University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
THE CHANGES OF TWO SHORT MONTHS.

AT the dinner table it was reluctantly admitted
to be necessary, that Edith should go to the
city in the morning and dispose of some of their
jewelry. She went by the early train, and the
familiar aspects of Fourth Avenue as she rode
down town, were as painful as the features of an
old friend turned away from us in estrangement.
She kept her face closely veiled, hoping to meet no
acquaintances, but some whom she knew, unwittingly
brushed against her. Her mother's last
words were,—

“Go to some store where we are not known, to
sell the jewelry.”

Edith's usually good judgment seemed to fail
her in this case as it generally does when we listen
to the suggestions of false pride. She went to a
jeweller down town who was an utter stranger.
The man's face to whom she handed her valuables
for inspection, did not suggest pure gold that had
passed through the refiner's fire, though he professed
to deal in that article. An unknown lady,
closely veiled, offering such rich articles for sale,
looked suspicious, but whether it was right or
wrong, there was a chance for him to make an extraordinary

profit. Giving a curious glance at
Edith, who began to have misgivings from the
manner and appearance of the man, he swept the
little cases up and took them to the back part of
the store, on pretence of wishing to consult his
partner. He soon returned and said rather harshly,—

“I don't quite understand this matter, and we
are not in the habit of doing this kind of business.
It may be all right that you should offer this jewelry,
and it may not. If we take it, we must run
the risk. We will give you”—offering scarcely
half its value.

“I assure you it is all right,” said Edith indignantly,
at the same time with a sickening sensation
of fear, “It all belongs to us, but we are compelled
to part with it from sudden need.”

“That is about the way they all talk,” said the
man coolly. “We will give you no more than I
said.”

“Then give me back my jewelry,” said Edith,
scarcely able to stand, through fear and shame.

“I don't know about that. Perhaps I ought to
call in an officer anyway and have the thing investigated.
But I give you your choice, either to take
this money, or go with a policeman before a justice
and have the thing explained,” and he laid the
money before her.

She shuddered at the thought. Edith Allen
in a police court, explaining why she was selling
her jewelry, the gifts of her dead father, followed

by a rabble in the street, her name in the papers,
and she the town-talk and scandal of her old set
on the Avenue! How Gus Elliot and Van Dam
would exult! All passed through her mind in one
dreadful whirl. She snatched up the money and
rushed out with one thought of escape, and for
some time after had a shuddering apprehension of
being pursued and arrested.

“Oh, if I had only gone to Tiffany's, where I
am known,” she groaned. “It's all mother's work.
Her advice is always fatal, and I will never follow
it again. It seems as if everthing and every body
were against me,” and she plunged into the sheltering
throng of Broadway, glad to be a mere unrecognized
drop in its mighty tide.

But even as Edith passed out of the jeweller's
store, her eye rested for a moment on the face of a
man that she thought she had seen before, though
she could not tell where, and the face haunted her,
causing much uneasiness.

“Could he have seen and know me?” she queried
most anxiously.

He had done both. He was no other than Tom
Crowl, a clerk in the village at one of the lesser
dry goods stores, where the Allens had a small account.
He was one of the mean loafers who was
present at the bar-room scene, and had cheered,
and then kicked Gus Elliot, and “laid for him” in the
evening with the “boys.” He was one of the upper
graduates of Pushton street corners, and having
spent an idle vicious boyhood, truant half the time

from school, had now arrived at the dignity of
clerk in a store, that thrived feebly on the scattering
trade that filtered through and past Mr. Hard's
larger establishment. He was one of the worst
phases of the male gossip, and had the scent of a
buzzard for the carrion of scandal. The Allens were
now the uppermost theme of the village, for there
seemed some mystery about them. Moreover the
rural dabblers in vice had a natural jealousy of the
more accomplished rakes from the city, which took
on some of the air of a virtuous indignation against
them. Of course the talk about Gus and Van Dam
passed on to the Allens, and if poor Edith could
have heard the surmises about them in the select
coterie of clerks that gathered around Crowl after
closing hours, as the central fountain of gossip, she
would have felt more bitterly than ever, that the
spirit of chivalry had utterly forsaken mankind.

