THE WOMAN BEGAN IT.
"Did you ever notice," said Bertha, at tea one night, "that the rails
still run into the paint-shop, just as when the railway people painted
their cars there?"
"Why, of course I have," said Max, surprised. "They took up the frog in
the avenue, but the old rails were not worth taking."
"I suppose so," said Bertha meekly. "I have been thinking," she
said--"I have been wondering whether--don't you think we might--just
while business is so dull, you know--have a car of our own?"
"Have a car of our own!" screamed Max, dropping knife and fork this
time. "What do we want of a car?"
"We don't want it," said Bertha, "of course, unless other people want
it." But then she went on to explain that, no matter how hard were the
times, she observed that the street-cars were always full. People had
to stand in them at night coming out from the theatre, although that
did not seem right or fair. Bertha had measured the paint-shop, and had
found that there was room enough in it not only for a car, but for two
horses. The old loft of its early days, when it served for a stable,
was left as it was made, big enough for a ton or two of hay. It had
occurred to Bertha that, as Max had nothing else to do, he might buy
two horses and a street-car, and earn a penny or two for Elaine's milk
and oatmeal by running an opposition to the Cosmopolitan Company.
Max loved Bertha, and he greatly respected her judgment. But he was
human, and therefore he pooh-poohed her plan as absurd--really because
it was hers. All the same, after supper he went out and looked at the
paint-shop; and the next morning he climbed into the loft and measured
it. Poor Max, he had little enough else to do. He sawed and split all
the wood. He made the fire. He would fain have cooked the dinner and
set the table, but Bertha would not let him. He had nothing else to do.
Not a piano-forte hammer was there to cover between the Penobscot and
the Pacific, and the panic seemed more frightened and more frightful
than ever. So Max did not waste any valuable time, though he did spend
an hour in the old hay-loft.
And at dinner it was he who took up the subject.
"Who did you suppose would drive the horse-car, Bertha?"
"Why, I had thought you would. I knew you were on their list for a
driver's place at the Cosmopolitan office. And I thought, if you had
your own car, you could be your own driver."
"And who was to be conductor?"
Then Bertha shut the window, for fear the little birds should hear. And
she said that it had made so much fun at Christmas when she dressed up
in Floyd's ulster, and that even Max's father had not known her, that
she had been thinking that if they only made evening trips, when it was
dark, if Max always drove she should not be afraid to be conductor
herself.
Oh, how Max screamed! He laughed, and he laughed, as if he had never
laughed before. Then he stopped for a minute for breath, and then he
laughed again. At first Bertha laughed, and then she was frightened,
and then she was provoked.
"Why should I not be conductor? If you laugh any more, I shall offer
myself to the company to-morrow, and I will wear a crimson satin frock,
and a hat with an ostrich feather. Then we will see which car is the
fullest. Cannot I hand a gentleman in quite as well as this assiduous
squinting man who hands me in? Can't I make change as fast as that man
who gave you a fifteen-cent bill for a quarter? I will not be laughed
at, though I am a woman."
So Max stopped laughing for a minute. But he had laughed so much that
they discussed no more details that day. Any allusion to fares or
platforms or the rail was enough to make his face redden, and to compel
him to crowd his handkerchief into his mouth. And Bertha would not
encourage him by laughing when he did.