THE PORTION 
 OF LABOR 
 
 MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 JEROME" "A NEW ENGLAND NUN" ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 AND LON DON M C M V 
 
Copyright. 1901, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERIC/ 
 
P 9) 7 1 2, 
 
 jr ^ c / / ** 
 
 TO 
 
 HENRY MILLS ALDEN 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " WHAT DID SUCH A GOOD LITTLE GIRL AS 
 YOU BE RUN AWAY FROM FATHER AND 
 MOTHER FOR ?" Frontispiece 
 
 "EVA SPRANG FORWARD AND CLUTCHED 
 
 HIM BY THE ARM " Facing p. 36 
 
 " SHE S GOT HER! SHOUTED THE PEOPLE". 58 
 
 "HE FOUND HIMSELF WALKING HOME FROM 
 
 SCHOOL WITH HER " J 78 
 
 THE VALEDICTORY *9 2 
 
 "I LL STUDY HARD AND TRY TO DO YOU 
 
 CREDIT " 2 4 2 
 
 "THE AWKWARDNESS OF THE SITUATION WAS 
 
 EVIDENTLY OVERCOMING HER" .... 3^2 
 
 " IF YOU WANT TO KILL A GIRL FOR GOING 
 BACK TO WORK TO SAVE HERSELF FROM 
 STARVATION, DO IT ! " " 5*6 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON the west side of Ellen s father s house was a file 
 of Norway spruce-trees, standing with a sharp pointing 
 of dark boughs towards the north, which gave them 
 an air of expectancy of progress. 
 
 Every morning Ellen, whose bedroom faced that 
 way, looked out with a firm belief that she would see 
 them on the other side of the stone wall, advanced several 
 paces towards their native land. She had no doubt of 
 their ability to do so ; their roots, projecting in fibrous 
 sprawls from their trunks, were their feet, and she pict 
 ured them advancing with wide trailings, and rustlings 
 as of green draperies, and a loudening of that dreamy 
 cry of theirs which was to her imagination a cry of 
 homesickness reminiscent of their old life in the White 
 North. When Ellen had first heard the name Norway 
 spruce, way back in her childhood so far back, though 
 she was only seven and a half now, that it seemed to 
 her like a memory from another life she had asked 
 her mother to show her Norway on the map, and her 
 strange convictions concerning the trees had seized 
 her. When her mother said that they had come from 
 that northernmost land of Europe, Ellen, to whose 
 childhood all truth was naked and literal, immediately 
 conceived to herself those veritable trees advancing over 
 the frozen seas around the pole, and down through the 
 
 I 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 vast regions which were painted blue on her map, 
 straight to her father s west yard. There they stood 
 and sang the songs of their own country, with a melan 
 choly sweetness of absence and longing, and were 
 forever thinking to return. Ellen felt always a thrill 
 of happy surprise when she saw them still there of a 
 morning, for she felt that she w r ould miss them sorely 
 when they were gone. She said nothing of all this to 
 her mother; it was one of the secrets of the soul which 
 created her individuality and made her a spiritual birth. 
 She was also silent about her belief concerning the 
 cherry-trees in the east yard. There were three of 
 them, giants of their kind, which filled the east yard 
 every spring as with mountains of white bloom, breath 
 ing wide gusts of honey sweetness, and humming 
 with bees. Ellen believed that these trees had once 
 stood in the Garden of Ederi, but she never expected 
 to find them missing from the east yard of a morning, 
 for she remembered the angel with the flaming sword, 
 and she knew how one branch of the easternmost tree 
 happened to be blasted as if by fire. And she thought 
 that these trees were happy, and never sighed to the 
 wind as the dark evergreens did, because they had still 
 the same blossoms and the same fruit that they had in 
 Eden, and so did not fairly know that they were not 
 there still. Sometimes Ellen, sitting underneath them 
 on a low rib of rock on a May morning, used to fancy 
 with success that she and the trees were together in 
 that first garden which she had read about in the Bible. 
 Sometimes, after one of these successful imaginings, 
 when Ellen s mother called her into the house she would 
 stare at her little daughter uneasily, and give her a 
 spoonful of a bitter spring medicine which she had 
 brewed herself. When Ellen s father, Andrew Brew- 
 ster, came home from the shop, she would speak to him 
 aside as he was washing his hands at the kitchen sink, 
 
 2 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and tell him that it seemed to her that Ellen looked 
 kind of " pindlin ." Then Andrew, before he sat down 
 at the dinner-table, would take Ellen s face in his two 
 moist hands, look at her with anxiety thinly veiled by 
 facetiousness, rub his rough, dark cheek against her 
 soft, white one until he had reddened it, then laugh, 
 and tell her she looked like a bo sn. Ellen never quite 
 knew what her father meant by bo sn, but she under 
 stood that it signified something very rosy and hearty 
 indeed. 
 
 Ellen s father always picked out for her the choicest 
 and tenderest bits of the humble dishes, and his keen 
 eyes were more watchful of her plate than of his own. 
 Always after Ellen s mother had said to her father that 
 she thought Ellen looked pindling he was late about 
 coming home from the shop, and would turn in at the 
 gate laden with paper parcels. Then Ellen would 
 find an orange or some other delicacy beside her plate 
 at supper. Ellen s aunt Eva, her mother s younger 
 sister, who lived with them, would look askance at the 
 tidbit with open sarcasm. " You jest spoil that young 
 one, Fanny," she would say to her sister. 
 
 " You can do jest as you are a mind to with your own 
 young ones when you get them, but you can let mine 
 alone. It s none of your business \vhat her father and 
 me give her to eat; you don t buy it," Ellen s mother 
 would retort. There was the utmost frankness of 
 speech between the two sisters. Neither could have 
 been in the slightest doubt as to what the other thought 
 of her, for it was openly proclaimed to her a dozen times 
 a day, and the conclusion was never complimentary. 
 Ellen learned very early to fonh her own opinions of 
 character from her own intuition, otherwise she would 
 have held her aunt and mother in somewhat slighting 
 estimation, and she loved them both dearly. They 
 were headstrong, violent - tempered women, but she 
 
 3 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 had an instinct for the staple qualities below that sur 
 face turbulence, which was lashed higher by every 
 gust of opposition. These two loud, contending voices, 
 which filled the house before and after shop-hours 
 for Eva worked in the shop with her brother-in-law 
 with a duet of discords instead of harmonies, meant no 
 more to Ellen than the wrangle of the robins in the 
 cherry-trees. She supposed that two sisters always 
 conversed in that way. She never knew why her father, 
 after a fiery but ineffectual attempt to quell the feminine 
 tumult, would send her across the east yard to her 
 grandmother Brewster s, and seat himself on the east 
 door-step in summer, or go down to the store in the 
 winter. She would sit at the window in her grand 
 mother s sitting-room, eating peacefully the slice of 
 pound - cake or cooky with which she was always 
 regaled, and listen to the scolding voices across the 
 yard as she might have listened to any outside dis 
 turbance. She was never sucked into the whirlpool 
 of wrath which seemed to gyrate perpetually in her 
 home, and wondered at her grandmother Brewster s 
 impatient exclamations concerning the poor child, and 
 her poor boy, and that it was a shame and a disgrace, 
 when now and then a louder explosion of wrath struck 
 her ears. 
 
 Ellen s grandmother Mrs. Zelotes Brewster, as 
 she was called, though her husband Zelotes had been 
 dead for many years was an aristocrat by virtue of in 
 born prejudices and convictions, in despite of circum 
 stances. The neighbors said that Mrs. Zelotes Brewster 
 had always been high-feeling, and had held up her head 
 with the best. It would have been nearer the truth 
 to say that she held up her head above the best. No 
 one seeing the erect old woman, in her draperies of the 
 finest black goods to be bought in the city, could es 
 timate in what heights of thin upper air of spiritual con- 
 
 4 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 sequence her head was elevated. She had always a 
 clear sight of the head-tops of any throng in which she 
 found herself, and queens or duchesses would have been 
 no exception. She would never have failed to find some 
 stool of superior possessions or traits upon which to 
 raise herself, and look down upon crown and coro 
 net. When she read in the papers about the marriage 
 of a New York belle to an English duke, she reflected 
 that the duke could be by no means as fine a figure of 
 a man as Zelotes had been, and as her son Andrew 
 was, although both her husband and son had got all 
 their education in the town schools, and had worked in 
 shoe-shops all their lives. She could have looked at a 
 palace or a castle, and have remained true to the splen 
 dors of her little one-story-and-a-half house with a best 
 parlor and sitting-room, and a shed kitchen for use in 
 hot weather. 
 
 She would not for one instant have been swerved from 
 utmost admiration and faith in her set of white-and-gold 
 wedding china by the contemplation of Copeland and 
 Royal Sevres. She would have pitted her hair-cloth 
 furniture of the ugliest period of household art against 
 all the Chippendales and First Empire pieces in exist 
 ence. 
 
 As Mrs. Zelotes had never seen any household pos 
 sessions to equal her own, let alone to surpass them, 
 she was of the same mind with regard to her husband 
 and his family, herself and her family, her son and 
 little granddaughter. She never saw any gowns 
 and shawls which compared with hers in fineness and 
 richness; she never tasted a morsel of cookery which 
 was not as sawdust when she reflected upon her own; 
 and all that humiliated her in the least, or caused her to 
 feel in the least dissatisfied, was her son s wife and her 
 family and antecedents. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes Brewster had considered that her son 
 
 5 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Andrew was marrying Immeasurably beneath him 
 when he married Fanny Loud, of Loudville. Loudville 
 was a humble, an almost disreputably humble, suburb 
 of the little provincial city. The Louds from whom 
 the locality took its name were never held in much 
 repute, being considered of a stratum decidedly below 
 the ordinary social one of the city. When Andrew told 
 his mother that he was to marry a Loud, she declared 
 that she would not go to his wedding, nor receive 
 the girl at her house, and she kept her word. When 
 one day Andrew brought his sweetheart to his home 
 to call, trusting to her pretty face and graceful though 
 rather sharp manner to win his mother s heart, he found 
 her intrenched in the kitchen, and absolutely indif 
 ferent to the charms of his Fanny in her stylish, albeit 
 somewhat tawdry, finery, though she had peeped to 
 good purpose from her parlor window, which command 
 ed the road, before she fled kitchenward. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes was beating eggs with as firm an im 
 petus as if she were heaving up earth-works to strengthen 
 her own pride when her son thrust his timid face into the 
 kitchen. "Mother, Fanny s in the parlor/ he said, 
 beseechingly. 
 
 "Let her set there, then, if she wants to," said his 
 mother, and that was all she would say. 
 
 Very soon Fanny went home on her lover s arm, 
 freeing her mind with no uncertain voice on the way, 
 though she was on the public road, and within hearing 
 of sharp ears in open windows. Fanny had a pride as 
 fierce as Mrs. Zelotes Brewster s, though it was not so 
 well sustained, and she would then and there have re 
 fused to marry Andrew had she not loved him with all 
 her passionate and ill-regulated heart. But she never 
 forgave her mother-in-law for the slight she had put 
 upon her that day, and the slights which she put 
 upon her later. She would have refused to live next 
 
 6 
 
THE* PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 door to Mrs. Zelotes had not Andrew owned the land 
 and been in a measure forced to build there. Every 
 time she had flaunted out of her new house-door in her 
 wedding finery she had an uncomfortable feeling of 
 defiance under a fire of hostile eyes in the next house. 
 She kept her own windows upon that side as clear and 
 bright as diamonds, and her curtains in the stiffest, 
 snowy slants, lest her terrible mother-in-law should 
 have occasion to impeach her housekeeping, she being 
 a notable housewife. The habits of the Louds of Loud- 
 ville were considered shiftless in the extreme, and poor 
 Fanny had heard an insinuation of Mrs. Zelotes to that 
 effect. 
 
 The elder Mrs. Brewster s knowledge of her son s 
 house and his wife was limited to the view from her 
 west windows, but there was half -truce when little 
 Ellen was born. Mrs. Brewster, who considered that 
 no woman could be obtained with such a fine knowledge 
 of nursing as she possessed, and who had, moreover, a 
 regard for her poor boy s pocket-book, appeared for 
 the first time in his doorway, and opened her heart to 
 her son s child, if not to his wife, whom she began to 
 tolerate. 
 
 However, the two women had almost a hand-to-hand 
 encounter over little Ellen s cradle, the elder Mrs. Brew 
 ster judging that it was for her good to be rocked to sleep, 
 the younger not. Little Ellen herself, however, turned 
 the balance that time in favor of her grandmother, since 
 she cried every time the gentle, swaying motion was 
 hushed, and absolutely refused to go to sleep, and her 
 mother from the first held every course which seemed to 
 contribute to her pleasure and comfort as a sacred duty. 
 At last it came to pass that the two women met only 
 upon that small neutral ground of love, and upon all 
 other territory were sworn foes. Especially was Mrs. 
 Zelotes wroth when Eva Loud, after the death of her 
 
 7 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 father, one of the most worthless and shiftless of the 
 Louds of Loudville, came to live with her married sister. 
 She spoke openly to Fanny concerning her opinion of 
 another woman s coming to live on poor Andrew, and 
 paid no heed to the assertions that Eva would work and 
 pay her way. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes, although she acknowledged it no social 
 degradation for a man to work in a shoe-factory, re 
 garded a woman who worked therein as having hope 
 lessly forfeited her caste. Eva Loud had worked in a 
 shop ever since she was fourteen, and had tagged the 
 grimy and leathery procession of Louds, who worked 
 in shoe-factories when they worked at all, in a short 
 skirt with her hair in a strong black pigtail. There was 
 a kind of bold grace and showy beauty about this Eva 
 Loud which added to Mrs. Zelotes s scorn and dislike. 
 
 " She walks off to work in the shop as proud as if she 
 was going to a party/ she said, and she fairly trembled 
 with anger when she saw the girl set out with her son 
 in the morning. She would have considered it much 
 more according to the eternal fitness of things had her 
 son Andrew been attending a queen whom he would 
 have dropped at her palace on the way. She writhed 
 inwardly whenever little Ellen spoke of her aunt Eva, 
 and would have forbidden her to do so had she dared. 
 
 "To think of that child associating with a shop 
 girl!" she said to Mrs. Pointdexter. Mrs. Pointdexter 
 was her particular friend, whom she regarded with 
 loving tolerance of superiority, though she had been 
 the daughter of a former clergyman of the town, and 
 had wedded another, and might presumably have been 
 accounted herself of a somewhat higher estate. The 
 gentle and dependent clergyman s widow, when she 
 came back to her native city after the death of her hus 
 band, found herself all at once in a pleasant little valley 
 of humiliation at the feet of her old friend, and was 
 
 8 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 contented to abide there. "Perhaps your son s sister- 
 in-law will marry and go away/ she said, consolingly, 
 to Mrs. Zelotes, who indeed lived in that hope. But 
 Eva remained at her sister s, and, though she had ad 
 mirers in plenty, did not marry, and the dissension 
 grew. 
 
 It was an odd thing that, however the sisters quar 
 relled, the minute Andrew tried to take sides with his 
 wife and assail Eva in his turn, Fanny turned and 
 defended her. " I am not going to desert all the sister 
 I have got in the world/ she said. "If you want me 
 to leave, say so, and I will go, but 1 shall never turn 
 Eva out of doors. I would rather go with her and work 
 in the shop." Then the next moment the wrangle 
 would recommence, and the harsh trebles of wrath 
 would swell high. Andrew could not appreciate this 
 savageness of race loyalty in the face of anger and 
 dissension, and his brain reeled with the apparent in 
 consistency of the thing. 
 
 "Sometimes I think they are both crazy/ he used to 
 tell his mother, who .sympathized with him after a 
 covertly triumphant fashion. She never said, "I 
 told you so/ but the thought was evident on her face, 
 and her son saw it there. 
 
 However, he said not a word against his wife, except 
 by implication. Though she and her sister were mak 
 ing his home unbearable, he still loved her, and, even 
 if he did not, he had something of his mother s pride. 
 
 However, at last, when Ellen was almost eight years 
 old, matters came suddenly to a climax one evening in 
 November. The two sisters were having a fiercer dis 
 pute than usual. Eva was taking her sister to task for 
 cutting over a dress of hers for Ellen, Fanny claiming 
 that she had given her permission to do so, and Eva 
 denying it. The child sat listening in her little chair 
 with a look of dawning intelligence of wrath and wicked 
 
 9 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 temper in her face, because she was herself in a manner 
 the cause of the dissension. Suddenly Andrew Brew- 
 ster, with a fiery outburst of inconsequent masculine 
 wrath with the whole situation, essayed to cut the 
 Gordian knot. He grabbed the little dress of bright 
 woollen stuff, which lay partly made upon the table, 
 and crammed it into the stove, and a reek of burning 
 wool filled the room. Then both women turned upon 
 him with a combination of anger to which his wrath 
 was wildfire. 
 
 Andrew caught up little Ellen, who was beginning 
 to look scared, wrapped the first thing he could seize 
 around her, and fairly fled across the yard to his 
 mother s. Then he sat down and wept like a boy, 
 and his pride left him at last. "Oh, mother/ he 
 sobbed, " if it were not for the child, I would go away, 
 for my home is a hell!" 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes stood clasping little Ellen, who clung 
 to her, trembling. "Well, come over here with me/ 
 she said, "you and Ellen." 
 
 "Live here in the next housej" said Andrew. "Do 
 you suppose Fanny would have the child living under 
 her very eyes in the next house? No, there is no way 
 out of the misery no way; but if it was not for the 
 child, I would go!" 
 
 Andrew burst out in such wild sobs that his mother 
 released Ellen and ran to him ; and the child, trembling 
 and crying with a curious softness, as of fear at being 
 heard, ran out of the house and back to her home. " Oh, 
 mother," she cried, breaking in upon the dialogue of 
 anger which was still going on there with her little 
 tremulous flute "oh, mother, father is crying!" 
 
 "I don t care," answered her mother, fiercely, her 
 temper causing her to lose sight of the child s agitation. 
 " I don t care. If it wasn t for you, I would leave him. 
 I wouldn t live as I am doing. I would leave everybody. 
 
 10 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 I am tired of this awful life. Oh, if it wasn t for you, 
 Ellen, I would leave everybody and start fresh!" 
 
 "You can leave me whenever you want to," said 
 Eva, her handsome face burning red with wrath, and 
 she went out of the room, which was suffocating with 
 the fumes of the burning wool, tossing her black head, 
 all banged and coiled in the latest fashion. 
 
 Of late years Fanny had sunk her personal vanity 
 further and further in that for her child. She brushed 
 her own hair back hard from her temples, and candidly 
 revealed all her unyouthful lines, and dwelt fondly 
 upon the arrangement of little Ellen s locks, which 
 were of a fine, pale yellow, as clear as the color of amber. 
 
 She never recut her skirts or her sleeves, but she 
 studied anxiously all the slightest changes in chil 
 dren s fashions. After her sister had left the room 
 with a loud bang of the door, she sat for a moment 
 gazing straight ahead, her face working, then she 
 burst into such a passion of hysterical wailing as the 
 child had never heard. Ellen, watching her mother 
 with eyes so frightened and full of horror that there 
 was no room for childish love and pity in them, grew 
 very pale. She had left the door by which she had 
 entered open ; she gazed one moment at her mother, 
 then she turned and slipped out of the room, and, open 
 ing the outer door softly, though her mother would 
 not have heard nor noticed, went out of the house. 
 
 Then she ran as fast as she could down the frozen 
 road, a little, dark figure, passing as rapidly as the 
 shadow of a cloud between the earth and the full moon. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE greatest complexity in the world attends the 
 motive-power of any action. Infinite perspectives of 
 mental mirrors reflect the whys of all doing. An adult 
 with long practice in analytic introspection soon be 
 comes bewildered when he strives to evolve the primary 
 and fundamental reasons for his deeds; a child so 
 striving would be lost in unexpected depths; but a 
 child never strives. A child obeys unquestioningly 
 and absolutely its own spiritual impellings without 
 a backward glance at them. 
 
 Little Ellen Brewster ran down the road that Novem 
 ber night, and did not know then, and never knew 
 afterwards, why she ran. Loving renunciation was 
 surging high in her childish heart, giving an indication 
 of tidal possibilities for the future, and there was also a 
 bitter, angry hurt of slighted dependency and affection. 
 Had she not heard them say, her own mother and father 
 say, that they would be better off and happier with her 
 out of the way, and she their dearest loved and most 
 carefully cherished possession in the whole world? It 
 is a cruel fall for an apple of the eye to the ground, for 
 / ) its law of gravitation is of the soul, and its fall shocks 
 the infinite. Little Ellen felt herself sorely hurt by her 
 fall from such fair heights; she was pierced by the 
 sharp thorns of selfish interests which flourish below all 
 the heavenward windows of life. 
 
 Afterwards, when her mother and father tried to make 
 her tell them why she ran away, she could not say; 
 the answer was beyond her own power. 
 
 12 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 There was no snow on the ground, but the earth was 
 frozen in great ribs after a late thaw. Ellen ran pain 
 fully between the ridges which a long line of ice-wagons 
 had made with their heavy wheels earlier in the day. 
 When the spaces between the ridges were too narrow 
 for her little feet, she ran along the crests, and that was 
 precarious. She fell once and bruised one of her delicate 
 knees, then she fell again, and struck the knee on the 
 same place. It hurt her, and she caught her breath 
 with a gasp of pain. She pulled up her little frock and 
 touched her hand to her knee, and felt it wet, then she 
 whimpered on the lonely road, and, curiously enough, 
 there was pity for her mother as well as for herself in 
 her solitary grieving. "Mother would feel pretty bad 
 if she knew how I was hurt, enough to make it bleed/ 
 she murmured, between her soft sobs. Ellen did not 
 dare cry loudly, from a certain unvoiced fear which 
 she had of shocking the stillness of the night, and 
 also from a delicate sense of personal dignity, and a 
 dislike of violent manifestations of feeling which had 
 strengthened with her growth in the midst of the tur 
 bulent atmosphere of her home. Ellen had the softest 
 childish voice, and she never screamed or shouted when 
 excited. Instead of catching the motion of the wind, 
 she still lay before it, like some slender-stemmed flower. 
 If Ellen had made much outcry with the hurt in her 
 heart and the smart of her knee, she might have been 
 heard, for the locality was thickly settled, though not 
 in the business portion of the little city. The houses, 
 set prosperously in the midst of shaven lawns for this 
 was a thrifty and emulative place, and democracy held 
 up its head confidently were built closely along the 
 road, though that was lonely and deserted at that hour. 
 It was the hour between half-past six and half-past 
 seven, when people were lingering at their supper-tables, 
 and had not yet started upon their evening pursuits, 
 
 13 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 The lights shone for the most part from the rear windows 
 of the houses, and there was a vague compound odor 
 of tea and bread and beefsteak in the air. Poor Ellen 
 had not had her supper; the wrangle at home had dis 
 missed it from everybody s mind. She felt more pitiful 
 towards her mother and herself when she smelt the 
 food and reflected upon that. To think of her going 
 away without any supper, all alone in the dark night! 
 There was no moon, and the solemn brilliancy of the 
 stars made her think with a shiver of awe of the Old 
 Testament and the possibility of the Day of Judgment. 
 Suppose it should come, and she all alone out in the 
 night, in the midst of all those worlds and the great 
 White Throne, without her mother? Ellen s grand 
 mother, who was of a stanch orthodox breed, and was, 
 moreover, anxious to counteract any possible detriment 
 as to religious training from contact with the degenerate 
 Louds of Loudville, had established a strict course of 
 Bible study for her granddaughter at a very early age. 
 All celestial phenomena were, in consequence trans 
 posed into a Biblical key for the child, and she regarded 
 the heavens swarming with golden stars as a Hebrew 
 child of a thousand years ago might have done. 
 
 She was glad when she came within the radius of a 
 street light from time to time; they were stationed at 
 wide intervals in that neighborhood. Soon, however, 
 she reached the factories, when all mystery and awe, 
 and vague terrors of what beside herself might be near 
 unrevealed beneath the mighty brooding of the night, 
 were over. She was, as it were, in the mid-current of 
 the conditions of her own life and times, and the material 
 force of it swept away all symbolisms and unstable 
 drift, and left only the bare rocks and shores of exist 
 ence. Always when the child had been taken by one 
 of her elders past the factories, humming like gigantic 
 hives, with their windows alert with eager eyes of toil, 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 glancing out at her over bench and machine, Ellen 
 had seen her secretly cherished imaginings recede into 
 a night of distance like stars, and she had felt her little 
 footing upon the earth with a shock, and had clung 
 more closely to the leading hand of love. " That s 
 where your poor father works/ her grandmother would 
 say. "Maybe you ll have to work there some day/ 
 her aunt Eva had said once ; and her mother, who had 
 been with her also, had cried out sharply as if she had 
 been stung, "I guess that little delicate thing ain t 
 never goin to work in a shoe-shop, Eva Loud." And 
 her aunt Eva had laughed, and declared with emphasis 
 that she guessed there was no need to worry yet awhile. 
 
 "She never shall, while I live," her mother had cried; 
 and then Eva, coming to her sister s aid against her 
 own suggestion, had declared, with a vehemence which 
 frightened Ellen, that she would burn the shop down 
 herself first. 
 
 As for Ellen s father, he never at that time dwelt 
 upon the child s future as much as his wife did, having a 
 masculine sense of the instability of houses of air which 
 prevented him from entering them without a shivering 
 of walls and roof into naught but star-mediums by his 
 downrightness of vision. "Oh, let the child be, can t 
 you, Fanny?" he said, when his wife speculated whether 
 Ellen would be or do this or that when she should be a 
 woman. He resented the conception of the woman 
 which would swallow up, like some metaphysical sorcer 
 ess, his fair little child. So when he now and then 
 led Ellen past the factories it was never with the slightest 
 surmise as to any connection which she might have 
 with them beyond the present one. " There s the shop 
 where father works," he would tell Ellen, with a tender 
 sense of his own importance in his child s eyes, and he 
 was as proud as Punch when Ellen was able to point 
 with her tiny pink finger at the window where father 
 
 15 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 worked. " That s where father works and earns money 
 to buy nice things for little Ellen/ Andrew would 
 repeat, beaming at her with divine foolishness, and 
 Ellen looked at the roaring, vibrating building as she 
 might have looked at the wheels of progress. She 
 realized that her father was very great and smart to 
 work in a place like that, and earn money so much 
 of it. Ellen often heard her mother remark with pride 
 how much money Andrew earned. 
 
 To-night, when Ellen passed in her strange flight, 
 the factories were still, though they were yet blazing 
 with light. The gigantic buildings, after a style of 
 architecture as simple as a child s block house, and 
 adapted to as primitive an end, loomed up beside the 
 road like windowed shells enclosing massive concrete- 
 nesses of golden light. They looked entirely vacant 
 except for light, for the workmen had all gone home, 
 and there were only the keepers in the buildings. There 
 were three of them, representing three different firms, 
 rival firms, grouped curiously close together, but Lloyd s 
 was much the largest. Andrew and Eva worked in 
 Lloyd s. 
 
 She was near the last factory when she met a man 
 hastening along with bent shoulders, of intent, middle- 
 aged progress. After he had passed her with a careless 
 glance at the small, swift figure, she smelt coffee. He 
 was carrying home a pound for his breakfast supply. 
 That suddenly made her cry, though she did not know 
 why. That familiar odor of home and the wontedness 
 of life made her isolation on her little atom of the un 
 usual more pitiful. The man turned round sharply 
 when she sobbed. "Hullo! what s the matter, sis?" 
 he called back, in a pleasant, hoarse voice. Ellen did 
 not answer; she fled as if she had wings on her feet. 
 The man had many children of his own, and was ac 
 customed to their turbulence over trifles. He kept on, 
 
 }6 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thinking that there was a sulky child who had been sent 
 on an errand against her will, that it was not late, and 
 she was safe enough on that road. He resumed his 
 calculation as to whether his income would admit of a 
 new coal-stove that winter. He was a workman in a 
 factory, with one accumulative interest in life coal- 
 stoves. He bought and traded and swapped coal- 
 stoves every winter with keenest enthusiasm. Now 
 he had one in his mind which he had just viewed in a 
 window with the rapture of an artist. It had a little 
 nickel statuette on the top, and that quite crowded Ellen 
 out of his mind, which had but narrow accommodations. 
 So Ellen kept on unmolested, though her heart was 
 beating loud with fright. When she came into the 
 brilliantly lighted stretch of Main. Street, which was the 
 business centre of the city, her childish mind was partly 
 diverted from herself. Ellen had not been down town 
 many times of an evening, and always in hand of her 
 hurrying father or mother. Now she had run away 
 and cut loose from all restrictions of time ; there was an 
 eternity for observation before her, with no call in-doors 
 in prospect. She stopped at the first bright shop win 
 dow, and suddenly the exultation of freedom was over 
 the child. She tasted the sweets of rebellion and dis 
 obedience. She had stood before that window once 
 before of an evening, and her aunt Eva had been with 
 her, and one of her young men friends had come 
 up behind, and they had gone on, the child dragging 
 backward at her aunt s hand. Now she could stand as 
 long as she wished, and stare and stare, and drink in 
 everything which her childish imagination craved, 
 and that was much. The imagination of a child is 
 often like a voracious maw, seizing upon all that comes 
 within reach, and producing spiritual indigestions and 
 assimilations almost endless in their effects upon the 
 growth. This window before which Ellen stoocl was 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 that of a market : a great expanse of plate-glass fram 
 ing a crude study in the clearest color tones. It takes 
 a child or an artist to see a picture without the intru 
 sion of its second dimension of sordid use and the gross 
 reflection of humanity. 
 
 Ellen looked at the great shelf laid upon with flesh 
 and vegetables and fruits with the careless precision 
 of a kaleidoscope, and did not for one instant connect 
 anything thereon with the ends of physical appetite, 
 though she had not had her supper. What had a meal 
 of beefsteak and potatoes and squash served on the 
 little white-laid table at home to do with those great 
 golden globes w r hich made one end of the window like 
 the remove from a mine, those satin-smooth spheres, 
 those cuts as of red and white marble? She had eaten 
 apples, but these were as the apples of the gods, lying 
 in a heap of opulence, with a precious light-spot like 
 a ruby on every outward side. The turnips affected 
 her imagination like ivory carvings : she did not rec 
 ognize them for turnips at all. She never afterwards 
 believed them to be turnips ; and as for cabbages, they 
 were green inflorescences of majestic bloom. There 
 is one position from which all common things can be 
 seen with reflections of preciousness, and Ellen had 
 insensibly taken it. The window and the shop behind 
 were illuminated with the yellow glare of gas, but the 
 glass was filmed here and there with frost, which tem 
 pered it as with a veil. In the background rosy-faced 
 men in white frocks were moving to and fro, customers 
 were passing in and out, but they were all glorified to 
 the child. She did not see them as butchers, and as 
 men and women selling and buying dinners. 
 
 However, all at once everything was spoiled, for her 
 fairy castle of illusion or a higher reality was demolished, 
 and that not by any blow of practicality, but by pity 
 and sentiment. Ellen was a woman-child, and suddenly 
 
 18 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 she struck the rock upon which women so often wreck 
 or effect harbor, whichever it may be. All at once she 
 looked up from the dazzling mosaic of the window and 
 saw the dead partridges and grouse hanging in their 
 rumpled brown mottle of plumage, and the dead rabbits, 
 long and stark, with their fur pointed with frost, hanging 
 in a piteous headlong company, and all her delight and 
 wonder vanished, and she came down to the hard ac 
 tualities of things. "Oh, the poor birds!" she cried 
 out in her heart. "Oh, the poor birds, and the poor 
 bunnies!" 
 
 Just at that mpment, when the sudden rush of com 
 passion and indignation had swollen her heart to the 
 size of a woman s, and given it the aches of one, when 
 her eyes were so dilated with the sight of helpless injury 
 and death that they reflected the mystery of it and lost 
 the outlook of childhood, when her pretty baby mouth 
 was curved like an inverted bow of love with the im 
 pulse of tears, Cynthia Lennox came up the street and 
 stopped short when she reached her. 
 
 Suddenly Ellen felt some one pressing close to her, 
 and, looking up, saw a woman, only middle-aged, but 
 whom she thought very old, because her hair was white, 
 standing looking at her very keenly with clear, light- 
 blue eyes under a high, pale forehead, from which the 
 gray hair was combed uncompromisingly back. The 
 woman had been a beauty once, of a delicate, nervous 
 type, and had a certain beauty now, a something which 
 had endured like the fineness of texture of a web when 
 its glow of color has faded. Her black garments draped 
 her with sober richness, and there was a gleam of dark 
 fur when the wind caught her cloak. A small tuft of 
 ostrich plumes nodded from her bonnet. Ellen smelt 
 flowers vaguely, and looked at the lady s hand, but she 
 did not carry any. 
 
 "Whose little girl are you?" Cynthia Lennox asked, 
 
 19 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 softly, and Ellen did not answer. " Can t you tell me 
 whose little girl you are?" Cynthia Lennox asked again. 
 Ellen did not speak, but there was the swift nicker of a 
 thought over her face which told her name as plainly as 
 language if the woman had possessed the skill to in 
 terpret it. 
 
 "Ellen Brewster Ellen Brewster is my name/ Ellen 
 said to herself very hard, and that was how she endured 
 the reproach of her own silence. 
 
 The woman looked at her with surprise and admira 
 tion that were fairly passionate. Ellen was a beautiful 
 child, with a face like a white flower. People had al 
 ways turned to look after her, she was so charming, 
 and had caused her mother s heart to swell with pride. 
 " The way everybody we met has stared after that child 
 to-day!" she would whisper her husband when she 
 brought Ellen home from some little expedition; then 
 the two would look at the little one s face with the one 
 holy vanity of the world. Ellen wore to-night the little 
 white shawl which her father had caught up when he 
 carried her over to her grandmother s. She held it 
 tightly together under her chin with one tiny hand, and 
 her face looked out from between the soft folds with the 
 absolute purity of curve and color of a pearl. 
 
 "Oh, you darling!" said the woman, suddenly; 
 "you darling!" and Ellen shrank away from her. 
 " Don t be afraid, dear," said Cynthia Lennox. " Don t 
 be afraid, only tell me who you are. What is your name, 
 dear?" But Ellen remained silent; only, as she shrank 
 aloof, her eyes grew wild and bright with startled tears, 
 and her sweet baby mouth quivered piteously. She 
 wanted to run, but the habit of obedience was so strong 
 upon her little mind that she feared to do so. This 
 strange woman seemed to have gotten her in some 
 invisible leash. 
 
 "Tell me what your name is, darling/ said the 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 woman, but she might as well have importuned a flower. 
 Ellen was proof against all commands in that direction. 
 She suddenly felt the furry sweep of the lady s cloak 
 against her cheek, and a nervous, tender arm drawing 
 her close, though she strove feebly to resist. " You 
 are cold, you have nothing on but this little white shawl, 
 and perhaps you are hungry. What were you looking 
 in this window for ? Tell me, dear, where is your mother ? 
 She did not send you on an errand, such a little girl 
 as you are, so late on such a cold night, with no more 
 on than this?" 
 
 A tone of indignation crept into the lady s voice. 
 
 "No, mother didn t send me/ Ellen said, speaking 
 for the first time. 
 
 "Then did you run away, dear?" Ellen was silent. 
 "Oh, if you did, darling, you must tell me where you 
 live, what your father s name is, and I will take you 
 home. Tell me, dear. If it is far, I will get a carriage, 
 and you shall ride home. Tell me, dear." 
 
 There was an utmost sweetness of maternal persuasion 
 in Cynthia Lennox s voice ; Ellen was swayed by it as a 
 child might have been swayed by the magic pipe of the 
 Pied Piper of Hamelin. She half yielded to her lead 
 ing motion, then she remembered. "No," she cried out, 
 with a sob of utter desolation. " No, no." 
 
 "Why not, dear?" 
 
 " They don t want ; they don t want. No, no !" 
 
 " They don t want you ? Your own father and mother 
 don t want you? Darling, what is the matter?" But 
 Ellen was dumb again. She stood sobbing, with a 
 painful restraint, and pulling futilely from the lady s 
 persuasive hand. But it ended in the mastery of the 
 child. Suddenly Cynthia Lennox gathered her up 
 in her arms under her great fur-lined cloak, and carried 
 her a little farther down the street, then across it to a 
 dwelling-house, one of the very few which had with- 
 
 21 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 stood/the march of business blocks on this crowded main 
 streefof the provincial city. A few people looked curi 
 ously at the lady carrying such a heavy, weeping child, 
 but she met no one whom she knew, and the others 
 looked indifferently away after a second backward 
 stare. Cynthia Lennox was one to bear herself with 
 such dignity over all jolts of circumstances that she 
 might almost convince others of her own exemption 
 from them. Her mental bearing disproved the evi 
 dence of the senses, and she could have committed a 
 crime with such consummate self-poise and grace as 
 to have held a crowd in abeyance with utter distrust 
 of their own eyes before such unquestioning confidence 
 in the sovereignty of the situation. Cynthia Lennox 
 had always had her own way except in one respect, 
 and that experience had come to her lately. 
 
 Though she was such a slender woman, she seemed 
 to have great strength in her arms, and she bore Ellen 
 easily and as if she had been used to such a burden. 
 She wrapped her cloak closely around the child. 
 
 "Don t be afraid, darling/ she kept whispering. 
 Ellen panted in bewilderment, and a terror which was 
 half assuaged by something like fascination. 
 
 She was conscious of a soft smother of camphor, in 
 which the fur-lined cloak had lain through the summer, 
 and of that flower odor, which was violets, though she 
 did not know it. Only the wild American scentless ones 
 had come in little Ellen s way so far. 
 
 She felt herself carried up steps, then a door was 
 thrown open, and a warm breath of air came in her face, 
 and the cloak was tossed back, and she was set softly 
 on the floor. The hall in which she stood seemed very 
 bright ; she blinked and rubbed her eyes. 
 
 The lady stood over her, laughing gently, and when 
 the child looked up at her, seemed much younger than 
 she had at first, very young in spite of her white hair. 
 
 22 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 There was a soft red on her cheek; her lips looked full 
 and triumphant with smiles; her eyes were like stars. 
 An emotion of her youth which had never become dulled 
 by satisfaction fyad suddenly blossomed out on her 
 face, and transformed it. An unassuaged longing 
 may serve to preserve youth as well as an undestroyed 
 illusion; indeed, the two are one. Cynthia Lennox 
 looked at the child as if she had been a young mother, 
 and she her first-born; triumph over the future, and 
 daring for all odds, and perfect faith in the kingdom of 
 joy were in her look. Had she nursed one child like 
 Ellen to womanhood, and tasted the bitter in the cup, 
 she would not have been capable of that look, and would 
 have been as old as her years. She threw off her cloak 
 and took off her bonnet, and the light struck her hair and 
 made it look like silver. A brooch in the laces at her 
 throat shone with a thousand hues, and as Ellen gazed 
 at it she felt curiously dull and dizzy. She did not re 
 sist at all when the lady removed her little white shawl, 
 but stared at her with the look of some small and help 
 less thing in too large a grasp of destiny to admit of a 
 struggle. "Oh, you darling!" Cynthia Lennox said, 
 and stooped and kissed her, and half carried her into a 
 great, warm, dazzling room, with light reflected in long 
 lines of gold from picture-frames on the wall, and now 
 and then startling patches of lurid color blazing forth 
 unmeaningly from the dark incline of their canvases, 
 with gleams of crystal and shadows of bronze in set 
 tings of fretted ebony, with long sway ings of rich 
 draperies at doors and windows, a red light of fire in 
 a grate, and two white lights, one of piano keys, the 
 other of a flying marble figure in a corner, outlined 
 clearly against dusky red. The light in this room was 
 very dim. It was all beyond Ellen s imagination. The 
 White North where the Norway spruces lived would not 
 have seemed as strange to her as this. Neither would 
 
 23 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Bluebeard s Castle, nor the House that Jack Built, nor 
 the Palace of King Solomon, nor the tent in which 
 lived little Joseph in his coat of many colors, nor even 
 the Garden of Eden, nor Noah s Ark. Her imagina 
 tion had not prepared her for a room like this. She 
 had formed her ideas of rooms upon her grandmoth 
 er s and her mother s and the neighbors best parlors, 
 with their glories of crushed plush and gilt and onj^x 
 and cheap lace and picture - throws and lambrequins. 
 This room was such a heterodoxy against her creed 
 of civilization that it did not look beautiful to her as 
 much as strange and bewildering, and when she was 
 bidden to sit down in a little inlaid precious chair she 
 put down her tiny hand and reflected, with a sense of 
 strengthening of her household faith, that her grand 
 mother had beautiful, smooth, shiny hair-cloth. 
 
 Cynthia Lennox pulled the chair close to the fire, 
 and bade her hold out her little feet to the blaze to warm 
 them well. "I am afraid you are chilled, darling/ 
 she said, and looked at her sitting there in her dainty 
 little red cashmere frock, with her spread of baby-yellow 
 r over her shoulders. Then Ellen thought that the 
 lady was younger than her mother ; but her mother had 
 borne her and nursed her, and suffered and eaten of 
 the tree of knowledge, and tasted the bitter after the 
 sweet ; and this other woman was but as a child in the 
 garden, though she was fairly old. But along with 
 Ellen s conviction of the lady s youth had come a con 
 viction of her power, and she yielded to her unques- 
 tioningly. Whenever she came near her she gazed 
 with dilating eyes upon the blazing circle of diamonds 
 at her throat. 
 
 When she was bidden, she followed the lady into the 
 dining-room, where the glitter of glass and silver and 
 the soft gleam of precious china made her think for a 
 little while that she must be in a store. She had never 
 
 24 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 seen anything like this except in a store, when she had 
 been with her mother to buy a lamp-chimney. So she 
 decided this to be a store, but she said nothing. She 
 did not speak at all, but she ate her biscuits, and slice 
 of breast of chicken, and sponge-cake, and drank her 
 milk. 
 
 She had her milk in a little silver cup which seemed 
 as if it might have belonged to another child; she also 
 sat in a small high-chair, which made it seem as if an 
 other child had lived or visited in the house. Ellen 
 became singularly possessed with this sense of the pres 
 ence of a child, and when the door opened she would 
 look around for her to enter, but it was always an old 
 black woman with a face of imperturbable bronze, which 
 caused her to huddle closer into her chair when she drew 
 near. 
 
 There were not many colored people in the city, and 
 Ellen had never seen any except at Long Beach, where 
 she had sometimes gone to have a shore dinner with 
 her mother and Aunt Eva. Then she always used to 
 shrink when the black waiter drew near, and her mother 
 and aunt would be convulsed with furtive mirth. " See 
 the little gump," her mother would say in the tender est 
 tone, and look about to see if others at the other tables 
 saw how cunning she was what a charming little 
 goose to be afraid of a colored waiter. 
 
 Ellen saw nobody except the lady and the black 
 woman, but she was still sure that there was a child in 
 the house, and after supper, when she was taken up 
 stairs to bed, she peeped through every open door with 
 the expectation of seeing her. 
 
 But she was so weary and sleepy that her curiosity 
 and capacity for any other emotion was blunted. She 
 had become simply a little, tired, sleepy animal. She 
 let herself be undressed; she was not even moved to 
 much self-pity when the lady discovered the cruel 
 
 25 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 bruise on her delicate knee, and kissed it, and dressed 
 it with a healing salve. She was put into a little 
 night-gown which she knew dreamily belonged to that 
 other child, and was laid in a little bedstead which she 
 noted to be made of gold, with floating lace over the 
 head. 
 
 She sleepily noted, too, that there were flowers on 
 the walls, and more floating lace over the bureau. This 
 room did not look so strange to her as the others; she 
 had somehow from the treasures of her fancy provided 
 the family of big bears and little bears with a similar 
 one. Then, too, one of the neighbors, Mrs. George 
 Crocker, had read many articles in women s papers 
 relative to the beautifying of homes, and had furnished 
 a wonderful chamber with old soap-boxes and rolls of 
 Japanese paper which was a sort of a cousin many times 
 removed of this. When she was in bed the lady kissed 
 her, and called her darling, and bade her sleep well, 
 and not be afraid, she was in the next room, and could 
 hear if she spoke. Then she stood looking at her, and 
 Ellen thought that she must be younger than Minnie 
 Swensen, who lived on her street, and wore a yellow 
 pigtail, and went to the high-school. Then she closed 
 her heavy eyes, and forgot to cry about her poor father 
 and mother ; still, there was, after all, a hurt about them 
 down in her childish heart, though a great wave of new 
 circumstances had rolled on her shore and submerged 
 for the time her memory and her love, even, she was so 
 feeble and young. 
 
 She slept very soundly, and awoke only once, about 
 two o clock in the morning. Then a passing lantern 
 flashed into the chamber into her eyes, and woke her 
 up, but she only sighed and stretched drowsily, then 
 turned her little body over with a luxurious roll and 
 went to sleep again. 
 
 It was poor Andrew Brewster s lantern which flashed 
 26 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 in her eyes, for he was out with a posse of police and 
 sympathizing neighbors and friends searching for his 
 lost little girl. He was frantic, and when he came 
 under the gas-lights from time to time the men that 
 saw him shuddered; they would not have known him, 
 for almost the farthest agony of which he was capable 
 had changed his face 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BY the next morning all the city was in a commotion 
 over little Ellen s disappearance. Woods on the out 
 skirts were being searched, ponds were being dragged, 
 posters with a stare of dreadful meaning in large charac 
 ters of black and white were being pasted all over the 
 fences and available barns, and already three of the 
 local editors had been to the Brewster house to obtain 
 particulars and photographs of the missing child for 
 reproduction in the city papers. 
 
 The first train from Boston brought two reporters 
 representing great dailies. 
 
 Fanny Brewster, white - cheeked, with the rasped 
 redness of tears around her eyes and mouth, clad in her 
 blue calico wrapper, received them in her best parlor. 
 Eva had made a fire in the best parlor stove early that 
 morning. "Folks will be comin in all day, I expect/ 
 said she, speaking with nervous catches of her breath. 
 Ever since the child had been missed, Eva s anxiety 
 had driven her from point to point of unrest as with a 
 stinging lash. She had pelted bareheaded down the 
 road and up the road ; she had invaded all the neighbors 
 houses, insisting upon looking through their farthest 
 and most unlikely closets ; she had even penetrated to 
 the woods, and joined wild-eyed the groups of peering 
 workers on the shore of the nearest pond. That she 
 could not endure long, so she had rushed home to her 
 sister, who was either pacing her sitting-room with 
 inarticulate murmurs and wails of distress in the sym 
 pathizing ears of several of the neighboring women, 
 
 28 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 or else was staring with haggard eyes of fearful hope 
 from a window. When she looked from the eastern 
 window she could see her mother-in-law, Mrs. Zelotes 
 Brewster, at an opposite one, sitting immovable, with 
 her Bible in her lap, prayer in her heart, and an eye of 
 grim holding to faith upon the road for the fulfilment 
 of promise. She felt all her muscles stiffen with anger 
 when she saw the wild eyes of the child s mother at 
 the other window. "It is all her fault/ she said to 
 herself " all her fault hers and that bold trollop of a 
 sister of hers." When she saw Eva run down the road, 
 with her black hair rising like a mane to the morning 
 wind, she was an embodiment of an imprecatory psalm. 
 When, later on, she saw the three editors coming Mr. 
 Walsey, of The Spy, and Mr. Jones, of The Observer, 
 and young Joe Bemis, of The Star, on his bicycle she 
 watched jealously to see if they were admitted. When 
 Fanny s head disappeared from the eastern window 
 she knew that Eva had let them in and Fanny was 
 receiving them in the parlor. "She will tell them all 
 about the words they had last night, that made the dear 
 child run away," she thought. "All the town will 
 know what doings there are in our family." Mrs. 
 Zelotes made up her mind to a course of action. Each 
 editor was granted a long audience with Fanny and 
 Eva, who entertained them with hysterical solemnity 
 and displayed Ellen s photographs in the red plush 
 album, from the last, taken in her best white frock, to 
 one when she was three weeks old, and seeming weakly 
 and not likely to live. This had been taken by a photog 
 rapher summoned to the house at great expense. " Her 
 father has never spared expense for Ellen," said Fanny, 
 with an outburst of grief. "That s so," said Eva. 
 "Ill testify to that. Andrew Brewster never thought 
 anything was too good for that young one." Then she 
 burst out with a sob louder than her sister s. Eva had 
 
 29 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 usually a coarsely well-kempt appearance, her heavy 
 black hair being securely twisted, and her neck ribbons 
 tied with smart jerks of neatness; but to-day her hair 
 was still in the fringy braids of yesterday, and her 
 cotton blouse humped untidily in the back. Her face 
 was red and her lips swollen; she looked like a very 
 bacchante of sorrow, and as if she had been on some 
 mad orgy of grief. 
 
 Mr. Walsey, of The Spy, who had formerly conducted 
 a paper in a college town and was not accustomed to 
 the feminine possibilities of manufacturing localities, 
 felt almost afraid of her. He had never seen a woman 
 of that sort, and thought vaguely of the French Revolu 
 tion and fish-wives when she gave vent to her distress 
 over the loss of the child. He fairly jumped when she 
 cut short a question of his with a volley of self-recrimina 
 tory truths, accompanied with fierce gesturing. He 
 stood back involuntarily out of reach of those power 
 ful, waving arms. " Do I know of any reason for the 
 child to run away?" shrieked Eva, in a voice shrilly 
 hideous with emotion, now and then breaking into 
 hoarseness with the strain of tears. " I guess I know 
 why, I guess I do, and I wish I had been six foot under 
 ground before I did what I did. It was all my fault, 
 every bit of it. When I got home, and found that Fan 
 had been making that precious young one a dress out 
 of my old blue one, I pitched into her for it, and she 
 gave it back to me, and then we jawed, and kept it 
 up, till Andrew, he grabbed the dress and flung it into 
 the fire, and did just right, too, and took Ellen and 
 run over to old lady Brewster s with her ; then Ellen, 
 she see him cryin , and it scared her most to death, 
 poor little thing, and she heard him say that if it 
 wasn t for her he d quit, and then she come runnin 
 home to her mother and me, and her mother said the 
 same thing, and then that poor young one, she 
 
 30 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thought she wa n t wanted nowheres, and she run. 
 She always was as easy to hurt as a baby robin; it 
 didn t take nothing to set her all of a flutter and a 
 twitter; and now she s just flown out of the nest. Oh, 
 my God, I wish my tongue had been torn out by the 
 roots before I d said a word about her blessed little 
 dress; I wish Fan had cut up every old rag I ve got; 
 I d go dressed in fig-leaves before I d had it happen. 
 Oh! oh! oh!" 
 
 Young Joe Bemis, of The Star, was the first to leave, 
 whirling madly and precariously down the street on 
 his wheel, which was dizzily tall in those days. Mrs. 
 Zelotes, hailing him from her open window, might as 
 well have hailed the wind. Her family dissensions were 
 w r ell aired in The Star next morning, and she always 
 kept the cutting at the bottom of a little rosewood work- 
 box where she stored away divers small treasures, and 
 never looked at the box without a swift dart of pain as 
 from a hidden sting and the consciousness as of the 
 presence of some noxious insect caged therein. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes was more successful in arresting the 
 progress of the other editors, and (standing at the win 
 dow, her Bible on the little table at her side) flatly con 
 tradicted all that had been told them by her daughter- 
 in-law and her sister. "The Louds always give way, 
 no matter what comes up. You can always tell what 
 kind of a family anybody comes from by the way they 
 take things when anything comes across them. You 
 can t depend on anything she says this morning. My 
 son did not marry just as I wished; everybody knows 
 that ; the Louds weren t equal to our family, and every 
 body knows it, and I have never made any secret as to 
 how I felt, but we have always got along well enough. 
 The Brewsters are not quarrelsome; they never have 
 been. There were no words whatever last night to make 
 my granddaughter run away. Eva and Fanny are ail 
 
 31 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 wrong about it. Ellen has been stolen; I know it as 
 well as if I had seen it. A strange-looking woman 
 came to the door yesterday afternoon; she was the 
 tallest woman I ever saw, and she took the widest steps ; 
 she measured her dress skirt every step she took, and 
 she spoke gruff. I said then I knew she was a man 
 dressed up. Ellen was playing out in the yard, and 
 she saw the child as she went out, and I see her stoop 
 and look at her real sharp, and my blood run kind of 
 cold then, and I called Ellen away as quick as I could ; 
 and the woman, she turned round and gave me a look 
 that I won t ever forget as long as I live. My belief is 
 that that woman was laying in wait when Ellen was go 
 ing across the yard home from here last night, and she 
 has got her safe somewhere till a reward is offered. 
 Or maybe she wants to keep her, Ellen is such a beau 
 tiful child. You needn t put in your papers that my 
 grandchild run away because of quarrelling in our 
 family, because she didn t. Eva and Fanny don t 
 know what they are talking about, they are so wrought 
 up; and, coming from the family they do, they don t 
 know how to control themselves and show any sense. 
 I feel it as much as they do, but I have been sitting 
 here all the morning; I know I can t do anything to 
 help, and I am working a good deal harder, waiting, 
 than they are, rushing from pillar to post and taking 
 on, and I m doing more good. I shall be the only one 
 fit to do anything when they find the poor child. I ve 
 got blankets warming by the fire, and my tea-kettle 
 on, and I m going to be the one to depend on when 
 she s brought home/ Mrs. Zelotes gave a glance of 
 defiant faith from the window down the road as she 
 spoke. Then she settled back in her chair and re 
 sumed her Bible, and dismissed the tall and forbidding 
 woman whom she had summoned to save the honor 
 of her family resolutely from her conscience. The 
 
 32 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 editors of The Spy and The Observer had a row of 
 ingratiating photographs of little Ellen from three weeks 
 to seven years of age ; and their opinions as to the cause 
 of her disappearance, while fully agreeing in all points 
 of sensationalism with those of young Bemis, of The 
 Star, differed in detail. 
 
 Young Bemis read about the mysterious kidnapper, 
 and wondered, and the demand for The Star was chiefly 
 among the immediate neighbors of the Brewsters. Both 
 The Observer and The Spy doubled their circulation in 
 one day, and every face on the night cars was hidden 
 behind poor little Ellen s baby countenances and the 
 fairy-story of the witch- woman who had lured her away. 
 Mothers kept their children carefully in -doors that 
 evening, and pulled down curtains, fearful lest She look 
 in the windows and be tempted. Mrs. Zelotes also 
 waylaid both of the Boston reporters, but with results 
 upon which she had not counted. One presented her 
 story and Fanny s and Eva s with impartial justice; 
 the other kept wholly to the latter version, with the 
 addition of a shrewd theory of his own, deduced from 
 the circumstances which had a parallel in actual history, 
 and boldly stated that the child had probably committed 
 suicide on account of family troubles. Poor Fanny 
 and Eva both saw that, when night was falling and 
 Ellen had not been found. Eva rushed out and secured 
 the paper from the newsboy, and the two sisters gasped 
 over the startling column together. 
 
 "It s a lie! oh, Fanny, it s a lie!" cried Eva. "She 
 never would ; oh, she never would ! That little thing, 
 just because she heard you and me scoldin , and you 
 said that to her, that if it wasn t for her you d go away. 
 She never would." 
 
 "Go away?" sobbed Fanny "go away? I wouldn t 
 go away from hell if she was there. I would burn; I 
 would hear the clankin of chains, and groans, and 
 
 33 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 screeches, and devils whisperin in my ears what I 
 had done wrong, for all eternity, before I d go where 
 they were playin harps in heaven, if she was there. 
 Td like it better, I would. And I d stay here if I had 
 twenty sisters I didn t get along with, and be happier 
 than I would be anywhere else on earth, if she was here. 
 But she couldn t have done it. She didn t know how. 
 It s awful to put such things into papers." 
 
 Eva jumped up with a fierce gesture, ran to the stove, 
 and crammed the paper in. "There!" said she; "I 
 wish I could serve all the papers in the country the same 
 way. I do, and I d like to put all the editors in after em. 
 I d like to put em in the stove with their own papers for 
 kindlin s." Suddenly Eva turned with a swish of 
 skirts, and was out of the room and pounding up-stairs, 
 shaking the little house with every step. When she re 
 turned she bore over her arm her best dress a cherished 
 blue silk, ornate with ribbons and cheap lace. " Where s 
 that pattern?" she asked her sister. 
 
 " She wouldn t ever do such a thing," moaned Fanny. 
 
 "Where s that pattern?" 
 
 "What pattern?" Fanny said, faintly. 
 
 " That little dress pattern. Her little dress pattern, 
 the one you cut over my dress for her by." 
 
 " In the bureau drawer in my room. Oh, she 
 wouldn t." 
 
 Eva went into the bedroom, returned with the pattern, 
 got the scissors from Fanny s work-basket, and threw 
 her best silk dress in a rustling heap upon the table. 
 
 Fanny stopped moaning and looked at her with 
 wretched wonder. "What be you goin to do?" 
 
 "Do?" cried Eva, fiercely "do? I m goin to cut 
 this dress over for her." 
 
 "You ain t." 
 
 " Yes, I be. If I drove her away from home, scoldin 
 because you cut over that other old thing of mine for 
 
 34 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her, Fin goin to make up for it now. I m goin to 
 give her my best blue silk, that I paid a dollar and a 
 half a yard for, and ain t worn three times. Yes, I be. 
 She s goin to have a dress cut out of it, an she s comin 
 back to wear it, too. You ll see she is comin home to 
 wear it." 
 
 Eva cut wildly into the silk with mad slashes of her 
 gleaming shears, while two neighboring women, who 
 had just come into the room, stared aghast, and even 
 Fanny was partly diverted from her sorrow. 
 
 " She s crazy," whispered one of the women, backing 
 away as she spoke. 
 
 "Oh, Eva, don t; don t do so," pleaded Fanny, trem 
 ulously. 
 
 "I be," said Eva, and she cut recklessly up the front 
 breadth. 
 
 "You ain t cutting it right," said the other neighbor, 
 who was skilful in such matters, and never fully moved 
 from her own household grooves by any excitement. 
 " If you are a-goin to cut it at all, you had better cut 
 it right." 
 
 "I don t care how I cut it," returned Eva, thrusting 
 the woman away. "Oh, I don t care how I cut it; I 
 want to waste it. I will waste it." 
 
 The other neighbor backed entirely out of the room, 
 then turned and fled across the yard, her calico wrapper 
 blowing wildly and lashing about her slender legs, 
 to her own house, the doors of which she locked. Pres 
 ently the other woman followed her, stepping with the 
 ponderous leisure which results from vastness of body 
 and philosophy of mind. The autumn wind, swirling 
 in impetuous gusts, had little effect upon her broadside 
 of woollen shawl. She had not come out on that raw 
 evening with nothing upon her head. She shook the 
 kitchen door of her friend, and smiled with calm reas 
 surance when it was cautiously set ajar to disclose 
 
 35 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 a wide-eyed and open-mouthed face of terror. "Who 
 is it?" 
 
 " It s me. What have you got your door locked 
 for?" 
 
 " I think that Eva Loud is raving crazy. I m afraid 
 of her." 
 
 " Lord ! you ain t no reason to be fraid of her. She 
 ain t crazy. She s only lettin the birds that fly over 
 your an my heads settle down to roost. You and me, 
 both of us, if we was situated jest as she is, might 
 think of doin jest what she s a-doin , but we won t 
 .neither of us do it. We d let our best dresses hang in 
 the closet, safe and sound, while we cut them up in 
 our souls; but Eva, she s different." 
 
 "Well, I don t care. I believe she s crazy, and I m 
 going to keep my doors locked. How do you know 
 she hasn t killed Ellen and put her in the well?" 
 
 "Stuff! Now you re lettin your birds roost, Hattie 
 Monroe." 
 
 " I read something that wasn t any worse than that 
 in the paper the other day. I should think they would 
 look in the well. Have Mrs. Jones and Miss Cross 
 gone home?" 
 
 "No; they are over there. There s poor Andrew 
 coming now; I wonder if he has heard anything?" 
 
 Both women eyed hesitatingly poor Andrew Brew- 
 ster s dejected figure creeping up the road in the dark. 
 
 "You holler and ask him," said the woman in the 
 door. 
 
 "I hate to, for I know by his looks he ain t heard 
 anything of her. I know he s jest comin home to 
 rest a minute, so he can start again. I know he ain t 
 eat a thing since last night. Well, Maria has got some 
 coffee all made, and a nice little piece of steak ready to 
 cook." 
 
 "You holler and ask him." 
 
 36 
 
EVA SPRANG FORWARD AND CLUTCHED HIM BY THE ARM 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "What is the use? Just see the way he walks; I 
 know without askin ." 
 
 However, as Andrew neared his house he involun 
 tarily quickened his pace, and his head and shoulders 
 became suddenly alert. It had occurred to him that 
 possibly Fanny and Eva might have had some news 
 of Ellen during his absence. Possibly she might have 
 come home even. 
 
 Then he was hailed by the stout woman standing 
 at the door of the next house. " Heard anything yet, 
 Andrew?" 
 
 Andrew shook his head, and looked with despairing 
 eyes at the windows where he used to see Ellen s little 
 face. She had not come, then, for these women would 
 have known it. He entered the house, and Fanny 
 greeted him with a tremulous cry. "Have you heard 
 anything; oh, have you heard anything, Andrew?" 
 
 Eva sprang forward and clutched him by the arm. 
 
 "Have you?" 
 
 Andrew shook his head, and moved her hand from 
 his arm, and pushed past her roughly. 
 
 Fanny stood in his way, and threw her arms around 
 him with a wild, sobbing cry, but he pushed her away 
 also with sternness, and went to the kitchen sink to 
 wash his hands. The four women his wife, her sister, 
 and the two neighbors stood staring at him; his face 
 was terrible as he dipped the water from the pail on the 
 sink corner, and the terribleness of it was accentuated 
 by the homely and every-day nature of his action. 
 
 They all stared, then Fanny burst out with a loud 
 and desperate wail. " He won t speak to me, he pushes 
 me away, when it is our child that s lost his as well 
 as mine. He hasn t any feelings for me that bore her. 
 He only thinks of himself. Oh, oh, my own husband 
 pushes me away." 
 
 Andrew went on washing his hands and his ghastly 
 
 37 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 face, and made no reply. He had actually at that 
 moment not the slightest sympathy with his wife. All 
 his other outlets of affection were choked by his con 
 cern for his lost child ; and as for pity, he kept reflect 
 ing, with a cold cruelty, that it served her right 
 it served both her and her sister right. Had not they 
 driven the child away between them? 
 
 He would not eat the supper which the neighbors had 
 prepared for him ; finally he went across the yard to his 
 mother s. It seemed to him at that time that his mother 
 could enter into his state of mind better than any one 
 else. 
 
 When he went out, Fanny called after him, fran 
 tically, "Oh, Andrew, you ain t going to leave me?" 
 
 When he made no response, she gazed for a second 
 at his retreating back, then her temper came to her 
 aid. She caught her sister s arm, and pulled her away 
 out of the kitchen. " Come with me," she said, hoarse 
 ly. "I ve got nobody but you. My own husband 
 leaves me when he is in such awful trouble, and goes 
 to that old woman, that has always hated me, for com 
 fort." 
 
 The sisters went into Fanny s bedroom, and sat down 
 on the edge of the bed, with their arms round each other. 
 "Oh, Fanny!" sobbed Eva; "poor, poor Fanny! if 
 Andrew turns against you, I will stand by you as long 
 as I live. I will work my fingers to the bone to support 
 you and Ellen. I will never get married. I will stay 
 and work for you and her. And I will never get mad 
 with you again as long as I live, Fanny. Oh, it was all 
 my fault, every bit my fault, but, but " Eva s voice 
 broke ; suddenly she clasped her sister tighter, and then 
 she went down on her knees beside the bed, and hid 
 her tangled head in her lap. " Oh, Fanny," she sobbed 
 out miserably, "there ain t much excuse for me, but 
 there s a little. When Jim Tenny stopped goin with 
 
 38 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 me last summer, my heart most broke. I don t care 
 if you do know it. That s what made me so much 
 worse than I used to be. Oh, my heart most broke, 
 Fanny! He s treated me awful, but I can t get over it; 
 and now little Ellen s gone, and I drove her away!" 
 
 Fanny bent over her sister, and pressed her head 
 close to her bosom. "Don t you feel so bad, Eva," 
 said she. " You wasn t any more to blame than I was, 
 and we ll stand by each other as long as we live." 
 
 "I ll work my fingers to the bone for you and Ellen, 
 and I ll never get married," said Eva again. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ELLEN BREWSTER was two nights and a day at 
 Cynthia Lennox s, and no one discovered it. All day 
 the searching - parties passed the house. Once Ellen 
 was at the window, and one of the men looked up and 
 saw her, and since his solicitude for the lost child rilled 
 his heart with responsiveness towards all childhood, 
 he waved his hand and nodded, and bade another man 
 look at that handsome little kid in the window. 
 
 "Guess she s about Ellen s size/ said the other. 
 
 "Shouldn t wonder if she looked something like 
 her/ said the first. 
 
 "Answers the description well enough/ said the 
 other, "same light hair/ 
 
 Both of the men waved their hands to Ellen as they 
 passed on, but she shrank back afraid. That was 
 about ten o clock of the morning of the day after Miss 
 Lennox had taken her into her house. She had waked 
 at dawn with a full realization of the situation. She 
 remembered perfectly all that had happened. She 
 was a child for whom there were very few half-lights of 
 life, and no spiritual twilights connected her sleeping 
 and waking hours. She opened her eyes and looked 
 around the room, and remembered how she had run 
 away and how her mother was not there, and she 
 remembered the strange lady with that same odd 
 combination of terror and attraction and docility with 
 which she had regarded her the night before. It was 
 a very cold morning, and there was a delicate film of 
 frost on the windows between the sweeps of the muslin 
 
 40 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 curtains, and the morning sun gave it a rosy glow and 
 a crusting sparkle as of diamonds. The sight of the frost 
 had broken poor Andrew Brewster s heart when he saw 
 it, and reflected how it might have meant death to his 
 little tender child out under the blighting fall of it, like 
 a little house-flower. 
 
 Ellen lay winking at it when Cynthia Lennox came 
 into the room and leaned over her. The child cast 
 a timid glance up at the tall, slender figure clad in a 
 dressing-gown of quilted crimson silk which dazzled 
 her eyes, accustomed as she was to morning wrappers 
 of dark-blue cotton at ninety-eight cents apiece; and 
 she was filled with undefined apprehensions of splen 
 dor and opulence which might overwhelm her simple 
 grasp of life and cause her to lose all her old standards __ 
 of value. 
 
 She had always thought her mother s wrappers very 
 beautiful, but now look at thisl Cynthia s face, too, 
 in the dim, rosy light, looked very fair to the child, who 
 had no discernment for those ravages of time of which 
 adults either acquit themselves or by which they meas 
 ure their own. She did not see the faded color of the 
 woman s face at all; she did not see the spread 
 ing marks around mouth and eyes, or the faint 
 parallels of care on the temples; she saw only that 
 which her unbiased childish vision had ever sought 
 in a human face, love and kindness, and tender 
 admiration of herself; and her conviction of its 
 beauty was complete. But at the same time a 
 bitter and piteous jealousy for her mother and 
 home, and all that she had ever loved and believed in, 
 came over her. What right had this strange woman, 
 dressed in a silk dress like that, to be leaning over her 
 in the morning, and looking at her like that to be 
 leaning over her in the morning instead of her own 
 mother, and looking at her in that way, when she was 
 
 4 41 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 not her mother? She shrank away towards the 
 other side of the bed with that nestling motion which 
 is the natural one of all young and gentle children 
 even towards vacancy, but suddenly Cynthia was lean 
 ing close over her, and she was conscious again of that 
 soft smother of violets, and Cynthia s arms were em 
 bracing all her delicate little body with tenderest violence, 
 folding her against the soft red silk over her bosom, 
 and kissing her little, blushing cheeks with the lightest 
 and carefulest kisses, as though she were a butterfly 
 which she feared to harm with her adoring touch. 
 
 "Oh, you darling, you precious darling!" whispered 
 Cynthia. "Don t be afraid, darling; don t be afraid, 
 precious; you are very safe; don t be afraid. You 
 shall have such a little, white, new-laid egg for your 
 breakfast, and some slices of toast, such a beautiful 
 brown, and some honey. Do you love honey, sweet? 
 And some chocolate, all in a little pink-and-gold cup 
 which you shall have for your very own." 
 
 "I want my mother!" Ellen cried out suddenly, with 
 an exceedingly bitter and terrified and indignant cry. 
 
 "There, there, darling!" Cynthia whispered; "there 
 is a beautiful red-and-green parrot down-stairs in a 
 great cage that shines like gold, and you shall have 
 him for your own, and he can talk. You shall have 
 him for your very own, sweetheart. Oh, you darling! 
 you darling!" 
 
 Ellen felt herself overborne and conquered by this 
 tide of love, which compelled like her mother s, though 
 this woman was not her mother, and her revolt of loyalty 
 was subdued for the time. After all, whether we like 
 it or not, love is somewhat of an impersonal quality to 
 all children, and perhaps to their elders, and it may 
 be in such wise that the goddess is evident. 
 
 She did not shrink from Cynthia any more then, but 
 suffered her to lift her out of bed as if she were a baby 
 
 42 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and set her on a white fur rug, into which her feet sank, 
 to her astonishment. Her mother had only draw r n-in 
 rugs, which Ellen had watched her make. She was a 
 little afraid of the fur rug. 
 
 Ellen was very small, and seemed much younger 
 than she was by reason of her baby silence and her 
 little clinging ways. Then, too, she had always been 
 so petted at home, and through never going to school 
 had not been in contact with other children. Often 
 the bloom of childhood is soonest rubbed off by friction 
 with its own kind. Diamond cut diamond holds good 
 in many cases. 
 
 Cynthia did not think she was more than six years 
 old, and never dreamed of allowing her to dress herself, 
 and indeed the child had always been largely assisted 
 in so doing. Cynthia washed her and dressed her, 
 and curled her hair, and led her do\vn-stairs into the 
 dining-room of the night before, which Ellen still re 
 garded with wise eyes as the store. Then she sat in 
 the tall chair which must have been vacated by that 
 mysterious other child, and had her breakfast, eating 
 her new - laid egg, which the black woman broke for 
 her, while she leaned delicately away as far as she could 
 with a timid shrug of her little shoulder, and sipping 
 her chocolate out of the beautiful pink-and-gold cup. 
 That, however, Ellen decided within herself was not 
 nearly as pretty as one with "A Gift of Friendship" 
 on it in gilt letters which her grandmother kept on the 
 whatnot in her best parlor. This had been given to her 
 aunt Ellen, who died when she was a young girl, and 
 was to be hers when she grew up. She did not care as 
 much for the egg and toast either as for the griddle- 
 cakes and maple syrup at home. All through break 
 fast Cynthia talked to her, and in such manner as the 
 child had never heard. That fine voice, full of sweetest 
 modulations and cadences, \vhich used the language 
 
 43 
 
THE PORTION O F LABOR 
 
 with the precision of a musician, was as different from 
 the voices at home with their guttural slurs and maimed 
 terminals as the song of a spring robin from the scream 
 of the parrot which Ellen could hear in some distant 
 room. And what Cynthia said was as different from 
 ordinary conversation to the child as a fairy tale, being- 
 interspersed with terms of endearment which her mother 
 and grandmother would have considered high-flown, 
 and have been shamefaced in employing, and full of a 
 whimsical playfulness which had an undertone of 
 pathos in it. Cynthia was not still for a minute, and 
 seemed to feel that much of her power lay in her speech 
 and voice, like some enchantress who cast her spell 
 by means of her silver tongue. Nobody knew how she 
 dreaded that outcry of Ellen s, "I w r ant my mother!" 
 It gave her the sensations of a murderess, even while 
 she persisted in her crime. So she talked, diverting 
 the child s mind from its natural channel by sheer 
 force of eloquence. She told a story about the parrot, 
 which caused Ellen s eyes to widen with thoughtful 
 wonder; she promised her treasures and pleasures 
 which made her mouth twitch into smiles in spite of 
 herself; but with all her efforts, when after breakfast 
 they went into another room, Ellen broke out again, 
 " I want my mother ! " 
 
 Cynthia turned w r hite and struggled with herself 
 for a moment, then she spoke. That which she was 
 doing of the nature of a crime was in reality more foreign 
 to her nature than virtue, and her instinct w r as to re 
 turn to her narrow and straight way in spite of its 
 cramping of love and natural longings. " Who is 
 your mother, darling?" she asked. " And what is your 
 name?" 
 
 But Ellen was silent, except for that one cry, "I 
 want my mother!" The persistency of the child, in 
 spite of her youth and her distress, was almost invulner- 
 
 44 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 able. She came of a stiff-necked family on one side at 
 least, and sometimes stiff-neckedness is more pro 
 nounced in a child than in an adult, in whom it may 
 be tempered by experience and policy. "I want my 
 mother! I want my mother!" Ellen repeated in her 
 gentle wail as plaintively inconsequent as the note of a 
 bird, and would say no more. 
 
 Then Cynthia displayed the parrot, but a parrot was 
 too fine and fierce a bird for Ellen. She would have, 
 preferred him as a subject for her imagination, which 
 could not be harmed by his beak and claws, and she 
 liked Cynthia s story about him better than the gor 
 geous actuality of the bird himself. She shrank back 
 from that shrieking splendor, clinging with strong 
 talons to his cage wires, against which he pressed 
 cruelly his red breast and beat his gold-green wings, 
 and through which he thrust his hooked beak, and 
 glared with his yellow eyes. 
 
 Ellen fairly sobbed at last when the parrot thrust 
 out a wicked and deceiving claw towards her, and said 
 something in his unearthly shriek which seemed to 
 have a distinct reference to her, and fired at her a volley 
 of harsh "How do s" and "Good-mornings/ and 
 "Good-nights/ and "Polly want a cracker s/ then 
 finished with a wild shriek of laughter, her note of 
 human grief making a curious chord with the bird s 
 of inhuman mirth. "I want my mother!" she panted 
 out, and wept, and would not be comforted. Then 
 Cynthia took her away from the parrot and produced 
 the doll. Then truly did the sentiment of emulative 
 motherhood in her childish breast console her for the 
 time for her need of her own mother. Such a doll as 
 that she had never seen, not even in the store-windows 
 at Christmas-time. Still, she had very fine dolls for 
 a little girl whose relatives were not wealthy, but this 
 doll was like a princess, and nearly as large as Ellen, 
 
 45 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen held out her arms for this ravishing creature 
 in a French gown, looked into its countenance of 
 unflinching infantile grace and amiability and inno 
 cence, and her fickle heart betrayed her, and she 
 laughed with delight, and the tension of anxiety re 
 laxed in her face. 
 
 " Where is her mother?" she asked of C3 7 nthia, having 
 a very firm belief in the little girl-motherhood of dolls. 
 She could not imagine a doll without her little mother, 
 and even in the cases of the store-dolls, she wondered 
 how their mothers could let them be sold, and mothered 
 by other little girls, however poor they might be. But 
 she never doubted that her own dolls were her very own 
 children even if they had been bought in a store. So 
 now she asked Cynthia with an indescribably pitying 
 innocence, " Where is her mother?" 
 
 Cynthia laughed and looked adoringly at the child 
 with the doll in her arms. " She has no mother but 
 you," said she. "She is yours, but once she belonged 
 to a dear little boy, who used to live with me." 
 
 Ellen stared thoughtfully : she had never seen a little 
 boy with a doll. The lady seemed to read her thought, 
 for she laughed again. 
 
 "This little boy had curls, and he wore dresses like 
 a little girl, and he was just as pretty as a little girl, 
 and he loved to play with dolls like a little girl," said she. 
 
 " Where is he?" asked Ellen, in a small, gentle voice. 
 " Don t he want her now?" 
 
 "No, darling," said Cynthia; " he is not here; he has 
 been gone away two years, and he had left off his baby 
 curls and his dresses, and stopped playing with her for 
 a year before that." Cynthia sighed and drew down 
 her mouth, and Ellen looked at her lovingly and won- 
 deringly. 
 
 "Be you his mother?" she asked, piteously; then, 
 before Cynthia could answer, her own lip quivered and 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 she sobbed out again, even while she hugged her doll- 
 child to her bosom, "I want my mother! I want my 
 mother!" 
 
 All that day the struggle went on. Cynthia Lennox, 
 leading her little guest, who always bore the doll, trav 
 ersed the fine old house in search of distraction, for 
 the heart of the child was sore for its mother, and suc 
 cess was always intermittent. The music-box played, 
 the pictures were explained, and even old trunks of laid- 
 away treasures ransacked. Cynthia took her through 
 the hot-houses and gave her all the flowers she liked to 
 pick, to still that longing cry of hers. Cynthia Lennox 
 had fine hot-houses kept by an old colored man, the 
 husband of her black cook. Her establishment was 
 very small; her one other maid she had sent away 
 early that morning to make a visit with a sick sister in 
 another town. The old colored couple had lived in her 
 family since she was born, and would have been silent 
 had she stolen a whole family of children. Ellen caught 
 a glimpse of a bent, dark figure at one end of the pink- 
 house as they entered; he glanced up at her with no 
 appearance of surprise, only a broad, welcoming ex 
 pansion of his whole face, which caused her to shrink; 
 then he shuffled out in response to an order of his mis 
 tress. 
 
 Ellen stared at the pinks, swarming as airily as butter 
 flies in motley tints of palest rose to deepest carmine 
 over the blue-green jungle of their stems; she sniffed 
 the warm, moist, perfumed atmosphere; she followed 
 Cynthia down the long perspective of bloom, then she 
 said again that she wanted her mother; and Cynthia 
 led her into the rose-house, then into one where the 
 grapes hung low overhead and the air w r as as sweet 
 and strong as w r ine, but even there Ellen wanted her 
 mother. 
 
 But it was not until the next morning when she was 
 
 47 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 eating her breakfast that the climax came. Then the 
 door-bell rang, and presently Cynthia was summoned 
 into another room. She kissed Ellen, and bade her go 
 on with her breakfast and she would return shortly; 
 but before she had quite left the room a man stood un 
 expectedly in the door- way, a man who looked younger 
 than Cynthia. He had a fair mustache, a high forehead 
 scowling over near-sighted blue eyes, and stood with a 
 careless slouch of shoulders in a gray coat. 
 
 "Good-morning/ he began. Then he stopped short 
 when he saw Ellen in her tall chair staring shyly around 
 at him through her soft golden mist of hair. "What 
 child is that?" he demanded; but Cynthia with a sharp 
 cry sprang to him, and fairly pulled him out of the 
 room, and closed the door. 
 
 Then Ellen heard voices rising higher and higher, 
 and Cynthia say, in a voice of shrill passion : " I cannot, 
 Lyman. I cannot give her up. You don t know what 
 I have suffered since George married and took little 
 Robert away. I can t let this child go." 
 
 Then came the man s voice, hoarse with excitement : 
 "But, Cynthia, you must; you are mad. Think 
 what this means. Why, if people know what you have 
 done, kept this child, while all this search has been 
 going on, and made no effort to find out who she was " 
 
 "I did ask her, and she would not tell me/ Cynthia 
 said, miserably. 
 
 "Good Lord! what of that? That is nothing but a 
 subterfuge. You must have seen in the papers " 
 
 " I have not looked at a paper since she came." 
 
 " Of course you have not. You were afraid to. Why, 
 good God! Cynthia Lennox, I don t know but you will 
 stand in danger of lynching if people ever find this 
 out, that you have taken in this child and kept her in 
 this way I don t know what people will do. " 
 
 Ellen waited for no more ; she rose softly, she gathered 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 up her great doll which sat in a little chair near by, 
 she gathered up her pink-and-gold cup which had been 
 given her, and the pinks which had been brought from 
 the hot-house the day before, which Cynthia had ar 
 ranged in a vase beside her plate, then she stole very 
 softly out of the side door, and out of the house, and 
 ran down the street as fast as her little feet could carry 
 her. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THAT morning, after the street in front of Lloyd s 
 factory had been cleared of the flocking employes with 
 their little dinner-boxes, and the great broadside of the 
 front windows had been set with faces of the workers, 
 a distracted figure came past. A young fellow at a 
 window of the cutting-room noticed her first. "Look 
 at that, Jim Tenny," said he, with a shove of an elbow 
 towards his next neighbor. 
 
 " Get out, will ye?" growled Jim Tenny, but he looked. 
 
 Then three girls from the stitching-room came crowd 
 ing up behind with furtively tender pressings of round 
 arms against the shoulders of the young men. "We 
 come in here to see if that was Eva Loud," said one, a 
 sharp-faced, alert girl, not pretty, but a favorite among 
 the male employ6s, to the constant wonder of the other 
 girls. 
 
 " Yes, it s her fast enough," rejoined another, a sweet- 
 faced blonde with an exaggeratedly fashionable coiffure 
 and a noticeable smartness in the tie of her neck-ribbon 
 and the set of her cotton waist. " Just look at the poor 
 thing s hair. Only see how frowsly it is, and she has 
 come out without her hat." 
 
 "Well, I don t wonder," said the third girl, who was 
 elderly and whose complexion was tanned and weather- 
 beaten almost to the color of the leather upon which 
 she worked. Yet through this seamed and discolored 
 face, with thin grayish hair drawn back tightly from the 
 temples, one could discern, as through a transparent 
 mask, a past prettiness and an exceeding gentleness 
 
 50 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and faithf ulness. " If my sister s little Helen was to be 
 lost I shouldn t know whether my hat was on or not/ 
 said she. " I believe I should go raving mad." 
 
 " You wouldn t have to slave as you have done sup- 
 portin it ever since your sister s husband died/ said 
 the pretty girl. "Only look how Eva s waist bags in 
 the back and she ain t got any belt on. I wouldn t 
 come out lookin so." 
 
 " I should die if I didn t have something to work for. 
 That s the difference between being a worker and a 
 slave/ said the other girl, simply. " Poor Eval" 
 
 " Well, it was a pretty young one/ said the first girl. 
 
 "Looks to me as if Eva Loud s skirt was comin 
 off/ said the pretty girl. She pressed close to Jim 
 Tenny with a familiar air of proprietorship as she spoke, 
 but the young man did not seem to heed her. He was 
 looking over his bench at the figure on the street below, 
 and his heavy black eyebrows were scowling, and his 
 mouth set. 
 
 Jim Tenny was handsome after a swarthy and grimy 
 fashion, for the tint of the leather seemed to have be 
 come absorbed into his skin. His black mustache 
 bristled roughly, but his face was freer than usual from 
 his black beard-stubble, because the day before had 
 been Sunday and he had shaved. His black right hand 
 with its squat discolored nails grasped his cutting-knife 
 with a hard clutch, his left held the piece of leather 
 firmly in place, while he stared out with that angry and 
 anxious scowl at Eva, who had paused on the street be 
 low, and was staring up at the windows, as if she meditat 
 ed a wild search in the factory for the lost child. There 
 was a curious likeness between the two faces; people 
 had been accustomed to say that Eva Loud and her 
 gentleman looked more like brother and sister than a 
 courting couple, and there was, moreover, a curious 
 spirit of comradeship between the two. It asserted it- 
 Si 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 self now with the young man, in opposition to the more 
 purely sexual attraction of the pretty girl who was lean 
 ing against him, and for whom he had deserted Eva. 
 
 After all, friendship and good comradeship are a 
 steadier force than love, if not as overwhelming, and it 
 may be that tortoise of the emotions which outruns the 
 hare. 
 
 " Well, for my part, I think a good deal more of Eva 
 Loud than if she had come out all frizzed and ruffled 
 shows her heart is in the right place," said the man 
 who had spoken first. He spoke with a guttural drawl, 
 and kept on with his work, but there was a meaning in 
 his words for the pretty girl, who had coquetted with 
 him before taking up with Jim Tenny. 
 
 "That is so/ said another man at Jim Tenny s 
 right. "She is right to come out as she has done 
 when she is so anxious for the child." This man was a 
 fair-haired Swede, and he spoke English with a curious 
 and careful precision, very different from the hurried, 
 slurring intonations of the other men. He had been 
 taught the language by a philanthropic young lady, a 
 college graduate, in whose father s family he had lived 
 when he first came to America, and in consequence he 
 spoke like a gentleman and had some considerable 
 difficulty in understanding his companions. 
 
 " Eva Loud has had a damned hard time, take it all 
 together/ spoke out another man, looking over his 
 bench at the girl on the street. He was small and thin 
 and wiry, a mass of brown-coated muscles under his 
 loose-hanging gingham shirt. He plied feverishly his 
 cutting-knife with his lean, hairy hands as he spoke. 
 He was accounted one of the best and swiftest cutters 
 in Lloyd s, and he worked unceasingly, for he had an 
 invalid wife and four children to support. Now and 
 then he had to stop to cough, then he worked faster, 
 
 " That s so/ said the first man. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Yes, that is so/ said the Swede, with a nod of his 
 fair head. 
 
 "And now to lose this young one that she set her 
 life by/ said the first girl, with an evident point of 
 malice in her tone, and a covert look at the pretty girl 
 at Jim Tenny s side. Jim Tenny paled under his 
 grime ; the hand which held the knife clinched. 
 
 " What do you s pose has become of the young one?" 
 said the first girl. "There s a good many out from 
 the shop huntin this mornin , ain t there?" 
 
 "Fifty," said the first man, laconically. 
 
 " You three were out all day yesterday, wa n t you?" 
 
 "Yes, Jim and Carl and me were out till after mid 
 night." 
 
 " Well, I wonder whether the poor little young one is 
 alive? Don t seem as if she could be but " 
 
 "Look there! look there!" screamed the elderly girl 
 suddenly. " Look at there !" She began to dance, 
 she laughed, she sobbed, she waved her lean hands 
 frantically out of the window, leaning far over the 
 bench. "Look at there!" she kept crying. Then she 
 turned and ran out of the room, with the other girls 
 and half the cutting-room after her. 
 
 "Damn it, she s got the child!" said the thin man. 
 He kept on working, his dark, sinewy hands flying 
 over the sheets of leather, but the tears ran down his 
 cheeks. Lloyd s emptied itself into the street, and sur 
 rounded Eva Loud and Ellen, who, running aimless 
 ly, had come straight to her aunt. Jim Tenny was first. 
 
 Eva stood clasping the child, who was too frightened 
 to cry, and was breathing in hushed gasps, her face 
 hidden on her aunt s broad bosom. Eva had caught 
 her up at the first sight of her, and now she stood clasp 
 ing her fiercely, and looking at them all as if she thought 
 they wanted to rob her of the child. Even when a 
 great cheer went up from the crowd, and was echoed by 
 
 53 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 another from the factory, with an accompaniment of 
 waving bare, leather-stained arms and hands, that ex 
 pression of desperate defiance instead of the joy of re 
 covery did not leave her face, not until she saw Jim 
 Tenny s face working with repressed emotion and met 
 his eyes full of the memory of old comradeship. Then 
 her bold heart and her pride all melted and she burst 
 out in a great wail before them all. 
 
 " Oh, Jim!" she cried out. " Oh, Jim, I lost you, and 
 then I thought I d lost her! Oh, Jim!" 
 
 Then there was a chorus of feminine sobs, for Eva s 
 wild weeping had precipitated the ready sympathy 
 of half the girls present. The men started a cheer to 
 cover a certain chivalrous shamefacedness which was 
 upon them at the sight of the girl s grief, and another 
 cheer from the factory echoed it. Then came another 
 sound, the great steam- whistle of Lloyd s; then the 
 whistles of the other neighboring factories responded, 
 and people began to swarm out of them, and the win 
 dows to fill with eager faces. Jim Tenny grasped 
 Eva s arm with a grasp like a vise. " Come this way/ 
 said he, sharply. "Come this way, Eva." 
 
 "Oh, Jim! oh, Jim!" Eva sobbed again; but she 
 followed him, little Ellen s golden fleece tossing over 
 her shoulder. 
 
 "She s got her; she s got her!" shouted the people. 
 
 Then the leather-stained hands gyrated, the cheers 
 went up, and again the whistles blew. 
 
 Jim Tenny, with his hand on Eva s arm, pushed his 
 way through the crowd. 
 
 "Where you goin , Jim?" asked the pretty girl at 
 his elbow, but he pushed past her roughly, and did not 
 seem to hear. Eva s face was all inflamed and con 
 vulsed with sobs, but she did not dream of covering it 
 she was full of the holy shamelessness of grief and joy. 
 " Let me see her ! let me see her ! Oh, the dear little 
 
 54 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thing, only look at her ! Where have you been, precious ? 
 Are you hungry? Oh, Nellie, she is hungry, I know! 
 She looks thin. Run over to the bakery and buy her 
 some cookies, quick! Are you cold? Give her this 
 sacque. Only look at her! Kate, only look at her! 
 Are you hurt, darling? Has anybody hurt you? If 
 anybody has, he shall be hung! Oh, you darling! 
 Only see her, Liza/ 
 
 But Jim Tenny, his mouth set, his black brows scowl 
 ing, his hard grasp on Eva s arm, pushed straight 
 through the gathering crowd until they came to Clark- 
 son s stables at the rear of Lloyd s, where he kept his 
 horse and buggy for he lived at a distance from his 
 work, and drove over every morning. He pointed to a 
 chair which a hostler had occupied, tilted against the 
 wall, for a morning smoke, after the horses were fed 
 and watered, and which he had vacated to join the 
 jubilant crowd. "Sit down there," he said to Eva. 
 Then he hailed a staring man coming out of the office. 
 "Here, help me in with my horse, quick!" said he. 
 
 The man stared still, with slowly rising indignation. 
 He w r as portly and middle-aged, the senior partner of 
 the firm, who seldom touched his own horses of late 
 years, and had a son at Harvard. "What s to pay? 
 What do you mean? Anybody sick?" he asked. 
 
 "Help me into the buggy with my horse!" shouted 
 Jim Tenny. "I tell you the child is found, and I ve 
 got to take it home to its folks." 
 
 " Don t they know yet? Is that it?" 
 
 "Yes, I tell you." Jim was backing out his horse 
 as he spoke. 
 
 Mr. Clarkson seized a harness and threw the collar 
 over the horse s head, while Jim ran out the buggy. 
 When Mr. Clarkson lifted Eva and Ellen into the buggy 
 he gave the child s head a pat. " God bless it !" he said, 
 and his voice broke. 
 
 55 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 The horse was restive. Jim took a leap into the 
 buggy at Eva s side, and they were out with a dash and 
 a swift rattle. The crowd parted before them, and cheer 
 after cheer went up. The whistles sounded again. 
 Then all the city bells rang out. They were signalling 
 the other searchers that the child was found. Jim 
 and Eva and Ellen made a progress of triumph down 
 the street. The crowd pursued them with cheers of 
 rejoicing; doors and windows flew open; the house- 
 yards were full of people. Jim drove as fast as he 
 could, scowling hard to hide his tenderness and pity. 
 Eva sat by his side, weeping in her terrible candor of 
 grief and joy, and Ellen s golden locks tossed on her 
 shoulder. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 As Jim Tenny, with Eva Loud and the child, drove 
 down the road towards the Brewster house, his horse and 
 buggy became the nucleus of a gathering procession, 
 shouting and exclaiming, with voices all tuned to one 
 key of passionate sympathy. There were even many"" 
 women of the poorer class who had no sense of inde 
 cency in following the utmost lead of their tender emo 
 tions. Some of them bore children of their own in their 
 arms, and were telling them with passionate croonings 
 to look at the other little girl in the carriage who had 
 been lost, and gone away a whole day and two nights 
 from her mother. They often called out fondly to Ellen 
 and Eva, and ordered Jim to wait a moment that they 
 might look at the poor darling. But Jim drove on as 
 fast as he was able, though he had sometimes to rein 
 his horse sharply to avoid riding down some lean racing 
 boys, who would now and then shoot ahead of him with 
 loud whoops of triumph. Once as he drove he laid one 
 hand caressingly over Eva s. "Poor girl!" he said, 
 hoarsely and shamefacedly, and Eva sobbed loudly. 
 When Jim reached Mrs. Zelotes Brewster s house there 
 was a swift displacement of lights and shadows in a 
 window, a door flew open, and the gaunt old woman 
 was at the wheel. 
 
 "Stop!" she cried. "Stop! Bring her in here to 
 me ! Let me have her ! Give her to me ; I have got 
 everything ready ! Come, Ellen come to grand 
 mother !" 
 
 Then there was a mad rush from the opposite direc- 
 9 57 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 tion, and the child s mother was there, reaching into the 
 buggy with fierce arms of love and longing. "Give 
 her to me!" she shrieked out. "Give me my baby, 
 Eva Loud! Oh, Ellen, where have you been?" 
 
 Fanny Brewster dragged her child from her sister s 
 arms so forcibly that she seemed fairly to fly over the 
 wheel. Then she strained her to her hungry bosom, 
 covering her with kisses, wetting her soft face and yellow 
 hair with tears. 
 
 "My baby, mother s darling, mother s baby!" she 
 gasped out with great pants of satisfied love; but an 
 other pair of lean, wiry old arms stole around the child s 
 slender body. 
 
 "Give her to me !" demanded Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. 
 " She is my son s child, and I have a right to her ! You 
 will kill her, goin on so over her. Give her to me ! 
 I have everything all ready in my house to take care of 
 her. Give her to me, Fanny Loud !" 
 
 "Keep your hands off her!" cried Fanny. "She s 
 my own baby, and nobody s goin to take her away 
 from me, I guess." 
 
 "Give her to me this minute!" said Mrs. Zelotes 
 Brewster. "You ll kill her, goin on so. You re 
 frightenin her to death. Give her to me this minute 1" 
 
 Ellen, meanwhile, that little tender blossom tossed 
 helplessly by contending waves of love, was weeping 
 and trembling with joy at the feel of her mother s arms 
 and with awe and terror at this tempest of passion which 
 she had evoked. 
 
 "Give her to me!" demanded Mrs. Zelotes Brew 
 ster. 
 
 The crowd who had followed stood gaping with work 
 ing faces. The mothers wept over their own children. 
 Eva stood at her sister s elbow, with a hand on one of the 
 child s, which was laid over Fanny s shoulder. Jim 
 Tenny had his face hidden on his horse s neck. 
 
 58 
 
" SHE S GOT HER! SHOUTED THE PEOPLE" 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Give her to me 1" said Mrs. Zelotes again. "Give 
 her to me, I say ! I am her own grandmother \" 
 
 " And I am her own mother I" called out Fanny, with 
 a great master-note of love and triumph and defiance. 
 "Fm her own mother, and Fve got her, and nobody 
 but God shall take her from me again." The tears 
 streamed down her cheeks ; she kissed the child with 
 pale, parted lips. She was at once pathetic and terrible. 
 She was human love and selfishness incarnate. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes Brewster stared at her, and her face 
 changed suddenly and softened. She turned and went 
 back into her own house. Her gray head appeared a 
 second beside her window, then sank out of sight. She j 
 was kneeling there with her Bible at her side, a sudden 
 sweet humility of thankfulness rising from her whole 1 
 spirit like a perfume, when Fanny, with Eva following, 
 still clinging to the child s little hand over her sister s 
 shoulder, went across the yard to her own house to tell 
 her husband. The others followed, and stood about 
 outside, listening with curiosity sanctified by intensest 
 sympathy. One nervous-faced boy leaped on the 
 slant of the bulkhead to peer in a window of the sitting- 
 room, and when his mother pulled him back forcibly, 
 rubbed his grimy little knuckles across his eyes, and a 
 dark smooch appeared on his nose and cheeks. He 
 was a young boy, very small and thin for his age. He 
 whispered to his mother and she nodded, and he darted 
 off in the direction of his own home. 
 
