. And you're so good--and you're a _lady_, Sis.
And if I----"
"Tell him," said Mary Warren suddenly, pulling herself together with
the extremest effort of will and in the suddenest and sharpest decision
she had ever known in all her life, "tell him I'm square! Tell him
I'll be honest all the time--all the time!"
"As though you could be anything else, you poor dear!" said Annie
Squires, coming over and throwing a strong arm about Mary Warren's
neck, as though they both had done nothing but agree about this after a
dozen conversations. And then she wept, for she knew what Mary
Warren's surrender had cost. "And game! Game and square both, you
sweet thing," sobbed Annie Squires.
"Give me fifteen pounds on you," she wept, dabbing at her own eyes,
"and I wouldn't risk Charlie near you,--not a minute!"