Back Aa

Portion of Labor

Close

<h3 align="center">Chapter XXXIII</h3> The next afternoon poor Eva Tenny was carried away, and Andrew accompanied the doctor who had her in charge, as being the only available male relative. As he dressed himself in his Sunday suit, he was aware—to such pitiful passes had financial straits brought him—of a certain self-congratulation, that he would not be at home when the dressmaker asked for money that night, and that no one would expect him to go to the bank under such circumstances. But Andrew, in his petty consideration as to personal benefit from such dire calamity, reckoned without another narrow traveller. Miss Higgins stopped him as he was going out of the door, looking as if bound to a funeral in his shabby Sunday black, with his solemn, sad face under his well-brushed hat. “I hate to say anything when you're in such trouble, Mr. Brewster,” said she, “but I do need the money to pay a bill, and I was wondering if you could leave what was due me yesterday, and what will be due me to-day.” But Fanny came with a rush to Andrew's relief. She was in that state of nervous tension that she was fairly dangerous if irritated. “Look here, Miss Higgins,” said she. “We hesitated a good deal about havin' you come here to-day, anyway. Ellen wanted to send you word not to. We are in such awful trouble, that she said it didn't seem right for her to be thinkin' about new clothes, but I told her she'd got to have the things if she was going to college, and so we decided to have you come, but we 'ain't had any time nor any heart to think of money. We've got plenty to pay you in the bank, but my husband 'ain't had any time to go there this mornin', what with seein' the doctor, and gettin' the certificate for my poor sister, and all I've got to say is: if you're so dreadful afraid as all this comes to, that you have to lose all sense of decency, and dun folks so hard, in such trouble as we be, you can put on your things and go jest as quick as you have a mind to, and I'll get Miss Patch to finish the work. I've been more than half a mind to have her, anyway. I was very strongly advised to. Lots of folks have talked to me against your fittin', but I've always had you, and I thought I'd give you the chance. Now if you don't want it, you jest pack up and go, and the quicker the better. You shall have your pay as soon as Mr. Brewster can get round after he has carried my poor sister to the asylum. You needn't worry.” Fanny said the last with a sarcasm which seemed to reach out with a lash of bitterness like a whip. The other woman winced, her eyes were hard, but her voice was appeasing. “Now, I didn't think you'd take it so, Mrs. Brewster, or I wouldn't have said anything,” she almost wheedled. “You know I ain't afraid of not gettin' my pay, I—” “You'd better not be,” said Fanny. “Of course I ain't. I know Mr. Brewster has steady work, and I know your folks have got money.” “We've got money enough not to be beholden to anybody,” said Fanny. “Andrew, you'd better be goin' along or you'll be late.” Andrew went out of the yard with his head bent miserably. He had felt ashamed of his fear, he felt still more ashamed of his relief. He wondered, going down the street, if it might not be a happier lot to lose one's wits like poor Eva, rather than have them to the full responsibility of steering one's self through such straits of misery. “I hope you won't think I meant any harm,” the dressmaker said to Fanny, quite humbly. There was that about the sister of another woman who was being carried off to an insane asylum which was fairly intimidating. Miss Higgins sewed meekly during the remainder of the day, having all the time a wary eye upon Fanny. She went home before supper, urging a headache as an excuse. She was in reality afraid of Fanny. Andrew was inexpressibly relieved when he reached home to find that the dressmaker was gone, and Fanny, having sent Amabel to bed, was chiefly anxious to know how her sister had reached the asylum. It was not until the latter part of the evening that she brought up the subject of the bank. “Do look out to-morrow, Andrew Brewster, and be sure to take that money out of the bank to pay Miss Higgins,” she said. “As for being dunned again by that woman, I won't! It's the last time I'll ever have her, anyway. As far as that is concerned, all the money will have to come out of the bank if poor Eva is to be kept where she is. How much money was there that she had?” “Just fifty-two dollars and seventy cents,” replied Andrew. “Jim had left a little that he'd scraped together somehow, with the letter he wrote to her, and he told her if he had work he'd send her more.” “I'd die before I'd touch it,” said Fanny, fiercely. Then she looked at Andrew with sudden pity. “Poor old man,” she said; “it's mighty hard on you when you're gettin' older, and you never say a word to complain. But I don't see any other way than to take that money, do you?” “No,” said