 Andrew Brewster had just come home after an all- 
 night s search, and he was in his bedroom in the bitter 
 sleep of utter exhaustion and despair. Suddenly his 
 heart had failed him and his brain had reeled. He had 
 begun to feel dazed, to forget for a minute what he was 
 looking for. He had made incoherent replies to the men 
 with him, and finally one, after a whispered consultation 
 with the others, had said: "Look at here, Andrew, 
 
 59 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 old fellow; you d better go home and rest a bit. We ll 
 look all the harder while you re gone, and maybe she ll 
 be found when you wake up." 
 
 "Who will be found?" Andrew asked, with a dazed 
 look. He reeled as if he were drunk. 
 
 "Ain t had anything, has he?" one of the men whis 
 pered. 
 
 "Not a drop to my knowledge." 
 
 Andrew s lips trembled perceptibly; his forehead was 
 knitted with vacuous perplexity; his eyes reflected 
 blanks of unreason; his whole body had an effect of 
 weak settling and subsidence. The man who worked 
 next to him in the cutting-room at Lloyd s, and had 
 searched at his side indefatigably from the first, stole a 
 tender hand under his shoulder. "Come along with 
 me, old man," he said, and Andrew obeyed. 
 
 When Fanny and Eva came in with the child, he lay 
 prostrate on the bed, and scarcely seemed to breathe. 
 A great qualm of fear shot over Fanny for a second. 
 His father had died of heart-disease. 
 
 " Is he dead?" she gasped to Eva. 
 
 "No, of course he ain t," said Eva. "He s asleep; 
 he s wore out. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, wake up! 
 She s found, Andrew; Ellen s found." But Andrew 
 did not stir. 
 
 " He is !" gasped Fanny, again. 
 
 " No, he ain t. Andrew, Andrew Brewster, wake up, 
 wake up! Ellen s here! She s found!" 
 
 Fanny put Ellen down, and bent over Andrew and 
 listened. "No, I can hear him breathe," she cried. 
 Then she kissed him, and leaned her mouth close to 
 his ear. "Andrew!" she said, in a voice which Eva 
 and Ellen had never heard before. "Andrew, poor 
 old man, wake up ; she s found 1 Our child is 
 found !" 
 
 When Andrew still did not wake, but only stirred, 
 60 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and moaned faintly, Fanny lifted Ellen onto the bed. 
 " Kiss poor father, and wake him/ she told her. 
 
 Ellen, whose blue eyes were big with fright and wonder, 
 whose lips were quivering, and whose little body was 
 vibrating with the strain of her nerves, laid her soft 
 cheek against her father s rough, pale one, and stole a 
 little arm under his neck. " Father, wake up!" she 1 
 called out in her little, trembling, sweet voice, and that 
 reached Andrew Brewster in the depths of his own 
 physical inertness. He opened his eyes and looked at 
 the child, and the light came into them, and then the 
 sound of his sobbing filled the house and reached the 
 people out in the yard, and an echo arose from them. 
 Gradually the crowd dispersed. Jim Tenny, before he 
 drove away, went to the door and spoke to Eva. 
 
 "Anything I can do?" he asked, with a curious, ten 
 der roughness. He did not look at her as he spoke. 
 
 " No ; thank you, Jim/ replied Eva. 
 
 Suddenly the young man reached out a hand and 
 stroked her rough hair. "Well, take care of yourself, 
 old girl," he said. 
 
 Eva went to her sister as Jim went out of the yard. 
 Ellen was in the sitting-room with her father, and Fanny 
 had gone to the kitchen to heat some milk for the child, 
 whom she firmly believed to have had nothing to eat 
 during her absence. 
 
 "Fanny," said Eva. 
 
 " Well?" said Fanny. " I can t stop; I must get some 
 milk for her; she must be most starved." 
 
 Fanny turned and looked at Eva, who cast down her 
 eyes before her in a very shamefacedness of happiness 
 and contrition. 
 
 "Why, what is it?" repeated Fanny, staring at her. 
 
 "I ve got Jim back,, I guess, as well as Ellen," said 
 Eva, " and I m going to be a good woman." 
 
 After all the crowd of people outside had gone, the 
 
 61 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 little nervous boy raced into the Brewster yard with a 
 tin cup of chestnuts in his hand. He knocked at the 
 side door, and when Fanny opened it he thrust them 
 upon her. " They re for her 1" he blurted out, and was 
 gone, racing like a deer. 
 
 "Don t you want the cup back?" Fanny shouted 
 after him. 
 
 "No, ma am/ he called back, and that, although his 
 mother had charged him to bring back the cup or he 
 would get a scolding. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ELLEN had clung fast all the time to her doll, her 
 bunch of pinks, and her cup and saucer ; or, rather, she 
 had guarded them jealously. "Where did you get 
 all these things?" her aunt Eva had asked her, amazed- 
 ly, when she first caught sight of her, and then had not 
 waited for an answer in her wild excitement of joy at the 
 recovery of the child. The great, smiling wax doll had 
 ridden between Jim and Eva in the buggy, Eva had held 
 the pink cup and saucer with a kind of mechanical 
 carefulness, and Ellen herself clutched the pinks in one 
 little hand, though she crushed them against her aunt s 
 bosom as she sat in her lap. Ellen s grandmother and 
 aunt had glanced at these treasures with momentary 
 astonishment, and so had her mother, but curiosity was 
 in abeyance for both of them for the time; rapture at 
 the sight of the beloved child at whose loss they had 
 suffered such agonies was the one emotion of their souls. 
 But later investigation was to follow. 
 
 When Ellen did not seem to care for her hot milk liber 
 ally sweetened in her own mug, and griddle-cakes with 
 plenty of syrup, her mother looked at her, and her eyes 
 of love sharpened with inquiry. " Ain t you hungry?" 
 she said. Ellen shook her head. She was sitting at the 
 table in the dining-room, and her father, mother, and 
 aunt were all hovering about her, w r atching her. Some 
 of the neighbor women were also in the room, staring 
 with a sort of deprecating tenderness of curiosity. 
 
 " Do you feel sick?" Ellen s father inquired, anx 
 iously. 
 
 63 
 
r 
 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You don t feel sick, do you?" repeated her mother. 
 
 Ellen shook her head. 
 
 Just then Mrs. Zelotes Brewster came in with her 
 black -and -white -checked shawl pinned around her 
 gaunt old face, which had in it a strange softness and 
 sweetness, which made Fanny look at her again, after 
 the first glance, and not know why. 
 
 "We ve got our blessing back again, mother/ said 
 her son Andrew, in a broken voice. 
 
 "But she won t eat her breakfast, now mother has 
 gone and cooked it for her, so nice, too/ said Fanny, 
 in a tone of confidence which she had never before used 
 towards Mrs. Zelotes. 
 
 "You don t feel sick, do you, Ellen?" asked her 
 grandmother. 
 
 Ellen shook her head. " No, ma am," said she. 
 
 " She says she don t feel sick, and she ain t hungry/ 
 Andrew said, anxiously. 
 
 "I wonder if she would eat one of my new dough 
 nuts. I ve got some real nice ones," said a neighbor 
 the stout woman from the next house, whose .breadth 
 of body seemed to symbolize a corresponding^piritual 
 breadth of motherliness, as she stood there looking 
 at the child who had been lost and was found. 
 
 "Don t you want one of Aunty Wetherhed s nice 
 doughnuts?" asked Fanny. 
 
 "No; I thank you," replied Ellen. Eva started sud 
 denly with an air of mysterious purpose, opened a door, 
 ran down cellar, and returned with a tumbler of jelly, 
 but Ellen shook her head even at that. 
 
 "Have you had your breakfast?" said Fanny. 
 
 Then Ellen was utterly quiet. She did not speak; 
 she made no sign or motion. She sat still, looking 
 straight before her. 
 
 " Don t you hear, Ellen?" said Andrew. " Have you 
 had your breakfast this morning?" 
 
 64 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Tell Auntie Eva if you have had your breakfast/ 
 Eva said. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes Brewster spoke with more authority, 
 and she went further. 
 
 "Tell grandmother if you have had your breakfast, 
 and where you had it," said she. 
 
 But Ellen was dumb and motionless. They all 
 looked at one another. " Tell Aunty Wetherhed : that s 
 a good girl/ said the stout woman. 
 
 "Where are those things she had when I first saw 
 her?" asked Mrs. Zelotes, suddenly. Eva went into 
 the sitting-room, and fetched them out the bunch of 
 pinks, the cup and saucer, and the doll. Ellen s eyes 
 gave a quick look of love and delight at the doll. 
 
 "She had these, luggin along in her little arms, 
 when I first caught sight of her comin / said Eva. 
 
 "Where did you get them, Ellen?" asked Fanny. 
 " Who gave them to you?" 
 
 Ellen was silent, with all their inquiring eyes fixed 
 upon her face like a compelling battery. "Where 
 have you been, Ellen, all the time you have been gone?" 
 asked Mrs. Zelotes. "Now you have got back safe, 
 you must tell us where you have been." 
 
 Andrew stooped his head down to the child s, and 
 rubbed his rough cheek against her soft one, with his 
 old facetious caress. " Tell father where you ve been," 
 he whispered. Ellen gave him a little piteous glance, 
 and her lip quivered, but she did not speak. 
 
 " Where do you s pose she got them?" whispered one 
 neighbor to another. 
 
 "I can t imagine; that s a beautiful doll." 
 
 " Ain t it? It must have cost a lot. I know, because 
 my Hattie had one her aunt gave her last Christmas; 
 that one cost a dollar and ninety-eight cents, and it 
 didn t begin to compare with this. That s a handsome 
 cup and saucer, too." 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Yes, but you can get real handsome cups and sau 
 cers to Crosby s for twenty-five cents. I don t think so 
 much of that." 
 
 "Them pinks must have come from a greenhouse." 
 
 "Yes, they must." 
 
 " Well, there s lots of greenhouses in the city besides 
 the florists. That don t help much." Then the first 
 woman inclined her lips closely to the other woman s 
 ear and whispered, causing the other to start back. 
 " No, I can t believe she would," said she. 
 
 " She came from those Louds on her mother s side," 
 whispered the first woman, guardedly, with dark em 
 phasis. 
 
 "Ellen," said Fanny, suddenly, and almost sharply, 
 "you didn t take those things in any way you hadn t 
 ought to, did you? Tell mother." 
 
 "Fanny!" cried Andrew. 
 
 "If she did, it s the first time a Brewster ever stole," 
 said Mrs. Zelotes. Her face was no longer strange with 
 unwonted sweetness as she looked at Fanny. 
 
 Andrew put his face down to Ellen s again. " Father 
 knows she didn t steal the things; never mind," he 
 whispered. 
 
 Suddenly the stout woman made a soft, ponderous 
 rush out of the room and the house. She passed the 
 window with oscillating swiftness. 
 
 "Where s Miss Wetherhed gone?" said one woman 
 to another. 
 
 "She s thought of somethin ." 
 
 "Maybe she left her bread in the oven." 
 
 "No, she s thought of somethin ." 
 
 A very old lady, who had been sitting in a rocking- 
 chair on the other side of the room, rose trembling and 
 came to Ellen and leaned over her, looking at her with 
 small, black, bright eyes through gold-rimmed spec 
 tacles. The old woman was deaf, and her voice was 
 
 66 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 shrill and high-pitched to reach her own consciousness. 
 "What did such a good little girl as you be run away 
 from father and mother for?" she piped, going back 
 to first principles and the root of the w r hole matter, 
 since she had heard nothing of the discussion w r hich 
 had been going on about her, and had supposed it to 
 deal with them. 
 
 Ellen gasped. Suddenly all her first woe returned 
 upon her recollection. She turned innocent, accusing 
 eyes upon her father s loving face, then her mother s 
 and aunt s. "You said you said you " she stam 
 mered out, but then her father and mother were both 
 down upon their knees before her in her chair embrac 
 ing her, and Eva, too, seized her little hands. "You 
 mustn t ever think of what you heard father and 
 mother say, Ellen," Andrew said, solemnly. "You 
 must forget all about it. Father and mother were both 
 very wrong and wicked " 
 
 ""And Aunt Eva, too," sobbed Eva. 
 
 "And they didn t mean what they said," continued 
 Andrew. " You are the greatest blessing in this whole 
 world to father and mother; you re all they have got. 
 You don t know what father and mother have been 
 through, thinking you were lost and they might never 
 see their little girl again. Now you mustn t ever think 
 of what they said again." 
 
 " And you won t ever hear them say it again, Ellen," 
 Fanny Brewster said, with a noble humbling of herself 
 before her child. 
 
 " No, you won t," said Eva. 
 
 "Mother is goin to try to do better, and have more 
 patience, and not let you hear such talk any more," 
 said Fanny, kissing Ellen passionately, and rising 
 with Andrew s arm around her. 
 
 "I m going to try, too, Ellen," said Eva. 
 
 The stout woman came padding softly and heavily 
 
 6? 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 into the room, and there was a bright-blue silken gleam 
 in her hand. She waved a whole yard of silk of 
 the most brilliant blue before Ellen s dazzled eyes. 
 "There!" said she, triumphantly, "if you will tell 
 Aunty Wetherhed where you ve been, and all about it, 
 she ll give you all this beautiful silk to make a new 
 dress for your new dolly." 
 
 Ellen looked in the woman s face, she looked at the 
 blue silk, and she looked at the doll, but she was silent. 
 
 "Only think what a beautiful dress it will make !" 
 said a woman. 
 
 "And see how pretty it goes with the dolly s light 
 hair," said Fanny. 
 
 "Ellen," whispered Andrew, "you tell father, and 
 he ll buy you a whole pound of candy down to the store/ 
 
 "I shouldn t wonder if I could find something to 
 make your dolly a cloak," said a woman. 
 
 " And I ll make her a beautiful little bonnet, if you ll 
 tell/ said another. 
 
 " Only think, a whole pound of candy!" said Andrew. 
 
 "I ll buy you a gold ring/ Eva cried out "a gold 
 ring with a little blue stone in it/ 
 
 " And you shall go to ride with mother on the cars to 
 morrow," said Fanny. 
 
 " Father will get you some oranges, too," said Andrew. 
 
 But Ellen sat silent and unmoved by all that sweet 
 bribery, a little martyr to something within herself; a 
 sense of honor, love for the lady who had concealed 
 her, and upon whom her confession might bring some 
 dire penalty; or perhaps she was strengthened in her 
 silence by something less worthy possibly that stiff- 
 neckedness which had descended to her from a long 
 line of Puritans upon her father s side. At all events 
 she was silent, and opposed successfully her one little 
 new will to the onslaught of all those older and more 
 experienced ones before her, though nobody knew 
 
 68 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 at what cost of agony to herself. She had always 
 been a singularly docile and obedient child; this was 
 the first persistent disobedience of her whole life, and it 
 reacted upon herself with a cruel spiritual hurt. She 
 sat clasping the great doll, the pinks, and the pink cup 
 and saucer before her on the table a lone little weak 
 child, opposing her single individuality against so 
 many, and to her own hurt and horror and self-con 
 demnation, and she did not weaken ; but all at once her 
 head drooped on one side, and her father caught her. 
 
 "There! you can all stop tormentin this blessed 
 child!" he cried. "Ellen, Ellen, look at father! Oh, 
 mother, look here; she s fainted dead away!" 
 
 "Fanny!" 
 
 When Ellen came to herself she was on the bed in 
 her mother s room, and her aunt Eva was putting 
 some of her beautiful cologne on her head, and her 
 mother was trying to make her drink water, and her 
 grandmother had a glass of her currant wine, and they 
 were calling to her with voices of far-off love, as if from 
 another world. 
 
 And after that she was questioned no more about 
 her mysterious journey. 
 
 "Wherever she has been, she has got no harm," said 
 Mrs. Zelotes Brewster, " and there s no use in trying to 
 drive a child, when it comes of our family. She s got 
 some notion in her head, and you ve got to leave her 
 alone to get over it. She s got back safe and sound, 
 and that s the main thing." 
 
 "I wish I knew where she got those things," Fanny 
 said. Looseness of principle as to property rights was 
 not as strange to her imagination as to that of her 
 mother-in-law. 
 
 For a long time afterwards she passed consciously 
 and uneasily by cups and saucers in stores, and would 
 not look their way lest she should see the counterpart of 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen s, which was Sevres, and worth more than the 
 whole counterful, had she only known it, and she hurried 
 past the florists who displayed pinks in their windows. 
 The doll was evidently not new, and she had not the 
 same anxiety with regard to that. 
 
 No one was allowed to ask Ellen further questions 
 that day, not even the reporters, who went away quite 
 baffled by this infantile pertinacity in silence, and 
 were forced to draw upon their imaginations, with 
 results varying from realistic horrors to Alice in Won 
 derland. Ellen was kissed and cuddled by some women 
 and young girls, but not many were allowed to see her. 
 The doctor had been called in after her fainting-fit, 
 and pronounced it as his opinion that she was a very 
 nervous child, and had been under a severe strain, and 
 he would not answer for the result if she were to be 
 further excited. 
 
 "Let her have her own way: if she wants to talk, 
 let her, and if she wants to be silent, let her alone. She 
 is as delicate as that cup," said the doctor, looking at 
 the shell-like thing which Ellen had brought home, 
 with some curiosity. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THAT evening Lyman Risley came to see Cynthia. 
 He looked at her anxiously and scrutinizingly when he 
 entered the room, and did not respond to her salutation. 
 
 "Well, I have seen the child/ he said, in a hushed 
 voice, with a look towards the door as he seated himself 
 before the fire and spread out his hands towards the 
 blaze. He looked nervous and chilly. 
 
 "How did she look?" asked Cynthia. 
 
 "Why in the name of common - sense, Cynthia/ 
 he said, abruptly, without noticing her query, "if you 
 had to give that child china for a souvenir, didn t you 
 give her something besides Royal Sevres?" Lyman 
 Risley undoubtedly looked younger than Cynthia, 
 but his manner even more than his looks gave him the 
 appearance of comparative youth. There was in it a 
 vehemence and impetuosity almost like that of a boy. 
 Cynthia, with her strained nervous intensity, seemed 
 very much older. 
 
 "Why not?" said she. 
 
 "Why not? Well, it is fortunate for you that those 
 people have a knowledge for the most part of the fun 
 damental properties of the drama of life, such as bread- 
 and-butter, and a table from which to eat it, and a knife 
 with which to cut it, and a bed in which to sleep, and a 
 stove and coal, and so on, and so on, and that the ar 
 tistic accessories, such as Royal Sevres, which is no 
 better than common crockery for the honest purpose of 
 holding the tea for the solace of the thirsty mouth of] 
 labor, is beneath their attention." 
 
 71 
 
THfi PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "How does the child look, Lyman?" asked Cynthia 
 Lennox. She was leaning back in a great crimson- 
 covered chair before the fire, a long, slender, grace 
 ful shape, in a clinging white silk gown which 
 was a favorite of hers for house wear. The light 
 in the room was subdued, coming mostly through 
 erimson shades, and the faint, worn lines on Cynthia s 
 face did not show ; it looked, with her soft crown of gray 
 hair, like a cameo against the crimson background 
 of the chair. The man beside her looked at her with 
 that impatience of his masculine estate and his superior 
 youth, and yet with the adoration which nothing could 
 conquer. He had passed two-thirds of his life, meta 
 phorically, at this woman s feet, and had formed a habit 
 of admiration and lovership which no facts nor develop 
 ments could ever alter. He was frowning, he replied 
 with a certain sharpness, and yet he leaned towards 
 her as he spoke, and his eyes followed her long, graceful 
 lines and noted the clear delicacy of her features against 
 the crimson background. "How the child looked 
 how the child looked ; Cynthia, you do not realize what 
 you did. You have not the faintest realization of what 
 it means for a woman to keep a lost child hidden away 
 as you did, when its parents and half the city were 
 hunting for it. I tell you I did not know what the 
 consequences might be to you if it were found out. 
 There is wild blood in a city like this, and even the staid 
 old New England stream is capable of erratic currents. 
 I tell you I have had a day of dreadful anxiety, and 
 it was worse because I had to be guarded. I dared 
 scarcely speak to any one about the matter. I have 
 listened on street corners ; I have made errands to news 
 paper offices. I meant to get you away if Well, 
 never mind I tell you, you do not realize what you 
 did, Cynthia." 
 
 Cynthia glanced at him without moving her head, 
 72 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 then she looked away, her face quivering slightly, 
 more as if from a reflection of his agitation than from 
 her own. " You say you saw her/ she said. 
 
 "This afternoon/ the man went on, "I got fairly 
 desperate. I resolved to go to the fountain-head for 
 information, and take my chances. So down I went 
 to Maple Street, where the Brewsters live, and I rang 
 the front-door bell, and the child s aunt, a handsome, 
 breathless kind of creature, came and ushered me 
 into the best parlor, and went into the next room 
 the sitting-room to call the others. I caught sight of 
 enough women for a woman s club in the sitting-room. 
 Then Andrew Brewster came in, and I offered my legal 
 services out of friendly interest in the case, and in that 
 way I found out what I wanted to. Cynthia, that 
 child has not told." 
 
 Cynthia raised herself and sat straight, and her 
 face flashed like a white flame. " Were they harsh to 
 her?" she demanded. "Were they cruel? Did they 
 question her, and were they harsh and cruel because 
 she would not tell? Why did you not tell them yourself? 
 Why did you not, Lyman Risley? Why did you not 
 tell the whole story rather than have that child blamed? 
 Well, I will go myself. I will go this minute. They 
 shall not blame that darling. What do you think I 
 care for myself? Let them lynch me if they want to. 
 I will go this minute 1" Cynthia sprang to her feet, 
 but Risley, with a hoarse shout under his breath, caught 
 hold of her and forced her back. 
 
 "For God s sake, sit down, Cynthia!" he said. 
 " Didn t you hear the door-bell? Somebody is coming. " 
 
 The door-bell had in fact rung, and Cynthia had not 
 noticed it. She lay back in her chair as the door opened, 
 and Mrs. Norman Lloyd entered. " Good - evening, 
 Cynthia," she said, beamingly. "I thought I would 
 stop a few minutes on my way to meeting. I m rather 
 73 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 early. No, don t get up/ as Cynthia rose. "Don t 
 get up; I can only stay a minute. Never mind about 
 giving me a chair, Mr. Risley thank you. Yes, this 
 is a real comfortable chair." Mrs. Lloyd, seated where 
 the firelight played over her wide sweep of rich skirts, 
 and her velvet fur-trimmed cloak and plumed bonnet, 
 beamed upon them with an expansive benevolence and 
 kindliness. She was a large, handsome, florid woman. 
 Her grayish-brown hair was carefully crimped, and 
 looped back from her fat, pink cheeks, a fine shell-and- 
 gold comb surmounted her smooth French twist, and 
 held her bonnet in place. She unfastened her cloak, 
 and a diamond brooch at her throat caught the light 
 and blazed red like a ruby. She was the wife of Nor 
 man Lloyd, the largest shoe-manufacturer in the place. 
 There was between her and Cynthia a sort of rela 
 tionship by marriage. Norman Lloyd s brother George 
 had married Cynthia s sister, who had died ten years 
 before, and of whose little son, Robert, Cynthia had 
 had the charge. Now George, who was a lawyer in 
 St. Louis, had married again. Mrs. Norman had 
 sympathized openly with Cynthia when the child was 
 taken from Cynthia at his father s second marriage. 
 "I call it a shame," she had said, "giving that child 
 to a perfect stranger to bring up, and I don t see any 
 need of George s marrying again, anyway. I don t 
 know what I should do if I thought Norman would 
 marry again if I died. I think one husband and 
 one wife is enough for any man or woman if they 
 believe in the resurrection. It has always seemed 
 to me that the answer to that awful question in 
 the New Testament, as to whose wife that woman 
 who had so many husbands would be in the other 
 world, meant that people who had done so much 
 marrying on earth would have to be old maids 
 and old bachelors in heaven. George ought to be 
 
 74 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ashamed of himself, and Cynthia ought to keep that 
 child." 
 
 Ever since she had been very solicitously friendly 
 towards Cynthia, who had always imperceptibly held 
 herself aloof from her, owing to a difference in degree. 
 Cynthia had no prejudices of mind, but many of nerves, 
 and this woman was distinctly not of her sort, though 
 she had a certain liking for her. Every time she was 
 brought in contact with her she had a painful sense of a 
 grating adjustment as of points of meeting which did 
 not dovetail as they should. Norman Lloyd repre 
 sented one of the old families of the city, distinguished 
 by large possessions and college training, and he was 
 the first of his race to engage in trade. His wife came 
 from a vastly different stock, being the daughter of a 
 shoe-manufacturer herself, and the granddaughter of a 
 cobbler who had tapped his neighbor s shoes in his 
 little shop in the L of his humble cottage house. Mrs. 
 Norman Lloyd was innocently unconscious of any 
 reason for concealing the fact, and was fond, when driv 
 ing out to take the air in her fine carriage, of pointing out 
 to any stranger who happened to be with her the house 
 where her grandfather cobbled shoes and laid the foun 
 dation of the family fortune. // That all came from 
 that little shop of my grancpather," she would say, 
 pointing proudly at Lloyd s ^eat factory, 4vhich was 
 not far from the old cottage. 
 
 much of anything when I mj^ecHmnTDt I had con 
 siderable, and Mr. Lloyd went into the factory, and he 
 has been blessed, and the property has increased until 
 it has come to this." Mrs. Lloyd s chief ,pride was 
 in the very facts which others deprecated. When she 
 considered the many-windowed pile of Lloyd s, and that 
 her husband was the recognized head and authority 
 over all those throngs of grimy men, walking with the 
 stoop of daily labor, carrying their little dinner-boxes 
 
 75 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 with mechanical clutches of leather-tanned fingers, 
 she used to send up a prayer for humility, lest evil and 
 downfall of pride come to her. She was a pious woman, 
 a member of the First Baptist Church, and active in 
 charitable work. Mrs. Norman Lloyd adored her hus 
 band, and her estimate of him was almost ludicrously 
 different from that of the grimy men who flocked to his 
 factory, she seeing a most kindly spirited and amiable 
 man, devoting himself to the best interests of his em 
 ploye s, and striving ever for their benefit rather than 
 his own, and the others seeing an aristocrat by 
 birth and training, who was in trade because of shrewd 
 business instincts and a longing for wealth and power, 
 but who despised, and felt himself wholly superior to, 
 the means by which it was acquired. 
 
 " We ain t anything but the rounds of the ladder for 
 Norman Lloyd to climb by, and he only sees and feels 
 us with the soles of his patent-leathers/ one of the 
 turbulent spirits in his factory said. Mrs. Norman 
 Lloyd would not have believed her ears had she heard 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd had not sat long before Cynthia s fire 
 that evening before she opened on the subject of the 
 lost child. "Oh, Cynthia, have you heard " she be 
 gan, but Risley cut her short. 
 
 "About that little girl who ran away?" he said. 
 "Yes, we have; we were just talking about her." 
 
 "Did you ever hear anything like it?" said Mrs. 
 Lloyd. "They say they can t find out where she s 
 been. She won t tell. Don t you believe somebody 
 has threatened her if she does?" 
 
 Cynthia raised herself and began to speak, but a 
 slight, almost imperceptible gesture from the man 
 beside her stopped her. 
 
 "What did you say, Cynthia?" 
 
 "There is no accounting for children s freaks," 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 said Risley, shortly and harshly. Mrs. Lloyd was not 
 thin-skinned; such a current of exuberant cordiality 
 emanated from her own nature that she was not very 
 susceptible to any counter-force. Now, however, she 
 felt vaguely and wonderingly, as a child might have 
 done, that for some reason Lyman Risley was rude to 
 her, and she had a sense of bewildered injury. Mrs. 
 Lloyd was always, moreover, somewhat anxious as to 
 the relations between Cynthia and Lyman Risley. 
 She heard a deal of talk about it first and last; and 
 while she had no word of unkind comment herself, yet 
 she felt at times uneasy. " Folks do talk about Cynthia 
 and Lyman Risley keeping company so long," she told 
 her husband ; " it s as much as twenty years. It does 
 seem as if they ought to get married, don t you think 
 so, Norman? Do you suppose it is because the property 
 was left that way for you know Lyman hasn t got 
 anything besides what he earns or do you suppose it 
 is because Cynthia doesn t want to marry him? I 
 guess it is that. Cynthia never seemed to me as if 
 she would ever care enough about any man to marry 
 him. I guess that s it ; but I do think she ought to stop 
 his coming there quite so much, especially when people 
 know that about her property." 
 
 Cynthia s property was hers on condition that her 
 husband took her name if she married, otherwise it was 
 forfeited to her sister s child. "Catch a Risley ever 
 taking his wife s name!" said Mrs. Lloyd. "Of course 
 Cynthia would be willing to give up the money if she 
 loved him, but I don t believe she does. It seems as 
 if Lyman Risley ought to see it would be better for him 
 not to go there so much if they weren t going to be 
 married." 
 
 So it happened when Risley caught up her question 
 to Cynthia in that peremptory fashion, Mrs. Lloyd felt 
 in addition to the present cause some which had gone 
 
 77 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 before for her grievance. She addressed herself there 
 after entirely and pointedly to Cynthia. "Did you 
 ever see that little girl, Cynthia?" said she. 
 
 "Yes/ replied Cynthia, in a voice so strange that 
 the other woman stared wonderingly at her. 
 
 "Ain t you feeling well, Cynthia?" she asked. 
 
 "Very well, thank you/ said Cynthia. 
 
 " When did you see her?" asked Mrs. Lloyd. Cynthia 
 opened her mouth as if to speak, then she glanced at 
 Risley, whose eyes held her, and laughed instead a 
 strange, nervous laugh. Happily, Mrs. Lloyd did not 
 wait for her answer. She had her own important in 
 formation to impart. She had in reality stopped for 
 that purpose. "Well, I have seen her," she said. 
 "I met her in front of Crosby s one day last summer. 
 And she was so sweet-looking I stopped and spoke 
 to her I couldn t help it. She had beautiful eyes, 
 and the softest light curls, and she was dressed so 
 pretty, and the flowers on her hat were nice. The 
 embroidery on her dress was very fine, too. Usually, 
 you know, those people don t care about the fineness, 
 as long as it is wide, and showy, and bright-colored. 
 I asked her what her name was, and she answered 
 just as pretty, and her mother told me how old she was. 
 Her mother was a handsome woman, though she had 
 an up-and-coming kind of way with her. But she seem 
 ed real pleased to have me notice the child. Where do 
 you suppose she was all that time, Cynthia?" 
 
 "She was in some safe place, undoubtedly," said 
 Risley, and again Mrs. Lloyd felt that she was snubbed, 
 though not seeing how nor why, and again she rebelled 
 with that soft and gentle persistency in her own course 
 which was the only rebellion of which she was capable. 
 
 " Where do you suppose she was, Cynthia?" said she. 
 
 " I think some woman must have seen her, and coaxed 
 Jier in and kept her, she was such a pretty child," said 
 
 78 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Cynthia, defiantly and desperately. But the other 
 woman looked at her in wonder. 
 
 "Oh, Cynthia, I can t believe that/ said she. "It 
 don t seem as if any woman could be so bad as that 
 when the child s mother was in such agony over her." 
 And then she added, " I can t believe it, because it seems 
 to me that if any woman was bad enough to do that, 
 she couldn t have given her up at all, she was such a 
 beautiful child." Mrs. Norman Lloyd had no children 
 of her own, and was given to gazing with eyes of gentle 
 envy at pretty, rosy little girls, frilled with white em 
 broidery like white pinks, dancing along in leading 
 hands of maternal love. " It don t seem to me I could 
 ever have given her up, if I had once been bad enough 
 to steal her," she said. "What put such an idea into 
 your head, Cynthia?" 
 
 When the church-bell clanged out just then Lyman 
 Risley had never been so thankful in his life. Mrs. 
 Lloyd rose promptly, for she had to lead the meeting, 
 that being the custom among the sisters in her church. 
 " Well," said she, " I am thankful she is found, anyway; 
 I couldn t have slept a wink that night if I had known 
 she was lost, the dear little thing. Good -night, Cyn 
 thia ; don t come to the door. Good-night, Mr. Risley. 
 Come and see me, Cynthia do, dear." 
 
 When Mrs. Norman Lloyd was gone, Risley looked 
 at Cynthia with a long breath of relief, but she turned 
 to him with seemingly no appreciation of it, and repeated 
 her declaration which Mrs. Lloyd s coming had in 
 terrupted: "Lyman, I am going there to-night this 
 minute. Will you go with me? No, you must not go 
 with me. I am going !" She sprang to her feet. 
 
 "Sit down, Cynthia," said Risley. "I tell you they 
 were not harsh to her. You don t seem to consider 
 that they love the child possibly better than you 
 can and would not in the nature of things be harsh to 
 
 79 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her under such circumstances. Sit down and hear the 
 rest of it." 
 
 "But they will be harsh by-and-by, after the first 
 joy of finding her is over/ said Cynthia. "I will go 
 and tell them the first thing in the morning, Lyman." 
 
 " You will do nothing so foolish. They are not only 
 not insisting upon her telling her secret, but announced 
 to me their determination not to do so in the future. 
 I wish you could have seen that man s face when he 
 told me what a delicate, nervous little thing his child 
 was, and the doctor said she must not be fretted if she 
 had taken a notion not to tell; and I wish you could 
 have seen the mother and the aunt, and the grand 
 mother, Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. They would all give 
 each other and themselves up to be torn of wild beasts 
 first. It is easy to see where the child got her ex 
 traordinary strength of will. They took me out in the 
 sitting-room, and there was a wild flurry of feminine 
 skirts before me. I had previously overheard myself 
 announced as Lawyer Risley by the aunt, and the 
 response from various voices that they were goin 
 if he was comin out in the sittin -room. It always 
 made them nervous to see lawyers. Well, I followed 
 the parents and the grandmother and the aunt out. 
 I dared not refuse when they suggested it, and I hoped 
 desperately that the child would not remember me from 
 that one scared glance she gave at me this morning. 
 But there she sat in her little chair, holding the doll 
 you gave her, and she looked up at me when I entered, 
 and I have never in the whole course of my existence 
 seen such an expression upon the face of a child. Re 
 member me? Indeed she did, and she promised me with 
 the faithfulest, stanchest eyes of a woman set in a 
 child s head that she would not tell ; that I need not fear 
 for one minute; that the lady who had given her the 
 was quite safe. She knew, and she must have 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 heard what I said to you this morning. She is the most 
 wonderful child I have ever seen." 
 
 Cynthia had sank back in her chair. Lyman Risley 
 put his cigar back between his lips ; Cynthia was quite 
 still, her delicate profile towards him. 
 
 "I assure you there is not the slightest danger of 
 their troubling the child because of her silence, and 
 you would do an exceedingly foolish thing, and its con 
 sequences would react not upon yourself only, but 
 upon others, were you to confess the truth to them," 
 he said after a little. "You must think of others of 
 your friends, and of your sister s boy, whose loss led 
 you into this. This would well, it would get into the 
 papers, Cynthia." 
 
 "Do you think that the doll continued to please her?" 
 asked Cynthia. 
 
 "Cynthia, I want you to promise," said her friend, 
 persistently. 
 
 " Very well, I will promise, if you will promise to let 
 me know the minute you hear that they are treating her 
 harshly because of her silence." 
 
 Suddenly Cynthia turned her face upon him. " Ly 
 man," said she, " do you think that I could do anything 
 for her" 
 
 " Do anything for her?" he repeated, vaguely. 
 
 "Yes; they cannot have money. They must be 
 poor: the father works in the factory. Would they 
 allow me " 
 
 The lawyer laughed. "Cynthia," he said, "you 
 do not realize that pride finds its native element in all 
 strata of society, and riches are comparative. Let 
 me inform you that these Brewsters, of whom this child 
 sprung, claim as high places in the synagogue as any 
 of your Lennoxes and Risleys, and, what is more, they 
 believe themselves there. They have seen the tops of 
 their neighbors heads as often as you or I. The mere 
 
 8l 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 fact of familiarity with shoe-knives and leather, and 
 hand -skill instead of brain/- skill, makes no difference 
 with such inherent confidence of importance as theirs. 
 The Louds, on the other side the handsome aunt is 
 a Loud are rather below caste, but they make up for 
 it with defiance. And as for riches, I would have you 
 know that the Brewsters are as rich in their own es 
 timation as you in yours; that they have possessions 
 which entirely meet their needs and their aesthetic long 
 ings ; that not only does Andrew Brewster earn exceed 
 ingly good wages in the shop, and is able to provide 
 plenty of nourishing food and good clothes, but even 
 by-and-by, if he prospers and is prudent, something 
 rather extra in the way of education perhaps a piano. 
 I would have you know that there is a Rogers group 
 on a little marble-topped table in the front window, 
 and a table in the side window with a worked spread, 
 on which reposes a red plush photograph album; that 
 there is also a set of fine parlor furniture, with various 
 devices in the way of silken and lace scarfs over the 
 corners and backs of the chairs and sofa, and that there 
 is a tapestry carpet; that in the sitting-room is a fine 
 crushed - plush couch, and a multiplicity of rocking- 
 chairs; that there is a complete dining-set in the next 
 room, the door of which stood open, and even a side 
 board with red napkins, and a fine display of glass, 
 every whit as elegant in their estimation as your cut 
 glass in yours. The child s father owns his house and 
 land free of encumbrance. He told me so in the course 
 of his artless boasting as to what he might some day 
 be able to do for the precious little creature of his own 
 flesh and blood; and the grandmother owns her com 
 fortable place next door, and she herself was dressed in 
 black silk, and I will swear the lace on her cap was 
 real, and she wore a great brooch containing hair of 
 the departed, and it was set in pearl. What are 
 
 82 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 you going to do in the face of opulence like this, 
 Cynthia?" 
 
 Cynthia did not speak; her face looked as still as if 
 it were carved in ivory. 
 
 "Cynthia/" said the man, in a harsh voice, "I did 
 not dream you were so broken up over losing that little 
 boy of your sister s, poor girl/ 
 
 Cynthia still said nothing, but a tear rolled down 
 her cheek. Lyman Risley saw it, then he looked 
 straight ahead, scowling over his cigar. He seemed 
 suddenly to realize in this woman whom he loved some 
 thing anomalous, yet lovely a beauty, as it were, of 
 deformity, an over-development in one direction, though 
 a direction of utter grace and sweetness, like the lip of 
 an orchid. 
 
 Why should she break her heart over a child whom 
 she had never seen before, and have no love and pity for 
 the man who had laid his best at her feet so long? 
 
 He saw at a flash the sweet yet monstrous imper 
 fection of her, and he loved her better for it. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 AFTER Ellen s experience in running away, she 
 dreamed her dreams with a difference. The breath of 
 human passion had stained the pure crystal of her 
 childish imagination; she peopled all her air-castles, 
 and sounds of wailing farewells floated from the White 
 North of her fancy after the procession of the evergreen 
 trees in the west yard, and the cherry-trees on the east 
 had found out that they were not in the Garden of Eden. 
 In those days Ellen grew taller and thinner, and the 
 cherubic roundness of her face lengthened into a sweet 
 wistfulness of wonder and pleading, as of one who 
 would look farther, since she heard sounds and saw 
 signs in her sky which indicated more beyond. An 
 drew and Fanny watched her more anxiously than 
 ever, and decided not to send her to school before spring, 
 though all the neighbors exclaimed at their tardiness 
 in so doing. " Shell be two years back of my Hattie 
 gettin into the high-school/ said one woman, bluntly, 
 to Fanny, who retorted, angrily, 
 
 " I don t care if she s ten years behind, if she don t 
 lose her health." 
 
 "You wait and see if she s two years behind!" ex 
 claimed Eva, who had just returned from the shop, 
 and had entered the room bringing a fresh breath 
 of December air, her cheeks glowing, her black eyes 
 shining. 
 
 Eva was so handsome in those days that she fairly 
 forced admiration, even from those of her own sex whose 
 delicacy of taste she offended. She had a parcel in 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her hand, which she had bought at a store on her way 
 home, for she was getting ready to be married to Jim 
 Tenny. "I tell you there don t nobody know what 
 that young one can do/ continued Eva, with a radiant 
 nod of triumph. "There ain t many grown-up folks 
 round here that can read like her, and she s studied 
 geography, and she knows her multiplication - table, 
 and she can spell better than some that s been through 
 the high-school. You jest wait till Ellen gets started 
 on her schoolin she won t stay in the grammar-school 
 long, I can tell you that. She ll go ahead of some that s 
 got a start now and think they re most there." Eva 
 pulled off her hat, and the coarse black curls on her 
 forehead sprang up like released wire. She nodded 
 emphatically with a good-humored combativeness at 
 the visiting woman and at her sister. 
 
 "I hope your cheeks are red enough/ said Fanny, 
 looking at her with grateful admiration. 
 
 The visiting woman sniffed covertly, and a retort 
 which seemed to her exceedingly witty was loud in her 
 own consciousness. " Them that likes beets and pinies 
 is welcome to them," she thought, but she did not speak. 
 "Well," said she, "folks must do as they think best 
 about their own children. I have always thought a 
 good deal of an education myself. I was brought up 
 that way." She looked with eyes that were fairly 
 cruel at Eva Loud and Fanny, who had been a Loud, 
 who had both stopped going to school at a very early 
 age. 
 
 Then the rich red flamed over Eva s forehead and 
 neck as well as her cheeks. There was nothing covert 
 about her, she would drag an ambushed enemy forth 
 into the open field even at the risk of damaging dis 
 closures regarding herself. 
 
 " Why don t you say jest what you mean, right out, 
 Jennie Stebbins?" she demanded. "You are hintin 
 
 85 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 that Fanny and me never had no education, and twittin 
 us with it." 
 
 "It wa n t our fault/ said Fanny, no less angrily. 
 
 "No, it wa n t our fault," assented Eva. "We had 
 to quit school. Folks can live with empty heads, but 
 they can t with empty stomachs. It had to be one or 
 the other. If you want to twit us with bein poor, you 
 can, Jennie Stebbins." 
 
 "I haven t said anything," said Mrs. Stebbins, with 
 a scared and injured air. " I d like to know what you re 
 making all this fuss about? I don t know. What did 
 I say?" 
 
 " If I d said anything mean, I wouldn t turn tail an 
 run, I d stick to it about one minute and a half, if it 
 killed me," said Eva, scornfully. 
 
 "You know what you was hintin at, jest as well 
 as we do," said Fanny; " but it ain t so true as you and 
 some other folks may think, I can tell you that. If 
 Eva and me didn t go to school as long as some, we 
 have always read every chance we could get." 
 
 "That s so," said Eva, emphatically. "I guess 
 we ve read enough sight more than some folks that 
 has had a good deal more chance to read. Fanny and 
 me have taken books out of the library full as much as 
 any of the neighbors, I rather guess." 
 
 " We ve read every single thing that Mrs. Southworth 
 has ever written," said Fanny, "and that s sayin 
 considerable." 
 
 "And all Pansy s and Rider Haggard s," declared 
 Eva, with triumph. 
 
 " And every one of The Duchess and Marie Corelli, 
 and Sir Walter Scott, and George Macdonald, and 
 Laura Jean Libbey, and Charles Reade, and more, 
 besides, than I can think of." 
 
 "Fanny has read most all Tennyson," said Eva, 
 with loyal admiration; "she likes poetry, but I don t 
 
 86 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 very well. She has read most all Tennyson and Long 
 fellow, and we ve both read Oueechee, and St. Elmo, 
 and Jane Eyre." 
 
 "And we ve read the Bible through/ said Fanny, 
 " because we read in a paper once that that was a com 
 plete education. We made up our minds we d read it 
 through, and w r e did, though it took us quite a while." 
 
 " And we take Zion s Herald, and The Rowe Gazette, 
 and The Youth s Companion/ said Eva. 
 
 " And we ve both of us learned Ellen geography and 
 spellin and rithmetic, till we know most as much as 
 she does/ said Fanny. 
 
 "That s so," said Fanny. "I snum, I believe I 
 could get into the high-school myself, if I wasn t goin 
 to git married," said Eva, with a gay laugh. She was 
 so happy in those days that her power of continued 
 resentment was small. The tide of her own bliss re 
 turned upon her full consciousness and overflowed, and 
 crested, as with glory, all petty annoyances. 
 
 The visiting woman took up her work, and rose to 
 go with a slightty abashed air, though her small brown 
 eyes were still blanks of impregnable defence. "Well, 
 1 dunno what I ve said to stir you both so," she re 
 marked again. "If I ve said anythin that riled you, 
 I m sorry, I m sure. As I said before, folks must do 
 as they are a mind to with their own children. If they 
 see fit to keep em home from school until they re women 
 grown, and if they think it s best not to punish em 
 when they run away, why they must. I ain t got no 
 right to say anythin , and I ain t." 
 
 " You " began Fanny, and then she stopped short, 
 and Eva began arranging her hair before the glass. 
 "The wind blew so comin home," she said, "that my 
 hair is all out." The visiting woman stared with a 
 motion of adjustive bewilderment, as one might before a 
 sudden change of wind, then she looked, as a shadowy 
 
 87 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 motion disturbed the even light of the room and little 
 Ellen passed the window. She knew at once, for she 
 had heard the gossip, that the ready tongues of 
 recrimination were hushed because of the child, and 
 then Ellen entered. 
 
 The winter afternoon was waning and the light was 
 low ; the child s face, with its clear fairness, seemed to 
 gleam out in the room like a lamp with a pale lumi 
 nosity of its own. 
 
 The three women, the mother, and aunt, and the 
 visiting neighbor, all looked at her, and Ellen smiled 
 up at them as innocently sweet as a flower. There was 
 that in Ellen s smile and regard at that time which 
 no woman could resist. Suddenly the visiting neighbor 
 laid a finger softly under her chin and tilted up her 
 little face towards the light. Then she said with that 
 unconscious poetry of bereavement which sees a like 
 ness in all fair things of earth to the face of the lost 
 treasure, " I do believe she looks like my first little girl 
 that died." 
 
 After the visiting woman had gone, Fanny and 
 Eva calling after her to come again, they looked at 
 each other, then at Ellen. " That little girl that died 
 favored the Stebbinses, and was dark as an Injun," 
 said Fanny, " no more like Ellen " 
 
 " That s so," acquiesced Eva ; " I remember that young 
 one. Lookin like Ellen I d like to see the child that 
 did look like her; there ain t none round these parts. 
 I wish you could have seen folks stare at her when I 
 took her down street yesterday. One woman said, 
 Ain t she pretty as a picture/ so loud I heard it, but 
 Ellen didn t seem to." 
 
 "Sometimes I wonder if we ll make her proud," Fan 
 ny said, in a hushed voice, with a look of admiration 
 that savored of worship at Ellen. 
 
 "She don t ever seem to notice," said Eva, with a 
 88 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 hushed response. Indeed, Ellen had seemed to pay no 
 attention whatever to their remarks, whether from 
 an innate humility and lack of self - consciousness, or 
 because she was so accustomed to adulation that it had 
 become as the breath of her nostrils, to be taken no 
 more account of. She had seated herself in her favorite 
 place in a rocking-chair at a west window, with her 
 chin resting on the sill, and her eyes staring into the 
 great out-of-doors, full of winds and skies and trees 
 and her own imaginings. 
 
 She would sit so, motionless, for hours at a time, and 
 sometimes her mother would rouse her almost roughly. 
 "What be you thinkin about, settin there so still?" 
 she would ask, with eyes of vague anxiety fixed upon 
 her, but Ellen could never answer. 
 
 Though it was getting late, it did not seem dark as 
 early as usual, since there was a full moon and there 
 was snow on the ground which gave forth a pale light 
 in a wide surface of reflection. However, the moon 
 was behind clouds, for it was beginning to snow again 
 quite heavily, and the white flakes drove in whirlwinds 
 past the street-lamp on the corner of the street. Now 
 and then a tramping and muffled figure came into the 
 radius of light, then passed into the white gloom beyond. 
 
 Fanny was preparing supper, and the light from the 
 dining-room shone in where Ellen sat, but the sitting- 
 room was not lighted. Ellen began to smell the fra 
 grance of tea and toast, and there was a reflection of 
 the dining-room table and lamp outside pictured vividly 
 against the white sheet of storm. 
 
 Ellen knew better, but it amused her to think that her 
 home was out-of-doors as well as under her father s 
 and mother s roof. Eva passed her with her hands full 
 of kindlings. She was going to make a fire in the 
 parlor-stove, for Jim Tenny was coming that evening. 
 She laid a tender hand on Ellen s head as she passed, 
 * 89 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and smoothed her hair. Ellen had a sort of acquiescent 
 wonder over her aunt Eva in those days. She heard 
 people say Eva was getting ready to be married, and 
 speculated. "What is getting ready to be married?" 
 she asked Eva. 
 
 "Why, getting your clothes made, you little ninny/ 
 Eva answered. 
 
 The next day Ellen had watched her mother at work 
 upon a new little frock for herself for some time before 
 she spoke. 
 
 "Mother/ she said. 
 
 "Yes, child." 
 
 "Mother, you are making that new dress for me, 
 ain t you?" 
 
 "Of course I am; why?" 
 
 " And you made me a new coat last week?" 
 
 "Why, you know I did, Ellen; what do you mean?" 
 
 " And you are going to make me a petticoat and put 
 that pretty lace on it?" 
 
 " You know I am, Ellen Brewster, what be you drivin 
 at?" 
 
 "Be I a-gettin ready to be married, mother?" asked 
 Ellen, with the strangest look of wonder and awe and 
 anticipation. 
 
 Fanny had told this saying of the child s to every 
 body, and that evening when Jim Tenny came he 
 caught up Ellen and gave her a toss to the ceiling, a 
 trick of his which filled Ellen with a sort of fearful 
 delight, the delight of helplessness in the hands of 
 strength, and the titillation of evanescent risk. 
 
 "So you are gettin ready to be married, are you?" 
 Jim Tenny said, with a great laugh, looking at her 
 soberly, with big black eyes. Jim Tenny was a hand 
 some fellow, and much larger and stronger than her 
 father. Ellen liked him; he often brought candies in 
 his pocket for her, and they were great friends, but she 
 
 90 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 could never understand why he stayed in the parlor 
 all alone with her aunt Eva, instead of in the sitting- 
 room with the others. 
 
 Ellen had looked back at him as soberly. "Mother 
 says I ain t/ she replied, "but" 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " I am getting most as many new clothes as Aunt 
 Eva, and she is." 
 
 "And you think maybe *y u are gettin ready to be 
 married, after all, hey?" 
 
 " I think maybe mother wants to surprise me," Ellen 
 said. 
 
 Jim Tenny had all of a sudden shaken convulsively 
 as if with mirth, but his face remained perfectly sober. 
 
 That evening after the parlor door was closed upon 
 Jim and Eva, Ellen wondered what they were laughing 
 at. 
 
 To-night when she saw Eva enter the room, a lighted 
 lamp illuminating her face fairly reckless with hap 
 piness, to light the fire in the courting - stove as her 
 sister facetiously called it, she thought to herself that 
 Jim Tenny was coming, that they would be shut up in 
 there all alone as usual, and then she looked out at the 
 storm and the night again, and the little home picture 
 thrown against it. Then she saw her father coming 
 into the yard with his arms full of parcels, and she 
 was out of her chair and at the kitchen door to meet 
 him. 
 
 Andrew had brought as usual some dainties for his 
 darling. He watched Ellen unwrap the various parcels, 
 not smiling as usual, but with a curious knitting of his 
 forehead and pitiful compression of mouth. When she 
 had finished and ran into the other room to show a 
 great orange to her aunt, he drew a heavy sigh that 
 was almost a groan. His wife coming in from the 
 kitchen with a dish heard him, and looked at him with 
 
 91 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 quick anxiety, though she spoke in a merry, rallying 
 way. 
 
 " For the land sake, Andrew Brewster, what be you 
 groanin that way for?" she cried out. 
 
 Andrew s tense face did not relax ; he strove to push 
 past her without a word, but Fanny stood before him. 
 "Now, look at here, Andrew/ said she, "you ain t 
 goin to walk off with a face like that, unless I know 
 what the matter is. Are you sick?" 
 
 "No, I ain t sick, Fanny," Andrew said; then in a 
 low voice, "Let me go, I will tell you by-and-by." 
 
 "No, Andrew, you have got to tell me now. I m 
 goin to know whatever has happened." 
 
 "Wait till after supper, Fanny." 
 
 " No, I can t wait. Look here, Andrew, you are my 
 husband, and there ain t no trouble that can come to you 
 in this world that I can t bear, except not knowin . 
 You ve got to tell me what the matter is." 
 
 " Well, keep quiet till after supper, then," said Andrew. 
 Then suddenly he leaned his face close to her and whis 
 pered with a hiss of tragedy, " Lloyd s shut down." 
 
 Fanny recoiled and looked at him. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "The foreman gave notice to-night." 
 
 "For how long? Did he say?" 
 
 "Oh, till business got better same old story. Un 
 less I m mistaken, Lloyd s will be shut down all win 
 ter." 
 
 "Well, it ain t so bad for us as for some, "said Fanny. 
 Both pride and a wish to cheer her husband induced 
 her to say that. She did not like to think that, after 
 the fine marriage she had made, she needed to be as 
 distressed at a temporary loss of employment as others. 
 Then, too, that look of overhanging melancholy in 
 Andrew s face alarmed her ; she felt that she must drive 
 it away at any cost. 
 
 92 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Seems to me it s bad enough for anybody/ said 
 Andrew, morosely. 
 
 "Now, Andrew, you know it ain t. Here we own 
 the house clear, and we ve got that money in the sav 
 ings-bank, and all that s your mother s is yours in the 
 end. Of course we ain t always thinkin of that, and 
 I m sure I hope she ll outlive me, but it s so: You 
 know we sha n t starve if you don t have work." 
 
 " We shall starve in the end, and you know I ve 
 been " Andrew stopped suddenly as he heard Ellen 
 and his sister-in-law coming. He shook his head at 
 his wife with a warning motion that she should keep 
 silence. 
 
 " Don t Eva know?" she whispered. 
 
 " No, she came out early. Do for Heaven s sake keep 
 quiet till after supper." 
 
 Eva was sharp-eyed, and all through supper she 
 watched Andrew, and the lines of melancholy on his 
 face, which did not disappear even when he forced con 
 versation. 
 
 "What in creation ails you, Andrew?" she burst out, 
 finally. " You look like a walking funeral. " 
 
 Andrew made no reply, and Fanny volunteered an 
 answer. "He s all tired out," she said; "he s got a 
 little cold. Eat some more of the stew, Andrew; it ll 
 do you good, it s nice and hot." 
 
 "You can t cheat me," said Eva. "There s some 
 thing to pay." She took a mouthful, then she stared 
 at Andrew, with a sudden pallor. "It ain t anythin* 
 about Jim, is it?" she gasped out. "Because if it is, 
 there s no use in your waitin to tell me, you might aa 
 well have it over at once. You won t make it any 
 easier for me, I can tell you that." 
 
 "No, it ain t anything about Jim, in the way you 
 mean, Eva," her sister said, soothingly. "Eat your 
 supper and don t worry." 
 
 93 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "What do you mean by that? Jim ain t sick?" 
 
 "No, I tell you; don t be a goose, Eva." 
 
 "He ain t been anywhere with " 
 
 "Do keep still, Eva!" Fanny cried, impatiently. 
 "If I didn t have any more faith than that in a man, 
 I d give him up. I don t think you re fair to Jim. Of 
 course he ain t been with that girl, when he s goin 
 to marry you next month." 
 
 "I m just as fair to Jim as he deserves," Eva said, 
 simply. " I think just as much of him, but what a man s 
 done once he may do again, and I can t help it if I think 
 of it, and he shouldn t be surprised. He s brought it on 
 himself. I ve got as much faith in him as anybody 
 can have, seein as he s a man. Well, if it ain t that, 
 Andrew Brewster, what is it?" 
 
 "Now, you let him alone till after supper, Eva," 
 Fanny said. " Do let him have a little peace." 
 
 " Well, I ll get it out of him afterwards," Eva said. 
 
 As soon as she got up from the table she pushed him 
 into the sitting-room. "Now, out with it," said she. 
 Ellen, who had followed them, stood looking at them 
 both, her lips parted, her eyes full of half -alarmed 
 curiosity. 
 
 "Lloyd s has shut down, if you want to know," 
 Andrew said, shortly. 
 
 "Oh my God!" cried Eva. Andrew shrank from 
 her impatiently. She made that ejaculation because 
 she was a Loud, and had an off -streak in her blood. 
 Not one of Andrew s pure New England stock would 
 have so expressed herself. He sat down beside the lamp 
 and took up the evening paper. Eva stood looking at 
 him a minute. She was quite pale, she was weighing 
 consequences. Then she went out to her sister. " Well, 
 you know what s happened, Fan, I s pose," she said. 
 
 "Yes, I m awful sorry, but I tell Andrew it ain t so 
 bad for us as for some; we sha n t starve." 
 
 94 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "I don t know as I care much whether I starve or 
 not/ said Eva. "It s goin to make me put off my 
 weddin ; and if I do put it off, Jim and me will never get 
 married at all; I feel it in my bones/ 
 
 " Why, what should you have to put it off for?" asked 
 Fanny. 
 
 " Why? I should think you d know why without ask- 
 in . Ain t I spent every dollar I have saved up on my 
 weddin fixin s, and Jim, he s got his mother on his 
 hands, and she s been sick, and he ain t saved up any 
 thing. If you s pose I m goin to marry him and make 
 him any worse off than he is now you re mistaken/ 
 
 "Well, mebbe Jim can work somewhere else, and 
 mebbe Lloyd s won t be shut up long," Fanny said, 
 consolingly. "I wouldn t give up so, if I was you." 
 
 "I might jest as well," Eva returned. "It s no use, 
 Jim and me will never get married." Eva s face was 
 curiously set ; she was not in the least loud nor violent 
 as was usually the case when she was in trouble, her 
 voice was quite low, and she spoke slowly. 
 
 Fanny looked anxiously at her. " It ain t as though 
 you hadn t a roof to cover you," she said, "for you ve 
 got mine and Andrew s as long as we have one our 
 selves." 
 
 "Do you think I d live on Andrew long?" demanded 
 Eva. 
 
 "You won t have to. Jim will get work in a week 
 or two, and you ll get married. Don t act so. I declare, 
 I m ashamed of you, Eva Loud. I thought you had 
 more sense, to give up discouraged at no more than this. 
 I don t see why you jump way ahead into trouble before 
 you get to it." 
 
 " I ve got to it, and I can feel the steam of it in my 
 face," Eva said, with unconscious imagery. Then she 
 lit a lamp, and went up-stairs to change her dress before 
 Jim Tenny arrived. 
 
 95 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 It was snowing hard. Ellen sat in her place by the 
 window and watched the flakes drive past the radiance 
 of the street-lamp on the corner, and past the reflection 
 of the warm, bright room. Now she could see, since 
 the light was in the room where she sat, her father 
 beside the table reading his paper, and shadowy images 
 of all the familiar things projecting themselves like a 
 mirage of home into the night and storm. Ellen could 
 see, even without turning round, that her father looked 
 very sober, and did not seem to be much interested in 
 his paper, and a vague sense of calamity oppressed her. 
 She did not know just what might be involved in Lloyd s 
 shutting dow r n, but she saw that her father and aunt 
 were disturbed, and her imaginings were half eclipsed 
 by a shadow of material things. Ellen dearly loved 
 this early evening hour when she could stare out into 
 the mystery of the night, herself sheltered under the 
 wing of home, and the fancies which her childish brain 
 wove were as a garment of spirit for the future ; but to 
 night she did not dream so much as she wondered and 
 reflected. Pretty soon Ellen saw r a man s figure plodding 
 through the fast-gathering snow, and heard her aunt 
 Eva make a soft, heavy rush down the front stairs, 
 and she knew the man was Jim Tenny, and her aunt 
 had been watching for him. Ellen wondered why she 
 had watched up in her cold room, why she had not sat 
 down-stairs where it was warm, and let Jim ring the 
 door-bell. Ellen liked Jim Tenny, but there was often 
 that in her aunt s eyes regarding him which made 
 Ellen look past him and above him to see if there 
 was another man there. Ellen heard the fire crack 
 ling in the parlor - stove, and saw the light shining 
 under the parlor threshold, and heard the soft hum of 
 voices. Her mother, having finished washing up the 
 supper dishes, came in presently and seated herself 
 beside the lamp with her needle-work. 
 
 96 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You don t feel any wind comin in the window?" 
 she said, anxiously, to Ellen. 
 
 " No, ma am/ replied Ellen. 
 
 Andrew looked up quickly. " You re sure you don t?" 
 he said. 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 Ellen watched her mother sewing out in the snowy 
 yard, then a dark shadow came between the reflection 
 and the window, then another. Two men treading in 
 the snow in even file, one in the other s foot-tracks, came 
 into the yard. 
 
 "Somebody s comin / said Ellen, as a knock, came 
 on the side door. 
 
 "Did you see who twas?" Fanny asked, starting up. 
 
 "Two men." 
 
 "It s somebody to see you, Andrew/ Fanny said, 
 and Andrew tossed his paper on the table and went 
 to the door. 
 
 When the door was opened Ellen heard a man cough. 
 
 " I should think anybody was crazy to come out such 
 a night as this, coughin that way," murmured Fanny. 
 "I do believe it s Joe Atkins; sounds like his cough." 
 Then Andrew entered with the two men stamping and 
 shaking themselves. 
 
 "Here s Joseph Atkins and Nahum Beals," Andrew 
 said, in his melancholy voice, all unstirred by the usual 
 warmth of greeting. The two men bowed stiffly. 
 
 "Good-evenin ," Fanny said, and rose and pushed 
 forward the rocking-chair in which she had been seated 
 to Joseph Atkins, who was a consumptive man with 
 an invalid wife, and worked next Andrew in Lloyd s. 
 
 "Keep your settin , keep your settin ," he returned 
 in his quick, nervous way, as if his very words were 
 money for dire need, and sat himself down in a straight 
 chair far from the fire. The other man, Nahum Beals, 
 \vas very young. He seated himself next to Joseph, 
 
 97 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and the two side by side looked with gloomy signifi 
 cance at Andrew and Fanny. Then Joseph Atkins 
 burst out suddenly in a rattling volley of coughs. 
 
 " You hadn t ought to come out such a night as this, 
 I m afraid, Mr. Atkins/ said Fanny. 
 
 " He s been out jest as bad weather as this all winter/ 
 said the young man, Nahum Beals, in an unexpectedly 
 deep voice. "The workers of this world can t afford 
 to take no account of weather. It s for the rich folks 
 to look out betwixt their lace curtains and see if it looks 
 lowery, so they sha n t git their gold harnesses and their 
 shiny carriages, an their silks an velvets an ostrich 
 feathers wet. The poor folks that it s life and death to 
 have to go out whether or no, no matter if they ve got 
 an extra suit of clothes or not. They ve got to go out 
 through the drenchin rain and the snow-drifts, to 
 earn money so that the rich folks can have them gold- 
 plated harnesses and them silks and velvets. Joe s 
 been out all winter in weather as bad as this, after he s 
 been standin all day in a shop as hot as hell, drenched 
 with sweat. One more time won t make much dif 
 ference." 
 
 "It would be nough sight better for me if it did," 
 said Joseph Atkins, chokingly, and still with that same 
 seeming of hurry. 
 
 Fanny had gone out to the dining-room, and now she 
 returned stirring some whiskey and molasses in a cup. 
 
 "Here," said she, "you take this, Mr. Atkins; it s 
 real good for a cough. Andrew cured a cold with it 
 last month." 
 
 "Mine ain t a cold, and it can t be cured in this world, 
 but it s better for me, I guess," said Joe Atkins, chok 
 ingly, but he took the cup. 
 
 "Now, you hadn t ought to talk so," Fanny said, 
 "You had ought to think of your wife and children." 
 
 "My life is insured," said Joseph Atkina. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " We ain t got no money and no jewelry, and no silver 
 to leave them we love all we ve got to leave em is 
 the price of our own lives/ said Nahum Beals. 
 
 " I wish I had got my life insured/ Andrew said. 
 
 " Don t talk so, Andrew/ Fanny cried, with a shudder. 
 
 "My life is insured for two thousand dollars/ Joe 
 Atkins said, with an odd sort of pride. " I had it done 
 three years ago. My lungs was sound as anybody s 
 then, but that very next summer I worked up under that 
 tin roof, and came out as wet as if I d been dipped in 
 the river, into an east wind, and got a chill. It was the 
 only time I ever struck luck to get insured before that 
 happened. Nobody d look at me now, and I dunno 
 what they d do. I ain t laid up a cent, I ve had so 
 much sickness in my family." 
 
 "If you hadn t worked that summer in the annex 
 under that tin roof, you d be as well as you ever was 
 now," said Nahum Beals. 
 
 "I worked there Alongside of you that summer/ 
 said Andrew to Joe, with bitter reminiscence. "We 
 used to strip like a gang of convicts, and we stood in 
 pools of sweat. It was that awful hot summer, and the 
 room had only that one row of windows facing the east, 
 and the wind never that way." 
 
 "Not till I came out of the shop that night I took 
 the chill," said Joe. 
 
 Suddenly the young man, Nahum Beals, hit his 
 knees a sounding slap, which made Ellen, furtively 
 and timidly attentive at her window, jump. " It seems 
 sometimes as if the Almighty himself was in league 
 with em/ he shouted out, " but I tell you it won t last, 
 it won t last." 
 
 " I don t see much sign of any change for the better," 
 Andrew said, gloomily. 
 
 " I tell you, sir, it won t last," repeated Nahum Beals. 
 "I tell you, the Lord only raises em up higher and 
 
 99 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 V J 
 
 higher that He may dash em lower when the time 
 comes. The same earth is beneath the high places 
 of this life, and the lowly ones, and the law that governs 
 em is the same, and the higher the place the longer 
 
 -4he fall, and the longer the fall the sorer the hurt." 
 Nahum Deals sprang to his feet with a strange abandon 
 of self-consciousness and a fiery impetus for one of his 
 New England blood. He had a delicate, nervous face, 
 like a woman s, his blue eyes gleamed like blue flames 
 under his overhang of white forehead, he shook his 
 head as if it were maned like a lion, and, though he wore 
 his thin, fair hair short, one could seem to see it flung 
 back in glistening lines. He spread his hands as if 
 he were addressing an audience, and as he did so the 
 parlor door opened and Jim Tenny and Eva stood 
 there, listening. 
 
 "I tell you, sir/ shouted Nahum Beals, "the time 
 will come when you will all thank God that you belong 
 to the poor and down-trodden of this earth, and not to 
 the rich and great the time will come. There s knives 
 to sharpen to-day, and wood for scaffolds as plenty as 
 in the days of the French Revolution, and the hand that 
 marks the time of day on the clock of men s patience 
 with wrong and oppression has near gone round to the 
 same hour and minute." 
 
 Andrew Brewster looked at him, with a curious ex 
 pression half of disgust, half of sympathy. His sense 
 of dignity in the face of adversity inherited from his 
 New England race was shocked; he was not one to be 
 blindly swayed by another s fervor even when his own 
 wrongs were in question. He would not have made a 
 good follower in a revolution, nor a leader. He would 
 simply have found his own place of fixed principle 
 and abided there. Then, too, he had a judicial mind 
 which could combine the elements of counsels for an4 
 against his own cause. 
 
 TOP 
 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Now, look at here/ he said, slowly, "I ain t goin 1 
 to say I don t think we ain t in a hard place, and that 
 there s somethin wrong that s to blame for it, but I 
 dunno but you go most too far, Nahum; or, rather, I 
 dunno as you go far enough. I dunno but we ve got 
 to dig down past the poor and the rich, farther into the 
 everlastin foundations of things to get at what s the 
 trouble." 
 
 Jim Tenny, standing in the parlor doorway, with an 
 arm around Eva s waist, broke in suddenly with a 
 defiant laugh. "I don t care nothin about the ever 
 lastin foundations of things, arid I don t care a darn 
 about the rich and the poor," he proclaimed. "I m 
 willin to leave that to lecturers arid dynamiters, and let 
 em settle it if they can. I don t grudge the rich nothin , 
 and I ain t goin to call the Almighty to account for 
 givin somebody else the biggest piece of pie; mebbe it 
 would give me the stomach-ache. All I m concerned 
 about is Lloyd s shut-down." 
 
 "That s so," said Eva. 
 
 " I tell you, sir, it ain t the facts of the case, but the 
 reason for the facts, which we must think of," main 
 tained Nahum Beals. 
 
 "I don t care a darn for the facts nor the reasons," 
 said Jim Tenny; "all I care about is I m out of work 
 maybe till spring, with my mother dependent on me, 
 and not a cent laid up, I ve been so darned careless, 
 and here s Eva says she won t marry me till I get work." 
 
 "I won t," said Eva, who was very pale, except for 
 burning spots on her cheeks. 
 
 "She s afraid she won t get frostin on her cake, 
 and silk dresses, I expect," Jim Tenny said, and laugh 
 ed, but his laugh was very bitter. 
 
 "Jim Tenny, you know better than that," Eva cried, 
 sharply. " I won t stand that. " 
 
 Jim Tenny, with a quick motion, unwound his arm 
 
 101 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 from Eva s waist and stripped up his sleeve. " There, 
 look at that, will you/ he cried out, shaking his lean, 
 muscular arm at them; "look at that muscle, and 
 me tellin her that I could earn a livin for her, and 
 she afraid. I can dig if I can t make shoes. I guess 
 there s work in this world for them that s willin , and 
 don t pick and choose." 
 
 "There ain t," declared Nahum, shortly. 
 
 " You can t dig when the ground s froze hard/ Eva 
 said, with literal meaning. 
 
 "Then I ll take a pickaxe," cried Jim. 
 
 "You can dig, but who s goin to pay you for the 
 diggin ?" demanded Nahum Beals. 
 
 " The idea of a girl s bein afraid I wa n t enough of 
 a man to support a wife with an arm like that," said 
 Jim Tenny, "as if I couldn t dig for her, or fight for 
 her." 
 
 " The fightin has got to come first in order to get the 
 diggin , and the pay for it," said Nahum. 
 
 "Now, look at here," Andrew Brewster broke in, 
 "you know I m in as bad a box as you, and I come 
 home to-night feelin as if I didn t care whether I lived 
 or died; but if it s true what McGrath said to-night, 
 we ve got to use common-sense in lookin at things 
 even if it goes against us. If what McGrath said was 
 true, that Lloyd s losing money keeping on, I dunno 
 how we can expect him or any other man to do that." 
 
 "Why not he lose money as well as we?" demanded 
 Nahum, fiercely. 
 
 " Cause we ain t got none to lose," cried Jim Tenny, 
 with a hard laugh, and Eva and Fanny echoed him 
 hysterically. 
 
 Nahum took no notice of the interruption. Tragedy, 
 to his comprehension, never verged on comedy. One 
 could imagine his face of intense melancholy and de 
 nunciation relaxed with laughter no more than that of 
 
 102 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 the stern prophet of righteous retribution whose name 
 he bore, 
 
 "Why shouldn t Norman Lloyd lose money ?" he 
 demanded again. " Why shouldn t he lose his fine 
 house as well as I my poor little home? W 7 hy shouldn t 
 he lose his purple and fine linen as well as Jim his 
 chances of happiness? Why shouldn t he lose his dia 
 mond shirt-studs, and his carriage and horses, as well 
 as Joe his life?" 
 
 "Well, he earned his money, I suppose," Andrew 
 said, slowly, "and I suppose it s for him to say what 
 he ll do with it." 
 
 "Earned his money? He didn t earn his money," 
 cried Nahum Deals. "We earned it, every dollar of 
 it, by the sweat of our brows, and it s for us, not him, to 
 say what shall be done with it. Well, the time will 
 come, I tell ye, the time will come." 
 
 "We sha n t see it," said Joe Atkins. 
 
 " It may come sooner than you think," said Nahum. 
 Then Nahum Beals, with a sudden access of bitterness, 
 broke in. " Look at Norman Lloyd," he cried, "havin 
 that great house, and horses and carriages, and dressin 
 like a dude, and his wife rustlin in silks so you can 
 hear her comin a mile off, and shinin like a jeweller s 
 window look at em all all the factory bosses livin 
 like princes on the money we ve earned for em; and 
 look at their relations, and look at the rich folks that 
 ain t never earned a cent, that s had money left em. 
 Go right up and down the Main Street, here in this city. 
 See the Lloyds and the Maguires and the Marshalls and 
 the Risleys and the Lennoxes " 
 
 "There ain t none of the Lennoxes left except that 
 one woman," said Andre w. 
 
 "Well, look at her. There she is without chick or 
 child, rollin in riches, and Norman Lloyd s her own 
 brother-in-law. Why don t she give him a little money 
 
 103 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to run the factory this winter, so you and me won t 
 have to lose every thin ?" 
 
 " I suppose she s got a right to do as she pleases with 
 her own/ said Andrew. 
 
 "I tell you she ain t/ shouted Nahum. "She ain t 
 the one to say, It s the Lord, and He s said it. Cynthia 
 Lennox and all the women like her are the oppressors 
 of the poor. They are accursed in the sight of the Lord, 
 as were those women we read about in the Old Testa 
 ment, with their mantles and crisping-pins. Their low 
 voices and their silk sweeps and their shrinkin from 
 touchin shoulders with their fellow-beings in a crowd 
 don t alter matters a mite." 
 
 "Now, Nahum," cried Jim Tenny, with one of his 
 sudden turns of base when his sense of humor was 
 touched, "you don t mean to say that you want 
 Cynthia Lennox to give you her money?" 
 
 "I d die, and see her dead, before I d touch a dollar of 
 her money 1" cried Nahum "before I d touch a dollar 
 of her money or anything that was bought with her 
 money, her money or any other rich person s. I want 
 what I earn. I don t want a gift with a curse on it. 
 Let her keep her fine things. She and her kind are 
 responsible for all the misery of the poor on the face of 
 the earth." 
 
 " Seems to me you re reasonin in a circle, Nahum," 
 Andrew said, good-humoredly. 
 
 " Look here, Andrew, if you re on the side of the rich, 
 why don t you say so?" cried Eva. 
 
 "He ain t," returned Fanny "you know better, 
 Eva Loud." 
 
 "No, I ain t," declared Andrew. "You all of you 
 know I m with the class I belong to ; I ain t a toady to 
 no rich folks; I don t think no more of em than you 
 do, and I don t want any favors of em all I want is 
 pay for my honest work, and that s an even swap, and 
 
 104 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 I ain t beholden, but I want to look at things fair and 
 square. I don t want to be carried away because I m 
 out of work, though, God knows, it s hard enough." 
 
 "I don t know what s goin to become of us," said 
 Joseph Atkins then he coughed. 
 
 "I don t," Jim Tenny said, bitterly. 
 
 "And God knows I don t," cried Eva, and she sat 
 down in the nearest chair, flung up her hands before 
 her face, and wept. 
 
 Then Fanny spoke to Ellen, who had been sitting 
 very still and attentive, her eyes growing larger, her 
 cheeks redder with excitement. Fanny had often 
 glanced uneasily at her, and wished to send her to 
 bed, but she was in the habit of warming Ellen s little 
 chamber at the head of the stairs by leaving open the 
 sitting-room door for a while before she went to it, and 
 she was afraid of cooling the room too much for Joseph 
 Atkins, and had not ventured to interrupt the conversa 
 tion. Now, seeing the child s fevered face, she made up 
 her mind. " Come, Ellen, it s your bed- time," she said, 
 and Ellen rose reluctantly, and, kissing her father, she 
 went to her aunt Eva, who caught at her convulsively 
 and kissed her, and sobbed against her cheek. "Oh, 
 oh!" she wailed, "you precious little thing, you precious 
 little thing, I don t know what s goin to become of us 
 all." 
 
 "Don t, Eva," said Fanny, sharply; can t you see 
 she s all wrought up? She hadn t ought to have heard 
 all this talk." 
 
 Andrew looked anxiously at his wife, rose, and caught 
 up Ellen in his arms with a hug of fervent and protective 
 love. " Don t you worry, father s darlin ," he whispered. 
 "Don t you worry about anythin you have heard. 
 Father will always have enough to take care of you 
 with." 
 
 Jim Tennv, when Andrew set the child down, caught 
 8 105 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her up again with a sounding kiss. " Don t you let your 
 big ears ache, you little pitcher/ said he, with a gay 
 laugh. "Little doll-babies like you haven t anj^thin* 
 to worry about if Lloyd s shut down every day in the 
 year." 
 
 "They re the very ones whom it concerns/ said 
 Nahum Beals, when Ellen and her mother had gone 
 up-stairs. 
 
 " Well, I wouldn t have had that little nervous thing 
 hear all this, if I d thought/ Andrew said, anxiously. 
 
 Joseph Atkins, whom Fanny had stationed in a shel 
 tered corner near the stove when she opened the door, 
 peered around at Andrew. 
 
 " Seems as if she was too young to get much sense of 
 it/ he remarked. " My Maria, that s her age, wouldn t. " 
 
 "Ellen hears everything and makes her own sense 
 of it," said Andrew, "and the Lord only knows what 
 she s made of this. I hope she won t fret over it." 
 
 "I wish my tongue had been cut off before I said 
 anything before her," cried Eva. "I know just what 
 that child is. She ll find out what a hard world she s 
 in soon enough, anyway, and I don t want to be the one 
 to open her eyes ahead of time." 
 
 Ellen went to bed quietly, and her mother did not think 
 she had paid much attention to what had been going on, 
 and said so when she went down-stairs after Ellen had 
 been kissed and tucked in bed and the lamp put out. 
 "I guess she didn t mind much about it, after all," she 
 said to Andrew. " I guess the room was pretty warm, 
 and that was what made her cheeks so red." 
 
 But Ellen, after her mother left her, turned her little 
 head towards the wall and wept softly, lest some one 
 hear her, but none the less bitterly that she had no right 
 conception of the cause of her grief. There was over 
 her childish soul the awful shadow of the labor and 
 poverty of the world. She knew naught of the sub- 
 
 106 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 stance behind the shadow, but the darkness terrified 
 her all the more, and she cried and cried as if her heart 
 would break. Then she, with a sudden resolution, 
 born she could not have told of what strange under 
 standing and misunderstanding of what she had heard 
 that evening, slipped out of bed, groped about until 
 she found her cherished doll, sitting in her little chair 
 in the corner. She was accustomed to take the doll to 
 bed with her, and had undressed her for that purpose 
 early in the evening, but she had climbed into bed and 
 left her sitting in the corner. 
 
 "Don t you want your dolly?" her mother had 
 asked. 
 
 "No, ma am; I guess I don t want her to-night," 
 Ellen had replied, with a little break in her voice. Now, 
 when she reached the doll, she gathered her up in her 
 little arms, and groped her way with her into the closet. 
 She hugged the doll, and kissed her wildly, then she 
 shook her. "You have been naughty/ she whispered 
 "yes, you have, dreadful naughty. No, don t you 
 talk to me; you have been naughty. What right had 
 you to be livin with rich folks, and wearin such fine 
 things, when other children don t have anything. 
 What right had that little boy that was your mother be 
 fore I was, and that rich lady that gave you to me? 
 They had ought to be put in the closet, too. God had 
 ought to put them all in the closet, the way I m goin 
 to put you. Don t you say a word; you needn t cry; 
 you ve been dreadful naughty." 
 
 Ellen set the doll, face to the wall, in the corner of 
 the closet, and left her there. Then she crept back 
 into bed, and lay there crying over her precious baby 
 shivering in her thin night-gown all alone in the dark 
 closet. But she was firm in keeping her there, since, 
 w r ith that strange, involuntary grasp of symbolism 
 which has always been maintained by the baby-fingers 
 
 107 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of humanity for the satisfying of needs beyond resources 
 and the solving of problems outside knowledge, she had 
 a conviction that she was, in such fashion, righting 
 wrong and punishing evil. But she wept over the poor 
 doll until she fell asleep. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 WHEN Ellen woke the next morning sne had a curious 
 feeling, as if she were blinded by the glare of many 
 hitherto unsuspected windows opening into the great 
 ness outside the little world, just large enough to contain 
 them, in which she had dwelt all her life with her parents, 
 her aunt, her grandmother, and her doll. She tried to 
 adjust herself to her old point of view with her simple 
 childish recognition of the most primitive facts as a 
 basis for dreams, but she remembered what Mr. Atkins, 
 who coughed so dreadfully, had said the night before; 
 she remembered what the young man with the bulg 
 ing forehead, who frightened her terribly, had said; 
 she remembered the gloomy look in her father s face, 
 the misery in her aunt Eva s; and she remembered 
 her doll in the closet and either everything was dif 
 ferent or had a different light upon it. In reality 
 Ellen s evening in the sound and sight of that current 
 of rebellion against the odds of life which has taken 
 the poor off their foothold of understanding since the 
 beginning of the world had aged her. She had lost 
 something out of her childhood. She dreaded to go 
 down -stairs; she had a feeling of shamefacedness 
 struggling within her; she was afraid that her father 
 and mother would look at her sharply, then look again, 
 and ask her what the matter was, and she would not 
 know what to say. When she went down, and backed 
 about for her mother to fasten her little frock as was her 
 wont, she was careful to keep her face turned away; 
 but Fanny caught her up and kissed her in her usual 
 
 loq 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 way, and then her aunt Eva sung out to know if she 
 wanted to go on a sleigh-ride, and had she seen the 
 snow; and then her father came in and that look of 
 last night had gone from his face, and Ellen was her 
 old self again until she was alone by herself and re 
 membered. 
 
 Fanny and Andrew and Eva had agreed to say noth 
 ing before the child about the shutting-up of Lloyd s, 
 and their troubles in consequence. "She heard too 
 much last night/ Andrew said; "there s no use in 
 her botherin her little head with it. I guess that baby 
 won t suffer." 
 
 "She s jest- the child to fret herself most to pieces 
 thinkin we were awful poor, and she would starve or 
 somethin ," Fanny said. 
 
 " Well, she sha n t be worried if I can help it, no matter 
 what happens to*me," Eva said. 
 
 After breakfast that morning Eva went to work on 
 a little dress of Ellen s. When Fanny told her not to 
 spend her time over that, when she had so much sewing 
 of her own to do, Eva replied with a gay, hard laugh, 
 that she guessed she d wait and finish her weddin -fix 
 when she w r as goin to be married. 
 
 " Eva Loud, you ain t goin to be so silly as to put off 
 your weddin / Fanny cried out. 
 
 " I dunno as I ve put it off; I dunno as I want to get 
 married, anyhow," Eva said, still laughing. " I dunno, 
 but I d rather be old maid aunt to Ellen." 
 
 "Eva Loud," cried her sister; "do you know what 
 you are doin ?" 
 
 " Pretty well, I reckon," said Eva. 
 
 " Do you know that if you put off Jim Tenny, and he 
 not likin it, ten chances to one Aggie Bemis will get 
 hold of him again?" 
 
 "Well," said Eva, "let her. I won t have been the 
 pne to drag him into misery, anyhow." 
 
 Iio 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Well, if you can feel that way/ Fanny returned, 
 looking at her sister with a sort of mixed admiration 
 and pity. 
 
 "I can. I tell you what tis, Fanny. When I look 
 at Jim, handsome and head up in the air, and think 
 how he d look all bowed down, hair turnin gray, and 
 not carin whether he s shaved and has on a clean shirt 
 or not, cause he s got loaded down with debt, and the 
 grocery-man and the butcher after him, and no work, 
 and jme and the children draggin him down, I can bear 
 anything. If another girl wants to do it, she must, 
 though I d like to kill her when I think of it. I can t 
 do it, because I think too much of him." 
 
 " He might lose his work after he was married, you 
 know." 
 
 "Well, I suppose we d have to run the risk of that; 
 but I m goin to start fair or not at all." 
 
 " Well, maybe he ll get work," Fanny said. 
 
 "He won t," said Eva. She began to sing "Nancy 
 Lee " over Ellen s dress. 
 
 After breakfast Ellen begged a piece of old brown 
 calico of her mother. " Why, of course you can have it, 
 child," said her mother; "but what on earth do you 
 want it for? I was goin to put it in the rag-bag." 
 
 "I want to make my dolly a dress." 
 
 "Why, that ain t fit for your dolly s dress. Only 
 think how queer that beautiful doll would look in a 
 dress made of that. Why, you ain t thought anything 
 but silk and satin was good enough for her." 
 
 "I ll give you a piece of my new blue silk to make 
 your doll a dress," said Eva. 
 
 But Ellen persisted. When the doll came out of her 
 closet of vicarious penance she was arrayed like a very 
 scullion among dolls, in the remnant of the dress in which 
 Fanny Brewster had done her house- work all summer. 
 
 " There," Ellen told the doll, when her mother did not 
 
 III 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 hear " you look more like the way you ought to, and 
 you ought to be happy, and not ever think you wish 
 you had your silk dress on. Think of all the poor chil 
 dren who never have any silk dresses, or any dresses at 
 all nothing except their cloth bodies in the coldest 
 weather. You ought to be thankful to have this." 
 For all which good advice and philosophy the little 
 mother of the doll would often look at the discarded 
 beauty of the wardrobe, with tears in her eyes and 
 fondest pity in her heart ; but she never flinched. When 
 the young man Nahum Deals came in, as he often 
 did of an evening, and raised his voice in fierce de 
 nunciation against the luxury and extravagance of 
 the rich, Ellen would listen and consider that he would 
 undoubtedly approve of what she had done, did he know, 
 and would allow that she had made her small effort tow 
 ards righting things. 
 
 " Only think what Mr. Deals would say if he saw you 
 in your silk dress; why, I don t know but he would 
 throw you out of the window," she told her doll once. 
 
 Ellen did not feel any difference in her way of living 
 after her father was out of work. "She ain t goin to 
 be stented in one single thing; remember that," Andrew 
 told Fanny, with angry emphasis. " That little, delicate 
 thing is goin to have everything she needs, if I spend 
 every cent I ve saved and mortgage the place." 
 
 "Oh, you ll get work before it comes to that," Fanny 
 said, consolingly. 
 
 " Whether I do or not, it sha n t make any difference," 
 declared Andrew. " I m goin to hire a horse and sleigh 
 and take her sleigh-ridin this afternoon. It 11 be good, 
 and she s been talkin about a sleigh-ride ever since 
 snow flew." 
 
 " She could do without that," Fanny said, doubtfully. 
 
 "Well, she ain t goin to." 
 
 So it happened that the very day after Lloyd s had 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 shut down, when every man out of employment felt 
 poorer than he did later when he had grown accustomed 
 to the sensation of no money coming in, Andrew Brew- 
 ster hired a horse and double sleigh, and took Ellen, 
 her mother, grandmother, and aunt out sleigh-riding. 
 Ellen sat on the back seat of the sleigh, full of that 
 radiant happiness felt by a child whose pleasures have 
 not been repeated often enough for satiety. The sleigh 
 slid over the blue levels of snow followed by long creaks 
 like wakes of sound, when the livery-stable horse shook 
 his head proudly and set his bells in a flurry. Ellen 
 drew a long breath of rapture. These unaccustomed 
 sounds held harmonies of happiness which would 
 echo through her future, for no one can estimate the 
 immortality of some little delight of a child. In all her 
 life, Ellen never forgot that sleigh-ride. It was a very 
 cold day, and the virgin snow did not melt at all; the 
 wind blew a soft, steady pressure from the west, and its 
 wings were evident from the glistening crystals which 
 were lifted and borne along. The trees held their 
 shining boughs against the blue of the sky, and burned 
 and blazed here and there as with lamps of diamonds. 
 The child looked at them, and they lit her soul. Her 
 little face, between the swan s-down puffs of her hood, 
 deepened in color like a rose ; her blue eyes shone ; she 
 laughed and dimpled silently; she was in too much 
 bliss to speak. The others kept looking at her, then 
 at one another. Fanny nudged her mother-in-law, 
 behind the child s back, and the two women exchanged 
 glances of confidential pride. Andrew and Eva kept 
 glancing around at her, and asking if she were having 
 a good time. Eva was smartly dressed in her best hat, 
 gay with bows and red wings bristling as sharply as 
 the head-dress of an Indian chief in the old pictures. 
 She had a red coat, and a long fur boa wound around 
 her throat; the clear crimson of her cheeks, her great 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 black eyes, and her heavy black braids were so striking 
 that people whom they met looked long at her. Eva 
 talked fast to Andrew, and laughed often and loudly. 
 
 Whenever that strident laugh of hers rang out, Mrs. 
 Zelotes Brewster, on the seat behind, moved her be- 
 shawled shoulders with a shivering hunch of disgust. 
 " Can t you tell that girl not to laugh so loud when we re 
 out ridin ," she said to her son that evening; "I saw 
 folks lookinV 
 
 "Oh, never mind, mother/ Andrew said; "the poor 
 girl s got a good deal on her mind." 
 
 "I suppose you mean that Tinny feller," said Mrs. 
 Zelotes, alluding to something which had happened 
 that afternoon in the course of the sleigh-ride. 
 
 The sleighing that day was excellent, for there had 
 been an ice coating on the road before, and the last 
 not very heavy snowfall had been just enough. The 
 Brewsters passed and met many others : young men out 
 with their sweethearts, whole families drawn by the 
 sober old horse as old as the grown-up children ; rakish 
 young men driving stable teams, leaning forward with 
 long circles of whip over the horses backs, leaving the 
 scent of cigars behind them; and often, too, two young 
 ladies in dainty turnouts; and sometimes two girls or 
 four girls from Lloyd s, who had clubbed together and 
 hired a sleigh, taking reckless advantage of their en 
 forced vacation. 
 
 " There s Daisy and Hat Sears, and and there s Nell 
 White and Eaat Ryoce in the team behind," Eva said. 
 
 " I should think they better be savin their money if 
 Lloyd s has shut up," said Mrs. Zelotes, severely. 
 
 " We ain t savin ours, or Andrew ain t/ Eva retorted, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 "It s different with us/ said Mrs. Zelotes, proudly, 
 " though I shouldn t think it was right for Andrew to 
 hire a team every day." 
 
 114 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Sometimes I think folks might just as well have a 
 little as they re goin along, for half the time they never 
 seem to get there/ Eva said, with another hard laugh 
 at her own wit; and just then she saw something which 
 made her turn deathly white, and catch her breath with 
 a gasp in spite of herself, though that was all. She 
 held up her head like a queen and turned her handsome 
 white face full towards Jim Tenny and the girl for whom 
 he had jilted her before, as they drove past, and bowed 
 and smiled in a fashion which made the red flame up 
 over the young man s swarthy cheek, and the pretty 
 girl at his side shrink a little and avert her tousled fair 
 head with a nervous giggle. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes Brewster twisted herself about and 
 looked after them. " There s John Tibbets and his wife 
 in that sleigh ; he s thrown out of work as well as you, 
 Andrew/ said Fanny, hastily. "See that feather in 
 her bonnet blow; it s standin up straight." But 
 Fanny s manoeuvre to turn the attention of her mother- 
 in-law was of no avail, for nothing short of sudden 
 death could interpose an effectual barrier between Mrs. 
 Zelotes Brewster s tongue and mind set with the pur 
 pose of speech. "Was that the Tinny fellow?" she 
 demanded. 
 
 "Yes; I guess so. I didn t notice in particular," 
 Fanny replied, in a low voice. Then she added, point 
 ing to an advancing sleigh. "Good land, there s 
 that Smith girl. They said she wasn t able to ride out. 
 Seems to me she s taken a queer day for it." 
 
 "Was that that Tinny fellow?" Mrs. Zelotes asked 
 again. She leaned forward and gave Eva a hard nudge 
 on her red-coated elbow. 
 
 " Yes, it was," Eva answered, calmly. 
 
 " Who was that girl with him?" 
 
 "It was Aggie Bemis." 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes gave a sniff, then she settled back, study- 
 US 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ing Eva s back with a sort of reflective curiosity. Pres 
 ently she fumbled under the sleigh cushion for an 
 extra shawl which she had brought, and handed it 
 up to Eva. "Don t you want this extra shawl?" she 
 asked, while Fanny stared at her wonderingly. Mrs. 
 Zelotes s civilities towards her sister had been few and 
 far between. 
 
 " No, thank you/ Eva replied, with a start. 
 
 "Hadn t you better? It must be pretty cold sitting 
 up there. You must take all the wind. You can wrap 
 this shawl all round your face and ears, and I don t 
 want it." 
 
 "No, thank you; I m plenty warm," Eva replied. 
 She swallowed hard, and set her mouth hard. There 
 was something about this kindness of her old disap- 
 prover which touched her deeply, and moved her to 
 weakness more than had the sight of her recreant 
 lover with another girl. Fanny saw the little quiver 
 pass over her sister s face, and leaned over and whis 
 pered. 
 
 "I shouldn t be a mite surprised if that girl asked 
 Jim to take her. It would be just like her." 
 
 "It don t make any odds whether she did or not," 
 returned Eva, with no affectation of secrecy. " I don t 
 care which way twas." She sat up straighter than 
 ever, and some men in a passing sleigh turned to look 
 after her. 
 
 "I spose she don t think my shawl looks genteel 
 enough to wear," Mrs. Zelotes said to Fanny; "but 
 she s dreadful silly." 
 
 They drove through the main street of the city and 
 passed Cynthia Lennox s house. Ellen looked at it 
 with the guilt of secrecy. She thought she saw the 
 lady s head at a front window, and the front door opened 
 and Cynthia came down the walk with a rich sweep of 
 black draperies, and the soft sable toss of plumes. 
 
 1x6 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "There s Cynthia Lennox/ said Fanny. "She s a 
 handsome-lookin woman, ain t she?" 
 
 " She s most as old as Andrew, but you d never sus 
 pect it/ said Mrs. Zelotes. She had used to have a 
 fancy that Andrew and Cynthia might make a match. 
 She had seen no reason to the contrary, and she al 
 ways looked at Cynthia with a curious sense of injury 
 and resentment when she thought of what might have 
 been. 
 
 As Cynthia Lennox swept down the walk to-day, the 
 old lady said, sharply: 
 
 " I don t see why she should walk any prouder than 
 anybody else. I don t know why she should, if she s 
 right-minded. The Lennoxes wasn t any grander than 
 the Brewsters way back, if they have got a little more 
 money of late years. Cynthia s grandfather, old Squire 
 Lennox, used to keep the store, and live in one side of it, 
 and her mother s father, Calvin Goodenough, kept the 
 tavern. I dunno as she has so much to be proud of, 
 though she s handsome enough, and shows her bringin 
 up, as folks can t that ain t had it." Fanny winced a 
 little; her bringing up was a sore subject with her. 
 
 " Well, folks can t help their bringin up," she retorted, 
 sharply. 
 
 "There s Lloyd s team/ Andrew said, quickly, part 
 ly to avert the impending tongue -clash between his 
 wife and mother. 
 