When therefore young Crowl saw Edith get on
the same train as himself, he determined to watch
her, and startle, if possible, his small squad of admirers
with a new proof of his right to lead as
chief scandal-monger. The scene in the jewelry
store thus became a brilliant stroke of fortune to
him, though so severe a blow to Edith. (The number
of people who are like wolves that turn upon and
devour one of their kind when wounded is not small.)
Crowl exultingly saw himself doubly the hero of
the evening in the little room of the loft over the
store, where poor Edith would be discussed hat evening
over a black bottle and sundry clay pipes.

All this miserable drivel would have been of little
consequence, as far as the gossip itself was concerned,
but the consequences of such gossip threatened
to be most serious.

As Edith returned up town toward the depot,
the impulse to go and see her old home was very
strong. She thought her veil sufficient protection
to venture. Slowly and with heavy step she passed
up the well known street on the opposite side, and
then crossed and passed down toward that door
from which she had so often tripped in light-hearted
gayety, or rolled away in a liveried carriage, the
envied and courted daughter of a millionaire.
And to-day she was selling her jewelry for bread—
to-day she had narrowly, as she thought, escaped
the Police Court—to-day she had no other prospect
of support save her unskilled hands, and little
more than two short months ago, that house was
ablaze with light, resounding with mirth and music,
and she and her sisters known among the wealthiest
belles of the city. It was like a horrid dream.
It seemed as if she might see old Hannibal opening
the door, and Zell come tripping out, or Laura
at the window of her room with a book, or the
portly form of her father returning from business,
indeed even herself, radiant with pride and pleasure,
starting for an afternoon walk as of old. All
seemed to look the same. Why was it not? Why
could she not enter and be at home! Again she
passed. A name on the door caught her eye.
With a shudder of disgust and pain, she read,—

“Uriah Fox.”

“So the villain lives in the home of which he
robbed us,” she said bitterly. The world seems
made for such. Old Hannibal was right. God
lumps the world, but the devil seems to look after
his friends and prosper them.”

She now hastened to the depot. The city had
lost its attractions to her, in view of what she saw
and suffered that day, and though inclined to feel
hard and resentful at her fate, she was sincerely
thankful that she had a quiet home in the country
where at least the false-hearted and cruel could be
kept away.

She saw during the day several faces that she
knew, but none recognized her, and she realized
how soon our wide circle of friends forget us, and
how the world goes on just the same after we have
vacated the large space we suppose we occupy.

She reached home in the twilight, weary and
despondent. Her mother asked eagerly,

“Did you meet anyone you knew?” as if this
were the all important question.

“Don't speak to me,” said Edith impatiently.
“I'm half dead with fatigue and trouble. Hannibal,
please give me a cup of tea, and then I will go
to bed.”

“But Edith,” persisted Mrs. Allen querulously,
“did you see any of our old set? I hope you
didn't take the jewelry where you were known.”

Edith's overtaxed nerves gave way, and she
said sharply,—

“No, I did not go where I was known, as I
ought, and therefore have been robbed, and might
have been in jail myself to-night. I will never follow
your advice again. It has brought nothing but
trouble and disaster. I have had enough of your
silly pride and its results. What practical harm
would it have done me, if I had met all the persons
I know in the city? By going where I was not
known I lost half my jewelry, and was insulted and
threatened with great danger in the bargain. If I
had gone to Tiffany's, or Ball and Black's, where I
am known, I would have been treated politely and
obtained the full value of what I offered. I can't
even forgive myself for being such a fool. But I
have done with your ridiculous false pride forever.
We've all got to go to work at once like other poor
people, or starve, and I intend to do it openly. I
am sick of that meanest of all lies, a shabby keeping
up of appearances.”

These were harsh words for a daughter to speak
to her mother, under any provocation, and even
Zell said,—

“Edith you ought to be ashamed of yourself to
speak to mother so.”

“I think so too,” said Laura, “I'm sure she
meant everything for the best, and she took the
course which is taken by the majority in like circumstances.”