Andrew. “And you don't think I'm hard to ask it, Andrew?” “No.” “God knows if it was your sister and my money, I would take every dollar. You know I would, Andrew.” “Yes, I know,” replied Andrew, hoarsely. “Mebbe she'll get better before it's quite gone,” said Fanny. “You say the doctor gave some hope?” “Yes, he did, if she was taken proper care of.” “Well, she shall be. I'll go out and steal before she sha'n't have proper care. Poor Eva!” Fanny burst into the hysterical wailing which had shaken her from head to foot at intervals during the last twenty-four hours. Andrew shuddered, thinking that he detected in her cries a resemblance to her sister's ravings. “Don't, don't, Fanny,” he pleaded. “Don't, poor girl.” He put his arm around her, and she wept on his shoulder, but with less abandon. “After all, we've got each other, and we've got Ellen, haven't we, Andrew?” she sobbed. “Yes, thank God,” said Andrew. “Don't, Fanny.” “That—that's more than money, more than all the wages for all the labor in the world, and that we've got, haven't we, Andrew? We've got what comes to us direct from God, haven't we? Don't think I'm silly, Andrew—haven't we?” “Yes, yes, we have—you are right, Fanny,” replied Andrew. “I guess I am, too,” she assented, looking up in Andrew's poor, worn face with eyes of sudden bravery. “We'll get along somehow—don't you worry, old man. I guess we'll come out all right, somehow. We'll use that money in the bank as far as it goes, and then I guess some way will be opened.” Then there came over Andrew's exaltation, to which Fanny's words had spurred his flagging spirit, a damper of utter mortification and guilt. He felt that he could bear this no longer. He opened his mouth to tell her what he had done with the money in the bank, when there came a knock on the door, and Fanny fled into the bedroom. She had unfastened her dress, and her face was stained with tears. She shut the bedroom door tightly as Andrew opened the outer one. The man who had loaned him the money to buy Ellen's watch stood there. His name was William Evarts, and he worked in the stitching-room of McGuire's factory, in which Andrew was employed. He was reported well-to-do, and to have amassed considerable money from judicious expenditures of his savings, and to be strictly honest, but hard in his dealings. He was regarded with a covert disfavor by his fellow-workmen, as if he were one of themselves who had somehow elevated himself to a superior height by virtue of their backs. If William Evarts had acquired prosperity through gambling in mines, they would have had none of that feeling; they would have recognized the legitimacy of luck in the conduct of affairs. He was in a way a reproach to them. “Why can't you get along and save as well as William Evarts?” many a man's monitor asked of him. “He doesn't earn any more than you do, and has had as many expenses in his family.” The man not being able to answer the question to his own credit, disliked William Evarts who had instigated it. Andrew, who had in his character a vein of sterling justice, yet felt that he almost hated William Evarts as he stood there before him, small and spare, snapping as it were with energy like electric wires, the strong lines in his clean-shaven face evident in the glare of the street-lamp. “Good-evening,” Andrew said, and he spoke like a criminal before a judge, and at that moment he felt like one. “Good-evening,” responded the other man. Then he added, in a hushed voice at first, for he had fineness to appreciate a sort of indecency in dunning, in asking a man for even his rightful due, and he had a regard for possible listening ears of femininity, “I was passing by, and I thought I'd call and see if it was convenient for you to pay me that money.” “I'm sorry,” Andrew responded, with utter subjection. He looked and felt ignoble. “I haven't got it, Evarts.” “When are you going to have it?” asked the other, in a slightly raised, ominous voice. “Just as soon as I can possibly get it,” replied Andrew, softly and piteously. Ellen's chamber was directly overhead. He thought of the possibility of her overhearing. “Look at here, Andrew Brewster,” said the other man, and this time with brutal, pitiless force. When it came to the prospect of losing money he became as merciless as a machine. Something diabolical in remorselessness seemed to come to the surface, and reveal wheels of grinding for his fellow-men. “Look at here,” he said, “I want to know right out, and no dodging. Have you got the money to pay me—yes or no?” “No,” said Andrew then, with a manliness born of desperation. He had the feeling of one who will die fighting. He wished that Evarts would speak lower on account of Ellen, but he was prepared to face even that. The man's speech came with the gliddering rush of an electric car; it was a concentration of words into one intensity of meaning; he elided everything possible, he ran all his words together. He spoke something