 He reined his horse to one side at a respectful distance, 
 and Norman H. Lloyd, with his wife at his side, swept by 
 in his fine sleigh, streaming on the wind with black 
 fur tails, his pair of bays stepping high to the music of 
 their arches of bells. The Brewsters eyed Norman 
 Lloyd s Russian coat with the wide sable collar turned 
 up around his proud, clear-cut face, the fur-gauntleted 
 hands which held the lines and the whip, for Mr. Lloyd 
 preferred to drive his own blooded pair, both from a love 
 
 117 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of horseflesh and a greater confidence in his own guid 
 ance than in that of other people. Mr. Llo3^d was no 
 coward, but he would have confided to no man his 
 sensations had he sat behind those furnaces of fiery 
 motion with other hands than his own upon the lines. 
 
 "I should think Mis Lloyd would be afraid to ride 
 with such horses/ said Mrs. Zelotes, as they leaped aside 
 in passing; then she bowed and smiled with eager 
 pleasure, and yet with perfect self-respect. She felt 
 herself every whit as good as Mrs. Norman Lloyd, 
 and her handsome Paisley shawl and velvet bonnet as 
 genteel as the other woman s sealskins and floating 
 plumes. Mrs. Lloyd loomed up like a vast figure of 
 richness enveloped in her bulky winter wraps; her 
 face was superb with health and enjoyment and good- 
 humor. Her cheeks were a deep crimson in the cold 
 wind ; she smiled radiantly all the time as if at life itself. 
 She had no thought of fear behind those prancing 
 bays which seemed so frightful to Mrs. Zelotes, used to 
 the steadiest stable team a few times during the year, 
 and driven with a wary eye to railroad crossings and 
 a sense of one s mortality in the midst of life strong 
 upon her. Mrs. Norman Lloyd had never any doubt 
 when her husband held the lines. She would have 
 smiled behind ostriches and zebras. To her mind 
 Norman Lloyd was, as it were, impregnable to all com 
 binations of alien strength or circumstances. When 
 she bowed on passing the Brewsters, she did not move 
 her fixed smile until she caught sight of Ellen. Then 
 emotion broke through the even radiance of her face. 
 She moved her head with a flurry of nods ; she waved her 
 hand ; she even kissed it to her. 
 
 "Bow to Mis Lloyd, Ellen," said her grandmother; 
 and Ellen ducked her head solemnly. She remembered 
 what she had heard the night before, and the sleigh swept 
 by, Mrs. Lloyd s rosy face smiling back over the black 
 
 118 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 fringe of dancing tails. Eva had shot a swift glance of 
 utmost rancor at the Lloyds, then sat stiff and upright 
 until they passed. 
 
 "I wouldn t ask Ellen to bow to that woman/ said 
 she, fiercely, between her teeth. " I hate the whole tribe. 
 
 No one heard her except Andrew, and he shook the 
 lines over the steady stable horse, and said, "G lang!" 
 hoarsely. 
 
 Mrs. Norman Lloyd, in the other sleigh, had turned 
 to her husband with somewhat timid and deprecating 
 enthusiasm. "Ain t she a sweet little girl?" said she. 
 
 "What little girl?" Lloyd asked, abstractedly. He 
 had not looked at the Brewsters at all. 
 
 "That little Ellen Brewster who ran away and was 
 gone most three days a little while ago. She was in 
 that sleigh we just passed. She is just the sweetest 
 child I ever laid eyes on," and Norman Lloyd smiled 
 vaguely and coldly, and cast a glance over his sable- 
 clad shoulders to see how far behind the team whose 
 approaching bells he heard might be. 
 
 "I suppose her father and aunt are out of work on 
 account of the closing of the factory/ remarked Mrs. 
 Lloyd, and a shadow of reflection came over her radiant 
 face. 
 
 "Yes, I believe they worked there," Lloyd replied, 
 shaking loose the reins and speeding the horses, that 
 he might not be overtaken. In a few minutes they 
 reached the factory neighborhood. There were three 
 factories : tw r o of them on opposite sides of the road, 
 humming with labor, and puffing with jets of steam at 
 different points ; Lloyd s, beyond, was as large as both 
 those standing hushed with windows blank in the after 
 noon sunshine. 
 
 "I suppose the poor men feel pretty badly at being 
 thrown out of work," Mrs. Lloyd said, looking up at 
 the windows as she slipped past in her nest of furs. 
 
 119 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 " They feel so badly that I have seen a round dozen 
 since we started out taking advantage of their liberty 
 to have a sleigh-ride with livery teams at a good round 
 price/ Lloyd replied, with languid emphasis. He 
 never spoke with any force of argument to his wife, nor 
 indeed to any one else, in justification of his actions. 
 His reasons for action were in most cases self-evolved 
 and entirely self-regulated. He had said not a word 
 to any one, not even to his foreman, of his purpose to 
 close the factory until it was quite fixed ; he had asked 
 no advice, explained to no one the course of reasoning 
 which led to his doing so. Rowe was a city of strikes, 
 but there had never been a strike at Lloyd s because he 
 had abandoned the situation in every case before the 
 clouds of rebellion were near enough for the storm to 
 break. When Briggs and McGuire, the rival manu 
 facturers at his right and left, had resorted to cut prices 
 when business was dull, as a refuge from closing up, 
 Lloyd closed with no attempt at compromise. 
 
 "I suppose they need a little recreation/ Mrs. Lloyd 
 observed, thinking of the little girl s face peeping out 
 between her mother and grandmother in the sleigh 
 they had just passed. 
 
 " Their little recreation is on about the same scale for 
 them as my hiring a special railroad train every day in 
 the week to go to Boston w r ould be for me/ returned 
 Lloyd, setting his handsome face ahead at the track. 
 
 " It does seem dreadful foolish," said his wife, "when 
 they are out of work, and maybe won t earn any more 
 money to support their families all winter " Mrs. 
 Lloyd hesitated a minute. "I wonder," said she, "if 
 they feel sort of desperate, and think they won t have 
 enough for their families, anyway that is, enough to 
 feed them, and they might as well get a little good time 
 out of it to remember by-and-by when there ain t enough 
 bread-and-butter. I dunno but we might do something 
 
 120 
 
(X 
 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 like that, if we were in their places don t you, Nor 
 man?" 
 
 " No, I do not/ replied Lloyd; " and that is the reason 
 why you and I are not in their places." 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd put her sealskin muff before her face as 
 they turned a windy corner, and reflected that her 
 husband was much wiser than she, and that the world 
 couldn t be regulated by women s hearts, pleasant 
 as it would be for the world and the women, since the 
 final outcome would doubtless be destruction. 
 
 Mrs. Norman Lloyd was an eminent survival of the 
 purest and oldest-fashioned femininity, a very woman ] 
 of St. Paul, except that she did not keep silence in thei v 
 sanctuary. 
 
 Just after they had turned the corner they passed an 
 outlying grocery store much frequented as a lounging- 
 place by idle men. There was a row of them on the 
 wooden platform (backed against the wall), cold as it 
 was, watching the sleighs pass, and two or three knots 
 gathered together for the purposes of confabulation. 
 Nearly all of them were employes of Lloyd s, and 
 they had met at that unseasonable hour on that 
 bitter day, drifting together unconsciously as towards 
 a common nucleus of trouble, to talk over the situa 
 tion. 
 
 When these men, huddled up in their shabby great 
 coats, with caps pulled over shaggy brows and sullenly 
 flashing eyes, saw the Lloyds approaching, the rumble 
 of conversation suddenly ceased. They all stood staring 
 when their employer passed. Only one man, Nahum 
 Beals, looked fairly at Lloyd s face with a denouncing 
 flash of eyes. 
 
 To this man Lloyd, recognizing him and some of 
 
 the others as his employe s, bowed. Nahum Beals 
 
 stood glaring at him in accusing silence, and his 
 
 head was as immovable as if carved in stone. The 
 
 9 121 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 other men, with their averted eyes, made a curious, 
 motionless tableau of futile and dumb resistance 
 to power which might have been carved with truth 
 on the face of the rock from the beginning of the 
 earth. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE closing of Lloyd s marked, in some inscrutable 
 way, the close of the first period of Ellen Brewster s 
 childhood. Looking back in later years, she always 
 felt her retrospective thought strike a barrier there, 
 beyond which her images of the past were confused. 
 Yet it was difficult to tell why it was so, for after the 
 first the child could, it seemed, have realized no dif 
 ference in her life. Now and then she heard some of 
 that conversation characterized at once by the con 
 fidence of wrong and injustice, and the logical doubt 
 of it, by solid reasoning which, if followed far enough, 
 refuted itself, by keen and unanswerable argument, 
 and the wildest and most futile enthusiasm. But she 
 had gained nothing except the conviction of the great 
 wrongs of the poor of this earth and the awful tyranny 
 of the rich, of the everlasting moaning of Lazarus at 
 the gates and the cry for water later on from the depths 
 of the rich man s hell. Somehow that last never com 
 forted Ellen; she had no conception of the joy of the 
 injured party over righteous retribution. She pitied 
 the rich man and Lazarus impartially, yet all the time 
 a spirit of fierce partisanship with these poor men was 
 strengthening with her growth, their eloquence over 
 their wrongs stirred her soul, and set her feet outside 
 her childhood. Still, as before said, there was no 
 tangible difference in her daily life. The little petted 
 treasure of the Brewsters had all her small luxuries, 
 sweets, and cushions of life, as well after as before 
 the closing of Lloyd s. And the preparations for her 
 
 123 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 aunt s wedding went on also. The sight of her lover 
 sleigh-riding with her rival that afternoon had been/ 
 too much for the resolution of Eva Loud s undisciplined 
 nature. She had herself gone to Jim Tenny s house 
 that evening, and called him to account, to learn that he 
 had seriously taken her resolution not to marry at 
 present to proceed from a fear that he would not pro 
 vide properly for her, and that he had in this state of in 
 dignation been easily led by the sight of Aggie Bemis s 
 pretty face in her front door, as he drove by, to stop. 
 She had told Jim that she would marry him as she had 
 agreed if he looked at matters in that way, and had 
 passed Aggie Bemis s window leaning on Jim s arm 
 with a side stare of triumph. 
 
 " Be you goin to get married next month after what 
 you said this mornin ?" her sisicr asked, half joyfully, 
 half anxiously. 
 
 "Yes, I be," was all Eva replied, and Fanny stared 
 at her; she was so purely normal in her inconsistency 
 as to seem almost the other thing. 
 
 The preparations for the wedding went on, but Eva 
 never seemed as happy as she had done before the 
 closing of Lloyd s. Jim Tenny could get no more 
 work, and neither could Andrew. 
 
 Fanny lamented that the shop had closed at that time 
 of year, for she had planned a Christmas tree of un 
 precedented splendor for Ellen, but Mrs. Zelotes was 
 to be depended upon as usual, and Andrew told his 
 wife to make no difference. "That little thing ain t 
 goin to be cheated nohow," he said one night after 
 Ellen had gone to bed and his visiting companions of 
 the cutting-room had happened in. 
 
 "I know my children won t get much," Joseph 
 Atkins said, coughing as he spoke; "they wouldn t 
 if Lloyd s hadn t shut down. I never see the time 
 when I could afford to make any account of Christ- 
 
 124 
 
THE PORTION OP LABO& 
 
 mas, much as ever I could manage a turkey Thanks 
 giving day. " 
 
 " The poor that the Lord died for can t afford to keep 
 his birthday ; it is the rich that he s going to cast into 
 outer darkness, that keep it for their own ends, and it s 
 a blasphemy and a mockery/ proclaimed Nahum Beals. 
 He was very excited that night, and would often spring 
 to his feet and stride across the room. There was 
 another man there that night, a cousin of Joseph Atkins, 
 John Sargent by name. He had recently moved to 
 Rowe, since he had obtained work at McGuire s, " had 
 accepted a position in the finishing-room of Mr. H. S. 
 McGuire s factory in the city of Rowe," as the item in 
 the local paper put it. He was a young man, younger 
 than his cousin, but he looked older. He had a hand 
 some face, under the most complete control as to its 
 muscles. When he laughed he gave the impression 
 of the fixedness of merriment of a mask. He looked 
 keenly at Nahum Beals with that immovable laugh 
 on his face, and spoke with perfectly good-natured 
 sarcasm. "All very well for the string-pieces of the 
 bridge from oppression to freedom/ he said, " but you 
 need some common-sense for the ties, or you ll slump." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "We ain t in the Old Testament, but the nineteenth 
 century, and those old prophets, if they were alive to- J 
 day, would have to step down out of their flaming 
 chariots and hang their mantles on the bushes, and in- ^ 
 stead of standing on mountain-tops and tellin their 
 enemies what rats they were, and how they would get 
 what they deserved later on, they would have to tell 
 their enemies what they wanted them to do to better 
 matters, and make them do it." 
 
 " Instead of standing by your own strike in Greenboro, 
 you quit and come here to work in McGuire s the minute 
 you got a chance," said Nahum Beals, sullenly, and 
 
 125 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Sargent responded, with his unrelaxing laugh, " I left 
 enough strikers for the situation in Greenboro; don t 
 you worry about me." 
 
 "I think he done quite right to quit the strike if he 
 vr\ got a chance to work/ Joseph Atkins interposed. 
 "S "/Folks have got to look out for themselves, labor re- 
 ( form or no labor reform." 
 
 "That s the corner-stone of labor reform, seems to 
 me/ said Andrew. 
 
 "Seems to me sometimes you talk like a damned 
 scab/ cried Nahum Beals, fiercely, red spots flickering 
 in his thin cheeks. Andrew looked at him, and spoke 
 with slow wrath. " Look here, Nahum Beals," he said, 
 you re in my house, but I ain t goin to stand no such 
 talk as that, I can tell you." 
 
 John Sargent laid a pacifically detaining hand on 
 Nahum Beals s arm as he strode past him. " Oh, Lord, 
 stop rampagin up and down like a wildcat," he said. 
 "What good do you think you re doin tearin and 
 shoutin and insultin people? He ain t talkin like 
 a scab, he s only talkin a tie to your string-piece." 
 
 " That s so," said Joseph Atkins. Sargent boarded 
 with him, and the board money was a godsend to him, 
 now he was out of work. John Sargent had fixed his 
 own price, and it was an unheard-of one for such simple 
 fare as he had. His weekly dollars kept the whole 
 poor family in food. But John Sargent was a bache 
 lor, and earning remarkably good wages, and Joseph 
 Atkins s ailing wife, whom illness and privation had 
 made unnaturally grasping and ungrateful, told her 
 cronies that it wasn t as if he couldn t afford it. 
 
 Up-stairs little Ellen lay in her bed, her doll in her 
 arms, listening to the low rumble of masculine voices 
 in the room below. Her mother had gone out, and 
 there were only the men there. They were smoking, 
 and the odor of their pipes floated up into Ellen s cham- 
 
 126 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her through the door-cracks. She thought how her 
 grandmother Brewster would sniff when she came in 
 next day. She could hear her saying, "Well, for my 
 part, if those men couldn t smoke their old pipes some 
 where else besides in my sittin -room, I wouldn t have 
 em in the house." But that reflection did not trouble 
 Ellen very long, and she had never been disturbed 
 herself by the odor of the pipes. She thought of them 
 insensibly as the usual atmosphere when men were 
 gathered together in any place except the church. She 
 knew that they were talking about that old trouble, and 
 Nahum Beals s voice of high wrath made her shrink; 
 but, after all, she was removed from it all that night 
 into a little prospective paradise of her own, which, as 
 is the case in childhood, seemed to overgild her own 
 future and all the troubles of the world. Christmas was 
 only a week distant, she was to have a tree, and the 
 very next evening her mother had promised to take 
 her down-town and show her the beautiful, lighted 
 Christmas shops. She wondered, listening to that 
 rumble of discontent below, why grown-up men and 
 women ever fretted when they were at liberty to go down 
 town every evening when they chose and look at the 
 lighted shops, for she could still picture pure delight for 
 others without envy or bitterness. 
 
 The next day the child was radiant ; she danced rather 
 than walked; she could not speak without a smile; she 
 could eat nothing, for her happiness was so purely 
 spiritual that desires of the flesh were in abeyance. 
 Her heart beat fast ; the constantly recurring memory of 
 what was about to happen fairly overwhelmed her as 
 with waves of delight. 
 
 "If you don t eat your supper you can t go, and 
 that s all there is about it," her mother told her when 
 they were seated at the table, and Ellen sat dreaming 
 before her toast and peach preserve. 
 
 127 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 "You must eat your supper, Ellen/ Andrew said, 
 anxiously. Andrew had on his other coat, and he had 
 shaved, and was going too, as was Mrs. Zelotes Brew- 
 ster. 
 
 " She ain t eat a thing all day, she s so excited about 
 goin ," Fanny said. "Now, Ellen, you must eat your 
 supper, or you can t go you ll be sick." 
 
 And Ellen ate her supper, though exceeding joy as 
 well as exceeding woe can make food lose its savor, 
 and toast and preserves were as ashes on her tongue 
 when the very fragrance of coming happiness was in 
 her soul. 
 
 When, finally, in hand of her mother, while Andrew 
 walked behind with her grandmother, she went towards 
 the lights of the town, she had a feeling as of wings 
 on her feet. However, she walked soberly enough with 
 wide eyes of amazement and delight at everything the 
 long, silver track of the snowy road under the light of 
 the full moon, the slants of the house roofs sparkling with 
 crusts of crystals, the lighted windows set with house 
 plants, for the dwellers in the outskirts of Rowe loved 
 house plants, and their front windows bloomed with the 
 emulative splendor of geraniums from fall to spring. She 
 saw behind them glimpses of lives and some doings as 
 real as her own, but mysterious under the locks of other 
 personalities, and therefore as full of possibilities of 
 preciousness as the sheet of morning dew over a neigh 
 bor s yard; she had often believed she saw diamonds 
 sparkle in that, though never in her own. She had 
 proved it otherwise too often. So Ellen, seeing through 
 a window a little girl of her own age in a red frock, 
 straightway believed it to be satin of the richest quality, 
 and, seeing through another window a tea-table spread, 
 had no doubt that the tin teapot was silver. A girl 
 with a crown of yellow braids pulled down a curtain, 
 and she thought her as beautiful as an angel; but of 
 
 128 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 all this she said nothing at all, only walked soberly on, 
 holding fast to her mother s hand. 
 
 When they were half-way to the shops, a door of a 
 white house close to the road flew open and shut again 
 with a bang, there was a scurry and grating slide on 
 the front walk, then the gate was thrown back, and a 
 boy dashed through with a wild whoop, just escap 
 ing contact with Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. " You d better 
 be careful/ said she, sharply. " It ain t the thing for 
 boys to come tearin out of yards in the evenin without 
 seem/ where they are goin ." 
 
 The boy cast an abashed glance at her. The street- 
 lamp shone full on his face, which was round and red 
 dened by the frosty winds, with an aimlessly grinning 
 mouth of uncertain youth, and black eyes with a bold 
 and cheerful outlook on the unknown. He was only 
 ten, but he was large for his age. Ellen, when he looked 
 from her grandmother back at her, thought him almost 
 a man, and then she saw that he was the boy who had 
 brought the chestnuts to her the night when she had 
 returned from her runaway excursion. The boy rec 
 ognized her at the same moment, and his mouth seemed 
 to gape wider, and a moist red overspread his face down 
 to his swathing w r oollen scarf. Then he gave another 
 whoop significant of the extreme of nervous abashed- 
 ness and the incipient defiance of his masculine estate, 
 there was a flourish of heels, followed by a swift glimmer 
 ing slide of steel, and he was off trailing his sled. 
 
 "That s that Joy boy that brought Ellen the chest 
 nuts that time," Fanny said. " Do you remember him, 
 Ellen?" 
 
 " Yes, ma am," replied Ellen. The look of the boy 
 in her face had bewildered and confused her, without 
 her knowing the why of it. It was as if she had spelled 
 a word in her reading-book whose meaning she could 
 not grasp. 
 
 129 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " I don t care who he is," said Mrs. Zelotes, " he ain t 
 no business racin out of gates that way, and his folks 
 hadn t ought to let a boy no older than that out alone 
 of nights." 
 
 They kept on, and the boy apparently left them far 
 behind in his career of youthful exuberance, until iliey 
 came to the factories. Andrew looked up at the win 
 dows of Lloyd s, dark except for a faint glimmer in a 
 basement window from the lamp of the solitary watch 
 man, and drew a heavy sigh. 
 
 " It ain t as bad for you as it is for some," his mother 
 said, sharply, and then she jumped aside, catching her 
 son s arm as the boy sprang out of a covering shadow 
 under the wall of Lloyd s and dashed before them with 
 another wild whoop and another glance of defiant 
 bashfulness at Ellen. 
 
 "My landl it s that boy again," cried Mrs. Zelotes. 
 " Here, you boy 1 boy ! What s your name?" 
 
 "His name is Granville Joy," Ellen replied, unex 
 pectedly. 
 
 "Why, how did you know, child?" her grandmother 
 asked. "Seems to me he s got a highfalutin name 
 enough. Here you, Granville if that s your name 
 don t you know any better than to " But the boy 
 was gone, his sled creaking on the hard snow at his 
 heels, and a faint whoop sounded from the distance. 
 
 "I guess if I had the bringin up of that boy there 
 wouldn t be such doin s," said Mrs. Zelotes, severely. 
 "His mother s a pretty woman, but I don t believe 
 she s got much force. She wouldn t have given him 
 such a name if she had." 
 
 "She named him after the town she came from," 
 said Fanny. "She told me once. She s a real smart 
 woman, and she makes that boy stand around." 
 
 "She must; it looks as if he was standin round 
 pretty lively jest now," said Mrs. Zelotes. "Namin 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of a boy after a town ! They d better wait and name 
 a town after the boy if he amounts to anything/ 
 
 " Plis mother told me he was goin into the first gram- 
 mar-school next year/ said Fanny. 
 
 "I pity his teacher/ said Mrs. Zelotes, and then she 
 recoiled, for the boy made another dart from behind a 
 lamp-post, crossed their path, and was off again. 
 
 "My land !" gasped Mrs. Zelotes, "you speak to him, 
 Andrew/ But Andrew laughed. " Might as well 
 speak to a whirlwind/ said he. "He ain t doin any 
 harm, mother ; it s only his boyish antics. For Heaven s 
 sake, let him enjoy himself while he can, it won t be 
 long before the grind-mill in there will get hold of him, 
 and then he ll be sober enough to suit anybody," and 
 Andrew pointed at Lloyd s as he spoke. 
 
 "Boys can be boys," said Mrs. Zelotes, severely, 
 " and they can have a good time, but they can behave 
 themselves." 
 
 None of them looking after that flying and whooping 
 figure ahead had the slightest idea of the true situation. 
 They did not know that the boy was confused by the 
 fires, none the less ardent that they were so innocent, 
 of a first love for Ellen ; that, ever since he had seen her 
 little, fair face on her aunt s shoulder the day when she 
 was found, it had been even closer to his heart than his 
 sled and his jackstones and his ball, and his hope of 
 pudding for dinner. They did not know that he had 
 toiled at the wood-pile of a Saturday, and run errands 
 after school, to earn money to buy Christmas presents 
 for his mother and Ellen ; that he had at that very min 
 ute in his purse in the bottom of his pocket the sum of 
 eighty-nine cents, mostly in coppers, since his wage was 
 generally payable in that coin, and his pocket sagged 
 arduously therefrom. They did not know that he was 
 even then bound upon on errand to the grocery store for 
 a bag of flour to be brought home on his sled, and wouk} 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thereby swell his exchequer by another cent. They did 
 not know what dawning chords of love, and knowledge 
 of love, that wild whoop expressed ; and the boy dodged 
 and darted and hid, and appeared before them all the 
 way to the busy main street of Rowe ; and, after they 
 had entered the great store where the finest Christmas 
 display was held, he stood before the window staring 
 at Ellen vanishing in a brilliant vista, and whooped 
 now and then, regardless of public opinion. 
 
 Ellen, when once she was inside the store, forgot 
 everything else. She clung more tightly to her mother s 
 hand, as one will cling to any wonted stay of love in 
 the midst of strangeness, even of joy, and she saw 
 everything with eyes which photographed it upon her 
 very soul. At first she had an impression of a dazzling 
 incoherence of splendor, of a blare as of thousands ol 
 musical instruments all sounding different notes of 
 delight, of a weaving pattern of colors, too intricate to 
 master, of a mingled odor of paint and varnish, and 
 pine and hemlock boughs, and then she spelled out 
 the letters of the details. She looked at those counters 
 set with the miniature paraphernalia of household life 
 which give the first sweet taste of domesticity and 
 housekeeping joys to a little girl. 
 
 There were the sets of dolls furniture, and the dolls, 
 dishes, and there was a counter with dolls cooking- 
 stoves and ranges bristling with the most delightful 
 realism of pots and pans, at which she gazed so fixedly 
 and breathlessly that she looked almost stupid. Her 
 elders watched half in delight, half with pain, that 
 they could not purchase everything at which she looked. 
 Mrs. Zelotes bought some things surreptitiously, hiding 
 the parcels under her shawl. Andrew, whispering to a 
 salesman, asked the price of a great cooking-stove at 
 which Ellen looked long. When he heard the amount 
 ]ie sighed. Fanny touched his arm comfortingly, 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " There would be no sense in your buying that, if you had 
 all the money in creation/ she said, in a hushed voice. 
 "There s a twenty - five - cent one that s good enough. 
 I m going to buy that for her to-morrow. She ll never 
 know the difference/ But Andrew Brewster, never 
 theless, went through the great, dazzling shop with his 
 heart full of bitterness. It seemed to him monstrous and 
 incredible that he had a child as beautiful and altogether 
 wonderful as that, and could not buy the whole stock 
 for her if she wanted it. He had never in his whole life 
 wanted anything for himself that he could not have, 
 enough to give him pain, but he wanted for his child 
 with a longing that was a passion. Her little desires 
 seemed to him the most important and sacred needs 
 in the whole world. He watched her with pity and 
 admiration, and shame at his own impotence of love to 
 give her all. 
 
 But Ellen knew nothing of it. She was radiant. 
 She never thought of wanting all those treasures further 
 than she already had them. She gazed at the wonders 
 in that department where the toy animals were kept, 
 and which resembled a miniature menagerie, the silence 
 broken by the mooing of cows, the braying of donkeys, 
 the whistle of canaries, and the roars of mock-lions 
 when their powers were invoked by the attendants, 
 and her ears drank in. that discordant babel of tiny 
 mimicry like music. There was no spirit of criticism 
 in her. She was utterly pleased with everything. 
 
 When her grandmother held up a toy-horse and said 
 the fore-legs were too long, Ellen wondered what she 
 meant. To her mind it was more like a horse than 
 any real one she had ever seen. 
 
 As she gazed at the decorations, the wreaths, the 
 gauze, the tinsel, and paper angels, suspended by 
 invisible wires over the counters, and all glittering and 
 shining and twinkling with light, a strong whiff of 
 
 133 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 evergreen fragrance came to her, and the aroma of fir- 
 balsam, and it was to her the very breath of all the 
 mysterious joy and hitherto untasted festivity of this 
 earth into which she had come. She felt deep in her 
 childish soul the sense of a promise of happiness in the 
 future, of which this was a foretaste. When she went 
 into the department where the dolls dwelt, she fairly 
 turned pale. They swung, and sat, and lay, and stood, 
 as in angelic ranks, all smiling between shining fluffs 
 of hair. It was a chorus of smiles, and made the child s 
 heart fairly leap. She felt as if all the dolls were smiling 
 at her. She clung fast to her mother s hand, and hid 
 her face against her skirt. 
 
 "Why, what is the matter, Ellen?" Fanny asked. 
 Ellen looked up, and smiled timidly and confusedly, 
 then at that dazzle of waxen faces and golden locks 
 above skirts of delicate pink and blue and white, like 
 flower petals. 
 
 "You never saw so many dolls together before, did 
 you, Ellen?" said Andrew; then he added, wistfully, 
 "There ain t one of em any bigger and prettier than 
 your own doll, be they, Ellen?" And that, although 
 he had never recovered from his uneasiness about that 
 mysterious doll. 
 
 Ellen had not seen Cynthia Lennox since that morning 
 several weeks ago when she had run away from her, 
 except one glimpse when she was sleigh-riding. Now 
 all at once, when they had stopped to look at some 
 wonderful doll-houses, she saw her face to face. Ellen 
 had been gazing with rapture at a great doll-house 
 completely furnished, and Andrew had made one of his 
 miserable side inquiries as to its price, arid Fanny had 
 said, quite loud, "Lord, Andrew, you might just as 
 well ask the price of the store! You know such a thing 
 as that is out of the question for any child unless her 
 father is rich as Norman Lloyd," and Ellen, whohadnot 
 
 134 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 noticed what they were saying, looked up, when a faint 
 breath of violets smote her sense with a quick memory, 
 and there was the strange lady who had taken her 
 into her house and kept her and given her the doll, the 
 strange lady whom the gentleman said might be punish 
 ed for keeping her if people were to know. 
 
 Cynthia Lennox went pale when, without knowing 
 what was going to happen, she looked down and saw 
 suddenly the child s innocent face looking into hers. 
 She stood wavering in her trailing, fur-lined, and softly 
 whispering draperies, so marked and set aside by her 
 grace and elegance and countenance of superiority and 
 proud calm that people turned to look after her more 
 than after many a young beauty, and did not, for a 
 second, know what to say or do. She had no mind to 
 shrink from a recognition of the child; she had no fear 
 of the result, but there was a distinct shrinking at a 
 scene with that flashing-eyed and heavy-browed mother 
 of the child in such a place as that. She would un 
 doubtedly speak very loud. She expected the volley 
 of recrimination in a high treble which would follow 
 the announcement in that sweet little flute which she 
 remembered so well. 
 
 " Mamma, that is the lady who kept me, and would 
 not let me go home/ 
 
 But Ellen, after a second s innocent and startled 
 regard, turned away with no more recognition than if 
 she had been a stranger. She turned her little back 
 to her, and looked at the doll-house. A great flush 
 flamed over Cynthia Lennox s face, and a qualm of 
 mortal shame. She took an impetuous glide forward, 
 and was just about to speak and tell the truth, what 
 ever the consequences, and not be outdone in magna 
 nimity by that child, when a young girl with a sickly 
 but impudent and pretty face jostled her rudely. The 
 utter pertness of her ignorant youth knew no respect 
 
 135 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 for even the rich MivSs Cynthia Lennox. "Here s 
 your parcel, lady/ she said, in her rough young voice, 
 its shrillness modified by hoarseness from too much 
 shouting for cash boys during this busy season, and 
 she thrust, with her absent eyes upon a gentleman com 
 ing towards her, a parcel into Cynthia s hands. Some 
 how the touch of that parcel seemed to bring Cynthia 
 to her senses. It was a kodak which she had been 
 purchasing for the little boy who had lived with her, and 
 whom it had almost broken her heart to lose. She 
 remembered what her friend Lyman Risley had said, 
 that it might make trouble for others besides herself. 
 She took her parcel with that involuntary meekness 
 which the proudest learn before the matchless audacity 
 of youthful ignorance when it fairly asserts itself, and 
 passed out of the store to her waiting carriage. Ellen 
 saw her. 
 
 "That was Cynthia Lennox, wasn t it?" Fanny said, 
 with something like awe. "Wasn t that an elegant 
 cloak she had on? I guess it was Russian sable." 
 
 " I don t care if it was, it ain t a mite handsomer than 
 my cape lined with squirrel," said Mrs. Zelotes. 
 
 Ellen looked intently at a game on the counter. It 
 was ten o clock when Ellen went home. She had been 
 into all the principal stores which were decorated for 
 Christmas. Her brain resembled a kaleidoscope as she 
 hurried along at her mother s hand. Every thought 
 seemed to whirl the disk, and new and more dazzling 
 combinations appeared, but the principle which under 
 lay the whole was that of the mystery of festivity and 
 joy upon the face of the earth, of which this Christmas 
 wealth was the key. 
 
 The Brewsters had scarcely reached the factory neigh 
 borhood when there was a swift bound ahead of them 
 and the familiar whoop. 
 
 "There s that boy again," said Mrs. Zelotes. 
 136 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 She made various remonstrances, and even Andrew, 
 when the boy had passed his own home in his persistent 
 dogging of them, called out to him, as did Fanny, but 
 he was too far ahead to hear. The boy followed them 
 quite to their gate, proceeding with wild spurts and 
 dashes from shadow to shadow, and at last reappeared 
 from behind one of the evergreen trees in the west yard, 
 springing out of its long shadow with strange effect. 
 He darted close to Ellen as she passed in the gate, cram 
 med something into her hand, and was gone. Andrew 
 could not catch him, though he ran after him. "He 
 ran like a rabbit/ he said, coming breathlessly into the 
 house, where they were looking at the treasure the boy 
 had thrust upon Ellen. It was a marvel of a patent 
 top, which the boy had long desired to own. He had 
 spent all his money on it, and his mother was cheated 
 of her Christmas present, but he had given, and Ellen 
 had received, her first token of love. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE next spring Ellen went to school. When a 
 child who has reigned in undisputed sovereignty at 
 home is thrust among other children at school, one of 
 two things happens : either she is scorned and rebelled 
 against, and her little crown of superior^ rolled in 
 the dust of the common playground, or she extends 
 the territories of her empire. Ellen extended hers, 
 though involuntarily, for there was no conscious 
 thirst for power in her. 
 
 On her first morning at school, she seated herself 
 at her desk and looked forth from the golden cloud 
 of her curls, her eyes full of innocent contemplation, 
 her mouth corners gravely drooping. She knew one 
 little girl who sat not far from her. The little girl s 
 name was Floretta Vining. Floretta was built on the 
 scale of a fairy, with tiny, fine, waxen features, a little 
 tossing mane of flaxen hair, eyes a most lovely and 
 perfect blue, with no more depth in them than in the 
 blue of china, and an expression of the sweetest and 
 most innocent inanity and irresponsibility. Nobody 
 ever expected anything of this little Floretta Vining. 
 She w r as always a negative success. She smiled 
 around from the foot of her curving class, and never 
 had her lessons, but she never disobeyed the rules, 
 except that of punctuality. 
 
 Floretta was late at school. She came daintily up 
 the aisle, two cheap bangles on one wrist slipping over 
 a slim hand, and tinkling. Floretta s mother had a 
 taste for the cheaply decorative. There was an abun- 
 
 138 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 dance of coarse lace on Floretta s frock, and she wore 
 a superfluous sash which was not too fresh. Floretta 
 toed out excessively, her slender little feet pointing out 
 sharply, almost at right angles with each other, and 
 Ellen admired her for that. She watched her coming, 
 planting each foot as carefully and precisely as a bird, 
 her lace frills flouncing up and down, her bangles 
 jingling, and thought how very pretty she was. 
 
 Ellen felt herself very loving towards the teacher 
 and Floretta Vining. Floretta leaned forward as 
 soon as she was seated and gazed at her with astonish 
 ment, and that deepening of amiability and general 
 sweetness which one can imagine in the face of a doll 
 after persistent scrutiny. Ellen smiled decorously/ 
 for she was not sure how much smiling was permissible 
 in school. When she smiled guardedly at Floretta, 
 she was conscious of another face regarding her, twisted 
 slightly over a shabby little shoulder covered with an 
 ignominious blue stuff, spotted and faded. This little 
 girl s wisp of brown braid was tied with a shoe-string, 
 and she looked poorer than any other child in the 
 school, but she had an honest light in her eyes, and 
 Ellen considered her to be rather more beautiful than 
 Floretta. 
 
 She was Maria Atkins, Joseph Atkins s second child. 
 Ellen sat with her book before her, and the strange, 
 new atmosphere of the school-room stole over her senses. 
 It \vas not altogether pleasant, although it was con 
 sidered that the ventilation was after the most approved 
 modern system. She perceived a strong odor of pepper 
 mints, and Floretta Vining was waving ostentatiously 
 a coarse little pocket-handkerchief scented with New- 
 mown Hay. There was also a strong effusion of stale 
 dinners and storm-beaten woollen garments, but there 
 was, after all, that savor of festivity which Ellen was 
 apt to discover in the new. She looked over her book 
 
 139 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 with utter content. In a line with her, on the boys 
 side, there appeared a covertly peeping face under a 
 thatch of light hair, and Ellen, influenced insensibly 
 by the boy s shyly worshipful eyes, looked and saw 
 Granville Joy. She remembered the Christmas top, 
 and blushed very pink without knowing why, and 
 flirted all her curls towards the boys side. 
 
 Ellen, from having so little acquaintance with boys, 
 had had no very well-defined sentiments towards them, 
 but now, on being set apart with her feminine element, 
 and separated so definitely by the middle aisle of the 
 school-room, she began to experience sensations both 
 of shyness and exclusiveness. She did not think the 
 boys, in their coarse clothes, with their cropped heads, 
 half as pretty as the girls. 
 
 The teacher coming down the aisle laid a caressing 
 hand on Ellen s curls, and the child looked up at her 
 with that confidence which is exquisite flattery. 
 
 After she had passed, Ellen heard a subtle whisper 
 somewhere at her back; it was half audible, but its 
 meaning was entirety plain. It signified utmost scorn 
 and satirical contempt. It was fine-pointed and far- 
 reaching. A number looked around. It was as ex 
 pressive as a whole sentence, and, being as concen 
 trated, was fairly explosive with meaning. 
 
 "H m, ain t you pretty? Ain t you dreadful pretty, 
 little dolly-pinky-rosy. H m, teacher s partial. Ain t 
 you pretty? Ain t you stuck up? H m." 
 
 Ellen, not being used to the school vernacular, did 
 not fairly apprehend all this, and least of all that it 
 was directed towards herself. She cast a startled look 
 around, then turned to her book. She leaned back in 
 her seat and held her book before her face with both 
 hands, and began to read, spelling out the words noise 
 lessly. All at once, she felt a fine prick on her head, 
 and threw back one hand and turned quickly. The 
 
 140 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 little girl behind was engrossed in stud3^, and all Ellen 
 could see was the parting in her thick black hair, for 
 her head was supported by her two hands, her elbows 
 were resting on her desk, and she was whispering the 
 boundaries of the State of Massachusetts. 
 
 Ellen turned back to her reading-book, and recom 
 menced studying with the painful faithfulness of the 
 new student; then came again that small, fine, exas 
 perating prick, and she thrust her face around quickly 
 to see that same faithfully intent little girl. 
 
 Ellen rubbed her head doubtfully, and tried to fix 
 her attention again upon her book, but presently it 
 came again; a prick so small and fine that it strained 
 consciousness; an infinitesimal point of torture, and 
 this time Ellen, turning with a swift flirt of her head, 
 caught the culprit. It was that faithful little girl, who 
 held a black-headed belt-pin in her hand ; she had been 
 carefully separating one hair at a time from Ellen s 
 golden curls, and tweaking it out. 
 
 Ellen looked at her with a singular expression com 
 pounded of bewilderment, of injury, of resentment, 
 of alarm, and of a readiness to accept it all as a some 
 what peculiar advance towards good-fellowship and a 
 merry understanding. But the expression on that 
 dark, somewhat grimy little face, looking out at her from 
 a jungle of coarse, black locks, was fairly impish, al 
 most malicious. There was not merriment in it so 
 much as jibing ; instead of that soft regard and worship 
 ful admiration which Ellen was accustomed to find 
 in new eyes, there was resentful envy. 
 
 Then Ellen shrank, and bristled with defiance/at 
 the same time, for she had the spirit of both the B/ew- 
 sters and the Louds in her, in spite of her delicacy of 
 organization. She was a fine instrument, capable 
 of chords of tragedy as well as angelic strain^. She 
 saw that the little girl who was treating her so was 
 
 141 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 dressed very poorly, that her dress was not only shabby, 
 but actually dirty ; that she, as well as the other girl 
 whom she noticed, had her braid tied with an old shoe 
 string, and that a curious smell of leather pervaded her. 
 Ellen continued to regard the little girl, then suddenly 
 she felt a hand on her shoulder, and the teacher, Miss 
 Rebecca Mitchell, was looking down at her. "What 
 is the trouble?" asked Miss Mitchell. That look of 
 half-wondering admiration to which Ellen was accus 
 tomed was in the teacher s eyes, and Ellen again 
 thought her beautiful. 
 
 One of the first, though a scarcely acknowledged 
 principle of beaut3? , is that of reflection of the fairness 
 of the observer. Ellen being as innocently self-seeking 
 for love and admiration as any young thing for its 
 natural sustenance, was quick to recognize it, though 
 she did not understand that what she saw was herself 
 in the teacher s eyes, and not the teacher. She gazed 
 up in that roseate face with the wide mouth set in an 
 inverted bow of smile, curtained, as it were, with smooth 
 ly crinkled auburn hair clearly outlined against the 
 cheeks, at the palpitating curve of shiny black -silk 
 bosom, adorned with a festoon of heavy gold watch- 
 chain, and thought that here was love, and beauty, 
 and richness, and elegance, and great wisdom, calling 
 for reverence but no fear. She answered not one word 
 to the teacher s question, but continued to gaze at her 
 with that look of wide-eyed and contemplative regard. 
 
 "What is the trouble, Ellen?" repeated Miss Mitchell. 
 "Why were you looking around so?" Ellen said 
 nothing. The little girl behind had her head bent over 
 her book so low that the sulky curves of her mouth did 
 not show. The teacher turned to her " Abby Atkins," 
 said she, "what were you doing?" 
 
 Abby Atkins did not raise her studious head. She 
 did not seem to hear. 
 
 142 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Abby Atkins/ said the teacher, sharply, "answer 
 me. What were you doing?" Then the little girl 
 answered, with a sulky note, half growl, half whimper, 
 like some helpless but indomitable little trapped animal, 
 "NothinV 
 
 "Ellen/ said the teacher, and her voice changed 
 indescribably. "What was she doing?" Ellen did 
 not answer. She looked up in the teacher s face, then 
 cast down her eyes and sat there, her little hands 
 folded in tightly clinched fists in her lap, her mouth a 
 pink line of resistance. "Ellen," repeated the teacher, 
 and she tried to make her voice sharp, but in spite of 
 herself it was caressing. Her heart had gone out to 
 the child the moment she had seen her enter the school 
 room. She was as helpless before her as before a lover. 
 She was wild to catch her up and caress her instead of 
 pestering her with questions. " Ellen, you must answer 
 me," she said, but Ellen sat still. 
 
 Half the scholars were on their feet, reaching and 
 craning their necks. The teacher turned on them, 
 and there was no lack of sharpness in her tone. " Sit 
 down this moment, every one of you," she called. 
 "Abby Atkins, if there is any more disturbance, I 
 shall know what is at the root of the matter. If I see 
 you turning around again, Ellen, I shall insist upon 
 knowing why." Then the teacher placed a caressing 
 hand upon Ellen s yellow head, and passed down the 
 aisle to her desk. 
 
 Ellen had no more trouble during the session. Abby 
 Atkins was commendably quiet and studious, and 
 when called out to recitation made the best one in her 
 class. She was really brilliant in a defiant, reluctant 
 fashion. However, though she did not again disturb 
 Ellen s curls, she glowered at her with furtive but m> 
 relaxed hostility over her book. Especially a blue 
 ribbon which confined Ellen s curls in a beautiful bow 
 
 143 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 fired her eyes of animosity. She looked hard at it, then 
 she pulled her black braid over her shoulder and felt 
 of the hard shoe-string knot, and frowned with an 
 ugly frown of envy and bitterest injury, and asked 
 herself the world-wide and world-old question as to 
 the why of inequality, and, though it was based on 
 such trivialities as blue ribbons and shoe-strings, it 
 was none the less vital to her mind. She would have 
 loved, have gloried, to pull off that blue ribbon, put it 
 on her own black braid, and tie up those yellow curls 
 with her own shoe-string with a vicious yank of security. 
 But all the time it was not so much because she wanted 
 the ribbon as because she did not wish to be slighted 
 in the distribution of things. Abby Atkins cared no 
 more for personal ornament than a wild cat, But she 
 wanted her just allotment of the booty of the world. 
 So at recess she watched her chance. Ellen was sur 
 rounded by an admiring circle of big girls, gushing 
 with affection. "Oh, you dear little thing/ they said. 
 "Only look at her beautiful curls. Give me a kiss, 
 won t you, darling?" Little reverent fingers twined 
 Ellen s golden curls, red apples were thrust forward 
 for her to take bites, sticky morsels of candy were forced 
 secretly into her hands. Abby Atkins stood aloof. 
 "You mean little thing/ one of the big girls said sud 
 denly, catching hold of her thin shoulder and shaking 
 her "you mean little thing, I saw you." 
 
 "So did I," said another big girl, "and I was a good 
 mind to tell on you." 
 
 "Yes, you had better look out, and not plague that 
 dear little thing," said the other. 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," chimed in 
 still another big girl. " Only look how pretty she is, 
 the little darling the idea of your tormenting her. 
 You deserve a good, hard whipping, Abby Atkins." 
 
 This big girl was herself a beauty and wore a fine 
 144 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOft 
 
 and precise blue-ribbon bow, and Abby Atkins looked 
 at her with a scowl of hatred. 
 
 " She s an ugly little thing/ said the big girls among 
 themselves as they went edging gently and imper 
 ceptibly away towards a knot of big boys, and then 
 Abby Atkins s chance had come. She advanced with 
 a spring upon Ellen Brewster, and she pulled that blue 
 ribbon off her head so cruelly and fiercely that she 
 pulled out some of the golden hairs with it and threw 
 it on the ground, and stamped on it. Then she seized 
 Ellen by the shoulders and proceeded to shake her for 
 wearing a blue ribbon w r hen she herself wore a shoe 
 string, but she reckoned without Ellen. One would as 
 soon have expected to meet fight in a little child angel 
 as in this Ellen Brewster, but she did not come of her 
 ancestors for nothing. 
 
 Although she was so daintily built that she looked 
 smaller, she was in reality larger than the other girl, 
 and as she straightened herself in her wrath she seemed 
 a head taller and proportionately broad. She tossed 
 her yellow head, and her face took on an expression of 
 noble courage and indignation, but she never said a 
 word. She simply took Abby Atkins by the arms and 
 lifted her off her feet and seated her on the ground. 
 Then she picked up her blue ribbon, and wal-ked off, and 
 Abby scrambled to her feet and looked after her with a 
 vanquished but untamed air. Nobody had seen what 
 happened except Abby s younger sister Maria and 
 Granville Joy. Granville pressed stealthily close to 
 Ellen as she marched away and whispered, his face 
 blazing, his voice full of confidence and congratulation, 
 "Say, if she d been a boy, I d licked her for you, and 
 you wouldn t hev had to tech her yourself;" and Maria 
 walked up and eyed her prostrate but defiantly glaring 
 sister "I ain t sorry one mite, Abby Atkins," she 
 declared "so there." 
 
 145 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You go long/ returned Abby, struggling to her 
 feet, and shaking her small skirts energetically. 
 
 " Your dress is jest as wet as if you d set down in a 
 puddle, and you ll catch it when you get home/ Maria 
 said, pitilessly. 
 
 "I ain t afraid." 
 
 "What made you touch her, anyhow; she hadn t 
 done nothin ?" 
 
 " If you want to wear shoe-strings when other folks 
 wear ribbons, you can," said Abby Atkins. She walked 
 away, switching, with unabated dignity in the midst 
 of defeat, the draggled tail of her poor little dress. She 
 had gone down like a cat ; she was not in the least hurt 
 except in her sense of justice; that was jarred to a still 
 greater lack of equilibrium. She felt as if she had been 
 floored by Providence in conjunction with a blue bow, 
 and her very soul rose in futile rebellion. But, curiously 
 enough, her personal ire against Ellen vanished. 
 
 At the afternoon recess she gave Ellen the sound half 
 of an old red Baldwin apple which she had brought for 
 luncheon, and watched her bite into it, which Ellen did 
 readily, for she was not a child to cherish enmity, with 
 an odd triumph. "The other half ain t fit to eat, it s 
 all wormy," said Abby Atkins, flinging it away as 
 she spoke. 
 
 "Then you ought to have kept this," Ellen cried 
 out, holding towards her the half, minus one little bite. 
 But Abby Atkins shook her head forcibly. "That 
 was why I gave it to you," said she. "Say, didn t 
 you never have to tie up your hair with a shoe-string?" 
 Ellen shook her head, looking at her wonderingly. 
 Then with a sudden impulse she tore off the blue ribbon 
 from her curls. "Say, you take it," she said, "my 
 mother won t care. I d jest as lief wear the shoe-string, 
 honest." 
 
 "I don t want your blue ribbon," Abby returned, 
 146 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 stoutly ; " a shoe-string is a good deal better to tie the 
 hair with. I don t want your blue ribbon ; I don t want 
 no blue ribbon unless it s mine." 
 
 "It would be yours if I give it to you/ Ellen declared, 
 with blue eyes of astonishment and consternation upon 
 this very strange little girl. 
 
 " No, it wouldn t/ maintained Abby Atkins. 
 
 But it ended in the two girls, \vith that wonderful and 
 inexplicable adjustment of childhood into one groove 
 after harsh grating on different levels, walking off 
 together with arms around each other s waist, and after 
 school began Ellen often felt a soft, cat-like pat on her 
 head, and turned round with a loving glance at Abby 
 Atkins. 
 
 Ellen talked more about Abby Atkins than any other 
 of the children w r hen she got home, and while her mother 
 looked at it all easily, her grandmother was doubtful. 
 "There s others that I should rather have Ellen thick 
 with/ said she. " I ain t nothin against the Atkinses, 
 but they can t have been as well brought up as some, 
 they have had so little to do with, and their mother s 
 been ailin so long. " 
 
 " Ellen may as well begin as she can hold out, and be 
 intimate with them that will be intimate with her," 
 Eva said, rather bitterly. Eva was married by this 
 time, and living with Jim and his mother. She wore 
 in those days an expression of bitterly defiant triumph 
 and happiness, as of one who has wrested his sweet from 
 fate under the ban of the law, and is determined to get 
 the flavor of it though the skies fall. " I suppose I did 
 wrong marrying Jim," she often told her sister, "but I 
 can t help it." 
 
 "Maybe Jim will get work before long," her sister 
 would say, consolingly. 
 
 "I have about given up," Eva would reply. "I 
 guess Jim will have to roost on a flour-barrel at Mun- 
 
 147 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 sey s store the rest of his days; but as long as he be 
 longs to me, it don t make so much difference." 
 
 Eva had taken up an agency for a cosmetic which 
 was manufactured by a woman in Rowe. She had one 
 window of the north parlor in the Tenny cottage, which 
 had been given up to her when she married Jim, filled 
 with the little pink boxes containing the " Fairy Cream," 
 and a great sign, but the trade languished. Both Eva 
 and Jim had tried in vain to obtain employment in fac 
 tories in other towns. 
 
 Lloyd s had not reopened, although it was April, 
 and Andrew was drawing on his savings. Fanny 
 had surreptitiously answered an advertisement pur 
 porting to give instructions to women as to the earning 
 of large sums of money at home, and was engaged with 
 a stock of glass and paints which she hurriedly swept 
 out of sight when any one s shadow passed the window, 
 and later she found herself to be the victim of a small 
 swindling conspiracy, and lost the dollar which she had 
 invested. But Ellen knew nothing of all this. She 
 lacked none of her accustomed necessaries nor luxuries, 
 and with her school a new life full of keen, new savors 
 or relish began for her. There were also new affections 
 in it. 
 
 Ellen was as yet too young, and too confident in love, 
 to have new affections plunge her into anything but a 
 delightful sort of anti-blossom tumult. There was no 
 suspense, no doubt, no jealousy, only utter acquiescence 
 of single-heartedness, admiration, and trust. She 
 thought Abby Atkins and Floretta Vining lovely and 
 dependable ; she parted from them at night without a 
 pang, and looked forward blissfully to the meeting next 
 morning. She also had sentiments equally peaceful 
 and pronounced, though instinctively more secret, 
 towards Granville Joy. She used to glance over tow 
 ards the boys side and meet his side-long eyes without 
 
 148 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 so much a quickening of her pulses as a quickening of 
 her imagination. 
 
 "I know who your beau is/ Floretta Vining, who 
 was in advance of her years, said to her once, and Ellen 
 looked at her with half-stupid wonder. 
 
 " His first name begins with a G and his last with a 
 J," Floretta tittered, and Ellen continued to look 
 at her with the faintest suspicion of a blush, because 
 she had a feminine instinct that a blush was in order, 
 not because she knew of any reason for it. 
 
 "He is," said Floretta, with another exceedingly 
 foolish giggle. " My, you are as red as a beet." 
 
 "I ain t old enough to have a beau," Ellen said, 
 her soft cheeks becoming redder, and her baby face 
 all in a tremor. 
 
 "Yes, you be," Floretta said, with authority, "be 
 cause you are so pretty, and have got such pretty curls. 
 Ben Simonds said the other day you were the prettiest 
 girl in school." 
 
 "Then do you think he is my beau, too?" asked 
 Ellen, innocently. But Floretta frowned, and tittered, 
 and hesitated. 
 
 "He said except one," she faltered out, finally. 
 
 "Well, who was that?" asked Ellen. 
 
 "How do I know?" pouted Floretta. "Mebbe it 
 w r as me, though I don t think I m so very pretty." 
 
 "Then Ben Simonds is your beau," said Ellen, 
 reflectively. 
 
 "Yes, I guess he is," admitted Floretta. 
 
 That night, amid much wonder and tender ridicule, 
 Ellen told her mother and Aunt Eva, and her father, 
 that Ben Simonds was Floret ta s beau, and Granville 
 Joy was hers. But Andrew laughed doubtfully. 
 
 " I don t want that little thing to get such ideas into 
 her head yet a while," he told Fanny afterwards, but 
 she only laughed at him, seeing nothing but the 
 
 149 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOk 
 
 childish play of the thing; but he, being a man, saw 
 deeper. 
 
 However, Ellen s fondest new love was not for any 
 of her little mates, but for her school-teacher. To her 
 the child s heart went out in worship. All through 
 the spring she offered her violets violets gathered 
 laboriously after school in the meadow back of her 
 grandmother s house. She used to skip from hillock to 
 hillock of marsh grass with wary steps, lest she might 
 slip and wet her feet in the meadow ooze and incur 
 her mother s displeasure, for Fanny, in spite of her wor 
 ship of the child, could speak with no uncertain voice. 
 She pulled up handfuls of the flowers, gleaming blue in 
 the dark-green hollows. Later she carried roses from 
 the choice bush in the yard, and, later, pears from her 
 grandmother s tree. She used to watch for Miss Mitch 
 ell at her gate and run to meet her, and seize her hand 
 and walk at her side, blushing with delight. Miss 
 Mitchell lived not far from Ellen, in a tidy white house 
 with a handsome smoke-tree on one side of the front 
 walk and a willow with upside-down branches on the 
 other. Miss Mitchell had been born and brought up 
 in this house, but she had been teaching school in a 
 distant town ever since Ellen s day, so they had never 
 been acquainted before she went to school. Miss Mitch 
 ell lived alone with her mother, who was an old friend 
 of Mrs. Zelotes. Ellen privately thought her rather 
 better - looking than her own grandmother, though 
 her admiration was based upon wholly sentimental 
 reasons. Old Mrs. Mitchell might have earned more 
 money in a museum of freaks than her daughter in a 
 district school. She was a mountain of rotundity, a 
 conjunction of palpitating spheres, \ but the soul that 
 dwelt in this painfully ponderous body was as mellow 
 with affection and kindliness as a ripe pear, and the 
 voice that proceeded from her ever-smiling lips was a 
 
 150 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 hoarse and dove-like coo of love. Ellen at first started a 
 little aghast at this gigantic fleshliness, this general 
 slough and slump of outline, this insistency of re 
 pellent curves, and then the old woman spoke and 
 thrust out a great, soft hand, and the heart of the child , 
 overleaped her artistic sense and her reason, and she 
 thought old Mrs. Mitchell beautiful. Mrs. Mitchell nev 
 er failed to regale her with a superior sort of cooky, 
 and often with a covert peppermint, and that although 
 the Mitchells were not well off. The old place was 
 mortgaged, and Miss Mitchell had hard work to pay 
 the interest. Ellen had the vaguest ideas about the 
 mortgage, and was half inclined to think it might be a 
 disfiguring patch in the plastering of the sitting-room, 
 which hung down in an unsightly fashion with a dis 
 closure of hairy edges, and threatened danger to the 
 heads underneath. 
 
 Often of a Saturday afternoon Ellen went to visit 
 Miss Mitchell and her mother, and really preferred 
 them to friends of her own age. Miss Mitchell had a 
 store of superannuated paper dolls which dated from 
 her own childhood. Their quaint costumes, and old- 
 fashioned coiffures, and simpers were of overwhelm 
 ing interest to Ellen. Even at that early age she had a 
 perception of the advantages of an atmosphere to art, 
 and even to the affections. Without understanding it, 
 she loved those obsolete paper-dolls and those women 
 of former generations better because they gave her 
 breathing-scope for her imagination. She could love 
 Abby Atkins and Floretta Vining at one bite, as it 
 were, and that was the end of it, but she could sit and 
 ponder and dream over Miss Mitchell and her mother, 
 and see whole vistas of them in receding mirrors of 
 affection. 
 
 As for the teacher and her mother, they simply adored 
 the child as indeed everybody did. She continued at 
 
 151 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her first school for a year, which was one of the hardest 
 financially ever experienced in Rowe. Norman Lloyd 
 during all that time did not reopen his factory, and in 
 the autumn two others shut down. The streets were 
 full of the discontented ranks of impotent labor, and 
 all the public buildings were props for the weary shoul 
 ders of the unemployed. On pleasant days the sunny 
 sides of the vacant factories, especially, furnished set 
 tings for lines of scowling faces of misery. 
 
 This atmosphere affected Ellen more than any one 
 realized, since the personal bearing of it was kept from 
 her. She did not know that her father was drawing 
 upon his precious savings for daily needs, she did 
 not know how her aunt Eva and her uncle Jim were 
 getting into greater difficulties every day, but she was 
 too sensitive not to be aware of disturbances which 
 were not in direct contact with herself. She never 
 forgot what she had overheard that night Lloyd s 
 had shut down ; it was always like a blot upon the face 
 of her happy consciousness of life. She often over 
 heard, as then, those loud, dissenting voices of her father 
 and his friends in the sitting-room, after she had gone 
 to bed ; and then, too, Abby Atkins, who was not spared 
 any knowledge of hardship, told her a good deal. " It s 
 awful the way them rich folks treat us," said Abby 
 Atkins. "They own the shops and everything, and 
 take all the money, and let our folks do all the 
 work. It s awful. But then/ continued Abby Atkins, 
 comfortingly, "your father has got money saved in 
 the bank, and he owns his house, so you can get along 
 if he don t have work. My father ain t got any, and 
 he s got the old-fashioned consumption, and he coughs, 
 and it takes money for his medicine. Then mother s 
 sick a good deal too, and has to have medicine. We 
 have to have more medicine than most anything else, 
 and we hardly ever have any pie or cake, and it s all the 
 
 152 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 fault of them rich folks/ Abby Atkins wound up 
 with a tragic climax and a fierce roll of her black eyes. 
 
 That evening Ellen went in to see her grandmother, 
 and was presented with some cookies, which she did 
 not eat. 
 
 " Why don t you eat them?" Mrs. Zelotes asked. 
 
 " Can I have them to do just what I want to with?" 
 asked Ellen. 
 
 " What on earth do you want to do with a cooky 
 except eat it?" Ellen blushed; she had a shamed- 
 faced feeling before a contemplated generosity. 
 
 " What do you want to do with them except eat them?" 
 her grandmother asked, severely. 
 
 "Abby Atkins don t have any cookies cause her 
 father s out of work/ said Ellen, abashedly. 
 
 "Did that Atkins girl ask you to bring her cookies?" 
 
 "No, ma am." 
 
 "You can do jest what you are a mind to with em," 
 Mrs. Zelotes said, abruptly. 
 
 Ellen never knew why her grandmother insisted 
 upon her drinking a little glass of very nice and very 
 spicy cordial before she went home, but the truth was, 
 that Mrs. Zelotes thought the child so angelic in this 
 disposition to give up the cookies which she loved to 
 her little friend that she was straightway alarmed and 
 thought her too good to live. 
 
 The next day she told Fanny, and said to her, with 
 her old face stern with anxiety, that the child was lookin 
 real pindlin , and Ellen had to take bitters for a month 
 afterwards because she gave the cookies to Abby Atkins, 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN all growth there is emulation and striving for 
 precedence between the spiritual and the physical, 
 and this very emulation may determine the rate of 
 progression of the whole. Sometimes the one, some 
 times the other, may be in advance, but all the time 
 the tendency is towards the distant goal. Sometimes 
 the two keep abreast, and then there is the greatest 
 harmony in speed. In Ellen Brewster at twelve and 
 fifteen the spiritual outstripped the physical, as is 
 often the case. Her eyes grew intense and hollow 
 with reflection under knitting brows, her thin shoulders 
 stooped like those of a sage bent with study and con 
 templation. She was slender to emaciation ; her clothes 
 hung loosely over her form, which seemed as sexless 
 as a lily-stem ; indeed, her body seemed only made for 
 the head, which was flower-like and charming, but al 
 most painful in its delicacy, and with such weight of 
 innocent pondering upon the unknown conditions 
 of things in which she found herself. At times, of 
 course, there were ebullitions of youthful spirit, and 
 the child was as inconsequent as a kitten. At those 
 times she was neither child nor woman; she was an 
 anomalous thing made up not so much of actualities 
 as of instincts. She romped with her mates as unseen 
 and uncomprehended of herself as any young animal, 
 but the flame of her striving spirit made everything 
 full of unread meaning. 
 
 Ellen was accounted a most remarkable scholar. 
 She had left Miss Mitchell s school, and was in one 
 
 154 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of a higher grade. At fifteen she entered the high- 
 school and had a master. 
 
 Andrew was growing old fast in those days, though 
 not so old as to years. Though he was far from old, 
 his hair was gray, his back bent. He moved with 
 a weary shuffle. The men in the shop began to eye 
 him furtively. "Andrew Brewster will get fired next/ 
 they said. "The boss ain t no use for men with the 
 first snap gone." Indeed, Andrew was constantly 
 given jobs of lower grades, which did not pay so well. 
 Whenever the force was reduced on account of dulness 
 in trade, Andrew was one of the first to be laid aside on 
 waiting orders in the regular aMiy of toil. On one of 
 these occasions, in the spring after Ellen was fifteen, 
 his first fit of recklessness seized him. One night, 
 after loafing a week, he came home with fever spots in 
 his cheeks and a curiously bright, strained look in 
 his eyes. Fanny gazed sharply at him across the sup 
 per-table. Finally she laid down her knife and fork, 
 rested her elbows on the table, and fixed her eyescom- 
 mandingly upon him. "Andrew Brewster, what is 
 the matter?" said she. Ellen turned her flower-like 
 face towards her father, who took a swallow of tea with 
 out saying a word, though he shuffled his feet uneasily. 
 "Andrew, you answer me/ repeated Fanny. 
 
 "There ain t anything the matter," answered An 
 drew, with a strange sullenness for him. 
 
 "There is, too. Now, Andrew Brewster, I ain t 
 goin to be put off. I know you re on the shelf on ac 
 count of hard times, so it ain t that. It s something 
 new. Now I want to know what it is." 
 
 "It ain t anything." 
 
 "Yes, it is. Andrew, you ought to tell me. You 
 know I ain t afraid to bear anything that you have to 
 bear, and Ellen is getting old enough now, so she can 
 understand, and she can t always be spared. She d 
 
 155 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 better get a little knowledge of hardships while she has 
 us to help her bear em." 
 
 "This ain t a hardship, and there ain t anything to 
 spare, Ellen/ said Andrew; and he laughed with a 
 hilarity totally unlike him. 
 
 That was all Fanny could get out of him, but she 
 was half reassured. She told Eva that she didn t 
 believe but he had been buying some Christmas present 
 that he knew was extravagant for Ellen, and was afraid 
 to tell her because he knew she would scold. But 
 Andrew had not been buying Christmas presents, but 
 speculating in mining stocks. He had resisted the 
 temptation long. Year in and year out he had heard 
 the talk right and left in the shop, on the street, and at 
 the store of an evening. "I ll give you a point/ he 
 had heard one say to another during a discussion as to 
 prices and dividends. He had heard it all described 
 as a short cross-cut over the fields of hard labor to wealth 
 and comfort, and he had kept his face straight ahead 
 in his narrow track of caution and hereditary instincts 
 until then. "The savings bank is good enough for 
 me/ he used to say; "that s where my father kept his 
 money. I don t know anything about your stocks. 
 I d rather have a little and have it safe." The men 
 could not reason him out of his position, not even when 
 Billy Monroe made fifteen hundred dollars on a Colo 
 rado mine which had cost him fifteen cents per share, 
 and left the shop, and drove a fast horse in a Goddard 
 buggy. 
 
 It was even reported that fifteen hundred was fif 
 teen thousand, but Andrew was proof against this 
 brilliant loadstar of success, though many of his mates 
 followed it afar, just before the shares dropped below 
 par. 
 
 Jim Tenny went with the rest. "Tell you what 
 His, Andrew, old man/ he said, clapping Andrew 
 
 156 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 on the shoulder as they were going out of the shop one 
 night, "you d better go in too." 
 
 " The savings-bank is good enough for me/ said 
 Andrew, with his gentle doggedness. 
 
 "You can buy a trotter/ urged Jim. 
 
 "I never was much on trotters/ replied Andrew. 
 
 "I ain t going to walk home many times more, you 
 bet/ Jim said to Eva when he got home, and then he 
 bent back her tensely set face and kissed it. Eva was 
 crocheting hoods for fifteen cents apiece for a neighbor 
 ing woman who was a padrone on a small scale, hav 
 ing taken a large order from a dealer for which she 
 realized twenty cents apiece, and employed all the 
 women in the neighborhood to do the work. 
 
 "Why not?" said she. 
 
 "Oh/ said Jim, gayly, "I ve bought some of that 
 Golden Hope mining stock. Billy Monroe has just 
 made fifteen thousand on it, and I ll make as much in 
 a week or two." 
 
 " Oh, Jim, you ain t taken all the money out of the 
 bank?" 
 
 "Don t you worry, old girl," replied Jim. "I guess 
 you ll find I can take care of you yet." 
 
 But the stock went down, and Jim s little venture 
 with it. 
 
 "Guess you were about right, old man/ he said to 
 Andrew. 
 
 Andrew was rather looked up to for his superior 
 caution and sagacity. He was continually congrat 
 ulated upon it. "Savings-banks are good enough 
 for me," he kept repeating. But that was four years 
 ago, and now his turn had come; the contagion of 
 speculation had struck him at last. That was the way 
 with Lloyd s failing employe s. 
 
 Andrew kept his stock certificate in a little, tin, trunk- 
 shaped box which had belonged to his father. It had 
 
 157 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 a key and a tiny padlock, and he had always stored 
 in it the deed of his house, his savings-bank book, and 
 his insurance policy. He carried the key in his pocket. 
 Fanny never opened the box, or had any curiosity 
 about it, believing that she was acquainted with its 
 contents; but now when, on coming unexpectedly 
 into the bedroom the box was always kept at the 
 head of the bed she heard a rattle of papers, and 
 caught Andrew locking the box with a confused air, 
 she began to suspect something. She began to look 
 hard at the box, to take it up and shake it when her 
 husband was away. Fanny was crocheting hoods 
 as well as Eva. Ellen wished to learn, but her mother 
 would not allow that. "You ve got enough to do to 
 study your lessons/ she said. Andrew watched his 
 wife crochet with ill-concealed impatience. 
 
 "I ain t goiii to have you do that long/ he said 
 "workin at that rate for no more money. That Mrs. 
 William Pendergrass that lets out these hoods is as 
 bad as any factory boss in the country/ 
 
 "Well, she got the chance," said Fanny, "and they 
 won t let out the work except that way; they can get 
 it done so much cheaper." 
 
 "Well, you sha n t have it, anyhow/ said Andrew, 
 smiling mysteriously. 
 
 "Why, you ain t goin to work again, be you, An 
 drew?" 
 
 "You wait." 
 
 "Well, don t you talk the way poor Jim did. Eva 
 wasn t going to crochet any more hoods, and now 
 Jim s out of work again. Eva told me yesterday that 
 she didn t know where the money was comin from. 
 Jim s mother owns the place, and it ain t worth much, 
 anyhow, and they can t take it from her in her life 
 time, even if ehe was willing to let it go. Eva said she 
 was goin to try again for work herself in the shop. 
 
 158 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 She thought maybe there might be some kind of a job 
 she could get. Don t you talk like Jim did about his 
 good-for-nothin mining stock. I ve been glad enough 
 that you had sense enough to keep what little we had 
 where twas safe." 
 
 "Ain t it most time for Ellen to be comin home?" 
 asked Andrew, to turn the conversation, as he felt some 
 what guilty and uncomfortable, though his eyes were 
 jubilant. He had very little doubt about the success 
 of his venture. As it is with a man who yields to love 
 for the first time in his life, it was with Andrew in his 
 tardy subjection to the hazards of fortune. He was a 
 much more devoted slave than those who had long wooed 
 her. He had always taken nothing but the principal 
 newspaper published in Row r e, but now he subscribed 
 to a Boston paper, the one which had the fullest finan 
 cial column, though Fanny exclaimed at his extrava 
 gance. 
 
 Along in midsummer, in the midst of Ellen s vaca 
 tion, the mining stock dropped fast a point or more a 
 day. Andrew s heart began to sink, though he was 
 far from losing hope. He used to talk it over with 
 the men w r ho advised him to buy, and come home forti 
 fied. 
 
 All he had to do was to be patient; the fall meant 
 nothing wrong with the mine, only the wrangle of 
 speculators. "It s like a football, first on one side, 
 and then on the other," said the man, " but the football s 
 there all the same, and if it s that you want, you re 
 all right." 
 
 One night when Nahum Beals and Atkins and John 
 Sargent were in, Andrew repeated this wisdom, con 
 cealing the fact of its personal application. He was 
 anxious to have some confirmation. 
 
 "I suppose it s about so," he said. 
 
 Then John Sargent spoke up. "No, it is not so/ 
 
 159 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 he said "that is, not in many cases. There isn t 
 any football that s the trouble. There s nothing 
 but the money; a lot of fools have paid for it when it 
 never existed out of their imagination." 
 
 " About so," said Nahum Deals. Andrew and Atkins 
 exchanged glances. Atkins was at once sympathizing 
 and triumphant. 
 
 " Lots of those things appear to be doing well, and to 
 be all right," said Andrew, uneasily. "The directors 
 keep saying that they are in a prosperous condition, 
 even if the stock drops." He almost betrayed himself. 
 
 John Sargent laughed that curious, inflexible laugh 
 of his. "Lord, I know all about that," said he. "I 
 had some once. First one thing and then another 
 came up to hinder the working of the mine and the 
 payments of dividends. First there wasn t any water, 
 an unprecedented dry season in those parts, oldest 
 inhabitants for evidence. Then there was too much 
 water, no way to mine except they employed profes 
 sional divers, everything under water. Then the trans 
 portation was to pay; then, when that was^ remedied, 
 the ore didn t come out in shape to transport in the 
 rough and had to be worked up on the premises, and new 
 mills had to be built and new machinery put in, and 
 a few little Irish dividends were collected for that. Then 
 when they got the mills up and the machinery in, they 
 struck another kind of ore that ought to be transported ; 
 then there came a landslide and carried half the road 
 into a canon. So it went on, one thing and another. 
 If ever that darned mine had got into working order, 
 right kind of ore, water enough and not too much, 
 roads and machinery all right, and everything swim 
 ming, the Day of Judgment would have come." 
 
 "Did you ever get anything out of it?" inquired 
 Andrew. 
 
 "Anything out of it?" repeated the other. "Yes. 
 
 160 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 I got enough worldly wisdom never to buy any more 
 mining stock, after I had paid assessments on it for 
 two years and the whole thing went to pieces." 
 
 "It may come up yet/ said Andrew. 
 
 There s nothing to come up/ said John Sargent 
 He had been away from Rowe a year, but had just 
 returned, and was again boarding with Atkins, and all 
 the family lived on his board money. Andrew and 
 Nahum Beals were smoking pipes. Andrew gently, 
 like a philosopher, who smokes that he may dream; 
 Nahum with furious jets and frequent removals of his 
 pipe for scowling speeches. John Sargent did not 
 smoke at all. He had left off cigars first, then even his 
 pipe. He gave the money which he saved thereby 
 to Mrs. Atkins as a bonus on his board money. 
 
 The lamp burned dimly in the blue fog of tobacco 
 smoke, and the windows where the curtains were not 
 drawn were blanks of silvery moonlight. Ellen sat 
 on the doorstep outside and heard the talk. She did 
 not understand it, nor take much interest in it. Their 
 minds were fixed upon the w r ay of living, and hers upon 
 life itself. She could bring her simplicity to bear upon 
 the world-old question of riches and poverty and labor, 
 but this temporal adjunct of stocks and markets was 
 as yet beyond her. Her mother had gone to her aunt 
 Eva s and she sat alone out in the wide mystery of the 
 summer night, watching the lovely shift of radiance 
 and shadows, as she might have watched the play of a 
 kaleidoscope, seeing the beauty of the new combina 
 tions, and seeing without comprehending the unit / 
 which governed them all. The night was full of cries .j 
 of insistent life and growth, of birds and insects, of calls 
 of children, and now and then the far-away roar of 
 railroad trains. It was nearly midsummer. The year 
 was almost at its height, but had not passed it. Growth 
 and bloom was still in the ascendant, and had not yet 
 
 161 
 
IS 
 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 attained that maturity of perfection beyond which 
 the slope of death. 
 
 Everywhere about her were the revolutions of those 
 unseen wheels of nature whose immortal trend is tow 
 ards the completion of time, and whose momentum can 
 overlap the grave; and the child was within them and 
 swept onward with the perfecting flowers, and the 
 ripening fruit, and the insects which were feeling their 
 wings; and all unconsciously, in a moment as it were, 
 she unfolded a little farther towards her own heyday 
 of bloom. Suddenly from those heights of the primitive 
 and the eternal upon which a child starts and where 
 she still lingered she saw her future before her, shining 
 with new lights, and a wonderful conviction of bliss 
 to come was over her. It was that conviction which 
 comes at times to all unconquered souls, and which has 
 
 /! the very essence of truth in it, since it overleaps the 
 darkness of life that lies between them and that bliss. 
 Suddenly Ellen felt that she was born to great hap- 
 
 v v piness, and all that was to come was towards that end. 
 Her heart beat loud in her ears. There was a whip- 
 poorwill calling in some trees to the left; the moon was 
 dim under a golden dapple of clouds. She could not 
 feel her hands or her feet ; she seemed to feel nothing 
 except her soul. 
 
 Then she heard, loud and sweet and clear, a boy s 
 whistle, one of the popular tunes of the day. It came 
 nearer and nearer, and it was in the same key with the 
 child s thoughts and dreams. Then she saw a slender 
 figure dark against the moonlight stop at a fence, and 
 she jumped up and ran towards it with no hesitation 
 through the dewy grass; and it was the boy, Granville 
 Joy. He stood looking at her. He had a handsome, 
 eager face, and Ellen looked at him, her lips parted, 
 her face like a lily in the white light. 
 "Hulloo," said the boy. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Hulloo/ Ellen responded, faintly. 
 
 Granville extended one rough, brown, boyish hand 
 over the fence, and Ellen laid her little, soft hand in it. 
 He pulled her gently close, then Ellen lifted her face, 
 and the boy bent his, and the two kissed each other 
 over the fence. Then the boy went on down the street, 
 but he did not whistle, and Ellen went back to the door 
 step, and, looking about to be sure that none of the men 
 in the sitting-room saw, pulled off one little shoe and 
 drew forth a sprig of southernwood, or boy s-love, 
 which was crushed under her foot. 
 
 That day Floretta Vining had told her that if she 
 would put a sprig of boy s-love in her shoe, the very 
 first boy she met would be the one she was going to 
 marry ; and Ellen, who was passing from one grade of 
 school to another, had tried it. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE high -school master was a distant relative of 
 the Lloyd s, through whom he had obtained the position. 
 One evening when he was taking tea with them at 
 Cynthia Lennox s, he spoke of Ellen. "I have one 
 really remarkable scholar/ he said, with a curious 
 air of self-gratulation, as if he were principally re 
 sponsible for it; "her name is Brewster Ellen Brew- 
 ster." 
 
 " Good land ! That must be the child that ran away 
 five or six years ago, and all the town up in arms over 
 it," said Mrs. Norman Lloyd. "Don t you remember, 
 Cynthia?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Cynthia, and continued pouring tea. 
 Cynthia was very little changed. In some faces time 
 seems to engrave lines delicately, once for all, and 
 then lay by. She was rather more charming now than 
 when one had looked at her with any expectancy of 
 youth, since there was now no sense of disappoint 
 ment. 
 
 " I remember that," said Norman Lloyd. " The child 
 would never tell where she had been. A curious case." 
 
 "Well," said the school-master, "leaving that child 
 ish episode out of the question, she has a really re 
 markable mind. If she were a boy, I should advise a 
 thorough education and a profession. I should as it is, 
 if her family were able to bear the expense. She has 
 that intuitive order of mind which is wonderful enough, 
 though not, after all, so rare in a girl ; but in addition 
 she has the logical, which, according to my experience^ 
 
 164 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 is almost unknown in a woman. She ought to have an 
 education/ 
 
 "But/ said Risley, "what is the use of educating 
 that unfortunate child?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "What I say. What is the use? There she is in 
 her sphere of life, the daughter of a factory operative, 
 in all probability in after-years to be the wife of one and 
 the mother of others. Nothing but a rich marriage can 
 save her, and that she is not likely to make. Milk 
 maids are more likely to make rich marriages than 
 factory girls ; there is a certain savor of romance about 
 milk, and the dewy meadows, and the breath of kine, 
 but a shoe factory is brutally realistic and illusionary. 
 Now, why do you want to increase the poor child s 
 horizon farther than her little feet can carry her? Fit, 
 her to be a good female soldier in the ranks of labor^ 
 to be a good wife and mother to the makers of shoes, 
 to wash and iron their uniforms of toil, to cook well 
 the food which affords them the requisite nourishment 
 to make shoes, to appreciate book-lore, which is a pleas 
 ure and a profit to the makers of shoes; possibly in 
 the non-event of marriage she will make shoes herself. 
 The system of education in our schools is all wrong. 
 It is both senseless and futile. Look at the children 
 filing past to school, and look at their fathers, and their 
 mothers too, filing past to the factory. Look at their 
 present, and look at their future. And look at the 
 trash taught them in their text-books trash from its 
 utter dissociation with their lives. You might as 
 well teach a Zulu lace-work, instead of the use of the 
 assagai." 
 
 "Now look here, Mr. Risley," said the school-master, 
 his face flushing, " is not I beg your pardon, of course 
 this view of yours a little narrow and ultra-conserva 
 tive? You do not want to establish a permanent fac- 
 
 165 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 tory- operative class in this country, do you? That 
 is what your theory would ultimately tend towards. 
 ^Gught not these children be given their chance to rise 
 in the ranks; ought they to be condemned to tread in 
 the same path as their fathers?" 
 
 "I would have those little paths which intersect 
 every unoccupied field in this locality worn by the 
 feet of these men and their children after them unto 
 the third and fourth generation/ said Risley. "If 
 not, where is our skilled labor?" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Risley/ said Mrs. Lloyd, anxiously, "you 
 wouldn t want all those dear little children to work 
 as hard as their fathers, and not do any better, would 
 you?" 
 
 " If they don t, who is going to make our shoes, dear 
 Mrs. Lloyd?" asked Risley. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd and the school-master stared at him, and 
 Lloyd laughed his low, almost mirthless laugh. 
 
 "Don t you know, Edward," he said, "that Mr. 
 Risley is not in earnest, and speaks with the deadly 
 intent of an anarchist with a bomb in his bag? He is 
 the most out-and-out radical in the country. If there 
 were a strike, and I did not yield to the demands of the 
 oppressed, and imported foreign labor, I don t know 
 that my life would be safe from him." 
 
 "Then you do approve of a higher education?" 
 asked the school-master, while Mrs. Lloyd stared from 
 one to the other in bewilderment. 
 
 "Yes, if we and our posterity have to go barefoot," 
 said Risley, laughing out with a sudden undertone 
 of seriousness. 
 
 " I suppose everybody could get accustomed to going 
 barefoot after a while," said Mrs. Lloyd. "Do you 
 suppose that dear little thing was barefooted when 
 she ran away, Cynthia?" 
 
 Risley answered as if he had been addressed. "I 
 166 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 can vouch for the fact that she was not, Mrs. Lloyd/ 
 he said. " They would sooner have walked on red-hot 
 ploughshares themselves than let her/ 
 
 "Her father is getting quite an old man/ Norman 
 Lloyd said, with no apparent relevancy, as if he were 
 talking to himself. 
 
 All the time Cynthia Lennox had been quietly sitting 
 at the head of the table. When the rest of the com 
 pany had gone, and she and Risley were alone, seated in 
 the drawing-room before the parlor fire, for it was a 
 chilly day, she turned her fair, worn face towards him 
 on the crimson velvet of her chair. "Do you know 
 why I did not speak and tell them where the child was 
 that time?" she asked. 
 
 "Because of your own good sense?" 
 
 "No; because of you." 
 
 He looked at her adoringly. She was older than he, 
 her beauty rather recorded than still evident on her 
 face ; she had been to him from the first like a fair, for 
 bidden flower behind a wall of prohibition, but nothing 
 could alter his habit of loving her. 
 
 " Yes," said she. " It was more on your account than 
 on my own; confession would be good for the soul. 
 The secret has always rankled in my pride. I would 
 much rather defy opinion than fly before it. But I 
 know that you would mind. However, there was an 
 other reason." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 She hesitated a little and colored, even laughed a 
 little, embarrassed laugh which was foreign to her. 
 "Well, Lyman," said she, finally, "one reason why I 
 did not speak was that I see my way clear to making 
 up to that child and her parents for any wrong which 
 I may have done them by causing them a few hours 
 anxiety. When she has finished the high -school 
 I mean to send her to college." 
 
 167 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHEN Ellen was about sixteen, in her second year 
 at the high-school, her own family never looked at her 
 without a slight shock of wonder, as before the un 
 expected. Her mates, being themselves in the transi 
 tion state, received her unquestioningly as a fellow- 
 traveller, and colored like themselves with the new 
 lights of the journey. But Ellen s father and mother 
 and grandmother never ceased regarding her with as 
 tonishment and admiration and something like alarm. 
 While they regarded Ellen with the utmost pride, they 
 still privately regretted this perfection of bloom which 
 was the forerunner of independence of the parent stalk 
 at least, Andrew did. Andrew had grown older and 
 more careworn ; his mine had not yet paid any dividends, 
 but he had scattering jobs of work, and with his wife s 
 assistance had managed to rub along, and his secret 
 was still safe. 
 
 One day in February there was a half - holiday. 
 Lloyd s was shut for the rest of the day, for his brother 
 in St. Louis was dead, and had been brought to Rowe 
 to be buried, and his funeral was at two o clock. 
 
 "Goin to the funeral, old man?" one of Andrew s 
 fellow-workmen had asked, jostling him as he went 
 out of the shop at noon. Before Andrew could answer, 
 another voice broke in fiercely. It belonged to Joseph 
 Atkins, who was ghastly that day. 
 
 "I ain t goin to no funerals," he said; "guess they 
 won t shut up shop for mine." Then he coughed. 
 His daughter Abby, who had been working in the 
 
 168 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 factory for some time then, pressed close behind her 
 father, and the expression in her face was an echo of 
 his. 
 
 " When I strike, that s what I m going to strike for 
 to have the shop shut up the day of my funeral/ said 
 she; and the remark had a ghastly flippancy, con 
 tradicted by her intense manner. A laugh went around, 
 and a young fellow with a handsome, unshaven face 
 caught her by the arm. 
 
 "You d better strike to have the shop shut up the 
 day you re married," said he; but Abby flung away 
 from him. 
 
 " I ll thank you to let me alone, Tom Hardy," she said, 
 with a snap; and the men laughed harder. 
 
 Abby was attractive to men in spite of her smallness 
 and leanness and incisiveness of manner. She was 
 called mighty smart and dry, which was the shop 
 synonym for witty, and her favors, possibly because 
 she never granted them, were accounted valuable. Abby 
 Atkins had more admirers than many a girl who was 
 prettier and presumably more winning in every way, 
 and could have married twice to their once. But Abby 
 had no wish for a lover. " I ve got all I can do to earn 
 my own living and the living of them that belong to 
 me," said she. 
 
 That afternoon Andrew Brewster stayed at home. 
 After dinner Eva Tenny and her little girl came in, 
 and Ellen went down street on an errand. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes Brewster was crossing her yard to her 
 son s house when she saw Ellen passing, and paused 
 to gaze at her with that superb pride which pertains to 
 self and is yet superior to it. It was the idealized pride 
 of her own youth. When she proceeded again against 
 the February gusts, it was with an unconscious aping 
 of her granddaughter s freedom of gait. Mrs. Zelotes 
 wore an old red cashmere scarf crossed over her bosom; 
 
 169 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 she held up her black skirts in front, and they trailed 
 pointedly in the rear; she also stood well back on her 
 heels, and when she paused in the wind-swept yard 
 presented a curious likeness to an old robin pausing 
 for reconnoitre. Fanny and Eva Tenny in the next 
 house saw her coming. 
 
 " Look at her holding up her dress in front and letting 
 it drag in the back/ said Eva. "It always seemed to 
 me there was somethin wrong about any woman that 
 held up her dress in front and let it drag behind." 
 
 Eva retained all the coarse beauty of her youth, 
 but lines of unalterable hardness were fixed on her 
 forehead and at her mouth corners, and the fierce flush 
 in her cheeks was as set as paint. Her beauty had 
 endured the siege; no guns of mishaps could affect it, 
 but that charm of evanescence which awakens tender 
 ness was gone. Jim Tenny s affection seemed to be 
 waning, and Eva looked at herself in the glass even 
 when bedecked with tawdry finery, and owned that she 
 did not wonder. She strained up her hair into the 
 latest perkiness of twist, and crimped it, and curled 
 her feathers, and tied her ribbons not as much in hope 
 as in a stern determination to do her part towards the 
 furbishing of her faded star of attraction. "Jim don t 
 act as if he thought so much of me, an I dun no as 
 I wonder," she told her sister. 
 
 Fanny looked at her critically. "You mean you 
 ain t so good-lookin as you used to be?" said she. 
 
 Eva nodded. 
 
 " Well, if that is all men care for us," said Fanny. 
 
 "It ain t," said Eva, "only it s the key to it. It s 
 like losin the key and not bein able to get in the door 
 in consequence." 
 
 "It wa n t my husband s key," said Fanny, with a 
 glance at her own face, faded as to feature and bloom, 
 but intensified as to love and daily duty, like that 
 
 170 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of a dog sharpened to one faithfulness of exist 
 ence. 
 
 " Andrew ain t Jim/ said Eva, shortly. 
 
 "I know he ain t/ Fanny assented, with emphasis. 
 
 "But I wouldn t swap off my husband for a dozen 
 of yours/ said Eva. 
 
 "Well, I wouldn t swap off mine for a thousand of 
 yours/ returned Fanny, sharply; and there might have 
 been one of the old-time tussles between the sisters 
 had not Eva s violent, half -bitter sense of humor averted 
 it. She broke into a hard laugh. 
 
 "Good Lord," she said, "I dun no as I should want 
 a thousand like Jim. Seems to me it would be con 
 siderable care." 
 
 Fanny began to speak, but checked herself. She 
 had heard rumors regarding Jim Tenny of late and 
 had flown fiercely with denial at the woman who told 
 her, and had not repeated them to her sister. 
 
 She was thinking how she had heard that Jim had 
 been seen driving in Wenham with Aggie Morse several 
 times lately. Aggie Morse had been Aggie Bemis, 
 Jim s old sweetheart. She had married a well-to-do 
 merchant in Wenham, who died six months before and 
 left her with considerable property. It was her own 
 smart little turn-out in which she had been seen with 
 Jim. 
 
 Eva was working in the shop, and Jim had been 
 out of employment for nearly a year, and living on 
 his wife. There was a demand for girls and not for 
 men just then, so Jim loafed. His old mother cared 
 for the house as well as she was able, and Eva did the 
 rest nights and mornings. At first Jim had tried to 
 help about the house-work, but Eva had interfered. 
 
 "It ain t a man s work," said she. "Your mother 
 can leave the hard part of it till I get home." Eva 
 used to put the money she earned surreptitiously into 
 
 171 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her husband s pockets that he might not feel his manly 
 pride injured, but she defeated her own ends by her 
 very solicitude. Jim Tenny began to reason that his 
 wife saw his shame and ignominious helplessness, 
 else she would not have been so anxious to cover it. 
 The stoop of discouragement which Eva used to fear 
 for his shoulders did not come, but, instead, something 
 worse the defiant set-back of recklessness. He took 
 his wife s earnings and despised himself. Whenever 
 he paid a bill, he was sure the men in the store said, 
 the minute his back was turned, " It s his wife s money 
 that paid for that." He took to loafing on sunny 
 corners, and eying the passers-by with the blank im 
 pudence of regard of those outside the current of life. 
 When his wife passed by on her way from the shop 
 he nodded to her as if she were a stranger, and pres 
 ently followed her home at a distance. He would 
 not be seen on the street with her if he could avoid it. 
 If by any chance when he was standing on his corner 
 of idleness his little girl came past, he melted away 
 imperceptibly. He could not bear it that the child 
 should see him standing there in that company of 
 futility and openly avowed inadequacy. The child 
 was a keen-eyed, slender little girl, resembling neither 
 father nor mother, but looking rather like her paternal 
 grandmother, who was a fair, attenuated woman, with 
 an intelligence which had sharpened on herself for 
 want of anything more legitimate, and worn her out 
 by the unnatural friction. The little Amabel, for Eva 
 had been romantic in the naming of her child, was 
 an old-fashioned-looking child in spite of Eva s careful 
 decoration of the little figure in the best childish finery 
 which she could muster. 
 
 Little Amabel was reading a child s book at an 
 other window. When Mrs. Zelotes entered she eyed 
 her with the sharpness and inscrutable conclusions 
 
 172 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 therefrom of a kitten, then turned a leaf in her 
 book. 
 
 When Mrs. Zelotes had greeted her daughter-in- 
 law and Eva, she looked with disapproval at Amabel. 
 
 "When I was a little girl I should have been pun 
 ished if I hadn t got up and curtsied and said good- 
 afternoon when company came in," she remarked, 
 severely. 
 
 Amabel was not a favorite outside of her own family. 
 People used to stare aghast at her unexpected ques 
 tions and demands delivered in a shrill clarion as from 
 some summit of childish wisdom, and they said she 
 was a queer child. She yielded always to command 
 from utter helplessness, but the why of obedience was 
 strongly alert within her. The child might have 
 been in" some subtle and uncanny fashion the offspring 
 of her age and generation instead of her natural parents, 
 she was so unlike either of them, and so much a prod 
 uct of the times, with her meekness and slavishness 
 of weakness and futility, and her unquenchable and 1 
 unconquerable vitality of dissent. 
 
 Ellen adored the little Amabel. Presently, when 
 she returned from her errand down-town, she cried out 
 with delight when she saw her; and the child ran to 
 meet her, and clung to her, with her flaxen head snug 
 gled close to her cheek. Ellen caught the child up, 
 seated herself, and sat cuddling her as she used to 
 cuddle her doll. 
 
 "You dear little thing!" she murmured, "you dear 
 little thing! You did come to see Ellen, didn t you?" 
 And the child gazed up in the young girl s face with 
 a rapt expression. Nothing can express the admira 
 tion, which is almost as unquestionable as worship, 
 of a very little girl for a big one. Amabel loved her 
 mother with a rather unusual intensity for a child, 
 but Ellen was what she herself would be when she 
 
 173 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 was grown up. Through Ellen her love of self and 
 her ambition budded into blossom. Ellen could do 
 nothing wrong because she did what she herself would 
 do when she was grown. She never questioned Ellen 
 for her reasons. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes kept looking at the two, with pride in 
 Ellen and disapproval of her caresses of the child. 
 "Seems to me you might speak to your own folks as 
 well as to have no eyes for anybody but that child/ she 
 said, finally. 
 
 "Why, grandma, I spoke to you just a little while 
 ago," returned Ellen. "You know I saw you just a 
 few minutes before I went down-town/ Ellen straight 
 ened the child on her knees, and began to try to twist 
 her soft, straight flaxen locks into curls. Andrew 
 lounged in from the kitchen and sat down and regarded 
 Ellen fondly. The girl s cheeks were a splendid color 
 from her walk in the cold wind, her hair around her 
 temples caught the light from the win$l6w, and seemed 
 to wreathe her head with a yellow flame. She tossed 
 the child about with lithe young arms, whose every 
 motion suggested reserves of tender strength. Ellen 
 was more beautiful than she had ever been before, 
 and yet something was gone from her face, though 
 only temporarily, since the lines for the vanished mean 
 ing was still there. All the introspection/and dreami 
 ness and poetry of her face were gone, f o/ the girl was, 
 for the dme, overbalanced on the physical side of her 
 life. The joy of existence for itself alone was intoxicat 
 ing her. The innocent frivolities of her sex had seized 
 her too, and the instincts which had not yet reached 
 her brain nor gone farther than her bounding pulses 
 of youth. "Ellen is getting real fond of dress/ Fan 
 ny often said to Andrew. He only laughed at that. 
 " Well, pretty birds like pretty feathers, and no won- 
 cjer/ said he. But he did not laugh when Fanny 
 
 174 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 added "that Ellen seemed to think more about the 
 boys than she used to. There was scarcely a boy 
 in the high -school who was not Ellen s admirer. 
 It was a curious happening in those days when 
 Ellen was herself in much less degree the stuff of 
 which dreams are made than she had been and 
 would be thereafter, that she was the object of so 
 many. Every morning when she entered the school 
 room she was reflected in a glorious multiple of ideals 
 in no one could tell how many boyish hearts. Flo- 
 retta Vining began to imitate her, and kept close to 
 Ellen with supremest diplomacy, that she might there 
 by catch some of the crumbs of attention which fell 
 from Ellen s full table. Often when some happy boy 
 had secured a short monopoly of Ellen, his rival took 
 up with Floretta, and she w r as content, being one of 
 those purely feminine things who have no pride when 
 the sweets of life are concerned. Floretta dressed her 
 hair like Ellen s, and tied her neck-ribbons the same 
 way; she held her head like her, she talked like her, 
 except when the two girls were absolutely alone; then 
 she sometimes relapsed suddenly, to Ellen s bewilder 
 ment, into her own ways, and her blue eyes took on an 
 expression as near animosity as her ingratiating politic 
 nature could admit. 
 
 Ellen did not affiliate as much with Floretta as with 
 Maria Atkins. Abby had gone to work in the shop, 
 and so Ellen did not see so much of her. Maria was not 
 as much a favorite with the boys as she had been since 
 they had passed and not yet returned to that stage 
 when feminine comradeship satisfies; so Ellen used 
 to confide in her with a surety of sympathy and no con 
 tention. Once, when the girls were sleeping together, 
 Ellen made a stupendous revelation to Maria, having 
 first bound her to inviolable secrecy. "I love a boy/ 
 said she, holding Maria s little arm tightly. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "I know who," said Maria, with a hushed voice. 
 