“All the worse for the majority then, if they
fare any thing as we have done. The division of
labor in this family seems to be that I am to do

all the work, and bear the brunt of everything, and
the rest sit by and criticise, or make more trouble.
You have all got to do something now or go hungry,”
and Edith swallowed her tea, and went frowningly
away to her room. She was no saint, to begin
with, and her over-taxed mind and body revenged
themselves in nervous irritation. But her
young and healthful nature soon found in sound
sleep, the needed restorative.

Mrs. Allen shed a few helpless tears, and Laura
wearily watched the faint flicker on the hearth,
for the night was chilly. Zell went into the dining-room
and read for the twentieth time, a letter
received that day.

Unknown to Edith, the worst disaster yet had
occurred in her absence. Zell went to the village
for the mail. She would not admit, even to herself,
that she hoped for a letter from one who had
acted so poor a part as her false lover, and yet, controlled
so much more by her feelings and impulses
than either reason or principle, it was with a thrill
of joy that she recognized the familiar handwriting.
The next moment she dropped her veil to conceal
her burning blush of shame. She hastened home
with a wild tumult at heart.

“I will read it, and see what he says for himself,”
she said, “and then will write a withering
answer.”

But as Van Dam's ardent words and plausible
excuses burned themselves into her memory, her
weak foolish heart relented and she half believed

he was wronged by Edith after all. The withering
answer became a queer jumble of tender reproaches
and pathetic appeals, and ended by saying that if
he would marry her in her own home it all might
be as secret as he desired, and she would wait his
convenience for acknowledgment.

She also did another wrong and imprudent
thing; for she told him to direct his reply to
another office about a mile from Pushton, for she
dreaded Edith's anger should her correspondence
be discovered.

The wily, unscrupulous man gave one of his
satanic leers as he read the letter.

“The game will soon be mine,” he chuckled,
and he wrote promptly in return.

Such was the false, but plausible missive that was
aimed as an arrow at poor little Zell. There was
nothing in her training or education and little in her
character to shield her. Moreover the increasing
miseries of their situation were Van Dam's allies.

Edith rose the next morning greatly refreshed,
and her naturally courageous nature rallied to meet
the difficulties of their position. But in her
strength, as was too often the case, she made too
little allowance for the weakness of the others.
She took the reins in her hand in a masterful and
not merciful way, and dictated to the rest in a
manner that they secretly resented.

The store wagon was a little earlier than usual
that morning and a note from Mr. Hard was
handed in stating that he had payments to make
that day and would therefore request that his little
account might be met. Two or three other parties
brought up bills from the village saying that
for some reason or another the money was greatly
needed. Tom Crowl's gossip was doing its legitimate
work.

In the post office Edith found all the other
accounts against the family with polite enough but
pressing requests for payment.

She resolved to pay all she could, and went first

to Mr. Hard's. That worthy citizen's eyes grew less
stony as he saw half the amount of his bill on the
counter. The rumor of Edith's visit to the city
had reached even him, and he had his fears that collecting
might involve some unpleasant business, but
however unpleasant it might be, Mr. Hard always
collected.

“I hope our method of dealing has satisfied
you, Miss Allen,” he ventured politely.

“Oh, yes,” said Edith dryly, “you have been
very liberal and prompt with everything, especially
your bill.”

At this Mr. Hard's eyes grew quite pebbly,
and he muttered something about its being the
rule to settle monthly.

“Oh, certainly,” said Edith, “and like most
rules, no doubt, has many exceptions. Good
morning.”

She also paid something on the other bills, and
found that she had but a few dollars left. Though
there was a certain sense of relief in the feeling that
she now owed much less, still she looked with dismay
on the small sum remaining. Where was more
to come from? She had determined that she would
not go to New York again to sell anything except
in the direst extremity.

That evening Hannibal gave them a meagre
supper, for Edith had told him of the absolute
necessity of economy. There was a little grumbling
over the fare. So Edith pushed her chair
back, laid seven dollars on the table saying,—

“That's all the money I have in the world.
Who's got any more?”

They raised ten dollars among them.

“Now,” said Edith, “this is all we have. Where
is more coming from?”