in this wise: “GoddamnyouAndrewBrewster, for comin'to borrow money to buy your girl a watch when you had nothin' to pay for't with, whatbusinesshadyourgirlwithawatchanyhow,I'dliket'know? My girl'ain'tgotno watch. I'veputmymoneyinthebank. It'srobbery. I'llhavethelawonye. I'llsueyou. I'll—” At that moment something happened. The man, William Evarts, who was talking with a vociferousness which seemed cutting and lacerating to the ear, who was brandishing an arm for emphasis in a circle of frenzy, fairly jumped to one side. The girl, Ellen Brewster, in a light wrapper, which she had thrown over her night-gown, came with such a speed down the stairs which led to the entry directly before the door, that she seemed to be flying. White ruffles eddied around her little feet, her golden hair was floating out like a flag. She came close to William Evarts. “Will you please not speak so loud,” said she, in a voice which her father had never heard from her lips before. It was a voice of pure command, and of command which carried with it the consciousness of power to enforce. She stood before William Evarts, and her fine smallness seemed intensified by her spirit to magnificence. The man shrank back a little, he had the impression as of some one overtowering him, and yet the girl came scarcely to his shoulder. “Please do not speak so loud, you will wake Amabel,” she said, and Evarts muttered, like a dog under a whip, that he didn't want to wake her up. “You must not,” said Ellen. “Now here is the watch and chain. I suppose that will do as well as your money if you cannot afford to wait for my father to pay you. My father will pay you in time. He has never borrowed anything of any man which he has not meant to pay back, and will not pay back. If you cannot afford to wait, take the watch and chain.” The man looked at her stupefied. “Here,” said Ellen; “take it.” “I don't want your watch an' chain,” muttered Evarts. “You have either got to take them or wait for your money,” said Ellen. “I'll wait,” said Evarts. He was looking at the girl's face with mingled sentiments of pity, admiration, and terror. “Very well, then,” said Ellen. “I will promise you, and my father will, that you shall have your money in time, but how long do you want to wait?” “I'll wait any time. I ain't in any straits for the money, if I get it in the end,” said Evarts. “You will get it in the end,” said Ellen. Evarts turned to Andrew. “Look here, give me your note for six months,” said he, “and we'll call it all right.” “All right,” said Andrew, again. “If you are not satisfied with that,” said Ellen, with a tone as if she were conferring inestimable benefits, so proud it was, “you can take the watch and chain. It is not hurt in the least. Here.” She was fairly insolent. Evarts regarded her with a mixture of admiration and terror. He told somebody the next day that Andrew Brewster had a stepper of a daughter, but he did not give his reasons for the statement. He had a sense of honor, and he had been in love with a girl as young before he married his wife, who had been a widow older than he, worth ten thousand dollars from her first husband. He could no more have taken the girl's watch and chain than he would have killed her. “I'm quite satisfied,” he replied to her, making a repellant motion towards the watch and dangling chain glittering in the electric-light. “Very well, then,” said Ellen, and she threw the chain over her neck. “You just bring that I O U to the shop to-mor-mor,” said Evarts to Andrew; then, with a “Good-evening,” he was off. They heard him hail an electric-car passing, and that, although he never took a car, but walked to save the fare. He had been often heard to say that he for one did not support the street railroad. After he had gone, Ellen turned to her father, and flung a silent white arm slipping from her sleeve loose around his neck, and pulled his head to her shoulder. “Now look here, father,” she said, “you've been through lots to-day, and you'd better go to bed and go to sleep. I don't think mother was waked up—if she had been, she would have been out here.” “Look here, Ellen, I want to tell you,” Andrew began, pitifully. He was catching his breath like a child with sobs. “I don't want to hear anything,” replied Ellen, firmly. “Whatever you did was right, father.” “I ought to tell you, Ellen!” “You ought to tell me nothing,” said Ellen. “You are all tired out, father. You can't do anything that isn't right for me. Now go to bed and go to sleep.” Ellen stroked her father's thin gray hair with exactly the same tender touch with which he had so often stroked her golden locks. It was an inheritance of love reverting to its original source. She kissed him on his lined forehead with her flower-like lips, then she pushed him gently away. “Go softly, and don't wake mother,” whispered she; “and, father, there's no need to trouble her with this. Good-night.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2