 "He kissed me once, and then I knew it/ said Ellen. 
 
 " Well, I guess he loves you/ said Maria. Ellen 
 shivered and drew a fluttering sigh of assent. Then 
 the two girls lay in each other s arms, looking at the 
 moonlight which streamed in through the window. 
 God knew in what realms of pure romance, and of pas 
 sion so sublimated by innocence that no tinge of earth- 
 liness remained, the two wandered in their dreams. 
 
 At last, that afternoon in February, Ellen put down 
 little Amabel and got out her needle-work. She was 
 making a lace neck-tie for her own adornment. She 
 showed it to her grandmother at her mother s command. 
 "It s real pretty," said Mrs. Zelotes. "Ellen takes 
 after the Brewsters; they were always handy with 
 their needles." 
 
 " Can uncle sew?" asked little Amabel, suddenly, 
 from her corner, in a tone big with wonder. 
 
 Eva and the others chuckled, but Mrs. Zelotes eyed 
 the child severely. "Little girls shouldn t ask silly 
 questions," said she. 
 
 Andrew passed his hand with ^ rough caress over 
 the small flaxen head. "Uncle Andrew can t sew 
 anything but shoes," said he. 
 
 Little Amabel s question had aroused in Mrs. Zelotes 
 a carping spirit even against Ellen. Presently she 
 turned to her. "I heard something about you," said 
 she. " I want to know if it is true. I heard that you 
 were walking home from school with that Joy boy one 
 day last week." Ellen looked at her grandmother 
 without flinching, though the pink was over her face 
 and neck. 
 
 "Yes m, I did," said she. 
 
 "Well, I think it s about time it was put a stop to," 
 said Mrs. Zelotes. "That Joy boy!" 
 
 Then Fanny lost her temper. "I can manage my 
 
 176 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 own daughter, Grandma Brewster," said she, "and 
 Fll thank you to attend to your own affairs/ 
 
 "You don t seem to know enough to manage her/ 
 retorted Mrs. Zelotes, " if you let her go traipsin round 
 with that Joy boy/ 
 
 The warfare waged high for a time. Andrew with 
 drew to the kitchen. Ellen took little Amabel up in 
 her own chamber and showed her her beautiful doll, 
 which looked not a day older, so carefully had she 
 been cherished, than when she first had her. Ellen 
 felt both resentment and shame, and also a fierce dawn 
 ing of partisanship towards Granville Joy. "Why 
 should my grandmother speak of him so scornfully?" 
 she asked herself. " He is a real good boy/ 
 
 That night was very cold, a night full of fierce white 
 glitter of frost and moonlight, and raging with a tur 
 bulence of winds. Ellen lay awake listening to them. 
 Presently between the whistle of the wind she heard 
 another, a familiar pipe from a boyish throat. She 
 sprang out of bed and peeped from her window, and 
 there was a dark, slight figure out in the yard, and he 
 was looking up at her window, whistling. Shame, 
 and mirth, and also exultation, which overpowered 
 them both, stirred within the child s breast. She had 
 read of things like this. Here was her boy lover com 
 ing out this bitter night just for the sake of looking up 
 at her window. She adored him for it. Then she 
 heard a window raised with a violent rasp across the 
 yard, and saw her grandmother s night-capped head 
 thrust forth. She heard her shrill, imperious voice 
 call out quite distinctly, "Boy, who be you?" 
 
 The lovelorn whistler ceased his pipe, and evidently, 
 had he consulted his own discretion, would have shown 
 a pair of flying heels, but he walked bravely up to the 
 window and the night-capped head and replied. Ellen 
 could not hear what he said, but she distinguished 
 M 177 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 plainly enough her grandmother s concluding re 
 marks. 
 
 "Go home/ cried Mrs. Zelotes; "go home just as 
 fast as you can and go to bed. Go home!" Mrs. 
 Zelotes made a violent shooting motion with her hands 
 and her white head as if he were a cat, and Granville 
 Joy obeyed. However, Ellen heard his brave, retreat 
 ing whistle far down the road. She went back to bed, 
 and lay awake with a fervor of young love roused into 
 a flame by opposition swelling high in her heart. But 
 the next afternoon, after school, Ellen, to Granville 
 Joy s great bliss and astonishment, insinuated her 
 self, through the crowd of out-going scholars, close to 
 him, and presently, had he not been so incredulous, 
 for he was a modest boy, he would have said it was by 
 no volition of his own that he found himself walking 
 down the street with her. And when they reached 
 his house, which was only half-way to her own, she 
 looked at him with such a wistful surprise as he mo 
 tioned to leave her that he could not mistake it, and he 
 walked on at her side quite to her own house. Gran 
 ville Joy was a gentle boy, young for his age, which 
 was a year more than Ellen s. He had a face as gen 
 tle as a girl s, and really beautiful. Women all loved 
 him, and the school-girls raised an admiring treble 
 chorus in his praise whenever his name was spoken. 
 He was saved from effeminacy by nervous impulses 
 which passed for sustained manly daring. "He once 
 licked a boy a third bigger than he was, and you 
 needn t call him sissy," one girl said once to a decry 
 ing friend. To-day, as the boy and girl neared Mrs. Ze- 
 lotes s house, Granville was conscious of an inward 
 shrinking before the remembrance of the terrible old 
 lady. He expected every minute to hear the grating 
 upward slide of the window and that old voice, which 
 had in it a terrible intimidation of feminine will. Gran- 
 
HE FOUND HIMSELF WALKING HOME FROM SCHOOL 
 WITH HER" 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ville had a mother as gentle as himself, and a woman 
 with the strength of her own conviction upon her filled 
 him with awe as of something anomalous. He won 
 dered uneasily what he should do if the old lady were 
 to hail him and call him to an account again, whether 
 it would be a more manly course to face her, or obey, 
 since she was Ellen s grandmother. He kept an un 
 easy eye upon the house, and presently, when he saw the 
 stern old face at the window, he quailed a little. But 
 Ellen for the first time in her life took his arm, and the 
 two marched past under the fire of Mrs. Zelotes s gaze. 
 Ellen had retaliated, not nobly, but as naturally under 
 the conditions of her life at that time as the branch 
 of a tree blows east before the west wind. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ELLEN, when she graduated, was openly pronounced 
 the flower of her class. Not a girl equalled her, not a 
 boy surpassed her. When Ellen came home one night 
 about two months before her graduation, and announced 
 that she was to have the valedictory, such a light of 
 pure joy flashed over her mother s face that she looked 
 ten years younger. 
 
 "Well, I guess your father will be pleased enough/ 
 she said. She was hard at work, finishing women s 
 wrappers of cheap cotton. The hood industry had 
 failed some time before, since the hoods had gone out 
 of fashion. The same woman had taken a contract 
 to supply a large firm with wrappers, and employed 
 many in the neighborhood, paying them the smallest 
 possible prices. This woman was a usurer on a scale 
 so pitiful and petty that it almost condoned usury. 
 Sometimes a man on discovering the miserable pit 
 tance for which his wife toiled during every minute 
 which she could snatch from her household duties 
 and the care of her children, would inveigh against it. 
 "That woman is cheating you," he would say, to be 
 met with the argument that she herself was only mak 
 ing ten cents on a wrapper. Looked ,at in that light, 
 the wretched profit of the workers did not seem so out 
 of proportion. It was usury in a noitshell, so infini 
 tesimal as almost to escape detection. Fanny worked 
 every minute which she could secure on these wrappers 
 the ungainly, slatternly home -gear of other poor 
 women. There was an air of dejected femininity and 
 
 180 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 slipshod drudgery about every fold of one of them when 
 it was hung up finished. Fanny used to keep them 
 on a row of hooks in her bedroom until a dozen were 
 completed, when she carried them to her employer, 
 and Ellen used to look at them with a sense of depres 
 sion. She imagined worn, patient faces of the sis 
 ters of poverty above the limp collars, and poor, vein- 
 ous hands dangling from the clumsy sleeves. 
 
 Fanny would never allow Ellen to assist her in this 
 work, though she begged hard to do so. "Wait till 
 you get out of school/ said she. " You ve got enough 
 to do while you are in school." 
 
 When Ellen told her about the valedictory, Fanny 
 was so overjoyed that she lost sight of her work, and 
 sewed in the sleeves wrong. " There, only see what 
 you have made me do!" she cried, laughing with de 
 light at her own folly. "Only see, you have made 
 me sew in both these sleeves wrong. You are a great 
 child. Another time you had better keep away with 
 your valedictories till I get my wrapper finished." 
 Ellen looked up from the book which she had taken. 
 
 " Let me rip them out for you, mother," she said. 
 
 "No, you keep on with your study it won t take 
 me but a minute. I don t know what your father will 
 say. It is a great honor to be chosen to write the vale 
 dictory out of that big class. I guess your father will 
 be pleased." 
 
 " I hope I can write a good one," said Ellen. 
 
 "Well, if you can t, I d give up my beat," said the 
 mother, looking at her with enthusiasm, and speak 
 ing with scornful chiding. "Why don t you go over 
 and tell your grandmother Brewster? She ll be tick 
 led most to death." 
 
 Ellen had not bee^n gone long when Andrew came 
 home, coming into Ate yard, bent as if beneath some ] 
 invisible burden of toil. Just then he had work, but 
 
 181 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 not in Lloyd s. He had grown too old for Lloyd s, and 
 had been discharged long ago. 
 
 He had so far been able to conceal from Fanny the 
 fact that he had withdrawn all his little savings to in 
 vest in that mining stock. The stock had not yet come 
 up, as he had expected. He very seldom had a circu 
 lar reporting progress nowadays. When he did have 
 one in the post-office his heart used to stand still until 
 he had torn open the envelope and read it. It was uni 
 formly not so hopeful as formerly, while speciously 
 apologetic. Andrew still had faith, although his heart 
 was sick with its long deferring. He could not actually 
 believe that all his savings were gone, sunken out of 
 sight forever in this awful shaft of miscalculation and 
 misfortune. What he dreaded most was that Fanny 
 should find out, as she would have to were he long out 
 of employment. 
 
 Andrew, when he entered the house on his return 
 from work, had come to open a door into the room where 
 his wife was, with a deprecating and apologetic air. 
 He gained confidence when, after a few minutes, the 
 sore subject had not been broached. 
 
 To-night, as usual, when he came into the sitting- 
 room where Fanny was sewing it was with a sidelong 
 glance of uneasy deprecation towards her, and an at 
 tempt to speak easily, as if he had nothing on his mind. 
 
 "Pretty warm day/ he began, but his wife cut him 
 short. She faced around towards him beaming, her 
 work a pink wrapper slid from her lap to the floor. 
 
 "What do you think, Andrew?" she said. "What 
 do you s pose has happened? Guess. " Andrew laughed 
 gratefully, and with the greatest alacrity. Surely this 
 was nothing about mining - stocks/ unless, indeed, 
 she had heard, and the stocks had/gone up, but that 
 seemed too much like the millennium. He dismissed 
 that from his mind before it entered. He stood before 
 
 182 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her in his worn clothes. He always wore a collar and 
 a black tie, and his haggard face was carefully shaven. 
 Andrew was punctiliously neat, on Ellen s account. 
 He was always thinking, suppose he should meet Ellen 
 coming home from school, with some young ladies 
 whose fathers were rich and did not have to work in 
 the shop, how mortified she might feel if he looked 
 shabby and unkempt. 
 
 "Guess, Andrew," she said. 
 
 " What is it?" said Andrew. 
 
 "Oh, you guess." 
 
 " I don t see what it can be, Fanny." 
 
 " Well, Ellen has got the valedictory. What s the 
 matter with you? Be you deaf? Ellen has got the 
 valedictory out of all them girls and boys." 
 
 "She has, has she?" said Andrew. He dropped into 
 a chair and looked at his wife. There was something 
 about the intense interchange of confidence of delight 
 between these two faces of father and mother which 
 had almost the unrestraint of lunacy. Andrew s jaw 
 fairly dropped with his smile, which was a silent laugh 
 rather than a smile; his eyes were wild with delight. 
 "She has, has she?" he kept repeating. 
 
 "Yes, she has," said Fanny. She tossed her head 
 with an incomparable pride; she coughed a little, af 
 fected cough. " I s pose you know what a compliment 
 it is?" said she. "It means that she s smarter than 
 all them boys and girls the smartest one in her whole 
 class." 
 
 "Yes, I s pose it does," said Andrew. "So she has 
 got it! Well!" 
 
 "There she comes now," said Fanny, "and Grandma 
 Brewster." 
 
 Andrew borrowed money to buy a gold watch and 
 chain for a graduating gift for his daughter. He would 
 scarcely have essayed anything quite so magnificent, 
 
 183 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 but Fanny innocently tempted him. The two had 
 been sitting in the door in the cool of the evening, one 
 day in June, about two weeks before the graduation, 
 and had just watched Ellen s light muslin skirts nutter 
 out of sight. She had gone down-town to purchase 
 some ribbon for her graduating dress she and Floretta 
 Vining, who had come over to accompany her. "I 
 feel kind of anxious to have her have something pretty 
 when she graduates/ Fanny said, speaking as if 
 she were feeling her way into a mind of opposition. 
 Neither she nor Andrew had ever owned a watch, and 
 the scheme seemed to her breathless with magnifi 
 cence. 
 
 "Yes, she ought to have something pretty/ agreed 
 Andrew. 
 
 "I don t want her to feel ashamed when she sees 
 the other girls presents," said Fanny. 
 
 "That s so/ assented Andrew. 
 
 "Well," said Fanny, "I ve been thinkin " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Well, I ve been thinkin that of course your mother 
 is goin to give her the dress, and that s all, of course, 
 and it s a real handsome present. I ain t sayin a 
 word against that; but there ain t anybody else to 
 give her much except us. Poor Eva d like to, but she 
 can t; it takes all she earns, since Jim s out of work, 
 and I don t know what she s goin to do. So that 
 leaves nobody but us, and I ve been thinkin I dun no 
 what you ll say, Andrew, but I ve been thinkin 
 s pose you took a little money out of the bank, and 
 got Ellen a watch." Fanny spoke the last word 
 in a faint whisper. She actually turned pale in the 
 darkness. 
 
 " A watch?" repeated Andrew. 
 
 "Yes, a watch. I ve always wanted Ellen to have 
 a gold watch and chain. I ve always thought she 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 could, and so she could if you hadn t been out of work 
 so much." 
 
 "Yes, she could/ said Andrew "a watch and 
 mebbe a piano. I thought I d be back in Lloyd s before 
 now. Well, mebbe I shall before long. They say 
 there s better times comin by fall." 
 
 "Well, Ellen will be graduated by that time/ said 
 Fanny, " and she ought to have the watch now if she s 
 ever goin to. She ll never think so much of it. Flo- 
 retta Vining is goin to have a watch, too. Mrs. Cross 
 says her mother told her so ; said Mr. Vining had it all 
 bought a real handsome one. I don t believe Sam 
 Vining can afford to buy a gold watch. I don t believe 
 it is all gold, for my part. They ain t got as much 
 as we have, if Sam has had work steadier. I don t 
 believe it s gold. I don t want Ellen to have a watch 
 at all unless it s a real good one. It seems to me you d 
 better take a little money out and buy her one, Andrew/ 
 
 "Well, I ll see," said Andrew. He had a terrible 
 sense of guilt before Fanny. Suppose she knew that 
 there was no money at all in the bank to take out? 
 
 "Well, I ll buy her one if you say so," said he, in 
 a curious, slow, stern voice. In his heart was a fierce 
 rising of rebellion, that he, hard-working and frugal 
 and self-denying all his life, should be denied the privi 
 lege of buying a present for his darling without resort 
 ing to deception, and even almost robbery. He did not 
 at that minute blame himself in the least for his mis 
 adventure with his mining stock. Had not the same- 
 relentless Providence driven him to that also? His 
 weary spirit took for the first time a poise of utter self- 
 righteousness in opposition to this Providence, and he 
 blasphemed in his inner closet of self, before the face 
 of the Lord, as he comprehended it. 
 
 "Well, I have a sort of set my heart on it," said 
 Fanny. 
 
 13 185 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "She shall have the watch/ repeated Andrew, and 
 his voice was fairly defiant. 
 
 After Fanny had gone into the house and lighted 
 her lamp, and resumed work on her wrapper, Andrew 
 still sat on the step in the cool evening. There was a 
 full moon, and great masses of shadows seemed to 
 float and hover and alight on the earth with a gigantic 
 brooding as of birds. The trees seemed redoubled in 
 size from the soft indetermination of the moonlight 
 which confused shadow and light, and deceived the eye 
 as with soft loomings out of false distances. There 7 
 was a tall pine, grown from a sapling since Ellen ? 
 childhood, and that looked more like a column of mist 
 than a tree, but the Norway spruces clove the air sharp 
 ly like silhouettes in ink, and outlined their dark pro 
 files clearly against the silver radiance. 
 
 To Andrew, looking at it all, came the feeling of a 
 traveller who passes all scenes whether of joy or woe, 
 being himself in his passing the one thing which re 
 mains, and somehow he got from it an enormous com 
 fort. 
 
 " We re all travellin along/ he said aloud, in a strain 
 ed, solemn voice. 
 
 "What did you say, Andrew?" Fanny called from 
 the open window. 
 
 "Nothin / replied Andrew. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ELLEN had always had objective points, && it were 
 in her life, and she always would have, no matter how 
 long she lived. She came to places where she stopped 
 mentally, for retrospection and forethought, wherefrom 
 she could seem to obtain a view of that which lay be 
 hind, and of the path which was set for her feet in 
 advance. She saw the tracked and the trackless. 
 Once, going with Abby Atkins and Floretta in search 
 of early spring flowers, Ellen had lingered and let 
 them go out of sight, and had sat down on a springing 
 mat of wintergreen leaves under the windy outstretch 
 of a great pine, and had remained there quite deaf 
 to shrill halloos. She had sat there with eyes of inward 
 scrutiny like an Eastern sage s, motionless as on a 
 ! rock of thought, while her daily life eddied around 
 her. Ellen, sitting there, had said to herself : " This 
 I will always remember. No matter how long I live, 
 where I am, and what happens to me, I will always 
 remember how I was a child, and sat here this morning 
 in spring under the pine-tree, looking backward and 
 forward. I will never forget/ 
 
 When, finally, Abby and Floretta had run back, and 
 spied her there, they had stared half frightened. " You 
 ain t sick, are you, Ellen?" asked Abby, anxiously. 
 
 "What are you sitting there for?" asked Floretta. 
 
 Ellen had replied that she was not sick, and had risen 
 and run on, looking for flowers, but the flowers for her 
 bloomed always against a background of the past, 
 and nodded with forward flings of fragrance into the 
 
 187 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 future ; for the other children, who were wholly of theii 
 own day and generation, they bloomed in the simple 
 light of their own desire of possession. They picked 
 only flowers, but Ellen picked thoughts, and they kept 
 casting bewildered side -glances at her, for the look 
 which had come into her eyes as she sat beneath the 
 pine-tree lingered. 
 
 It was as if a rose had a second of self-consciousness 
 between the bud and the blossom; a bird between its 
 mother s brooding and the song. She had caught sight 
 of the innermost processes of things, of her wheels of 
 life. 
 
 Ellen waked up on that June morning, and the old 
 sensation of a pause before advance was upon her, and 
 the strange solemnity which was almost a terror, from 
 the feeble clutching of her mind at the comprehension 
 of infinity. She looked at the morning sunlight coming 
 between the white slants of her curtains, an airy flutter 
 of her new dress from the closet, her valedictory, tied 
 with a white satin ribbon, on the stand, and she saw 
 quite plainly all which had led up to this, and to her, 
 Ellen Brewster; and she saw also the inevitableness 
 of its passing, the precious valedictory being laid away 
 and buried beneath a pile of future ones; she saw the 
 crowfl of future valedictorians advancing like a flock of 
 white doves in their white gowns, when hers was worn 
 out, and its beauty gone, pressing forward, dimming 
 her to her own vision. She saw how she would come 
 to look calmly and coldly upon all that filled her with 
 such joy and excitement to-day; how the savor of the 
 moment would pass from her tongue, and she said to 
 herself that she would always remember this moment. 
 
 Then suddenly since she had in herself an impetus 
 of motion which nothing, not even reflection, could long 
 check she saw quite plainly a light beyond, after all 
 this should have passed, and the leaping power of her 
 
 188 
 
THE VALEDICTORY 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 spirit to gain it. And then, since she was healthy, 
 and given only at wide intervals to these Eastern lapses 
 of consciousness from the present, she was back in her 
 day, and alive to all its importance as a part of time. 
 
 She felt the bounding elation of tossing on the crest 
 of her wave of success, and the full rainbow glory of it 
 dazzled her eyes. She was first in her class, she was 
 valedictorian, she had a beautiful dress, she was young, 
 she was first. It is a poor spirit, and one incapable of 
 courage in defeat, who feels not triumph in victory. 
 Ellen was triumphant and confident. She had faith 
 in herself and the love and approbation of everybody. 
 
 When she was seated with her class on the stage in 
 the city hall, where the graduating exercises were held, 
 she saw herself just as she looked, and it was with a 
 satisfaction which had nothing weakly in its vein, and 
 smiled radiantly and innocently at herself as seen in 
 this mirror of love and appreciation of all who knew her. 
 
 When the band stopped playing, and Ellen, who as 
 valedictorian came last as the crown and capsheaf of 
 it all, stepped forward from the semicircle of white- 
 clad girls and seriously abashed boys, there was a 
 subdued murmur and then a hush all over the hall. 
 Andrew and Fanny and the grandmother, seated 
 directly in front of the stage for they had come early 
 to secure good seats heard whispers of admiration on 
 every side. It was admiration with no dissent such 
 jealous ears as theirs could not be deceived. Fanny s 
 face was blazing with the sweet shame of pride in her 
 child; Andrew was pale; the grandmother sat as if 
 petrified, with a proud toss of her head. They looked 
 straight ahead; they dared not encounter each other s 
 eyes, for they were more self-conscious than Ellen. 
 They felt the attention of the whole assembly upon 
 them. Andrew was conscious of feeling ill and faint. 
 His own joy seemed to overwhelm him. He forgot his 
 
 189 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 stocks, he forgot his borrowed money, he forgot Lloyd s; 
 he was perfectly happy at the sight of that beautiful 
 young creature of his own heart, who was preferred 
 before all others in the sight of the whole city. In 
 truth, there was about Ellen a majesty and nobility of 
 youth and innocence and beauty which overawed. The 
 other girls of the class were as young and as pretty, 
 but none of them had that indescribable quality which 
 seemed to raise her above them all. Ellen still kept 
 her blond fairness, but there was nothing of the doll- 
 like which often characterizes the blond type. Al 
 though she was small, Ellen s color had the firmness 
 and unwavering of tinted marble ; she carried her crown 
 of yellow braids as if it had been gold; she moved and 
 looked and spoke with decision. The violent and 
 intense temperament which she had inherited from 
 two sides of her family had crystallized in her to some 
 thing more forcible, but also more impressive. How 
 ever, she was, after aL, only a young girl, scarcely more 
 than a child, whatever her principle of underlying 
 character might be, and when she stood there before 
 them all all her townspeople who represented her 
 world, the human shore upon which her own little 
 individuality beat when she saw those attentive faces, 
 row upon row, all fixed upon her, she felt her heart 
 pound against her side; she had no sensation of the 
 roll ojlpefper in.her hand ; an awful terror as of suddenly 
 discovered depths^came over her, as the wild clapping 
 of hands to whichNier appearance had given rise died 
 away. Ellen stood /still, holding the valedictory as 
 if it had been a siick. A little wondering murmur 
 began to be heard. Andrew felt as if he were dying. 
 Fanny gripped his arm hard. Mrs. Zelotes had the 
 look of one about to spring. Ellen had the terrible 
 sensation which has in it a nightmare of inability to 
 move, allied with the intensest consciousness. She 
 
 190 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 knew that she was to read her valedictory, she knew 
 that she must raise that white-ribboned roll and read, 
 or else be disgraced forever, and yet she was powerless. 
 But suddenly some compelling glance seemed to arouse 
 her from this lock of nerve and muscle; she raised her 
 eyes, and Cynthia Lennox, on the farther side of the 
 hall, was gazing full at her with an indescribable gaze 
 of passion and help and command. Her own mother s 
 look could not have influenced her. Ellen raised her 
 valedictory, bowed, and began to read. Andrew looked 
 so pale that people nudged one another to look at 
 him. Mrs. Zelotes settled back, relaxing stiffly from 
 her fierce attitude. Fanny wiped her forehead with a 
 cheap lace-bordered handkerchief. There was a stifled 
 sob farther back, that came from Eva Tenny, who sat 
 back on account of a break across the shoulders in the 
 back of her silk dress. Amabel, anaemic and eager in a 
 little, tawdry, cheap muslin frock, sat beside her, with 
 worshipful eyes on Ellen. "What ailed her?" she 
 whispered, hitting her mother with a sharp little elbow. 
 "Hush up!" whispered Eva, angrily, surreptitiously 
 wiping her eyes. In front, directly in her line of vision, 
 sat the woman of whom she was jealous the young 
 widow, who had been Aggie Bemis, arrayed in a hand 
 some India silk and a flower-laden hat. Eva s hat 
 was trimmed with a draggled feather and a bunch 
 of roses which she had tried to color with aniline dye. 
 When she got home that night she tore the feather out 
 of the hat and flung it across the room. She wished 
 to do it that afternoon every time she looked at the 
 other woman s roses against the smooth knot of her 
 brown hair, and that repressed impulse, with her alarm 
 at Ellen s silence, had made her almost hysterical. 
 When Ellen s clear young voice rose and filled the hall 
 she calmed herself. Ellen had not folded back her 
 first page with a flutter of the white satin ribbons before 
 
 191 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 people began to sit straight and stare at each other 
 incredulously. The subject of the valedictory, as 
 well as those of the other essays, had been allotted, 
 and Ellen s had been "Equality/ and she had written 
 a most revolutionary valedictory. Ellen had written 
 with a sort of poetic fire, and, crude as it all was, she 
 might have had the inspiration of a Shelley or a Chatter- 
 ton as she stood there, raising her fearless young front 
 over the marshalling of her sentiments on the smooth 
 sheets of foolscap. Her voice, once started, rang out 
 clear and full. She had hesitated at nothing, she 
 flung all castes into a common heap of equality with 
 her strong young arms, and she set them all on one 
 level of the synagogue. She forced the employer and 
 his employe" to one bench of service in the grand sys 
 tem of things ; she gave the laborer, and the laborer only, 
 the reward of labor. As Ellen went on reading calmly, 
 with the steadfastness of one promulgating principles, 
 not the excitement of one carried away by enthusiasm, 
 she began to be interrupted by applause, but she read 
 on, never wavering, her clear voice overcoming every 
 thing. She was quite innocently throwing her wordy 
 bomb to the agitation of public sentiment. She had 
 no thought of such an effect. She was stating what 
 she believed to be facts with her youthful dogmatism. 
 She had no fear lest the facts strike too hard. The 
 school-master s face grew long with dismay; he sat 
 pulling his mustache in a fashion he had when dis 
 turbed. He glanced uneasily now and then at Mr. 
 Lloyd, and at another leading manufacturer who was 
 present. The other manufacturer sat quite stolid and 
 unsmiling beside a fidgeting wife, who presently arose 
 and swept out with a loud rustle of silks. She looked 
 back once and beckoned angrily to her husband, but he 
 did not stir. He was on the school-board. The school 
 master trembled when he saw that imperturbable face 
 
 192 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of storing recollection before him. Mr. Lloyd leaned 
 towards Lyman Risley, who sat beside him and whis 
 pered and laughed. It was quite evident that he did 
 not consider the flight of this little fledgling in the face 
 of things seriously. But even he, as Ellen s clearly de 
 livered sentiments grew more and more defined almost 
 anarchistic became a little grave in spite of the absurd 
 incongruity between them and the girlish lips. Once 
 he looked in some wonder at the school - teacher as 
 much as to say, "Why did you permit this?" and the 
 young man pulled his mustache harder. 
 
 When Ellen finished and made her bow, such a storm 
 of applause arose as had never before been heard at 
 a high - school exhibition. The audience was for the 
 most part composed of factory employes and their 
 families, as most of the graduates were of that class of 
 the community. Many of them were of foreign blood, 
 people who had come to the country expecting the 
 state of things advocated in Ellen s valedictory, and 
 had remained more or less sullen and dissenting at the 
 non-fulfilment of their expectation. One tall Swede, 
 with a lurid flashing of blue eyes under a thick, blond 
 thatch, led the renewed charges of applause. Red 
 spots came on his cheeks, gaunt with high cheek 
 bones ; his cold Northern blood was up. He stood up- 
 reared against a background of the crowd under the 
 balcony ; he stamped when the applause died low ; then 
 it swelled again and again like great waves. The 
 Swede brandished his long arms, he shouted, others 
 echoed him. Even the women hallooed in a frenzy of 
 applause, they clapped their hands, they stood up in 
 their seats. Only a few sat silent and contemptuous 
 through all the enthusiasm. Thomas Briggs, the 
 manufacturer, was one of them. He sat like a rock, 
 his great, red, imperturbable face of dissent fixed straight 
 ahead. ( Mrs. Lloyd clapped wildly, on account of the 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 girl who had read the valedictory, She had slept 
 through the greater part of it, for it was very warm, 
 and the heat always made her drowsy. She kept 
 leaning towards Cynthia as she clapped, and asking in 
 a loud whisper if she wasn t sweet. Cynthia did not 
 applaud, but her delicate face was pale with emotion. 
 Lyman Risley, beside her, was clapping energetically. 
 " She may have a bomb somewhere concealed among 
 those ribbons and frills/ he said to Lloyd when the 
 applause was waxing loudest, and Lloyd laughed. 
 
 As for Ellen, when the storm of applause burst at her 
 feet, she stood still for a moment bewildered. Then 
 she bowed again and turned to go, then the compel 
 ling uproar brought her back. She stood there quite 
 piteous in her confusion. This was too much tri 
 umph, and, moreover, she had not the least idea of the 
 true significance of it all. She was like a chemist who 
 had brought together, quite ignorantly and unwitting 
 ly, the tw r o elements of an explosive. She thought that 
 her valedictory must have been well done, that they 
 liked it, and that was all. She had no sooner finished 
 reading than the ushers began in the midst of the storm 
 of applause to approach the stage with her graduating 
 presents. They were laden with great bouquets and 
 baskets of flowers, with cards conspicuously attached 
 to most of them. Cynthia Lennox had sent a basket 
 of roses. Ellen took it on her arm, and wondered when 
 she saw the name attached to the pink satin bow on the 
 handle. She did not look again towards Cynthia since 
 the old impulse of concealment on her account came 
 over her. Ellen had great boxes of candy from her boy 
 admirers, that being a favorite token of young affec 
 tion upon such occasions. She had a gift-book from 
 her former school-teacher, and a ninety-eight-cent gild 
 ed vase from Eva and Amabel, who had been saving 
 money to buy it. She heard a murmur of admiration 
 
 194 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 when she had finally reached her seat, after the storm 
 of applause had at last subsided, and she unrolled the 
 packages with trembling fingers. 
 
 "My, ain t that handsome!" said Floretta, pressing 
 her muslin-clad shoulder against Ellen s. " My, didn t 
 they clap you, Ellen! What s that in that package?" 
 
 The package contained Ellen s new watch and chain. 
 Floretta had already received hers, and it lay in its 
 case on her lap. Ellen looked at the package, not hear 
 ing in the least the Baptist minister who had taken 
 his place on the stage, and was delivering an address. 
 She had felt her aunt Eva s and Amabel s eager eyes 
 on her \vhen she unrolled the gaudy vase ; now she felt 
 her father s and mother s. The small, daintily tied 
 package was inscribed " Ellen Brewster, from Father 
 and Mother." 
 
 " Why don t you open it?" came in her ear from Flo 
 retta. Maria was leaning forward also, over her lapf ul 
 of carnations wiiich John Sargent had presented to her. 
 
 "Why don t she open it?" she whispered to Floretta. 
 They were all quite oblivious of the speaker, who moved 
 nervously back and forth in front of them, so screen 
 ing them somewhat from the observation of the audi 
 ence. Still Ellen hesitated, looking at the little pack 
 age and feeling her father s and mother s eyes on her 
 face. 
 
 Finally she untied the cord and took out the jew 
 eller s case from the wrapping-paper. "My, you ve 
 got one too, I bet!" whispered Floretta. Ellen opened 
 the box, and gazed at her watch and chain ; then she 
 glanced at her father and mother down in the audience, 
 and the three loving souls seemed to meet in an inef 
 fable solitude in the midst of the crowd. All three 
 faces were pale Ellen s began to quiver. She felt 
 Floretta s shoulder warm through her thin sleeve 
 against hers. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Myl you ve got one I said so," she whispered. 
 " It isn t chased as much as mine, but it s real hand 
 some. My, Ellen Brewster, you ain t going to cry 
 before all these people 1" 
 
 Ellen smiled against a sob, and she gave her head 
 a defiant toss. Down in the audience Fanny had her 
 handkerchief to her eyes, and Andrew sat looking stern 
 ly at the speaker. Ellen said to herself that she would 
 not cry she would not, but she sat gazing down at 
 her flower-laden lap and the presents. The golden 
 disk under her fixed eyes waxed larger and larger, 
 until it seemed to fill her whole comprehension as with 
 a golden light of a suffering, self-denying love which 
 was her best reward of life and labor on the earth. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 AFTER the exhibition there was a dance. The Brew- 
 sters, even Mrs. Zelotes, remained to see the last of 
 Ellen s triumph. Mrs. Zelotes was firmly convinced 
 that Ellen s appearance excelled any one s in the hall. 
 Not a girl swung past them in the dance but she eyed 
 her w T hite dress scornfully, then her rosy face, and 
 sniffed with high nostrils like an old war-horse. " Jest 
 look at that Vining girl s dress, coarse enough to strain 
 through," she said to Fanny, leaning across Andrew, 
 who was sitting rapt, his very soul dancing with his 
 daughter, his eyes never leaving her one second, fol 
 lowing her fair head and white nutter of muslin ruffles 
 and ribbons around the hall. 
 
 "Yes, that s so," assented Fanny, but not with her 
 usual sharpness. A wistful softness and sweetness 
 was on her coarsely handsome face. Once she reached 
 her hand over Andrew s and pressed it, and blushed 
 crimson as she did so. Andrew turned and smiled at 
 her. All that annoyed Andrew was that Ellen danced 
 with Granville Joy often, and also with other boys. 
 It disturbed him a little, even while it delighted him, 
 that she should dance at all, that she should have 
 learned to dance. Andrew had been brought up to 
 look upon dancing as an amusement for Louds rather 
 than for Brewsters. It had not been in vogue among 
 the aristocracy of this little New England city when he 
 was young. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes w r atched Ellen dance with inward delight 
 and outward disapproval. "I don t approve of dano 
 
 197 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ing, never did/ she said to Andrew, but she was furious 
 once when Ellen sat through a dance. Towards the 
 end of the evening she saw with sudden alertness Ellen 
 dancing with a new partner, a handsome young man, 
 who carried himself with more assurance than the 
 school-boys. Mrs. Zelotes hit Andrew with her sharp 
 elbow. 
 
 "Who s that dancing with her now?" she said. 
 
 "That s young Lloyd," answered Andrew. He 
 flushed a little, and looked pleased. 
 
 "Norman Lloyd s nephew?" asked his mother, 
 sharply. 
 
 "Yes, he s on here from St. Louis. He s goin into 
 business with his uncle," replied Andrew. "Sargent 
 was telling me about it yesterday. Young Lloyd 
 came into the post-office while we were there." Fanny 
 had been listening. Immediately she married Ellen 
 to young Lloyd, and the next moment she went to 
 live in a grand new house built in a twinkling in a 
 vacant lot next to Norman Lloyd s residence, which 
 was the wonder of the city. She reared this castle in 
 Spain with inconceivable swiftness, even while she was 
 turning her head towards Eva on the other side, and 
 prodding her with an admonishing elbow as Mrs. Ze 
 lotes had prodded Andrew. "That s Norman Lloyd s 
 nephew dancing with her now," she said. Eva looked 
 at her, smiling. Directly the idea of Ellen s marriage 
 with the young man with whom she was dancing es 
 tablished full connections N and ran through the line 
 of Ellen s relatives as though an electric wire. 
 
 As for Ellen, dancing with this stranger, who had 
 been introduced to her by the school-master, she certainly 
 had no thought of a possible marriage with him, but 
 she had looked into his face with a curious, ready leap 
 of sympathy and understanding of this other soul 
 which she met for the first time. It seemed to her that 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 she must have known him before, but she knew that 
 she had not. She began to reflect as they were whirling 
 about the hall, she gazed at that secret memory of hers, 
 which she had treasured since her childhood, and dis 
 covered that what had seemed familiar to her about the 
 young man was the face of a familiar thought. Ever 
 since Miss Cynthia Lennox had told her about her 
 nephew, the little boy who had owned and loved the 
 doll, Ellen had unconsciously held the thought of him in 
 her mind. "You are Miss Cynthia Lennox s nephew/ 
 she said to young Lloyd. 
 
 "Yes/ he replied. Pie nodded towards Cynthia, 
 who was sitting on the opposite side from the Brewsters, 
 with the Norman Lloyds and Lyman Risley. "She 
 used to be like a mother to me/ he said. "You know 
 I lost my mother when I was a baby." 
 
 Ellen nodded at him with a look of pity of that mar 
 vellous scope which only a woman in whom the ma 
 ternal slumbers ready to awake can compass. Ellen, 
 looking at the handsome face of the young man, saw 
 quite distinctly in it the face of the little motherless 
 child, and all the tender pity which she would have 
 felt for that child was in her eyes. 
 
 "What a beautiful girl she is/ thought the young 
 man. He smiled at her admiringly, loving her look 
 at him, while not in the least understanding it. He 
 had asked to be presented to Ellen from curiosity. He 
 had not been at the exhibition, and had heard the 
 school-master and Risley talking about the valedictory. 
 "I didn t know that you taught anarchy in school, 
 Mr. Harris," Risley had said. He laughed as he 
 said it, but Harris had colored with an uneasy look 
 at Norman Lloyd, whose face wore an expression of 
 amusement. " Perhaps I should have," he began, but 
 Lloyd interrupted him. " My dear fellow," he said, 
 " you don t imagine that any man in his senses could 
 
 199 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 take seriously enough to be annoyed by it that child s 
 effusion on her nice little roll of foolscap tied with her 
 pretty white satin rribbon?" 
 
 "She is just as sweet as she can be/ said Mrs. Nor- 
 man, "and I thought her composition was real pretty. 
 Didn t you, Cynthia?" 
 
 "Very/ replied Cynthia. 
 
 "What you are worrying about it for, Edward, I 
 don t see/ said Mrs. Norman to the school-master. 
 
 "Well, I am glad if it struck you that way," said he, 
 " but when I heard the applause from all those factory 
 people " he lowered his voice, since a number were 
 sitting near " I didn t know, but " He hesitated. 
 
 "That the spark that would fire the mine might be 
 in that pretty little beribboned roll of foolscap," said 
 Risley, laughing. "Well, it was a very creditable 
 production, and it was written with the energy of con 
 viction. The Czar and that little school-girl would 
 not live long in one country, if she goes on as she has 
 begun." 
 
 It was then that young Lloyd, who had just come in, 
 and was standing beside the school-master, turned 
 eagerly to him, and asked who the girl was, and begged 
 him to present him. 
 
 " Perhaps he ll fall in love with her," said Mrs. Nor 
 man, directly, when the two men had gone across the 
 hall in quest of Ellen. Her husband laughed. 
 
 "You have not seen your aunt for a long time," 
 Ellen said to young Lloyd, when they were sitting 
 out a dance after their waltz together. 
 
 "Not since I I came on with my father when 
 he died," he replied. Again Ellen looked at him with 
 that wonderful pity in her face, and again the young 
 man thought he had never seen such a girl. 
 
 "I think your aunt is beautiful," Ellen said, pres 
 ently, gazing across at Cynthia. 
 
 200 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Yes, she must have been a beauty when she was 
 young/ 
 
 "I think she is now/ said Ellen, quite fervently, 
 for she was able to disabuse her mind of associations 
 and rely upon pure observation, and it was quite true 
 that leaving out of the question Cynthia s age and the 
 memory of her face in stronger lights at closer view, 
 she was as beautiful from where they sat as some grace 
 ful statue. Only clear outlines showed at that dis 
 tance, and her soft hair, which was quite white, lay 
 in heavy masses around the intense repose of her face. 
 
 "Yes s," admitted Robert, somewhat hesitatingly. 
 " She used to think everything of me when I was a little 
 shaver," he said. 
 
 "Doesn t she now?" 
 
 " Oh yes, I suppose she does, but it is different now. 
 I am grown up. A man doesn t need so much done 
 for him when he is grown up/ 
 
 Then again he looked at Ellen with eyes of pleading 
 which would have made of the older woman what he 
 remembered her to have been in his childhood, and 
 hers answered again. 
 
 Robert did not say anything to her about the vale 
 dictory until just before the close of the evening, when 
 their last dance together was over. 
 
 "I am sorry I did not have a chance to hear your 
 valedictory," he said. "I could not come early." 
 
 Ellen blushed and smiled, and made the conven 
 tional school-girl response. " Oh, you didn t miss any 
 thing," said she. 
 
 "I am sure I did," said the young man, earnestly. 
 Then he looked at her and hesitated a little. " I won 
 der if you would be willing to lend it to me?" he said, 
 then. " I would be very careful of it, and would return 
 it immediately as soon as I had read it. I should be 
 so interested in reading it." 
 
 x * 201 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Certainly, if you wish/ said Ellen, " but I am afraid 
 you won t think it is good." 
 
 "Of course I shall. I have been hearing about it, 
 how good it was, and how you broke up the whole 
 house." 
 
 Ellen blushed. "Oh, that was only because it was 
 the valedictory. They always clap a good deal for the 
 valedictory/ 
 
 " It was because it was you, you dear beauty," thought 
 the young man, gazing at her, and the impulse to take 
 her in his arms and kiss that blush seized upon him. 
 "I know they applauded your valedictory because it 
 was worthy of it," said he, and Ellen s eyes fell before 
 his, and the blush crept down over her throat, and up 
 to the soft toss of hair on her temples. The two were 
 standing, and the man gazed at Ellen s pink arms and 
 neck through the lace of her dress, those incomparable 
 curves of youthful bloom shared by a young girl and a 
 rose ; he gazed at that noble, fair head bent not so much 
 before him as before the mystery of life, of which a per 
 ception had come to her through his eyes, and he said 
 to himself that there never was such a girl, and he also 
 wondered if he saw aright, he being one who seldom 
 entirely lost the grasp of his own leash. Having the 
 fancy and the heart of a young man, he was given like 
 others of his kind to looking at every new girl who at 
 tracted him in the light of a problem, the unknown 
 quantity being her possible interest for him, but he 
 always worked it out calmly. He kept himself out of 
 his own shadow, when it came to the question of emo 
 tions, in something the same fashion that his uncle 
 Norman did. Now, looking at Ellen Brewster with 
 the whole of his heart setting towards her in obedience 
 to that law which had brought him into being, he yet 
 was saying quite coolly and loudly in his own inner 
 consciousness, "Wait, wait, wait! Wait until to- 
 
 201 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 morrow, see how you feel then. You have felt in much 
 this way before. Wait! Perhaps you don t see it 
 as it is. Wait!" 
 
 He realized his own wisdom all the more clearly 
 when Ellen led him to the settee where her relatives 
 sat guarding her graduation presents and her precious 
 valedictory. She presented him gracefully enough. 
 Ellen knew nothing of society etiquette, she had never 
 introduced such a young gentleman as this to any one 
 in her life, but her inborn dignity of character kept her * 
 self -poise perfect. Still, when young Lloyd saw the 
 mother coarsely perspiring and fairly aggressive in ; 
 her delight over her daughter, when poor Andrew hoped 
 he saw him well, and Mrs. Zelotes eyed him with sharp 
 approbation, and Eva, conscious of her shabbiness, 
 bowed with a stiff toss of her head and sat back sul 
 lenly, and little Amabel surveyed him with uncanny 
 wisdom divided between himself and Ellen, he became 
 conscious of a slight disappearance of his glamour. He 
 thanked Ellen most heartily for the privilege which 
 she granted him, when she took the valedictory from 
 the heap of flowers, and took his leave with a bow 
 which made Fanny nudge Andrew, almost before the 
 young man s back was turned. 
 
 Then she looked at Ellen, but she said nothing. A 
 sudden impulse of delicacy prevented her. There was 
 something about this beloved daughter of hers which 
 all at once seemed strange to her. She began to as 
 sociate her with the sacred mystery of life as she had 
 never done. Then, too, there was the more superficial 
 association with one of another class which she held 
 in outward despite but inward awe. 
 
 Ellen gathered up her presents into her lap, and sat 
 there a few minutes through the last dance, which she 
 had refused to Granville Joy, who went away with ner 
 vous alertness for another girl, and nobody spoke to her. 
 
 203 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 When young Lloyd and Cynthia Lennox and the 
 others left, as they did directly, Fanny murmured, 
 " They ve gone/ and they all knew what she meant. 
 She was thinking and so were they all, except Ellen 
 that that was the reason, because he had to go, that 
 he had not asked Ellen for the last dance. 
 
 As for Ellen, she sat looking at her gold watch and 
 chain, which she had taken out of the case. Her face 
 grew intensely sober, and she did not notice w r hen young 
 Lloyd left. All at once she had reflected how her father 
 had never owned a watch in his whole life, though he 
 was a man, but he had given one to her. She reflected 
 how he had so little work, how shabby his clothes were, 
 how he must have gone without himself to buy this for 
 her. and the girl had such a heart of gold that it rose 
 triumphantly loyal to its first loves and tendernesses, 
 and her father s old, worn face came between her and 
 that of the young man who might become her lover. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE day after Ellen s graduation there might have 
 been seen a touching little spectacle passing along 
 the main street of Rowe about ten o clock in the fore 
 noon. It was touching because it gave evidence of 
 that human vanity common to all, which strives to 
 perpetuate the few small, good things that come into 
 the hard lives of poor souls, and strives with such utter 
 futility. Ellen held up her fluffy skirts daintily, the 
 wind caught her white ribbons and the loose locks of 
 her yellow hair under her white hat. She carried Cyn 
 thia Lennox s basket of roses on her arm, and each 
 of the others was laden with bouquets. Little Ama 
 bel clasped both slender arms around a great sheaf of 
 roses ; the thorns pricked through her thin sleeves, but 
 she did not mind that, so upborne with the elation of 
 the occasion was she. Her small, pale face gazed over 
 the mass of bloom with challenging of admiration from 
 every one whom she met. She was jealous lest any 
 one should not look with full appreciation of Ellen. 
 
 Ellen was the one in the little procession who had not 
 unmixed delight in it. She had a certain shamefaced- 
 ness about going through the streets in such a fashion. 
 She avoided looking at the people whom she met, and 
 kept her head slightly bent and averted, instead of car 
 rying it with the proud directness which was her habit. 
 She felt vaguely that this was the element of purely per 
 sonal vanity which degrades a triumph, and the weak 
 ness of delight and gloating in the faces of her relatives 
 irritated her. It was a sort of unveiling of love, and 
 
 205 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 the girl was sensitive enough to understand it. "Oh, 
 mother, I don t want to have us all go through the street 
 with all these flowers, and me in my white dress/ she 
 had said. She had looked at her mother with a shrinking 
 in her eyes which was incomprehensible to the other 
 coarser-natured woman. 
 
 "Nonsense/ she had said. "Sometimes you have 
 real silly notions, Ellen/ Fanny said it adoringly, 
 for even silliness in this girl was in a way worshipful 
 to her. Ellen, with her heart still softened almost to grief 
 by the love shown her on the day before, had yielded, 
 but she was glad when they arrived at the photograph 
 studio. She had particularly dreaded passing Lloyd s, 
 for the thought came to her that possibly young Mr. 
 Lloyd might see her. She supposed that he was likely 
 to be in the office. When they passed the office-windows 
 she looked the other way, but before she was well past, 
 her aunt Eva hit her violently and laughed loudly. 
 Ellen shrank, coloring a deep crimson. Then her 
 mother also laughed, and even Amabel, shrilly, with 
 precocious recognition of the situation. Only Mrs. 
 Zelotes stalked along in silent dignity. 
 
 " Don t laugh so loud, he ll hear you/ said she, se 
 verely. 
 
 "It was that young man who was at the hall last 
 night, and he was looking at you awful sharp/ said 
 little Amabel to Ellen, squeezing her warm arm, and 
 sending out that shrill peal of laughter again. 
 
 "Don t, dear/ said Ellen. She felt humiliated, 
 and the more so because she was ashamed of being hu 
 miliated by her own mother and aunt. "Why should 
 I be so sensitive to things in which they see no harm?" 
 she asked herself, reprovingly. 
 
 As for young Lloyd, he had, ever since he parted with 
 the girl the night before, that sensation of actual con 
 tact which survives separation, and had felt the light 
 
 206 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 pressure of her hand in his all night, and along with it 
 that ineffable pain of longing which would draw the 
 substance of a dream to actuality and cannot. He saw 
 her with her coarsely exultant relatives, the inevitable 
 blur of her environments, and felt himself not so much 
 disillusioned as confirmed. He had been constantly 
 saying to himself, when the girl s face haunted his 
 eyes, and her hand in his own, that he was a fool, that 
 he had felt so before, that he must have, that there was 
 no sense in it, that he was Robert Lloyd, and she a 
 good girl, a beautiful girl, but a common sort of girl, 
 born of common people to a common lot. "Now/ 
 he said to himself, with a kind of bitter exultation, 
 "there, I told you so." The inconceivable folly of that 
 glance of the mother at him, then at Ellen, and the 
 meaning laughter, repelled him to the point of disgust. 
 He turned his back to the window and resumed his work, 
 but, in spite of himself, the pathos of the picture which 
 he had seen began to force itself upon him, and he 
 thought almost tenderly and forgivingly that she, the 
 girl, had not once looked his way. He even wondered, 
 pityingly, if she had been mortified and annoyed by 
 her mother s behavior. A great anger on Ellen s be 
 half with her mother seizefr upon him. How pretty 
 she did look moving along in that little flower-laden 
 procession, he thought, how very pretty. All at once 
 a desire for the photograph which would be taken seized 
 him, for he divined the photograph. However, he said 
 to himself that he would send back the valedictory 
 which he had not yet read by post, with a polite note, 
 and that would be the end. 
 
 But it was only the next evening that Robert Lloyd 
 with the valedictory in hand got off the trolley-car 
 in front of the Brewster house. He had proved to him 
 self that it was an act of actual rudeness to return any 
 thing so precious and of so much importance to the 
 
 207 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 owner by the post, that he ought to call and deliver it in 
 person. When he regained his equilibrium from the 
 quick sidewise leap from the car, and stood hesitating 
 a little, as one will do before a strange house, for he was 
 not quite sure as to his bearings, he saw a white blui 
 as of feminine apparel in the front doorway. He ad 
 vanced tentatively up the little path between two rows 
 of flowering bushes, and Ellen rose. 
 
 "Good-evening, Mr. Lloyd/ she said, in a slightly 
 tremulous voice. 
 
 "Oh, good-evening, Miss Brewster/ he cried, quick 
 ly. " So I am right ! I was not sure as to the house/ 
 
 "People generally tell by the cherry-trees in the 
 yard/ replied Ellen, taking refuge from her timidity 
 in the security of commonplace observation, as she had 
 done the night before, giving thereby both a sense of 
 disappointment and elusiveness. 
 
 "Won t you walk in?" she added, with the prim po 
 liteness of a child who accosts a guest according to 
 rule and precept. Ellen had never, in fact, had a young 
 man make a formal call upon her before. She reflected 
 now, both with relief and trepidation, that her mother 
 was away, having gone to her aunt Eva s. She had 
 an instinct which she resented, that her mother and 
 this young man were on two parallels which could never 
 meet. Her father was at home, seated in the south 
 door with John Sargent and Nahum Beals and Joe 
 Atkins, but she never thought of such a thing as her 
 father s receiving a young man caller, though she 
 would not have doubted so much his assimilating with 
 Robert Lloyd. She understood that the young man 
 might look at her mother with dissent, while she re 
 sented it, but with her father it was different. 
 
 The group of men at the south door were talking 
 in loud, fervent voices which seemed to rise and fall 
 like waves. Nahum Beals s strained, nervous tones 
 
 208 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 were paramount. "Mr. Beals is talking about the 
 labor question, and he gets quite excited/ Ellen re 
 marked, somewhat apologetically, as she ushered young 
 Lloyd into the parlor. 
 
 Lloyd laughed. "It sounds as if he were leading 
 an army/ he said. 
 
 " He is very much in earnest/ said the girl. 
 
 She placed painstakingly for her guest the best chair, 
 which was a spring rocker upholstered with crush- 
 plush. The little parlor was close and stuffy, and the 
 kerosene-lamp, with the light dimmed by a globe dec 
 orated with roses, heated the room still further. This 
 lamp was Fanny s pride. It had, in her eyes, the dou 
 ble glory of high art and cheapness. She was fond 
 of pointing at it, and inquiring, "How much do you 
 think that cost?" and explaining with the air of one 
 who expects her truth to be questioned that it only cost 
 forty-nine cents. This lamp was hideous, the shape 
 was aggressive, a discordant blare of brass, and the 
 roses on the globe were blasphemous. Somehow this 
 lamp was the first thing which struck Lloyd on enter 
 ing the room. He could not take his eyes from it. As 
 for Ellen, long acquaintance had dulled her eyes. She 
 sat in the full glare of this hideous lamp, and Lloyd 
 considered that she was not so pretty as he had thought 
 last night. Still, she was undeniably very pretty. 
 There was something in the curves of her shoulders, 
 in her pink-and- white cotton waist, that made one s 
 fingers tingle, and heart yearn, and there was an appeal 
 ing look in her face which made him smile indulgently 
 at her as he might have done at a child. After all, it 
 was probably not her fault about the lamp, and lamps 
 were a minor consideration, and he was finical, but 
 suppose she liked it? Lloyd, sitting there, began to 
 speculate if it were possible for one s spiritual nature 
 to be definitely damaged by hideous lamps. Then he 
 o 209 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 r" 
 
 caught sight of a plate decorated with postage-stamps, 
 with a perforated edge through which ribbons were 
 run, and he wondered if she possibly made that. 
 
 "They are undoubtedly perfectly moral people/ he 
 told his aunt Cynthia afterwards, " but I wonder that 
 they keep such an immoral plate/ However, that 
 was before he fell in love with Ellen, while he was strug 
 gling with himself in his desire to do so, and making 
 all manner of sport of himself by way of hindrance. 
 
 Ellen at that age could have had no possible conception 
 of the sentiment with which the young man viewed her 
 environment. She was sensitive to spiritual discords 
 which might arise from meeting with another widely 
 different nature, but when it came to material things, 
 she was at a loss. Then, too, she was pugnaciously 
 loyal to the glories of the best parlor. She was inno 
 cently glad that she had such a nice room into which 
 to usher him. She felt that the marble-top table, the 
 plush lambrequin on the mantle-shelf, the gilded vases, 
 the brass clock, the Nottingham lace curtains, the 
 olive-and-crimson furniture, the pictures in cheap gilt 
 frames, the heavily gilded wall-paper, and the throws 
 of thin silk over the picture corners must prove to him 
 the standing of her family. She felt an ignoble satis 
 faction in it, for a certain measure of commonness 
 clung to the girl like a cobweb. She was as yet too 
 young to bloom free of her environment, her head 
 was not yet over the barrier of her daily lot ; her heart 
 never would be, and that was her glory. Young Lloyd 
 handed her the roll of valedictory as soon as he entered. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you for allowing me to 
 read it," he said. 
 
 Ellen took it, blushing. Her heart sank a little. 
 She thought to herself that he probably did not like 
 it. She looked at him proudly and timidly, like a child 
 half holding, half withdrawing its hand for a sweet. 
 
 210 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 It suddenly came to her that she would rather this 
 young man would praise her valedictory than any one 
 else, that if he had been present when she read it in 
 the hall, and she had seen him standing applauding, 
 she could not have contained her triumph and pride. 
 She was not yet in love with him, but she began to feel 
 that in his approbation lay the best coin of her realm. 
 
 " It is very well written, Miss Brewster," said Robert, 
 and she flushed with delight. 
 
 "Thank you/ she said. 
 
 But the young man was looking at her as if he had 
 something besides praise in mind, and she gazed at him, 
 shrinking a little as before a blow whose motion she 
 felt in the air. However, he laughed pleasantly when 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Do you really believe that?" he asked. 
 
 "What?" she inquired, vaguely. 
 
 " Oh, all that you say in your essay. Do you really 
 believe that all the property in the world ought to be 
 divided, that kings and peasants ought to share and 
 share alike?" 
 
 She looked at him with round eyes. " Why, of course 
 I do!" she said. "Don t you?" 
 
 Robert laughed. He had no mind to enter into an 
 argument with this beautiful girl, nor even to express 
 himself forcibly on the opposite side. 
 
 " Well, there are a number of things to be considered," 
 he said. "And do you really believe that employer 
 and employes should share alike?" 
 
 "Why not?" said she. 
 
 Her blue eyes flashed, she tossed her head. Rob 
 ert smiled at her. 
 
 "Why not?" she repeated. "Don t the men earn 
 the money?" 
 
 "Well, no, not exactly," said Robert. "There is 
 the capital." 
 
 211 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " The profit comes from the labor, not from the cap 
 ital/ said Ellen, quickly. " Doesn t it?" she continued, 
 with fervor, and yet there was a charming timidity, as 
 before some authority. 
 
 "Possibly," replied Robert, guardedly; "but the 
 question is how far we should go back before we stop 
 in searching for causes/ 
 
 "How far back ought we to go?" asked Ellen, earn 
 estly. 
 
 "I confess I don t know/ said Robert, laughingly. 
 "I have thought very little about it all." 
 
 "But you will have to, if you are to be the head of 
 Lloyd s," Ellen said, with a severe accent, with grave, 
 blue eyes full on his face. 
 
 " Oh, I am not the head of Lloyd s yet," he answered, 
 easily. " My uncle is far from his dotage. Then, too, 
 you know that I was never intended for a business man, 
 but a lawyer, like my father, if there had not been so 
 little for my father s second wife and the children " 
 He stopped himself abruptly on the verge of a confi 
 dence. "I think I saw you on your way to the pho 
 tographer to-day," he said, and Ellen blushed, remem 
 bering her aunt Eva s violent nudge, and wondering 
 if he had noticed. She gave him a piteous glance. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "All the girls have their pictures 
 taken in their graduating dresses with their flowers." 
 
 " You looked to me as if the picture would be a great 
 success," said Robert. He longed to ask for one and 
 yet did not, for a reason unexplained to himself. He 
 knew that this innocent, unsophisticated creature 
 would see no reason on earth why he should not ask, 
 and no reason why she should not grant, and on that 
 account he felt prohibited. That night, after he had 
 gone, Ellen wondered why he had not asked for one of 
 her pictures, and felt anxious lest he should have seen 
 the nudge. 
 
 212 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Well/ she said to herself, "if he finds any fault 
 with anything that my mother has done, I don t want 
 him to have one." 
 
 Robert stayed a long time. He kept thinking that he 
 ought to go, and also that he was bored, and yet he 
 felt a singular unwillingness to leave, possibly because 
 of his sense that the visit was in a measure forbidden 
 by prudence. The longer he remained, the prettier 
 Ellen looked to him. New beauties of line and color 
 seemed to grow apparent in the soft glow from the hide 
 ous lamp. There was a wonderful starry radiance 
 in her eyes now and then, and when she turned her 
 head her eyeballs gleamed crimson and her hair seemed 
 to toss into flame. When she spoke, he was conscious 
 of unknown depths of sweetness in her voice, and it 
 was so with her smile and her every motion. There 
 was about the girl a mystery, not of darkness but of 
 light, which seemed to draw him on and on and on with 
 out volition. And yet she said nothing especially 
 remarkable, for Ellen was only a young girl, reared 
 in a little provincial city in common environments. 
 She would have been a great genius had she more than 
 begun to glimpse the breadth and freedom of the outer 
 world through her paling of life. She was too young and 
 too unquestioning of what she had learned from her 
 early loves. 
 
 " Have you always lived here in Rowe?" asked Lloyd. 
 
 "Yes/ said she. "I was born here, and I have 
 lived here ever since/ 
 
 "And you have never been away?" 
 
 "Only once. Once I went to Dragon Beach and 
 stayed a fortnight with mother." She said this with 
 a visible sense of its importance. Dragon Beach was 
 some ten miles from Rowe, a cheap seashore place, 
 built up with flimsy summer cottages of factory hands. 
 Andrew had hired one for a fortnight once when Ellen 
 
 213 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 was ailing, and it had been the event of a lifetime to 
 the family. They hereafter dated from the year "we 
 went to Dragon Beach/ 
 
 Lloyd looked with a quick impulse of compassion 
 ate tenderness at this child who had been away from 
 Rowe once to Dragon Beach. He had his own im 
 pressions of Dragon Beach and also of Rowe. 
 
 "I suppose you enjoyed that?" said he. 
 
 " Very much. The sea is beautiful. " 
 
 So, after all, it was the sea which she had cared for at 
 Dragon Beach, and not the clam-bakes and merry-go- 
 rounds and women in wrappers in the surf. Robert 
 felt rebuked for thinking of anything but the sea in 
 his memory of Dragon Beach; there was a wonderful 
 water-view there. 
 
 All the time they sat there in the parlor, the murmur 
 of conversation at the south door continued, and now 
 and again over it swelled the fervid exhortations of 
 Nahum Beals. Not a word could be distinguished, 
 but the meaning was beyond doubt. That voice was 
 full of denunciation, of frenzied appeal, of warning*. 
 
 "Who is it?" asked Lloyd, after an unusually loud 
 burst. 
 
 "Mr. Beals/ replied Ellen, uneasily. She wished 
 that he would not talk so loud. 
 
 "He sounds as if he were preaching fire and brim 
 stone," said Robert. 
 
 " No, he is talking about the labor question/ replied 
 Ellen. 
 
 Then she looked confused, for she remembered that 
 this young man s uncle was the head of Lloyd s, that 
 he himself would be the head of Lloyd s some day. 
 All at once, along with another feeling which seemed 
 about to conquer her, came a resentment against this 
 young man with his fine clothes and his gentle manners. 
 Two men passed the windows and one of them looked 
 
 214 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 in, and when the electric-light flashed on his face she 
 saw Granville Joy, and the man with him was in his 
 shirt-sleeves. She saw those white shirt-sleeves swing 
 into the darkness, and felt at once antagonized against 
 herself and against Robert, and yet she knew that she 
 had never seen a man like him. 
 
 " I suppose he has settled it," said Robert. 
 
 "I don t know/ replied Ellen. 
 
 "He sounds dangerous." 
 
 "Oh, no. He is a good man. He wouldn t hurt 
 anybody. He has always talked that way. He used 
 to come here and talk when I was a child. It used to 
 frighten me at first, but it doesn t now. It is only the 
 way that poor people are treated that frightens me." 
 
 Again Robert had a sensation of moving unobtru 
 sively aside from a direct encounter. He looked across 
 the room and started at something which he espied for 
 the first time. 
 
 "Pardon me/ he said, rising, "but I am interested 
 in dolls. I see you still keep your doll, Miss Brew- 
 ster." 
 
 Ellen sat stupefied. All at once it dawned upon 
 her what might happen. In the corner of the parlor 
 sat her beloved doll, still beloved, though the mother 
 and not the doll had outgrown her first condition of 
 love. The doll, in the identical dress in which she had 
 come from Cynthia s so many years ago, sat staring 
 forth with the fixed radiance of her kind, seated stiffly 
 in a tiny rocking-chair, also one of the treasures of 
 Ellen s childhood. It was a curious feature for the 
 best parlor, but Ellen had insisted upon it. "She 
 isn t going to be put away up garret because I have 
 outgrown her," said she. "She s going to sit in the 
 parlor as long as she lives. Suppose I outgrew you, 
 and put you up in the garret ; you wouldn t like it, would 
 you, mother?" 
 
 215 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You are a queer child/ Fanny had said, laughing, 
 but she had yielded. 
 
 When young Lloyd went close to examine the doll, 
 Ellen s heart stood still. Suppose he should recog 
 nize it? She tried to tell herself that it was impossible. 
 Could any young man recognize a doll after all those 
 /years? How much did a boy ever care for a doll, any 
 way? Not enough to think of it twice after he had 
 given it up. It was different with a girl. Her doll 
 meant God only knew what her doll meant to her; 
 perhaps it had a meaning of all humanity. But the 
 boy, what had he cared for the doll? He had gone 
 away out West and left it. 
 
 But Lloyd remembered. He stared down at the doll 
 a moment. Then he took her up gingerly in her fluffy 
 pink robes of an obsolete fashion. He held her at arm s 
 length, and stared and stared. Suddenly he parted 
 the flaxen wig and examined a place on the head. Then 
 he looked at Ellen. 
 
 " Why, it is my old doll," he cried, with a great laugh 
 of wonder and incredulity. "Yes, it is my old doll! 
 How in the world did y6u come by my doll, Miss 
 Brewster? Account for yourself. Are you a child 
 kidnapper?" 
 
 Ellen, who had risen and come forward, stood before 
 him, absolutely still, and very pale. 
 
 "Yes, it is my doll," said Lloyd, with another laugh. 
 "I will tell you how I know. Of course I can tell her 
 face. Dolls look a good deal alike, I suppose, but I 
 tell you I loved this doll, and I remember her face, and 
 that little cast in her left eye, and that beautiful, serene 
 smile ; but there s something besides. Once I burned 
 her head with the red-hot end of the poker to see if she 
 would wake up. I always had a notion when I was a 
 child that it was only a question of violence to make her 
 wake up and demonstrate some existence besides that 
 
 216 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 eternal grin. So I burned her, but it made no differ 
 ence ; but here is the mark now see. 
 
 Ellen saw. She had often kissed it, but she made 
 no reply. She was occupied with considerations of 
 the consequences. 
 
 " How did you come by her, if you don t mind telling?" 
 said the young man again. "It is the most curious 
 thing for me to find my old doll sitting here. Of course 
 Aunt Cynthia gave her .to you, but I didn t know that 
 she was acquainted with you. I suppose she saw a 
 pretty little girl getting around without a doll after 
 I had gone, and sent her, but " 
 
 Suddenly between the young man s face and the 
 girl s flashed a look of intelligence. Suddenly Robert 
 remembered all that he had heard of Ellen s childish 
 escapade. He knew. He looked from her to the doll, 
 and back again. "Good Lord!" he said. Then he 
 set the doll down in her little chair all of a heap, and 
 caught Ellen s hand, and shook it. 
 
 "You are a trump, that is what you are," he said; 
 "a trump. So she " He shook his head, and looked 
 at Ellen, dazedly. She did not say a word, but looked 
 at him with her lips closed tightly. 
 
 " It is better for you not to tell me anything," he said ; 
 "I don t want to know. I don t understand, and I 
 never want to, how it all happened, but I do understand 
 that you are a trump. How old were you?" Robert s 
 voice took on a tone of tenderness. 
 
 "Eight," replied Ellen, faintly. 
 
 "Only a baby," said the young man, "and you 
 never told! I would like to know where there is an 
 other baby who would do such a thing." He caught 
 her hand and shook it again. " She was like a mother 
 to me," he said, in a husky voice. "I think a good 
 deal of her. I thank you." 
 
 Suddenly to the young man looking at the girl a 
 *? 217 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 conviction as of some subtle spiritual perfume came; he 
 had seen her beauty before, he had realized her charm, 
 but this was something different. A boundless appro 
 bation and approval which was infinitely more precious 
 than admiration seized him. Her character began to 
 reveal itself, to come in contact with his own; he felt 
 the warmth of it through the veil of flesh. He felt a 
 sense of reliance as upon an inexhaustibility of good 
 ness in another soul. He felt something which was 
 more than love, being purely unselfish, with as yet no 
 desire of possession. "Here is a good, true woman/ 
 he said to himself. " Here is a good, true woman, who 
 has blossomed from a good, true child." He saw a 
 wonderful faithfulness shining in her blue eyes, he 
 saw truth itself on her lips, and could have gone down 
 at the feet of the little girl in the pink cotton frock. 
 Going home he tried to laugh at himself, but could not 
 succeed. It is easy to shake off the clasp of a hand of 
 flesh, but not the clasp of another soul. 
 
 Ellen on her part was at once overwhelmed with 
 delight and confusion. She felt the fervor of admira 
 tion in the young man s attitude towards her, but 
 she was painfully conscious of her undeservingness. 
 She had always felt guilty about her silence and dis 
 obedience towards her parents, and as for any self-ap 
 probation for it, that had been the farthest from her 
 thoughts. She murmured something deprecatingly, 
 but Lloyd cut her short. 
 
 " It s no use crying off/ said he; "you are one girl 
 in a thousand, and I thank you, I thank you from the 
 bottom of my heart. It might have made awful trouble. 
 My aunt Lizzie told me what a commotion there was 
 over it." 
 
 "I ran away," said Ellen, anxiously. Suddenly it 
 occurred to her he might think Cynthia worse than 
 she had been. 
 
 218 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Never mind/ said Lloyd "never mind. I know 
 what you did. You held your blessed little tongue to 
 save somebody else, and let yourself be blamed/ 
 
 The door which led into the sitting-room opened, 
 and Andrew looked in. 
 
 He made a shy motion when he saw Lloyd ; still, he 
 came forward. His own callers had gone, and he had 
 heard voices in the parlor, and had feared Granville 
 Joy was calling upon Ellen. 
 
 As he came forward, Ellen introduced him shyly. 
 "This is Mr. Lloyd, father/ she said. "Mr. Lloyd, 
 this is my father. " Then she added, " He came to bring 
 back my valedictory/ She was very awkward, but 
 it was the charming awkwardness of a beautiful child. 
 She looked exceedingly childish standing beside her 
 father, looking into his worn, embarrassed face. 
 
 Lloyd shook hands with Andrew, and said some 
 thing about the valedictory, which he had enjoyed 
 reading. 
 
 "She wrote it all herself without a bit of help from 
 the teacher," said Andrew, with wistful pride. 
 
 "It is remarkably well written," said Robert. 
 
 "You didn t hear it read at the hall?" said Andrew. 
 
 "No, I had not that good fortune." 
 
 " You ought to have heard them clap," said Andrew. 
 
 "Oh, father," murmured Ellen, but she looked in 
 nocently at her father as if she delighted in his pride 
 and pleasure without a personal consideration. 
 
 The front door opened. "That s your mother," 
 said Andrew. 
 
 Fanny looked into the lighted parlor, and dodged 
 back with a little giggle. 
 
 Ellen colored painfully. "It is Mr. Lloyd, mother," 
 she said. 
 
 Then Fanny came forward and shook hands with 
 Robert. Her face was flaming she cast involuntary 
 
 219 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 glances at Andrew for confirmation of her opinion. 
 She was openly and shamelessly triumphant, and yet 
 all at once Robert ceased to be repelled by it. Through 
 his insight into the girl s character, he had seemed 
 to gain suddenly a clearer vision for the depths of 
 human love and pity which are beneath the coarse and 
 the common. When Fanny stood beside her daughter 
 and looked at her, then at Robert, with the reflection 
 of the beautiful young face in her eyes of love, she 
 became at once pathetic and sacred. 
 
 "It is all natural/ he said to himself as he was 
 going home. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 ROBERT LLOYD when he came to Rowe was con 
 fronted with one of the hardest tasks in the world, 
 that of adjustment to circumstances which had hitherto 
 been out of his imagination. He had not dreamed of a 
 business life in connection with himself. Though he 
 had always had a certain admiration for his successful 
 uncle, Norman Lloyd, yet he had always had along 
 with the admiration a recollection of the old tale of the 
 birthright and the mess of pottage. He had expected 
 to follow the law, like his father, but when he had fin 
 ished college, about two years after his father s death, 
 he had to face the unexpected. The stocks in which the 
 greater part of the elder Lloyd s money had been in 
 vested had depreciated ; some of them were for the time 
 being quite worthless as far as income was concerned. 
 There were two little children girls by his father s 
 second marriage, and there was not enough to support 
 them and their mother and allow Robert to continue 
 his reading for the law. So he pursued, without the 
 slightest hesitation, but with bitter regret, the only 
 course which he saw open before him. He wrote to 
 his uncle Norman, and was welcomed to a position in 
 his factory with more warmth than he had ever seen 
 displayed by him. In fact, Norman Lloyd, who had 
 no son of his own, saw with a quickening of his pulses 
 the handsome young fellow of his own race who had in 
 a measure thrown himself upon his protection. He had 
 never shared his wife s longing for children as children, 
 and had never cared for Robert when a child ; but now, 
 
 221 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 when he was a man grown and bore his name, he ap 
 pealed to him. 
 
 Norman Lloyd was supposed to be heaping up riches, 
 and wild stories of his wealth were told in Rowe. He 
 gave large sums to public benefactions, and never 
 stinted his wife in her giving within certain limits. 
 It would have puzzled any one when faced with facts 
 to understand why he had the name of a hard man, 
 but he had it, whether justly or not. "He s as hard as 
 nails/ people said. His employe s hated him that 
 is, the more turbulent and undisciplined spirits hated 
 him, and the others regarded him as slaves might a 
 stern master. When Robert started his work in his 
 uncle s office he started handicapped by this sentiment 
 towards his uncle. He looked like his uncle, he talked 
 like him, he had his same gentle stiffness, he was never 
 unduly familiar. He was at once placed in the same 
 category by the workmen. 
 
 Robert Lloyd did not concern himself in the least 
 as to what the employe s in his uncle s factory thought 
 of him. Nothing was more completely out of his mind. 
 He was conscious of standing on a firm base of philan 
 thropic principle, and if ever these men came directly 
 under his control, he was resolved to do his duty by 
 them so far as in him lay. 
 
 Ellen, since her graduation, had been like an animal 
 which circles about in its endeavors to find its best and 
 natural place of settlement. 
 
 "What shall I do next?" she had said to her mother. 
 " Shall I go to work, or shall I try to find a school some 
 where in the fall, or shall I stay here, and help you 
 with some work I can do at home? I know father can 
 not afford to support me always at home." 
 
 " I guess he can afford to support his only daughter 
 at home a little while after she has just got out of 
 
 222 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 school," Fanny had returned indignantly, with a keen 
 pain at her heart. 
 
 Fanny mentioned this conversation to Andrew that 
 night after Ellen had gone to bed. 
 
 " What do you think Ellen was asking me this after 
 noon what she had better do!" said she. 
 
 "What she had better do?" repeated Andrew, vague 
 ly. He looked shrinkingly at Fanny, who seemed to 
 him to have an accusing air, as if in some way he were 
 to blame for something. And, indeed, there were times 
 when Fanny in those days did blame Andrew, but there 
 was some excuse for her. She blamed him when her 
 own back was filling her very soul w r ith the weariness 
 of its ache as she bent over the seams of those grinding 
 wrappers, and when her heart was sore over doubt of 
 Ellen s future. At those times she acknowledged to 
 herself that it seemed to her that Andrew somehow 
 might have gotten on better. She did not know 
 how, but somehow. He had not had an expensive 
 family. "Why had he not succeeded?" she asked 
 herself. So there was in her tone an unconscious 
 recrimination when she answered his question about 
 Ellen. 
 
 "Yes what she had better go to work at," said 
 Fanny, dryly, her black eyes cold on her husband s 
 face. 
 
 Andrew turned so white that he frightened her. " Go 
 to work!" said he. Then all at once he gave an ex 
 ceedingly loud and bitter groan. It betrayed all his 
 pride in and ambition for his daughter and his disgust 
 and disappointment over himself. " Oh ! my God, has 
 it come to this," he groaned, "that I cannot support 
 my one child!" 
 
 Fanny laid down her work and looked at him. " Now, 
 Andrew," said she, "there s no use in your taking it 
 after such a fashion as this. I told Ellen that it wax 
 
 223 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 all nonsense that she could stay at home and rest this 
 summer." 
 
 "I guess, if she can t " said Andrew. He dropped 
 his gray head into his hands, and began to sob dryly. 
 Fanny, after staring at him a moment, tossed her work 
 onto the floor, went over to him, and drew his head to 
 her shoulder. 
 
 "There, old man/ said she, "ain t you ashamed 
 of yourself? I told her there was no need for her to 
 worry at present. Don t do so, Andrew; you ve done 
 the best you could, and I know it, if I stop to think, 
 though I do seem sort of impatient sometimes. You ve 
 always worked hard and done your *best. It ain t your 
 fault." 
 
 "I don t know whether it is or not," said Andrew, 
 in a high, querulous voice like a woman s. " It seems 
 as if it must be somebody s fault. lifi ain t my fault, 
 whose is it? You can t blame the Almighty." 
 
 "Maybe it ain t anybody s fault." 
 
 "It must be. All that goes wrong is somebody s 
 fault. It can t be that it just happens that would be 
 worse than the other. It is better to have a God that 
 is cruel than one that don t care, and it is better to 
 be to blame yourself, and have it your fault, than His. 
 Somehow, I have been to blame, Fanny. I must have. 
 It would have been enough sight better for you, Fanny, 
 if you d married another man." 
 
 "I didn t want another man," replied Fanny, half 
 angrily, half tenderly. "You make me all out of pa 
 tience, Andrew Brewster. What s the need of Ellen 
 going to work right away? Maybe by-and-by she can 
 get an easy school. Then, we ve got that money in 
 the bank." 
 
 Andrew looked away from her with his face set. 
 Fanny did not know yet about his withdrawal of the 
 money for the purpose of investing in mining-stocks. 
 
 224 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 He never looked at her but the guilty secret seemed 
 to force itself between them like a wedge of ice. 
 
 "Then Grandma Brewster has got a little some 
 thing/ said Fanny. 
 
 " Only just enough for herself/ said Andrew. Then 
 he added, fiercely, " Mother can t be stinted of her little 
 comforts even for Ellen/ 
 
 "I ain t never wanted to stint your mother of her 
 comforts/ Fanny, retorted, angrily. 
 
 " She ain t got but a precious little, unless she spends 
 her principal," said Andrew. "She ain t got more n 
 a hundred and fifty or so a year clear after her taxes 
 and insurance are paid." 
 
 "I ain t saying anything," said Fanny. "But I do 
 say you re dreadful foolish to take on so when you ve 
 got so much to fall back on, and that money in the 
 bank. Here you haven t had to touch the interest for 
 quite a while and it has been accumulating." 
 
 It was agreed between the two that Ellen must say 
 nothing to her grandmother Brewster about going to 
 work. 
 
 ^ " I believe the old lady would have a fit if she thought 
 Ellen was going to work," said Fanny. "She ain t 
 never thought she ought to lift her finger." 
 
 So Ellen was charged on no account to say anything 
 to her grandmother about the possible necessity of her 
 going to work. 
 
 "Your grandmother s awful proud," said Fanny, 
 " and she s always thought you were too good to work." 
 
 "I don t think anybody is too good to work/ replied V 
 Ellen, but she uttered the platitude with a sort of men 
 tal reservation. In spite of herself, the attitude of wor 
 ship in which she had always seen all who belonged 
 to her had spoiled her a little. She did look at herself 
 with a sort of compunction when she realized the fact 
 that she might have to go to work in the shop some 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 time. School-teaching was different, but could she 
 earri enough school-teaching? There was a sturdy 
 vein in the girl. All the time she pitied herself she 
 blamed herself . 
 
 " You come of working-people, Ellen Brewster. Why 
 are you any better than they? Why are your hands 
 any better than their hands, your brain than theirs? 
 Why are you any better than the other girls who have 
 gone to work in the shops? Do you think you are 
 any better than Abby Atkins?" 
 
 And still Ellen used to look at herself with a pitying 
 conviction that she would be out of place at a bench 
 in the shoe-factory, that she would suffer a certain 
 indignity by such a course. The realization of a better 
 birthright was strong upon her, although she chided 
 herself for it. And everybody abetted her in it. When 
 she said once to Abby Atkins, whom she encountered 
 one day going home from the shop, that she wondered 
 if she could get a job in her room in the fall, Abby 
 turned upon her fiercely. 
 
 " Good Lord, Ellen Brewster, you ain t going to work 
 in a shoe-shop?" she said. 
 
 " I don t see why not as well as you," returned Ellen. 
 
 "Why not?" repeated the other girl. "Look at 
 yourself, and look at us!" 
 
 As she spoke, Ellen saw projected upon her mental 
 vision herself passing down the street with the throng 
 of factory operatives which her bodily eyes actually 
 witnessed. She had come opposite Lloyd s as the 
 six o clock whistle was blowing. She saw herself in 
 her clean, light summer frock, slight and dainty, with 
 little hands like white flowers in the blue folds of her 
 skirt, with her fine, sensitive outlook of fair face, and 
 her dainty carriage; and she saw others those girls 
 and women in dingy skirts and bagging blouses, with 
 coarse hair strained into hard knots of exigency from 
 
 226 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 patient, or sullen faces, according to their methods of 
 bearing their lots; all of them rank with the smell of 
 leather, their coarse hands stained with it, swinging 
 their poor little worn bags which had held their dinners. 
 There were not many foreigners among them, except 
 the Irish, most of \vhom had been born in this country, 
 and a sprinkling of fair-haired, ruddy Swedes and 
 keen Polanders, who bore themselves better than the 
 Americans, being not so apparently at odds with the 
 situation. 
 
 The factory employe s in Rowe were a superior lot, 
 men and women. Many of the men had put on their 
 worn coats when they emerged from the factory, and 
 their little bags were supposed to disguise the fact of 
 their being dinner satchels. And yet there was a dif 
 ference between Ellen Brewster and the people among 
 whom she walked, and she felt it with a sort of pride 
 and indignation with herself that it was so. 
 
 " I don t see why I should be any better than the rest," 
 said she, defiantly, to Abby Atkins. "My father 
 works in a shop, and you are my best friend, and you 
 do. Why shouldn t I w r ork in a shop?" 
 
 " Look at yourself," repeated the other girl, merciless 
 ly. "You are different. You ain t to blame for it 
 any more than a flower is to blame for being a rose 
 and not a common burdock. If you ve got to do any 
 thing, you had better teach school." 
 
 "I would rather teach school," said Ellen, "but I 
 couldn t earn so much unless I got more education 
 and got a higher position than a district school, and 
 that is out of the question." 
 
 "I thought maybe your grandmother could send 
 you," said Abby. 
 
 " Oh no, grandma can t afford to. Sometimes I think 
 I could work my own way through college, if it wasn t 
 for being a burden in the mean time, but I don t know." 
 
 227 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Suddenly Abby Atkins planted herself on the side 
 walk in front of Ellen, and looked at her sharply, while 
 an angry flush overspread her face. 
 
 " I want to know one thing/ said she. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "It ain t true what I heard the other day, is it?" 
 
 "I don t know what you heard." 
 
 "Well, I heard you were going to be married." 
 
 Ellen turned quite pale, and looked at the other girl 
 with a steady regard of grave, indignant blue eyes. 
 
 "No, I am not," said she. 
 
 "Well, don t be mad, Ellen. I heard real straight 
 that you were going to marry Granville Joy in the fall." 
 
 "Well, I am not," repeated Ellen. 
 
 " I didn t suppose you were, but I knew he had always 
 wanted you." 
 
 "Always wanted me!" said Ellen. "Why, he s 
 only just out of school 1" 
 
 " Oh, I know that, and he s only just gone to work, 
 and he can t be earning much, but I heard it." 
 
 The stream of factory operatives had thinned ; many 
 had taken the trolley-cars, and others had gone to the 
 opposite side of the street, which was shady. The two 
 girls were alone, standing before a vacant lot grown 
 to weeds, rank bristles of burdock, and slender spikes 
 of evanescent succory. Abby burst out in a passionate 
 appeal, clutching Ellen s arm hard. 
 
 "Ellen, promise me you never will," she cried. 
 
 "Promise you what, Abby?" 
 
 "Oh, promise me you never will marry anybody 
 like him. I know it s, none of my business I know 
 that is something that is none of anybody s business, 
 no matter how much they think of anybody; but I 
 think more of you than any man ever will, I don t care 
 who he is. I know I do, Ellen Brewster. And don t 
 you ever marry a man like Granville Joy, just an or- 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 dinary man who works in the shop, and will never do 
 anything but work in the shop. I know he s good, real 
 good and steady, and it ain t against him that he ain t 
 rich and has to work for his living, but I tell you, Ellen 
 Brewster, you ain t the right sort to marry a man like 
 that, and have a lot of children to work in shops. No 
 man, if he thinks anything of you, ought to ask you 
 to; but all a man thinks of is himself. Granville Joy, 
 or any other man who wanted you, would take you 
 and spoil you, and think he d done a smart thing." 
 Abby spoke with such intensity that it redeemed her 
 from coarseness. Ellen continued to look at her, and 
 two red spots had come on her cheeks. 
 
 " I don t believe I ll ever get married at all/ she said. 
 
 "If you ve got to get married, you ought to marry 
 somebody like young Mr. Lloyd," said Abby. 
 
 Then Ellen blushed, and pushed past her indignantly. 
 
 "Young Mr. Lloyd!" said she. "I don t want him, 
 and he doesn t want me. I wish you wouldn t talk 
 so, Abby." 
 
 "He would want you if you were a rich girl, and 
 your father was boss instead of a workman," said 
 Abby. 
 
 Then she caught hold of Ellen s arm and pressed her 
 own thin one in its dark-blue cotton sleeve lovingly 
 against it. 
 
 "You ain t mad with me, are you, Ellen?" she said, 
 with that indescribable gentleness tempering her fierce 
 ness of nature which gave her caresses the fascina 
 tion of some little, untamed animal. Ellen pressed her 
 round young arm tenderly against the other. 
 
 " I think more of you than any man I know," said she, 
 fervently. " I think more of you than anybody except 
 father and mother, Abby." 
 
 The two girls walked on with locked arms, and each \ 
 was possessed with that wholly artless and ignorant \ 
 
 229 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 passion often seen between two young girls. Abby felt 
 Ellen s warm round arm against hers with a throbbing 
 of rapture, and glanced at her fair face with adoration. 
 She held her in a sort of worship, she loved her so 
 that she was fairly afraid of her. As for Ellen, Abby s 
 little, leather - stained, leather -scented figure, strung 
 with passion like a bundle of electric wire, pressing 
 against her, seemed to inform her farthest thoughts. 
 
 "If I live longer than my father and mother, we ll 
 live together, Abby/ said she. 
 
 " And I ll work for you, Ellen/ said Abby, rapt 
 urously. 
 
 "I guess you won t do all the work/ said Ellen. 
 She gazed tenderly into Abby s little, dark, thin face. 
 "You re all worn out with work now/ said she, "and 
 there you bought that beautiful pin for me with your 
 hard earnings." 
 
 " I wish it had been a great deal better," said Abby, 
 fervently. 
 
 She had given Ellen a gold brooch for a graduating- 
 gift, and had paid a week s wages for it, and gone 
 without her new dress, and stayed away from the grad 
 uation, but that last Ellen never knew ; Abby had told 
 her that she was sick. 
 
 That evening Robert Lloyd and his aunt Cynthia 
 Lennox called on the Brewsters. Ellen was under the 
 trees in the west yard^when she heard a carriage stop 
 in front of the house and saw the sitting-room lamp 
 travel through the front entry to the front door. She 
 wondered indifferently who it was. Carriages were not 
 given to stopping at their house of an evening ; then 
 she reflected that it might be some one to get her 
 mother to do some sewing, and remained still. 
 
 It was a bright moonlight: night; the whole yard 
 was a lovely dapple of lights and shadows. Ellen 
 
 230 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 had a vivid perception of the beauty of it all, and also 
 that unrest and yearning which comes often to a young 
 girl in moonlight. This beauty and strangeness of 
 familiar scenes under the silver glamour of the moon 
 gave her, as it were, an assurance of other delights 
 and beauties of life besides those which she already 
 knew, and along with the assurance came that wild 
 yearning. Ellen seemed to scert her honey of life, 
 and at the same time the hunger for it leaped to her 
 consciousness. She had begun by thinking of what 
 Abby had said to her that afternoon, and then the train 
 of thought led her on and on. TShe quite ignored all 
 about the sordid ways and means of existence, about 
 toil and privation and children born to it. All at once 
 the conviction was strong upon her that love, and love 
 alone, was the chief end and purposed life, at once its 
 source and its result, the completion of its golden ring 
 of glory. Her thought, started in whatever direction, 
 seemed to slide always into that one all-comprehending 
 circle she could not get her imagination away from it. 
 She began to realize that the mind of mortal man could 
 not get away from the law which produced it. She be 
 gan to understand dimly, as one begins to understand 
 any great truth, that everything around her obeyed that 
 unwritten fundamental law of love, expressed it, sound 
 ed it, down to the leaves of the trees casting their flick 
 ering shadows on the silver field of moonlight, and the 
 long-drawn chorus of the insects of the summer nightH 
 She thought of Abby and how much she loved her ; then 
 that love seemed the step which gave her an impetus to 
 another love. She began to remember Granville Joy, how 
 he had kissed her that night over the fence and twice 
 since, how he had walked home with her from entertain 
 ments, how he had looked at her. She saw the boy s face 
 and his look as plain as if he stood before her, and/faer 
 heart leaped with a shock of pain which was joy*/ 
 
 231 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Then she thought of Robert Lloyd, and his face 
 came before her. Ellen had not thought as much 
 of Robert as he of her. For some two weeks after his 
 call she had watched for him to come again; she had 
 put on a pretty dress and been particular about her hair, 
 and had stayed at home expecting him; then when he 
 had not come, she had put him out of mind resolutely. 
 When her mother and aunt had joked her about him 
 she had been sensitive and half angry. "You know 
 it is nothing, mother/ she said; "he only came to 
 bring back my valedictory. You know he wouldn t 
 think of me. He ll marry somebody like Maud Hem 
 ingway." Maud Hemingway was the daughter of 
 the leading physician in Rowe, and regarded with a 
 mixture of spite and admiration by daughters of the 
 factory operatives. Maud Hemingway was attending 
 college, and rode a saddle-horse when home on her 
 vacations. She had been to Europe. 
 
 But that evening in the moonlight Ellen began 
 thinking again of Robert Lloyd. His face came before 
 her as plainly as Granville Joy s. She had arrived at 
 that stage when life began to be as a picture-gallery 
 of love. Through this and that face the goddess might 
 look, and the look was what she sought; as yet, the 
 man was a minor quantity. 
 
 All at once it seemed to Ellen, looking at her mental 
 picture of young Lloyd, that she could see love in his 
 face yet more plainly, more according to her conception 
 of it, than in the other. She began to build an air- 
 castle which had no reference whatever to Robert s 
 position, and to his being the nephew of the richest 
 factory-owner in Rowe, and so far as that went he had 
 not a whit the advantage of Granville Joy in her eyes. 
 But Robert s face wore to her more of the guise of that 
 for which the night and the moonlight, and her youth, 
 had made her long. So she began innocently to imag- 
 
 232 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ine a meeting with him at a picnic which would be held 
 some time at Liberty Park. She imagined their walk 
 ing side by side, through a lovely dapple of moonlight 
 like this, and saying things to each other. Then all 
 at once the man of her dreams touched her hand in a 
 dream, and a faintness swept over her. Then sud 
 denly, gathering shape out of the indetermination of 
 the shadows and the moonlight, came a man into the 
 yard, and Ellen thought with awe and delight that it 
 was he; but instead Granville Joy stood before her, 
 lifting his hat above his soft shock of hair. 
 
 "Hullo!" he said. 
 
 "Good-evening/ 7 responded Ellen, and Granville 
 Joy felt abashed. He lay awake half the night re 
 flecting that he should have greeted her with a " Good- 
 evening" instead of "Hullo/ as he had been used to 
 do in their school-days; that she w r as now a young 
 lady, and that Mr. Lloyd had accosted her differently. 
 Ellen rose with a feeling of disappointment that Gran 
 ville was himself, which is the hardest greeting possible 
 for a guest, involving the most subtle reproach in the 
 world the reproach for a man s own individuality. 
 
 "Oh, don t get up, Ellen," the young man said, 
 awkwardly. "Here I ll sit down here on the rock." 
 Then he flung himself down on the ledge of rock w r hich 
 cropped out like a bare rib of the earth between the 
 trees, and Ellen seated herself again in her chair. 
 
 " Beautiful night, ain t it?" said Granville. 
 
 Ellen noticed that Granville said "ain t" instead of 
 "isn t," according to the fashion of his own family, 
 although he was recently graduated from the high- 
 school. Ellen had separated herself, although with 
 no disparaging reflections, from the language of her 
 family. She also noticed that Granville presently said 
 " wa n t " instead of " wasn t. " " Hot yesterday, wa n t 
 it?" said he. 
 
 16 233 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Yes, it was very warm/* replied Ellen. That 
 " wa n t " seemed to insert a tiny w r edge between them. 
 She would have flown at any one who had found fault 
 with her father and mother for saying "wa n t," but 
 with this young man in her own rank and day it was 
 different. It argued something in him, or a lack of 
 something. An indignation all out of proportion to the 
 offence seized her. It seemed to her that he had in 
 this simple fashion outraged that which was infinitely 
 higher than he himself. He had not lived up to her 
 thought of him, and fallen short by a little slip in Eng 
 lish which argued a slip in character. She wanted to 
 reproach him sharply to ask him if he had ever been 
 to school. 
 
 He noticed her manner was cool, and was as far as 
 the antipodes from suspecting the cause. He never 
 knew that he said "ain t" and "wa n t/ and would 
 die not knowing. All that he looked at was the sub 
 stance of thought behind the speech. And just then 
 he was farther than ever from thinking of it, for he 
 was single-hearted with Ellen. 
 
 The boy crept nearer her on the rock with a shy, nest 
 ling motion ; the moonlight shone full on his handsome 
 young face, giving it a stern quality. " Ellen, look at 
 here/ he said. 
 
 Then he stopped. Ellen waited, not dreaming what 
 was to follow. She had never had a proposal; then, 
 too, he had just been chased out of her mental perspec 
 tive by the other man. 
 
 "Look at here, Ellen," said Granville. He stopped 
 again ; then when he spoke his voice had an indescrib 
 ably solemn, beseeching quality. "Oh, Ellen/ he 
 said, reaching up and catching her hand. He dragged 
 himself nearer, leaned his cheek against her hand, 
 which it seemed to burn ; then he began kissing it with 
 soft, pouting lips. 
 
 234 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 Ellen tried to pull her hand away. "Let my hand 
 go this minute, Granville Joy/ she said, angrily. 
 
 The boy let her hand go immediately, and stood up, 
 leaning over her. 
 
 "Don t be angry; I didn t mean any harm, Ellen/ 
 he whispered. 
 
 " I shall be angry if you do such a thing again/ said 
 Ellen. "We aren t children; you have no right to do 
 such a thing, and you know it." 
 