Helpless sighs and silence were her only answers.

“There is nothing clearer in the world,” continued
Edith, “than that we must earn money.
What can we do?”

“I never thought I should have to work,” said
Laura piteously.

“But, my dear sister,” said Edith earnestly,
“Isn't it clear to you now that you must? You
certainly don't expect me to earn enough to support
you all. One pair of hands can't do it, and
it wouldn't be fair in the bargain.”

“Oh certainly not,” said Laura. “I will do
anything you say as well as I can, though, for the
life of me, I don't see what I can do.”

“Nor I either,” said Zell passionately. “I don't
know how to work. I never did anything useful
in my life that I know of. What right have parents
to bring up girls in this way, unless they
make it a perfect certainty that they will always
be rich. Here we are as helpless as four children.
We have not got enough to keep us from starving
more than a week at best. Just to think of it!
Men are speculating and risking all they have
every day. Ever since I was a child I have heard
about the risks of business. I know some people

whose fathers failed, and they went away, I don't
know where, to suffer as we have perhaps, and yet
girls are not taught to do a single thing by which
they can earn a penny if they need to. If any body
will pay me for jabbering a little bad French and
Italian, and strumming a few operatic airs on the
piano, I am at their service. I think I also understand
dressing, flirting, and receiving compliments
very well. I had a taste for these things and never
had any special motive given me for doing anything
else. What becomes of all the girls thus
taught to be helpless, and then tossed out into the
world to sink or swim?”

“They find some self-sustaining work in it,”
said Edith.

“Not all of them, I guess,” muttered Zell sullenly.

“Then they do worse, and had better starve,”
said Edith sternly.

“You don't know anything about starving,”
retorted Zell, bitterly. “I repeat, it's a burning
shame to bring girls up so that they don't know
how to do anything, if there's ever any possibility
that they must. And it's a worse shame that respect
and encouragement is not given to girls who
earn a living. Mother says that if we become working
girls, not one of our old wealthy, fashionable set
will have anything to do with us. What makes
people act so silly? Any one of them on the
Avenue may be where we are in a year. I've no
patience with the ways of the world. People don't

help each other to be good, and don't help
others up. Grown up folks act like children. How
parents can look forward to the barest chance of
their children being poor, and bring them up as
we were, I don't see. I'm no more fit to be poor,
than to be President.”

Zell never before had said a word that reflected
on her father, but in the light of events her criticism
seemed so just that no one reproved her.

Mrs. Allen only sighed over her part of the implied
blame. She had reached the hopeless stage
of one lost in a foreign land where the language is
unknown and every sight and sound unfamiliar
and bewildering. This weak fashionable woman,
the costly product of an artificial luxurious life,
seemed capable of being little better than a mill-stone
around the necks of her children in this hour
of their need. If there had been some innate
strength and nobility in Mrs. Allen's character, it
might have developed now into something worthy
of respect under this sharp attrition of trouble,
however perverted before. But where a precious
stone will take lustre a pumice stone will crumble.
There is a multitude of natures so weak to begin
with that they need tonic treatment all through
life. What must such become under the influence
of enervating luxury, flattery and uncurbed selfishness
from childhood? Poor, faded, sighing, helpless
Mrs. Allen, shivering before the trouble she had
largely occasioned, is the answer.

Edith soon broke the forlorn silence that followed
Zell's outburst by saying,—

“All the blame doesn't rest on the parents. I
might have improved my advantages far better. I
might have so mastered the mere rudiments of an
English education as to be able to teach little children,
but I can scarcely seem to remember a single
thing now.”

“I can remember one thing,” interrupted Zell,
who was fresh from her books, “that there was
mighty little attention given to the rudiments as
you call them, in the fashionable schools to which I
went. To give the outward airs and graces of a
fine lady seemed their whole aim. Accomplishments,
deportment were everything. The way I
was hustled over the rudiments almost takes away
my breath to remember, and I have as remote an
idea of vulgar fractions, as of how to do the vulgar
work before us. I tell you the whole thing is a
cruel farce. If girls are educated like butterflies, it
ought to be made certain that they can live like
butterflies.”

