"I suppose you'll go and tell anyway, you old tattletale," she said
savagely. "I'll get even with you for this, see if I don't!" She ran out
of the room and I didn't see her again for several days.
However, I knew the locket had gone back where it belonged, because Mrs.
Harper had me send Clarice a check for twenty-five dollars, with the
brief statement that the locket had been found. Right there was where I
lost some of my regard for Mrs. Harper. She never apologized to Clarice
for accusing her wrongfully; never offered to do anything to make it up
to her. She just sent that cold little note and the check. A real
thoroughbred would have acknowledged herself to be in the wrong, but Mrs.
Harper couldn't bring herself to apologize to a servant. The affair blew
over and I never heard Clarice mentioned again.
I grew to like my work more and more, as the days went by, and gradually
learned to handle quite a bit of it myself. Mrs. Harper was very busy;
she did a great deal of Red Cross and other war work, besides keeping up
in all her clubs, and she got into the habit of telling me what to say to
people and letting me write the letters myself. Early in March she went
out of town to a convention and left me with a great many letters to
write to various people, telling me to sign her name for her. I took very
great pains with all those letters so as to be sure to say the right
things to the right people, and I felt satisfied when the week was out
that I had done myself credit.
Accordingly, it struck me like a thunderbolt when, several days after her
return, Mrs. Harper came to me, blazing with anger, and demanded to know
what I meant by writing such letters in her absence. Startled, I asked
her what she referred to.
"You wrote Mr. Samuel Butler that if he didn't hurry and pay up his
subscription to the Red Cross Mr. Harper would pay it for him and take it
out of his next bill," said Mrs. Harper furiously. "Mr. Butler is
insulted and has withdrawn his subscription of ten thousand dollars to
the Perkins Settlement House, which I am trying so hard to establish.
Whatever possessed you to write such a letter?"
"I never wrote a letter like that," I replied with spirit. "I wrote Mr.
Butler a very polite, respectful reminder that his pledge was due this
month; I never mentioned Mr. Harper or anything about paying it and
taking the amount out of any bill."