 "But I thought maybe you wouldn t mind, Ellen/ 
 said Granville. Then he added, with his voice all 
 husky with emotion and a kind of fear: "Ellen, you 
 know how I feel about you. You know how I have 
 always felt." 
 
 Ellen made no reply. It seemed inconceivable that 
 she for the minute should not know his meaning, but 
 she was bewildered. 
 
 "You know I ve always counted on havin you for 
 my wife some day when we were both old enough," 
 said the boy, " and I ve gone to work now, and I hope 
 to get bigger pay before long, and " 
 
 Ellen rose with sudden realization. "Granville 
 Joy/ cried she, with something like panic in her voice, 
 " you must not ! Oh, if I had known ! I would not 
 have let you finish. I would not, Granville." She 
 caught his arm, and clung to it, and looked up at him 
 pitifully. "You know I wouldn t have let you finish," 
 she said. " Don t be hurt, Granville. " 
 
 The boy looked at her as if she had struck him. 
 
 "Oh, Ellen," he groaned. "Oh, Ellen, I always 
 thought you would!" 
 
 "I am not going to marry anybody/ said Ellen. 
 Her voice wavered in spite of herself; the young man s 
 look and voice were snaking her through weakness of 
 her own nature which she did not understand, but 
 which might be mightier than her strength. Some- 
 
 235 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thing crept into her tone which emboldened the young 
 man to seize her hand again. " You do, in spite of all 
 you say " he began; but just then a long shadow 
 fell athwart the moonlight, and Ellen snatched her hand 
 away imperceptibly, and young Lloyd stood before 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 GRANVILLE JOY was employed in Lloyd s, and 
 Robert had seen him that very day and spoken to him, 
 but he did not recognize him, not until Ellen spoke. 
 "This is Mr. Joy, Mr. Lloyd/ she said; "perhaps you 
 know him. He works in your uncle s shop." She 
 said it quite simply, as if it was a matter of course that 
 Robert was on speaking terms with all the employe s 
 in his uncle s factory. 
 
 Granville colored. "I saw Mr. Lloyd this afternoon 
 in the cutting-room," he said, "and we had some talk 
 together; but maybe he don t remember, there are so 
 many of us." Granville said "so many of us" with 
 an indescribably bitter emphasis. Suddenly his gentle 
 ness seemed changed to gall. It was the terrible protest 
 of one of the herd who goes along with the rest, yet realizes 
 it, and looks jever out from his common mass with fierce 
 eyes oflndividual dissent at the immutable conditions 
 of things. Immediately, when Granville saw the other 
 young man, this gentleman in his light summer clothes, 
 who bore about him no stain nor odor of toil, he felt 
 that here was Ellen s mate; that he was left behind. 
 He looked at him, not missing a detail of his superiority, 
 and he saw himself young and not ill-looking, but hope 
 lessly common, clad in awkward clothes; he smelled 
 the smell of leather that steamed up in his face from 
 his raiment and his body; and he looked at Ellen, fair 
 and white in her dainty muslin, and saw himself thrust 
 aside, as it were, by his own judgment as to the fitness 
 of things, but with no less bitterness. When he said 
 
 237 
 
vA* 
 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "there are so many of us," he felt the impulse of revo 
 lution in his heart ; that he would have liked to lead the 
 "many of us" against this young aristocrat. But 
 Robert smiled, though somewhat stiffly, and bowed. 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Joy/ he said; " I do remember, 
 but for a minute I did not." 
 
 "I don t wonder/ said Granville, and again he 
 repeated, " There are so many of us," in that sullen, 
 bitter tone. 
 
 " What is the matter with the fellow?" thought Robert ; 
 but he said, civilly enough : " Oh, not at all, Mr. Joy. 
 I will admit there are a good many of you, as you say, 
 but that would not prevent my remembering a man to 
 whom I was speaking only a few hours ago. It was 
 only the half-light, and I did not expect to see you 
 here/ 
 
 "Mr. Joy is a very old friend of mine/ Ellen said, 
 quickly, with a painful impulse of loyalty. The moment 
 she saw her old school-boy lover intimidated, and mani 
 festly at a disadvantage before this elegant young 
 gentleman, she felt a fierce instinct of partisanship. 
 She stood a little nearer to him. Granville s face light 
 ened, he looked at her gratefully, and Robert stared 
 from one to the other doubtfully. He began to wonder 
 if he had interrupted a love-scene, and was at once 
 pained with a curious, new pain, and indignant. Then, 
 too, he scarcely knew what to do. He had been sent 
 to ask Ellen to come into the parlor. 
 
 " My aunt is in the house/ he said. 
 
 "Your aunt?" 
 
 "Yes, my aunt, Miss Lennox/ 
 
 Ellen gave a great start, and stared at him. "Does 
 she want to see me?" she asked, abruptly. 
 
 Robert glanced at Granville. He was afraid of 
 being rude towards this possible lover, but the young 
 man was quick to perceive the situation, 
 
 238 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " I guess I must be going/ he said to Ellen. 
 
 "Must you hurry?" she returned, in the common, 
 polite rejoinder of her class in Rowe. 
 
 "Yes, I guess I must/ said Granville. He held 
 out his hand towards Ellen, then drew it away, but she 
 extended hers resolutely, and so forced his back again. 
 "Good-night/ she said, kindly, almost tenderly, and 
 again Robert thought with that sinking at his heart 
 that here was quite possibly the girl s lover, and all his 
 dreams were thrown away. 
 
 As for Granville, he glowed with a sudden triumph 
 over the other. Again he became almost sure that 
 Ellen loved him after all, that it was only her maiden 
 shyness which had led her to refuse him. He pressed 
 her hand hard, and held it as long as he dared ; then he 
 turned to Robert. "Til bid you good - evening, sir," 
 he said, with awkward dignity, and was gone. 
 
 " I will go in and see your aunt," Ellen said to Robert, 
 regarding him as she spoke with a startled expression. 
 It had flashed through her mind that Miss Lennox 
 had possibly come to confess the secret of so many 
 years ago, and she shrank with terror as before the 
 lowering of some storm of spirit. She knew how little 
 was required to lash her mother s violent nature into 
 fury. "She was not ?" she began to say to Robert, 
 then she stopped ; but he understood. " Don t be afraid, 
 Miss Brewster," he said, kindly. "It is not a matter 
 of by-gones, but the future. My aunt has a plan for 
 you which I think you will like." 
 
 Ellen looked at him wonderingly, but she went with 
 him across the moonlit yard into the house. 
 
 She found Miss Cynthia Lennox, fair and elegant in 
 a filmy black gown, and a broad black hat draped with 
 lace and violets shading her delicate, clear-cut face, 
 and her father and mother. Fanny s eyes were red. 
 She looked as if she had been running in fact, one 
 
 239 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 could easily hear her breathe across the room. " Ellen, 
 here is Miss Lennox/ she said. Ellen approached the 
 lady, who rose, and the two shook hands. "Good- 
 evening, Miss Brewster," said Cynthia, in the same 
 tone which she might have used towards a society 
 acquaintance. Ellen would never have known that 
 she had heard the voice before. As she remembered 
 it, it was full of intensest vibrations of maternal love 
 and tenderness and protection beyond anything which 
 she had ever heard in her own mother s voice. Now 
 it was all gone, and also the old look from her eyes. 
 Cynthia Lennox was, in fact, quite another woman to 
 the young girl from what she had been to the child. 
 In truth, she cared not one whit for Ellen, but she 
 was possessed with a stern desire of atonement, and 
 far stronger than her love was the appreciation of 
 what that mother opposite must have suffered during 
 that day and night when she had forcibly kept her 
 treasure. The agony of that she could present to her 
 consciousness very vividly, but she could not awaken 
 the old love which had been the baby s for this 
 young girl. Cynthia felt much more affection for 
 Fanny than for Ellen. When she had unfolded her 
 plan for sending Ellen to college, and Fanny had al 
 most gone hysterical with delight, she found it almost 
 impossible to keep her tears back. She knew so acute 
 ly how this other woman felt that she almost seemed 
 to lose her own individuality. She began to be filled 
 with a vicarious adoration of Ellen, which was, how 
 ever, dissipated the moment she actually saw her. 
 She realized that this grown-up girl, who could no 
 longer be cuddled and cradled, was nothing to her, 
 but her sympathy with the mother remained. 
 
 Ellen remained standing after she had greeted Cynthia. 
 Robert went over to the mantle-piece and stood leaning 
 against it. He was completely puzzled and disturbecj 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 by the whole affair. Ellen looked at Cynthia, then at 
 her parents. " Ellen, come here, child/ said her father, 
 suddenly, and Ellen went over to him, sitting on the 
 plush sofa beside her mother. 
 
 Andrew reached up and took hold of Ellen s hands, 
 and drew her down on his knee as if she had been a 
 child. "Ellen, look here," he said, in an intense, al 
 most solemn voice, "father has got something to tell 
 you." 
 
 Fanny began to weep almost aloud. Cynthia looked 
 straight ahead, keeping her features still with an effort. 
 Robert studied the carpet pattern. 
 
 "Look here, Ellen," said Andrew; "you know that 
 father has always wanted to do everything for you, but 
 he ain t able to do all he would like to. God hasn t 
 prospered him, and it seems likely that he won t be 
 able to do any more than he has done, if so much, in 
 the years to come. You know father has always wanted 
 to send you to college, and give you an extra education 
 so you could teach in a school where you would make 
 a good living, and now here Miss Lennox says she 
 heard your composition, and she has heard a good deal 
 about you from Mr. Harris, how well you stood in the 
 high-school, and she says she is willing to send you to 
 Vassar College." 
 
 Ellen turned pale. She looked long at her father, 
 whose pathetic, worn, half-triumphant, half -pitiful face 
 was so near her own ; then she looked at Cynthia, then 
 back again. "To Vassar College?" she said. 
 
 "Yes, Ellen, to Vassar College, and she offers to 
 clothe you while you are there, but we thank her, and 
 tell her that ain t necessary. We can furnish your 
 clothes." 
 
 "Yes, we can," said Fanny, in a sobbing voice, 
 but with a flash of pride. 
 
 "Well, what do you say to it, Ellen?" asked Andrew, 
 Q 241 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and he asked it with the expression of a martyr. At 
 that moment indescribable pain was the uppermost 
 sensation in his heart, over all his triumph and glad 
 ness for Ellen. First came the anticipated agony of 
 parting with her for the greater part of four years, 
 then the pain of letting another do for Ms daughter 
 what he wished to do himself. No man would ever look 
 in Ellen s eyes with greater love and greater shrinking 
 from the pain which might come of love than Andrew 
 at that moment. 
 
 "But-" said Ellen; then she stopped. 
 
 "What, Ellen?" 
 
 "Can you spare me for so long? Ought I not to 
 be earning money before that, if you don t have much 
 work?" 
 
 "I guess we can spare you as far as all that goes/ 
 cried Andrew. "I guess we can. I guess we don t 
 want you to support us." 
 
 " I rather guess we don t," cried Fanny. 
 
 Ellen looked at her father a moment longer with an 
 adorable look, which Robert saw with a sidewise glance 
 of his downcast eyes, then at her mother. Then she 
 slid from her father s knee and crossed the room and 
 stood before Cynthia. "I don t know how to thank 
 you enough," she said, "but I thank you very much, 
 and not only for myself but for them"; she made a 
 slight, graceful, backward motion of her shoulder tow 
 ards her parents. " I will study hard and try to do you 
 credit," said she. There was something about Ellen s 
 direct, childlike way of looking at her, and her clear 
 speech, which brought back to Cynthia the little girl 
 of so many years ago. A warm flush came over her 
 delicate cheeks; her eyes grew bright with tenderness. 
 
 "I have no doubt as to your doing your best, my 
 dear," she said, "and it gives me great pleasure to do 
 this for you." 
 
 242 
 
I LL STUDY HARD AND TRY TO DO YOU CREDIT 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 With that, said with a graceful softness which was 
 charming, she made as if to rise, but Ellen still stood 
 before her. She had something more to say. " If ever 
 I am able/ she said "and I shall be able some day 
 if I have my health I will repay you." Ellen spoke 
 with the greatest sweetness, yet with an inflexibility 
 of pride evident in her face. Cynthia smiled. "Very 
 well/ she said, " if you feel better to leave it in that way. 
 If ever you are able you shall repay me; in the mean 
 time I consider that I am amply paid in the pleasure 
 it gives me to do it." Cynthia held out her slender 
 hand to Ellen, who took it gratefully, yet a little con 
 strainedly. 
 
 In the opposite corner the doll sat staring at them 
 with eyes of blank blue and her vacuous smile. A 
 vague sense of injury was over Ellen, in spite of her 
 delight and her gratitude a sense of injury which 
 she could not fathom, and for which she chided herself. 
 However, Andrew felt it also. 
 
 After this surprising benefactress and Robert had 
 gone, after repeated courtesies and assurances of obli 
 gation on both sides, Andrew turned to Fanny. " What 
 does she do it for?" he asked. 
 
 "Hush; she ll hear you." 
 
 "I can t help it. What does she do it for? Ellen 
 isn t anything to her." 
 
 Fanny looked at him with a meaning smile and nod 
 which made her tear-stained face fairly grotesque. 
 
 "What do you mean lookhY that way?" demanded 
 Andrew. 
 
 " Oh, you wait and see," said Fanny, with meaning, 
 and would say no more. She was firm in her conclusion 
 that Cynthia was educating their girl to marry her 
 favorite nephew, but that never occurred to Andrew. 
 He continued to feel, while supremely grateful and 
 overwhelmed with delight at this good fortune for Ellen, 
 
 243 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 the distrust and resentment of a proud soul under obli 
 gation for which he sees no adequate reason, and es 
 pecially when it is directed towards a beloved one to 
 whom he would fain give of his own strength and 
 treasure. 
 
 As for Ellen, she was in a tumult of wonder and de 
 light, but when she looked at the doll in her corner 
 there came again that vague sense of injury, and she 
 felt again as if in some way she were being robbed in 
 stead of being made the object of benefit. 
 
 After Ellen had gone to bed that night she wondered 
 if she ought to go to college, and maybe gain thereby 
 a career which was beyond anything her own loved 
 ones had known, and if it were not better for her to go 
 to work in the shop after all. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Zelotes was made acquainted with the 
 plan for sending Ellen to Vassar she astonished Fanny. 
 Fanny ran over the next morning, after Andrew had 
 gone to work, to tell her mother-in-law. She sat a 
 few minutes in the sitting-room, where the old lady was 
 knitting, before she unfolded the burden of her errand. 
 
 " Cynthia Lennox came to our house last night with 
 Robert Lloyd/ she said, finally. 
 
 "Did they?" remarked Mrs. Zelotes, who had known 
 perfectly well that they had come, having recognized 
 the Lennox carriage in the moonlight, and having 
 been ever since devoured with curiosity, which she 
 would have died rather than betray. 
 
 " Yes, they did/ said Fanny. Then she added, after 
 a pause which gave wonderful impressiveness to the 
 news, " Cynthia Lennox wants to send Ellen to college 
 to Vassar College." 
 
 Then she jumped, for the old woman seemed to spring 
 at her like released wire. 
 
 "Send her to college!" said she. "What does she 
 want to send her to college for? What right has Cyn 
 thia Lennox got to send Ellen Brewster anywhere?" 
 
 Fanny stared at her dazedly. 
 
 "What right has she got interfering?" demanded 
 Mrs. Zelotes again. 
 
 "Why," replied Fanny, stammering, "she thought 
 Ellen was so smart. She heard her valedictory, and 
 the school-teacher had talked about her, what a good 
 scholar she was, and she thought it would be nice for 
 
 245 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her to go to college, and she should be very much obliged 
 herself, and feel that we were granting her a great pleas 
 ure and privilege if we allowed her to send Ellen to 
 Vassar." 
 
 All unconsciously Fanny imitated to the life Cyn 
 thia s soft elegance of speech and language. 
 
 " Pshaw !" said Mrs. Zelotes; but still she said it not 
 so much angrily as doubtfully. "It s the first time 
 I ever heard of Cynthia Lennox doing such a thing as 
 that/ said she. " I never knew she was given to send 
 ing girls to college. I never heard of her giving any 
 thing to anybody." 
 
 Fanny looked mysteriously at her mother-in-law 
 with sudden confidence. "Look here/ she said. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 The two women looked at each other, and neither 
 said a word, but the meaning of one flashed to the other 
 like telegraphy. 
 
 "Do you s pose that s it?" said Mrs. Zelotes, her old 
 face relaxing into half-shamed, half-pleased smiles. 
 
 " Yes, I do," said Fanny, emphatically. 
 
 "You do?" 
 
 "Yes, I ain t a doubt of it." 
 
 " He did act as if he couldn t take his eyes off her 
 at the exhibition," agreed Mrs. Zelotes, reflectively; 
 "mebbe you re right." 
 
 " I know I m right just as well as if I d seen it." 
 
 "Well, mebbe you are. What does Andrew say?" 
 
 " Oh, he wishes he was the one to do it." 
 
 " Of course he does he s a Brewster," said his mother. 
 
 " But he s got sense enough to be pleased that Ellen 
 has got the chance." 
 
 " He ain t any more pleased than I be at any 
 thing that s a good chance for Ellen," said the grand 
 mother ; but all the same, after Fanny had gone, her 
 joy had a sharp sting for her. She was not one who 
 
 246 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 could take a gift to her heart without feeling its sharp 
 edge. 
 
 Had Ellen s sentiment been analyzed, she felt in 
 something the same way that her grandmother did. 
 However, she had begun to dream definitely about 
 Robert, and the reflection had come, too, that this might 
 make her more his equal, as nearly his equal as Maud 
 Hemingway. 
 
 Maud Hemingway went to college, and so would 
 she. Of the minor accessories of wealth she thought 
 not so much. She looked at her hands, which were 
 very small and as delicately white as flowers, and re 
 flected with a sense of comfort, of which she was 
 ashamed, that she would not need ever to stain them 
 with leather now. She looked at the homeward stream 
 of dingy girls from the shops, and thought with a sense 
 of escape that she would never have to join them ; but 
 she was conscious of loving Abby better, and Maria, 
 who had also entered Lloyd s. Abby, when she heard 
 the news about Vassar, had looked at her with a sort 
 of fierce exultation. 
 
 "Thank the Lord, you re out of it, anyhow!" she 
 cried, fervently, as a soul might in the midst of flames. 
 
 Maria had smiled at her with the greatest sweetness 
 and a certain wistfulness. Maria was growing deli 
 cate, and seemed to inherit her father s consumptive 
 tendencies. 
 
 "I am so glad, Ellen/ she said. Then she added, 
 " I suppose we sha n t see so much of you." 
 
 "Of course we sha n t, Maria Atkins," interposed 
 Abby, " and it won t be fitting we should. It won t 
 be best for Ellen to associate with shop-girls when she s 
 going to Vassar College." 
 
 But Ellen had cast an impetuous arm around a neck 
 of each. 
 
 "If ever I do such a thing as that!" said she. "If 
 247 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ever I turn a cold shoulder to either of you for such a 
 reason as that! What s Vassar jCollege to hearts? 
 That s at the bottom of everything in this world," any 
 how. I guess youll see it won t make any difference 
 unless you keep on thinking such things. If you do 
 if you think I can do anything like that I won t love 
 you so much." 
 
 Ellen faced them both with gathering indignation. 
 Suddenly this ignoble conception of herself in the minds 
 of her friends stung her to resentment. But Abby 
 seized her in two wiry little arms. 
 
 " I never did, I never did!" she cried. " Don t I know 
 what you are made of, Ellen Brewster? Don t you 
 think I know? But after all, it might be better for you 
 if you were worse. That was all I meant." 
 
 Ellen, one afternoon, set out in her pretty challis, a 
 white ground with long sprays of blue flowers running 
 over it, and a blue ribbon at her neck and waist, and 
 her leghorn hat with white ribbons, and a knot of 
 forget-me-nots under the brim. She wore her one pair 
 of nice gloves, too, but those she did not put on until 
 she reached the corner of the street where Cynthia 
 lived. Then she rubbed them on carefully, holding up 
 her challis skirts under one arm. 
 
 Cynthia was at home, seated on the back veranda, 
 in a rattan chair, with a book which she was not read 
 ing. Ellen stood before her, in her cheap attire, which 
 she wore with an air which seemed to make it pre 
 cious, such faith she had in it. Ellen regarded her 
 coarse blue-flowered challis with an innocent admiration 
 which seemed almost able to glorify it into silk. Cynthia 
 took in at a glance the exceeding commonness of it all ; 
 she saw the hat, the like of which could be seen in the 
 milliners windows at fabulously low prices; the foam 
 of spurious lace and the spray of wretched blue flowers 
 made her shudder. "The poor child, she must have 
 
 248 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 something better than that/ she thought, and in 
 sensibly she also thought that the girl must lose her 
 evident faith in the splendor of such attire; must change 
 her standard of taste. She rose and greeted Ellen 
 sweetly, though somewhat reservedly. When the two 
 were seated opposite each other, Cynthia tried to talk 
 pleasantly, but all the time with a sub-consciousness 
 as one will have of some deformity which must be 
 ignored. The girl looked so common to her in this 
 array that she began to have a hopeless feeling of disgust 
 about it all. Was it not manifestly unwise to try to 
 elevate a girl who took such evident satisfaction in a 
 gown like that, in a hat like that? Ellen wore her 
 watch and chain ostentatiously. The watch was too 
 large for a chatelaine, but she had looped the heavy 
 chain across her bosom, and pinned it with the brooch 
 which Abby Atkins had given her, so it hung suspended. 
 Cynthia riveted her eyes helplessly upon that as she 
 talked. 
 
 " I hope you are having a pleasant vacation," said 
 she, as she looked at the watch, and all at once Ellen 
 knew. 
 
 Ellen replied that she was having a very pleasant 
 vacation, then she plunged at once into the subject of 
 her call, though with inward trembling. 
 
 " Miss Lennox/ said she and she followed the lines 
 of a little speech which she had been rehearsing to 
 herself all the way there "I am very grateful to you 
 for what you propose doing for me. It will make a 
 difference to me during my whole life. I cannot begin 
 to tell you how grateful I am/ 
 
 "I am very grateful to be allowed to do it," replied 
 Cynthia, with her unfailing refrain of gentle politeness, 
 but a kindly glance was in her eyes. Something in 
 the girl s tone touched her. It was exceedingly earnest, 
 with the simple earnestness of childhood. Moreover, 
 17 249 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen was regarding her with great, steadfast, serious 
 eyes, like a baby s w r ho shrinks and yet will have her 
 will of information. 
 
 " I wanted to say/ Ellen continued and her voice 
 became insensibly hushed, and she cast a glance around 
 at the house and the leafy grounds, as if to be sure 
 that no one was within hearing "that I should never 
 under any circumstances have said anything regarding 
 what happened so long ago. That I never have and 
 never should have, that I never thought of doing such 
 a thing." 
 
 Then the elder woman s face flushed a burning red, 
 and she knew at once what the girl had suspected. 
 "You might proclaim it on the house-tops if it would 
 please you/ she cried out, vehemently. "If you 
 think if you think " 
 
 "Oh, I do not!" cried Ellen, in an agony of plead 
 ing. "Indeed, I do not. It was only that I feared 
 lest you might think I would be mean enough to 
 tell." 
 
 " I would have told, myself, long ago if there had been 
 only myself to consider/ said Cynthia, still red with 
 anger, and her voice strained. All at once she seemed 
 to Ellen more like the woman of her childhood. " Yes, 
 I would/ said she, hotly "I will now." 
 
 "Oh, I beg you not!" cried Ellen. 
 
 " I will go with you this minute and tell your moth 
 er," Cynthia said, rising. 
 
 Ellen sprang up and moved towards her as if to 
 <push her back in her chair. "Oh, please don t!" she 
 cried. "Please don t. You don t know mother; and it 
 would do no good. It was only because I wondered 
 if you could have thought I would tell, if I would be so 
 mean." 
 
 "And you thought, perhaps, I was bribing you not 
 to tell, with Vassar College," Cynthia said, suddenly. 
 
 250 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Well, you have suspected me of something which was 
 undeserved." 
 
 "I am very sorry/ Ellen said. "I did not suspect, 
 really, but I do not know why you do this for me." She 
 said the last with her steady eyes of interrogation on 
 Cynthia s face. 
 
 "You know the reasons I have given." 
 
 "I do not think they were the only ones/ Ellen 
 replied, stoutly. "I do not think my valedictory was 
 so good as to warrant so much, and I do not think I 
 am so smart as to warrant so much, either." 
 
 Cynthia laughed. She sat down again. "Well," 
 she said, "you are not one to swallow praise greedily." 
 Then her tone changed. " I owe it to you to tell you why 
 I wish to do this," she said, "and I will. You are an 
 honest girl, with yourself as well as with other people [ 
 too honest, perhaps, and you deserve that I should 
 be honest with you. I am not doing this for you in the 
 least, my dear." 
 
 Ellen stared at her. 
 
 "No, I am not," repeated Cynthia. "You are a 
 very clever, smart girl, I am sure, and it will be a nice 
 thing for you to have a better education, and be able 
 to take a higher place in the world, but I am not doing 
 it for you. When you were a little child I would have 
 done everything, given my life almost, for you, but I 
 never care so much for children when they grow up. 
 I am not doing this for you, but for your mother." 
 
 " My mother?" said Ellen. 
 
 " Yes, your mother. I know what agony your mother 
 must have been in, that time when I kept you, and I 
 want to atone in some way. I think this is a good way. 
 I don t think you need to hesitate about letting me do it. 
 You also owe a little atonement to your mother. It 
 was not right for you to run away, in the first place." 
 
 "Yes, I was very naughty to run away," Ellen said, 
 251 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 starting. She rose, and held out her hand. "I hope 
 you will forgive me/ she said. "I am very grateful, 
 and it will make my father and mother happier than 
 anything else could, but indeed I don t think it is so 
 long ago that there was any need " 
 
 " I do, for the sake of my own distress over it/ Cyn 
 thia said, shortly. " Suppose, now, we drop the sub 
 ject, my dear. There is a taint in the New England 
 blood, and you have it, and you must fight it. It is a 
 suspicion of the motives of a good deed which will 
 often poison all the good effect from it. I don t know 
 where the taint came from. Perhaps the Pilgrim Fa 
 thers , being necessarily always on the watch for the 
 savage behind his gifts, have affected their descendants. 
 Anyway, it is there. I suppose I have it." 
 
 "I am very sorry," said Ellen. 
 
 "I also am sorry," said Cynthia. "I did you a 
 wrong, and your mother a wrong, years ago. I 
 wonder at myself now, but you don t know the tempta 
 tion. You will never know how you looked to me that 
 night." 
 
 Cynthia s voice took on a tone of ineffable tenderness 
 and yearning. Ellen saw again the old expression 
 in her face; suddenly she looked as before, young and 
 beautiful, and full of a boundless attraction. The 
 girl s heart fairly leaped towards her with an impulse 
 of affection. She could in that minute have fallen at 
 her feet, have followed her to the end of the world. A 
 great love and admiration which had gotten its full 
 growth in a second under the magic of a look and 
 a tone shook her from head to foot. She went 
 close to Cynthia, and leaned over her, putting her 
 round, young face down to the elder woman s. " Oh, 
 I love you, I love you," whispered Ellen, with a fer 
 vor which was strange to her. 
 
 But Cynthia only kissed her lightly on her cheek, 
 252 
 
THE PORTION OP L 
 
 and pushed her away softly. " Thank you, my dear/ 
 she said. " I am glad you came and spoke to me frank 
 ly, and I am glad we have come to an understanding." 
 Ellen, after she had taken her leave, was more in love 
 than she had ever been in her life, and with another 
 woman. She thought of Cynthia with adoration; she 
 dreamed about her; the feeling of receiving a benefit 
 from her hand became immeasurably sweet. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ELLEN, under the influence of that old fascination 
 which Cynthia had exerted over her temporarily in her 
 childhood, and which had now assumed a new lease 
 of life, would have loved to see her every day, but along 
 with the fascination came a great timidity and fear of 
 presuming. She felt instinctively that the fascination 
 was an involuntary thing on Cynthia s part. She 
 kept repeating to herself what she had said, that she 
 was not sending her to Vassar because she loved her. 
 Strangely enough, this did not make Ellen unhappy 
 in the least, she was quite content to do all the loving 
 and adoring herself. She made a sort of divinity of 
 the older woman, and who expects a divinity to step 
 down from her marble heights, and love and caress? 
 Ellen began to remember all Cynthia s ways and looks, 
 as a scholar remembers with a view to imitation. She 
 became her disciple. She began to move like Cynthia, 
 and to speak like her, though she did not know it. Her 
 imitation was totally unconscious ; indeed, it was hardly 
 to be called imitation ; it was rather the following out of 
 the leading of that image of Cynthia which was always 
 present before her mind. Ellen saw Cynthia very 
 seldom. Once or twice she arrayed herself in her best 
 and made a formal call of gratitude, and once Fanny 
 went with her. Ellen saw the incongruity of her mother 
 in Cynthia s drawing-room with a torture which she 
 never forgot. Going home she clung hard to her 
 mother s arm all the way. She was fairly fierce with 
 love and loyalty. She was so indignant with herself 
 
 254 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 that she had seen the incongruity. " I think our par 
 lor is enough sight prettier than hers/ she said, de 
 fiantly, when they reached home and the hideous 
 lamp was lighted. Ellen looked around the ornate 
 room, and then at her mother, as with a challenge in 
 behalf of loyalty, and of that which underlies ex 
 ternals. 
 
 "I rather guess it is," agreed Fanny, happily, "and 
 I don t s pose it cost half so much. I dare say that 
 mat on her hearth cost as much as all our plush furni 
 ture and the carpet, and it is a dreadful dull, homely 
 thing." 
 
 "Yes, it is," said Ellen. 
 
 " I wish Fd been able to keep my hands as white as 
 Miss Lennox s, an I wish I d had time to speak so soft 
 and slow," said Fanny, wistfully. Then Ellen had 
 her by both shoulders, and was actually shaking her 
 with a passion to which she very seldom gave rein. 
 
 Mother," she cried "mother, you know better, you 
 know there is nobody in the whole world to me like my 
 own mother, and never will be. It isn t being beautiful, 
 nor speaking in a soft voice, nor dressing well, it s the 
 being you you. You know I love you best, mother, 
 you know, and I love my own home best, and everything 
 that is my own best, and I always will." Ellen was 
 almost w r eeping. 
 
 "You silly child," said Fanny, tenderly. "Mother 
 knows you love her best, but she wishes for your sake, 
 and especially since you are going to have advantages 
 that she never had, that she was a little different." 
 
 "I don t, I don t," said Ellen, fiercely. "I want you 
 just as you are, just exactly as you are, mother." 
 
 Fanny laughed tearfully, and rubbed her coarse 
 black head against Ellen s lovingly with a curious, 
 cat-like motion, then bade her run away or she would 
 not get her dress done. A dressmaker was coming for 
 
 255 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 a whole week to the Brewster house to make Ellens 
 outfit. Mrs. Zelotes had furnished most of the materi 
 als, and Andrew was to pay the dressmaker. "You 
 can take a little more of that money out of the bank/ 
 Fanny said. " I want Ellen to go looking so she won t 
 be ashamed before the other girls, and I don t want 
 Cynthia Lennox thinking she ain t well enough dressed, 
 and we ought to have let her do it. As for being be 
 holden to her for Ellen s clothes, I won t." 
 
 "I rather guess not," said Andrew, but he was sick 
 at heart. Only that afternoon the man from whom he 
 had borrowed the money to buy Ellen s watch and chain 
 had asked him for it. He had not a cent in advance 
 for his weekly pay; he could not see where the money 
 for Ellen s clothes was coming from. It was long 
 since the " Golden Hope " had been quoted in the stock- 
 list, but the next morning Andrew purchased a morn 
 ing paper. He had stopped taking one regularly. 
 He put on his spectacles, and spread out the paper in 
 his shaking hands, and scrutinized the stock-list eager 
 ly, but he could not find what he wanted. The " Golden 
 Hope " had long since dropped to a still level below all 
 record of fluctuations. A young man passing to his 
 place at the bench looked over his shoulder. "Count 
 ing up your dividends, Brewster?" he asked, with a 
 grin. 
 
 Andrew folded up the paper gloomily and made no 
 reply. 
 
 " Irish dividends, maybe," said the man, with a chuckle 
 at his own wit, and a backward roll of a facetious eye. 
 
 "Oh, shut up, you re too smart to live," said the 
 man who stood next at the bench. He was a young 
 fellow who had been a school-mate of Ellen in the gram 
 mar-school. He had left to go to work when she had 
 entered the high-school. His name was Dixon. He 
 was wiry and alert, with a restless sparkle of bright eyes 
 
 256 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 in a grimy face, and he cut the leather with lightning- 
 like rapidity. Dixon had always thought Ellen the 
 most beautiful girl in Rowe. He looked after Andrew 
 with a sharp pain of sympathy when he went away 
 with the roll of newspaper sticking out of his pocket. 
 
 " Poor old chap/ he said to the facetious man, thrust 
 ing his face angrily towards him. " He has had a devil 
 of a time since he begun to grow old. You ought to 
 be ashamed of yourself. Wait till you begin to drop 
 behind. It s what s bound to come to the whole boiling 
 of us." 
 
 "Mind your jaw/ said the first man, with a scowl. 
 
 "You d better mind yours/ said Dixon, slashing 
 furiously at the leather. 
 
 That noon Dixon offered Andrew, shamefacedly, tak 
 ing him aside lest the other men see, a piece of pie 
 of a superior sort which his mother had put into his 
 dinner bag, but Andrew thanked him kindly and re 
 fused it. He could eat nothing whatever that noon. 
 He kept thinking about the dressmaker, and how Fanny 
 would ask him again to take some of that money out 
 of the bank to pay her, and how the money was already 
 taken out. 
 
 That evening, when he sat down to the tea-table 
 furnished with the best china and frosted cake in honor 
 of the dressmaker, and heard the radiant talk about 
 Ellen s new frills and tucks, he had a cold feeling at 
 his heart. He was ashamed to look at the dressmaker. 
 
 "You won t know your daughter when we get her 
 fixed up for Vassar," she told Andrew, with a smirk 
 which covered her face with a network of wrinkles 
 under her blond fluff of hair. 
 
 "Do have some more cake, Miss Higgins," said 
 Fanny. She was radiant. The image of her daughter 
 in her new gowns had gone far to recompense her for all 
 her disappointments in life, and they had not been few. 
 
 257 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "What, after all did it matter?" she asked herself, "if 
 a woman was growing old, if she had to work hard, 
 if she did not know where the next dollar was coming 
 from, if all the direct personal savor was fast passing 
 out of existence, when one had a daughter who looked 
 like that?" Ellen, in a new blue dress, was ravishing. 
 The mother looked at her when she was trying it on, 
 with the possession of love, and the dressmaker as if 
 she herself had created her. 
 
 After supper Ellen had to try on the dress again for 
 her father, and turn about slowly that he might see 
 all its fine points. 
 
 "There, what do you think of that, Andrew?" asked 
 Fanny, triumphantly. 
 
 "Ain t she a lady?" asked the dressmaker. 
 
 " It is very pretty," said Andrew, smiling with gloomy 
 eyes. Then he heaved a great sigh, and went out of 
 the south door to the steps. "Your father is tired 
 to-night," Fanny said to Ellen with a meaning of 
 excuse for the dressmaker. 
 
 The dressmaker reflected shrewdly on Andrew s 
 sigh when she was on her way home. "Men don t 
 sigh that way unless there s money to pay," she 
 thought. "I don t believe but he has been speculat 
 ing." Then she wondered if there was any doubt 
 about her getting her pay, and concluded that she 
 would ask for it from day to day to make sure. 
 
 So the next night after tea she asked, with one of her 
 smirks of amiability, if it would be convenient for Mrs. 
 Brewster to pay her that night. "I wouldn t ask for 
 it until the end of the week," said she, " but I have a 
 bill to pay." She said "bill" with a murmur which 
 carried conviction of its deception. Fanny flushed 
 angrily. " Of course," said she, " Mr. Brewster can pay 
 you just as well every night if you need it." Fanny 
 emphasized the " need " maliciously. Then she turned 
 
 258 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to Andrew. " Andre w," said she, "Miss Higgins 
 needs the money, if you can pay her for yesterday 
 and to-day." 
 
 Andrew turned pale. "Yes, of course/ he stam 
 mered. "How much?" 
 
 "Six dollars," said Fanny, and in her tone was un 
 mistakable meaning of the clearness of the price. The 
 dressmaker was flushed, but her thin mouth was set 
 hard. It was as much as to say, "Well, I don t care 
 so long as I get my money." She was unmarried, 
 and her lonely condition had worked up her spirit into 
 a strong attitude of defiance against all masculine odds. 
 She had once considered men from a matrimonial point 
 of view. She had wondered if this one and that one / 
 wanted to marry her. Now she was past that, and 
 considered with equal sharpness if this one or that one 
 wanted to cheat her. She had missed men s love through 
 some failing either of theirs or hers. She did not know 
 which, but she was determined that she would not lose 
 money. So she bore Fanny s insulting emphasis with 
 rigidity, and waited for her pay. 
 
 Andrew pulled out his old pocket-book, and counted 
 the bills. Miss Higgins saw that he took every bill in it, 
 unless there were some in another compartment, and 
 of that she could not be quite sure. But Andrew knew. 
 He would not have another penny until the next week 
 when he received his pay. In the meantime there was a 
 bill due at the grocery store, and one at the market, 
 and there was the debt for Ellen s watch. However, 
 he felt as if he would rather owe every man in Rowe 
 than this one small, sharp woman. He felt the scorn 
 lurking within her like a sting. She seemed to him 
 like some venomous insect. He went out to the door 
 step again, and wondered if she would want her pay 
 the next night when she went home,. 
 
 259 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ELLEN had a flower-garden behind the house, and 
 a row of sweet-peas which was her pride. It had oc 
 curred to her that she might venture, although Cynthia 
 Lennox had her great garden and conservatories, to 
 carry her a bunch of these sweet-peas. She had asked 
 her mother what she thought about it. " Why, of course, 
 carry her some if you want to," said Fanny. " I don t 
 see why you shouldn t. I dare say she s got sweet- 
 peas, but yours are uncommon handsome, and, any 
 way, it ought to please her to have some given her. 
 It ain t altogether what s given, it s the giving." 
 
 So Ellen had cut a great bouquet of the delicate flow 
 ers, selecting the shades carefully, and set forth. She 
 was as guiltily conscious as a lover that she was mak 
 ing an excuse to see Miss Lennox. She hurried along 
 in delight and trepidation, her great bouquet shed 
 ding a penetrating fragrance around her, her face 
 gleaming white out of the dusk. She had to pass 
 Granville Joy s house on her way, and saw with some 
 dismay, as she drew near, a figure leaning over the 
 gate. 
 
 He pushed open the gate when she drew near, and 
 stood waiting. 
 
 " Good - evening, Ellen," he said. He was mindful 
 not to say " Hullo " again. He bowed with a piteous 
 imitation of Robert Lloyd, but Ellen did not notice it. 
 
 "Good-evening," she returned, rather stiffly, then 
 she added, in a very gentle voice, to make amends, that 
 it was a beautiful night. 
 
 260 
 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 The young man cast an appreciative glance at the 
 crescent moon in the jewel - like blue overhead, and at 
 the soft shadows of the trees. 
 
 " Yes, beautiful/ he replied, with a sort of gratitude, 
 as if the girl had praised him instead of the night. 
 
 "May I walk along with you?" he asked, falling into 
 step with her. 
 
 " I am going to take these sweet-peas to Miss Len 
 nox/ said Ellen, without replying directly. 
 
 She was in terror lest Granville should renew his 
 appeal of a few weeks before, and she was in terror of 
 her own pity for him, and also of that mysterious im 
 pulse and longing which sometimes seized her to her 
 own wonder and discomfiture. Sometimes, in think 
 ing of Granville Joy, and his avowal of love, and the 
 touch of his hand on hers, and his lips on hers, she felt, 
 although she knew she did not love him, a softening 
 of her heart and a quickening of her pulse which made 
 her wonder as to her next movement, if it might be 
 something which she had not planned. And always, 
 after thinking of Granville, she thought of Robert 
 Lloyd; some mysterious sequence seemed to be estab 
 lished between the two in the girl s mind, though she 
 was not in love with either. 
 
 Ellen was just at that period almost helpless before 
 the demands of her own nature. No great stress in 
 her life had occurred to awaken her to a stanchness 
 either of resistance or yielding. She was in the full 
 current of her own emotion-s, which, added to a goodly 
 flood inherited from the repressed passion of New Eng 
 land ancestors, had a strong pull upon her feet. Soon- 
 er or later she would be given that hard shake of life 
 which precipitates and organizes in all strong natures, 
 but just now she was in a ferment. She walked along 
 under the crescent moon, with the young man at her 
 side whose every thought and imagination was dwell- 
 
 261 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ing upon her with love. She was conscious of a ten 
 dency of her own imagination in his direction, or rather 
 in the direction of the love and passion which he repre 
 sented, and all the time her heart was filled with the 
 ideal image of another woman. She was prostrated 
 with that hero-worship which belongs to young and 
 virgin souls, and yet she felt the drawing of that 
 other admiration which is more earthly and more fas 
 cinating, as it shows the jewel tints in one s own soul 
 as well as in the other. 
 
 As for Granville Joy, who had scrubbed his hands 
 and face well with scented soap to take away the odor 
 of the leather, and put on a clean shirt and collar, being 
 always prepared for the possibility of meeting this 
 dainty young girl whom he loved, he walked along by 
 her side, casting, from time to time, glances which were 
 pure admiration at the face over the great bunch of 
 sweet-peas. 
 
 "Don t you want me to carry them for you?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " No, thank you/ replied Ellen. " They are nothing 
 to carry." 
 
 "They re real pretty flowers," said Granville, tim 
 idly. 
 
 "Yes, I think they are." 
 
 "Mother planted some, but hers didn t come up. 
 Mother has got some beautiful nasturtiums. Perhaps 
 you would like some," he said, eagerly. 
 
 "No, thank you, I have some myself," Ellen said, 
 rather coldly. " I m just as much obliged to you." 
 
 Granville quivered a little and shrank as a dog might 
 under a blow. He saw this dainty girl-shape floating 
 along at his side in a flutter of wonderful draperies, 
 one hand holding up her skirts with maddening reve 
 lations of whiteness. If a lily could hold up her petals 
 out of the dust she might do it in the same fashion as 
 
 262 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen held her skirts, with no coarse clutching nor crump 
 ling, not immodestly, but rather with disclosures of mod 
 esty itself. Ellen s wonderful daintiness was one of 
 her chief charms. There was an immaculateness about 
 her attire and her every motion which seemed to ex 
 tend to her very soul, and hedged her about with the 
 lure of unapproachableness. It was more that than 
 her beauty which roused the imagination and quick 
 ened the pulses of a young man regarding her. 
 
 Granville Joy did not feel the earth beneath his feet 
 as he walked with Ellen. The scent of the sweet-peas 
 came in his face, he heard the soft rustle of Ellen s 
 skirts and his own heart-beats. She was very silent, 
 since she did not wish him to go with her, though she 
 was all the time reproaching herself for it. Granville 
 kept casting about for something to say which should 
 ingratiate him with her. He was resolved to say 
 nothing of love to her. 
 
 " It is a beautiful night/ he said. 
 
 " Yes, it is/ agreed Ellen, and she looked at the moon. 
 She felt the boy s burning, timid, worshipful eyes on 
 her face. She trembled, and yet she was angry and 
 annoyed. She felt in an undefined fashion that she 
 herself was the summer night and the flowers and the 
 crescent moon, and all that was fair and beautiful in 
 the whole world to this other soul, and shame seized 
 her instead of pride. He seemed to force her to a sight 
 of her own pettiness, as is always the case when love 
 is not fully returned. She made an impatient motion 
 with the shoulder next Granville, and walked faster. 
 
 "You said you were going to Miss Lennox s," he re 
 marked, anxiously, feeling that in some way he had 
 displeased her. 
 
 "Yes, to carry her some sweet-peas." 
 
 "She must have been real good-looking when she 
 was young," Granville said, injudiciously. 
 
 263 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "When she was young/ retorted Ellen, angrily. 
 "She is beautiful now. There is not another woman 
 in Rowe as beautiful as she is." 
 
 "Well, she is good-looking enough/ agreed Gran 
 ville, with unreasoning jealousy. He had not heard 
 of Ellen s good fortune. His mother had not told him. 
 She was a tenderly sentimental woman, and had always 
 had her fancies with regard to her son and Ellen Brew- 
 ster. When she heard the news she reflected that it 
 would perhaps remove the girl from her boy immeas 
 urably, that he would be pained, so she said nothing. 
 Every night when he came home she had watched his 
 face to see if he had heard. 
 
 Now Ellen told him. "You know what Miss Cyn 
 thia Lennox is going to do for me/ she said, abruptly, 
 almost boastfully, she was so eager in her partisanship 
 of Cynthia. 
 
 Granville looked at her blankly. They were coming 
 into the crowded, brilliantly lighted main street of the 
 city, and their two faces were quite plain to each oth 
 er s eyes. 
 
 " No, I don t," said he. " What is it, Ellen?" 
 
 "She is going to send me to Vassar College/ 
 
 Granville s face whitened perceptibly. There wa k s a 
 queer sound in his throat. 
 
 "To Vassar College! he repeated. 
 
 " Yes, to Vassar College. Then I shall be able to get a 
 good school, and teach, and help father and mother/ 
 
 Granville continued to look at her, and suddenly an 
 intense pity sprang into life in the girl s heart. She 
 felt as if she were looking at some poor little child, 
 instead of a stalwart young man. 
 
 "Don t look so, Granville," she said, softly. 
 
 "Of course I am glad at any good fortune which 
 can come to you, Ellen," Granville said then, huskily. 
 His lips quivered a little, but his eyes on her face were 
 
 264 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 brave and faithful. Suddenly Ellen seemed to see in 
 this young man a counterpart of her own father. Gran- 
 ville had a fine, high forehead and contemplative out 
 look. He had been a good scholar. Many said that 
 it was a pity he had to leave school and go to work. It 
 had been the same with her father. Andrew had al 
 ways looked immeasurably above his labor. She seemed 
 to see Granville Joy in the future just such a man, 
 a finer animal harnessed to the task of a lower, and 
 harnessed in part by his own loving faithfulness tow 
 ards others. Ellen had often reflected that, if it hadn t 
 been for her and her mother, her father would not have 
 been obliged to work so hard. Now in Granville she 
 saw another man whom love would hold to the plough 
 share. A great impulse of loyalty as towards her own 
 came over her. 
 
 "It w r on t make any difference between me and my 
 old friends if I do go to Vassar College/ she said, with 
 out reflecting on the dangerous encouragement of it. 
 
 "You can t get into another track of life without 
 its making a difference/ returned Granville, soberly. 
 " But I am glad. God knows I m glad, Ellen. I dare 
 say it is better for you than if " He stopped then and 
 seemed all at once to see projected on his mirror of the 
 future this dainty, exquisite girl, with her fine intellect, 
 dragging about a poor house, with wailing children in 
 arm and at heel, and suddenly a great courage of re 
 nunciation came over him. 
 
 "It is better, Ellen/ he said, in a loud voice, like a 
 hero s, as if he were cheering his own better impulses 
 on to victory over his own passions. "It is better for 
 a girl like you, than to " 
 
 Ellen knew that he meant to say, " to marry a fellow 
 
 like me." Ellen looked at him, the sturdy backward 
 
 fling of his head and shoulders, and the honest regard 
 
 of his pained yet unflinching eyes, and a great weak- 
 
 18 265 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ness of natural longing for that which she was even 
 now deprecating nearly overswept her. She was nearer 
 loving him that moment than ever before. She realized 
 something in him which could command love the re 
 nunciation of love for love s sake. 
 
 " I shall never forget my old friends, whatever hap 
 pens/ she said, in a trembling voice, and it might have 
 all been different had they not then arrived at Cynthia 
 Lennox s. 
 
 "Shall I wait and go home with you, Ellen?" Gran- 
 ville asked, timidly. 
 
 " No, thank you. I don t know how long I shall stay, 
 Ellen replied. " You are real kind, but I am not a bit 
 afraid." 
 
 "It is sort of lonesome going past the shops." 
 
 "I can take a car," Ellen said. She extended her 
 hand to Granville, and he grasped it firmly. 
 
 "Good-night, Ellen; I am always glad of any good 
 fortune that may come to you," he said. 
 
 But Granville Joy, going alone down the brilliant 
 street, past the blaze of the shop-windows and the 
 knots of loungers on the corners, reflected that he had 
 seen the fiery tip of a cigar on the Lennox veranda, 
 that it might be possible that young Lloyd was there, 
 since Miss Lennox was his aunt, and that possibly 
 the aunt s sending Ellen to Vassar might bring about 
 something in that quarter which would not otherwise 
 have happened, and he writhed at the fancy of that 
 sort of good fortune for Ellen, but held his mind to it 
 resolutely as to some terrible but necessary grindstone 
 for the refinement of spirit. " It would be a heap bet 
 ter for her," he said to himself, quite loud, and two 
 men whom he was passing looked at him curiously. 
 "Drunk," said one to the other. 
 
 When he was on his homeward way he overtook a 
 slender girl struggling along with a kerosene - can in 
 
 266 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 one hand and a package of sugar in the other, and, seeing 
 that it was Abby Atkins, he possessed himself of both. 
 She only laughed and did not start. Abby Atkins 
 was not of the jumping or screaming kind, her nerves 
 were so finely balanced that they recovered their equilib 
 rium, after surprises, before she had time for manifesta 
 tions. There was a curious healthfulness about the 
 slender, wiry little creature who was overworked and 
 under-fed, a healthfulness which seemed to result from 
 the action of the mind upon a meagre body. 
 
 " Hullo, Granville Joy !" she said, in her good-comrade 
 fashion, and the tw r o went on together. Presently 
 Abby looked up in his face. 
 
 "Know about Ellen?" said she. Granville nodded. 
 
 "Well, I m glad of it, aren t you?" Abby said, in a 
 challenging tone. 
 
 "Yes, I am/ replied Granville, meeting her look 
 firmly. 
 
 Suddenly he felt Abby s little, meagre, bony hand 
 close over the back of his, holding the kerosene-can. 
 "You re a good fellow, Granville Joy," said she. 
 
 Granville marched on and made no response. He 
 felt his throat fill with sobs, and swallowed convulsive 
 ly. Along with this womanly compassion came a com 
 passion for himself, so hurt on his little field of battle. 
 He saw his own wounds as one might see a stranger s. 
 
 " Think of Ellen dogging around to a shoe-shop like 
 me and the other girls," said Abby, "and think of her 
 draggin around with half a dozen children and no 
 money. Thank the Lord she s lifted out of it. It 
 ain t you nor me that ought to grudge her fortune to 
 her, nor wish her where she might have been otherwise." 
 
 "That s so," said the young man. 
 
 Abby s hand tightened over the one on the kerosene- 
 can. " You are a good fellow, Granville Joy," she said 
 again. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ROBERT LLOYD was sitting on the veranda behind 
 the green trail of vines when Ellen came up the walk. 
 He never forgot the girl s face looking over her bunch of 
 sweet-peas. There was in it something indescribably 
 youthful and innocent, almost angelic. The light from 
 the window made her hair toss into gold ; her blue eyes 
 sought Cj^nthia with the singleness of blue stars. It 
 was evident whom she had come to see. She held out 
 her flowers towards her with a gesture at once humble 
 and worshipful, like that of some devotee at a shrine. 
 
 She said "Good-evening " with a shy comprehensive 
 ness, then, to Cynthia, like a child, " I thought maybe 
 you would like some of my sweet-peas. 
 
 Both gentlemen rose, and Risley looked curiously 
 from the young girl to Cynthia, then placed his chair 
 for her, smiling kindly. 
 
 " The sweet-peas are lovely/ Cynthia said. " Thank 
 you, my dear. They are much prettier than any I 
 have had in my garden this year. Please sit down," 
 for Ellen was doubtful about availing herself of the 
 proffered chair. She had so hoped that she might 
 find Cynthia alone. She had dreamed, as a lover 
 might have done, of a tte - a - tte with her, what 
 she would say, what Cynthia would say. She had 
 thought, and trembled at the thought, that possibly 
 Cynthia might kiss her when she came or went. She 
 had felt, with a thrill of spirit, the touch of Cynthia s 
 soft lips on hers, she had smelt the violets about her 
 clothes. Now it was all spoiled. She remembered 
 
 268 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 things which she had heard about Mr. Risley s friend 
 ship with Cynthia, how he had danced attendance upon 
 her for half a lifetime, and thought that she did not 
 like him. She looked at his smiling, grizzled, blond 
 face with distrust. She felt intuitively that he saw 
 straight through her little subterfuge of the flowers, 
 that he divined her girlish worship at the shrine of Cyn 
 thia, and was making fun of her. 
 
 "Do you object to a cigar, Miss Brewster?" asked 
 Robert, and Risley looked inquiringly at her. 
 
 "Oh, no," replied Ellen, with the eager readiness 
 of a child to fit into new conditions. She thought of 
 the sitting-room at home, blue with the rank pipe-smoke 
 of Nahum Beals and his kind. She pictured them to 
 herself sitting about on these warm evenings in their 
 shirt-sleeves, and she saw the two gentlemen in their 
 light summer clothes with their fragrant cigars at 
 their lips, and all of a sudden she realized that between 
 these men and the others there was a great gulf, and 
 that she was trying to cross it. (jShe did not realize, as 
 later, that the gulf was one of externals, and of width 
 rather than depth, but it seemed to her then that from 
 one shore she could only see dimly the opposite^ A 
 great fear and jealousy came over her as to her own 
 future accessibility to those of the other kind among 
 whom she had been brought up, like her father and 
 Granville. 
 
 Ellen felt all this as she sat beside Cynthia, who 
 was casting about in her mind, in rather an annoyed 
 fashion, for something to say to this young beneficiary 
 of hers which should not have anything to do with the 
 benefit. 
 
 Finally she inquired if she were having a pleasant 
 vacation, and Ellen replied that she was. Risley looked 
 at her beautiful face with the double radiance of the 
 electric-light and the lamp-light from the window on 
 
 269 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 it, giving it a curious effect. It suddenly occurred to 
 him to wonder why everybody seemed to have such an 
 opinion as to the talents of this girl. Why did Cyn 
 thia consider that her native ability warranted this 
 forcible elevation of her from her own sphere and set 
 ting her on a height of education above her kind? 
 She looked and spoke like an ordinary young girl. 
 She had a beautiful face, it is true, and her shyness 
 seemed due to the questioning attitude of a child 
 rather than to self - consciousness, but, after all, why 
 did she give people that impression? Her valedictory 
 had been clever, no doubt, and there was in it a cer 
 tain fire of conviction, which, though crude, was mov 
 ing; but, after all, almost any bright girl might have 
 written it. She had been a fine scholar, no doubt, but 
 any girl with a ready intelligence might have done as 
 well. Whence came this inclination of all to rear the 
 child upon a pedestal? Risley wondered, looking at 
 her, narrowing his keen, light eyes under reflective 
 brows, puffing at his cigar; then he admitted to him 
 self that he was one with the crowd of Ellen s admir 
 ers. There was somehow about the girl that which 
 gave the impression of an enormous reserve out of 
 all proportion to any external evidence. "The child 
 .says nothing remarkable/ he told Cynthia, after she 
 ^y had gone that evening, "but somehow she gives me 
 an impression of power to say something extraordi 
 nary, and do something extraordinary. There is elec- 
 Y tricity and steel behind that soft, rosy flesh of hers. 
 But all she does which is evident to the eye of man 
 is to worship you, Cynthia/ 
 
 " Worship me?" repeated Cynthia, vaguely. 
 
 "Yes, she has one of those aberrations common to 
 her youth and her sex. She is repeating a madness of 
 old Greece, and following you as a nymph might a 
 goddess." 
 
 270 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " It is only because she is grateful/ returned Cynthia, 
 looking rather annoyed. 
 
 " Gratitude may be a factor in it, but it is very far 
 from being the whole of the matter. It is one of the 
 spring madnesses of life; but don t be alarmed, it will 
 be temporary in the case of a girl like that. She will 
 easily be led into her natural track of love. Do you 
 know, Cynthia, that she is one of the most normal, 
 typical young girls I ever saw, and that makes me 
 wonder more at this impression of unusual ability 
 which she undoubtedly gives. She has all the weak 
 nesses of her age and sex, she is much younger than 
 some girls of her age, and yet there is the impression 
 which I cannot shake off." 
 
 "I have it, too," said Cynthia, rather impatiently. 
 
 "Cynthia Lennox, I don t believe you care in the 
 least for this young devotee of yours, for all you are 
 heaping benefits upon her," Risley said, looking at 
 her quizzically. 
 
 "I am not sure that I do/ replied Cynthia, calmly. 
 
 " Then why on earth ?" 
 
 Suddenly Cynthia began speaking rapidly and pas 
 sionately, straightening herself in her chair. "Oh, 
 Lyman, do you think I could do a thing like that, and 
 not repent it and suffer remorse for it all these years?" 
 she cried. 
 
 "A thing like that?" 
 
 "Like stealing that child," Cynthia replied, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 "Stealing the child? You did not steal the child." 
 
 "Yes, I did." 
 
 "Why, it was only a few hours that you kept her." 
 
 "What difference does it make whether you steal 
 anything for a few hours or a lifetime? I kept her, and 
 she was crying for her mother, and her mother was 
 suffering tortures all that time. Then I kept it secret 
 
 271 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 all these years. You didn t know what I have suffered, 
 Lyman." 
 
 Cynthia regarded him with a wan look. 
 
 Risley half laughed, then checked himself. "My 
 poor girl, you have the New England conscience in its 
 u worst form/ he said. 
 
 " You yourself told me it was a serious thing I was 
 [doing/ Cynthia said, half resentfully. "One does not 
 wish one s sin treated lightly when one has hugged its 
 pricks to one s bosom for so long it detracts from the 
 dignity of suffering/ 
 
 " So I did, but all those years ago!" 
 
 " If you don t leave me my remorse, how can I atone 
 for the deed?" 
 
 "Cynthia, you are horribly morbid/ 
 
 " Maybe you are right, maybe it is worse than morbid. 
 Sometimes I think I am unnatural, out of drawing, 
 but I did not make myself, and how can I help it?" 
 Cynthia spoke with a pathetic little laugh. 
 
 She leaned her head back in her chair, and looked 
 at a star through a gap in the vines. The shadows 
 of the leaves played over her long, white figure. Again 
 to Risley, gazing at her, came the conviction as of subtle 
 spiritual deformity in the woman; she was unnatural 
 in something the same fashion that an orchid is unnat 
 ural, and it was worse, because presumably the orchid 
 does not know it is an orchid arid regret not being anoth 
 er, more evenly developed, flower, and Cynthia had a 
 full realization and a mental mirror clear enough to 
 see the twist in her own character. 
 
 Risley had never kissed her in his life, but that night, 
 when they parted, he laid a hand on her soft, gray hair, 
 and smoothed it back with a masculine motion of ten 
 derness, leaving her white forehead, which had a candid, 
 childish fulness about the temples, bare. Then he put 
 his lips to it. 
 
 272 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You are a silly girl, Cynthia/ he said. 
 
 "I wish I were different, Lyman/ she responded, 
 and, he felt, with a double meaning. 
 
 "I don t," he said, and stroked her hair with a great 
 tenderness, which seemed for the time to quite fill and 
 satisfy his heart. He was a man of measureless patience, 
 born to a firm conviction of the journey s end. 
 
 " There are worse things than loving a good woman 
 your whole life and never having her," he said to him 
 self as he went home, but he said it without its full 
 meaning. Risley s "nerves" were always lighted by 
 the lamp of his own hope, which threw a gleam over 
 unknown seas. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 ROBERT LLOYD accompanied Ellen home, though 
 she had said timidly that she was not in the least afraid, 
 that she would not trouble any one, that she could take 
 a car. Cynthia herself had insisted that Robert should 
 escort her. 
 
 "It s too late for you to be out alone/ she said, and 
 the girl seemed to perceive dimly a hedge of conven 
 tionality which she had not hitherto known. She had 
 often taken a car when she was alone of an evening, 
 without a thought of anything questionable. Some 
 of the conductors lived near Ellen, and she felt as if 
 she were under personal friendly escort. "I know 
 the conductor on that car, and it would take me right 
 home, and I am not in the least afraid," she said to Rob 
 ert, as the car came rocking down the street when they 
 emerged from Cynthia s grounds. 
 
 "It s a lovely night," Robert said, speaking quick 
 ly as they paused on the sidewalk. " I am not going 
 to let you go alone, anyway. We will take the car if 
 you say so, but what do you say to walking? It s a 
 lovely night." 
 
 It actually flashed through Ellen s mind to such 
 small issues of finance had she been accustomed that 
 the young man might insist upon paying her car-fare 
 if he went with her on the car. 
 
 " I would like to walk, but I am sorry to put you to 
 so much trouble," she said, a little awkwardly. 
 
 "Oh, I like to walk," returned Robert. "I don t 
 walk half enough," and they went together down the 
 
 274 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 lighted street. Suddenly to Ellen there came a vivid 
 remembrance, so vivid that it seemed almost like actual 
 repetition of the time when she, a little child, maddened 
 by the sudden awakening of the depths of her nature, 
 had come down this same street. She saw that same 
 brilliant market-window where she had stopped and 
 stared, to the momentary forgetfulness of her troubles 
 in the spectacular display of that which was entirely 
 outside them. Curiously enough, Robert drew her to 
 a full stop that night before the same window. It was 
 one of those strange cases of apparent telepathy which 
 one sometimes notices. When Ellen looked at the market- 
 window, with a flash of reminiscence, Robert immedi 
 ately drew her to a stop before it. "That is quite a 
 study in color/ he said. "I fancy there are a good 
 many unrecognized artists among market-men." 
 
 " Yes, it is really beautiful," agreed Ellen, looking 
 at it with eyes which had changed very little from their 
 childish outlook. Again she saw more than she saw. 
 The window differed materially from that before which 
 she had stood fascinated so many years ago, for that 
 was in a different season. Instead of frozen game and 
 winter vegetables, were the products of summer gardens, 
 and fruits, and berries. The color scheme was daz 
 zling with great heaps of tomatoes, and long, emerald 
 ears of corn, and baskets of apples, and gold crooks 
 of summer squashes, and speckled pods of beans. 
 
 "Suppose," said Robert, as they walked on, "that 
 all the market-men who had artistic tastes had art edu 
 cations and set up studios and painted pictures, who 
 would keep the markets?" 
 
 He spoke gayly. His manner that night w r as younger 
 and merrier than Ellen had ever seen it. She was nat 
 urally rather grave herself. What she had seen of life 
 had rather disposed her to a hush of respect than to 
 hilarity, but somehow his mood began to infect her. 
 
 275 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "I don t know/ she answered, laughing, "I suppose 
 somebody would keep the markets." 
 
 " Yes, but they would not be as good markets. That 
 is, they would not do as artistic markets, and they 
 would not serve the higher purpose of catering to the 
 artistic taste of man, as well as to his bodily needs." 
 
 " Perhaps a picture like that is just as well and better 
 than it would be painted and hung on a wall," Ellen 
 admitted, reflectively. 
 
 "Just so why is it not?" Robert said, in a pleased 
 voice. 
 
 "Yes, I think it is," said Ellen. "I do think it is 
 better, because everybody can see it there. Ever so 
 many people will see it there who would not go to picture- 
 galleries to see it, and then " 
 
 " And then it may go far to dignify their daily needs," 
 said Robert. " For instance, a poor man about to buy 
 his to-morrow s dinner may feel his soul take a little 
 fly above the prices of turnips and cabbages." 
 
 "Maybe," said Ellen, but doubtfully. 
 
 "Don t you think so?" 
 
 "The prices of turnips and cabbages may crowd 
 other things out/ Ellen replied, and her tone was sad, 
 almost tragic. "You see I am right in it, Mr. Lloyd," 
 she said, earnestly. 
 
 " You mean right in the midst of the kind of people 
 whom necessity forces to neglect the aesthetic for the 
 purely useful?" 
 
 "Yes," said Ellen. Then she added, in an inde 
 scribably pathetic voice, "People have to live first 
 before they can see, and they can t think until they are 
 fed, and one needs always to have had enough turnips 
 and cabbages to eat without troubling about the 
 getting them, in order to see in them anything except 
 food." 
 
 Lloyd looked at her curiously. "Decidedly this 
 276 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 child can think/ he reflected. He shrugged his arm, 
 on which Ellen s hand lay, a little closer io his side. 
 
 Just then they were passing the great factories 
 Lloyd s, and Briggs s, and Maguire s. Many of the 
 windows in Briggs s and Maguire s reflected light from 
 the moon and the electric-lamps on the street. Lloyd s 
 was all dark except for one brilliant spark of light, 
 which seemed to be threading the building like a will- 
 o -the-wisp. "That is the night-watchman," said 
 Robert. "He must have a dull time of it." 
 
 " I should think he might be afraid," said Ellen. 
 
 "Afraid of what?" 
 
 "Of ghosts." 
 
 "Ghosts in a shoe-shop?" asked Robert, laughing. 
 
 "I don t believe there has been another building in 
 the whole city which has held so many heart-aches, 
 and I always wondered if they didn t make ghosts 
 instead of dead people," Ellen said. 
 
 "Do you think they have such a hard time?" 
 
 "I know they do/ said Ellen. "I think I ate the 
 knowledge along with my first daily bread." 
 
 Robert Lloyd looked down at the light, girlish figure 
 on his arm, and again the resolution that he would not 
 talk on such topics with a young girl like this came 
 over him. He felt a reluctance to do so \vhich was 
 quite apart from his masculine scorn of a girl s opinion 
 on such matters. Somehow he did not wish to place 
 Ellen Brewster on the same level of argument on which 
 another man might have stood. He felt a jealousy 
 of doing so. She seemed more within his reach, and 
 infinitely more for his pleasure, where she was. He 
 looked admiringly down at her fair face fixed on his with 
 a serious, intent expression. He was quite ready to 
 admit that he might fall in love with her. He was quite 
 ready to ask now why he should not. She was a beauti 
 ful girl, an uncommon girl. She was going to be 
 
 277 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thoroughly educated. It would probably be quite pos 
 sible to divorce her entirely from her surroundings. 
 He shuddered when he thought of her mother and aunt, 
 but, after all, a man, if he were firm, need not marry 
 the mother or aunt. And all this was in spite of a 
 resolution which he had formed on due consideration 
 after his last call upon Ellen. He had said to himself 
 that it would not in any case be wise, that he had better 
 not see more of her than he could help. Instead of going 
 to see her, he had gone riding with Maud Hemingway, 
 who lived near his uncle s, in an old Colonial house 
 which had belonged to her great-grandfather. The 
 girl was a good comrade, so good a comrade that she 
 shunted, as it were, love with flings of ready speech 
 and friendly greeting, and tennis-rackets and riding- 
 whips and foils. Robert had been teaching Maud to 
 fence, and she had fenced too well. Still, Robert had 
 said to himself that he might some day fall in love with 
 her and marry her. He charged his memory with the 
 fact that this was a much more rational course than 
 visiting a girl like Ellen Brewster, so he stayed away 
 in spite of involuntary turnings of his thoughts in that 
 direction. However, now when the opportunity had 
 seemed to be fairly forced upon him, what was he to 
 do? He felt that he was stirred as he had never been 
 before. The girl s very soul seemed to meet his when 
 she looked up at him with those serious blue eyes of 
 hers. He knew that there had never been any like 
 her for him, but he felt as if in another minute, if they 
 did not drop topics which he might as well have dis 
 cussed with another man, this butterfly of femininity 
 which so delighted him would be beyond his hand. He 
 wanted to keep her to her rose. 
 
 "But the knowledge must not imbitter your life," 
 he said. " It is not for a little, delicate girl to worry 
 herself over the problems which are too much for men." 
 
 278 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 In spite of himself a tenderness had come into his voice 
 Ellen looked down and away from him. She trembled 
 
 " It seems to me that the problems of life, like those 
 in the algebra we studied at school, are for everybody 
 who can read them, whether men or women/ said she, 
 but her voice was unsteady. 
 
 " Some of them are for men to read and struggle with 
 for the sake of the women/ said Robert. His voice 
 had a tender inflection. They were passing a garden 
 full of old-fashioned flowers, bordered with box. The 
 scent of the box seemed fairly to clamor over the garden 
 fence, drowning out the smaller fragrances of the flowers, 
 like the clamor of a mob. Even the sw r eetness of the 
 mignonette was faintly perceived. 
 
 "How strong the box is," said Ellen, imperceptibly 
 shrinking a little from Robert. 
 
 When they reached the Brew r ster house Robert said, 
 as kindly as Granville Joy might have done, " Can 
 not we get better acquainted, Miss Brewster? May 
 I call upon you sometimes?" 
 
 "I shall be happy to see you," Ellen said, repeating 
 the formula of welcome like a child, but she knew when 
 she repeated it that it was very true. After she had 
 parted from young Lloyd, she went into the sitting- 
 room where were her mother and father, her mother 
 sewing on a wrapper, her father reading the paper. 
 Both of them looked up as the girl entered, and both 
 stared at her in a bewildered way without rightly know 
 ing why. Ellen s cheeks were a wonderful color, her 
 eyes fairly blazed with blue light, her mouth was smiling 
 in that ineffable smile of a simple overflow of happine ss. 
 
 "Did you ride home on the car?" asked Fanny. "1 
 didn t hear it stop." 
 
 "No, mother." 
 
 "Did you come home alone?" asked Andrew, ab 
 ruptly. 
 
 279 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "No/ said Ellen, blinking before the glare of the 
 lamp. Fanny looked at Andrew. "Who did come 
 home with you?" she asked, in a foolish, fond voice. 
 
 "Mr. Robert Lloyd. He was sitting on the piazza 
 when I got there. I told Miss Lennox I had just as 
 soon come on the cars alone, but she wouldn t let me, 
 and then he said it would be pleasant to walk, and " 
 
 "Oh, you needn t make so many excuses," said 
 Fanny, laughing. 
 
 Ellen colored until her face was a blaze of roses, she 
 blinked harder, and turned her head away impatiently. 
 
 "I am not making excuses/ said she, as if her 
 modesty were offended. "I wish you wouldn t talk 
 so, mother. I couldn t help it/ 
 
 "Of course you couldn t/ her mother called out 
 jocularly, as Ellen went into the other room to get her 
 lamp to go to bed. 
 
 Fanny was radiant with delight. After Ellen had 
 gone up-stairs, she kept looking at Andrew, and longing 
 to confide in him her anticipation with regard to Ellen 
 and young Lloyd, but she refrained, being doubtful 
 as to how he would take it. Andrew looked very sober. 
 The girl s beautiful, metamorphosed face was ever 
 before his eyes, and it was with him as if he were looking 
 after the flight of a beloved bird into a farther blue 
 which was sacred, even from the following of his love. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 ELLEN S first impulse, when she really began to love 
 Robert Lloyd, was not yielding, but flight; her first 
 sensation, not happiness, but shame. When he left 
 her that night she realized, to her unspeakable dismay 
 and anger, that he had not left her, that he would never 
 in her whole life, or at least it seemed so, leave her again. 
 Eyery where she looked she saw his face projected by 
 her memory before her with all the reality of life. His 
 face came between her and her mother s and father s, 
 it came between her and her thoughts of other faces. 
 When she was alone in her chamber, there was the face. 
 She blew out the lamp in a panic of resentment and 
 undressed in the dark, but that made no difference. 
 When she lay in bed, although she closed her eyes 
 resolutely, she could still see it. 
 
 "I won t have it; I won t have it," she said, quite 
 aloud in her shame and rebellion. "I won t have it. 
 What does this mean?" 
 
 In spite of herself the sound of his voice was in her 
 ears, and she resented that; she fought against the 
 feeling of utter rapture which came stealing over her 
 because of it. She felt as if she wanted to spring out 
 of bed and run, run far away into the freedom of the 
 night, if only by so doing she could outspeed herself. 
 Ellen began to realize the tyranny of her own nature, 
 and her whole soul arose in revolt. 
 
 But the girl could no more escape than a nymph of 
 old the pursuit of the god, and there was no friendly 
 deity ta transform her into a flower to elude him. When 
 19 281 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 she slept at last she was overtaken in the innocent pas 
 sion of dreams, and when she awoke it was, to her 
 angry sensitiveness, not alone. 
 
 When she went down-stairs all her rosy radiance of 
 the night before was eclipsed. She looked pale and 
 nervous. She recoiled whenever her mother began to 
 speak. It seemed to her that if she said anything, 
 and especially anything congratulatory about Robert 
 Lloyd, she would fly at her like a wild thing. Fanny 
 kept looking at her with loving facetiousness, and Ellen 
 winced indescribably; still, she did not say anything 
 until after breakfast, when Andrew had gone to work. 
 Andrew was unusually sober and preoccupied that 
 morning. When he went out he passed close to Ellen, 
 as she sat at the table, and tilted up her face and 
 kissed her. "Father s blessin ," he whispered, hoarse 
 ly, in her ear. Ellen nestled against him. This natural 
 ! /affection, before which she need not fly nor be ashamed, 
 which she had always known, seemed to come before 
 her like a shield against all untried passion. She felt 
 sheltered and comforted. But Andrew passed Eva 
 Tenny coming to the house on his way out of the yard, 
 and when she entered Fanny began at once : 
 
 "Who do you s pose came home with Ellen last 
 night?" said she. She looked at Eva, then at Ellen, 
 with a glance which seemed to uncover a raw surface 
 of delicacy. Ellen flushed angrily. 
 
 "Mother, I do wish " she began; but Fanny cut 
 her short. 
 
 " She s pretendin she don t like it," she said, almost 
 hilariously, her face glowing with triumph, "but she 
 does. You ought to have seen her when she came in 
 last night." 
 
 " I guess I know who it was/ said Eva, but she echoed 
 her sister s manner half-heartedly. She was looking 
 very badly that morning, her face was stained, and 
 
 282 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 her eye hard with a look as if tears had frozen in them 
 She had come in a soiled waist, too, without any collar. 
 
 "For Heaven s sake, Eva Tenny, what ails you?" 
 Fanny cried. 
 
 Eva flung herself for answer on the floor, and fairly 
 writhed. Words were not enough expression for her 
 violent temperament. She had to resort to physical 
 manifestations or lose her reasori. As she writhed, 
 she groaned as one might do who was dying in extrem 
 ity of pain. 
 
 Ellen, when she heard her aunt s groans, stopped, 
 and stood in the entry viewing it all. She thought at 
 first that her aunt was ill, and was just about to call 
 out to know if she should go for the doctor, all her griev 
 ances being forgotten in this evidently worse stress, 
 when her mother fairly screamed again, stooping over 
 her sister, and trying to raise her. 
 
 " Eva Tenny, you tell me this minute what the mat 
 ter is." 
 
 Then Eva raised herself on one elbow, and disclosed 
 a face distorted with wrath and woe, like a mask of 
 tragedy. 
 
 "He s gone! he s gone!" she shrieked out, in an 
 awful, shrill voice, which was like the note of an angry 
 bird. "He s gone!" 
 
 "For God s sake, not Jim?" 
 
 "Yes, he s gone! he s gone! Oh, my God! my God! 
 he s gone!" 
 
 All at once the little Amabel appeared, slipping past 
 Ellen silently. She stood watching her mother. She 
 was vibrating from head to foot as if strung on wires. 
 She was not crying, but she kept catching her breath 
 audibly; her little hands were twitching in the folds 
 of her frock; she winked rapidly, her lids obscuring 
 and revealing her eyes until they seemed a series of 
 blue sparks. She was no paler than usual that was 
 
 283 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 scarcely possible but her skin looked transparent, 
 pulses were evident all over her face and her little neck. 
 
 "You don t mean he s gone with ?" gasped Fanny. 
 
 Suddenly Eva raised herself with a convulsive jerk 
 from the floor to her feet. She stood quite still. " Yes, 
 he has gone/ she said, and all the passion was gone 
 from her voice, which was much more terrible in its calm. 
 
 "You don t mean with ?" 
 
 "Yes; he has gone with Aggie." Eva spoke in a 
 \oice like a deaf-mute s, quite free from inflections. 
 There was something dreadful about her rigid attitude. 
 Little Amabel looked at her mother s eyes, then cowered 
 d own and began to cry aloud. Ellen came in and took 
 her in her arms, whispering to her to soothe her. She 
 tried to coax her away, but the child resisted violently, 
 though she was usually so docile with Ellen. 
 
 Eva did not seem to nojieg Amabel s crying. She 
 stood in that horrible inflexibility, with eyec like black 
 stones fixed on something unseeable. 
 
 Fanny clutched her violently by the arm and shook 
 her. 
 
 "Eva Tenny," said she, "you behave yourself. 
 What if he has run away? You ain t the first woman 
 whose husband has run away. I d have more pride. 
 I wouldn t please him nor her enough. If he s as bad 
 as that, you re better off rid of him." 
 
 Eva turned on her sister, and her calm broke up like 
 ice under her fire of passion. 
 
 " Don t you say one word against him, not one word!" 
 she shrieked, throwing off Fanny s hand. "I won t 
 hear one word against my husband." 
 
 Then little Amabel joined in. "Don t you say one 
 word against my papa!" she cried, in her shrill, childish 
 treble. Then she sobbed convulsively, and pushed 
 Ellen away. "Go away!" she said, viciously, to her. 
 She was half mad with terror and bewilderment. 
 
 284 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Don t you say one word against Jim/ said Eva 
 again. " If ever I hear anybody say one word against 
 him ril- 
 
 "You don t mean you re goin to stan up for him, 
 Eva Tenny?" 
 
 "As long as I draw the breath of life, and after, if 
 I know anything/ declared Eva. Then she straighten 
 ed herself to her full height, threw back her shoulders, 
 and bursLintQ_a_Iurious ...denunciation 
 
 ^ 
 
 etess of wrath.._The veins on her forehead grew 
 turgid, her lips seemed to swell, her hair seemed to move 
 as she talked. The others shrank back and looked at 
 her; even little Amabel hushed her sobs and stared, 
 fascinated. "Curses on the grinding tyranny that s 
 brought it all about, and not on the poor, weak man 
 that fell under it ! " she cried. " Jim ain t to blame. He s 
 had bigger burdens put on his shoulders than the Lord 
 gave him strength to bear. He had to drop em. Jim 
 has tried faithful ever since we were married. He 
 worked hard, and it wa n t never his fault that he lost 
 his place, but he kept losin it. They kept shuttin 
 down, or dischargin him for no reason at all, without 
 a minute s warnin . An it wa n t because he drank. 
 Jim never drank when he had a job. He was just taken 
 up and put down by them over him as if he was a piece 
 on a checker-board. He lost his good opinion of him 
 self when he saw others didn t set any more by him 
 than to shove him off or on the board as it suited their 
 play. He began to think maybe he wa n t a man, 
 and then he began to act as if he wasn t a man. And 
 he was ashamed of his life because he couldn t support 
 me and Amabel, ashamed of his life because he had 
 to live on my little earnin s. He was ashamed to look 
 me in the face, and ashamed to look his own child in the 
 face. It was only night before last he was talkin to 
 me, and I didn t know what he meant then, but I know 
 
 285 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 now. I thought then he meant something else, but 
 now I know what he meant. He sat a long time leanin 
 his head on his hands, whilst I was sewin on wrappers, 
 after Amabel had gone to bed, and finally he looks up 
 and says, Eva, you was right and I was wrong/ 
 
 " What do you mean, Jim? says I. 
 
 " I mean you was right when you thought we d 
 better not get married, and I was wrong/ says he; 
 and he spoke terrible bitter and sad. I never heard him 
 speak like it. He sounded like another man. I jest 
 flung down my sewin and went over to him, and leaned 
 his poor head against my shoulder. Jim/ says I, 
 I ain t never regretted it/ And God knows I spoke the 
 truth, and I speak the truth when I say it now. I 
 ain t never regretted it, and I don t regret it now." 
 Eva said the last with a look as if she were hurling 
 defiance, then she went on in the same high, monotonous 
 key above the ordinary key of life. " When I says that, 
 he jest gives a great sigh and sort of pushes me away 
 and gets up. Well, I have/ says he; I have, and 
 sometimes I think the best thing I can do is to take 
 myself out of the way, instead of sittin here day after 
 day and seein you wearin your fingers to the bone to 
 support me, and seein my child, an bein ashamed to 
 look her in the face. Sometimes I think you an Amabel 
 would be a damned sight better off without me than with 
 me, and I m done for anyway, and it don t make much 
 difference what I do next/ 
 
 " Jim Tenny, you jest quit talkin in such a way as 
 this/ says I, for I thought he meant to make away 
 with himself, but that wa n t what he meant. Aggie 
 Bemis had been windin her net round him, and he 
 wa n t nothin but a man, and all discouraged, and he 
 gave in. Any man would in his place. He ain t to 
 blame. It s the tyrants that s over us all that s to 
 blame." Eva s voice shrilled higher. " Curse them!" she 
 
 286 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 shrieked. " Curse Khem all! every rich man in this 
 gold-ridden country!" 
 
 "Eva Tenny, you re beside yourself/ said Fanny, 
 who was herself white to her lips, yet she viewed her 
 sister indignantly, as one violent nature will view an 
 other when it is overborne and carried away by a kindred 
 passion. 
 
 "Wonder if you d be real calm in my place?" said 
 Eva; and as she spoke the s dre4fu] impassibility of 
 desperation returned upon frer. It was as if she suf 
 fered some chemical change before their eyes. She V 
 became silent and seemed as if she would never speak 
 again. 
 
 " You hadn t ought to talk so/ said Fanny, weakly, 
 she was so terrified. "You ought to think of poor 
 little Amabel," she added. 
 
 With that, Eva s dreadful, expressionless eyes turned 
 towards Amabel, and she held out her hand to her, but 
 the child fairly- screamed with terror and clung to Ellen. 
 "Oh, Aunt Eva, don t look at her so, you frighten her," 
 Ellen said, trembling, and leaning her cheek against 
 Amabel s little, cold, pale one. "Don t cry, darling," 
 she whispered. " It is just because poor mother feels so 
 badly." 
 
 " I am afraid of my mamma, and I want papa ! " scream 
 ed Amabel, quivering, and stiffening her slender back. 
 
 Eva continued to keep her eyes fixed upon her, and 
 to hold out that commanding hand. 
 
 Fanny went close to her, seized her by both shoulders, 
 and shook her violently. "Eva Tenny, you behave 
 yourself!" said she. "There ain t no need of youi 
 acting this way if your man has run away with another 
 woman, and as for that child goin with you, she sha n t 
 go one step with any woman that looks and acts as you 
 do. Actin this way over a good-for-nothin fellow 
 like Jim Tenny!" 
 
 287 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Again that scourge of the spirit aroused Eva to her 
 normal state. She became a living, breathing, wrathful, 
 loving woman once more. " Don t you dare say a 
 word against Jim!" she cried out; "not one word, 
 Fanny Brewster; I won t hear it. Don t you dare say a 
 word!" 
 
 "Don t you say a word against my papa!" shrilled 
 Amabel. Then she left Ellen and ran to her mother, 
 and clung to lier. And Eva caught her up, and hugged 
 the little, fragile thing against her breast, and pounced 
 upon her with kisses, with a fury as of rage instead of 
 love. 
 
 " She always looked like Jim/ she sobbed out; " she 
 always did. Aggie Bemis shall never get her. I ve 
 got her in spite of all the awful wrong of life ; it s the good 
 that had to come out of it whether or no, and God couldn t 
 help Himself. I ve got this much. She always looked 
 like Jim." 
 
 Eva set Amabel down and began leading her out 
 of the room. 
 
 "You ain t goin ?" said Fanny, who had herself 
 begun to weep. "Eva, you ain t goin ? Oh, you poor 
 girl!" 
 
 "Don t! you said that like Jim," Eva cried, with a 
 great groan of pain. 
 
 " Eva, you ain t goin ? Wait a little while, and let 
 me do somethin for you." 
 
 " You can t do anything. Come, Amabel." 
 
 Eva and Amabel went away, the child rolling eyes 
 of terror and interrogation at them, Eva impervious to 
 all her sister s pleading. 
 
 When Andrew heard what had happened, and Fanny 
 repeated what Eva had said, his blame for Jim Tenny 
 was unqualified. "I ve had a hard time enough, 
 knocked about from pillar to post, and I know what 
 she means when she talks about a checker-board. God 
 
 288 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 knows I feel myself sometimes as if I wasn t anything 
 but a checker - piece instead of a man/ he said, "but 
 it s all nonsense blamin the shoe manufacturers for 
 his runnin away with that woman. A man has got 
 to use what little freedom he s got right. It ain t any 
 excuse for Jim Tenny that he s been out of work and 
 got discouraged. He s a good-for-nothing cur, an I d 
 like to tell him so." 
 
 "It won t do for you to talk to Eva that -way/ said 
 Fanny. They were all at the supper-table. Ellen was 
 listening silently. 
 
 " She does right to stand up for her husband, I sup 
 pose/ said Andrew, "but anybody s got to use a little 
 sense. It don t make it any better for Jim, tryin to 
 shove blame off his shoulders that belongs there. The 
 manufacturers didn t make him run off with another 
 woman and leave his child. That was a move he made 
 himself." 
 
 " But he wouldn t have made that move if the manu 
 facturers hadn t made theirs," Ellen said, unexpectedly. 
 
 "That s so," said Fanny. 
 
 Andrew looked uneasily at Ellen, in whose cheeks 
 two red spots were burning, and whose eyes upon his 
 face seemed narrowed to two points of brightness. 
 "There s nothing for you to worry about, child," he 
 said. 
 
 All this was before the dressmaker, who listened with 
 no particular interest. Affairs which did not directly 
 concern her did not awaken her to much sharpness of 
 regard. She had been forced by circumstances into 
 a very narrow groove of life, a little foot-path as it were, 
 fenced in from destruction by three dollars a day. She 
 could not, view it as keenly as she might, see that Jim 
 Tenny s elopement had anything whatever to do with 
 her three dollars per day. She, therefore, ate her sup 
 per. At first Andrew had looked warningly at Fanny 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 when she began to discuss the subject before the dress 
 maker, but Fanny had replied, "Oh, land, Andrew, 
 she knows all about it now. It s all over town." 
 
 "Yes, I heard it this morning before I came/ said 
 the dressmaker. "I think a puff on the sleeves of the 
 silk waist will be very pretty, don t you, Mrs. Brew- 
 ster?" 
 
 Ellen looked at the dressmaker with wonder ; it seemed 
 to her that the woman was going on a little especial 
 side track of her own outside the interests of her kind. 
 She looked at her pretty new things and tried them 
 on, and felt guilty that she had them. What business 
 had she having new clothes and going to Vassar Col 
 lege in the face of that misery? What was an educa 
 tion? What was anything compared with the sympa 
 thy which love demanded of love in the midst of sorrow? 
 Should she not turn her back upon any purely personal 
 advantage as she would upon a moral plague? 
 
 When Ellen s father said that to her at the supper- 
 table she looked at him with unchildlike eyes. "I 
 think it is something for me to worry about, father," 
 she said. "How can I help worrying if I love Aunt 
 Eva and Amabel?" 
 
 "It s a dreadful thing for Eva/ said Fanny. "I 
 don t see what she is going to do. Andrew, pass the 
 biscuits to Miss Higgins/ 
 
 " It seems to me that the one that is the farthest be 
 hind anything that happens on this earth is the one to 
 blame," said Ellen, reverting to her line of argument. 
 
 " I don t know but you ve got to go back to God, then," 
 said Andrew, soberly, passing the biscuits. Miss 
 
 Jggins took one. 
 "No, you haven t," said Ellen "you haven t, be- 
 use men are free. You ve got to stop before you get 
 to God. When a man goes wrong, you have got to 
 look and see if he is to blame, if he started himself, or 
 
 290 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 other men have been pushing him into it. It seems 
 to me that other men have been pushing Uncle Jim 
 into it. I don t think factory-owners have any right 
 to discharge a man without a good reason, any more 
 than he has a right to run the shop/ 
 
 "I don t think so, either/ said Fanny. "I think 
 Ellen is right/ 
 
 "I don t know. It is all a puzzle," said Andrew. 
 " Something s wrong somewhere. I don t know whether 
 it s because we are pushed or because we pull. There s 
 no use in your worrying about it, Ellen. You ve got 
 to study your books." Andrew said this with a look 
 of pride at Ellen and sidelong triumph at the dress 
 maker to see if she rightly understood the magnitude 
 of it all, of the whole situation of making dresses for 
 this wonderful young creature who was going to Vassar 
 College. 
 
 " I don t know but this is more important than books," 
 said Ellen. 
 
 " Oh, maybe you ll find out something in your books 
 that will settle the whole matter," said Andrew. Ellen 
 was not eating much supper, and that troubled him. 
 Andrew always knew just how much Ellen ate. 
 
 " I don t know what Aunt Eva and poor little Amabel 
 will do," said she. Ellen s lip quivered. 
 
 "Pass the cake to Miss Higgins," said Fanny, sharp 
 ly, to Andrew. She gave him a significant wink as 
 she did so, not to talk more about it. 
 
 "Try some of that chocolate cake, Miss Higgins." 
 
 " Thank you," said Miss Higgins, unexcitedly. 
 
 Andrew had his own cause of worry, and finall} 7 
 reverted to it, eating his food with no more conception 
 of the savor than if it were in another man s mouth. 
 He was sorry enough for his wife s sister, and recog 
 nized it as an added weight to his own burden, but just 
 at present all he could think of was the question if Miss 
 
 291 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Higgins would ask for her pay again that night. He 
 had not a dollar in his pocket. He had been dunned 
 that afternoon by the man who had lent the money to 
 buy Ellen s watch, there were two new dunning letters 
 in his pocket, and now if that keen little dressmaker, 
 who fairly looked to him like a venomous insect, as 
 she sat eating rather voraciously of the chocolate cake, 
 should ask him again for the three dollars due her that 
 night ! He would not have cared so much, if it were 
 not for the fact that she would ask him before his wife 
 and Ellen, and the question about the money in the 
 savings-bank, which was a species of nightmare to 
 him, would be sure to come to the front. 
 
 Suddenly it struck Andrew that he might run away, 
 that he might slip out after supper, and either go into 
 his mother s house or down the street. He finally de 
 cided on the former, since he reasoned, with a pitiful 
 cunning, that if he went down the street he would 
 have to take off his slippers and put on his shoes, and 
 that would at once betray him and lead to the possible 
 arrest of his flight. 
 
 So after supper, while Miss Higgins was trying a 
 waist on Ellen, and Fanny was clearing the table, 
 Andrew, bareheaded and in his slippers, prepared to 
 carry his plan into execution. He got out without 
 being seen, and hurried around the rear of the house, 
 out of view from the sitting-room windows, resolving 
 on the way that in order to avert the danger of a possi 
 ble following him to the sanctuary of his mother s 
 house, he had perhaps better slip down into the orchard 
 behind it and see if the porter apples were ripe. But 
 when, stooping as if beneath some invisible shield, 
 and moving with a low glide of secrecy, he had gained 
 the yard between the two houses, the yard where the 
 three cherry-trees stood, he heard Fanny s high, in 
 sistent voice calling him, and knew that it was all over, 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Fanny had her head thrust out of her bedroom win 
 dow. "Andrew I Andrew 1" she called. 
 
 Andrew stopped. " What is it?" he asked, in a gruff 
 voice. He felt at that moment savage with her and 
 with fate. He felt like some badgered animal beneath 
 the claws and teeth of petty enemies which were yet 
 sufficient to do him to death. He felt that retreat and 
 defence were alike impossible and inglorious. He 
 was aware of a monstrous impatience with it all, which 
 was fairly blasphemy. "What is it?" he said, and 
 Fanny realized that something was wrong. 
 
 "Come here, Andrew Brewster," she said, from the 
 bedroom window, and Andrew pressed close to the 
 window through a growth of sweetbrier w r hich rasped 
 his hands and sent up a sweet fragrance in his face. 
 Andrew tore away the clinging vines angrily. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" he said again. 
 
 "Don t spoil that bush, Ellen sets a lot by it," said 
 Fanny. " What makes you act so, Andrew Brewster?" 
 Then she lowered her voice. "She wants to know if 
 she can have her pay to-night," she whispered. 
 
 "I ain t got a cent," replied Andrew, in a dogged, 
 breathless voice. 
 
 "You ain t been to the bank to-day, then?" 
 
 "No, I ain t." 
 
 Fanny still suspected nothing. She was, in fact, 
 angry with the dressmaker for insisting upon her pay 
 in such a fashion. "I never heard of such a thing 
 as her wantin to be paid every night," she whispered, 
 angrily, "and I d tell her so, if I wasn t afraid she d 
 think we couldn t pay her. I d never have had her; 
 I d had Miss Patch, if I d known she d do such a 
 mean thing, but, as it is, I don t know what to do. I 
 ain t got but a dollar and seventy-three cents by me. 
 You ain t got enough to make it up?" 
 
 "No, I ain t." 
 
 293 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Well, all is, I ve got to tell her that it ain t convenient 
 for me to pay her to-night, and she shall have it all 
 together to-morrow night, and to-morrow you ll have 
 to go to the bank and take out the money, Andrew. 
 Don t forget it." 
 
 "Well," said Andrew. 
 
 Fanny retreated, and he heard her high voice ex 
 plaining to Miss Higgins. He tore his way through 
 the clinging sweetbrier bushes and ran with an un 
 steady, desperate gait down to the orchard behind his 
 mother s home, and flung himself at full length in 
 the dewy grass under the trees with all the abandon, 
 under stress of fate, of a child. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ANDREW BREWSTER, lying in the dewy grass 
 under the apple-trees, giving way for almost the first 
 time since his childhood to impulses which had hitherto^ 
 from his New England heredity, stiffened instead of) 
 relaxed his muscles of expression, felt as if he were " 
 being stung to death by ants. He was naturally a 
 man of broad views, who felt the indignity of coping 
 with such petty odds. "For God s sake, if I had to 
 be done to death, why couldn t it have been for some 
 thing?" he groaned, speaking with his lips close to 
 the earth as if it were a listening ear. "Why need it 
 all have been over so little? It s just the little fight 
 for enough to eat and wear that s getting the better 
 of me that was a man, and able to do a man s work 
 in the world. Now_it has come to this! Here I am 
 runnin away from a woman because she wants me 
 to pay her three dollars, and I am afraid of another 
 woman because I ve been and fooled away a few 
 hundred dollars I had in the savings-bank. I m afraid 
 yes, it has come to this. I am afraid, afraid, and I d 
 run away out of life if I knew where it would fetch me 
 to. I m afraid of things that ain t w r orth being afraid 
 of, and it s all over things that s beneath me." There 
 came over Andrew, with his mouth to^the moist earth, 
 feeling the breath and the fragrant of it in his nostrils, 
 a realization of the great motherhood of nature, and a 
 contempt for himself which was scorching and scathing 
 before it. He felt that he came from that mighty breast 
 which should produce only sons of might, and was 
 
 295 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 spending his whole life in an ignominy of fruitless 
 climbing up mole-hills. "Why couldn t I have been 
 more?" he asked himself. " Oh, my God, is it my fault?" 
 He said to himself that if he had not yielded to the uni 
 versal law and longing of his kind for a home and a 
 family, it might have been better. He asked himself 
 that question which will never be answered with a 
 surety of correctness, whether the advancement of the 
 individual to his furthest compass is more to the glory 
 of life than the blind following out of the laws of ex 
 istence and the bringing others into the everlasting 
 problem of advance. Then he thought of Ellen, and_a_ 
 great warmth of conviction came over the loving heart 
 of the man ; all his self-contempt vanished. He had her, 
 this child who \vas above pearls and rubies,. he had her, 
 and in her the furthest reach of himself and progression 
 of himself to greater distances than he could ever have 
 accomplished in any other way, and it was a double 
 progress, since it was not only for him, but also for the 
 woman he had married. A great wave of love for 
 Fanny came over him. He seemed to see that, after 
 all, it was a shining road by which he had come, and he 
 saw himself upon it like a figure of light. He saw that 
 he lived and could never die. Then, as with a remorse 
 less hurl of a high spirit upon needle-pricks of petty 
 cares, he thought again of the dressmaker, of the money 
 for Ellen s watch, of the butcher s bill, and the grocer s 
 bills, and the money which he had taken from the 
 bank, and again he cowered beneath and loathed 
 his ignoble burden. He dug his hot head into the 
 grass. "Oh, my God! oh, my God I" he groaned. He 
 fairly sobbed. Then he felt a soft wind of feminine 
 skirts caused by the sudden stoop of some one beside 
 him, and Ellen s voke, shrill with alarm, rang in his 
 ears. "Father, what is the matter? Father!" 
 