“Well then,” continued Edith. “We ought to
have perfected ourselves in some accomplishment.
They are always in demand. See what some
French and Music teachers obtain.”

“Nonsense,” said Zell pettishly, “you know
well enough that by the time we were sixteen, our
heads were so full of beaux, parties and dress, that
French and music were a bore. We went through
the fashionable mills like the rest, and if father

had continued worth a million or so, no one would
have found fault with our education.”

“We can't help the past now,” said Edith after
a moment, “but I am not so old yet but that I
can choose some kind of work and so thoroughly
master it that I can get the highest price paid for
that form of labor. I wish it could be gardening,
for I have no taste for the shut up work of woman;
sitting in a close room all day with a needle would
be slow suicide to me.”

“Gardening!” said Zell contemptuously. “You
couldn't plough as well as that snuffy old fellow
who scratched your garden about as deeply as a
hen would have done it. A woman can't dig and
hoe in the hot sun, that is, an American girl can't,
and I dont think they ought.”

“Nor I either,” said Mrs. Allen, with some reviving
vitality. “The very idea is horrid.”

“But ploughing, digging and hoeing isn't all of
gardening,” said Edith with some irritation.

“I guess you would make a slim support by just
snipping around among the rose bushes,” retorted
Zell provokingly.

“That's always the way with you, Zell,” said
Edith sharply, “from one extreme to another.
Well what would you like to do?”

“If I had to work I would like housekeeping.
That admits of great variety and activity. I wish
I could open a summer boarding-house up here.
Wouldn't I make it attractive!”

“Such black eyes and red cheeks certainly

would—to the gentlemen,” answered Edith satirically.

“They would be mere accessories. I think I
could give to a boarding-house, that place of hash
and harrowing discomfort, a dainty homelike air.
If father, when he risked a failure, had only put
aside enough to set me up in a boarding-house, I
should have been made.”

“A boarding-house! What horror next?” sighed
Mrs. Allen.

“Don't be alarmed, mother,” said Zell bitterly.
“We can scarcely start one of the forlornest hash
species on ten dollars. I admit I would rather
keep house for a good husband, and it seems to
me I could soon learn to give him the perfection of
a good home,” and her eyes filled with wistful
tears. Dashing them scornfully away, she added
“The idea of a woman loving a man, and letting his
home be dependent on the cruel mercies of foreign
servants! If it's a shame that girls are not taught
to make a living if they need to, it's a worse shame
that they are not taught to keep house. Half the
brides I know of ought to have been arrested and
imprisoned for obtaining property on false pretences.
They had inveigled men into the vain expectation
that they would make a home for them,
when they no more knew how to make a home
than a heaven. The best they can do is to go to
one of those places so satirically called an “intelligence
office,” and import into their elegant house
a small mob of quarrelsome, drunken, dishonest foreigners,

and then they and their husbands live on
such conditions as are permitted. I would be mistress
of my house just as a man is master of his
store or office, and I would know thoroughly how
all kinds of work was done, and see that it was
done thoroughly. If they wouldn't do it, I'd discharge
them. I am satisfied that our bad servants
are the result of bad housekeepers more than anything
else.”

“Poor little Zell,” said Edith, smiling sadly. “I
hope you will have a chance to put your theories
into most happy and successful practice.”

“Little chance of it here in `Bushtown' as Hannibal
calls it,” said Zell sullenly.

“Well,” said Edith, in a kind of desperate tone,
“we've got to decide on something at once. I
will suggest this. Laura must take care of mother,
and teach a few little children if she can get them.
We will give up the parlor to her certain hours. I
will put up a notice in the post office asking for
such patronage, and perhaps we can put an advertisement
in the Pushton Recorder, if it don't cost
too much. Zell, you must take the housekeeping
mainly, for which you have a taste, and help me
with any sewing that I can get. Hannibal will go
into the garden and I will help him there all I can.
I shall go to the village to-morrow and see if I can
find anything to do that will bring in money.”

There was a silent acquiescence in Edith's plan,
for no one had anything else to offer.