 Such was the man s love for the girl that his first 
 
 296 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thought was for her alarm, and he pushed all his own 
 troubles into the background with a lightning-like 
 motion. He raised himself hastily, and smiled at her 
 with his pitiful, stiff face. " It s nothing at all, Ellen, 
 don t you worry/ he said. 
 
 But that was not enough to satisfy her. She caught 
 hold of his arm and clung to it. "Father," she said, 
 in a tone which had in it, to his wonder, a firm woman 
 liness his own daughter seemed to speak to him as 
 if she were his mother "you are not telling me the 
 truth. Something is the matter, or you wouldn t do 
 like this." 
 
 "No, there s nothin , nothin at all, dear child," said 
 Andrew. He tried to loosen her little, clinging hand 
 from his arm. "Come, let s go back to the house," 
 he said. " Don t you mind anything about it. Some 
 times father gets discouraged over no thin ." 
 
 " It isn t over nothing," said Ellen. " What is it about, 
 father?" 
 
 Andrew tried to laugh. " Well, if it isn t over nothin , 
 it s over nothin in particular," said he; "it s over jest 
 what s happened right along. Sometimes father feels 
 as if he hadn t made as much as he d ought to out of 
 his life, and he s gettin older, and he s feelin kind of 
 discouraged, that s all." 
 
 "Over money matters?" said Ellen, looking at him 
 steadily. 
 
 "Over nothin ," said her father. "See here, child, 
 father s ashamed that he gave way so, and you found 
 him. Now don t you worry one mite about it it s 
 nothing at all. Come, let s go back to the house," 
 he said. 
 
 Ellen said no more, but she walked up from the field 
 holding tightly to her father s poor, worn hand, and her 
 heart was in a tumult. To behold any convulsion of 
 nature is no light experience, and when it is a storm 
 
 297 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of the spirit in one beloved the beholder is swept along 
 with it in greater or less measure. Ellen trembled as 
 she walked. Her father kept looking at her anxiously 
 and remorsefully. Once he reached around his other 
 hand and chucked her playfully under the chin. 
 "Scared most to death, was she?" he asked, with a 
 shamefaced blush. 
 
 "I know something is the matter, and I think it 
 would be better for you to tell me, father/ replied Ellen, 
 soberly. 
 
 " There s nothing to tell, child/ said Andrew. " Don t 
 you worry your little head about it." Between his 
 anxiety lest the girl should be troubled, and his in 
 tense humiliation that she should have discovered him 
 in such an abandon of grief which was almost like a 
 disclosure of the nakedness of his spirit, he was com 
 pletely unnerved. Ellen felt him tremble, and heard 
 his voice quiver when he spoke. She felt towards her 
 father something she had never felt before an im 
 pulse of protection. She felt the older and stronger of 
 the two. Her grasp on his hand tightened, she seemed 
 in a measure to be leading him along. 
 
 When they reached the yard between the houses 
 Andrew cast an apprehensive glance at the windows. 
 " Has she gone?" he asked. 
 
 "Who, the dressmaker?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She hadn t when I came out. I saw you come 
 past the house, and I thought you walked as if you 
 didn t feel well, so I thought I would run out and 
 see." 
 
 "I was all right," replied Andrew. "Have you got 
 to try on anything more to-night?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, then, let s run into grandma s a minute." 
 
 "All right," said Ellen. 
 
 298 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes was sitting at her front window in the 
 dusk, looking out on the street, as was her favorite 
 custom. The old woman seldom lit a lamp in the 
 summer evening, but sat there staring out at the lighted 
 street and the people passing and repassing, with her 
 mind as absolutely passive as regarded herself as if 
 she were travelling and observing only that which 
 passed without. At those times she became in a fashion 
 sensible of the motion of the world, and lost her sense 
 of individuality in the midst of it. When her son and 
 granddaughter entered she looked away from the 
 window with the expression of one returning from afar, 
 and seemed dazed for a moment. 
 
 "Hullo, mother \" said Andrew. 
 
 The room was dusky, and they moved across between 
 the chairs and tables like two shadows. 
 
 "Oh, is it you, Andrew?" said his mother. "Who is 
 that with you Ellen?" 
 
 "Yes/ said Ellen. "How do you do, grandma?" 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes became suddenly fully awake to the 
 situation ; she collected her scattered faculties ; her keen 
 old eyes gleamed in a shaft of electric-light from the 
 street without, which fell full upon her face. 
 
 " Set down," said she. " Has the dressmaker gone?" 
 
 " No, she hadn t when I came out," replied Ellen, " but 
 she s most through for to-night." 
 
 "How do your things look?" 
 
 "Real pretty, I guess." 
 
 "Sometimes I think you d better have had Miss 
 Patch. I hope she ain t got your sleeves too tight at 
 the elbows." 
 
 "They seem to fit very nicely, grandma." 
 
 "Sleeves are very particular things; a sleeve wrong 
 can spoil a whole dress." 
 
 Suddenly the old woman turned on Ellen with a 
 look of extremest facetiousness and intelligence, and 
 
 299 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 the girl winced, for she knew what was coming. "I 
 see you goin past with a young man last night, didn t 
 I?" said she. 
 
 Ellen flushed. "Yes/ she said, almost indignantly, 
 for she had a feeling as if the veil of some inner sacred- 
 ness of her nature were continually being torn aside. 
 "I went over to Miss Lennox, to carry some sweet- 
 peas, and Mr. Robert Lloyd was there, and he came 
 home with me/ 
 
 "Oh!" replied her grandmother. 
 
 Ellen s patience left her at the sound of that "Oh/ 
 which seemed to rasp her very soul. " You have none 
 of you any right to talk and act as you do/ said she. 
 "You make me ashamed of you, you and mother; 
 father has more sense. Just because a young man 
 makes me a call to return something, and then walks 
 home with me, because he happened to be at the house 
 where I call in the evening 1 I think it s a shame. 
 You make me feel as if I couldn t look him in the 
 face." 
 
 "Never mind, grandma didn t mean any harm," 
 Andrew said, soothingly. 
 
 "You needn t try to excuse me, Andrew Brewster," 
 cried his mother, angrily. " I guess it s a pretty to-do, 
 if I can t say a word in joke to my own granddaughter. 
 If it had been a poor, good-for-nothing young feller 
 workin in a shoe-factory, I s pose she d been tickled to 
 death to be joked about him, but now when it begins to 
 look as if somebody that was worth while had come 
 along " 
 
 "Grandma, if you say another word about it, I will 
 never speak to Robert Lloyd again as long as I live," 
 declared Ellen. 
 
 "Never mind, child," whispered Andrew. 
 
 "I do mind, and I mean what I say," Ellen cried. 
 " I won t have it. Robert Lloyd is nothing to me, and 
 
 300 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 I am nothing to him. He is no better than Granville 
 Joy. There is nothing between us, and you make me 
 too ashamed to think of him." 
 
 Then the old woman cried out, in a tone of triumph, 
 " Well, there he is, turnin in at your gate now." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 ELLEN rose without a word, and fled out of the room 
 and out of the house. It seemed to her, after what had 
 happened, after what her mother and grandmother 
 had said and insinuated, after what she herself had 
 thought and felt, that she must. She longed to see 
 Robert Lloyd, to hear him speak, as she had never 
 longed for anything in the world, and yet she ran 
 away as if she were driven to obey some law which 
 was coeval with the first woman and beyond all volition 
 of her individual self. 
 
 When she reached the head of the little cross street 
 on which the Atkinses lived, she turned into it with 
 relief. The Atkins house was a tiny cottage, with a 
 little kitchen ell, and a sagging piazza across the front. 
 On this piazza were shadowy figures, and the dull, red 
 gleam of pipes, and one fiery tip of a cigar. Joe Atkins, 
 and Sargent, and two other men were sitting out there 
 in the cool of the evening. Ellen hurried around the 
 curve of the foot-path to the kitchen door. Abby was 
 in there, working with the swift precision of a 
 machine. She washed and wiped dishes as if in a 
 sort of fury, her thin elbows jerking, her mouth com 
 pressed. 
 
 When Ellen entered, Abby stared, then her whole 
 face lighted up, as if from some internal lamp. " Why, 
 Ellen, is that you?" she said, in a surprisingly sweet 
 voice. Sometimes Abby s sharp American voice rang 
 with the sweetness of a soft bell. 
 
 "I thought I d run over a minute/ said Ellen. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 The other girl looked sharply at her. " Why, what s 
 the matter?" she said. 
 
 " Nothing is the matter. Why?" 
 
 "Why, I thought you looked sort of queer. Maybe 
 it s the light. Sit down; 111 have the dishes done in a 
 minute, then we ll go into the sitting-room/ 
 
 "I d rather stay out here with you/ said Ellen. 
 
 Abby looked at her again. " There is something the 
 matter, Ellen Brewster/ said she; "you can t cheat 
 me. You would never have run over here this way 
 in the world. What has happened?" 
 
 " Let s go up to your room after the dishes are done, 
 and then I ll tell you/ whispered Ellen. The men s 
 voices on the piazza could be heard quite distinctly, 
 and it seemed possible that their own conversation 
 might be overheard in return. 
 
 " All right," said Abby. "Of course I have heard 
 about your aunt/ she added, in a low voice. 
 
 " Yes," said Ellen, and she felt shamed and remorse 
 ful that her own affairs had been uppermost in her mind, 
 and that Abby had supposed that she might be disturbed 
 over this great trouble of her poor aunt s. 
 
 " I think it is dreadful," said Abby. " I wish I could 
 get hold of that woman." By "that woman" she 
 meant the woman with whom poor Jim Tenny had 
 eloped. 
 
 "I do," said Ellen, bitterly. 
 
 " But it s something besides that made you run over 
 here," said Abby. 
 
 " I ll tell you when we go up to your room," replied 
 Ellen. 
 
 When the dishes were finished, and the two girls in 
 Abby s little chamber, seated side by side on the bed, 
 Ellen still hesitated. 
 
 " Now, Ellen Brewster, what is the matter? You 
 said you woui V tell, and you ve got to," said Abby. 
 
 303 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen looked away from her, blushing. The electric- 
 light from the street shone full in the room, which was 
 wavering with grotesque shadows. 
 
 "Well/ said she, "I ran away." 
 
 "You ran away I What for?" 
 
 "Oh, because." 
 
 "Because what?" 
 
 "Because I saw somebody coming." 
 
 "Saw who coming?" 
 
 Ellen was silent. 
 
 "Not Granville Joy?" 
 
 Ellen shook her head. 
 . "Not?" 
 
 Ellen looked straight ahead. 
 
 "Not young Mr. Lloyd?" 
 
 Ellen was silent with the silence of assent. 
 
 "Did he go into your house?" 
 
 Ellen nodded. 
 
 "Where were you?" 
 
 "In grandma s." 
 
 "And you ran away, over here?" 
 
 Ellen nodded. 
 
 "Why, Ellen Brewster, didn t you want to see him?" 
 
 Ellen turned from Abby with an impatient gesture, 
 buried her face in the bed, and began to weep. 
 
 Abby leaned over her caressingly. "Ellen dear," 
 she whispered, " what is the matter ; what are you cry 
 ing for? What made you run away?" 
 
 Ellen sobbed harder. 
 
 Abby looked at Ellen s prostrate figure sadly. " El 
 len," she began; then she stopped, for her own voice 
 quivered. Then she went on, quite steadily. "El 
 len," she said, "you like him." 
 
 "No, I don t," declared Ellen. "I won t. I never 
 will. Nothing shall make me." 
 
 But Abby continued to look at her sadly and jealously. 
 
 304 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " There s a power over us which is too strong for girls/ 
 said she, "and you ve come under it, Ellen, and you 
 can t help it." Then she added, with a great, noble - 
 burst of utter unselfishness : " And I m glad, I m glad, 
 Ellen. That man can lift you out of the grind. 1 
 
 But Ellen sat up straight and faced her, with burn 
 ing cheeks, and eyes shining through tears. "I will 
 never be lifted out of the grind as long as those I love 
 are in it," said she. 
 
 "Do you suppose it would make it any better for 
 your folks to see you in it all your life along with them?" 
 said Abby. " Suppose you married a fellow like Gran- 
 ville Joy?" 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 ELLEN looked at the other girl in a kind of rage of 
 maidenly shame. "Why have I got to get married, 
 anyway?" she demanded. "Isn t there anything in 
 this world besides getting married? Why do you all talk 
 so about me? You don t seem so bent on getting mar 
 ried yourself. If you think so much of marriage, why 
 don t you get married yourself, and let me alone?" 
 
 " Nobody wants to marry me that I know of," replied 
 Abby, quite simply. Then she, too, blazed out. "Get 
 married!" she cried. "Do you really think I would 
 get married to the kind of man who would marry me? 
 Do you think I could if I loved him?" A great wave 
 of red surged over the girl s thin face, her voice trem 
 bled with tenderness. Ellen knew at once, with a 
 throb of sympathy and shame, that Abby did love some 
 one. 
 
 "Do you think I would marry him if I loved him?" 
 demanded Abby, stiffening herself into a soldier-like 
 straightness. "Do you think? I tell you what it is," 
 she said, " I was lookin only to-day at David Mendon 
 at the cutting-bench, cutting away with his poor little 
 knife. I d like to know how many handles he s worn 
 out since he began. There he was, putting the pattern 
 on the leather, and cuttin around it, standin at his 
 window, that s a hot place in summer and a cold one 
 in winter, and there s where he s stood for I don t know 
 how many years since before I was born. He s one 
 of the few that Lloyd s has hung on to when he s got 
 older, and I thought to myself, good Lord, how that 
 
 306 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 poor man must have loved his wife, and how he must 
 love his children, to be willin to turn himself into a 
 machine like that for them. He never takes a holiday 
 unless he s forced into it ; there he stands and cuts and 
 cuts. If I were his wife, I would die of shame and pit} T 
 that I ever led him into it. Do you think I would ever 
 let a man turn himself into a machine for me, if I loved 
 him? I guess I wouldn t! And that s why, when I 
 see a man of another sort that you won t have to break 
 your own heart over, whether you marry him or not, 
 payin attention to you, I am glad. It s a different 
 thing, marriage with a man like Robert Lloyd, and a 
 man like that would never think of me. I m right in 
 the ranks, and you ain t." 
 
 "I am," said Ellen, stoutly. 
 
 " No, you ain t ; you don t belong there, and when I 
 see a chance for you to get out where you belong " 
 
 " I don t intend to make marriage a stepping-stone/ 
 said Ellen. " Sometimes " She hesitated. 
 
 "What?" asked the other girl. 
 
 " Sometimes I think I would rather not go to college, 
 after all." 
 
 "Ellen Brewster, are you crazy? Of course, you will 
 go to college unless you marry Robert Lloyd. Per 
 haps he won t want to wait." Then Abby, dauntless 
 as she was, shrank a little before Ellen s wrathful retort. 
 
 " Abby Atkins, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" 
 she cried. "There he s been to see me just twice, the 
 first time on an errand, and the next with his aunt, 
 and he s walked home with me once because he 
 couldn t help it; his aunt told him to!" 
 
 "But here he is again to-night," said Abby, apolo 
 getically. 
 
 " What of that? I suppose he has come on another 
 errand." 
 
 "Then what made you run away?" 
 307 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Because you have all made me ashamed of my 
 life to look at him/ said Ellen, hotly. ^ 
 
 Then down went her head on the bed again, and 
 Abby was leaning over her, caressing her, whispering 
 fond things to her like a lover. 
 
 "There, there, Ellen/ she whispered. "Don t be 
 mad, don t feel bad. I didn t mean any harm. You are 
 such a beauty there s nobody like you in the world 
 that everybody thinks that any man who sees you 
 must want you." 
 
 " Robert Lloyd doesn t, and if he did I wouldn t have 
 him," sobbed Ellen. 
 
 "You sha n t if you don t want him," said Abby, 
 consolingly. 
 
 After a while the two girls bathed their eyes with 
 cold water, and went down-stairs into the sitting-room. 
 Maria was making herself a blue muslin dress, and her 
 mother was hemming the ruffles. There was a cheap 
 blue shade on the lamp, and Maria herself was clad in a 
 blue gingham. All the blue color and the shade on the 
 lamp gave a curious pallor and unreality to the homely 
 room and the two women. Mrs. Atkins s hair was 
 strained back from her hollow temples, which had noble 
 outlines. 
 
 "I m going to walk a little way with Ellen, she s 
 going home," said Abby. 
 
 "Very well," said her mother. Maria looked wist 
 fully at them as they went out. She went on sewing 
 on her blue muslin, rather sadly. She coughed a little. 
 
 "Why don t you put up your sewing for to-night 
 and go to bed, child?" said her mother. 
 
 "I might as well sit here and sew as go to bed 
 and lie there. I shouldn t sleep," replied Maria, with 
 the gentlest sadness conceivable. There was in it no 
 shadow of complaining. Of late years all the fire of 
 resistance had seemed to die out in the girl. She was 
 
 308 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 unfailingly sweet, but nerveless. Often when she 
 raised a hand it seemed as if she could not even let it 
 fall, as if it must remain poised by some curious inertia. 
 Still, she went to the shop every day and did her work 
 faithfully. She pasted linings in shoes, and her slender 
 little fingers used to fly as if they w r ere driven by some 
 more subtle machine than any in the factory. Often_ 
 Maria felt vaguely as if she were in the grasp of some 
 mighty machine worked by a mighty operator; she 
 felt, as she pasted the linings, as if she herself were also 
 a^part of some monstrous scheme of work under greater 
 hands than hers, and there was never any getting back 
 of it. And always with it all there was that ceaseless, 
 helpless, bewildered longing for something, she was 
 afraid to think what, which often saps the strength 
 and life of a young girl. Maria had never had a lover 
 in her life; she had not even good comrades among 
 young men, as her sister had. No man at that time 
 would have ever looked twice at her, unless he had 
 fallen in love with her, and had been disposed to pick 
 her up and carry her along on the hard road upon w r hich 
 they fared together. Maria was half fed in every sense ; 
 she had not enough nourishing food for her body, nor 
 love for her heart, nor exercise for her brain. She had 
 no time to read, as she was forced to sew when out of 
 the shop if she would have anything to wear. When 
 at last she went up-stairs to bed, before Abby returned, 
 she sat down by her window, and leaned her little, peaked 
 chin on the sill and looked out. The stars were un 
 usually bright for a summer night; the whole sky 
 seemed filled with a constantly augmenting host of 
 them. The scent of tobacco came to her from below. 
 To the lonely girl the stars and the scent of the tobacco 
 served as stimulants; she formed a forcible wish. "I 
 wish/ she muttered to herself, that I was either an 
 angel or a man." Then the next minute she chided 
 
 309 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 herself for her wickedness. A great wave of love for 
 God, and remorse for impatience and melancholy in 
 her earthly lot, swept over her. She knelt down beside 
 her bed and prayed. An exultation half - physical, 
 half-spiritual, filled her. When she rose, her little, thin 
 face was radiant. She seemed to measure the shortness 
 of the work and woe of the world as between her thumb 
 and finger. The joy of the divine filled all her longing. 
 When Abby came home, who shared her chamber, she 
 felt no jealousy. She only inquired whether she had 
 gone quite home with Ellen. "Yes, I did/ replied 
 Abby. " I don t think it is safe for her to go past that 
 lonely place below the Smiths ." 
 
 "I m. glad you did/ said Maria, with an angelic 
 inflection in her voice. 
 
 " Robert Lloyd came to see Ellen, and she ran away 
 over here, and wouldn t see him, because they had all 
 been plaguing her about him," said Abby. "I wish 
 she wouldn t do so. It would be a splendid thing for 
 her to marry him, and I know he likes her, and his aunt 
 is going to send her to college." 
 
 " That won t make any difference to Ellen, and every 
 thing will be all right anyway, if only she loved God," 
 said Maria, still with that rapt, angelic voice. 
 
 "Shucks!" said Abby. Then she leaned over her 
 sister, caught her by her little, thin shoulders and shook 
 her tenderly. "There, I didn t mean to speak so," 
 said she. "You re awful good, Maria. I m glad 
 you ve got religion if it s so much comfort to you. I 
 don t mean to make light of it, but I m afraid you ain t 
 well. I m goin to get you some more of that tonic 
 to-morrow." 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 WHEN Ellen reached home that night she found no 
 one there except her father, who was sitting on the 
 door-step in the north yard. Her mother had gone to 
 see her aunt Eva as soon as the dressmaker had left. 
 " Who was that with you?" Andrew asked, as she 
 drew near. 
 
 "Abby," replied Ellen. 
 
 "So you went over there?" 
 
 Ellen sat down on a lower step in front of her father. 
 "Yes/ said she. She half laughed up in his face, like 
 a child who knows she has been naughty, yet knows 
 she will not be blamed since she can count so surely 
 on the indulgent love of the would-be blamer. 
 
 "Ellen, your mother didn t like it." 
 
 "They had said so many things to me about him 
 that I didn t feel as if I could see him, father," she 
 said. 
 
 Andrew put a hand on her head. "I know what 
 you mean," he replied, " but they didn t mean any 
 harm; they re only looking out for your best good, 
 Ellen. You can t always have us; it ain t in the course 
 of nature, you/lmow, Ellen." 
 
 There was/a tone of inexorable sadness, the sadness 
 of fate itsen in Andrew s voice. He had, as he spoke, 
 the full realization of that stage of progress which 
 is simply for the next, which passes to make room for it. 
 He felt his own nothingness. It was the throe of the 
 present before the future ; it was the pang of anticipa 
 tory annihilation. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Don t talk that way, father/ said Ellen. " Neither 
 you nor mother are old people." 
 
 "Oh, well, it s all right, don t you worry/ said An 
 drew. 
 
 "How long did he stay?" asked Ellen. She did not 
 at her father as she spoke. 
 
 "Oh, he didn t stay at all, after they found out you 
 had gone." 
 
 Ellen sighed. After a second Andrew sighed also. 
 "It s gettin late," said he, heavily; "mebbe we d better 
 go in before your mother comes, Ellen. Mebbe you ll 
 get cold out here." 
 
 "Oh no, I shall not," said Ellen, "and I want to hear 
 about poor Aunt Eva. I don t see what she is going 
 to do." 
 
 " It s a dreadful thing makin a mistake in marriage/ 
 said Andrew. 
 
 " Uncle Jim was a good man if he hadn t had such a 
 hard time." 
 
 Andrew looked at her, then he spoke impressively. 
 " Look here, Ellen," he said, " you are a good scholar, 
 and you are smarter in a good many ways than father 
 has ever been, but there s one thing you want to re 
 member; you want to be sure before you blame the 
 D^ord or other men for a man s goin wrong, if it ain t 
 lis own fault at the bottom of things." 
 "There s mother," cried Ellen; "there s mother and 
 Amabel. Where s Aunt Eva? Oh, father, what do 
 you suppose has happened? Why do you suppose 
 mother is bringing Amabel home?" 
 
 "I don t know," replied Andrew, in a troubled voice. 
 
 He and Ellen rose and hastened forward to meet 
 Fanny and Amabel. The child hung at her aunt s hand 
 in a curious, limp, disjointed fashion; her little face, 
 even in the half light, showed ghastly. When she saw 
 Ellen she let go of Fanny s hand and ran to her and 
 
 312 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 threw both her little arms around her in a fierce clutch 
 as of terror, then she began to sob wildly, " Mamma, 
 mamma, mamma!" 
 
 Fanny leaned her drawn face forward, and whispered 
 to Andrew and Ellen over Amabel s head, under cover 
 of her sobs, " Hush, don t say anything. She s gone 
 mad, and, and she tried to kill Amabel." 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 AMABEL was a very nervous child, and she was in 
 such terror from her really terrific experience that 
 she threatened to go into convulsions. Andrew went 
 over for his mother, whom he had always regarded as 
 an incontestable authority about children. She, after 
 one sharp splutter of wrath at the whole situation, went 
 to work with the resolution of an old soldier. 
 
 " Heat some water, quick/" said she to Andrew, "and 
 get me a wash-tub." 
 
 Then she told Fanny to brew a mess of sage tea, and 
 began stripping off Amabel s clothes. 
 
 "Let me alone! Mamma, mamma, mamma!" 
 shrieked the child. She fought and clawed like a 
 little, wild animal, but the old woman, in whose arms 
 great strength could still arise for emergencies, and in 
 whose spirit great strength had never died, got the 
 better of her. 
 
 When Amabel s clothing was stripped off, and her 
 little, spare body, which was brown rather than rosy, 
 although she was a blonde, was revealed, she was as 
 pitiful to see as a wound. Every nerve and pulse in 
 that tiny frame, about which there was not an ounce of 
 superfluous flesh, seemed visible. The terrible sen 
 sitiveness of the child appeared on the surface. She 
 shrank, and wailed in a low, monotonous tone like a 
 spent animal overtaken by pursuers. But Mrs. Zelotes 
 put her in the tub of warm water, and held her down, 
 though Amabel s face, emerging from it, had the ex 
 pression of a wild thing. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "There, you keep still!" said she, and her voice 
 was tender enough, though the decision of it could have 
 moved an army. 
 
 When Amabel had had her hot bath, and had drunk 
 her sage tea by compulsory gulps, and been tucked 
 into Ellen s bed, her childhood reasserted itself. Grad 
 ually her body and her bodily needs gained the ayroU- 
 ancy over the unnatural strain of her mind. She fell 
 asleep, and lay like one dead. Then Ellen crept down 
 stairs, though it was almost midnight, where her father 
 and mother and grandmother were still talirtfig over the 
 matter. Fanny seemed almost as bad as her sister. 
 It was evident that there was in the undisciplined Loud 
 family a dangerous strain if too far pressed. She was 
 lying down on the lounge, with Andrew VMwg her 
 hand 
 
 "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Poor Eva!" she kept 
 repeating. 
 
 Then she threw off Andrew s hand, sprang to her feet, 
 and began to walk the room. 
 
 " Shell be as bad as her sister if she keeps on," said 
 Mrs. Zelotes, quite audibly, but Fanny paid no atten 
 tion to that. 
 
 " What is goin to be done? Oh, my God, what is 
 goin f to be done?" she wailed. "There she is locked 
 up with two men watchin her lest she do herself a 
 harm, and it s got to cost eighteen dollars a week, unless 
 she s put in with the State poor, and then nobody knows 
 how shell be treated. Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva ! Albert 
 Riggs told me there were awful things done with the 
 State poor in the asylums. He s been an attendant in 
 one. Hie says we ve got to pay eighteen dollars a week 
 if we want to have her cared for decently, and where s 
 the money comin from?" Fanny raised her voice 
 highy stilL 
 
 " Where s the money comin from?** she demanded, 
 
 315 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 with an impious inflection. It was as if she questioned 
 that which is outside of, and the source of, life. Every 
 thing with this woman, whose whole existence had been 
 bound and tainted by the need of money, resolved itself 
 into that fundamental question. All her woes hinged 
 upon it ; even her misery was deteriorated by mammon. 
 
 "Where s the money comin from?" she demanded 
 again. " There s Jim gone, and all his mother s got 
 is that little, mortgaged place, and she feeble, and there 
 ain t a cent anywhere, unless " She turned fiercely 
 to Andrew, clutching him hard by the ann. 
 
 " You must take every cent of that money out of the 
 savings-bank," she cried, "every cent of it. I m your 
 wife, and I ve been a good wife to you, you can t say I 
 haven t." 
 
 "Yes, of course you have, poor girll Don t, don t!" 
 said Andrew, soothingly. He was very pale, and shook 
 from head to foot as he tried to calm Fanny. 
 
 "Yes, I ve been a good, faithful wife," Fanny went 
 on, in her high, hysterical voice. " Even your mother 
 can t say that I haven t ; and Eva is my own sister, and 
 you ought to help her. Every cent of that money will 
 have to come out of the savings-bank, and the house 
 here will have to be mortgaged; it s only my due. I 
 would do as much for you if it was your sister. Eva 
 ain t goin to suffer." 
 
 " I guess if you mortgage this house that you had from 
 your father, to keep a woman whose husband has gone 
 off and left her," said Mrs. Zelotes, " I guess if you don t 
 go and get him back, and get the law to tackle him!" 
 
 Then Fanny turned on her. " Don t you say a word, " 
 said she. " My sister ain t goin to suffer, I don t care 
 where the money comes from. It s mine as much as 
 Andrew s. I ve half supported the family myself sewin 
 on wrappers, and I ve got a right to have my say. My 
 sister ain t goin to suffer! Oh, my God, what s goin 
 
 316 
 
tHE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to become of her? Poor Eva, poor Eva! Eighteen 
 dollars a week ; that s as much as Andrew ever earned. 
 Oh, it was awful, it was awful 1 There, when I got in 
 there, she had a knife, the carving knife, and she 
 had Amabel s hair all gathered up in one hand, and 
 her head tipped back, and poor old mother Tenny was 
 holding her arms, and screamin , and it was all I could 
 do to get the knife away/ and Fanny stripped up her 
 sleeves, and showed a glancing cut on her arm. 
 
 "She did that before I got it away from her/ she 
 said. "Think of it, my own sister! My own sister, 
 who always thought so much of me, and w r ould have 
 had her own fingers cut to the bone before she would 
 have let any one touch me or Ellen! Oh, poor Eva, 
 poor Eva! What is goin to become of her, what is 
 goin to become of her?" 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes went out of the house with a jerk of angry 
 decision, and presently returned with a bottle half full 
 of whiskey. 
 
 "Here," said she to Ellen, "you pour out a quarter 
 of a tumbler of this, and fill it up with hot water. I 
 ain t goin to have the whole family in an asylum be 
 cause Jim Tenny has run/off with another woman, if 
 I can help it!" 
 
 The old woman s steady force of will asserted itself 
 over the hysterical nature of her daughter-in-law. 
 Fanny drank the whiskey and water and went to bed, 
 half stupefied, and Mrs. Zelotes went home. 
 
 " You ring the bell in the night if she s taken worse, 
 and I ll come over," said she to her son. 
 
 When Ellen and her father were left alone they looked 
 at each other, each with pity for the other. Andrew laid 
 a tender, trembling hand on the girl s shoulder. " Some 
 how it will all come out right," he whispered. " You 
 go to bed and go to sleep, and if Amabel wakes up and 
 makes any trouble you speak to father." 
 
 317 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Don t worry about me, father/ returned Ellen. " It s 
 you who have the most to worry over." Then she 
 added for the canker of need of money was eating 
 her soul, too "Father, what is going to be done? 
 You can t pay all that for poor Aunt Eva. How much 
 money have you got in the bank?" 
 
 "Not much, not much, Ellen," replied Andrew, with 
 a groan. 
 
 "It wouldn t last very long at eighteen dollars a 
 week?" 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 "It doesn t seem as if you ought to mortgage the 
 house when you and mother are getting older. Fa 
 ther" 
 
 "What, Ellen?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Ellen, after a little pause. It had 
 been on her lips to tell him that she must go to work, 
 then she refrained. There was something in her fa 
 ther s face which forbade her doing so. 
 
 "Go to bed, Ellen, and get rested," said Andrew. 
 Then he rubbed his head against hers with his curious, 
 dog-like method of caress, and kissed her forehead. 
 
 "You go to sleep and get rested yourself, father," 
 said Ellen. 
 
 "I guess I won t undress to-night, but I ll lay on the 
 lounge," said Andrew. 
 
 " Well, you speak to me if mother wakes up and takes 
 on again. Maybe I can do something." 
 
 "All right, dear child," said Andrew, lovingly and 
 wearily. He had a look as if some mighty wind had 
 passed over him and he were beaten down under it, 
 except for that one single uprearing of love which no 
 tempest could fairly down. 
 
 Ellen w T ent up-stairs, and lay down beside poor little 
 Amabel without undressing herself. The child stirred, 
 but not to awake, when she settled dow r n beside her, 
 
 318 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and reached over her poor little claw of a hand to the 
 girl, who clasped it fervently, and slipped a protecting 
 arm under the tiny shoulders. Then the little thing 
 nestled close to Ellen, with a movement of desperate 
 seeking for protection. "There, there, darling, Ellen 
 will take care of you/ whispered Ellen. But Amabel 
 did not hear. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 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 
 
 320 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 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 get- 
 tin 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 decencj^ 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 fitting 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. Brew- 
 ster 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 miser 
 ably. 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 strait^ 
 of misery. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "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 to 
 gether 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 com 
 plain. But I don t see any other way than to take that 
 monev, 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, 
 322 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 i would take every dollar. You know I would, An 
 drew/ 
 
 "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 
 
 323 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 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 El 
 len 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 ele 
 vated 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 legiti 
 macy 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 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 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 subjec 
 tion. 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 An 
 drew, 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 dodg 
 ing. 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: " GoddamnyouAndrewBrew- 
 ster, for comin to borrow money to buy your girl a watch 
 when you had nothin to pay f or t with, what business had 
 yourgirlwithawatchanyhow,I dliket know ? Mygirl ain t 
 got no watch. I veputmymoneyinthebank. It srobbery. 
 Illhavethelawonye. I llsueyou. I ll " 
 
 325 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 At that moment something happened. The man, 
 William Evarts, who was talking w r ith a vociferousness 
 which seemed cutting and lacerating to the ear, w r ho 
 was brandishing an arm for emphasis in a circle of fren 
 zy, fairly jumped to one side. The girl, Ellen Brew- 
 ster, 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 wnich carried with 
 it the conscioUvSness 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 can 
 not 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 Ev 
 arts. 
 
 "You have either got to take them or wait for your 
 money," said Ellen. 
 
 326 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 "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 could have killed her. 
 
 "I m quite satisfied/ he replied to her, making a re- 
 pellant 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 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 A .ad been often heard 
 
 327 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to say that he for one did not support the street rail 
 road. 
 
 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 be 
 gan, pitifully. He was catching his breath like a child 
 with sobs. 
 
 "I don t want to hear anything," replied Ellen, firm 
 ly. "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 ex- 
 
 / actly 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." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 ELLEN S deepest emotion was pity for her father, 
 so intense that it was actual physical pain. 
 
 " Poor father 1 Poor father ! He had to borrow 
 the money to buy me my watch and chain/ she kept 
 repeating to herself. "Poor father!" 
 
 To her New England mind, borrowing seemed almost 
 like robbing. She actually felt as if her father had 
 committed a crime for love of her, but all she looked 
 at was the love, not the guilt. Suddenly a conviction 
 which fairly benumbed her came over her the money 
 in the savings-bank ; that little hoard, which had been 
 to the imagination of herself and her mother a sheet- 
 anchor against poverty, must be gone. " Father must 
 have used it for something unbeknown to mother/ she 
 said to herself "he must, else he would not have 
 told Mr. Evarts that he could not pay him/ It was 
 a hot night, but the girl shivered as she realized for/ 
 the first time the meaning of the wolf at the dobr. 
 "All we ve got left is this house this house and 
 and our hands/ thought Ellen. She saw before 
 her her father s poor, worn hands, her mother s thin, 
 tired hands, jerking the thread in and out of those 
 shameful wrappers ; then she looked at her own, as 
 yet untouched by toil, as white and small and fair as 
 flowers. She thought of the four years before her at 
 college, four years before she could earn anything 
 and in the mean time? She looked at the pile of 
 her school-books on the table. She had been study 
 ing hard all summer. The thirst for knowledge was 
 
 329 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 as intense in her as the thirst for stimulants in a 
 drunkard. 
 
 " I ought to give up going to college, and go to work 
 in the shop/ Ellen said to herself, and she said it as one 
 might drive a probing-knife into a sore. " I ought to," 
 she repeated. And yet she was far from resolving 
 to give up college. She began to argue with herself the 
 expediency, supposing that the money in the bank 
 was gone, of putting a mortgage on the house. If her 
 father continued to have work, they might get along 
 and pay for her aunt, who might, as the doctor had said, 
 not be obliged to remain long in the asylum if properly 
 cared for. Would it not, after all, be better, since by a 
 course at college she would be fitted to command a larger 
 salary than she could in any other way. " I can sup 
 port them all," reflected Ellen. At that time the thought 
 of Robert Lloyd, and that awakening of heart which he 
 had brought to pass, were in abeyance. Old powers 
 had asserted themselves. This love for her own blood 
 and their need came between her and this new love, 
 half of the senses, half of the spirit. 
 
 Amabel waked up in the early sultry dawn of the 
 summer day with the bewilderment of one in a new 
 world. She stared at the walls of the room, at the 
 shaft of sunlight streaming in the window, then at 
 Ellen. 
 
 "Where am I?" she inquired, in a loud, querulous 
 plaint. Then she remembered, but she did not cry; 
 instead, her little face took on a painfully old look. 
 
 " You are here with cousin Ellen, darling, don t you 
 know?" Ellen replied, leaning over her, and kissing her. 
 
 Amabel wriggled impatiently away, and faced to 
 the wall. "Yes, I know," said she. 
 
 That morning Amabel would not eat any breakfast, 
 and Fanny suggested that Ellen take her for a ride on 
 the street-cars. " We can get along without you for an 
 
 330 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 hour/ she whispered, " and I am afraid that child will 
 be sick." 
 
 So Ellen and Amabel set out, leaving Fanny and the 
 dressmaker at work, and when they were returning past 
 the factories the noon whistles were blowing and the 
 operatives were streaming forth. 
 
 Ellen was surprised to see her father among them as 
 the car swept past. He walked down the street towards 
 home, his dinner-bag dangling at his side, his back 
 more bent than ever. 
 
 She wondered uneasily if her father was ill, for he 
 never went home to dinner. She looked back at him 
 as the car swept past, but he did not seem to see her. 
 He walked with an air of seeing nothing, covering the 
 ground like an old dog with some patient, dumb end 
 in view, heeding nothing by the way. It puzzled her 
 also that her father had come out of Lloyd s instead of 
 McGuire s, where he had been employed all summer. 
 Ellen, after she reached home, watched anxiously 
 for her father to come into the yard, but she did 
 not see him. She assisted about the dinner, which was 
 a little extra on account of the dressmaker, and all the 
 time she glanced with covert anxiety at the window, 
 but her father did not pass it. Finally, when she went 
 out to the pump for a pitcher of water, she set the pitcher 
 down, and sped to the orchard like a wild thing. A 
 suspicion had seized her that her father was there. 
 
 Sure enough, there he was, but instead of lying face 
 down on the grass, as he had done before, he was sit 
 ting back against a tree. He had the air of having 
 settled into such a long lease of despair that he had 
 sought the most comfortable position for it. His face 
 was ghastly. He looked at Ellen as she drew near, 
 and opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead he 
 only caught his breath. He stared hard at her, then 
 he closed his eyes as if not to see her, and motioned her 
 
 331 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 away with one hand with an inarticulate noise in hi 
 throat. 
 
 But Ellen sat down beside him. She caught his tw 
 hands and looked at him. " Father, look at me/ sai 
 she, and Andrew opened his eyes. The expression i 
 them was dreadful, compounded of shame and despai 
 and dread, but the girl s met them with a sort of gla 
 triumph and strength of love. " Now look here, father, 
 she said, "you tell me all about it. I didn t want t 
 know last night. Now I want to know. What is th 
 matter?" 
 
 Andrew continued to look at her, then all at one 
 he spoke with a kind of hoarse shout. " I m discharged 
 I m discharged," he said, "from McGuire s; they v 
 got a boy who can move faster in my place a boy fo 
 less pay, who can move faster. I hurried over to Lloyd 
 to see if they would take me on again; I ve alway 
 thought I should get back into Lloyd s, and I saw th 
 foreman, and he told me to my face that I was too old 
 that they wanted younger men. And I went into th 
 office to see Lloyd, pushed past the foreman, with hin 
 damning me, and I saw Lloyd." 
 
 "Was young Mr. Lloyd there?" asked Ellen, wit] 
 white lips. 
 
 "No; I guess he had gone to dinner. And Lloy( 
 looked at me, and I believe he counted every gray hai 
 in my head, and he saw my back, and he saw my hands 
 and he said he said I was too old." 
 
 Andrew snatched his hands from Ellen s grasp 
 pressed them to his face, and broke into weeping. " Oh 
 my God, I m too old, I m too oldl" he sobbed; "Fn 
 out of it! I m too old!" 
 
 Ellen regarded him, and her face had developed line: 
 of strength hitherto unrevealed. There was no pit] 
 in it, hardly love; she looked angry and powerful 
 " Father, stop doing so, and look at me," she said. Sh< 
 
 332 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 dragged her father s hands from his face, and he stared 
 at her with his inflamed eyes, half terrified, half sus 
 tained. At that moment he realized a strength of sup 
 port as from his own lost youth, a.sirentt]Laa_Q.eternal 
 progress which was more to be relied upon than other 
 human strength. For the first time he leaned on his- 
 child, and realized with wonder the surety of the stay. / 
 
 " Now, father, you stop doing so/ said Ellen. " You 
 can get work somewhere; you are not old. Call your 
 self old! It is nonsense. Are you going to give in 
 and be old because two men tell you that you are? 
 What if your hair is gray ! Ever so many young men 
 have gray hair. You are not old, and you can get 
 work somewhere. McGuire s and Lloyd s are not the 
 only factories in the country/ 
 
 "That ain t all," said Andrew, with eyes like a be 
 seeching dog s on her face. 
 
 "I know that isn t all/ said Ellen. "You needn t 
 be afraid to tell me, father. You have taken the money 
 out of the savings-bank for something." 
 
 Again Andrew would have snatched his hands from 
 the girl s and hidden his face, but she held them 
 fast. "Yes, I have," he admitted, in a croaking 
 voice. 
 
 "Well, what if you have?" asked Ellen. "You had 
 a right to take it out, didn t you? You put it in. I 
 don t know of anybody who had a better right to take 
 it out than you, if you wanted to." 
 
 Andrew stared at her, as if he did not hear rightly, 
 "You don t know what I did with it, Ellen," he stam^ 
 mered. 
 
 "It is nobody s business," replied Ellen. She had 
 an unexplained sensation as if she were holding fast 
 to her father s slipping self-respect which was dragging 
 hard at her restraining love. 
 
 " I put it in a worthless gold-mine out in Colorado-* 
 
 333 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 the same one your uncle Jim lost his money in/ 
 groaned Andrew. 
 
 " Well, it was your money, and you had a perfect 
 right to," said Ellen. "Of course you thought the 
 mine was all right or you wouldn t have put the money 
 into it." 
 
 "God knows I did." 
 
 " Well, the best business men in the world make mis 
 takes. It is nobody s business whether you took the 
 money out or not, or what you used it for, father." 
 
 " I don t see how the bills are going to be paid, and 
 there s your poor aunt," said Andrew. He was leaning 
 more and more heavily upon this new tower of strength; 
 this tender little girl whom he had hitherto shielded 
 and supported. The beautiful law of reverse of nature 
 had come into force. 
 
 Ellen set her mouth firmly. "Don t you worry, 
 father," said she. "We will think of some way out 
 of it. There s a little money to pay for Aunt Eva, and 
 maybe she won t be sick long. Does mother know, 
 father?" 
 
 "She don t know about anything, Ellen," replied 
 Andrew, wretchedly. 
 
 " I know she doesn t know about your getting thrown 
 out of work but about the bank?" 
 
 "No, Ellen." 
 
 Ellen rose. " You stay here, where it is cool, till 1 
 ring the dinner-bell, father," she said. 
 
 "I don t want any dinner, child." 
 
 " Yes, you do, father. If you don t eat your dinnei 
 you will be sick. You come when the bell rings." 
 
 Andrew knew that he should obey, as he saw the 
 girl s light dress disappear among the trees. 
 
 Ellen went back to the pump, and carried her pitchei 
 of water into the house. Her mother met her at tht 
 door. " Where have you been all this time, Ellen Brew- 
 
 334 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ster?" she asked, in a high voice. "Everything is 
 getting as cold as a stone/ 
 
 Ellen caught her mother s arm and drew her into 
 the kitchen, and closed the door. Fanny turned pale 
 as death and looked at her. " Well, what has happened 
 now?" she said. " Is your father killed?" 
 
 "No/ said Ellen, "but he is out of work, and he 
 can t get a job at Lloyd s, and he took all that money 
 out of the savings-bank a long time ago, and put it 
 into that gold-mine that Uncle Jim lost in." 
 
 Fanny clutched the girl s arm in a grasp so hard that 
 it left a blue mark on the tender flesh. She looked at 
 her, but did not speak one word. 
 
 " Now, mother," said Ellen, " you must not say one 
 word to father to scold him. He s got enough to bear 
 as it is." 
 
 Fanny pushed her away with sudden fierceness. 
 " I guess I don t need to have my own daughter teach 
 me my duty to my husband," said she. " Where is 
 he?" 
 
 "Down in the orchard/ 
 
 " Well, ring the bell for dinner loud, so he can hear 
 it." 
 
 When Andrew came shuffling wearily up from the 
 orchard, Fanny met him at the corner of the house, out 
 of sight from the windows. She was flushed and per 
 spiring, clad in a coarse cotton wrapper, revealing all 
 her unkempt curves. She went close to him, and thrust 
 one large arm through his. "Look here, Andrew," 
 said she, in the tenderest voice he had ever heard from 
 her, a voice so tender that it was furious, " you needn t 
 say one word. What s done s done. We shall get 
 along somehow. I ain t afraid. Come in and eat your 
 dinner!" 
 
 The dressmaking work went on as usual after din 
 ner. Andrew had disappeared, going down the road 
 
 335 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 towards the shop. He tried for a job at Briggs s, with 
 no success, then drifted to the corner grocery. 
 
 Ellen sat until nearly three o clock sewing. Then 
 she went up-stairs and got her hat, and went secretly 
 out of the back door, through the west yard, that her 
 mother should not see her. However, her grand 
 mother called after her, and wanted to know where 
 she was going. 
 
 " Down street, on an errand/ answered Ellen. 
 
 "Well, keep on the shady side/ called her grand 
 mother, thinking the girl was bound to the stores for 
 some dressmaking supplies. 
 
 That night Miss Higgins did not ask for her pay; 
 she had made up her mind to wait until her week was 
 finished. She went away after supper, and Ellen fol 
 lowed her to the door. "We won t want you to-mor 
 row, Miss Higgins/ said she, "and here is your pay/ 
 With that she handed a roll of bills to the woman, who 
 stared at her in amazement and growing resentment. 
 
 "If my work ain t satisfactory/ said she 
 
 "Your work is satisfactory," said Ellen, "but I don t 
 want any more work done. I am not going to college." 
 
 There was something conclusive and intimidating 
 about Ellen s look and tone. The dressmaker, who 
 had been accustomed to regard her as a child, stared at 
 her with awe, as before a sudden revelation of force. 
 Then she took her money, and went down the walk. 
 
 When Ellen re-entered the sitting-room her father and 
 mother, who had overheard every word, confronted her. 
 
 "Ellen Brewster, what does this mean?" 
 
 Andrew looked as if he would presently fall to the 
 floor. 
 
 " It means/ said Ellen and she looked at her parents 
 with the brave enthusiasm of a soldier on her beauti 
 ful face she even laughed " it means that I am going 
 \o work I have got a job in Lloyd s." 
 
 33$ 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 When Ellen made that announcement, her mother 
 did a strange thing. She ran swiftly to a corner of 
 the room, and stood there, staring at the girl, with back 
 hugged close to the intersection of the walls, as if she 
 would withdraw as far as possible from some threat 
 ening ill. At that moment she looked alarmingly like 
 her sister; there was something about Fanny in her 
 corner, calculated, when all circumstances were taken 
 into consideration, to make one s blood chill, but An 
 drew did not look at her. He was intent upon Ellen, 
 and the facing of the worst agony of his life, and Ellen 
 was intent upon him. She loved her mother, but the 
 fear as to her father s suffering moved her more than 
 her mother s. She was more like her father, and could 
 better estimate his pain under stress. Andrew rose to 
 his feet and stood looking at Ellen, and she at him. 
 She tried to meet the drawn misery and incredulous- 
 ness of his face with a laugh of reassurance. 
 
 " Yes, I ve got a job in Lloyd s," said she. " What s 
 the matter, father?" 
 
 Then Andrew made an almost inarticulate response ; 
 it sounded like a croak in an unknown tongue. 
 
 Ellen continued to look at him, and to laugh. 
 
 "Now look here, father," said she. "There is no 
 need for you and mother to feel bad over this. I have 
 thought it all over, and I have made up my mind. I 
 have got a good high-school education now, and the 
 four years I should have to spend at Vassar I could 
 do nothing at all. There is awful need of money here, 
 and not only for us, but for Aunt Eva and Amabel." 
 
 "You sha n t do it!" Andrew burst out then, in a 
 great shout of rage. " I ll mortgage the house that ll 
 last awhile. You sha n t, I say! You are my child, 
 and you ve got to listen. You sha n t, I say!" 
 
 " Now, father," responded Ellen s voice, which seemed 
 to have in it a wonderful tone of firmness against which 
 
 337 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 his agonized vociferousness broke as against a rock,. 
 " this is nonsense. You must not mortgage the house. 
 The house is all you have got for your and mother s 
 old age. Do you think I could go to college, and let 
 you give up the house in order to keep me there? And 
 as for grandma Brewster, you know what s hers is hers 
 as long as she lives we don t want to think of that. 
 I have got this job now, which is only three dollars a 
 week, but in a year the foreman said I might earn fif 
 teen or eighteen, if I was quick and smart, and I will 
 be quick and smart. It is the best thing for us all, 
 father/ 
 
 "You sha n t!" shouted Andrew. "I say you 
 sha n t!" 
 
 Suddenly Andrew sank into a chair, his head lopped, 
 he kept moving a hand before his eyes, as if he were 
 brushing away cobwebs. Then Fanny came out of 
 her corner. 
 
 "Get the camphor, quick!" she said to Ellen. "I 
 dun no but you ve killed your father." 
 
 Fanny held her husband s head against her shoul 
 der, and rubbed his hands frantically. The awful 
 strained look had gone from her face. Ellen came 
 with the camphor, and then went for water. Fanny 
 rubbed Andrew s forehead with the camphor, and held 
 the bottle to his nose. "Smell it, Andrew/ she said, 
 in a voice of ineffable tenderness and pity. Ellen re 
 turned with a glass of water, and Andrew swallowed 
 a little obediently. Finally he made out to stagger 
 into the bedroom with Fanny s and Ellen s assistance. 
 He sat down weakly on the bed, and Fanny lifted his 
 legs up. Then he sank and closed his eyes as if he 
 were spent. In fact, he was. At that moment of El 
 len s announcement some vital energy in him suddenly 
 relaxed like overstrained rubber. His face, sunken 
 in the pillow, was both ghastly and meek. It was the 
 
 338 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 face of a man who could fight no more. Ellen knelt 
 down beside him, sobbing. 
 
 "Oh, father I" she sobbed, "I think it is for the best. 
 Dear father, you won t feel bad/ 
 
 "No," said Andrew, faintly. There was a slight 
 twitching in his hand, as if he wished to put it on her 
 head, then it lay thin and inert on the coverlid. He 
 tried to smile, but his face settled into that look of utter 
 acquiescence of fate. 
 
 "I s pose it s the best you can do," he muttered. 
 
 "Have you told Miss Lennox?" gasped Fanny. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 " She was sorry, but she made no objection/ replied 
 Ellen, evasively. 
 
 Fanny came forward abruptly, caught up the cam 
 phor-bottle, and began bathing Andrew s forehead 
 again. 
 
 "We won t say any more about it," said she, in a 
 harsh voice. " You d better go over to your grandma 
 Brewster s and see if she has got any whiskey. I think 
 your father needs to take something." 
 
 "I don t want anything," said Andrew, feebly. 
 
 "Yes, you do, too, you are as white as a ^heet. Go 
 over and ask her, Ellen." 
 
 Ellen ran across the yard to her grandmother s, and 
 the old woman met her at the door. She seemed to 
 have an instinctive knowledge of trouble. 
 
 "What s the matter?" she asked. 
 
 " Father s a little faint, and mother wants me to bor 
 row the whiskey," said Ellen. She had not at that time 
 the courage to tell her grandmother what she had done. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes ran into the house, and came out with 
 the bottle. 
 
 "I m comin over/ she announced. "I m kind of 
 worried about your father ; he ain t looked well for some 
 
 339 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 time. I wonder what made him faint. Maybe he 
 ate something which hurt him." 
 
 Ellen said nothing. She fled up-stairs to her cham 
 ber, as her grandmother entered the bedroom. She 
 felt cowardly, but she thought that she would let her 
 mother tell the news. 
 
 She sat down and waited. She knew that presently 
 she would hear the old woman s voice at the foot of the 
 stairs. She was resolved upon her course, and knew 
 that she could not be shaken in it, yet she dreaded un 
 speakably the outburst of grief and anger which she 
 knew would come from her grandmother. She felt 
 as if she had faced two fires, and now before the third 
 she quailed a little. 
 
 It was not long before the expected summons came. 
 
 "Ellen Ellen Brewster, come down here!" 
 
 Ellen went down. Her grandmother met her at 
 the foot of the stairs. She was trembling from head 
 to foot; her mouth twisted and wavered as if she had 
 the palsy. 
 
 "Look here, Ellen Brewster, this ain t true?" she 
 stammered. 
 
 " Yee, grandma/ answered Ellen. "I have thought 
 it all over, and it is the only thing for me to do." 
 
 Her grandmother clutched her arm, and the girl felt 
 as if she were in the grasp of another will, which was 
 more conclusive than steel. 
 
 "You sha n t!" she said, whispering, lest Andrew 
 should hear, but with intense force. 
 
 "I ve got to, grandma. We ve got to have the 
 money." 
 
 " The money," said the old woman, with an inflection 
 of voice and a twist of her features indicative of the 
 most superb scorn "the money! I guess you ain t 
 goin to lose such a chance as that for money. I guess 
 I ve got two hundred and ten dollars a year income, 
 
 340 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and I ll give up a half of that, and Andrew can put a 
 mortgage on the house, if that Tenny woman has got 
 to be supported because her husband has run off and 
 left her and her young one. You sha n t go to work 
 in a shop." 
 
 " I ve got to, grandma," said Ellen. 
 
 The old woman looked at her. It was like a duel be 
 tween two strong wills of an old race. "You sha n t," 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes, I shall, grandma." 
 
 Then the old woman turned upon her in a fury of rage. 
 
 "You re a Loud all over, Ellen Brewster," said she. 
 "You ain t got a mite of Brewster about you. You 
 ain t got any pride! You d just as soon settle down 
 and work in a shop as do anything else." 
 
 Fanny pushed before her. "Look here, Mother 
 Brewster," said she, "you can just stop! Ellen is my 
 daughter, and you ain t any right to talk to her this 
 way. I won t have it. If anybody is goin to blame 
 her, it s me." 
 
 "Who be you?" said Mrs. Zelotes, sniffing. 
 
 Then she looked at them both, at Ellen and at her 
 mother. 
 
 "If you go an do what you ve planned," said she 
 to Ellen, "an if you uphold her in it," to Fanny, "I ve 
 done with you." 
 
 "Good riddance," said Fanny, coarsely. 
 
 "I ain t goin to forget that you said that," cried 
 Mrs. Zelotes. She held up her dress high in front 
 and went out of the door. "I ain t comin over here 
 again, an I ll thank you to stay at home," said she. 
 Then she went away. 
 
 Soon after Fanny heard Ellen in the dining-room 
 setting the table for supper, and went out. 
 
 " Where did you get that money you paid the dress 
 maker with?" she asked, abruptly. 
 
 341 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "I borrowed it of Abby," replied Ellen. 
 
 "Then she knows? 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Fanny continued to look at Ellen with the look of 
 one who is settling down with resignation under some 
 knife of agony. 
 
 "Well/ said she, "there s no need to talk any more 
 about it before your father. Now I guess you had 
 better toast him some bread for his supper. " 
 
 "Yes, I will," replied Ellen. She looked at her 
 mother pitifully, and yet with that firmness which 
 had seemed to suddenly develop in her. "You know 
 it is the best thing for me to do, mother?" she said, and 
 although she put it in the form of a question, the state 
 ment was commanding in its assertiveness. 
 
 "When are you goin to work?" asked Fanny. 
 
 "Next Monday," replied Ellen. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 WHEN Ellen had gone to the factory to apply foi 
 work neither of the Lloyds were in the office, only a 
 girl at the desk, whom she knew slightly. Ellen had 
 hesitated a little as she approached the girl, who looked 
 around with a friendly smile. 
 
 "I want to see " Ellen began, then she stopped, 
 for she did not exactly know for whom she should ask. 
 The girl, who was blond and trim, clad coquettishly 
 in a blue shirt-waist and a duck skirt, with a large, 
 cheap rhinestone pin confining the loop of her j -ellow 
 braids, looked at her in some bewilderment. She had 
 heard of Ellen s good-fortune, and knew she was to be 
 sent to Vassar by Cynthia Lennox. She did not dream 
 that she had come to ask for employment. 
 
 " You want to see Mr. Lloyd ? she asked. 
 
 "Oh no!" replied Ellen. 
 
 "Mr. Robert Lloyd?" The girl, w r hose name was 
 Nellie Stone, laughed a little meaningly as she said 
 that. 
 
 Ellen blushed. " No/ she said. " I think I want to 
 see the foreman." 
 
 "Which foreman?" 
 
 "I don t know," replied Ellen. "I want to get work 
 if I can. I don t know which foreman I ought to see." 
 
 "To get work?" repeated the girl, with a subtle 
 change in her manner. 
 
 "Yes," said Ellen. She could hear her heart l>eat 
 but she looked at the other girl s pretty, common fact- 
 with the most perfect calmness 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Mr. Flynn is the one you want to see, then/ said 
 the girl. " You know Ed Flynn, don t you?" 
 
 "A little/ replied Ellen. He had been a big boy 
 when she entered the high -school, and had left the 
 next spring. 
 
 "Well, he s the one you want/ said Nellie Stone. 
 Then she raised her voice to a shrill peal as a boy 
 passed the office door. 
 
 "Here, you, Jack," said she, "ask Mr. Flynn to 
 come here a minute, will you?" 
 
 "He don t want to see you," replied the boy, who 
 was small and spare, laden heavily with a great roll 
 of wrapping paper borne bayonet fashion over his 
 shoulder. His round, impish face grinned back at the 
 girl at the desk. 
 
 " Quit your impudence," she returned, half laughing 
 herself. "I don t want to see him; it is this young 
 lady here; hurry up." 
 
 The boy gave a comprehensive glance at Ellen. 
 "Guess he ll come," he called back. 
 
 Flynn appeared soon. He was handsome, well 
 shaven and shorn, and he held himself smartly. He 
 also dressed well in a business suit which would not 
 have disgraced the Lloyds. His face lit up with as 
 tonishment and pleasure when he saw Ellen. He 
 bowed and greeted her in a rich voice. He was of Irish 
 descent but American born. Both his motions and 
 his speech were adorned with flourishes of grace which 
 betrayed his race. He placed a chair for Ellen with a 
 sweep which would have been a credit to the stage. 
 All his actions had a slight exaggeration as of fresco 
 painting, which seemed to fit them for a stage rather 
 than a room, and for an audience rather than chance 
 spectators. 
 
 "No, thank you," replied Ellen. Then she went 
 straight to the matter in hand. "I have called to see 
 
 344 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 if I could get a job here?" she said. She had been 
 formulating her speech all the way thither. Her first 
 impulse was to ask for employment, but she was sure 
 as to the manner in which a girl would ordinarily couch 
 such a request. So she asked for a job. 
 
 Flynn stared at her. "A job?" he repeated. 
 
 "Yes, I want very much to get one," replied Ellen. 
 " I thought there might be a vacancy." 
 
 " Why, I thought " said the young man. He was 
 very much astonished, but his natural polish could 
 rise above astonishment. Instead of blurting out what 
 was in his mind as to her change of prospects, he rea 
 soned with incredible swiftness that the change must 
 be a hard thing to this girl, and that she was to be 
 handled the more tenderly and delicately because she 
 was such a pretty girl. He became twice as polite as 
 before. He moved the chair nearer to her. 
 
 "Please sit down," he said. He handed to her the 
 wooden arm-chair as if it had been a throne. Nellie 
 Stone bent frowning over her day-book. 
 
 "Now let me see," said the young man, seriously, 
 with perfect deference of manner, only belied by the 
 rollicking admiration in his eyes. "You have never 
 held a position in a factory before, I think?" 
 
 "No," replied Ellen. 
 
 "There is at present only one vacancy that I can 
 think of," said Flynn, "and that does not pay very 
 much, but there is always a chance to rise for a smart 
 hand. I am sure you will be that," he added, smiling 
 at her. 
 
 Ellen did not return the smile. " I shall be content 
 ed to begin for a little, if there is a chance to rise/ she 
 said. 
 
 " There s a chance to rise to eighteen dollars a week," 
 said Flynn. He smiled again, but it was like smil 
 ing at seriousness itself. Ellen s downright, searching 
 
 a* 345 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 eyes upon his face seemed almost to forbid the fact of 
 her own girlish identity. 
 
 "What is the job you have for me?" said she. 
 
 "Tying strings in shoes/ answered Flynn. "Easy 
 enough, only child s play, but you won t earn more than 
 three dollars a week to begin with." 
 
 "I shall be quite satisfied with that/ said Ellen. 
 "When shall I come?" 
 
 " Why, to-morrow morning ; no, to-morrow is Friday. 
 Better come next Monday and begin the week. That 
 will give you one day more off, and the hot wave a 
 chance to get past." Flynn spoke facetiously. It 
 was a very hot day, and the air in the office like a fur 
 nace. He wiped his forehead, to which the dark rings 
 of hair clung. The girl at the desk glanced around 
 adoringly at him. 
 
 "I would rather not stop for that if you want me to 
 begin at once," said Ellen. 
 
 Flynn looked abashed. "Oh, we d rather have you 
 begin on the even week it makes less bother over the 
 account," he said. "Monday morning at seven sharp, 
 then." 
 
 "Yes," said Ellen. 
 
 Flynn walked off with an abrupt duck of his head. 
 He somehow felt that he had been rebuffed, and Ellen 
 rose. 
 
 "I told you you d get one," said the girl at the desk. 
 " Catch Ed Flynn not giving a pretty girl a job." She 
 said it with an accent of pain as well as malice. Ellen 
 looked at her with large, indignant eyes. She had not 
 the least idea what she meant, at least she realized only 
 the surface meaning, and that angered her. 
 
 "I suppose he gave me the job because there was a 
 vacancy," she returned, with dignity. 
 
 The other girl laughed. "Mebbe," said she. 
 
 Ellen continued to look at her, and there was some- 
 346 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 thing in her look not only indignant, but appealing. 
 Nellie Stone s expression changed again. She laughed 
 uneasily. "Land, I didn t mean anything/ said she! 
 "I m glad for you that you got the job. Of course 
 you wouldn t have got it if there hadn t been a chance. 
 One of the girls got married last week, Maud Millet. 
 I guess it s her place you ve got. I m real glad you ve 
 got it." 
 
 "Thank you," said Ellen. 
 
 "Good-bye," said the girl. 
 
 "Good-bye," replied Ellen. 
 
 On Monday morning the heat had broken, and an 
 east wind with the breath of the sea in it was blowing. 
 Ellen started for her work at half-past six. She held 
 her father s little, worn leather-bag, in which he had 
 carried his dinner for so many years. The walk was 
 so long that it would scarcely give her time to come home 
 at noon, and as for taking a car, that was not to be 
 thought of for a moment on account of the fare. 
 
 Ellen walked along briskly, the east wind blew in 
 her face, she smelled the salt sea, and somehow it at 
 once soothed and stimulated her. Without seeing the 
 mighty waste of waters, she seemed to realize its pres 
 ence; she gazed at the sky hanging low with a scud 
 of gray clouds, which did not look unlike the ocean, and 
 the sense of irresponsibility in the midst of infinity 
 comforted her. 
 
 "I am not Ellen Brewster after all," she thought. 
 "I am not anything separate enough to be worried 
 about what comes to me. I am only a part of great 
 ness which cannot fail of reaching its end." She 
 thought this all vaguely. She had no language for it, 
 for she was very young ; it was formless as music, but 
 as true to her. 
 
 When she reached the cross-street where the Atkinses 
 lived Abby and Maria came running out. 
 
 347 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 each side, led to a platform in front of the entrance of 
 Lloyd s. 
 
 When Ellen set her foot on one of these stairs the 
 seven-o clock steam-whistle blew, and a mighty thrill 
 shot through the vast building. Ellen caught her 
 breath. Abby carne close to her. 
 
 "Don t get scared," said she, with ungracious ten 
 derness; "there s nothing to be scared at." 
 
 Ellen laughed. "I m not scared," said she. Then 
 they entered the factory, humming with machinery, 
 and a sensation which she had not anticipated was 
 over her. Scared she was not ; she was fairly exultant. 
 All at once she entered a vast room in which eager 
 men were already at the machines with frantic zeal, 
 as if they were driving labor herself. When she felt 
 the vibration of the floor under her feet, when she saw 
 people spring to their stations of toil, as if springing 
 to guns in a battle, she realized the might and grandeur 
 of it all. Suddenly it seemed to her that the greatest 
 thing in the whole world was work and that this was 
 one of the greatest forms of work to cover the feet 
 of progress of the travellers of the earth from the cradle 
 to the grave. She saw that these great factories, and 
 the strength of this army of the sons and daughters of 
 Joil, made possible the advance of civilization itself, 
 which cannot go barefoot. She realized all at once 
 and forever the dignity of labor, this girl of the peo 
 ple, with a brain which enabled her to overlook the 
 heads of the rank and file of which she herself formed 
 a part._ She never again, whatever her regret might 
 have been for another life for which she was better 
 fitted, which her taste preferred, had any sense of 
 ignominy in this. She never again felt that she 
 was too good for her labor, for labor had revealed it 
 self to her like a goddess behind a sordid veil. Abby 
 and Maria looked at her wonderingly. No other girl 
 
 350 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 had ever entered Lloyd s with such a look on her 
 face. 
 
 "Are you sick?" whispered Abby, catching her 
 arm. 
 
 "No/ said Ellen. "No, don t worry me, Abby. I 
 think I shall like it." 
 
 "I declare you make me mad/ said Abby, but she 
 looked at her adoringly. "Here s Ed Flynn/ she 
 added. "He ll look out for you. Good-bye, I ll see 
 you at noon." Abby went away to her machine. She 
 was stitching vamps by the piece, and earning a con 
 siderable amount. The Atkinses were not so dis 
 tressed as they had been, and Abby was paying off a 
 mortgage. 
 
 When the foreman came towards Ellen she experi 
 enced a shock. His gay, admiring eyes on her face 
 seemed to dispel all her exaltation. She felt as if her 
 feet touched earth, and yet the young man was entire 
 ly respectful, and even thoughtful. He bade her 
 "Good-morning," and conducted her to the scene of 
 her labor. One other girl was already there at work. 
 She gave a sidewise glance at Ellen, and went on, 
 making her fingers fly. Mr. Flynn showed Ellen 
 what to do. She had to tie the shoes together with 
 bits of twine, laced through eyelet holes. Ellen took 
 a piece of twine and tied it in as Flynn watched her. 
 He laughed pleasantly. 
 
 "You ll do," he said, approvingly. "I ve been in 
 here five years, and you are the first girl I ever saw 
 who tied a square knot at the first trial. Here s Mamie 
 Brady here, she worked a solid month before she got 
 the hang of the square knot." 
 
 "You go along," admonished the girl spoken of as 
 "Mamie Brady." Her words were flippant, even im 
 pudent, but her tone was both dejected and childish. 
 She continued to work without a glance at either of 
 
 351 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 them. Her fingers flew, tying the knots with swift 
 jerks. 
 
 "Well, you help Miss Brewster, if she needs any 
 help/ said Flynn, as he went away. 
 
 "We don t have any misses in this shop/ said the 
 girl to Ellen, with sarcastic emphasis. 
 
 "I don t care anything about being called miss/ 
 replied Ellen, picking up another piece of string. 
 
 "What s your first name?" 
 
 "Ellen." 
 
 "Oh, land! I know who you be. You read that 
 essay at the high-school graduation. I was there. 
 Well, I shouldn t think you would want to be called 
 miss if you feel the way you said you did in that." 
 
 "I don t want to/ said Ellen. 
 
 The girl gave a swift, comprehensive glance at her 
 as her fingers manipulated the knots. 
 
 "You won t earn twenty cents a week at the rate 
 you re workin ," she said; "look at me." 
 
 "I don t believe you worked any faster than I do 
 when you hadn t been here any longer," retorted 
 Ellen. 
 
 " I did, too ; you can t depend on a thing Ed Flynn 
 says. You re awful slow. He praises you because 
 you are good-lookin ." 
 
 Ellen turned and faced her. "Look here," said she. 
 
 The other girl looked at her with unspeakable im 
 pudence, and yet under it was that shadow of dejec 
 tion and that irresponsible childishness. 
 
 "Well, I am lookin ," said she, "what is it?" 
 
 "You need not speak to me again in that way," said 
 Ellen, "and I want you to understand it. I will not 
 have it." 
 
 "My, ain t you awful smart," said the other girl, 
 sneeringly, but she went on with her work without 
 another word. Presently she said to Ellen, kindly 
 
 352 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 enough : " If you lay the shoes the way I do, so, you 
 can get them faster. You ll find it pays. Every little 
 saving of time counts when you are workin by the 
 piece/ 
 
 "Thank you/ said Ellen, and did as she was in 
 structed. She began to work with exceeding swiftness 
 for a beginner. Her fingers were supple, her nervous 
 energy great. Flynn came and stood beside her, 
 watching her. 
 
 /"If you work at that rate, you ll make it pretty 
 profitable," he said. 
 
 "Thank you," said Ellen. 
 
 "And a square knot every time/ he added, with 
 almost a caressing inflection. Mamie Brady tied in 
 the twine with compressed lips. Granville Joy passed 
 them, pushing a rack full of shoes to another depart 
 ment, and he glanced at them jealously. Still he was 
 not seriously alarmed as to Flynn, who, although 
 he was good-looking, was a Catholic. Mrs. Zelotes 
 seemed an effectual barrier to that. 
 
 "Ed Flynn talks that way to everybody," Mamie 
 Brady said to Ellen, after the foreman had passed 
 on. She said it this time quite inoffensively. Ellen 
 laughed. 
 
 " If I do tie the knots square, that is the main thing/ 
 she said. 
 
 " Then you don t like him?" 
 
 "I never spoke two words to him before the day I 
 applied for work," Ellen replied, haughtily. She 
 was beginning to feel that perhaps the worst feat 
 ure of her going to work in a factory would be this 
 girl. 
 
 "I ve known girls who would be willing to go down 
 on their knees and tie his shoes when they hadn t seen 
 more of him than that," said the girl. "Ed Flynrj 
 is an awful masher." 
 
 353 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen went on with her work. The girl, after a side 
 glance at her, went on with hers. 
 
 Gradually Ellen s w r ork began to seem mechanical. 
 At first she had felt as if she were tying all her problems 
 of life in square knots. She had to use all her brain 
 upon it; after a while her brain had so informed her 
 fingers that they had learned their lesson well enough 
 to leave her free to think, if only the girl at her side 
 would let her alone. The girl had a certain harsh 
 beauty, coarsely curling red hair, a great mass of it, 
 gathered in an untidy knot, and a brilliant complexion. 
 Her hands were large and red. Ellen s contrasted 
 with them looked like a baby s. 
 
 " You ain t got hands for workin in a shoe-shop," 
 said Mamie Brady, presently, and it was impossible 
 to tell from her tone whether she envied or aclmired 
 Ellen s hands, or was proud of the superior strength of 
 her own. 
 
 "Well, they ve got to work in a shoe-shop/ said 
 Ellen, with a short laugh. 
 
 " You won t find it so easy to work with such little 
 mites of hands when it comes to some things," said 
 the girl. 
 
 It began to be clear that she exulted in her large, 
 coarse hands as being fitted for her work. 
 
 "Maybe mine will grow larger," said Ellen. 
 
 " No, they won t. They ll grow all bony and knotty, 
 but they won t grow any bigger." 
 
 "Well, I shall have to get along with them the best 
 way I can," replied Ellen, rather impatiently. This 
 girl was irritating to a degree, and yet there was all 
 the time that vague dejection about her, and withal 
 a certain childishness, which seemed to insist upon 
 patience. The girl was really older than Ellen, but she 
 was curiously unformed. Some of the other girls said 
 openly that she was "lacking." 
 
 354 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You act stuck up. Are you stuck up?" asked 
 Mamie Brady, suddenly, after another pause. 
 
 Ellen laughed in spite of herself. "No," said she, 
 " I am not. I know of no reason that I have for being 
 stuck up." 
 
 "Well, I don t know of any either," said the other 
 girl, " but I didn t know. You sort of acted as if you 
 felt stuck up." 
 
 "Well, I don t." 
 
 "You talk stuck up. Why don t you talk the way 
 the rest of us do? Why do you say am not/ and 
 ar n t ; why don t you say ain t ?" 
 
 The girl mimicked Ellen s voice impishly. 
 
 Ellen colored. " I am going to talk the way I think 
 best, the way I have been taught is right, and if that 
 makes you think I am stuck up, I can t help it." 
 
 "My, don t get mad. I didn t mean anything," 
 said the other girl. 
 
 All the time while Ellen was working, and even 
 while the exultation and enthusiasm of her first charge 
 in the battle of labor was upon her, she had had, since 
 her feminine instincts were, after all, strong with her, 
 a sense that Robert Lloyd was under the same great 
 factory roof, in the same human hive, that he might 
 at any moment pass through the room. That, how 
 ever, she did not think very likely. She fancied the 
 Lloyds seldom went through the departments, which 
 were in charge of foremen. Mr. Norman Lloyd was 
 at the mountains with his wife, she knew. They left 
 Robert in charge, and he would have enough to do in 
 the office. She looked at the grimy men working around 
 her, and she thought of the elegant young fellow, and 
 the utter incongruity of her being among them seemed 
 so great as to preclude the possibility of it. She had 
 said to herself when she thought of obtaining work in 
 Lloyd s that she need not hesitate about it on account 
 
 355 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen went on with her work. The girl, after a side 
 glance at her, went on with hers. 
 
 Gradually Ellen s work began to seem mechanical. 
 At first she had felt as if she were tying all her problems 
 of life in square knots. She had to use all her brain 
 upon it; after a while her brain had so informed her 
 fingers that they had learned their lesson well enough 
 to leave her free to think, if only the girl at her side 
 would let her alone. The girl had a certain harsh 
 beauty, coarsely curling red hair, a great mass of it, 
 gathered in an untidy knot, and a brilliant complexion. 
 Her hands were large and red. Ellen s contrasted 
 with them looked like a baby s. 
 
 "You ain t got hands for workin in a shoe-shop/ 
 said Mamie Brady, presently, and it was impossible 
 to tell from her tone whether she envied or admired 
 Ellen s hands, or was proud of the superior strength of 
 her own. 
 
 "Well, they ve got to work in a shoe-shop/ said 
 Ellen, with a short laugh. 
 
 " You won t find it so easy to work with such little 
 mites of hands when it comes to some things," said 
 the girl. 
 
 It began to be clear that she exulted in her large, 
 coarse hands as being fitted for her work. 
 
 "Maybe mine will grow larger," said Ellen. 
 
 " No, they won t. They ll grow all bony and knotty, 
 but they won t grow any bigger." 
 
 "Well, I shall have to get along with them the best 
 way I can," replied Ellen, rather impatiently. This 
 girl was irritating to a degree, and yet there was all 
 the time that vague dejection about her, and withal 
 a certain childishness, which seemed to insist upon 
 patience. The girl was really older than Ellen, but she 
 was curiously unformed. Some of the other girls said 
 openly that she was "lacking." 
 
 354 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You act stuck up. Are you stuck up?" asked 
 Mamie Brady, suddenly, after another pause. 
 
 Ellen laughed in spite of herself. "No," said she, 
 " I am not. I know of no reason that I have for being 
 stuck up." 
 
 "Well, I don t know of any either," said the other 
 girl, " but I didn t know. You sort of acted as if you 
 felt stuck up." 
 
 "Well, I don t." 
 
 "You talk stuck up. Why don t you talk the way 
 the rest of us do? Why do you say am not/ and 
 ar n t ; why don t you say ain t ?" 
 
 The girl mimicked Ellen s voice impishly. 
 
 Ellen colored. " I am going to talk the way I think 
 best, the way I have been taught is right, and if that 
 makes you think I am stuck up, I can t help it." 
 
 "My, don t get mad. I didn t mean anything," 
 said the other girl. 
 
 All the time while Ellen was working, and even 
 while the exultation and enthusiasm of her first charge 
 in the battle of labor was upon her, she had had, since 
 her feminine instincts were, after all, strong with her, 
 a sense that Robert Lloyd was under the same great 
 factory roof, in the same human hive, that he might 
 at any moment pass through the room. That, how 
 ever, she did not think very likely. She fancied the 
 Lloyds seldom went through the departments, which 
 were in charge of foremen. Mr. Norman Lloyd was 
 at the mountains with his wife, she knew. They left 
 Robert in charge, and he would have enough to do in 
 the office. She looked at the grimy men working around 
 her, and she thought of the elegant young fellow, and 
 the utter incongruity of hef being among them seemed 
 so great as to preclude the possibility of it. She had 
 said to herself when she thought of obtaining work in 
 Lloyd s that she need not hesitate about it on account 
 
 355 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of Robert. She had heard her father say that the elder 
 Lloyd almost never came in contact with the men, that 
 everything was done through the foremeh. She rea 
 soned that it would be the same with the younger Lloyd. 
 But all at once the girl at her side gave her a violent 
 nudge, which did not interrupt for a second her own 
 flying fingers* 
 
 "Say/ she said, "ain t he handsome?" 
 
 Ellen glanced over her shoulder and saw Robert 
 Lloyd coming down between the lines of workmen. 
 Then she turned to her work, and her fingers slipped 
 and bungled, her ears rang. He passed without speak 
 ing. 
 
 Mamie Brady openly stared after him. "He s aw 
 ful handsome, and an awful swell, but he s awful 
 stuck up, just like the old boss/ said she. " He never 
 notices any of us, and acts as if he was afraid we d 
 poison him. My, what s the matter with you?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Ellen. 
 
 "You look white as a sheet; ain t you well?" 
 
 Ellen turned upon her with sudden fury. She had 
 something of the blood of the violent Louds and of 
 her hot-tempered grandmother. She had stood every 
 thing from this petty, insistent tormentor. 
 
 "Yes, I am well," she replied, "and I will thank you 
 to let me alone, and let me do my work, and do your 
 own." 
 
 The other girl stared at her a minute with curiously 
 expressive, uplifted eyebrows. 
 
 "Whew!" she said, in a half whistle then, and went 
 on with her work, and did not speak again. 
 
 Ellen was thankful that Robert Lloyd had not spoken 
 to her in the factory, and yet she was cut to the quick 
 by it. It fulfilled her anticipations to the letter. "I 
 was right," she said to herself; "he can never think 
 of me again. He is showing it." Somehow, after 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 he had passed, her enthusiasm, born of a strong imagi 
 nation, and her breadth of nature failed her somewhat. 
 The individual began to press too closely upon the 
 aggregate. Suddenly Ellen Brewster and her own 
 heartache and longing came to the front. She had put 
 herself out of his life as completely as if she had gone to 
 another planet. Still, feeling this, she realized no degra 
 dation of herself as a cause of it. She realized that 
 from his point of view she had gone into a valley, but 
 from hers she was rather on an opposite height. She 
 on the height of labor, of skilled handiwork, which is 
 the manifestation in action of brain-work, he on the 
 height of pure brain- work unpressed by physical action. 
 
 At noon, when she was eating her dinner with Abby 
 and Maria, Abby turned to her and inquired if young 
 Mr. Lloyd had spoken to her when he came through 
 the room. 
 
 "No, he didn t," replied Ellen. 
 
 Abby said nothing, but she compressed her lips and 
 gave her head a hard jerk. A girl who ran a machine 
 next to Abby s came up, munching a large piece of 
 pie, taking clean semicircular bites with her large, white 
 teeth. 
 
 "Say," she said, "did you see the young boss s new 
 suit? Got up fine, wasn t he?" 
 
 " I d like to see him working where I be for an hour/ 
 said a young fellow, strolling up, dipping into his din 
 ner-bag. He was black and greasy as to face and hands 
 and clothing. "Guess his light pants and vest would 
 look rather different/ said he, and everybody laughed 
 except the Atkins girls and Ellen. 
 
 " I guess he washed his hands, anyway, before he ate 
 his dinner," said Abby, sharply, looking at the young 
 man s hands with meaning. 
 
 The young fellow colored, though he laughed. 
 " There ain t a knife in this shop so sharp as some 
 
 357 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 women s tongues/ said he. "I pity the man that 
 gets you." 
 
 "There won t any man get me/ retorted Abby. 
 "I ve seen all I want to see of men, working with em 
 every day." 
 
 "Mebbe they have of you/ called back the young 
 fellow, going away. 
 
 "The saucy thingl" said the girl who stitched next 
 to Abby. 
 
 " There isn t any excuse for a man s eating his dinner 
 with hands like that/ said Abby. " It s worse to poison 
 yourself with your own dirt than with other folks . 
 It hurts your own self more." 
 
 " He ain t worth minding/ said the girl. 
 
 "Do you suppose I do mind him?" returned Abby. 
 Maria looked at her meaningly. The young man, 
 whose name was Edison Bartlett, had once tried to 
 court Abby, but neither she nor Maria had ever told of it. 
 
 "His clothes were a pearl gray," said the girl at 
 the stitching-machine, reverting to the original subject. 
 
 "Good gracious, who cares what color they were?" 
 cried Abby, impatiently. 
 
 "He looked awful handsome in em," said the girl. 
 "He s awful handsome." 
 
 " You d better look at handsome fellows in your own 
 set, Sadie Peel," said Abby, roughly. 
 
 The girl, who was extremely pretty, carried herself 
 well, and dressed with cheap fastidiousness, colored. 
 
 ".I don t see what we have to think about sets for," 
 said she. " I guess way back the Peels were as good 
 as the Lloyds. We re in a free country, where one 
 is as good as another, ain t we?" 
 
 " No one is as good as another, except in the sight of 
 the Lord, in any country on the face of this earth," said 
 Abby. 
 
 "If you are as good in your own sight, I don t see 
 358 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 that it makes much difference about the sight of other 
 human" beings/ 7 said Ellen. " I guess that s what 
 makes a republic, anyway/ 
 
 Sadie Peel gave a long, bewildered look at her, then 
 she turned to Abby. 
 
 "Do you know where I can get somebody to do ac 
 cordion-plaiting for me?" she asked. 
 
 "No/ said Abby. "I never expect to get to the 
 height of accordion-plaiting." 
 
 "I know where you can/ said another girl, coming 
 up. She had light hair, falling in a harsh, uncurled 
 bristle over her forehead; her black gown was smeared 
 with paste, and even her face and hands were sticky 
 with it. 
 
 " There s a great splash of paste on your nose, Hattie 
 Wright," said Abby. 
 
 The girl took out a crumpled handkerchief and began 
 rubbing her nose absently while she w r ent on talking 
 about the accordion-plaiting. 
 
 "There s a woman on Joy Street does it/ said she. 
 " She lives just opposite the school-house, and she does 
 it awful cheap, only three cents a yard." She thrust 
 the handkerchief into her pocket. 
 
 "You haven t got it half off," said Abby. 
 
 "Let it stay there, then," said the girl, indifferently. 
 "If you work pasting linings in a shoe- shop you ve 
 got to get pasted yourself." 
 
 Ellen looked at the girl with a curious reflection that 
 she spoke the truth, that she really was pasted herself, 
 that the soil and the grind of her labor were wearing 
 on her soul. She had seen this girl out of the shop 
 in fact, only the day before and no one would have 
 known her for the same person. When her light hair 
 was curled, and she was prettily dressed, she was quite 
 a beauty. In the shop she was a slattern, and seemed 
 to go down under the wheels of her toil. 
 
 359 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "On Joy Street, you said?" said Sadie Peel. 
 
 "Yes. Right opposite the school-house. Her name 
 is Brackett." 
 
 Then the one-o clock whistle blew, and everybody, 
 Ellen with the rest, went back to their stations. Robert 
 Lloyd did not come into the room again that afternoon. 
 Ellen worked on steadily, and gained swiftness. Every 
 now and then the foreman came and spoke encourag 
 ingly to her. 
 
 "Look out, Mamie/ he said to the girl at her side, 
 "or shell get ahead of you." 
 
 "I don t want to get ahead of her/ said Ellen, un 
 expectedly. 
 
 Flynn laughed. " If you don t, you ain t much like 
 the other girls in this shop," said he, passing on with 
 his urbane, slightly important swing of shoulders. 
 
 "Did you mean that?" asked Mamie Brady. 
 
 "Yes, I did. It seems to pie you work fast enough 
 for any girl. A girl isn t a machine." 
 
 "You re a queer thing," said Mamie Brady. "If 
 I were you, I would just as soon get ahead as not, 
 especially if Ed Flynn was goin to come and praise 
 me for it." 
 
 Ellen shrugged her shoulders and tied another knot. 
 
 "You re a queer thing," said Mamie Brady, while 
 her fingers flew like live wires. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THAT night, when Ellen went down the street tow 
 ards home with the stream of factory operatives, she 
 computed that she must have earned about fifty cents, 
 perhaps not quite that. She was horribly tired. Al 
 though the work in itself was not laborious, she had 
 been all day under a severe nervous tension. 
 
 " You look tired to death, Ellen Brewster," Abby said, 
 in a half-resentful, half-compassionate tone. " You can 
 never stand this in the world/ 
 
 "I am no more tired than any one would be the 
 first day," Ellen returned, stoutly, "and I m going 
 to stand it." 
 
 "You act to me as if you liked it," said Abby, with 
 an angry switch like a cat. 
 
 "I do," Ellen returned, almost as angrily. Then 
 she turned to Abby. "Look here, Abby Atkins, 
 why can t you treat me half - way decent?" said 
 she. "You know I ve got to do it, and I m. mak 
 ing the best of it. If anybody else treated me the 
 way you are doing, I don t know what you would 
 do." 
 
 "I would kill them," said Abby, fiercely; "but it s 
 different with me. I m mad to have you go to work 
 in the shop, and act as if you liked it, because I 
 think so much of you." Abby and Ellen were 
 walking side by side, and Maria followed with Sadie 
 Peel. 
 
 "Well, I can t help it if you are mad at me," said 
 Ellen. "I ve had everything to contend against, my 
 
 *4 361 
 
V 
 
 THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 father and mother, and my grandmother won t even 
 speak to me, and now if you " Ellen s voice broke. 
 
 Abby caught her arm in a hard grip. 
 
 "I ain t/ said she; "you can depend on me. You 
 know you can, in spite of everything. You know why 
 I talk so. If you ve set your heart on doing it, I won t 
 say another word. I ll do all I can to help you, and 
 I d like to hear anybody say a word against you for 
 going to work in the shop, that s all." 
 
 Ellen and Abby almost never kissed each other; 
 Abby was not given to endearments of that kind. Maria 
 was more profuse with her caresses. That night when 
 they reached the corner of the cross street where the 
 Atkinses lived, Maria went close to Ellen and put up 
 her face. 
 
 "Good-night," said she. Then she withdrew her lips 
 suddenly, before Ellen could touch them. 
 
 "I forgot," said she. "You mustn t kiss me. I 
 forgot my cough. They say it s catching." 
 
 Ellen caught hold of her little, thin shoulders, held 
 her firmly, and kissed her full on her lips. 
 
 "Good-night," said she. 
 
 " Good-night, Ellen," called Abby, and her sharp voice 
 rang as sweet as a bird s. 
 
 When Ellen came in sight of her grandmother s house, 
 she saw a window-shade go down with a jerk, and knew 
 that Mrs. Zelotes had been watching for her, and was 
 determined not to let her know it. Mrs. Pointdexter 
 came out of her grand house as Ellen passed, and took 
 up her station on the corner to wait for a car. She 
 bowed to Ellen with an evasive, little, sidewise bow. Her 
 natural amiability prompted her to shake hands with 
 her, call her "my dear," and inquire how she had 
 got on during her first day in the factory, but she 
 was afraid of her friend, whose eye she felt upon her 
 around the edge of the drawn curtain. 
 
 362 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 It was unusually dark that night for early fall, and the 
 rain came down in a steady drizzle, as it had come all 
 day, and the wind blew from the ocean on the east. 
 The lamp was lighted in the kitchen when Ellen turned 
 into her own door-yard, and home had never looked so 
 pleasant and desirable to her. For the first time in her 
 life she knew what it was to come home for rest and 
 shelter after a day of toil, and she seemed to sense the 
 full meaning of home as a refuge for weary labor. 
 
 When she opened the door, she smelled at once a 
 particular kind of stew of which she was very fond, 
 and knew that her mother had been making it for her 
 supper. There was a rush of warm air from the kitchen 
 which felt grateful after the damp chill outside. 
 
 Ellen went into the kitchen, and her mother stood 
 there over the stove, stirring the stew. She looked up 
 at the girl with an expression of intense motherliness 
 which was beyond a smile. 
 
 "Well, so you ve got home?" she said. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "How did you get along?" 
 
 "All right. It isn t hard work. Not a bit hard, 
 mother." 
 
 "Ain t you tired?" 
 
 " Oh, a little. But no more than anybody would be 
 at first. I don t look very tired, do I?" Ellen laughed. 
 
 " No, you don t," said Fanny, looking at her cheeks, 
 reddened with the damp wind. The mother s look was 
 admiring and piteous and brave. No one knew how 
 the woman had suffered that day, but she had kept 
 her head and heart above it. The stew for Ellen s 
 supper was a proof of that. 
 
 "Where s father?" asked Ellen, taking off her hat 
 and cape, and going to the sink to wash her face and 
 hands. Fanny saw her do that with a qualm. Ellen 
 had always used a dainty little set in her own room. 
 
 363 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Now she was doing exactly as her father had always 
 done on his return from the shop washing off the stains 
 of leather at the kitchen sink. She felt instinctively 
 that Ellen did it purposely, that she was striving to 
 bring herself into accord with her new life in all the 
 details. 
 
 Little Amabel came running out of the dining-room, 
 and threw her arms around Ellen s knees as she was 
 bending over the sink. "I ve set the table!" she cried. 
 
 " Look out or you ll get all splashed/ laughed Ellen. 
 
 "And I dusted/ said Amabel. 
 
 " She s been as good as a kitten all day, and a sight 
 of help," said Fanny. 
 
 " She s a good girl," said Ellen. " Cousin Ellen will 
 kiss her as soon as she gets her face washed." 
 
 She caught hold of a fold of the roller towel, and 
 turned her beautiful, dripping face to her mother as 
 she did so. 
 
 "That stew does smell so good," said she. "Where 
 did you say father was?" 
 
 "I thought we d just have some bread and milk for 
 dinner, and somethiii hearty to-night, when you came 
 home," said Fanny. "I thought maybe a stew would 
 taste good." 
 
 "I guess it will," said Ellen, stooping down to kiss 
 Amabel. "Where did you say father was?" 
 
 "Uncle Andrew has been lyin down all day most," 
 whispered Amabel. 
 
 "Isn t he well?" Ellen asked her mother, in quick 
 alarm. 
 
 "Oh yes, he s well enough." Fanny moved close 
 to the girl with a motion of secrecy. " If I were you I 
 wouldn t say one word about the shop, nor what you 
 did, before father to-night; let him kind of get used tc 
 it. Amabel mustn t talk about it, either." 
 
 "I won t/ said Amabel, with a wise air. 
 364 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You know father had set his heart on somethin 
 pretty different for you," said Fanny. 
 
 Fanny hushed her voice as Andrew came out of the 
 dining-room, staggering a little as if the light blinded 
 him. His nervous strength of the morning had passed 
 and left him exhausted. He moved and stood with a 
 downward lope of every muscle, expressing unutter 
 able patience, which had passed beyond rebellion and 
 questioning. 
 
 He stood before Ellen like some old, spent horse. He 
 was expecting to hear something about the shop ex 
 pecting, as it were, a touch on a sore, and he waited for 
 it meekly. 
 
 Ellen turned her lovely, glowing face towards him. 
 
 "Father/ she said, as if nothing out of the com 
 mon had happened, "are you going down -town to 
 night?" 
 
 Andrew brightened a little. " I can if you want any 
 thing, Ellen," he said. 
 
 " Well, I don t want you to go on purpose, but I do 
 want a book from the library." 
 
 "I d just as soon go as not, Ellen/ said Andrew. 
 
 "It ll do him good," whispered Fanny, as she passed 
 Ellen, carrying the dish of stew to the dining-room. 
 
 "Well, then, I ll give you my card after supper," 
 said Ellen. "Supper is ready now, isn t it, mother? 
 I m as hungry as a bear." 
 
 Andrew, when he was seated at the table and was 
 ladling out the stew, had still that air of hopeless and 
 defenceless apology towards life, but he held his head 
 higher, and his frown of patient gloom had relaxed. 
 
 Then Ellen said something else. "Maybe I can 
 write a book some time," said she. 
 
 A sudden flash illumined Andrew s face. It was 
 like the visible awakening of hope and ambition. 
 
 "I don t see w r hy you can t," he said, eagerly. 
 
 365 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Maybe she can/ said Fanny. "Give her some 
 more of the potatoes, Andrew/ 
 
 "I ll have plenty of time after evenings/ said El 
 len. 
 
 "I guess lots of folks write books that sell, and sell 
 well, that don t have any more talent than you/ said 
 Andrew. "Only think how they praised your vale 
 dictory." 
 
 " Well, it can t do any harm to try/ said Ellen, " and 
 you could copy it for me, couldn t you, father? Your 
 writing is so fine, it would be as good as a typewriter." 
 
 "Of course I can," said Andrew. 
 
 When Andrew went down to the library, passing 
 along the drenched streets, seeing the lamps through 
 shifting veils of heavy mist, he was as full of enthusi 
 asm over Ellen s book as he had been over the gold 
 mine. The heart of a man is always ready to admit 
 a ray of sunshine, and it takes only a small one to dis 
 pel the shadows when love dwells therein. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 ELLEN actually went to work, with sheets of fools 
 cap and a new bottle of ink, on a novel, which was not 
 worth the writing ; but no one could estimate the com 
 fort and encouragement it was to Andrew. Ellen work 
 ed an hour or two every evening on the novel, and next 
 day Andrew copied it in a hand like copperplate large, 
 with ornate flourishes. Andrew s handwriting had 
 always been greatly admired, and, strangely enough, 
 it was not in the least indicative of his character, being 
 wholly acquired. He had probably some ability for 
 drawing, but this had been his only outlet. 
 
 At the head of every chapter of Ellen s novel were 
 birds and flowers done in colored inks, and every chap 
 ter had a tail-piece of elegant quirls and flourishes. 
 Fanny admired it intensely. She was not quite so 
 sure of Ellen s work as she was of her husband s. She 
 felt herself a judge of one, but not of the other. 
 
 " If Ellen could only write as well as you copy, it will 
 do," she often said to Andrew. 
 
 "What she is writing is beautiful," said Andrew, 
 fervently. He was quite sure in his own mind that 
 such a book had never been written, and his pride in 
 his decorations was a minor one. 
 
 Ellen, although she was not versed in the ways of 
 books, yet had enough of a sense of the fitness of things, 
 and of the ridiculous, to know that the manuscript, 
 with its impossible pen-and-ink birds and flowers head 
 ing and finishing every chapter, was grotesque in the 
 extreme. She felt divided between a desire to laugh 
 
 367 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and a desire to cry whenever she looked at it. About 
 her own work she felt more than doubtful; still, she 
 was somewhat hopeful, since her taste and judgment, 
 as well as her style, were alike crude. She told Abbv 
 and Maria what she was doing, under promise of strict 
 secrecy, and after a while read them a few chapters. 
 
 "It s beautiful/ said Maria "perfectly beautiful. 
 I had a Sunday-school book this week which I know 
 wasn t half as good." 
 
 Ellen looked at Abby, who was silent. The three 
 girls were up in Ellen s room. It was midwinter, some 
 months after she had gone to work in the shop, and 
 she had a fire in her little, air-tight stove. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of it, Abby?" asked Ellen. 
 Ellen s cheeks were flushed as if with fever. She looked 
 eagerly at the other girl. 
 
 " Do you want me to tell you the truth?" asked Abby, 
 bluntly. 
 
 "Yes, of course I do." 
 
 " Well, then, I don t know a thing about books, and 
 I d knock anybody else down that said it, but it seems 
 to me it s trash." 
 
 "Oh, Abby," murmured Maria. 
 
 "Never mind," said Ellen, though she quivered a 
 little, " I want to know just how it looks to her." 
 
 " It looks to me just like that," said Abby" like trash. 
 It sounds as if, when you began to write it, you had 
 mounted upon stilts, and didn t see things and people 
 the way they really were. It ain t natural." 
 
 "Do you think I had better give it up, then?" asked 
 Ellen. " 
 
 "No, I don t, on account of your father." 
 
 " I believe it would about break father s heart," said 
 Ellen. 
 
 "I don t know but it s worth as much to write a 
 Jx)ok for your father, to please him, and keep his 
 
 368 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 spirits up, as it is to write one for the whole world/ * 
 said Abby. 
 
 "Only, of course, she can t get any money for it/ 
 said Maria. "But I don t believe Abby is right, and 
 don t you get discouraged, Ellen. It sounds beautiful 
 to me." 
 
 "Well, I suppose it is worth keeping on with for 
 father s sake/ said Ellen; but she had a discouraged 
 air. She never again wrote with any hope or heart; 
 she had faith in Abby s opinion, for she knew that she 
 was always predisposed to admiration in her case. 
 
 Ellen at that time was earning more, for she had 
 advanced, and had long ago left her station beside 
 Mamie Brady ; and now in a month or two she would 
 have a machine. The girls, many of them, said openly 
 that her rapid promotion was due to favoritism, and 
 that Ed Flynn wouldn t do as much for anybody but 
 Ellen Brewster. Flynn hung about her in the shop a 
 good deal, but he had made no efforts to pay her decided 
 attention. His religion was the prime factor for his 
 hesitation. He could not see his way clear towards open 
 addresses with a view to marriage. Still, he had a sharp 
 eye for other admirers, and Ellen had not been in the 
 factory two months before Granville Joy was sent into 
 another room. Robert Lloyd, to whom the foreman 
 appealed for confirmation of the plan, coincided with 
 readiness. 
 
 " That fellow ain t strong enough to run that machine 
 he s doing now," said Flynn. 
 
 " Then put him on another," Robert said, coloring. 
 It was not quite like setting his rival in the front of 
 the battle; still, he felt ashamed of himself. Quicker 
 than lightning it had flashed through his mind that 
 young Joy could thus be sent into a separate room 
 from Ellen Brewster. 
 
 "I think he had better take one of the heel-shaving 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 machines below/ said Flynn, "and let that big Swede, 
 that s as strong as an ox, and never jumped at any 
 thing in his life, take his place here." 
 
 "All right/ said Lloyd, assuming a nonchalant air. 
 "Make the change if you think it advisable, Flynn/ 
 
 While such benevolence towards a possible rival had 
 its suspicious points, yet there was, after all, some 
 reason for it. Granville Joy, who was delicately or 
 ganized as to his nerves, was running a machine for 
 cutting linings, and this came down with sharp thuds 
 which shook the factory, and it was fairly torture to 
 him. Every time the knife fell he cringed as if at a 
 cannon report. He had never grown accustomed to 
 it. His face had acquired a fixed expression of being 
 screwed to meet a shock of sound. He was man 
 ifestly unfit for his job, but he received the order to 
 leave with dismay. 
 
 "Hasn t my work been satisfactory?" he asked 
 Flynn. 
 
 " Satisfactory enough," replied the foreman, genially, 
 " but it s too hard for you, man." 
 
 "I ain t complained," said Joy, with a flash of his 
 eyes. He thought he knew why this solicitude was 
 shown him. * 
 
 "I know you ain t," said Flynn, "but you ain t 
 got the muscle and nerve for it. That s plain enough 
 to see." 
 
 "I ain t complained, and I d rather stay where I 
 be," said Joy, angrily. 
 
 "You ll go where you are sent in this factory, or be 
 damned," cried Flynn, walking off. 
 
 Joy looked after him with an expression which trans 
 formed his face. But the next morning the stolid 
 Swede, who would not have started at a bomb, was 
 at his place, and he was below, where he could not 
 see Ellen. 
 
 370 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Robert never spoke to Ellen in the factory, and had 
 never called upon her since she entered. Now and then 
 he met her on the street and raised his hat, that was all. 
 Still, he began to wonder more and more if his aunt 
 had not been mistaken in her view of the girl s motive 
 for giving up college and going to work. Then, later 
 on, he learned from Lyman Risley that a small mort 
 gage had been put on the Brewster house some time 
 before. In fact, Andrew, not knowing to whom to 
 go, and remembering his kindness when Ellen was 
 a child, had applied to him for advice concerning it. 
 "He had to do it to keep his wife s sister in the 
 asylum/ he told Robert; "and that poor girl went to 
 work because she was forced into it, not because she 
 preferred it, you may be sure of that." 
 
 The two men were walking down the street one wind 
 swept day in December, when the pavement showed 
 ridges of dust as from a mighty broom, and travellers 
 walked bending before it with backward - flying gar 
 ments. 
 
 "You may be right," said Robert; "still, as Aunt 
 Cynthia says, so many girls have that idea of eaniing 
 money instead of going to school." 
 
 " I know the pitiful need of money has tainted many 
 poor girls with a monstrous and morbid overvalue 
 of it," said Risley, "and for that I cannot see they 
 are to blame; but in this case I am sure it was not so. 
 That poor child gave up Vassar College and went to 
 work because she was fairly forced into it by circum 
 stances. The aunt s husband ran away with another 
 woman, and left her destitute, so that the support of 
 her and her child came upon the Brewsters ; and Brew 
 ster has been out of work a long time now, I know. He 
 told me so. That mortgage had to be raised, and the 
 girl had to go to work ; there was no other way out 
 of it." 
 
 371 
 
THE PORTION OF LABO& 
 
 " Why didn t she tell Aunt Cynthia so?" asked Robert. 
 
 "Because she is Ellen Brewster, the outgrowth of 
 the child who would not " Risley checked himself 
 abruptly. 
 
 "I know/ said Robert, shortly. 
 
 The other man started. " How long have you known 
 she did not tell?" 
 
 Robert laughed a little. " Oh no," he replied. " No 
 body told. I went there to call, and saw my own old 
 doll sitting in a little chair in a corner of the parlor. 
 She did not tell, but she knew that I knew. That child 
 was a trump." 
 
 " Well, what can you expect of a girl who was a child 
 like that?" said Risley. "Mind you, in a way I don t 
 like it. This power for secretiveness and this rigidity 
 of pride in a girl of that age strike me rather unpleas 
 antly. Of course she was too proud to tell Cynthia 
 the true reason, and very likely thought they would 
 blame her father, or Cynthia might feel that she was 
 in a measure hinting to her to do more." 
 
 "It would have looked like that," said Robert, re 
 flecting. 
 
 "Without any doubt that was what she thought; 
 still, I don t like this strength in so young a girl. She 
 will make a more harmonious woman than girl, for 
 she has not yet grown up to her own character. But 
 depend upon it, that girl never went to work of her 
 own free choice." 
 
 "You say the father is out of work?" Robert said. 
 
 " Yes, he has not had work for six months. He said, 
 with the most dejected dignity and appeal that I ever 
 saw in my life, that they begin to think him too old, 
 that the younger men are preferred." 
 
 "I wonder," Robert began, then he stopped con 
 fusedly. It had been on his tongue to say that he 
 wondered if he could not get some employment for him 
 
 372 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 at Lloyd s; then he remembered his uncle, and stopped. 
 Robert had begun to understand the older man s 
 methods, and also to understand that they were not to 
 be cavilled at or disputed, even by a nephew for whom 
 he had undoubtedly considerable affection. 
 
 "It is nonsense, of course/ said Risley. "The 
 man is not by any means old or past his usefulness, 
 although I must admit he has that look. He cannot be 
 any older than your uncle. Speaking of your uncle, 
 how is Mrs. Lloyd?" 
 
 "I fear Aunt Lizzie is very far from well," replied 
 Robert, "but she tries to keep it from Uncle Norman." 
 
 " I don t see how she can. She looked ghastly when 
 I met her the other day." 
 
 "That was when Uncle Norman was in New York," 
 said Robert. "It is different when he is at home." 
 As he spoke, an expression of intensest pity came over 
 the young man s face. " I wonder what a woman who 
 loves her husband will not do to shield him from any 
 annoyance or suffering," he said. 
 
 "I believe some women are born fixed to a sort of 
 spiritual rack for the sake of love, and remain ther< 
 through life," said Risley. "But I have always liked 
 Mrs. Lloyd. She ought to have good advice. What 
 is it, has she told you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Robert. 
 
 "It will be quite safe with me." 
 
 Robert whispered one word in his ear. 
 
 "My God!" said Risley, "that? And do you mean 
 to say that she has had no advice except Dr. Story?" 
 
 "Yes, I took her to New York to a specialist some 
 time ago. Uncle Norman never knew it." 
 
 "And nothing can be done?" 
 
 " She could have an operation, but the success would 
 be very doubtful." 
 
 "And that she will not consent to?" 
 
 373 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "She has not yet." 
 
 "How long?" 
 
 " Oh, she may live for years, but she suffers horribly, 
 and she will suffer more." 
 
 "And you say he does not know?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Why, look here, Robert, dare you assume the re 
 sponsibility? What will he say when he finds out that 
 you have kept it from him?" 
 
 "I don t care," said Robert. "I will not break an 
 oath exacted by a woman in such straits as that, and 
 I don t see what good it could do to tell him." 
 
 "He might persuade her to have the operation." 
 
 " His mere existence is persuasion enough, if she is to 
 be persuaded. And I hope she may consent before Jong. 
 She has seemed a little more comfortable lately, too." 
 
 " I suppose sometimes those hideous things go away 
 as mysteriously as they come," said Risley. 
 
 "Yes," replied Robert. "Going back to our first 
 subject" 
 
 Risley laughed. "Here she is coming," he said. 
 
 In fact, at that moment they came abreast the street 
 that led to the factories, and the six-o clock whistle was 
 just dying away in a long reverberation, and the work 
 men pouring out of the doors and down the stairs. El 
 len had moved quickly, for she had an errand at the 
 grocery-store before she went home. She was going 
 to get some oysters for a hot stew for supper, of which 
 her father was very fond. She had a little oyster-can 
 in her hand when she met the two gentlemen. She had 
 grown undeniably thinner since summer, but she was 
 charming. Her short black skirt and her coarse gray 
 jacket fitted her as well as if they had been tailor-made. 
 There was nothing tawdry or slatternly about her. She 
 looked every inch a lady, even with the drawback of 
 an oyster-can, and mittens instead of gloves. 
 
 374 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Both Risley and Robert raised their hats, and Ellen 
 bowed. She did not smile, but her face contracted cu 
 riously, and her color obviously paled. Risley looked 
 at Robert after they had passed. 
 
 "I have called on her twice/ said Robert, as if an 
 swering a question. His relations with the older man 
 had become very close, almost like those of father and 
 son, though Risley was hardly old enough for that re 
 lation. 
 
 "And you haven t been since she went to work?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " But you would have, had she gone to college instead 
 of going to work in a shoe-factory?" Risley s voice 
 had a tone of the gentlest conceivable sarcasm. 
 
 Robert colored. " Yes, I suppose so," he said. Then 
 he turned to Risley with a burst of utter frankness. 
 " Hang it! old fellow," he said, "you know how I have 
 been brought up; you know how she you know all 
 about it. What is a fellow to do?" 
 
 "Do what he pleases. If it would please me to call 
 on that splendid young thing, I should call if I were 
 the Czar of all the Russias." 
 
 "Well, I will call," said Robert. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 THE very next evening Robert Lloyd went to call on 
 Ellen. As he started out he was conscious of a strange 
 sensation of shock, as if his feet had suddenly touched 
 firm ground. All these months since Ellen had been 
 working in the factory he had been vacillating. He 
 was undoubtedly in love with her ; he did not for a mo 
 ment cheat himself as to that. When he caught a 
 glimpse of her fair head among the other girls, he real 
 ized how unspeakably dear she was to him. Ellen never 
 entered nor left the factory that he did not know it. With 
 out actually seeing her, he was conscious of her pres 
 ence always. He acknowledged to himself that there 
 was no one like her for him, and never would be. He 
 tried to interest himself in other young women, but 
 always there was Ellen, like the constant refrain of a 
 song. All other women meant to him not them 
 selves, but Ellen. Womanhood itself was Ellen for 
 his manhood. He knew it, and yet that strain of utterly 
 impassionate judgment and worldly wisdom which was 
 born in him kept him from making any advances to her. 
 Now, however, the radicalism of Risley had acted like 
 a spur to his own inclination. His judgment was 
 in abeyance. He said to himself that he would give 
 it up ; he would go to see the girl that he would win 
 her if he could. He said to himself that she had been 
 wronged, that Risley was right about her, that she 
 was good and noble. 
 
 As the car drew near the Brewsters, his tenderness 
 seemed to outspeed the electricity. The girl s fair 
 
 376 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 face was plain before his eyes, as if she were actually 
 there, and it was idealized and haloed as with the light 
 of gold and precious stones. All at once, since he had 
 given himself loose rein, he overtook, as it were, the 
 true meaning of her. "The dear child/ he thought, 
 with a rush of tenderness like pain "the dear child. 
 There she gave up everything and went to work, and 
 let us blame her, rather Jjaah have her father blamed. 
 The dear, proud child/ She did that rather than seem 
 to beg for more help/ 
 
 When Robert got off the car he was ready to fall at 
 her feet, to push between her and the roughness of life, 
 between her and the whole world. 
 
 He went up the little walk between the dry shrubs 
 and rang the bell. There was no light in the front 
 windows nor in the hall. Presently he heard footsteps, 
 and saw a glimmer of light advancing towards him 
 through the length of the hall. There were muslin-cur 
 tained side-lights to the door. Then the door opened, and 
 little Amabel Tenny stood there holding a small kero 
 sene lamp carefully in both hands. She held it in such 
 a manner that the light streamed up in Robert s face 
 and nearly blinded him. He was dimly conscious of 
 a little face full of a certain chary innocence and pathos 
 regarding him. 
 
 "Is Miss Ellen Brewster at home?" asked Robert, 
 smiling down at the little thing. 
 
 "Yes, sir/ replied Amabel. 
 
 Then she remained perfectly still, holding the lamp, 
 as if she had been some little sculptured light-bearer. 
 She did not return his smile, and she did not ask him 
 in. She simply regarded him with her sharp, inno 
 cent, illuminated face. Robert felt ridiculously non 
 plussed. 
 
 "Did you say she was in, my dear?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir/ replied Amabel, then relapsed into silence. 
 *5 377 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Can I see her?" asked Robert, desperately. 
 
 "I don t know/ replied Amabel. Then she stood 
 still, as before, holding the lamp. 
 
 Robert began to wonder what he was to do, when 
 he heard a woman s voice calling from the sitting-room 
 at the end of the hall, the door of which had been left 
 ajar : 
 
 "Amabel Tenny, what are you doin ? You are 
 coldin the house ail off! Who is it?" 
 
 " It s a man, Aunt Fanny/ called Amabel. 
 
 "Who is the man?" asked the voice. Then, much 
 to Robert s relief, Fanny herself appeared. 
 
 She colored a flaming red when she saw him. She 
 looked at Amabel as if she had an impulse to shake 
 her. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Lloyd, is it you?" she cried. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mrs. Brewster ; is is your daughter 
 at home?" asked Robert. He felt inclined to roar with 
 laughter, and yet a curious dismay was beginning to 
 take possession of him. 
 
 " Yes, Ellen is at home," replied Fanny, with alacrity. 
 "Walk in, Mr. Lloyd." She was blushing and smil 
 ing as if she had been her own daughter. It was fool 
 ish, yet pathetic. Although Fanny asked the young 
 man to walk in, and snatched the lamp peremptorily 
 from Amabel s hand, she still hesitated. Robert be 
 gan to wonder if he should ever be admitted. He did 
 not dream of the true reason for the hesitation. There 
 was no fire in the parlor, and in the sitting-room were 
 Andrew, John Sargent, and Mrs. Wetherhed. It seemed 
 to her highly important that Ellen should see her caller 
 by herself, but how to take him into that cold parlor? 
 
 Finally, however, she made up her mind to do so. 
 She opened the parlor door. 
 
 "Please walk in this way, Mr. Lloyd," said she, and 
 Robert followed her in. 
 
 378 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 It was a bitter night outside, and the temperature in 
 the unused room was freezing. The windows behind 
 the cheap curtains were thickly furred with frost. 
 
 " Please be seated/ said Fanny. 
 
 She indicated the large easy-chair, and Robert seated 
 himself without removing his outer coat, yet the icy cold 
 of the cushions struck through him. 
 
 Fanny ignited a match to light the best lamp with 
 its painted globe. Her fingers trembled. She had 
 to use three matches before she was successful. 
 
 "Can t I assist you?" asked Robert. 
 
 " No, thank you," replied Fanny ; " I guess the matches 
 are damp. I ve got it now." Her voice shook. She 
 turned to Robert when the lamp was lighted, still hold 
 ing the small one, which she had set for the moment 
 on the table. The strong double light revealed her 
 face of abashed delight, although the young man did 
 not understand it. It was the solicitude of the mother 
 for the child which dignified all coarseness and folly. 
 
 "I guess you had better keep on your overcoat a 
 little while till I get the fire built," said she. "This 
 room ain t very warm." 
 
 Robert tried to say something polite about not feeling 
 cold, but the lie was too obvious. Instead, he remarked 
 that his coat was very warm, as it was, indeed, being 
 lined with fur. 
 
 "Til have the fire kindled in a minute," Fanny said. 
 
 "Now don t trouble yourself, Mrs. Brewster," said 
 Robert. "I am quite warm in this coat, unless," he 
 added, lamely, " I could go out where you were sitting." 
 
 "There s company out there," said Fanny, with em 
 barrassed significance. She blushed as she spoke, 
 and Robert blushed also, without knowing why. 
 
 "It s no trouble at all to start a fire," said Fanny; 
 "this chimney draws fine. I ll speak to Ellen." 
 
 Robert, left alone in the freezing room, felt his dis- 
 
 379 
 
y 
 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 may deepen. Barriers of tragedy are nothing to those 
 of comedy. He began to wonder if he were not, after 
 all, doing a foolish thing. The hall door had been 
 left ajar, and he presently became aware of Amabel s 
 little face and luminous eyes set therein. 
 
 Robert smiled, and to his intense astonishment the 
 child made a little run to him and snuggled close to 
 his side. He lifted her up on his knee, and wrapped 
 his fur coat around her. Amabel thrust out one tiny 
 hand and began to stroke the sable collar. 
 
 "It s fur/ said she, with a bright, wise look into 
 Robert s face. 
 
 " Yes, it s fur," said he. " Do you know what kind?" 
 
 She shook her head, with bright eyes still on his. 
 
 "It is sable," said Robert, "and it is the coat of a 
 little animal that lives very far north, where it is as cold 
 and colder than this all the time, and the ice and snow 
 never melts." 
 
 Suddenly Amabel slipped off his knee, pushing aside 
 his caressing arm with a violent motion. Then she 
 stood aloof, eying him with unmistakable reproof and 
 hostility. Robert laughed. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he said. 
 
 " What does he do without his coat if it is as cold as 
 that where he lives?" asked Amabel, severely. There 
 was almost an accent of horror in her childish voice. 
 
 " Why, my dear child," said Robert, " the little animal 
 is dead. He isn t running around without his coat. 
 He was shot for his fur." 
 
 "To make you a coat?" Amabel s voice was full of 
 judicial severity. 
 
 " Well, in one way," replied Robert, laughing. " It 
 was shot to get the fur to make somebody a coat, and 
 I bought it. Come back here and have it wrapped 
 round you; you ll freeze if you don t." 
 
 Amabel came back and sat on his knee, and let him 
 380 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 wrap the fur-lined garment around her. A strange 
 sensation of tenderness and protection came over the 
 young man as he felt the little, slender body of the child 
 nestle against his own. He had begun to surmise 
 who she was. However, Amabel herself told him in a 
 moment. 
 
 " My mamma s sick, and they took her to an asylum. 
 And my papa has gone away/ she said. 
 
 "You poor little soul/ said Robert, tenderly. Am 
 abel continued to look at him with eyes of keenest in 
 telligence, while one little cheek was flattened against 
 his breast. 
 
 "I live with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Fanny now/ 
 said she, "and I sleep with Ellen." 
 
 "But you like living here, don t you, you dear?" 
 asked Robert. 
 
 "Yes," said Amabel, "and I like to stay with Ellen, 
 but but I want to see my mamma and papa," she 
 wailed, suddenly, in the lowest and most pitiful wail 
 imaginable. 
 
 "Poor little darling," said Robert, stroking her 
 flaxen hair. Amabel looked up at him with her little 
 face all distorted with grief. 
 
 "If you had been my papa, would you have gone 
 away and left Amabel?" she asked, quiveringly. Robert 
 gathered her to him in a strong clasp of protection. 
 
 "No, you little darling, I never should," he cried, 
 fervently. 
 
 At that moment he wished devoutly that he had the 
 handling of the man who had deserted this child. 
 
 "I like you most as well as my own papa," said 
 Amabel. "You ain t so big as my papa." She 
 said that in a tone of evident disparagement. 
 
 Then the sitting-room door opened, and Fanny and 
 Ellen and Andrew appeared, the last with a great 
 basket of wood and kindlings. 
 
 381 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Robert set down Amabel, and sprang to his feet to 
 greet Andrew and Ellen. Andrew, after depositing his 
 basket beside the stove, shook hands with a sort of sad 
 awkwardness. Robert saw that the man had aged 
 immeasurably since he had last seen him. 
 
 " It is a cold night, Mr. Brewster," he said, and knew 
 the moment he said it that it was not a happy remark. 
 
 "It is pretty cold/ agreed Andrew, "and it s cold 
 here in this room." 
 
 "Oh, it ll be warm in a minute; this stove heats up 
 quick," cried Fanny, with agitated briskness. She 
 began pulling the kindlings out of the basket. 
 
 "Here, you let me do that/ said Andrew, and was 
 down on his knees beside her. The two were cramming 
 the fuel into the little, air-tight stove, while Robert was 
 greeting Ellen. The awkwardness of the situation was 
 evidently overcoming her. She was quite pale, and 
 her voice trembled as she returned his good-evening. 
 Amabel left the young man, and clung tightly to Ellen s 
 hand, drawing her skirt around her until only her little 
 face was visible above the folds. 
 
 The fumes from a match filled the room, and the 
 fire began to roar. 
 
 "It ll be warm in a minute," said Fanny, rising. 
 " You leave the register open till it s real good and hot, 
 Ellen, and there s plenty more wood in the basket. 
 Here, Amabel, you come out in the other room with 
 Aunt Fanny." 
 
 But Amabel, instead of obeying, made a dart towards 
 Robert, who caught her up, laughing, and smuggled 
 her into the depths of his fur-lined coat. 
 
 "Come right along, Amabel," said Fanny. 
 
 But Amabel clung fast to Robert, with a mischievous 
 roll of an eye at her aunt. 
 
 "Amabel," said Fanny, authoritatively. 
 
 " Come, Amabel/ said Andrew. 
 
 382 
 
THE AWKWARDNESS OF THE SITUATION WAS EVIDENTLY 
 OVERCOMING HER" 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Oh, let her stay/ Robert said, laughing. "I ll 
 keep her in my coat until it is warm/ 
 
 "I m afraid she ll bother you," said Fanny. 
 
 "Not a bit," replied Robert. 
 
 "You are a naughty girl, Amabel/ said Fanny; 
 but she went out of the room, with Andrew at her heels. 
 She did not know what else to do, since the young 
 man had expressed a desire to keep the child. She 
 had thought he would have preferred a tete-a-tete with 
 Ellen. Ellen sat down on the sofa covered with olive- 
 green plush, beyond the table, and the light of the hide 
 ous lamp fell full upon her face, She was thin, and 
 much of her lovely bloom was missing between her agita 
 tion and the cold ; but Robert, looking at her, realized 
 how dear she was to him. There was something about 
 that small figure, and that fair head held with such 
 firmness of pride, and that soul outlooking from steady 
 blue eyes, which filled all his need of life. His love for 
 the pearl quite ignored its setting of the common and 
 the ridiculous. He looked at her and smiled. Ellen 
 smiled back tremulously, then she cast down her eyes. 
 The fire was roaring, but the room was freezing. The 
 sitting-room door was opened a crack, and remained so 
 for a second, then it was widened, and Andrew peeped 
 in. Then he entered, tiptoeing gingerly, as if he were 
 afraid of disturbing a meeting. He brought a blue 
 knitted shawl, which he put over Ellen s shoulders. 
 
 "Mother thinks you had better keep this on till the 
 room gets warm/ he whispered. Then he withdrew, 
 shutting the door softly. 
 
 Robert, left alone with Ellen in this solemnly impor 
 tant fashion, felt utterly at a loss. He had never con 
 sidered himself especially shy, but an embarrassment 
 which was almost ridiculous was over him. Ellen sat 
 with her eyes cast down. He felt that the child on his 
 knee was regarding them both curiously. 
 
 383 
 
PORTION OP 
 
 " If you have come to see Ellen, why don t you speak 
 to her?" demanded Amabel, suddenly. Then both 
 Robert and Ellen laughed. 
 
 "This is your aunt s little girl, isn t she?" asked 
 Robert. 
 
 Amabel answered before Ellen was able. "My 
 mamma is sick, and they carried her away to the asy 
 lum," she told Robert. " She she tried to hurt Ama 
 bel; she tried to" Amabel made that hideous gesture 
 with her tiny forefinger across her throat. "Mamma 
 was sick or she wouldn t," she added, challengingly, to 
 Robert. 
 
 "Of course she wouldn t, you poor little soul," said 
 Robert. 
 
 Suddenly Amabel burst into tears, and began to 
 wriggle herself free from his arms. " Let me go," she 
 demanded; "let me go. I want Ellen." 
 
 When Robert loosened his grasp she fled to Ellen, 
 and was in her lap with a bound. 
 
 "I want my mamma I want my mamma/ she 
 moaned. 
 
 Ellen leaned her cheek against the poor little flax 
 en head. "There, there, darling," she whispered, 
 "don t. Mamma will come home as soon as she 
 gets better." 
 
 "How long will that be, Ellen?" 
 
 "Pretty soon, I hope, darling. Don t." 
 
 Poor Eva Tenny had been in the asylum some four 
 months, and the reports as to her condition were no 
 more favorable. Ellen s voice, in spite of herself, had a 
 hopeless tone, which the child was quick to detect. 
 
 " I want my mamma," she repeated. " I want her, 
 Ellen. It has been to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to 
 morrow after that, and the to-morrows are yesterdays, 
 and she hasn t come." 
 
 "She will come some time, darling." 
 384 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Robert sat eying the two with intensest pity. "Do 
 you like chocolates, Amabel?" he asked. 
 
 The child repeated that she wanted her mother still, 
 as with a sort of mechanical regularity of grief, but 
 she fastened her eyes on him. 
 
 " Because I am going to send you a big box of them 
 to-morrow," said Robert. 
 
 Amabel turned to Ellen. "Does he mean it?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "I guess so," replied Ellen, laughing. 
 
 Amabel, looking from one to the other, also began to 
 laugh unwillingly. 
 
 Then the sitting-room door opened, and Fanny called 
 sharply and imperatively, "Amabel, Amabel; come!" 
 
 Amabel clung more tightly to Ellen, who began to 
 gently loosen her arms. 
 
 "Amabel Tenny, come this minute. It is your bed 
 time," said Fanny. 
 
 "I guess you had better go, darling," whispered 
 Ellen. 
 
 "I don t want to go to bed till you do, Ellen," whis 
 pered the child. 
 
 Ellen gently but firmly unclasped the clinging arms. 
 "Run along, dear," she whispered. 
 
 "I will send those chocolates to-morrow," suggested 
 Robert. 
 
 Amabel seemed to do everything by sudden and vio 
 lent impulses. All at once she ceased resisting. She 
 slid down from Ellen s lap as quickly as she had 
 gotten into it. She clutched her neck with two little, 
 wiry arms, kissed her hard on the mouth, darted 
 across the room to Robert, threw her arms around his 
 neck and kissed him, then flew out of the room. 
 
 "She is an interesting child," said Robert, who felt, 
 like most people, the delicate flattery of a child s un 
 solicited caresses. 
 
 385 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "I am very fond of her/ replied Ellen. 
 
 Then the two were silent. Robert suddenly realized 
 that there was little to say unless he ventured on debat 
 able ground. It would be too absurd of him to com 
 mence making love at once, and as for asking Ellen 
 about her work, that seemed a subject better let alone. 
 
 Ellen herself opened the conversation by inquiring 
 for his aunt. 
 
 "Aunt Cynthia is very well/ replied Robert. "I 
 was in there last evening. You have not been to see 
 her lately, Miss Brewster." 
 
 Robert realized as soon as he had said that that he 
 had made a mistake. 
 
 "No/ replied Ellen. She obviously paled a little, 
 and looked at him wistfully. The young man could 
 not stand it any longer, so straight into the heart of 
 the matter he lunged. 
 
 " Look here, Miss Brewster," he said, " why on earth 
 didn t you tell Aunt Cynthia?" 
 
 "Tell her?" repeated Ellen, vaguely. 
 
 " Yes ; make a clean breast of it to her. Tell her just 
 why,you went to work, and gave up college?" 
 
 Ellen colored, and looked at him half defiantly, half 
 piteously. " I told her all I ought to," she said. 
 
 "But you did not; pardon me," said Robert, " you 
 did not tell her half enough. You let her think that 
 you actually of your own free choice went to work in 
 the factory rather than go to college." 
 
 "So I did," replied Ellen, looking at him proudly. 
 
 " Of course you did, in one sense, but in another you 
 did not. You deliberately chose to make a sacrifice; 
 but it was a sacrifice. You cannot deny that it was a 
 sacrifice." 
 
 Ellen was silent. 
 
 " But you gave Aunt Cynthia the impression that it 
 was not a sacrifice," said Robert, almost severely. 
 
 386 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen s face quivered a little. " I saw no other way 
 to do/ she said, faintly. The authoritative tone which 
 this young man was taking with her stirred her as 
 nothing had ever stirred hr in her life before. She 
 felt like a child before hirk. 
 
 "You have no right to give such a false impression 
 of your own character/ said Robert. 
 
 "It was either that or a false impression of another/ 
 returned Ellen, tremulously. 
 
 " You mean that she might have blamed your pa 
 rents, and thought that they were forcing you into 
 this?" 
 
 Ellen nodded. 
 
 " And I suppose you thought, too, that maybe Aunt 
 Cynthia would suspect, if you told her all the difficul 
 ties, that you were hinting for more assistance." 
 
 Ellen nodded, and her lip was quivering. Suddenly 
 all her force of character seemed to have deserted her, 
 and she looked more like a child than Amabel. She 
 actually put both her little fists to her eyes. After all, 
 the girl was very young, a child forced by the stress of 
 circumstances to premature development, but she could 
 relapse before the insistence of another nature. 
 
 Robert looked at her, his own face working, then he 
 could bear it no longer. He was over on the sofa beside 
 Ellen and had her in his arms. " You poor little thing," 
 he whispered. "Don t. I have loved you ever since 
 the first time I saw you. I ought to have told you so 
 before. Don t you love me a little, Ellen?" 
 
 But Ellen released herself with a motion of firm elu- 
 siveness and looked at him. The tears still stood in her 
 eyes, but her face was steady. "I have been putting 
 you out of my mind," said she. 
 
 " But could you?" whispered Robert, leaning over her. 
 
 Ellen did not reply, but looked down and trembled. 
 
 "Could you?" repeated Robert, and there was in his 
 
 387 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 voice that masculine insistence which is a true note of 
 nature, and means the subjugation of the feminine into 
 
 Ellen did not speak, but every line in her body be 
 trayed helpless yielding. 
 
 " You know you could not/ said Robert with triumph, 
 and took her in his arms again. 
 
 But he reckoned without the girl, who was, after all, 
 stronger than her natural instincts, and able to rise 
 above and subjugate them. She freed herself from him 
 resolutely, rose, and stood before him, looking at him 
 quite unfalteringly and accusingly. 
 
 "Why do you come now?" she asked. "You say 
 you have loved me from the first. You came to see 
 me, you walked home with me, and said things to me 
 that made me think " She stopped. 
 
 " Made you think what, dear?" asked Robert. He 
 was pale and indescribably anxious and appealing. 
 It was suddenly revealed to him that this plum was so 
 firmly attached to its bough of individuality that pos 
 sibly love itself could not loosen it. 
 
 "You made me think that perhaps you did care a 
 little," said Ellen, in a low but unfaltering voice. 
 
 "You thought quite right, only not a little, but a 
 great deal," said Robert, firmly. 
 
 " Then," said Ellen, " the moment I gave up going to 
 college and went to work you never came to see me 
 again ; you never even spoke to me in the shop ; you 
 went right past me without a look." 
 . "Good God! child," Robert interposed, "don t you 
 know why I did that?" 
 
 Ellen looked at him bewildered, then a burning red 
 overspread her face. "Yes," she replied. "I didn t. 
 But I do now. They would have talked." 
 
 " I thought you would understand that," said Robert. 
 " I had only the best motives for that. I cannot speak 
 
 388 
 
V V 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to you in the factory any more than I have done. I 
 cannot expose you to remark ; but as for my not calling, 
 I believed what you said to my aunt and to me. I 
 thought that you had deliberately preferred a lower life 
 to a higher one that you preferred earning money to 
 something better. I thought " 
 
 Robert fairly started as Ellen began talking with a 
 fire which seemed to make her scintillate before his eyes. 
 
 "You talk about a lower and a higher life/ said she. 
 " Is it true? Is Vassar College any higher than a shoe- 
 factory? Is any labor which is honest, and done with 
 the best strength of man, for the best motives, to sup 
 port the lives of those he loves, or to supply the needs 
 of his race, any higher than another? Where would 
 even books be without this very labor which you de 
 spise the books which I should have learned at col 
 lege? Instead of being benefited by the results of la 
 bor, I have become part of labor. Why is that lower?" 
 
 Robert stared at her. 
 
 "I have come to feel all this since I went to work/ 
 said Ellen, speaking in a high, rapid voice. "When 
 I went to work, it was, as you thought, for my folks, 
 to help them, for my father was out of work, and there 
 was no other way. But since I have been at work I 
 have realized what work really is. There is a glory 
 over it, as there is over anything which is done faith 
 fully on this earth for good motives, and I have seen 
 the glory, and I am not ashamed of it ; and while it was 
 a sacrifice at first, now, while I should like the other 
 better, I do not think it is. I am proud of my work." 
 
 The girl spoke with a sort of rapt enthusiasm. The 
 young man stared, bewildered. 
 
 Robert caught Ellen s little hands, which hung, 
 tightly clinched, in the folds of her dress, and drew her 
 down to his side again. "See here, dear," he said, 
 " maybe you are right. I never looked at it in this way 
 
 389 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 before, but you do not understand. I love you ; I want 
 to marry you. I want to make you my wife, and lift 
 you out of this forever/ 
 
 Then again Ellen freed herself, and straightened 
 her head and faced him. "There is nothing for me 
 to be lifted out of," said she. "You speak as if I were 
 in a pit. I am 011 a height." 
 
 "My God! child, how many others feel as you, do 
 you think, out of the whole lot?" cried Robert. 
 
 " I don t know," replied Ellen, " but it is true. What 
 I feel is true." 
 
 Robert caught up her little hand and kissed it. Then 
 he looked at its delicate outlines. "Well, it may be 
 true," he said, "but look at yourself. Can t you see 
 that you are not fashioned for manual labor? Look 
 at this little hand." 
 
 "That little hand can do the work," Ellen replied, 
 proudly. 
 
 "But, dear," said Robert, "admitting all this, ad 
 mitting that you are not in a position to be lifted ad 
 mitting everything let us come back to our original 
 starting-point. Dear, I love you, and I want you for 
 my wife. Will you marry me?" 
 
 " No, I never can," replied Ellen, with a long, sobbing 
 breath of renunciation. 
 
 "Why not? Don t you love me?" 
 
 "Yes. I think it must be true that I do. I said I 
 wouldn t; I have tried not to, but I think it must be 
 true that I do." 
 
 "Then why not marry me?" 
 
 "Because it will be impossible for my father and 
 mother to get along and support Amabel and Aunt Eva 
 without my help," said Ellen, directly. 
 
 "But I" began Robert. 
 
 "Do you think I will burden you with the support 
 of a whole family?" said Ellen. 
 
 390 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Ellen, you don t know what I would be willing to 
 do if I could have you/ cried the young man, fervently. 
 And he was quite in earnest. At that moment it seemed 
 to him that he could even come and live there in that 
 house, with the hideous lamp, and the crushed-plush 
 furniture, and the eager mother ; that he could go with 
 out anything and everything to support them if only 
 he could have this girl who was fairly storming his 
 heart. 
 
 " I wouldn t be willing to have you," said Ellen, firm 
 ly. " As things are now I cannot marry you, Mr. Lloyd. 
 Then, too/ she added, "you asked me just now how 
 many people looked at all this labor as I do, and I dare 
 say not very many. I know not many of your kind of 
 people. I know how your uncle looks at it. It would 
 hurt you socially to marry a girl from a shoe-shop. 
 Whether it is just or not, it would hurt you. It can 
 not be, as matters are now, Mr. Lloyd." 
 
 "But you love me?" 
 
 Ellen suddenly, as if pushed by some mighty force 
 outside herself, leaned towards him, and he caught her 
 in his arms. He tipped back her face and kissed her, 
 and looked down at her masterfully. 
 
 "We will wait a little," he said. "I will never give 
 you up as long as I live if you love me, Ellen." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 WHEN Ellen went out into the sitting-room that even 
 ing, after Robert Lloyd had taken leave, her father and 
 mother were still there, although the callers had gone. 
 Both of them looked furtively at her as she went through 
 the room to the kitchen to get a lamp, then they looked 
 at each other. Fanny was glowing with half shame 
 faced triumph; Andrew was pale. Ellen did not re- 
 enter the room, but simply paused at the door, before 
 going up-stairs, and they had a vision of a face in a 
 tumult of emotions, with eyes and hair illuminated to 
 f excess of brilliancy by the lamp which she held. 
 
 " Good-night," she called, and her voice did not sound 
 like her own. 
 
 "Something has happened," Fanny whispered to 
 Andrew, when Ellen s chamber door had closed. 
 
 "Do you suppose she s goin to?" whispered An 
 drew, in a sort of breathless fashion. His eyes on his 
 wife s face were sad and wistful. 
 
 "Hush! How do I know?" asked Fanny. "I al 
 ways told you he liked her." 
 
 However, Fanny looked disturbed. Presently she 
 went out in the kitchen to mix up some bread, and she 
 wept a little, standing in a corner, with her face hidden 
 in the folds of an old shawl which hung there on a peg. 
 Dictatorial towards circumstances as she was when her 
 beloved daughter came in question, and proud as she 
 was at the prospect of an advantageous marriage for 
 her, she remembered her sister in the asylum, she 
 remembered how Andrew was out of work, and she 
 
 392 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 could not understand how it was to be managed. And 
 all this was aside from the grief which she would have 
 felt in any case at losing Ellen. 
 
 As for Andrew, the next morning he put on his best 
 clothes and went by trolley-cars to the next manufact 
 uring town, not a city like Rowe, but a busy little place 
 with two large factories, and tried in vain to get a job 
 there. As he came home on the crowded car, his face 
 was so despairing that the people looked curiously at 
 him. Andrew had always been mild and peaceable, 
 but at that moment anarclustk^^nnapleg, begaa_io ^ 
 fe^menl^n^liimr^When a portly man, swelling os 
 tentatiously with broadcloth and fine linen, wearing a 
 silk hat, and carrying a gold-headed cane like a wand of 
 office, got into the car, Andrew looked at him with a 
 sidelong glance which was almost murderous. The 
 spiritual momb, which is in all our souls for our fellow- 
 men, began to swell towards explosion. This man was 
 the proprietor of one of the great factories in Leavitt, 
 the town where Andrew had vainly sought a job. He 
 had been in the office when Andrew entered, and the 
 latter had heard his low voice of instruction to the fore 
 man that that man was too old. The manufacturer, 
 who weighed heavily, and described a vast curve of 
 opulence from silk hat to his patent-leathers, sat op 
 posite, his gold-headed cane planted in the aisle, his 
 countenance a blank of complacent power. Andrew 
 felt that he hated him. 
 
 The man s face was not intellectual, not as intellectual 
 as Andrew s. He gave the impression of the force of 
 matter oncoming and irresistible, some inertia which 
 had started Heaven knew how. This man had inherited 
 great wealth, as Andrew knew. He had capital with 
 which to begin, and he had strength to roll the ac 
 cumulating ball. Andrew felt more and more how he 
 hated this man. He had told his foreman that Andrew 
 26 393 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 was too old, and Andrew knew that he was no older, if 
 as old, as the man himself. 
 
 " If I had been born under the Czar, and done with it, 
 I should have felt differently/ he told himself. "But 
 who is this man? What right has he to say that his 
 fellow-men shall or shall not? Does even his own 
 property give him the right of dictation over others? 
 What is property? Is it anything but a temporary 
 lease while he draws the breath of life? What of it in 
 the tomb, to which he shall surely come? Shall a tempo 
 rary possession give a man the right to wield eternal 
 power? For the power of giving or withholding the 
 means of life may produce eternal results/ 
 
 When the man rose and moved down the car, os 
 cillating heavily, steadying himself with his gold-headed 
 cane, and got out in front of a portentous mansion, 
 Andrew would scarcely have recognized the look in his 
 own eyes had he seen himself in a mirror. 
 
 "That chap is pretty well fixed/ said a man next 
 him, to one on the other side. 
 
 "A cool half-million/ replied the other. 
 
 " More than that, " said the first speaker. " His father 
 left him half a million to start with, besides the busi 
 ness, and he s been piling up ever since." 
 
 "Do you work there?" 
 
 " Did, but I had what was mighty nigh a sunstroke 
 last summer ; had to quit. It was damned hot up there 
 under the roof. It s the same old factory his father had. " 
 
 "Coin to work again?" 
 
 "Next week, if I m able, but I dun no whether I 
 can stay there longer than till spring. It s damned 
 hot up there under the roof." 
 
 The man who spoke had a leaden hue of face, some 
 thing ghastly, as if the deadly heat had begun a work 
 of decomposition. Andrew looked at him, and his 
 hatred against the rich man who had built himself a 
 
 394 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 stately mansion, and kept his fellow-creatures at work 
 for him in an unhealthy factory in tropical heat, and 
 had condemned him for being too old, was redoubled. 
 
 "Andrew Brewster, where have you been?" Fanny 
 asked, when he got home. 
 
 "I ve been to Leavitt," answered Andrew, shortly. 
 
 "To see if you could get a job there?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Fanny did not ask if he had been successful. She 
 sighed, and took another stitch in the wrapper which 
 she was making. That sigh almost drove Andrew 
 mad. 
 
 "I don t see what has got you into such a habit of 
 sighing," he said, brutally. 
 
 Fanny looked at him with reproachful anger. " An 
 drew Brewster, you ain t like yourself," said she. 
 
 "I can t help it." 
 
 "There s no need for you to pitch inlo me because 
 you can t get work; I ain t to blame. I m doing all 
 I can. I won t stand it, and you might as well know 
 it first as last." 
 
 Fanny glared angrily at her husband, then the tears 
 sprang to her eyes. 
 
 Andrew hesitated a moment, then he leaned over her 
 and put his thin cheek against her rough black hair. 
 The Lord knows I don t mean to be harsh to you, you 
 poor girl," said he, "but I wish I was dead." 
 
 Fanny seemed to spring into resistance like a wire. 
 "Then you are a coward, Andrew Brewster," said she, 
 hotly. "Talk about wishin you was dead. I ain t 
 got time to die. You d nough sight better go out into 
 the yard and split up some of that wood." 
 
 "I didn t mean to speak so, Fanny," said Andrew, 
 " but sometimes I get desperate, and I ve been thinking 
 of Ellen." 
 
 "Don t you suppose I have?" asked Fanny, angrily. 
 395 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Well, there s one thing about it ; we won t stand in 
 her way/ said Andrew. 
 
 " No, we won t/ replied Fanny. " I ll go out washing 
 first." 
 
 "She hasn t said anything?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 As time went on Ellen still said nothing. She had 
 made a curious compact for a young girl with her lover. 
 She had stipulated that no engagement was to exist, 
 that she should be perfectly free when she said that 
 she thought of Maud Hemingway, but she said it 
 without a tremor and if years hence both were free 
 and of the same mind they might talk of it again. 
 
 Robert had rebelled strenuously. "You know this 
 will shut me off from seeing much of you," he said. 
 "You know I told you how it will be about my even 
 talking much to you in the factory." 
 
 "Yes, I understand that now," replied Ellen, blush 
 ing ; " and I understand, too, that you cannot come to 
 see me very often under such circumstances without 
 making talk." 
 
 " How often?" Robert asked, impetuously. 
 
 Ellen hesitated, her lip quivered a little, but her voice 
 was firm. " Not of tener than two or three times a year, 
 I am afraid," said she. 
 
 "Great Scott!" cried Robert. Then he caught her 
 in his arms again. " Do you suppose I can stand that?" 
 he whispered. "Ellen, I cannot consent to this!" 
 
 "It is the only way," said she. She freed herself 
 from him enough to look into his eyes with a brave, 
 fearless gaze of comradeship, which somehow seemed 
 to make her dearer than anything else. 
 
 " But to see you to speak to only two or three times 
 a year!" groaned Robert. "You are cruel, Ellen. 
 You don t know how I love you." 
 
 "There isn t any other way," said Ellen. Then 
 396 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 she looked up into his face with a brave innocence of 
 confession like a child. "It hurts me, too/ said she. 
 
 Robert had her in his arms, and was covering her 
 face with kisses. "You darling/ he whispered. "It 
 shall not be long. Something will happen. We can 
 not live so. We will let it go so a little while, but some 
 thing will turn up. I shall have a more responsible 
 place and a larger salary, then " 
 
 "Do you think I will let you?" asked Ellen, with a 
 great blush. 
 
 " I will, whether you will let me or not/ cried Robert; 
 and at that moment he felt inclined to marry the entire 
 Brewster family rather than give up this girl. 
 
 However, as he went home, walking that he might 
 think the better, he had to confess to himself that the 
 girl was right ; that, as matters were, anything definite 
 was out of the question. He had to admit that it might 
 be a matter of years. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 WHEN Ellen had been at work in the factory a year, 
 she was running a machine and working by the piece, 
 and earning on an average eighteen dollars a week. Of 
 course that was an unusual advance for a girl, but Ellen 
 /was herself unusual. She came to work in those days 
 with such swiftness and unswerving accuracy that she 
 seemed fairly a part of the great system of labor itself. 
 While she was at her machine, her very individuality 
 seemed lost ; she became an integral part of a system. 
 
 "She s one of the best hands we ever had/ Flynn 
 told Norman Lloyd one day. 
 
 " I am glad to hear that/ Lloyd responded, smiling 
 with that peculiar smile of his which was like a cold 
 flash of steel. 
 
 "Curse him, he thinks no more of anybody in this 
 shop than he does of the machine they work/ Flynn 
 thought as he watched the proprietor walking with his 
 stately descent down the stairs. The noon whistle 
 was blowing, and the younger Lloyd went leaping down 
 the stairs and joined his uncle, then the two walked 
 down the street, away from the factory. The factory 
 at that time of year began to present, in spite of its 
 crude architecture, quite a charming appearance, from 
 the luxuriant vines which covered it and were beginning 
 to get autumnal tints of red and russet. All the front 
 of Lloyd s was covered with vines, which had grown 
 with amazing swiftness. Mrs. Lloyd often used to 
 look at them and reflect upon them with complacency. 
 
 "I should think it would make it pleasanter for the 
 
 398 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 men to work in the factory, when it looks so pretty and 
 green/ she told her husband one of the hottest days 
 of the preceding summer. As she spoke she compressed 
 her lips in a way which was becoming habitual to her. 
 It meant the endurance of a sharp stab of vital pain. 
 There was a terrible pathos in the poor woman s ap 
 pearance at that time. She still kept about. Her mal 
 ady did not seem to be on the increase, but it endured. 
 Her form had changed indescribably. She had not 
 lost flesh, but she had a curious, distorted look, and one 
 on seeing her had a bewildered feeling, and looked again 
 to be sure that he had seen aright. Her ghastly pallor 
 she concealed in a manner which she thought distinctly 
 sinful. She painted and powdered. She did not dare 
 purchase openly the concoctions which were used for 
 improving her complexion, but she went to a manicure 
 and invested in a colored salve for her finger-nails. 
 This, with rather surprising skill for such a conscience- 
 pricked tyro, she applied to the pale curves of her cheeks 
 and her blue lips. She took more pains than ever be 
 fore with her dress, and it was all to deceive her hus 
 band, that he should not be annoyed. She felt a des 
 perate shame because of her illness ; she felt it to be a 
 direct personal injury to this masculine power which 
 had been set over her gentle femininity. It was not 
 so much because she was afraid of losing his affection 
 that she concealed her affliction from him, as because 
 she felt that the affliction itself was somehow an act 
 of disloyalty. Her terrible malady had in a way af 
 fected her reasoning powers, sb that they had become 
 distorted by a monstrous grdwth of suffering, like her 
 body. She would not give up going about as usual, 
 and was never absent from church. She drove about 
 with her husband in his smart trap. Twice she had 
 gone with Robert to consult the New York specialist, 
 taking times when Norman was away on business. 
 
 399 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 She still would not consent to an operation, and lately 
 the specialist had been lukewarm in advising it. He 
 had indeed been doubtful from the first. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd treated Robert with a soft affection which 
 was almost like that of a mother. One night, when he 
 returned late from a call on Ellen, she sat up waiting 
 for him. He had not called on Ellen before for several 
 months, and it was nearly midnight when he returned. 
 
 "Why, Aunt Lizzie, are you up?" he cried, as he en 
 tered the library door and saw his aunt s figure, clad 
 in shining black satin, gleaming with jet, in the 
 depths of an easy-chair. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd looked up at him with an expression of pa 
 tient suffering. " I couldn t go to sleep if I went to bed, 
 Robert/ she replied, in a hushed voice. She found it a 
 comfort sometimes to confess her pain to him. Robert 
 went over to her, and drew her large, crinkled, blond 
 head to his shoulder as if she had been a child. 
 
 "Poor thing/ he whispered, stroking her face piti 
 fully. "Is it very terrible?" he asked, with his lips 
 close to her ear. 
 
 " Terrible/ she whispered back. " Oh, Robert, you 
 do not know; pray God you may never know." 
 
 " I wish to God I could bear it for you, Aunt Lizzie/ 
 Robert said, fervently. 
 
 " Oh, hush! If you or Norman had to bear anything 
 like this, I should curse God and die/ she answered, 
 and she shut her mouth hard, and her whole face was 
 indicative of a repressed shriek. 
 
 "Aunt Lizzie, don t you think you ought to go to 
 New York, that you ought " Robert began, but she 
 stopped him with an almost fierce peremptoriness. 
 "Robert Lloyd, I have trusted you," she said. "For 
 God s sake, don t forsake me. Don t say a word to me 
 about that ; when I can I will. It means my death, any 
 how. Dr. Evarts thought so; you can t deny it/ 
 
 400 
 
PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "I think he thought there was a chance, Aunt 
 Lizzie/ Robert returned, but he said it faintly. 
 
 "You can t cheat me/ replied Mrs. Lloyd. "I 
 know." She had a lapse from pain, and her features 
 began to assume their natural expression. She looked 
 at him almost smiling, and as if she turned her back 
 upon her own misery. " Where have you been, Rob 
 ert?" she asked. 
 
 Robert colored a little, but he answered directly 
 enough. " I have been to make a call on Miss Brew- 
 ster," he said. 
 
 " You don t go there very often/ said Mrs. Lloyd. 
 
 "No, not very often." 
 
 "She s a beautiful girl, as beautiful a girl as I ever 
 laid eyes on, if she does work in the shop," said 
 Mrs. Lloyd, "and she s a good girl, too; I know 
 she is. She was the sweetest little thing when she 
 was a child, and she ain t altered a mite!" Then 
 Mrs. Lloyd looked with a sort of wistful curiosity at 
 Robert. 
 
 " I think it is all true, what you say, Aunt Lizzie," 
 replied Robert. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd continued to look at him with that wistful 
 scrutiny. 
 
 " Robert," she began, then she hesitated. 
 
 "What, Aunt Lizzie?" 
 
 "If ever you wanted to marry that girl, I don t 
 see any reason why you shouldn t, for my part." 
 
 Robert pulled a chair close to his aunt, and sat down 
 beside her, still holding her hand. 
 
 " I ve a good mind to tell you the whole story, Aunt 
 Lizzie/ he said. 
 
 "I wish you would, Robert. You know I think as 
 much of you as if you were my own son, and I won t 
 tell anybody, not even your uncle, if you don t want 
 me to." 
 
 401 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 "Well, then, it is all in a nutshell/ said Robert. 
 "I like her, you know, and I think I have ever since 
 I saw her in her little white gown at the high-school 
 exhibition/ 
 
 "Wasn t she sweet?" said his aunt. 
 
 "And she likes me, too, I think." 
 
 "Of course she does." 
 
 "But you know what my salary is, and her whole 
 family is in a measure dependent upon her." 
 
 "Hasn t her father got work?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I ll speak to Norman," cried Mrs. Lloyd, quickly. 
 "I know he would do it for me." 
 
 " But even then, Aunt Lizzie, there is the aunt in the 
 asylum, and the child, and " 
 
 "Your uncle will pay you more." 
 
 "It isn t altogether that; in fact, it isn t that at all 
 which is at the bottom of the difficulty. The difficulty 
 is with Ellen herself. She will never consent to my 
 marrying her, and having to support her family, while 
 matters are as now. You don t know how proud she 
 is, Aunt Lizzie." 
 
 "She is a splendid girl." 
 
 " As far as I am concerned I would marry the whole 
 lot on a little more than I have now, but she would not 
 let me do it. There s nothing to do but to wait." 
 
 "Perhaps the aunt will get well and her husband 
 will come back; and I will see, anyway, if Norman 
 won t give her father work," said Mrs. Lloyd. 
 
 "I think you had better not, Aunt Lizzie." 
 
 "Why not, Robert?" 
 
 " There are reasons why I think you had better not. " 
 Robert would not tell her that Ellen had begged him not 
 to use any influence of his to get her father work. 
 
 "After the way father has been turned off, I can t 
 stand it," she had said, with a sort of angry dignity 
 
 402 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 which was unusual to her. In fact, her father himself 
 had begged her not to make use of Robert in any way 
 for his own advancement. 
 
 " If they don t want me for my work, I don t want to 
 crawl in because the nephew of the boss likes my daugh 
 ter/ he had said. This speech was fairly rough for 
 him, but Ellen had understood. 
 
 "I know what you mean, father," she said. 
 
 " I d rather work in the road," said Andrew. That 
 autumn he was getting jobs of clearing up yards of 
 fallen leaves, and gathering feed-corn and pumpkins, 
 and earning a pittance. Fanny continued to work on 
 her wrappers. " It s a mercy wrappers don t go out of 
 fashion/ she often said. 
 
 "I suppose things that folks can get for nothing 
 ain t so apt to go out of fashion," Andrew retorted, 
 bitterly. He hated the wrappers with a deadly hatred. 
 He hated the sight of the limp row of them on his bed 
 room wall. Nobody knew how the family pinched and 
 screwed in those days. 
 
 They were using the small fund which they secured 
 from the house mortgage, Ellen s earnings, and Fanny s 
 and Andrew s, and every cent had to be counted, but 
 there was something splendid in their loyalty to poor 
 Eva in the asylum. The thought of deserting her in 
 her extremity never occurred to them. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd spoke of her that night, when she and 
 Robert were talking together in the library. 
 
 " They are good folks, to keep on doing for that poor 
 woman in the asylum," she said. 
 
 "They would never desert a dog that belonged to 
 them," Robert answered, fervently. "I tell you that 
 trait is worth a good many others, Aunt Lizzie." 
 
 " I guess it is," said his aunt. Then another parox 
 ysm of pain seized her. She looked at Robert with a 
 convulsed, speechless face. He held her hands more 
 
 403 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 tightly, his own face contracting in sympathy, and 
 watched his aunt with a sort of angry helplessness. 
 But he felt as if he wanted to fight something for the 
 sake of this poor, oppressed, innocent creature; indeed, 
 he felt fairly blasphemous. But this time the pain 
 passed quickly, and Mrs. Lloyd looked at her nephew 
 with an expression of relief and gentleness which was 
 almost angelic. When the pain was over she thought 
 again of the Brewsters, and how they would not have 
 forsaken her in her misery, had she belonged to them, 
 any more than they had forsaken the insane aunt. 
 
 "They are good folks/ said she, "and that is the 
 main thing. That is the main thing to consider when 
 you are marrying into a family, Robert. It is more than 
 riches and position. The power they ve got of loving 
 and standing by each other is worth more than any 
 thing else." 
 
 " You are right, Aunt Lizzie, I guess there s no doubt 
 of that/ said Robert. 
 
 "And that girl s beautiful/ said Mrs. Lloyd. She 
 gazed at the young man with a delicate understanding 
 and sympathy which was almost beyond that of a 
 sweetheart. Robert felt as if a soft hand of tenderness 
 and blessing were laid on his inmost heart. He looked 
 at her like a grateful child. 
 
 " There isn t anybody like her, is there, Aunt Lizzie?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "No, I don t think there is, dear boy," said Mrs. 
 Lloyd. "I do think she is the sweetest little thing I 
 ever saw in my life." 
 
 Robert brought his aunt s hand to his lips and kissed 
 it. It seemed to him for a minute as if the love and 
 sympathy of this martyr were almost more precious 
 than the love of Ellen herself. 
 
 He realized when he was in his own room, and the 
 house was quiet, how much he loved his aunt, and 
 
 404 
 
Ix 
 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 how hard her pain and probably inevitable doom 
 were for him to bear. Then something came to him 
 which he had never felt before a great, burning anx--^ 
 iety and tenderness and terror over Ellen, because she 
 was of the weaker half of creation, which is born to the 
 larger share of pain in the world. He felt that he would 
 almost have given her up, yielded up forever all fns~ 
 delight in her, to spare her ; for the pain of knighthood, 
 which is in every true lover, awoke in his heart. 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 NAHUM DEALS was a laster in Lloyd s. Late in 
 the autumn, when Ellen had been in the factory a little 
 over a year, there began to be a subtle condition of dis 
 content and insubordination. Men gathered in mut 
 tering groups, of which Nahum Beals seemed always 
 to be the nucleus. His high, rampant voice, restrained 
 by no fear of consequences, always served as the key 
 note to the chorus of rebellion. Ellen paid little at 
 tention to it. She was earning good wages, and per 
 sonally she had nothing of which to complain. She 
 had come to regard Beals as something of a chronic 
 fanatic, but as she knew that the lasters were fairly paid, 
 she had not supposed it meant anything. However, 
 one night, going home from the factory, her eyes were 
 opened. Abby and Maria Atkins and Mamie Brady 
 were with her, and shortly after they had left the shop 
 Abby stopped Granville Joy, Frank Dixon, and Willy 
 Jones, who with another young man were swinging 
 past without noticing the girls, strange to say. Abby 
 caught Joy by the arm. 
 
 "Hold on a minute, Granville Joy," said she. "I 
 want to know what s up with the lasters." 
 
 Granville laughed, with an uneasy, sidelong, dep 
 recating glance at Ellen. " Oh, nothing much," said he. 
 
 Willy Jones stood still, coloring, gazing at Abby 
 with a half - terrified expression. Dixon walked on, 
 and the other young man, Amos Lee, who was dark 
 and slight and sinewy, stared from one to the other 
 with quick flashes of black eyes. He looked almost 
 
 406 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 as if he had gypsy blood in him, and he came of a family 
 which was further on the outskirts of society than the 
 Louds had been. 
 
 When Granville replied "nothing much" to Abby s 
 question, Amos Lee frowned with a swift contraction 
 of dissent, but did not speak until Abby had retorted. 
 "You needn t talk that way to me, Granville Joy," 
 said she. "You can t cheat me. I know something s 
 up." 
 
 " It ain t nothing Abby," said Granville, but it was 
 quite evident that he was lying. 
 
 Then Lee spoke up, in a sudden fury of enthusiasm. 
 "There is somethin up," said he, "and I don t care if 
 you do know it. There s " he stopped as Granville 
 clutched his arm violently and whispered something. 
 
 " Well, maybe you re right," said Lee to Joy. " Look 
 here/ he continued to Abby, "you and Ellen come 
 along here a little ways, and I ll tell you." 
 
 After Maria and Mamie had passed on, Joy and 
 Jones and Lee, standing close to the two girls, began 
 to talk, Lee leading. 
 
 " Well, look here," he said, in a hushed voice. " We ve 
 found out no matter how, but we ve found out that 
 the boss is goin to dock the lasters pay." 
 
 "How much?" asked Abby. 
 
 "Fifteen per cent." 
 
 "Good Lord!" said Abby. 
 
 " We ain t going to stand it," said Lee. 
 
 "I don t see how we can stand it," said Willy Jones, 
 with a slightly interrogative tone directed towards 
 Abby. Granville looked at Ellen. 
 
 "Are you sure?" she asked. 
 
 "Perfectly sure," replied Granville. "What do you 
 think about it, Ellen?" 
 
 "What are you going to do?" asked Ellen, thought 
 fully, 
 
 407 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Strike for fifteen per cent, more before he has a 
 chance to dock us," cried Lee, with a hushed vehemence, 
 looking about warily to make sure that no one over 
 heard. 
 
 " The worst of it is, I know it all comes from Nahum 
 Beals, and he s half cracked/ said Abby, bluntly. 
 
 "He s got the right of it, anyhow," said Lee. 
 
 The two girls walked on, while the men lingered 
 behind to talk. 
 
 "Do you suppose it is true, Abby?" asked Ellen. 
 
 "I don t know. I should, if it wasn t for that Lee 
 fellow. I can t bear him. And that Nahum Beals, I 
 believe he s half mad." 
 
 "I feel the same way about him/ said Ellen; "but 
 think what it would mean, fifteen per cent, less on their 
 wages." 
 
 "It doesn t mean so much for those young fellows, 
 except Willy Jones; he s got enough on his shoulders." 
 
 "No, but ever so many of the lasters have large 
 families." 
 
 "I hope they don t drag Willy Jones into it," said 
 Abby. She looked back as she spoke. Willy, in the 
 little knot of men, was looking after her, and their 
 eyes met. Abby colored. 
 
 " It s a shame to dock his wages," she said. 
 
 "Whose Willy Jones s?" 
 
 " Yes. I hope he won t get into any trouble. I can t 
 bear that Lee." 
 
 "Still, to dock their wages fifteen per cent./ said 
 Ellen, thoughtfully. 
 
 "What right has Mr. Lloyd?" 
 
 " I suppose he d say he has the right because he has 
 the capital." 
 
 "I don t see why that gives him the right/ 
 
 " You d better go and talk to him," said Abby. " As 
 for me, I made up my mind when I went to work in 
 
 408 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 the shop that I d got to be a bond-slave, all but my 
 soul. That can kick free, thank the Lord." 
 
 " I didn t make up my mind to it," said Ellen. " I 
 am not going to be a slave in any way, and I am not 
 going to approve of others being slaves." 
 
 "You think they ought to strike?" 
 
 " Yes, if it is true that Mr. Lloyd is going to dock 
 their wages, but I don t feel sure that it is true. Mr. 
 Deals is a queer man. Sometimes I have thought he 
 
 was dangerous." 
 27 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 TUESDAY evening was one of those marvellously 
 clear atmospheres of autumn which seem to be clearer 
 from the contrast to the mists of the recent summer. 
 The stars swarmed out in unnumbered hosts. 
 
 " Seems to me I never saw so many stars/ one would 
 say to another. The air had the sharp cleave of the 
 frost in it. Everything was glittering with a white 
 rime the house roofs, and the levels of fields on the 
 outskirts of the little city. 
 
 Ellen had an errand down-town that evening, and 
 she wrapped herself up warmly, putting on a fur collar 
 which she had not worn since the winter before. She 
 felt strangely nervous and disturbed as she set out. 
 
 " Don t you want your father to go with you?" asked 
 Fanny, for in some occult fashion the girl s perturba 
 tion seemed to be communicated to her. She followed 
 her to the door. 
 
 "Seems kind of lonesome for you to go alone," she 
 said, anxiously. 
 
 " As if I minded ! Why, it is as bright as day with 
 the electric-lights, and there are houses almost all the 
 way/ laughed Ellen. 
 
 "Your father could go with you, or he could go for 
 you." 
 
 "No, he couldn t go for me. I want to get one of 
 the new catalogues at the library and pick out a book, 
 and there is no ssnse in dragging father out. He has 
 a cold, too. Why, there is nothing in the world to be 
 afraid of, mother." 
 
 410 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Well, don t be any longer than you can help/ said 
 Fanny. 
 
 Ellen, as she passed her grandmother s house, saw 
 a curtain drawn with a quick motion. That happened 
 nearly every time she passed. She knew that the old 
 woman was always on the lookout for her, and always 
 bent on concealing it. Mrs. Zelotes never went into her 
 son s house, and never spoke to Ellen in those days. 
 She had aged rapidly during the past year, and even 
 her erect carriage had failed her. She stooped rigidly 
 when she walked. She was fairly racked with love 
 and hatred of Ellen. She adored her, she could have 
 kissed the ground she walked on, and yet she was so 
 full of wrath against her for thwarting her hopes for her 
 own advancement that she was conscious of cruel im 
 pulses in her direction. 
 
 Ellen walked along rapidly under the vast canopy 
 of stars, about which she presently began to have a 
 singular impression. She felt as if they were being 
 augmented, swelled as if by constantly oncoming legions 
 of light from the space beyond space, and as if her 
 little space of individuality, her tiny foothold of crea 
 tion, was being constantly narrowed by them. 
 
 "I never saw so many stars," she said to herself. 
 She looked with wonder at the Milky Way, which was 
 like a zone of diamond dust. Suddenly a mighty con- 
 viction of God, which was like the blazing forth of a 
 new star, was in her soul. ^Ellen was not in a sense 
 religious, and had never united with the Congrega 
 tional Church, which she had always attended with 
 her parents; she had never been responsive to efforts 
 made towards her so-called conversion, but all at once, 
 under the stars that night, she told herself with an 
 absolute certainty of the truth of it. " There is some 
 thing beyond everything, beyond the stars, and be 
 yond all poor men, and beyond me, which is enough 
 
 411 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 for all needs. We shall have our portion in the 
 end."} 
 
 She had been feeling discouraged lately, although 
 she would not own it even to herself. She saw Robert 
 but seldom, and her aunt was no better. She often 
 wondered if there could be anything before her but that 
 one track of drudgery for daily bread upon which she 
 had set out. She wondered if she ought not to say 
 positively to Robert that there must be no thought of 
 anything between them in the future. She wondered 
 if she were not wronging him. Once or twice she had 
 seen him riding with Miss Hemingway, and thought 
 that, after all, that was a girl better suited to him, and 
 perhaps if he had no hope whatever of her he might 
 turn to the other to his own advantage. But to-night, 
 with the clear stimulus of the frost in her lungs, and 
 her eyes and soul dazzled with the multiplicity of stars, 
 she began to have a great impetus of courage, like a 
 soldier on the morning of battle. She felt as if she could 
 fight for her joy and the joy of others, and victory would 
 in the end be certain; that the chances of victory ran 
 to infinity, and could not be measured. 
 
 However, all the while, ;n spite of her stimulation 
 of spirits, there was that v/gue sense of excitement, as 
 over some impending crisis. That she could not throw 
 off. Suddenly she found herself searching the road 
 ahead of her, and often turning at the fancied sound of 
 a footstep. She began to wish that her father had 
 come with her; then she told herself how foolish she 
 was, for he had a cold, and this keen air would have 
 been sure to give him more. The electric-car passed 
 her, and she had a grateful sense of companionship. 
 She looked after its diminishing light in the distance, 
 and almost wished that she had stopped it, but car-fares 
 had to be counted carefully. 
 
 She began to dread unspeakably passing the factories. 
 412 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 She told herself that there was no sense in it, that it was 
 not late, that the electric-light made it like high noon, 
 that there was a watchman in each building, that there 
 was nothing whatever to fear; but it was in vain. It 
 was only by a great effort of her will that she did not 
 turn and go back home when she reached Lloyd s. 
 
 Lloyd s came first; then, a few rods farther, on the 
 other side of the street, McGuire s, and then Briggs s. 
 
 Ellen had a library book under her arm, and she 
 clutched her dress -skirt firmly. A terror as to the 
 supernatural was stealing over her. She felt as she 
 had when waking in the night from some dreadful 
 dream, though all the time she was dinning in her 
 ears how foolish she was. She saw the lantern of 
 the night-watchman in Lloyd s moving down a stair 
 which crossed a window. 
 
 She came opposite Lloyd s, and, just as she did so, 
 saw a dark figure descending the right-hand flight of 
 stairs from the entrance platform. She thought, from 
 something in the carriage, that it was Mr. Lloyd, and 
 hung back a little, reflecting that she would keep be 
 hind him all the way to town. 
 
 The man reached the ground at the foot of the stairs, 
 then there was a flash of fire from the shadow under 
 neath, and a shot rang out. Ellen did what she could 
 never have counted upon herself for doing. She ran 
 straight towards the man, who had fallen prostrate like 
 a log, and was down on the ground beside him, with 
 his head on her lap, shouting for the night-watchman, 
 whose name was McLaughlin. 
 
 " McLaughlin ! " she shouted. But there was no 
 need of it, for he had heard the shot. The cry had 
 not left Ellen s lips before she was surrounded by men, 
 one of whom was Granville Joy, one was Dixon, and 
 one was John Sargent. 
 
 Joy and Sargent had met down-town, and were walk- 
 
 413 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ing home together, when the shot rang out, and they 
 had rushed forward. Then there was McLaughlin, 
 the watchman of Lloyd s, and the two watchmen from 
 Briggs s and McGuire s came pelting down their stairs, 
 swinging their lanterns. 
 
 They all stood around the wounded man and Ellen, 
 and stared for a second. They were half stupefied. 
 
 "My God! this is a bad job," said Dixon. 
 
 "Go for a doctor/ cried Ellen, hoarsely. 
 
 " We re a pack of fools," ejaculated Sargent, suddenly. 
 Then he gave Granville Joy a push on the back. " Run 
 for your life for the first doctor," he cried, and was down 
 on his knees beside the wounded man. Lloyd seemed 
 to be quite insensible. There was a dark spot which 
 was constantly widening in a hideous circle of death 
 on his shirt-front when Sargent opened his coat and 
 vest tenderly. 
 
 " Is he" whispered Ellen. She held one of Lloyd s 
 hands in a firm clutch as if she would in such wise 
 hold him to life. 
 
 "No, not yet," whispered Sargent. Dixon knelt 
 down on the other side, and took Lloyd s other hand 
 and felt his pulse. McLaughlin was rushing aimlessly 
 up and down, talking as he went. 
 
 " I never heard a thing till that shot came," he kept 
 repeating. "He d jest been in to get his pocketbook 
 he d left in the office. I never heard a thing till I 
 heard that shot." 
 
 Sargent was opening Lloyd s shirt. " McLaughlin, 
 for God s sake stop talking and run for another doctor, 
 in case Joy does not get one at once," he cried; "then 
 go to his house, and tell young Lloyd, but don t say 
 anything to his wife." 
 
 "Poor Mrs. Lloyd," whispered Ellen. 
 
 The sick man sighed audibly. It seemed as if he had 
 heard. The other watchmen stood looking on helplessly. 
 
 414 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Why in thunder don t you two scatter, and see if 
 you can t catch him/ cried Dixon to them. "He 
 can t be far off." 
 
 But the words had no sooner left his mouth than up 
 came a great Swede who was one of the workmen in 
 Lloyd s, and he had Nahum Beals in a grasp as im 
 perturbable as fate. The assassin, even with the strength 
 of his fury of fanaticism, was as a reed in the grasp of 
 this Northern giant. The Swede held him easily, walk 
 ing him before him in a forced march. He had a hand 
 of Nahum s in each of his, and he compelled Nahum s 
 right hand to retain the hold of the discharged pistol. 
 There was something terrible about the Swede as he 
 drew near, a captor as unyielding and pitiless as justice 
 itself. He was even smiling with a smile which showed 
 his gums from ear to ear, but there was no joy in his 
 smile, and no triumph. His blue eyes surveyed them 
 all with the placid content of achievement. 
 
 "I have him," he said. "I heard him shoot, and I 
 heard him run, and I stood still until he ran into my 
 arms. I have him." 
 
 Nahum, in the grasp of this fate, was quivering from 
 head to foot, but not from fear. 
 
 "Is he dead?" he shouted, eagerly. 
 
 "Hush up, you murderer," cried Dixon. "We didn t 
 want any such work as this, damn you. Keep fast 
 hold of him, Olfsen." 
 
 "I will keep him fast," replied the Swede, smiling. 
 
 Then there was a swift clatter of wheels, and two 
 doctors drove up, and men came running. The space 
 in front of Lloyd s was black with men. Robert Lloyd 
 was among them. Granville Joy had met him on the 
 street. 
 
 " You d better go down to the factory, quick," he had 
 said, hoarsely. There s trouble there; your uncle " 
 
 Robert pushed through the crowd, which made way 
 
 415 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 respectfully for him. He knelt down beside the wounded 
 man. "Is he " he whispered to Sargent. 
 
 "Not yet/ whispered Sargent, "but I m afraid it s 
 pretty bad." 
 
 "You here?" Robert said to Ellen. 
 
 "Yes/ she answered, "I was passing when I heard 
 the shot." 
 
 "See here," said Robert, "I don t know but I am 
 asking a good deal, but will you get into Dr. James s 
 buggy, and let his man drive you to my aunt s, and 
 you break it to her? She likes you. I must stay 
 with him. I don t want her to know it first when he is 
 brought home." 
 
 " Yes, that will be the best way," said the other phy 
 sician, who was the one regularly employed by the 
 Lloyds. " Some one must tell her first, and if she knows 
 this young lady " 
 
 "I will go," said Ellen. 
 
 Dr. Story whispered something to Ellen as she was 
 getting into the buggy. Then Dr. James s man drove 
 her away down the street. 
 
 There was a little black mare harnessed to the buggy, 
 and she went with nervous leaps of speed. When Ellen 
 reached the Lloyd house she saw that it was bla/ing 
 with light. Norman Lloyd was fond of brilliant light, 
 and would have every room in his house illuminated 
 from garret to cellar. 
 
 As Ellen went up the stone steps she saw a woman s 
 figure in the room at the right, which moved to an 
 attitude of attention when she rang the bell. 
 
 Before Ellen could inquire for Mrs. Lloyd of the maid 
 who answered her ring there was a shrill cry from the 
 room on the right. 
 
 "Who is it? Who is it?" demanded the voice. 
 
 Then, before Ellen could speak, Mrs. Lloyd came run* 
 ning out. 
 
 416 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "What is it?" she said. "Tell me quick. I know 
 something has happened. Tell me quick. You came 
 in Dr. James s buggy, and the man was driving fast. 
 Tell me." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Lloyd/ said Ellen. Then she could say 
 no more, but the other woman knew. 
 
 "Is he dead?" she asked, hoarsely. 
 
 "Oh, no, no, not dead." 
 
 "Hurt?" 
 
 Ellen nodded, trembling. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "He was shot." 
 
 "Who shot him?" 
 
 "One of the workmen. They have him. Carl Olf- 
 sen found him." 
 
 "One of the workmen, when he has always been so 
 good!" 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Lloyd seemed to gather herself to 
 gether into the strength of action. 
 
 "Are they bringing him home?" she asked Ellen, in 
 a sharp, decisive voice. 
 
 "I think they must be by this time." 
 
 "Then I ve got to get ready for him. Come, quick." 
 
 There was by that time a man and two women ser 
 vants standing near them, aghast. Mrs. Lloyd turned 
 to the man. 
 
 "Go down to the drug-store and get some brandy, 
 there isn t any in the house," said she; " then come back 
 as quick as you can. Maggie, you see that there is 
 plenty of hot water. Martha, you and Ellen come up 
 stairs with me, quick." 
 
 Ellen followed Mrs. Lloyd and the maid up-stairs, 
 and, before she knew what she was doing, was assisting 
 to put the room in perfect readiness for the wounded 
 man. The maid was weeping all the time she worked, 
 although she had never liked Mr. Lloyd. There 
 
 47 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 something about her mistress which was fairly abnor 
 mal. She kept looking at her. This gentle, soft- 
 natured woman had risen above her own pain and 
 grief to a sublime strength of misery. 
 
 " Get the camphor, quick, Martha/ she said to the 
 maid, who flew out, with the tears streaming. Ellen 
 stood on one side of the bed, and Mrs. Lloyd on the 
 other. Mrs. Lloyd had stripped off the blankets, and 
 was pinning the sheet tightly over the mattress. She 
 seemed to know instinctively what to do. 
 
 " I wish you would bring that basin over here, and 
 put it on the stand/ said Mrs. Lloyd. Martha, you 
 fetch more towels, and, Maggie, you run up garret 
 and bring down some of those old sheets from the 
 trunk under the window, quick." 
 
 This maid, who was as large and as ample as her 
 mistress, fled out of the room with heavy, noiseless pads 
 of flat feet 
 
 All the time Mrs. Lloyd worked she was evidently list 
 ening. She paid no attention to Ellen except to direct 
 her. All at once she gave a great leap and stood still. 
 
 "They re coming/ said she, though Ellen had heard 
 nothing. Ellen went close to her, and took her two fat, 
 cold hands. She could say nothing. Then she heard 
 the roll of carriage-wheels in the street below. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd pulled her hands away from Ellen s and 
 went to the head of the stairs. 
 
 " Bring him right up here/ she ordered, in a loud 
 voice. 
 
 Ellen stood back, and the struggling procession with 
 the prostrate man in the midst labored up the broad 
 stairs. 
 
 "Bring him in here/ said Mrs. Lloyd, "and lay 
 him on the bed." 
 
 When Lloyd was stretched on the bed, the crowd 
 drew back a little, and she bent over him. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Then she turned with a sort of fierceness to the doc 
 tors. 
 
 "Why don t you do something?" she demanded. 
 She raised a hand with a repellant gesture towards the 
 other men. 
 
 " You had better go now/ said she. " I thank you 
 very much. If there is anything you can do, I will 
 let you know." 
 
 When Mrs. Lloyd was left with the two doctors and 
 a young assistant, Robert, and Ellen, she said, cutting 
 her words short as if she released every one from a 
 mental grip: 
 
 " I have got everything ready. Shall I go out now?" 
 
 "I think you had better, Mrs. Lloyd," said the family 
 physician, pityingly. He went close to Ellen. 
 
 " Can t you stay with her a little while?" he whispered. 
 
 Ellen nodded. 
 
 Then the physician spoke quite loudly and cheerfully 
 to Mrs. Lloyd. 
 
 " We are going to probe for the ball," he said. " We 
 must all hope for the best, Mrs. Lloyd." 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd made no reply. She bent again over her 
 husband with a rigid face, and kissed him on his white 
 lips, then she went out, with Ellen following. 
 
 Norman Lloyd lived only two hours after he was 
 shot. The efforts to remove the ball had to be aban 
 doned. He was conscious only a few minutes. He 
 suddenly began to look about him with comprehension. 
 
 "Robert," he said, in a far-away voice. 
 
 Robert stooped closely over his uncle. The dying 
 man looked up at him with an expression which he 
 had never worn in life. 
 
 "That man was insane," whispered he, faintly. 
 Then he added, "Look out for her, if she has to go 
 through the operation. Take care of her. Make it 
 as easy for her as you can." 
 
 419 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Then you know, Uncle Norman/ gasped Robert. 
 
 " All the time, but it pleased her to think I did not. 
 Don t lei. her know I knew. Take care " 
 
 Then Norman Lloyd relapsed into unconsciousness, 
 and the whole room and the whole house became 
 clamorous with his stertorous breathing. Mrs. Lloyd 
 and Ellen came and stood in the doorway. The doc 
 tor whispered to them. Then the breathing ceased, 
 although at first it was inconceivable that the silence 
 did not continue to ring with it, and Mrs. Lloyd came 
 into the room. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Lloyd entered the room, the attention 
 of every one was taken from the dead man on the 
 bed and concentrated upon the woman. Dr. Story, 
 a nervous, intense, elderly man with a settled frown 
 of perplexity over keen eyes, which he had gotten from 
 a struggle of forty years with unanswerable problems 
 of life and death, stepped towards her hastily. Robert 
 pressed close to her side. Ellen came behind her, 
 holding in a curious, instinctive fashion to a fold of 
 the older woman s gown, as if she had been a mother 
 holding back a child from a sudden topple to its hurt. 
 Everybody expected her to make some heart-breaking 
 manifestation. She did nothing. At that moment the 
 sublime unselfishness of the woman, which was her 
 one strength of character, seemed actually to spread 
 itself, as with wings, before them all. She moved 
 steadily, close to her husband on the bed. She gazed 
 at that profile of rigid calmness and enforced peace, 
 which, although the head lay low, seemed to have an 
 effect of upward motion, as if it were cleaving the mys 
 tery of space. Mrs. Lloyd laid her hand upon her 
 husband s forehead; she felt a slight incredulousness 
 of death, because it was still warm. She took his 
 hands, drew them softly together, and folded them 
 upon his breast. Then she turned and faced them all 
 with an angelic expression. 
 
 " He did not realize it to suffer much?" she said 
 "No, Mrs. Lloyd/ replied Dr. Story, quickly. "No, 
 I assure you that he suffered very little." 
 
 421 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " He seemed very happy when he died, Aunt Lizzie/ 
 said Robert, huskily. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd looked away from them all around the 
 room. It was a magnificent apartment. Norman 
 Lloyd had had an artistic taste as well as wealth. 
 The furnishings had always been rather beyond Mrs. 
 Lloyd s appreciation, but she admired them kindly. 
 She took in every detail; the foam of rich curtains at 
 the great windows, the cut-glass and silver on the 
 dressing-table, the pale softness of a polar-bear skin 
 beside the bed, the lifelike insistence of the costly pict 
 ures on the walls. 
 
 " He s gone where it is a great deal more beautiful/ 
 she said to them, like a child. " He s gone where there s 
 \ better treasures than these which he had here." 
 
 They all looked at her in amazement. It actually 
 seemed as if, for the moment, the woman s sole grief 
 was over the loss to her husband of those things which 
 he had on earth the treasures of his mortal state. 
 
 Robert took hold of his aunt s arm and led her, quite 
 unresisting, from the room, and as she went she felt 
 for Ellen s hand. " It is time she was home," she said 
 to Robert. " Her folks will be worried about her. She s 
 been a real comfort to me." 
 
 It was the first time that Ellen had ever seen death, 
 that she had ever seen the living confronted with it. 
 She felt as if a wave were breaking over her own head 
 as she clung fast to Mrs. Lloyd s hand. 
 
 "Sha n t I stay?" she whispered, pitifully, to her. 
 "If I can send word to my mother " 
 
 "No, you dear child," replied Mrs. Lloyd, "you ve 
 done enough, and you will have to be up early in the 
 morning." Then she checked herself. " I forgot," said 
 she to Robert ; " the factory will be closed till after the 
 funeral, won t it?" 
 
 "Of course it will, Aunt Lizzie." 
 422 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "And the workmen will be paid just the same, of 
 course/ said Mrs. Lloyd. "Now, can t you take her 
 home, Robert?" 
 
 "Oh, don t mind about me," cried Ellen. 
 
 "You can have a horse put into the buggy/ said 
 Mrs. Lloyd. 
 
 "Oh, you mustn t leave her now," Ellen whispered 
 to Robert. " Let somebody else take me Dr. James " 
 
 "I would rather you took her," said Mrs. Lloyd. 
 "And you needn t worry about his leaving me, dear 
 child; the doctor will stay until he comes back." 
 
 As Robert was finally going out his aunt caught 
 his arm and looked at him with a radiant expression. 
 "He will never know about me now," said she, "and it 
 won t be long before I Oh, I feel as if I had gotten 
 rid of my own death." 
 
 She was filled with inexpressible thankfulness that 
 she had herself to bear what she had dreaded for her 
 husband. " Only think how hard it w r ould have been 
 for Norman," she said to Cynthia, the next day. 
 
 Cynthia looked at her wonderingly. She could have 
 understood this feeling over a dearly beloved child. 
 " You are a good woman, Lizzie," she said, in a tone of 
 pitiful respect. 
 
 "Not half as good a woman as he was a man," re 
 turned Mrs. Lloyd, jealously. " Norman wasn t a pro 
 fessor, I know, but he was a believer. You don t 
 think it is necessary to be a professor in order to be 
 saved, do you, Cynthia?" 
 
 " I certainly do not," Cynthia replied. " I wish you 
 would go and lie down, Lizzie." 
 
 " Oh, I can t. I wouldn t let anybody do these things 
 but me, for the whole world." Mrs. Lloyd was arrang 
 ing flowers, tuberoses and white carnations, in vases, 
 and the whole house was scented with them. She 
 looked ghastly, yet still unconquerably happy. She 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 had now no reason to conceal the ravages of disease, 
 and her color was something frightful. Still, she did 
 not suffer as much, for her mind had overborne her 
 body to such an extent that she had the mastery for the 
 time, to a certain extent, of those excruciating stabs 
 of pain. People looked at her incredulously. They 
 could not believe that she felt as she talked, that she 
 was as happy and resigned as she looked, but it was all 
 true. It was either an abnormal state into which her 
 husband s death had thrown her, or one too normal 
 to be credited. She looked at it all with a supreme 
 childishness and simplicity. She simply believed that 
 her husband was in heaven, where she should join him ; 
 that he was beyond all suffering which might have come 
 to him through her, and all that troubled her was the 
 one consideration of his having been forced to leave his 
 treasures of earth. She looked at various things which 
 had been prized by the dead man, and found her chief 
 comfort in saying to the minister or Cynthia or Robert 
 that Norman had loved these, but he would have that 
 which was infinitely more precious. She even gazed 
 out of the window, that Tuesday night, and saw her 
 nephew driving away with Ellen, and reflected, with 
 pain, that her husband had been fond and proud of 
 that bay. She was a little at a loss to conceive what 
 could make up to her husband for that in another world, 
 but she succeeded, and evolved from her own loving 
 fancy, and her recollection of the Old Testament, a 
 conception of some wonderful creature, shod with 
 thunder and^maned with a whirlwind. Her disease, 
 and a drug she had been taking of late, stimulated her 
 imagination to results of grotesque pathos, but she 
 was comforted. 
 
 That night when they were alone, Robert turned to 
 the girl at his side with a sudden motion. It was no 
 time for love-making, for that was in the rnind of neither 
 
 424 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of them, but the bereavement of this other woman, 
 and the tragedy of her state, filled him with a sort of 
 protective pain towards the girl who might some time 
 have to suffer through him the same loss. 
 
 "Are you all tired out, dear?" he said, and passed 
 his free arm around her waist. 
 
 "No," replied Ellen. Then, since she was only a 
 girl, and overwrought, having been through a severe 
 strain, she broke down, and began to cry. 
 
 Robert drew her closer, and she hid her face on his 
 shoulder. "Poor little girl, it has been very hard for 
 you," he whispered. 
 
 "Oh, don t think of me," sobbed Ellen. "But I 
 can t bear it, the way she acts and looks. It is sadder 
 than grief." 
 
 "She is not going to live long herself, dear/ said 
 Robert, in a stifled voice. 
 
 "And he did not know?" 
 
 " Hush ! yes ; but you must never tell any one. She 
 tried to keep it from him. That is her comfort." 
 
 "Oh," said Ellen. She looked up at the white face 
 of the young man bending over her, and suddenly the 
 realization of a love that was mightier than all the 
 creatures who came of it and all who followed it was 
 over her. 
 28 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 WHEN Ellen did not return, there was some alarm 
 in the Brewster household. Mrs. Zelotes came over, 
 finally, in a quiver of anxiety. 
 
 "Maybe I had better start out and see if I can find 
 her/ said Andrew. 
 
 " I think you had better/ returned his mother. " She 
 went before eight o clock, and it s most midnight, and 
 I ve set at my window watchin ever since. I don t 
 see what you ve been thinkin about, waitin all this 
 time. I guess if I was a man I shouldn t have waited." 
 
 " I think she may have gone in to see Abby Atkins 
 it s on the way and not realized how late it was," 
 said Fanny, obstinately, but with a very white face. 
 She drew her thread through with a jerk. It knotted, 
 and she broke it off viciously. 
 
 " Fiddlesticks 1" said her mother-in-law. 
 
 "There s no use imaginin things," said Fanny, 
 angrily; "but I think myself you d better go now, 
 Andrew, and see if you can see anything of her." 
 
 "I m goin with him," announced Mrs. Zelotes. 
 
 "Now, mother, you d better stay where you be," 
 said Andrew, putting on his hat. Then the door flew 
 open, and Amos Lee, who had seen the light in the 
 windows, and was burning to impart the news of the 
 tragedy, rushed in. 
 
 "Heard what s happened?" he cried out. 
 
 They all thought of Ellen. "What?" demanded 
 Andrew, in a terrible voice. Fanny dropped her work 
 and stared at him, with her chin falling as if she were 
 
 426 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 dying. Mrs. Zelotes made a queer gurgling noise in 
 her throat. Lee stared at them a second, bewildered 
 by the effect of his own words, although they had for 
 him such a tragic import. Andrew caught hold of 
 him in a grasp like the clamp of a machine. " What?" 
 he demanded again. 
 
 "The boss has been shot/ cried Lee, getting his 
 breath. 
 
 Andrew dropped his arm, and they all stared at him. 
 Lee went on fluently, as if he were a fakir at a fair. 
 
 "Nahum Beals did it. The boss went back to the 
 office to get his pocketbook; McLaughlin saw him; 
 then he went down the stairs; Nahum, he he fired; 
 he had been hidin underneath the stairs. Carl Olfsen 
 caught him, and he s in jail. Your daughter she was 
 there when the shot came, and run up and held his head. 
 The young boss he sent her in Dr. James s buggy to 
 Mrs. Lloyd to break the news. She ain t got home?" 
 
 "No," gasped Andrew. 
 
 "The boss has been shot; he s dead by this time," 
 repeated Lee. " Beals did it ; they ve got him." There 
 was the most singular evenness and impartiality in his 
 tone, although he was evidently strained to a high 
 pitch of excitement. It was impossible to tell whether 
 he exulted in or was aghast at the tragedy. 
 
 "Oh, that poor woman!" cried Fanny. 
 
 "I d like to know what they ll do next," cried Mrs. 
 Zelotes. "I should call it pretty work." 
 
 "Nahum Beals has acted to me as if he was half 
 crazy for some time," said Fanny. 
 
 "No doubt about it," said Lee; "but I shouldn t 
 wonder if he had to swing." 
 
 " It s dreadful," said Fanny. " I wonder when she s 
 comin home." 
 
 " Seems as if they might have got somebody besides 
 that girl to have gone there," said Mrs. Zelotes. 
 
 427 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "She happened to be right on the spot/ said Lee, 
 importantly. 
 
 Andrew seemed speechless; he leaned against the 
 mantel-shelf, gazing from one to the other, breathing 
 hard. He had had bitter feelings against the mur 
 dered man, and a curious sense of guilt was over him. 
 He felt almost as if he were the murderer. 
 
 " Andrew, I dun no but you d better go up there and 
 see if she s comin home/ said Fanny; and he an 
 swered heavily that maybe he had better, when they 
 heard wheels, which stopped before the house. 
 
 "They re bringin her home," said Lee. 
 
 Andrew ran and threw open the front door. He had 
 a glimpse of Robert s pale face, nodding to him from the 
 buggy as he drove away, and Ellen came hastening 
 up the walk. 
 
 " Well, Ellen, this is pretty dreadful news/ said her 
 father, tremulously. 
 
 "So you have heard?" 
 
 "Amos Lee has just come in. It s a terrible thing, 
 Ellen." 
 
 " Yes, it s terrible," returned Ellen, in a quick, strained 
 voice. She entered the sitting-room, and when she 
 met her mother s anxious, tender eyes, she stood back 
 against the wall, with her hands to her face, sobbing. 
 Fanny ran to her, but her grandmother was quicker. 
 She had her arms around the girl before the mother 
 had a chance. 
 
 " If they couldn t get somebody besides you," she said, 
 in a voice of intensest love and anger, "I should call 
 it pretty work. Now you go straight to bed, Ellen 
 Brewster, and I m goin to make a bowl of sage tea, and 
 bring it up, and see if it won t quiet your nerves. I 
 call it pretty work." 
 
 "Yes, you d better go to bed, Ellen/ said Andrew, 
 gulping as if he were swallowing a sob. 
 
 428 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes fairly forced Ellen towards the door, 
 Fanny following. 
 
 "Don t talk and wake Amabel/ whispered Ellen, 
 forcing back her sobs. 
 
 "Was he dead when you got there, Ellen?" called 
 out Lee. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes turned back and looked at him. "It s 
 after midnight, and time for you to be goin home/ 
 she said. Then the three disappeared. Lee grinned 
 sheepishly at Andrew. 
 
 " Your mother is a stepper of an old woman," said he. 
 
 "It s awful news," said Andrew, soberly. "What 
 ever anybody may have felt, nobody expected " 
 
 "Of course they didn t," retorted Lee, quickly. 
 "Nahum went a step too far." He started for the 
 door as he spoke. 
 
 "Well, he was crazy, without any doubt!" said An 
 drew. 
 
 " He ll have to swing for it all the same/ said Lee, 
 going out. 
 
 "It don t seem right, if he wasn t himself when he 
 did it." 
 
 "Lord, we re all crazy when it comes to things like 
 that," returned Lee. Before closing the door he flashed 
 his black eyes and white teeth at Andrew, who felt 
 repelled. 
 
 He sat down beside the table and leaned his head upon 
 it. To his fancy all creation seemed to circle about 
 that one dead man. Mr. Lloyd had been for years 
 the arbiter of his destiny, almost of his life. Andrew 
 had regarded him with almost feudal loyalty and ad 
 miration, and lately with bitter revolt and hatred, 
 and now he was dead. He felt no sorrow, but rather 
 a terrible remorse because he felt no sorrow. All the 
 bitter thoughts which he had ever had against Lloyd 
 seemed to marshal themselves before him like an a,c- 
 
 429 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 cusing legion of ghosts. And with it all there was a 
 sense of desolation, as if some force which had been 
 necessary to his full living had gone out of creation. 
 "It s over thirty years since I went to work under 
 him/ Andrew thought, and he gave a dry sob. At 
 that moment a wonderful pity and sorrow for the dead 
 man seemed to spring up in his soul like a light. He 
 felt as if he loved him. 
 
 Norman Lloyd s funeral was held in the First Baptist 
 Church of Rowe. It was crowded. Mr. Lloyd had 
 been the most prominent manufacturer and the wealth 
 iest man in the city. His employes filled up a great 
 space in the body of the church. 
 
 Andrew went with his mother and wife. They ar 
 rived quite early. When Andrew saw the employe s 
 of Lloyd s marching in, he drew a great sigh. He 
 looked at the solemn black thing raised on trestles before 
 the pulpit with an emotion which he could not himself 
 understand. " That man ain t treated me well enough 
 for me to care anything about him/ he kept urging 
 upon himself. "He never paid any more attention to 
 me than a gravel-stone under his feet; there ain t any 
 reason why I should have cared about him, and I don t ; 
 it can t be that I do." Yet arguing with himself in 
 this way, he continued to eye the casket which held 
 his dead employer with an unyielding grief. 
 
 Mrs. Zelotes sat like a black, draped statue at the 
 head of the pew, but her eyes behind her black veil 
 were sharply observant. She missed not one detail. 
 She saw everything; she counted the wreaths and 
 bouquets on the casket, and stored in her mind, as 
 vividly as she might have done some old mourning- 
 piece, the picture of the near relatives advancing up 
 the aisle. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd came leaning on her nephew s arm, 
 
 430 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 there were Cynthia Lennox/ and a distant cousin^ an 
 elderly widow* who had been summoned to the house 
 of death. 
 
 Ellen sat in the body of the church, with the employes 
 of Lloyd s, between Abby Atkins and Maria. She 
 glanced up when the little company of mourners entered, 
 then cast her eyes down again and compressed her 
 lips. Maria began to weep softly, pressing her hand 
 kerchief to her eyes. Ellen s mother had begged her 
 not to sit with the employe s, but with her and her 
 father and grandmother in their own pew, but the girl 
 had refused. 
 
 "I must sit where I belong/ said she. 
 
 " Maybe she thinks it would look as if she was put 
 ting on airs on account of " Fanny said to Andrew 
 when Ellen had gone out. 
 
 "I guess she s right," returned Andrew. 
 
 The employe s had contributed money for a great 
 floral piece composed of laurel and white roses, in 
 the shape of a pillow. Mamie Brady, who sat behind 
 Ellen, leaned over, and in a whisper whistled into her 
 ear. 
 
 " Ain t it handsome?" said she. " Can you see them 
 flowers from the hands?" 
 
 Ellen nodded impatiently. The great green and 
 white decoration was in plain view from her seat, and 
 as she looked at it she wondered if it were a sarcasm or 
 poetic truth beyond the scope of the givers, the pillow 
 of laurel and roses, emblematic of eternal peac^; pre 
 sented by the hard hands of labor to dead capital. 
 
 Of course the tragic circumstances of Norman Lloyd s 
 death increased the curiosity of the public. Gradually 
 the church became crowded by a slow and solemn press 
 ure. The aisles were filled. The air was heavy with 
 the funeral flowers. The minister spoke at length, 
 descanting upon the character of the deceased, his 
 
 431 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 uprightness and strict integrity in business, avoiding 
 pitfalls of admissions of weaknesses with the expertness 
 of a juggler. He was always regarded as very apt at 
 funerals, never saying too much and never too little. 
 The church was very still, the whole audience wrapped 
 in a solemn hush, until the minister began to pray; 
 then there was a general bending of heads and devout 
 screening of faces with hands. Then all at once a 
 sob from a woman sounded from the rear of the church. 
 It was hysterical, and had burst from the restraint of 
 the weeper. People turned about furtively. 
 
 "Who was that?" whispered Mamie Brady, after a 
 prolonged stare over her shoulders from under her red 
 frizzle of hair. "It ain t any of the mourners." 
 
 Ellen shook her head. 
 
 "Do keep still, Mamie Brady/ whispered Abby 
 Atkins. 
 
 The sob came again, and this time it was echoed 
 from the pew where sat the members of the dead man s 
 family. Mrs. Lloyd began weeping convulsively. Her 
 state of mind had raised her above natural emotion, 
 and yet her nerves weakly yielded to it when given such 
 an impetus. She wept like a child, and now and then 
 a low murmur of heart-broken complaint came from 
 her lips, and was heard distinctly over the church. 
 Other women began to weep. The minister prayed, 
 and his words of comfort seemed like the* air in a dis 
 cordant medley of sorrow. 
 
 Andrew Brewster s face twitched; he held his hands 
 clutched tightly. Fanny was weeping, but the old 
 woman at the head of the pew sat immovable. 
 
 When the services were over, and the great concourse 
 of people had passed around the casket and viewed the 
 face of the dead, with keen, sidewise observation of the 
 funeral flowers, Mrs. Zelotes pressed out as fast as she 
 was able without seeming to crowd, and caught up 
 
 4.32 
 
THE POUTION OF LABOR 
 
 with Mrs. Pointdexter, who had sat in the rear of the 
 church. 
 
 She came alongside as they left the church, and the 
 two old women moved slowly down the sidewalk, with 
 lingering glances at the funeral procession drawn up 
 in front of the church. 
 
 "Who was that cryin so in back; did you see?" 
 asked Mrs. Zelotes of Mrs. Pointdexter, whose eyes were 
 red, and whose face bore an expression of meek endur 
 ance of a renewal of her own experience of sorrow. 
 
 "It was Joe Martin s wife/ said she. "I sat just 
 behind her." 
 
 "What made her?" 
 
 Then both started, for the woman who had sobbed 
 came up behind them, her brother, an elderly man, 
 trying to hold her back. 
 
 "You stop, John," she cried. "I heard what she 
 said, and I m. goin to tell her. I m goin to tell every 
 body. Nobody shall stop me. There the minister 
 spoke and spoke and spoke, and he never said a word 
 as to any good he d done. I m goin to tell. I wanted 
 to stan right up in the church an tell everybody. He 
 told me not to say a word about it, an I never did 
 whilst he was livin , but now I m goin to stan up for 
 the dead." The woman pulled herself loose from her 
 brother, who stood behind her, frightened, and continu 
 ally thrusting out a black-gloved hand of remonstrance. 
 People began to gather. The woman, who was quite 
 old, had. a face graven with hard lines of habitual re 
 straint, which was now, from its utter abandon, at once 
 pathetic and terrible. She made a motion as if she were 
 thrusting her own self into the background. 
 
 " I m goin to speak," she said, in a high voice. " I 
 held my tongue for the livin , but I m goin to speak 
 for the dead. My poor husband died twenty years 
 ago, got his hand cut in a machine in Lloyd s, and had 
 
 433 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 lockjaw, and I was left with my daughter that had spi 
 nal disease, and my little boy that died, and my own 
 health none too good, and and he he came to my 
 house, one night after the funeral, and and told me 
 he was goin to look out for me, and he has, he has. 
 That blessed man gave me five dollars every week of 
 my life, and he buried poor Annie when she died, and 
 my little boy, and he made me promise never to say a 
 word about it. Five dollars every week of my life 
 five dollars/ 
 
 The woman s voice ended in a long-drawn, hysterical 
 wail. The other women who had been listening began 
 to weep. Mrs. Pointdexter, when she and Mrs. Zelotes 
 moved on, was sobbing softly, but Mrs. Zelotes s face, 
 though moved, wore an expression of stern conjecture. 
 
 " I d like to know how many things like that Norman 
 Lloyd did," said she. " I never supposed he was that 
 kind of a man." 
 
 She had a bewildered feeling, as if she had to recon 
 struct her own idea of the dead man as a monument to 
 rjis memory, and reconstruction was never an easy 
 ,/task for the old woman. 
 
CHAPTER XLV 
 
 A SHORT time after Norman Lloyd s death, Ellen, 
 when she had reached the factory one morning, met a 
 stream of returning workmen. They swung along, 
 and on their faces were expressions of mingled solem 
 nity and exultation, as of children let out to play be 
 cause of sorrow in the house, which will not brook the 
 jarring inconsequence of youth. 
 
 Mamie Brady, walking beside a young man as red- 
 haired as herself, called out, with ill-repressed glee, 
 "Turn round, Ellen Brewster; there ain t no shop to 
 day." 
 
 The young man at her side, nervously meagre, looked 
 at Ellen with a humorous contortion of his thin face, 
 then he caught Mamie Brady by the arm, and swung 
 her into a hopity-skip down the sidewalk. Just behind 
 them came Granville Joy, with another man. Ellen 
 stopped. "What is it?" she said to him. "Why is 
 the shop closed?" 
 
 Granville stopped, and let the stream of workmen pass 
 him and Ellen. They stood in the midst of it, separat 
 ing it, as rock will separate a current. " Mrs. Lloyd is 
 dead," Granville replied, soberly. 
 
 " I heard she was very low last night," Ellen return 
 ed, in a hushed voice. 
 
 Then she passed Granville, who stood a second gazing 
 wistfully after her, before he resumed his homeward 
 way. He told himself quite accurately that she had 
 purposely refrained from turning, in order to avoid 
 walking with himself. A certain resentment seized 
 
 435 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 him. It seemed to him that something besides his love 
 had been slighted. "She needn t have thought I was 
 going to make love to her going home in broad daylight 
 with all these folks/ he reflected, and he threw up his 
 head impatiently. 
 
 The man with whom he had been walking when 
 Ellen appeared lingered for him to rejoin him. " Won 
 der how many shops they d shut up for you and me/ 
 said the man, with a sort of humorous bitterness. He 
 had a broad face, seemingly fixed in an eternal mask 
 of laughter, and yet there were hard lines in it, and a 
 forehead of relentless judgment overhung his wide bow 
 of mouth and his squat and wrinkled nose. 
 
 "Guess not many/ replied Granville, echoing the 
 man in a way unusual to him. 
 
 "And yet if it wa n t for us they couldn t keep the 
 shop running at all," said the man, whose name was 
 Tom Peel. 
 
 " That s so," said Granville, with a slight glance over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 Ellen had met the Atkins girls, and had turned, and 
 was coming back with them. It was as he had thought. 
 
 "If the new boss cuts down fifteen per cent., as the 
 talk is, what be you goin to do?" asked Tom Peel. 
 
 " I ain t goin to stand it," replied Granville, fiercely. 
 
 "Ain t goin to be swept clean by the new broom, 
 hey?" said the man, with a widened grin. 
 
 "No!" thundered Granville "not by him, nor any 
 one like him. Damn him!" 
 
 Tom Peel s grin widened still further into an intense 
 but silent laugh. 
 
 Meantime Ellen was walking with Abby and Maria. 
 
 " I wonder how we re going to get along with young 
 Lloyd," said Abby. 
 
 Ellen looked at her keenly. "Why?" she said. 
 
 "Oh, 1 heard the men talking the other night after 
 436 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 I d gone to bed. Maybe it isn t true that he s thinking 
 of cutting down the wages." 
 
 "It can t be/ said Ellen. 
 
 "I say so, too," said Maria. 
 
 "Well, I hope not," said Abby. "You can t tell. 
 Some chimneys always have the wind whistling in 
 them, and I suppose it s about so with a boot and shoe 
 shop. It don t follow that there s going to be a hur 
 ricane." 
 
 They had come to the entrance of the street where 
 the Atkins sisters lived, and Ellen parted from them. 
 
 She kept on her way quite alone. They had walked 
 slowly, and the other operatives had either boarded 
 cars or had gone out of sight. 
 
 Ellen, when she turned, faced the northwest, out of 
 which a stiff wind was blowing. She thrust a hand 
 up each jacket-sleeve, folding her arms, but she let the 
 fierce wind smite her full in the face without blenching. 
 She had a sort of delight in facing a wind like that, and 
 her quick young blood kept her from being chilled. 
 The sidewalk was frozen. There was no snow, and 
 the day before there had been a thaw. One could see 
 on this walk, hardened into temporary stability, the 
 footprints of hundreds of the sons and daughters of labor. ^ 
 f Read rightly, that sidewalk in the little manufacturing 
 city was a hieroglyphic of toil, and perhaps of toil as 
 tending to the advance of the whole world. Ellen did 
 not think of that, for she was occupied with more per 
 sonal considerations, thinking of the dead woman in 
 the great Lloyd house. She pictured her lying dead on 
 that same bed whereon she had seen her husband lie 
 dead. All the ghastly concomitants of death came 
 to her mind. "They will turn off all that summer 
 heat, and leave her alone in this freezing cold," she 
 thought. She remembered the sound of that other 
 woman s kind voice in her ears, and she saw her face 
 
 437 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 when she told her the dreadful news of her husband s 
 death. She felt a sob rising in her throat, but forced 
 it back. What Abby had told concerning Mrs. Lloyd s 
 happiness in the face of death seemed to her heart 
 breaking, though she knew not why. That enormous, 
 almost transcendent trust in that which was absolutely 
 unknown seemed to engulf her. 
 
 When she reached home, her mother looked at her 
 in astonishment. She was sewing on the interminable 
 wrappers. Andrew was paring apples for pies. " What 
 be you home for be you sick?" asked Fanny. An 
 drew gazed at her in alarm. 
 
 "No, I am not sick," replied Ellen, shortly. "Mrs. 
 Lloyd is dead, and the factory s closed." 
 
 *"I heard she was very low Mrs. Jones told me so 
 yesterday," said Fanny, in a hushed voice. Andrew 
 began paring another apple. He was quite pale. 
 
 "When is the funeral to be, did you hear?" asked 
 Fanny. Ellen was hanging up her hat and coat in the 
 entry. 
 
 "Day after to-morrow." 
 
 " Have you heard anything about the hands sending 
 flowers?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I suppose they will," said Fanny, "as long as they 
 sent one to him. Well, she was a good woman, and it s 
 a mark of respect, and I ain t anything to say against 
 it, but I can t help feeling as if it was a tax." 
 
CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 IT was some time after Mrs. Lloyd s death. Ellen 
 had not seen Robert except as she had caught from 
 time to time a passing glimpse of him in the factory. 
 One night she overheard her father and mother talking 
 about him after she had gone to bed, the sitting-room 
 door having been left ajar. 
 
 "I thought he d come and call after his aunt died/ 
 she heard Fanny say. " I ve always thought he liked 
 Ellen, an here he is now, with all that big factory, an 
 plenty of money." 
 
 "Mebbe he will," replied Andrew, with a voice in 
 which were conflicting emotions, pride and sadness, 
 and a struggle for self-renunciation. 
 
 " It would be a splendid thing for her," said Fanny. 
 
 "It would be a splendid thing for him," returned 
 Andrew, with a flash. 
 
 " Land, of course it would! You needn t be so smart, 
 Andrew Brewster. I guess I know what Ellen is, as 
 well as you. Any man might be proud to get her I 
 don t care who whether he s Robert Lloyd, or who, 
 but that don t alter what I say. It would be a splendid 
 chance for Ellen. Only think of that great Lloyd house, 
 and it must be full of beautiful things table linen, and 
 silver, and what-not. I say it would be a splendid thing 
 for her, and she d be above want all her life that s 
 something to be considered when we ain t got any 
 more than we have to leave her, and she workin the 
 way she is." 
 
 " Yes, that s so," assented Andrew, with a heavy 
 439 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 sigh, as of one who looks upon life from under the mor 
 tification of an incubus of fate. 
 
 " We d ought to think of her best good/ said Fanny, 
 judiciously. " I ve been thinkin every evening lately 
 that he d be comin . I ve had the fire in the parlor stove 
 all ready to touch off, an I ve kept dusted in there. 
 I know he liked her, but mebbe he s like all the rest of 
 the big-bugs." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Andrew, with an in 
 ward qualm of repulsion. He always hated unspeak 
 ably to hear his wife say "big-bugs" in that tone. 
 Although he was far from being without humility, he 
 was republican to the core in his estimate of his own 
 status in his own free country. In his heart, as long 
 as he kept the law of God and man, he recognized no 
 "big-bugs." It was one of the taints of his wife s an 
 cestry which grated upon him from time to time. 
 
 " Oh, well, mebbe he don t want to be seen callin on 
 a shop-girl." 
 
 "Then he d better keep away, that s all!" cried An 
 drew, furiously. 
 
 "Oh, well, mebbe it ain t so," said Fanny. "He s 
 always seemed to me like a sensible feller, and I know 
 he s liked Ellen, an lots of girls that work in shops 
 marry rich. Look at Annie Graves, married that fac 
 tory boss over to Pemberton, an has everythin . She d 
 worked in his factory years. Mebbe it ain t that." 
 
 " Ellen don t act as if she minded anything about his 
 not comin ," said Andrew, anxiously. 
 
 " Land, no ; she ain t that kind. She s too much like 
 her grandmother, but there ain t been a night lately 
 that she ain t done her hair over when she got home 
 from the shop and changed her dress." 
 
 "She always changes her dress, don t she?" said 
 Andrew. 
 
 "Oh yes, she always has done that. I guess she 
 440 
 
THE PORTION OF L^BOR 
 
 likes to get rid of the leather smell for a while; bat she 
 has put on that pretty, new, red silk waist, and I ve seen 
 her watching though she s never said anything/ 
 
 "You don t suppose she " began Andrew, in a 
 voice of intensest anxiety and indignant tenderness. 
 
 "Land, no; Ellen Brewster ain t a girl to fret herself 
 much over any man unless she s sure he wants her; 
 trust her. Don t you worry about that. All I mean 
 is, I know she s had a kind of an idea that he might 
 come." 
 
 Ellen, up-stairs, lay listening against her will, and 
 felt herself burning with mortified pride and shame. 
 She said to herself that she would never put on that 
 red silk waist again of an evening; she would not even 
 do her hair over. It was quite true that she had thought 
 that Robert might come, that he might renew his offer, 
 now that he was so differently situated, and the obstacles, 
 on his side, at least, removed. She told herself all the 
 time that the obstacles on her own were still far from 
 removed. She asked herself how could she, even if 
 this man loved her and wished to marry her, allow 
 him to support all her family, although he might be 
 able to do so. She often told herself that she ought 
 perhaps to have pride enough to refuse, and yet she 
 watched for him to come. She had reflected at first 
 that it was, of course, impossible for him to seem to take 
 advantage of the deaths which had left him with this 
 independence, that he must stay away for a while from 
 motives of delicacy; but now the months were going, 
 and she began to wonder if he never would come. Every 
 night, when she took off the pretty, red silk waist, donned 
 in vain, and let down her fair lengths of hair, it was with 
 a sinking of her heart, and a sense of incredulous un- 
 happiness. Ellen had always had a sort of sanguinity 
 of happiness and of the petting of Providence as well 
 as of her friends. However, the girl had, in spite of her 
 29 441 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 childlike trust in the beauty of her life, plenty of strength 
 to meet its refutal, and a pride equal to her grand 
 mother s. In case Robert Lloyd should never approach 
 her again, she would try to keep one face of her soul 
 always veiled to her inmost consciousness. 
 
 The next evening she was careful not to put on her 
 red silk waist, but changed her shop dress for her old 
 blue woollen, and only smoothed her hair. She even 
 went to bed early in order to prove to her mother that 
 she expected nobody. 
 
 "You ain t goin to bed as early as this, Ellen?" 
 her mother said, as she lighted her lamp. 
 
 "Yes, I m going to bed and read/ 
 
 "Seems as if somebody might be in," said Fanny, 
 awkwardly. 
 
 "I don t know who," Ellen returned, with a gentle 
 haughtiness. 
 
 Andrew colored. He was at his usual task of paring 
 apples. Andrew, in lieu of regular work outside, as 
 sisted in these household tasks, that his wife might have 
 more time to sew. Pie looked unusually worn and old 
 that night. 
 
 "If anybody does come, Ellen will have to get up, 
 that s all," said Fanny, when the girl had gone up 
 stairs. Then she pricked up her ears, for the electric- 
 car had stopped before the house. Then it went on, 
 with a sharp clang of the bell and a gathering rush of 
 motion. 
 
 "That car stopped," Fanny said, breathlessly, her 
 work falling from her fingers. Andrew and she both 
 listened intently, then footsteps were heard plainly com 
 ing around the path at the side of the house. 
 
 Fanny s face fell. "It s only some of the men," 
 said she, in a low voice. Then there came a knock 
 on the side door, and Andrew ushered in John Sargent, 
 Joe Atkins, and Amos Lee. Nahum Beals did not come 
 
 442 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 in those days, for he was in prison awaiting trial for 
 the murder of Norman Lloyd. However, Amos Lee s 
 note was as impressive as his. He called often with 
 Sargent and Atkins. They could not shake him off. 
 He lay in wait for them at street corners, and joined 
 them. He never saw Ellen alone, and did not openly 
 proclaim his calls as meant for her. She prevent 
 ed him from doing that in a manner which he could 
 not withstand, full of hot and reckless daring as he 
 was. When he entered that night he looked around 
 with keen f urtiveness, and was evidently listening and 
 watching for her, though presently his voice rose high 
 in discussion with the others. After a while the man 
 who lived next door dropped in, and his wife with him. 
 She and Fanny withdrew to the dining-room with 
 their sewing for the woman also worked on wrappers 
 and left the sitting-room to the men. 
 
 " It beats all how they like to talk," said the wom 
 an, with a large-minded leniency, " and they never gei 
 anywhere," she added. " They work themselves all up, 
 and never get anywhere; but men are all like that." 
 
 " Yes, they be," assented Fanny. 
 
 "Jest hear that Lee feller," said the woman. 
 
 Amos Lee s voice was audible over the little house, 
 and could have been heard in the yard, for it had an 
 enormous carrying quality. It was the voice of a 
 public ranter. Ellen, up in her chamber, lying in her 
 bed, with a lamp at her side, reading, closely covered 
 from the cold for the room was unheated heard him 
 with a shiver of disgust and repulsion, and yet with a 
 fierce sympathy and loyalty. She could not distin 
 guish every word he said, but she knew well what he 
 was talking about. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd s death had made a certain hush in the 
 ferment of revolt at Lloyd s, but now it was again on 
 the move. There was a strong feeling of dislike to 
 
 443 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 young Lloyd among the workmen. His uncle had 
 heaped up ill-feeling as well as wealth as a heritage 
 for him. The older Lloyd had never been popular, 
 and Robert had succeeded to all his unpopularity, 
 and was fast gathering his own. He was undoubt 
 edly disposed to follow largely his uncle s business 
 methods. He had admired them, they had proved 
 successful, and he had honestly seen nothing culpa 
 ble in them as business methods go; so it was not 
 strange that he tried to copy them when he came 
 into charge of Lloyd s. He was inclined to meet op 
 position with the same cool inflexibility of persistency 
 in his own views, and was disposed to consult his 
 own interests and carry out his own plans with no 
 more brooking of interference than the skipper of a 
 man-o -war. Therefore, when it happened, shortly 
 after his aunt s death, that he conceived a dissatis 
 faction with some prominent spirits among union men, 
 he discharged them without the slightest reference to 
 the fact that they were old and skilful workmen, and 
 employed non-union men from another town in their 
 places. He had, indeed, the object of making in time 
 his factory entirely non-union. He said to himself 
 that he would be dictated to by no labor organization 
 under the sun, and that went a step beyond his uncle, 
 inasmuch as the elder Lloyd had always made his 
 own opinion subservient to good business policy; but 
 Robert was younger and his blood hotter. It happened, 
 also, a month later, when he began to see that business 
 had fallen off considerably (indeed, it was the beginning 
 of a period of extreme business depression), and that 
 he could no longer continue on the same scale with the 
 same profits, that instead of assembling the men in 
 different departments, communicating the situation 
 to them, and submitting them a reduced price-list 
 for consideration, as was the custom with the more 
 
 444 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 pacific of the manufacturers in the vicinity, he posted 
 it up in the different rooms with no ado whatever. That 
 had been his uncle s method, but never in the face of 
 such brewing discontent as was prevalent in Lloyd s 
 at that time. It was an occasion when the older man 
 would have shut down, but Robert had, along with his 
 arbitrary impetuosity, a real dislike to shut down on 
 account of the men, for which they would have been 
 the last to give him credit. "Poor devils/ he told 
 himself, standing in the office window one night, and 
 seeing them pour out and disappear into the early dark 
 ness beyond the radius of the electric-lights, "I can t 
 turn them adrift without a dollar in midwinter. I ll 
 try to run the factory a while longer on a reduced scale, 
 if I only meet expenses." 
 
 He saw Ellen going out, descending the steps with 
 the Atkins girls, and as she passed the light, her fair 
 head shone out for a second like an aureole. A great 
 wave of tenderness came over him. He reflected that 
 it would make no difference to her, that it was only a 
 question of time before he lifted her forever out of the 
 ranks of toil. The impulse was strong upon him to 
 go to see her that night, but he had set himself to wait 
 three months after his aunt s death, and the time was 
 not yet up. He had a feeling that he might seem to be, 
 and possibly would be, taking advantage of his bereave 
 ment if he went sooner, and that Ellen herself might 
 think so. 
 
 It was that very night that Ellen had gone to bed 
 early, to prove not only to her mother but to herself 
 that she did not expect him, and the men came to see 
 Andrew. Once she heard Amos Lee s voice raised to a 
 higher pitch than ever, and distinguished every word. 
 
 "I tell you he s goin to cut the wages to-morrow," 
 said he. 
 
 There was a low rumble of response, which Ellen 
 
 445 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 could not understand, but Lee s answer made it evi 
 dent. 
 
 "How do I know?" he thundered. "It is in the 
 air. He don t tell any more than his uncle did; but 
 you wait and see, that s all." 
 
 " I don t believe it/ the girl up-stairs said to herself, 
 indignantly and loyally. "He can t cut the wages 
 of all those poor men, he with all his uncle s money." 
 
 But the next morning the reduced price-list was post 
 ed on the walls of the different rooms in Lloyd s. 
 
CHAPTER XL VII 
 
 THERE was a driving snow-storm the next day. 
 When Ellen started for the factory the white twilight 
 of early morning still lingered. Everywhere were 
 the sons and daughters of toil plodding laboriously 
 and noiselessly through the snow, each keeping in the 
 track of the one who went before. There was no wind 
 blowing, and the snow was in a blue- white level; the 
 trees bent stiffly and quietly beneath a heavy shag of 
 white, and now and then came a clamor of birds, which 
 served to accentuate the silence and peace. Ellen 
 could always be forced by an extreme phase of nature 
 to forgetfulness of her own stresses. For the time be 
 ing she forgot everything ; her vain watching for Robert, 
 the talk of trouble in the factory/ the disappointment 
 in her home all were forgotten in the contemplation, 
 or rather in the absorbing, of this new-old wonder of 
 snow. 
 
 There was j^j>urvival of the old Greek spirit in the 
 girl, and had she come to earth without her background 
 of orthodox traditions, she might have easily found 
 her own deities in nature. The peace of the snow en 
 veloped her soul as well as the earth, and she became , 
 a beneficiary of the white storm; the graceful droop 
 of the pine boughs extended to her thoughts, and the 
 clamor of the birds aroused in her a winged freedom, s5 
 that she felt at once peace and a sort of ecstasy. She 
 walked in the track of a stolidly plodding man before 
 her, as different a person as if she were an inhabitant 
 of another planet. He was digesting the soggy. 
 
 447 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 sweet griddle-cakes which he had eaten for breakfast, 
 and revolving in his mind two errands for his wife 
 one, a pail of lard ; the other, three yards of black dress 
 braid; he was considering the surface scum of exist 
 ence, that which pertained solely to his own petty 
 share of it ; the girl, the clear residue of life which was, 
 and had been, and would be. Each was on the way to 
 humble labor for daily bread, but with a difference of 
 eternity between them. 
 
 But when Ellen reached the end of the cross street 
 where the Atkins girls lived, she heard a sound which 
 dispelled her rapt state. Her far vision became a near 
 one; she saw, as it were, the clouded window -glass 
 between her mortal eyes and the beyond, and the sound 
 of a cough brought it about. Abby and Maria were 
 coming towards her through the snow. Maria was 
 coughing violently, and Abby was scolding her. 
 
 "I don t care anything about it, Maria Atkins," 
 Abby was saying, " you ought to be ashamed of your 
 self coming out such a morning as this. There isn t 
 any sense in it. You know you ll catch cold, and then 
 there ll be two of you to take care of. You don t help 
 a mite doing so, you needn t think you do." 
 
 When Abby caught sight of Ellen she hastened 
 forward, while Maria, still coughing, trailed behind, 
 lifting her little, heavy, snow-bound feet wearily. 
 
 "Ellen, I wish you d tell Maria to turn around and 
 go home," she said. "Just hear her cough, and out 
 in all this snow, and getting her skirts draggled. She 
 hasn t got common-sense, you tell her so." 
 
 Ellen stopped, nodding assentingly. " I think she s 
 right, Maria," she said. "You ought not to be out 
 such a morning as this. You had better go home." 
 
 Maria came up smiling, though her lips were quite 
 white, and she controlled her cough to convulsive mo 
 tions of her chest. 
 
 448 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " I am no worse than usual/ said she. " I feel better 
 than I generally do in the morning. I haven t coughed 
 any more, if I have as much, and 1 am holding my 
 dress up high, and you know how warm the factory 
 is. It will be enough sight warmer than it is at home. 
 It is cold at home." 
 
 "Lloyd don t have to save coal/ said Abby, bitter 
 ly, " but that don t alter the fact of your getting your 
 skirts draggled." 
 
 Maria pulled up her skirts so high that she exposed 
 her slender ankles, then seeing that she had done so, 
 she let them fall with a quick glance at two men behind 
 them. 
 
 "The snow will shake right off; it s light, Abby/ 
 she said. 
 
 "It ain t light. I should think you might listen to 
 Ellen, if you won t to me." 
 
 Ellen pressed close to Maria, and pulled her thin arm 
 through her own. "Look here," she said, "don t 
 you think " 
 
 Then Maria burst out with a pitiful emphasis. " I ve 
 got to go," she said. "Father had a bad spell last 
 night ; he can t get out. He ll lose his place this time, 
 we are afraid, and there s a note coming due that father 
 says he s paid, but the man didn t give it up, and he s 
 got to pay it over again; the lawyer says there is no 
 other way, and we can t let John Sargent do everything. 
 He s got a sister out West he s about supporting since 
 her husband died last fall. I ve got to go to work; 
 we ve got to have the money, Ellen, and as for nry 
 cough, I have always coughed. It hasn t killed me yet, 
 and I guess it won t yet for a while." Maria said the 
 last with a reckless gayety which was unusual to her. 
 
 Abby trudged on ahead with indignant emphasis. 
 " I d like to know what good it is going to do to work 
 and earn and pay up money if everybody is going 
 
 449 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to be killed by it?" she said, without turning her 
 head. 
 
 Ellen pulled up Maria s coat-collar around her neck 
 and put an extra fold of her dress-skirt into her hand. 
 
 " There, you can hold it up as high as that, it looks 
 all right," said she. 
 
 "I wish Robert Lloyd had to get up at six o clock 
 and trudge a mile in this snow to his work," said Abby, 
 with sudden viciousness. "He ll be driven down in 
 his Russian sleigh by a man looking like a drum-major, 
 and cut our poor little wages, and that s all he cares. 
 Who s earning the money, he or us, I d like to know? 
 I hate the rich!" 
 
 " If it s true, what you say," said Maria, " it seems to 
 me it s like hating those you have given things to, 
 and that s worse than hating your enemies." 
 
 "Don t say given, say been forced to hand over," 
 retorted Abby, fiercely ; " and don t preach, Maria Atkins, 
 I hate preaching ; and do have sense enough riot to talk 
 when you are out in this awful storm. You can keep 
 your mouth shut, if you can t do anything else!" 
 
 Ellen had turned quite white at Abby s words. 
 
 "You don t think that he means to cut the wages?" 
 she said, eagerly. 
 
 "I know he does. I had it straight. Wait till you 
 get to the shop." 
 
 "I don t believe it." 
 
 "You wait. Norman Lloyd was as hard as nails, 
 and the young one is just like him." Abby looked 
 relentlessly at Ellen. 
 
 "Maybe it isn t so," whispered Maria to Ellen. 
 
 "I don t believe it is," responded Ellen, but Abby 
 heard them, and turned with a vicious jerk. 
 
 "Well, you wait!" said she. 
 
 The moment Ellen reached the factory she realized 
 that something unwonted had happened. There wen; 
 
 45<> 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 groups of men, talking, oblivious even of the blinding 
 storm, which was coming in the last few minutes with 
 renewed fury, falling in heavy sheets like dank shrouds. 
 
 Ellen saw one man in a muttering group throw out 
 an arm, whitened like a branch of a tree, and shake a 
 rasped, red fist at the splendid Russian sleigh of the 
 Lloyd s, which was just gliding out of sight with a 
 flurry of bells and a swing of fur tails, the whole sur 
 mounted by the great fur hat of the coachman. Abby 
 turned and looked fiercely at Ellen. 
 
 "What did I tell you?" she cried. 
 
 Even then Ellen would not believe. She caught a 
 glimpse of Robert s fair head at the office window, and 
 a great impulse of love and loyalty came over her. 
 
 "I don t believe it," she said aloud to Maria. Maria 
 held her arm tightly. 
 
 "Maybe it isn t so," she said. 
 
 But when they entered the room where they worked, 
 there was a sullen group before a placard tacked on the 
 wall. Ellen pressed closely, and saw what it was 
 a reduced wage-list. Then she went to her machine. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 ELLEN had a judicial turn of mind, as her school 
 master had once said of hery She was able to look 
 at matters from more than /one stand-point, but she 
 reasoned with a New Testament clearness of impar 
 tiality. She was capable of uncompromising severity, 
 since she brought such a clear light of youth and child 
 hood to bear upon evetfi those things which needed shad 
 ows for their true revelation. Everything was for her 
 either black or whiW She had not lived long enough, 
 perhaps she never would, for a comprehension of Jhalf- 
 tones. The situation to her mind was perfectly simple, 
 arTd^she viewed it with a candor which was at once 
 terrible and cruel, for it involved cruelty not only to 
 Robert but to herself. She said to herself, here was this 
 rich man, this man with accumulation of wealth, not 
 one dollar of which he had earned himself, either by 
 his hands or his brains, but which had been heaped 
 up for his uncle by the heart and back breaking toil of 
 all these poor men and women ; and now he was going to 
 abuse his power of capital, his power to take the bread 
 out of their mouths entirely, by taking it out in part. 
 He was going to reduce their wages, he was deliberately 
 going to cause privation, and even suffering where there 
 were large families. She felt the most unqualified 
 dissent and indignation, and all the love which she had 
 \ I for the man only intensified it. Love, with a girl like 
 N - this, tended to clearness of vision instead of blindness. 
 She judged him as she would have judged herself. As 
 she stood working at her machine, stitching linings 
 
 45* 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to vamps, she kept a sharply listening ear for what went 
 on about her, but there was very little to hear after work 
 had fairly commenced and the great place was in full 
 hum. The demand of labor was so imperative that the~^\ 
 laborers themselves were merged in it; they ceased to 
 be for the time, anc(, /instead of living, they became 
 parts of the struggle for life. A man hustling as 
 the world were at stake to get his part of a shoe finished 
 as soon as another man, so as not to clog/and balk the 
 whole system, had no time for rebellion. He was in 
 the whirlpool which was mightier than himself and his 
 revolt. After all, a man is a small and helpless factor be 
 fore his own needs. For a time those whirring machines, 
 which had been evolved in the first place from the brains 
 of men, and partook in a manner of both the spirit and 
 the grosser elements of existence, its higher qualities 
 and its sordid mechanism, like man himself, had the 
 best of it. The swart arms of the workmen flew at 
 their appointed tasks, they fed those unsatisfied maws, 
 the factory vibrated with the heavy thud of the cutting- 
 machines like a pulse, the racks with shoes in different 
 stages of completion trundled from one department to 
 another, propelled by men with tense arms and doggedly 
 bent heads. 
 
 Ellen worked with the rest, but she was one of the 
 few whose brain could travel faster than her hands. 
 She thought as she worked, for her muscles did not retard 
 her mind. She was composed of two motions, one 
 within the other, and the central motion was so swift 
 that it seemed still. 
 
 Ed Flynn came down the room and bent over 
 her. 
 
 "Good-morning," he said. He was too gayly con 
 fident to be entirely respectful, but he had always a 
 timidity of bearing which sat oddly upon him before 
 Ellen. He looked half boldly, half wistfully at her fair 
 
 453 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 face, and challenged her with gay eyes, which had in 
 their depths a covert seriousness. 
 
 Ellen stood between Abby Atkins and Sadie Peel 
 at her work. Sadie Peel turned on the foreman co- 
 quettishly and said, " You d better go an talk to Mamie 
 Brady, she s got on a new blue bow on her red hair. 
 Why don t you give her some better work than tying 
 those old shoes? Here she s been workin in this shop 
 two years. You needn t come shinin round Ellen an 
 me! We don t want you." 
 
 Flynn colored angrily and shot a vicious glance at 
 the girl. 
 
 " It s a pretty hard storm," he said to Ellen, as if the 
 other girl had not spoken. 
 
 "You needn t pretend you don t hear me, Ed Flynn," 
 called out the girl. Her cheap finery was in full force 
 that morning, not a lock of her brown hair was unstudied 
 in its arrangement, and she was as conscious of her pose 
 before her machine as if she had been on the stage. 
 She knew just how her slender waist and the graceful 
 slope of her shoulders appeared to the foreman, and her 
 voice, in spite of its gay rallying and audacity, was 
 wheedling. 
 
 Flynn caught hold of her shoulders, round and grace 
 ful under her flannel blouse, and shook her, half in 
 anger, half in weakness. 
 
 " You shut up, you witch," said he. Then he turned 
 to Ellen again, and his whole manner and expression 
 changed. 
 
 "I m sorry about that new list," he said, very low, 
 in her ear. Ellen never looked at him, and did not 
 make a motion as if she heard. 
 
 "It s a hard storm," the foreman said again, almost 
 appealingly. 
 
 "Yes, it is very hard," replied Ellen, slipping another 
 shoe under the needles. 
 
 454 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " What on earth ails you this morning, Ellen Brew- 
 ster?" Sadie Peel said to her, when the foreman had 
 gone. "You look queer and act queer." 
 
 "Ellen ain t in the habit of joking with Ed Flynn," 
 said Abby Atkins, on the other side, with sarcastic 
 emphasis. 
 
 "My, don t you feel bigl" sneered Sadie Peel. 
 There was always a jarring inconsequence about this 
 girl, she was so delicately pretty and refined in ap 
 pearance, her ribbons weit so profuse and cheap, and 
 her manners were so recklessly coarse. 
 
 Ellen said nothing, but worked steadily. 
 
 " Mame Brady s just gone on Ed Flynn, and he goes 
 with her just enough to keep her hanging and I don t 
 believe he means to marry her, and I think it s mean," 
 said Sadie Peel. 
 
 "She ought to have more sense than to take any 
 stock in him," said Abby. 
 
 "She ain t the only one," said Sadie. "Nellie Stone 
 in the office has been daft over him since she s been 
 there, and he don t look at her. I don t see what 
 there is about Ed Flynn, for my part." 
 
 "I don t," said Abby, dryly. 
 
 "Well, I don t know. He s pretty good-looking," 
 said Sadie Peel, " and he s got a sort of a way with him." 
 All the time the girl was talking her heart was aching. 
 The foreman had paid her some little attention, which 
 she had taken seriously, but nobody except her fathei 
 had known it, or known when he had fallen off. Some 
 times Flynn, meeting the father s gaze as he passed him 
 at his work at the cutting-bench, used to waver involun 
 tarily, though he asked himself with perfect good faith 
 what was it all about, for he had done the girl no harm. 
 He felt more guilty concerning Mamie Brady. 
 
 Ellen worked on, with her fingers flying and her 
 forehead tense with thought. The chatter of the girls 
 
 455 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ceased. They were too busy to keep it up. The hum 
 of work continued. Once Ellen knew, although she 
 did not see him, by some subtle disturbance of the at 
 mosphere, a little commotion which was perfectly silent, 
 that Robert Lloyd had entered the room. She knew 
 when he passed her, and she worked more swiftly than 
 ever. After he had gone out there was a curiously in- 
 x / articulate sound like a low growl of purely animal 
 dissent over the room; a word of blasphemy sounded 
 above the din of the machines. Then all went on as 
 before until the noon whistle blew. 
 
 Even then there was not so much discussion as might 
 have been expected. Robert, since the storm was so 
 heavy, remained in the office, and sent a boy out for a 
 light luncheon, and the foremen were much in evidence. 
 There was always an uncertainty about their sentiments, 
 occupying as they did a position half-way between 
 employer and employes; and then, too, they were not 
 affected by the cut in wages. The sentiments of the 
 \ unaffected are always a matter of suspicion to those 
 who suffer themselves. There were grumblings carried 
 on in a low key behind Flynn s back, but the atmosphere 
 for the most part was one of depression. Ellen ate her 
 luncheon with Maria and Abby. Willy Jones came up 
 timidly when they were nearly finished, feeling his way 
 with a remark about the storm, which was increasing. 
 
 "All the cars are tied up/ he said, "and the noon 
 train isn t in." 
 
 He leaned, with a curious effort at concealment from 
 them all and himself, upon the corner of the bench near 
 Abby. Then a young man passed them, with such 
 an air of tragedy and such a dead-white face that they 
 all stared after him. 
 
 " What in the world ails you, Ben Simmons?" called 
 out Sadie Peel. But he did not act as if he heard. He 
 crossed vehemently to the other side of the room, and 
 
 456 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 stood at a window, looking out at the fierce white slant 
 of the storm. 
 
 "What in creation ails him?" cried Sadie Peel. 
 
 "I guess I know/ Willy Jones volunteered, timidly. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "He was going to get married, and this cut in his 
 wages is going to put a stop to it. I heard him say so 
 this morning." 
 
 "Married! Who to?" asked Sadie Peel. 
 
 "Floretta Vining." 
 
 "My land!" cried Sadie Peel. "So she did take up 
 with him after the school-teacher went away. I always 
 said she would. I always knew Edward Harris wouldn t 
 marry her, and I always said Ben Simmons would get 
 her if he hung on long enough. Fioretta was bound 
 to marry somebody; she wasn t going to wind up an 
 old maid; and if she couldn t get one, she d take an 
 other. I suppose Ben has got that sick sister of his 
 to do for since her father died, and thinks he can t get 
 married with any less pay. Floretta won t make a very 
 cheap wife. She s bound to have things whether or 
 no, and Ben ain t never earned so much as some. He s 
 awful steady, but he s slow as cold molasses, and he 
 won t let his sister suffer for no Floretta." 
 
 "That s so; I don t believe he would," said Abby. 
 "What any man in his senses wants a doll like that 
 for enough to look as if he was dead when he s got 
 to put off marrying her!" 
 
 "That s because you ain t a man, Abby Atkins," 
 said Sadie Peel. " All the men think of is looks, and 
 little fine airs and graces." 
 
 "It seems as if they might get along," ventured Willy 
 Jones, " as if they might do with less for a while." 
 
 Then Ellen turned to him unexpectedly. "There s 
 no use in talking about doing with less when every 
 single cent has to count," said she, sternly. "Ben 
 30 457 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Simmons has his taxes and insurance, and a steady 
 doctor s bill for his sister, and medicines to buy. He 
 can t have laid up a cent, for he s slow, though he s 
 a good workman. You can t do with less when you 
 haven t any more than enough." 
 
 "That s so/ said Abby. Then she turned a tender, 
 conciliating, indulgent gaze on the young man at her 
 side. "If I were Floretta Vining," said she, "and if 
 Ellen were, we would go without things, and never 
 know it. We d go to work ; but Floretta, she s different. 
 We went to school with Floretta Vining." 
 
 "Floretta Vining is dreadful fond of men, but she 
 wouldn t go without a yard of ribbon for one if he was 
 dying," said Sadie Peel, conclusively. "It s awful 
 hard on Ben Simmons, and no mistake." 
 
 "What?" said Amos Lee, coming up. 
 
 "Oh, what s hard on all of us? What s the use of 
 asking?" said the girl, with a bitter coquetry. "I 
 shouldn t think any man with horse-sense would ask 
 what s hard on us when he s seen the ornaments tacked 
 up all over the shop this morning." 
 
 " That s so," said Lee, with a glance over his shoulder. 
 Flynn was at the other end of the room. Granville Joy, 
 Dixon, and one or two other men were sauntering up. 
 For a second the little group looked at one another. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" asked Ellen, in a low- 
 voice, which had an intonation that caused the others 
 to start. 
 
 " I know what I ll do, if I can get enough to back me/ 
 cried Lee, in a loud voice. 
 
 "Hush up!" said Sadie Peel. Then her father came 
 along smiling his imperturbable smile on his wide face, 
 which had a Slavonic cast, although he was New Eng 
 land born and bred. He looked from one to the other 
 without saying a word. 
 
 "We re deciding whether to strike or not, father," 
 
 458 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 said Sadie, in a flippant manner. She raised a hand 
 and adjusted a stray lock of hair as she spoke, then 
 she straightened her ribbon stock. Her father said 
 nothing, but his face assumed a stolidity of expression. 
 
 "I know what I ll do," proclaimed Amos Lee again. 
 
 "Hush up!" cried Sadie Peel again, with a giggle. 
 " Here s Ed Flynn. " And the foreman came sauntering 
 up as the one -o clock whistle blew, and the workers 
 sprang to their posts of work. 
 
CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 THE snow increased all day. When the six-o clock 
 whistle blew, and the workmen streamed out of the 
 factories, it was a wild waste of winter and storm. The 
 wind had come up, and the light snow arose in the dis 
 tance like white dancers of death, spinning furiously 
 over the level, then settling into long, gravelike ridges. 
 Ellen glanced into the office as she passed the door, 
 and saw Robert Lloyd talking busily with Flynn and 
 another foreman by the name of Dennison. As she 
 passed, Robert turned with a look as if he had been 
 watching for her, and came forward hastily. 
 
 "Miss Brewsterl" he called. 
 
 Mamie Brady, following close behind, gave Ellen 
 an admonishing nudge. "Boss wants to see you/ 
 she whispered, loudly. Ellen stopped, and Robert came 
 up. 
 
 "Please step in here a moment, Miss Brewster/ he 
 said, and colored a little. 
 
 Granville Joy, who was following Ellen, looked keen 
 ly at him, some one sniggered aloud, and a girl said 
 quite audibly, "My land!" 
 
 Ellen followed Robert into the office, and he bent over 
 her, speaking rapidly, in a low voice. 
 
 "You must not walk home in this snow," he said, 
 " and the cars are not running. You must let me take 
 you. My sleigh is at the door/ 
 
 Ellen turned white. Somehow this protecting care 
 for herself, in the face of all which she had been con 
 sidering that day, gave her a tremendous shock. She 
 
 460 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 felt at once touched and more indignant than she had 
 ever been in her whole life. She had been half believing 
 that Robert was neglecting her, that he had forgotten 
 her; all day she had been judging his action of cutting 
 the wages of the workmen from her unswerving, child 
 like, unshadowed point of view, and now this little evi 
 dence of humanity towards her, in the face of what she 
 considered wholesale inhumanity towards others, made 
 her at once severe to him and to herself, and she forced 
 back sternly the leap of pleasure and happiness which this 
 thought of her awakened. "No, thank you," she said, 
 shortly; " I am much obliged, but I would rather walk/ 
 
 " But you cannot, in this storm/ pleaded Robert, in 
 a low voice. 
 
 "Yes, I can; it is no worse for me than for others. 
 There is Maria Atkins, she has been coughing all day." 
 
 " I will take her too. Ellen, you cannot walk. You 
 must let me take you." 
 
 "I am much obliged, but I would rather not," replied 
 Ellen, in an icy tone. She looked quite hard in his 
 face. 
 
 Robert looked at her perplexed. " But it is drifting/ 
 he said. 
 
 "It is no worse for me than for the others/ Ellen 
 turned to go. Her attitude of rebuff was unmistakable. 
 
 Robert colored. "Very well; I will not urge you," 
 he said, coldly. Then he returned to his desk, and 
 Ellen went out. She caught up with Maria Atkins, 
 who was struggling painfully through the drifts, lean 
 ing on Abby s arm, and slipped a hand under her thin 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I expect nothing but she ll get her death out in this 
 storm/ grumbled Abby. " What did he want, Ellen?" 
 
 "Nothing in particular/ replied Ellen. Uppermost 
 in her mind at that moment was the charge of cruelty 
 against Robert for not taking her hint as to Maria. 
 
 461 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " He can ask me to ride because he has amused him 
 self with me, but as for taking this poor girl, whom he 
 does not love, when it may mean life or death to her, he 
 did not think seriously of doing that for a moment/ 
 she thought. 
 
 Maria was coughing, although she strove hard to 
 smother the coughs. Granville Joy, who was plodding 
 ahead, turned and waited until they came up. 
 
 "You had better let me carry you, Maria/ he said, 
 jocularly, but his honest eyes were full of concern. 
 
 "He is enough sight kinder than Robert Lloyd/ 
 thought Ellen ; " he has a better heart/ And then the 
 splendid Lloyd sleigh came up behind them and stopped, 
 tilting to a drift. Robert, in his fur-lined coat, sprang 
 out and went up to Maria. 
 
 "Please let me take you home/ he said, kindly. 
 " You have a cold, and this storm is too severe for you 
 to be out. Please let me take you home." 
 
 Maria looked at him, fairly gasping with astonish 
 ment. She tried to speak, but a cough choked her. 
 
 "You had better go if Mr. Lloyd will take you," 
 Abby said, decisively. "Thank you, Mr. Lloyd; she 
 isn t fit to be out." She urged her sister towards the 
 sleigh, and Robert assisted her into the fur-lined nest. 
 
 "I can sit with the driver," said Robert to Abby, "if 
 you will come with your sister." 
 
 "No, thank you," replied Abby. "I am able to 
 walk, but I will be much obliged if you will take Maria 
 home." 
 
 Robert sprang in beside Maria, and the sleigh slid 
 out of sight. 
 
 " I never!" said Abby. Ellen said nothing, but plod 
 ded on, her eyes fixed on the snowy track. 
 
 " I am glad she had a chance to ride," said Granville 
 Joy, in a tentative voice. He looked uneasily at Ellen. 
 
 " It beats the Dutch," said Abby. She also regarded 
 462 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen with sympathy and perplexity. When they 
 reached the street where she lived, up which the sleigh 
 had disappeared, she let Granville go on ahead, and 
 she spoke to Ellen in a low tone. " Why didn t he ask 
 you?" she said. 
 
 "He did/ replied Ellen. 
 
 "In the officer 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you wouldn t?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I don t care to accept favors from a man who op 
 presses all my friends!" 
 
 " He was good to take in Maria," said Abby, in a 
 perplexed voice. " His uncle would never have thought 
 of it." 
 
 Ellen made no reply. She stood still in the drifting 
 snow, with her mouth shut hard. 
 
 " You feel as if this cutting wages was a pretty hard 
 thing?" said Abby. 
 
 "Yes, I do." 
 
 " Well, so do I. I wonder what they will do about it. 
 I don t know how the men feel. Somehow, folks can t 
 seem to think or plan much in a storm like this. There s 
 the sleigh coming back." 
 
 "Good-night," Ellen said, hurriedly, and trudged on 
 as fast as she was able in order not to have the Lloyd 
 sleigh pass her; it had to turn after reaching the end 
 of the street. Ellen caught up with Granville Joy. 
 Robert, glancing over the waving fringe of fur tails, 
 saw disappearing in the pale gleam of the electric-light 
 the two dim figures veiled by the drifting snow. He 
 thought to himself, with a sharp pain, that perhaps, 
 after all, Granville Joy was the reason for her rebuff. 
 It never occurred to him that his action in cutting the 
 wages could have anything to do with it. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen went along with Granville, who was anxious 
 to offer her his arm, but did not quite dare. He kept 
 thrusting out an elbow in her direction, and an inartic 
 ulate invitation died in his throat. Finally, when they 
 reached an unusually high drift of snow, he plucked 
 up sufficient courage. 
 
 "Take my arm, won t you?" he said, with a pitiful 
 attempt at ease, then stared as if he had been shot, 
 at Ellen s reply. 
 
 "No, thank you/ she said. "I think it is easier to 
 walk alone in snow like this." 
 
 "Maybe it is," assented Granville, dejectedly. He 
 walked on, scuffling as hard as he could to make a path 
 for Ellen with the patient faithfulness of a dog. 
 
 "What are you going to do about the cut in wages?" 
 Ellen asked, presently. 
 
 Granville started. The sudden transition from per 
 sonalities to generalities confused him. 
 
 "What?" he said. 
 
 Ellen repeated her question. 
 
 "I don t know," said Granville. "I don t think the 
 boys have made up their minds. I don t know what 
 they will do. They have been weeding out union 
 men. I suppose the union would have something to 
 say about it otherwise. I don t know what we will 
 do." 
 
 "I shouldn t think there would be very much doubt 
 as to what to do," said Ellen. 
 
 Granville stared at her over his shoulder in a per 
 plexed, admiring fashion. "You mean ?" he asked. 
 
 "I shouldn t think there would be any doubt." 
 
 "Well, I don t know. It is a pretty serious thing to 
 get out of work in midwinter for a good many of us, 
 and as long as the union isn t in control, other men can 
 come in. I don t know." 
 
 "I know," said Ellen. 
 
 464 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 "You mean?" 
 
 " I mean that I do not think it right, that it is unjust, 
 and I believe in resisting injustice." 
 
 " Men have resisted injustice ever since the Creation/ 
 said Granville, in a bitter voice. 
 
 "Well, resistance can continue as long as life lasts," 
 returned Ellen. Just then came a fiercer blast than 
 ever, laden with a stinging volley of snow, and seemed 
 to sweep the words from the girl s mouth. She bent 
 before it involuntarily, and the conviction forced itself 
 upon her that, after all, resistance to injustice might be 
 as futile as resistance to storm, that injustice might be 
 one of the primal forces of the world, and one of the 
 conditions of its endurance, and yet with the conviction 
 came the renewed resolution to resist. 
 
 " What can poor men do against capital unless they 
 are backed up by some labor organization?" asked 
 Granville. "And I don t believe there are a dozen in 
 the factory who belong to the union. There has been 
 an understanding, without his ever saying so that I 
 know of, that the old boss didn t approve of it. So 
 lots of us kept out of it, we wanted work so bad. 
 What can we do against such odds?" 
 
 " When right is on your side, you have all the odds," 
 
 said Ellen, looking back over her snow - powdered 1 
 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Then you would strike?" 
 
 "I wouldn t submit." 
 
 "Well, I don t know how the boys feel," said Gran 
 ville. "I suppose we ll have to talk it over." 
 
 "I shouldn t need to talk it over," said Ellen. 
 "You ve gone past your house, Granville." 
 
 " I ain t going to let you go home alone in such a storm 
 as this," said Granville, in a tender voice, which he 
 tried to make facetious. "I wouldn t let any girl go 
 home alone in such a storm." 
 
 465 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Ellen stopped short. " I don t want you to go home 
 with me, thank you, Granville," she said. "Your 
 mother will have supper ready, and I can go just as 
 well alone." 
 
 "Ellen, I won t let you go alone/ said the young 
 man, as a wilder gust came. "Suppose you should 
 fall down?" 
 
 "Fall down!" repeated Ellen, with a laugh, but her 
 regard of the young man, in spite of her rebuff, was 
 tender. He touched her with his unfailing devotion; 
 the heavy trudging by her side of this poor man meant, 
 she told herself, much more than the invitation of the 
 rich one to ride behind his bays in his luxurious sleigh. 
 This meant the very bone and sinew of love. She held 
 out her little, mittened hand to him. 
 
 "Good-night, Granville," she said. 
 
 Granville caught it eagerly. "Oh, Ellen," he mur 
 mured. 
 
 But she withdrew her hand quickly. "We have 
 always been good friends, and we always will be," said 
 she, and her tone was unmistakable. The young man 
 shrank back. 
 
 "Yes, we always will, Ellen," he said, in a faithful 
 voice, with a note of pain in it. 
 
 "Good-night," said Ellen again. 
 
 "Good-night," responded Granville, and turned his 
 plodding back on the girl and retraced his laborious 
 steps towards his own home, which he had just passed. 
 There come times for all souls when the broad light 
 of the path of humanity seems to pale to insignificance 
 before the intensity of the one little search-light of per 
 sonality. Granville Joy felt as if the eternal problem 
 of the rich and poor, of labor and capital, of justice and 
 equality, was as nothing before the desire of his heart 
 for that one girl who was disappearing from his sight 
 behind the veil of virgin snow. 
 
 466 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 WHEN Ellen came in sight of her house that night 
 she saw her father s bent figure moving down the path 
 with sidewise motions of a broom. He had been out 
 at short intervals all the afternoon, that she should not 
 have to wade through drifts to the door. The electric- 
 light shone full on this narrow, cleared track and the 
 toiling figure. 
 
 "Hullo, father!" Ellen called out. Andrew turned, 
 and his face lit with love and welcome and solicitude. 
 
 "Be you dreadful snowy?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh no, father, not very." 
 
 "It s an awful storm." 
 
 "Pretty bad, but I got along all right. The snow- 
 plough has been out." 
 
 " Wait a minute till I get this swept," said Andrew, 
 sweeping violently before her. 
 
 "You needn t have bothered, father," said Ellen. 
 
 " I ain t anything else to do," replied Andrew, in a 
 sad voice. 
 
 " There s mother watching," said Ellen. 
 
 "Yes, she s been diggin at them wrappers all day." 
 
 " I suppose she has," Ellen returned, in a bitter tone. 
 Her father stared at her. Ellen never spoke like that. 
 For the first time she echoed him and her mother^ 
 Something like terror came over him at the sound of that 
 familiar note of his own life from this younger one. 
 He seemed to realize dimly that a taint of his nature had 
 descended upon his child. 
 
 When Ellen entered the house, the warm air was full 
 
 467 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of savory odors of toast and tea and cooking meat and 
 vegetables. 
 
 "You d better go right up-stairs and put on a dry 
 dress, Ellen/ said Fanny. "I put your blue one out 
 on your bed, and your shoes are warming by the sit 
 ting-room stove. I ve been worrying as to how you 
 were going to get home all day." Then she stopped 
 short as she caught sight of Ellen s face. "What on 
 earth is the matter, Ellen Brewster?" she said. 
 
 "Nothing," said Ellen. "Why?" 
 
 "You look queer. Has anything happened?" 
 
 "Yes, something has happened." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 Andrew turned pale. He stood in the entry with his 
 snowy broom in hand, staring from one to the other. 
 
 "Nothing that you need worry about," said Ellen. 
 "I ll tell you when I get my dress changed." 
 
 Ellen pulled off her rubbers, and went up-stairs to her 
 chamber. Fanny and Andrew stood looking at each 
 other. 
 
 "You don t suppose " whispered Andrew. 
 
 "Suppose what?" responded Fanny, sharply. 
 
 They continued to look at each other. Fanny an 
 swered Andrew as if he had spoken, with that jealous 
 pride for her girl s self-respect which possessed her even 
 before the girl s father. 
 
 "Land, it ain t that," said she. "You wouldn t 
 catch Ellen lookin as if anything had come across her 
 for such a thing as that." 
 
 "No, I suppose she wouldn t," said Andrew; and he 
 actually blushed before his wife s eyes. 
 
 That afternoon Mrs. Wetherhed had been in, and 
 told Fanny that she had heard that Robert Lloyd was 
 to be married to Maud Hemingway; and both Andrew 
 and Fanny had thought of that as the cause of Ellen s 
 changed face. 
 
 468 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " You d better take that broom out into the shed, and 
 get the snow off yourself, and come in and shut the 
 door/ Fanny said, shortly. " You re colding the house 
 all off, and Amabel has got a cold, and she s sitting 
 right in the draught." 
 
 "All right/ replied Andrew, meekly, though Fanny 
 had herself been holding the sitting-room door open. 
 In those days Andrew felt below his moral stature as 
 head of the house. Actually, looking at Fanny, who 
 was earning her small share towards the daily bread, 
 she seemed to him much taller than he, though she was 
 a head shorter. He thought so little of himself, he 
 seemed to see himself as through the wrong end of a 
 telescope. Fanny went into the sitting - room and 
 shut the door with a bang. Amabel did not look up 
 from her book. She was reading a library book much 
 beyond her years, and sniffing pathetically with her 
 cold. Amabel had begun to discover an omnivorous 
 taste for books, which stuck at nothing. She under 
 stood not more than half of what she read, but seemed 
 to relish it like indigestible food. 
 
 When Ellen came down-stairs, and sat beside the 
 coal stove to change her shoes, she looked at the book 
 which Amabel was reading. "You ought not to read 
 that book, dear," she said. "Let Ellen get you a bet 
 ter one for a little girl to-morrow." 
 
 But Amabel, without paying the slightest heed to 
 Ellen s words, looked up at her with amazement, as An 
 drew and Fanny had done. "What s the matter, El 
 len?" she asked, in her little, hoarse voice. 
 
 Fanny and Andrew, who had just entered, stood 
 waiting. Ellen bent over her shoe, drawing in the 
 strings firmly and evenly. 
 
 "Mr. Lloyd has reduced the wage-list," she said. 
 
 " How much?" asked Andrew, in a hoarse voice. 
 
 "Ten percent." 
 
 469 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 There was a dead silence. Andrew and Fanny looked 
 at Ellen like people who are uncertain of their next 
 move; Amabel stared from one to the other with her 
 weak, watery eyes. Ellen continued to lace her shoes. 
 
 " What do you think about it, Ellen?" asked Andrew, 
 almost timidly. 
 
 "I know of only one thing to think/ replied Ellen, 
 in a dogged voice. 
 
 As she spoke she pulled the tag off a shoe-string be 
 cause it would not go through the eyelet. 
 
 "What is that?" asked Fanny, in a hard voice. 
 
 " I think it is cruelty and tyranny/ said Ellen, pull 
 ing the rough end of the string through the eyelet. 
 
 "I suppose the times are pretty hard/ ventured An 
 drew ; but Ellen cut him short. 
 
 "Robert Lloyd has half a million, which has been 
 accumulated by the labor of poor men in prosperous 
 times/ said she, with her childlike severity and piti- 
 lessness. " There is no question about the matter." 
 
 Then Fanny flung all self-interest to the wind and 
 was at her daughter s side like a whirlwind. The fact 
 that the two were of one blood was never so strongly 
 evident. Red spots glowed in the elder woman s cheeks 
 and her black eyes blazed. 
 
 "Ellen s right," said she; "she s right. For a man 
 worth half a million to cut down the wages of poor, 
 hard-working folks in midwinter is cruelty. I don t 
 care who does it." 
 
 "Yes, it is," said Ellen. 
 
 Fanny opened her mouth to tell Ellen of the rumor 
 concerning Robert s engagement to Maud Hemingway, 
 then she refrained, for some reason which she could 
 not analyze. In her heart she did not believe the report 
 to be true, and considered the telling of it a slight to 
 Ellen, but it influenced her in her indignation against 
 Robert for the wage-cutting. 
 
 470 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "What are they going to do?" asked Andrew. 
 
 "I don t know/ replied Ellen. 
 
 "Did he young Lloyd talk to the men?" 
 
 "No; notices were tacked up all over the shop." 
 
 "That was the way his uncle would have done/ 
 said Andrew, in a curious voice of bitterness and re 
 spect. 
 
 "So you don t know what they are going to do?" 
 said Fanny. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, I know what I would do/ said Fanny. "I 
 never would give in, if I starved never 1" 
 
CHAPTER LI 
 
 WHEN Ellen started for the factory the next morn 
 ing the storm had not ceased; the roads were very 
 heavy, although the snow-plough had been out at in 
 tervals all night, and there was a struggling line of 
 shovelling men along the car-track, but the cars were 
 still unable to penetrate the drifts. When Ellen passed 
 her grandmother s house the old woman tapped sharp 
 ly on the window and motioned her back frantically 
 with one bon: r hand. The window was frozen to the 
 sill with the snow, and she could not raise it. Ellen 
 shook her head, smiling. Her grandmother contin 
 ued to wave her back, the lines of forbidding anxiety 
 in her old face as strongly marked as an etching in 
 the window frame. This love, which had at once 
 coerced and fondled the girl since her birth, was very 
 precious to her. This protection, which she was 
 forced to repel, smote her like a pain. 
 
 "Poor old grandmother!" she thought; "there she 
 will worry about me all day because I have gone out 
 in the storm." She turned back and waved her hand 
 and nodded laughingly; but the old woman continued 
 that anxiously imperative backward motion until El 
 len was out of sight. 
 
 Ellen walked in the car-track, as did everybody else, 
 that being better cleared than the rest of the road. She 
 was astonished that she heard nothing of the cut in 
 wages from the men. There seemed to be no excite 
 ment at all. They merely trudged heavily along, their 
 whitening bodies bent before the storm. There was 
 
 472 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 an unusual doggedness about this march to the factory 
 this morning, but that was all. Ellen returned the 
 muttered greeting of several, and walked along in si 
 lence with the rest. Even when Abby Atkins joined 
 her there was little said. Ellen asked for Maria, and 
 Abby replied that she had taken more cold yesterday, 
 and could not speak aloud; then relapsed into silence, 
 making her way through the snow with a sort of taci 
 turn endurance. Ellen looked at the struggling pro 
 cession of which she was a part, all slanting with the 
 slant of the storm, and a fancy seized her that rebellion 
 and resistance were hopeless, that those parallel lines 
 of yielding to the onslaughts of fate were as inevitable 
 as life itself, one of its conditions. Men could not help 
 walking that way when the bitter storm- wind was blow 
 ing ; they could not help living that way when fate was 
 in array against their progress. Then, thinking so, 
 a mightier spirit of revolt than she had ever known 
 awoke within her. She, as she walked, straightened 
 herself. She leaned not one whit before the drive of 
 the storm. She advanced with no yielding in her, her 
 brave face looking ahead through the white blur of 
 snow with a confidence which was almost exultation. 
 
 "What do you think the men will do?" she said to 
 Abby when they came in sight of Lloyd s, shaggy with 
 fringes and wreaths and overhanging shelvings of 
 snow, roaring with machinery, with the steady stream 
 of labor pouring in the door. 
 
 "Do?" repeated Abby, almost listlessly. "Do about 
 what?" 
 
 " About the cut in wages?" 
 
 Abby turned on her with sudden fire. "Oh, my 
 God, what can they do, Ellen Brewster?" she demanded. 
 "Haven t they got to live? Hasn t Lloyd got it all 
 his own way? How are men to live in weather like 
 this without work? Bread without butter is better 
 3* 473 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 \ 
 
 than none at all, and life at any cost is better than 
 death for them you love. What can they do?" 
 
 "It seems to me there is only one thing to do/ 
 replied Ellen. 
 
 Abby stared at her wonderingly. "You don t 
 mean " she said, as they climbed up the stairs. 
 
 "I mean I would do anything, at whatever cost to 
 myself, to defeat injustice/ said Ellen, in a loud, clear 
 voice. 
 
 Several men turned and looked back at her and 
 laughed bitterly. 
 
 " It s easy talking/ said one to another. 
 
 "That s so," returned the other. 
 
 The people all settled to their work as usual. One 
 of the foremen (Dennison), who was anxious to curry 
 favor with his employer, reported to him in an under 
 tone in the office that everything was quiet. Robert 
 nodded easily. He had not anticipated anything else. 
 In the course of the morning he looked into the room 
 where Ellen was employed, and saw with relief and con 
 cern her fair head before her machine. It seemed to 
 him that he could not bear it one instant longer to have 
 her working in this fashion, that he must lift her out 
 of it. He still tingled with his rebuff of the night be 
 fore, but he had never loved her so well, for the idea 
 that the cut in wages affected her relation to him never 
 occurred to him. As he walked through the room 
 none of the workers seemed to notice him, but worked 
 with renewed energy. He might have been invisible 
 for all the attention he seemed to excite. He looked 
 with covert tenderness at the back of Ellen s head, 
 and passed on. He reflected that he had adopted 
 the measure of wage-cutting with no difficulty what 
 ever. 
 
 "All it needs is a little firmness," he thought, with 
 a boyish complacency in his own methods. "Now I 
 
 474 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 can keep on with the factory, and no turning the poor 
 people adrift in midwinter." 
 
 At noon Robert put on his fur-lined coat and left the 
 factory, springing into the sleigh, which had drawn 
 up before the door with a flurry of bells. He had an er 
 rand in the next town that afternoon, and was not go 
 ing to return. When the sleigh had slid swiftly out of 
 sight through the storm, which was lightening a little, 
 the people in the office turned to one another with a curi 
 ous expression of liberty, but even then little was said. 
 Nellie Stone was at the desk eating her luncheon; Ed 
 Flynn and Dennison and one of the lasters, who had 
 looked in and then stepped in when he saw Lloyd was 
 gone, were there. The laster, who was young and 
 coarsely handsome, had an admiration for the pretty 
 girl at the desk. Presently she addressed him, with 
 her mouth full of apple-pie. 
 
 "Say, George, what are you fellows going to do? 
 she asked. 
 
 Dennison glanced keenly from one to the other; 
 Flynn shrugged his shoulders and looked out of the 
 window. 
 
 " Looks as if it was clearing up," he remarked. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" asked Nellie Stone 
 again, with a coquettish flirt of her blond fluff of hair. 
 
 "Grin and bear it, I s pose," replied the young laster, 
 with an adoring look at her. 
 
 " My land 1 grin and bear a cut of ten per cent. ? Well, 
 I don t think you ve got much spunk, I must say. Why 
 don t you strike?" 
 
 "Who s going to feed us?" replied the laster, in a 
 tender voice. 
 
 " Feed you? Oh, you don t want much to eat. Join 
 the union. It s ridiculous so few of the men in Lloyd s 
 belong to it, anyway; and then the union will feed you, 
 won t it?" 
 
 475 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " The union did not do what it promised in the Scar- 
 boro strike/ interposed Dennison, curtly. 
 
 "Oh, we all know where you are, Frank Dennison/ 
 said the girl, with a soft roll of her blue eyes. Besides, 
 it s easy to talk when you aren t hit. Your wages 
 aren t cut. But here is George May here, he s in a 
 different box." 
 
 " He s got nobody dependent on him, anyway/ said 
 Flynn. 
 
 "If I wasn t going to get married I d strike," cried 
 the young man, with a fervent glance at the girl. She 
 colored, half pleased, half angry, and the other men 
 chuckled. She took another bite of pie to conceal her 
 confusion. She preferred Flynn to the laster, and 
 while she was not averse to proving to the former the 
 triumph of her charms over another man, did not like 
 too much concessions. 
 
 " You d better go and eat your dinner, George May," 
 she said, in her sweet, shrill voice. "First thing you 
 know the whistle will blow. Here s yours, Ed." With 
 that she pulled out a leather bag from under the desk, 
 where she had volunteered to place it for warmth and 
 safety against the coil of steam-pipes. 
 
 "I don t believe your coffee is very cold, Ed," said 
 she. 
 
 The laster glared from one to the other jealously. 
 Dennison went towards a shelf where he had stored 
 away his luncheon, when he stopped suddenly and 
 listened, as did the others. There came a great up 
 roar of applause from the next room beyond. Then 
 it subsided, and a girl s clear, loud voice was heard. 
 
 " What is going on ?" cried Nellie Stone. She jumped 
 up and ran to the door, still eating her pie, and the men 
 followed her. 
 
 At the end of one of the work-rooms, backed against 
 a snowy window, clung about with shreds of the driv- 
 
 476 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ing storm, stood Ellen Brewster, with some other girls 
 around her, and a few men on the outskirts, and a steady, / 
 curious movement of all the other workmen towards j 
 her, as of iron filings towards a magnet, and she was 
 talking. 
 
 Her voice was quite audible all over the great room. 
 It was low-pitched, but had a wonderful carrying qual 
 ity, and there was something marvellous in its abso 
 lute confidence. 
 
 " If you men will do nothing, and say nothing, it is 
 time for a girl to say and act," she proclaimed. "I 
 did not dream for a minute that you would yield to this 
 cut in wages. Why should you have your wages cut?" 
 
 "The times are pretty hard/ said a doubtful voice 
 among her auditors. 
 
 " What if the times are hard? What is that to you! 
 Have you made them hard? It is the great capitalists 
 who have made them hard by shifting the wealth too 
 much to one side. They are the ones who should suffer, 
 not you. What have you done, except come here morn 
 ing after morning in cold or heat, rain or shine, and 
 work with all your strength? They who have precip 
 itated the hard times are the ones who should bear the 
 brunt of them. Your work is the same now as it was 
 then, the strain on your flesh and blood and muscles 
 is the same, your pay should be the same." 
 
 " That s so," said Abby Atkins, in a reluctant, surly 
 fashion. 
 
 "That s so," said another girl, and another. Then 
 there was a fusilade of hand-claps started by the girls, 
 and somewhat feebly echoed by the men. 
 
 One or two men looked rather uneasily back tow 
 ards Dennison and Flynn and two more foremen who 
 had come forward. 
 
 "It ain t as though we had something to fall back 
 on/ said a man s grumbling voice. "It s easy to talk 
 
 477 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 when you ain t got a wife and five children dependent 
 on you/ 
 
 " That s so/ said another man, doggedly. 
 
 "That has nothing to do with it/ said Ellen, firm 
 ly. " We can all club together, and keep the wolf from 
 the door for those who are hardest pressed for a while ; 
 and as for me, if I were a man " 
 
 She paused a minute. When she spoke again her 
 voice was full of childlike enthusiasm; it seemed to 
 ring like a song. 
 
 " If I were a man," said she, " I would go out in the 
 street and dig I would beg, I would steal before I 
 would yield I, a free man in a free country to 
 tyranny like this!" 
 
 There was a great round of applause at that. Den- 
 nison scowled and said something in a low voice to 
 another foreman at his side. Flynn laughed, with a 
 perplexed, admiring look at Ellen. 
 
 " The question is," said Tom Peel, slouching on the 
 outskirts of the throng, and speaking in an impertur 
 bable, compelling, drawling voice, "whether the free 
 men in the free country are going to kick themselves 
 free, or into tighter places, by kicking." 
 
 " If you have got to stop to count the cost of bravery 
 and standing up for your rights, there would be no 
 bravery in the world," returned Ellen, with disdain. 
 
 "Oh, I am ready to kick," said Peel, with his mask- 
 like smile. 
 
 " So am I," said Granville Joy, in a loud voice. Amos 
 Lee came rushing through the crowd to Ellen s side. 
 He had been eating his dinner in another room, and 
 had just heard what was going on. He opened his 
 mouth with a motion as of letting loose a flood of rant 
 ing, but somebody interposed. John Sargent, bulky 
 and irresistible in his steady resolution, put him aside 
 and stood before him. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Look here/ he said to them all. "There may be 
 truth in what Miss Brewster says, but we must not 
 act hastily; there is too much at stake. Let us appoint 
 a committee and go to see Mr. Lloyd this evening, and 
 remonstrate on the cutting of the wages." He turned 
 to Ellen in a kindly, half-paternal fashion. "Don t 
 you see it would be better?" he said. 
 
 She looked at him doubtfully, her cheeks glowing, 
 her eyes like stars. She was freedom and youth in 
 carnate, and rebellious against all which she conceived 
 as wrong and tyrannical. She could hardly admit, in 
 her fire of enthusiasm, of pure indignation, of any com 
 promise or arbitration. All the griefs of her short life, she 
 had told herself, were directly traceable to the wrongs of 
 the system of labor and capital, and were awakening 
 within her as freshly as if they had just happened. 
 
 She remembered her father, exiled in his prime from 
 his place in the working world by this system of ar 
 bitrary employment; she remembered her aunt in the 
 asylum; poor little Amabel; her own mother toiling 
 beyond her strength on underpaid work; Maria cough 
 ing her life away. She remembered her own life twisted 
 into another track from the one which she should 
 have followed, and there was for the time very little 
 reason or justice in her. That injustice which will arise 
 to meet its kind in equal combat had arisen in her heart. 
 Still, she yielded. " Perhaps you are right," she said to 
 Sargent. She had always liked John Sargent, and 
 she respected him. 
 
 "I am sure it is the best course," he said to her, still 
 in that low, confidential voice. 
 
 It ended in a committee of four John Sargent, Amos 
 Lee, Tom Peel, and one of the older lasters, a very re 
 spectable man, a deacon in the Baptist Church being 
 appointed to wait on Robert Lloyd that evening. 
 
 When the one-o clock whistle blew, Ellen went back 
 
 479 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 to her machine. She was very pale, but she was con 
 scious of a curious steadiness of all her nerves. Abby 
 leaned towards her, and spoke low in the roar of wheels. 
 
 "I ll back you up, if I die for it," she said. 
 
 But Sadie Peel, on the other side, spoke quite openly, 
 with a laugh and shrug of her shoulders. "Land/ 
 she said, " father ll be with you. He s bound to strike. 
 He struck when he was in McGuire s. Catch father 
 givin up anything. But as for me, I wish you d all 
 slow up an stick to work, if you do get a little less. If 
 we quit work I can t have a nearseal cape, and I ve set 
 my heart on a nearseal cape this winter." 
 
CHAPTER LII 
 
 ELLEN resolved that she would say as little as pos 
 sible about the trouble at home that night. She did 
 not wish her parents to worry over it until it was set 
 tled in one way or another. 
 
 When her mother asked what they had done about 
 the wage-cutting, she replied that a committee had been 
 appointed to wait on Mr. Lloyd that evening, and talk 
 it over with him ; then she said nothing more. 
 
 " He won t give in if he s like his uncle/ said Fanny. 
 
 Ellen went on eating her supper in silence. Her 
 father glanced at her with sharp solicitude. 
 
 "Maybe he will/ said he. 
 
 "No, he won t/ returned Fanny. 
 
 Ellen was very pale and her eyes were bright. After 
 supper she went to the window and pressed her face 
 against the glass, shielding her eyes from the in-door 
 light, and saw that the storm had quite ceased. The 
 stars were shining and the white boughs of the trees 
 lashing about in the northwest wind. She went into 
 the entry, where she had hung her hat and coat, and 
 began putting them on. 
 
 "Where are you going, Ellen?" asked her mother. 
 
 " Just down to Abby s a minute/ 
 
 "You don t mean to say you are goin out again 
 in this snow, Ellen Brewster? I should think you 
 were crazy." When Fanny said crazy, she suddenly 
 started and shuddered as if she had struck herself 
 She thought of Eva. Always the possibility of a like 
 doom was in her own mind. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "It has stopped snowing, mother/ Ellen said. 
 
 "Stopped snowing! What if it has? The roads 
 ain t cleared. You can t get down to Abby Atkins s 
 without gettin wet up to your knees. I should think 
 if you got into the house after such a storm you d 
 have sense enough to stay in. I ve worried just about 
 enough." 
 
 Ellen took off her coat and hat and hung them up 
 again. "Well, I won t go if you feel so, mother, "she 
 said, patiently. 
 
 "It seems as if you might get along without seein 
 Abby Atkins till to-morrow mornin , when you d seen 
 her only an hour ago," Fanny went on, in the high, 
 nagging tone which she often adopted with those whom 
 she loved the dearest. 
 
 "Yes, I can," said Ellen. It seemed to her that she 
 must see somebody with whom she could talk about 
 the trouble in the factory, but she yielded. There 
 was always with the girl a perfect surface docility, as 
 that she seemed to have no resistance, but a little way 
 down was a rock -bed of firmness. She lighted her 
 lamp, and took her library book and went up-stairs to 
 bed to read. But she could not read, and she could not 
 sleep when she had put aside her book and extinguished 
 her lamp. She could think of nothing except Robert, 
 and what he would say to the committee. She lay 
 awake all night thinking of it. Ellen was a girl who 
 was capable of the most devoted love, and the most 
 intense dissent and indignation towards the same per 
 son. She could love in spite of faults, and she could 
 see faults in spite of love. She thought of Robert 
 Lloyd as of the one human soul whom she loved best 
 out of the whole world, whom she put before everybody 
 else, even her own self, and she also thought of him with 
 a wrath which was pitiless and uncompromising, and 
 which seemed to tear her own heart to pieces, tor one 
 
THE PORTIO^ OF LABOR 
 
 cannot be wroth with love without a set-back of torture. 
 " If he does not give in and raise the wages, I shall hate 
 him/ thought Ellen; and her heart stung her as if at 
 the touch of a hot iron, and then she could have struck 
 herself for the supposition that he would not give in. 
 "He must/ she told herself, with a great fervor of 
 love. "He must." 
 
 But when she went down to breakfast the next morn 
 ing her mother stared at her sharply. 
 
 "Ellen Brewster, what is the matter with you?" 
 she cried. 
 
 "Nothing. Why?" 
 
 " Nothing ! You look like a ghost. " 
 
 " I feel perfectly well, said Ellen. She made an effort 
 to eat as much breakfast as usual in order that her 
 mother should not suspect that she was troubled. When 
 at last she set out for the factory, in the early morning 
 dusk, she was chilled and trembling with excitement. 
 
 The storm had quite ceased, and there was a pale 
 rose-and-violet dawn-light in the east, and presently 
 came effects like golden-feathered shafts shooting over 
 the sky. The road was alive with shovelling men, 
 construction-cars of the railroad company were labor 
 ing back and forth to clear the tracks, householders 
 were making their way from their doors to their gates, 
 clearing their paths, lifting up the snow in great, glitter 
 ing, blue-white blocks on their clumsy shovels. Every 
 where were the factory employe s hastening to their 
 labor; the snow was dropping from the overladen tree 
 branches in great blobs ; there was an incessant, shrill 
 chatter of people, and occasional shouts. It was the 
 rally of mankind after a defeat by a primitive force of 
 nature. It was the eternal reassertion of human life 
 and a higher organization over the elemental. Men 
 who had walked doggedly the morning before now 
 moved with a spring of alacrity, although the road was 
 
 483 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 very heavy. There was a new light in their eyes ; their 
 cheeks glowed. Ellen had no doubt whatever that if 
 Robert Lloyd had not yielded the attitude of the em 
 ploye s of Lloyd s would be one of resistance. She 
 herself seemed to breathe in resistance to tyranny, and 
 strength for the right in every breath of the clear, crisp 
 morning air. She felt as if she could trample on her 
 self and her own weakness, for the sake of justice and 
 the inalienable good of her kind, with as little hesitation 
 as she trampled on the creaking snow. Yet she trem 
 bled with that deadly chill before a sense of impending 
 fate. When she returned the salutations of her friends 
 on the road she felt that her lips were stiff. 
 
 " You look dreadful queer, Ellen," Abby Atkins said, 
 anxiously, when she joined her. Maria also was out 
 that morning. 
 
 " Have you heard what they are going to do?" Ellen 
 asked, in a sort of breathless fashion. 
 
 "You mean about the wage-cutting? Don t look so, 
 Ellen/ 
 
 Maria pressed close to Ellen, and slid her thin arm 
 through hers. 
 
 "Yes," said Ellen. "What did John Sargent say 
 when he got home last night?" 
 
 Abby hesitated a second, looking doubtfully at Ellen. 
 "I don t see that there is any need for you to take all 
 this so much to heart," she said. 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "Well," Abby replied, reluctantly, "I believe Mr. 
 Lloyd wouldn t give in. Ellen Brewster, for Heaven s 
 sake, don t look so!" 
 
 Ellen walked on, her head high, her face as white 
 as death. Maria clung closely to her, her own lips 
 quivering. 
 
 " What are the men going to do, do you think?" asked 
 Ellen, presently, in a low voice. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " I don t know/ replied Abby. " John Sargent seems 
 to think they ll give in. He says he doesn t know 
 what else they can do. The times are hard. I believe 
 Amos Lee and Tom Peel are for striking, but he says 
 he doesn t believe the men will support them. The 
 amount of it all is, a man with money has got it all his 
 own way, It s like fighting with bare hands to oppose 
 him, and getting yourself cut, and not hurting him at 
 all. He s got all the weapons. We simply can t go 
 without work all winter. It is better to do with less 
 than with nothing at all. What can a man like Willy 
 Jones do if he hasn t any work? He and his mother 
 would actually suffer. What could we do?" 
 
 "I don t think we ought to think so much about 
 that," said Ellen. 
 
 "What do you think we ought to think about, for 
 goodness sake?" 
 
 " Whether we are doing right or not, whether we are 
 furthering the cause of justice and humanity, or hin 
 dering it. Whether it is for good in the long run or 
 not. There have always been martyrs; I don t see 
 why it is any harder for us to be martyrs than for those 
 we read about." 
 
 Sadie Peel came pressing up behind eagerly, her 
 cheeks glowing, holding up her dress, and displaying 
 a cheap red petticoat. " Ellen Brewster, " she exclaimed, 
 " if you dare say anything more to-day I m goiri to talk. 
 Father is tearing, though he goes around looking as if 
 he wouldn t jump at a cannon-ball. Do, for Heaven s 
 sake, keep still; and if you can t get what you want, 
 take what you can get. I ain t goin to be cheated out 
 of my near seal cape, nohow." 
 
 "Sadie Peel, you make me tired," cried Abby At 
 kins. "I don t say that I m striking, but I d strike 
 for all a nearseal cape. I m ashamed of you." 
 
 "I don t care if you be," said the girl, tossing her 
 485 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 head. "A nearseal cape means as much to me as 
 some other things to you. I want Ellen Brewster to 
 hold her tongue/ 
 
 "Ellen Brewster will hold her tongue or not, just 
 as she has a mind to," responded Abby, with a snap. 
 She did not like Sadie Peel. 
 
 "Oh, stick up for her if you want to, and get us all 
 into trouble." 
 
 " I shall stick up for her, you can be mighty sure of 
 that," declared Abby. 
 
 Ellen walked on as if she heard nothing of it at all, 
 with little Maria clinging closely to her. Robert Lloyd 
 got out of his sleigh and went up-stairs just before they 
 reached the factory, and she heard a very low, subdued 
 mutter of execration. 
 
 " They don t mean to strike," she told herself. " They 
 mean to submit." 
 
 All went to their tasks as usual. In a minute after 
 the whistle blew the great pile was in the full hum of 
 labor. Ellen stood for a few moments at her machine, 
 then she left it deliberately, and made her way down 
 the long room to where John Sargent stood at his bench 
 cutting shoes, with a swift faithfulness born of long 
 practice. She pressed close to him, while the men 
 around stared. 
 
 "What is going to be done?" she asked, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 Sargent turned and looked at her in a troubled fash 
 ion, and spoke in a pacific, soothing tone, as her father 
 might have done. He was much older than Ellen. 
 
 "Now look here, child," he said, "I don t dare take 
 the responsibility of urging all these men into starva 
 tion this kind of weather. The times are hard. Lloyd 
 has some reason " 
 
 Ellen walked away from him swiftly and went to 
 the row of lasting-machines where Amos Lee and Tom 
 
 486 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Peel stood. She walked up to them and spoke in a 
 loud, clear voice. 
 
 "You are not going to give in?" said she. "You 
 don t mean to give in?" 
 
 Lee turned and gave her one stare, and left his 
 machine. 
 
 " Not another stitch of work will I do under this new 
 wage-list, so help me, God!" he proclaimed. 
 
 Tom Peel stood for a second like an automaton, star 
 ing at them both. Then he turned his back to his post. 
 
 " I m with j^e," he said. 
 
 The lasters, for some occult reason, were always the 
 most turbulent element in Lloyd s. In less than three 
 minutes the enthusiasm of revolt had spread, and every 
 laster had left his machine. In a half-hour more there 
 was an exodus of workmen from Lloyd s. There were 
 very few left in the factory. Among them were John 
 Sargent, the laster who was a deacon and had formed 
 one of the consulting committee, Sadie Peel, who wanted 
 her nearseal cape, and Mamie Brady, who would do 
 nothing which she thought would displease the fore 
 man, Flynn. 
 
 " If father s mind to be such a fool, it s no reason why 
 I should," said Sadie Peel, stitching determinedly away. 
 Mamie Brady looked at Flynn, when he came up to 
 her, with a gentle, wheedling smile. There was no one 
 near, and she fancied that he might steal a kiss. But 
 instead he looked at her, frowning. 
 
 "No use you tying away any longer, Mamie/ he 
 said. "The strike s on." 
 
CHAPTER LIII 
 
 THAT was one of the strangest days which Ellen 
 had ever passed. The enforced idleness gave her an 
 indefinite sense of guilt. She tried to assist her mother 
 about the household tasks, then she tried to sew on the 
 wrappers, but she was awkward about it, from long 
 disuse. 
 
 " Do take your book and sit down and read and rest 
 a little, now you ve got a chance/ said Fanny, with 
 sharp solicitude. 
 
 She said never one word concerning it to Ellen, but 
 all the time she thought how Ellen had probably lost 
 her lover. It was really doubtful which suffered the 
 more that day, the mother or the daughter. Fanny, 
 entirely faithful to her own husband, had yet that strange 
 vicarious affection for her daughter s lover, and a reali 
 zation of her state of mind, of which a mother alone is 
 capable. It is like a cord of birth which is never sev 
 ered. Not one shadow of sad reflection passed over 
 the bright enthusiastic face of the girl but was passed 
 / on, as if driven by some wind of spirit, over the face of 
 the older woman. She reflected Ellen entirely. 
 
 As for Andrew, his anxiety was as tender, and less 
 subtle. He did not understand so clearly, but he suffer 
 ed more. He was clumsy witn this mystery of woman 
 hood, but he was unremitting in his efforts to do some 
 thing for the girl. Once he tiptoed up to Fanny and 
 whispered, when Ellen was in the next room, that he 
 hoped she hadn t made any mistake, that it seemed to 
 him she looked pretty pale. 
 
 488 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Mistake?" cried Fanny, tossing her head, and 
 staring at him proudly. " Haven t you got any spirit, 
 and you a man, Andrew Brewster?" 
 
 " I ain t thinking about myself/ said Andrew. 
 
 And he was quite right. Andrew, left to himself 
 and his purely selfish interests, could have struck with 
 the foremost. He would never have considered him 
 self when it came to a question of a conscientious 
 struggle against injustice, though he was so prone to 
 look upon both sides of an argument that his decision 
 would have been necessarily slow; but here was Ellen 
 to consider, and she was more than himself. While 
 he had been, in the depths of his heart, fiercely jealous 
 of Robert Lloyd, yet the suspicion that his girl might 
 suffer because of her renunciation of him hurt him to 
 the quick. Ellen had told him all she had done in 
 the interests of the strike, and he had no doubt that her 
 action would effectually put an end to all possible rela 
 tions between the two. He tried to imagine how a girl 
 would feel, and being a man, and measuring all passion 
 by the strength of his own, he exaggerated her suffering. 
 He could eat nothing, and looked haggard. He re 
 mained out-of-doors the greater part of the day. After 
 he had cleared his own paths, he secured a job clearing 
 some for a more prosperous neighbor. Andrew in those 
 days grasped eagerly at any little job which could bring 
 him in a few pennies. He worked until dark, and when 
 he went home he saw with a great throb of excitement 
 the Lloyd sleigh waiting before his door. 
 
 Robert had heard from Dennison of Ellen s attitude 
 about the strike. He had been incredulous ,at first, as 
 indeed he had been incredulous about the strike. He 
 had looked out of the office window with the gaze of 
 one who does not believe what he sees when he had 
 heard that retreating tramp of the workmen on the 
 stairs. 
 
 3* 489 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " What does all this mean?" he said to Dennison, who 
 entered, pale to his lips. 
 
 "It means a strike/ replied Dennison. Nellie Stone 
 rolled her pretty eyes around at the two men from under 
 her fluff of blond hair. Flynn came in and stood in a 
 curious, non-committal attitude. 
 
 " A strike ! " repeated Robert, vaguely. " What for?" 
 
 It seemed incredible that he should ask, but he did. 
 The calm masterfulness of his uncle, which could not 
 even imagine opposition, had apparently descended upon 
 him. 
 
 Both foremen stared at him. Nellie Stone smiled a 
 little covertly. 
 
 " Why, you know you had a committee wait upon you 
 last night, Mr. Lloyd," replied Dennison. 
 
 Flynn looked out of the window at the retreating 
 throngs of workmen, and gave a whistle under his 
 breath. 
 
 "Have they struck because of the wage-cutting?" 
 asked Robert, in a curious, boyish, incredulous, ag 
 grieved tone. Then all at once he colored violently. 
 "Let them strike, then!" he cried. He threw himself 
 into a chair and took up the morning paper, with its 
 glaring headlines about the unprecedented storm, as 
 if nothing had happened. Nellie Stone, after a sly 
 wink at Flynn, which he did not return, began writing 
 again. Flynn went out, and Dennison remained stand 
 ing in a rather helpless attitude. A strike in Lloyd s was 
 unprecedented, but this manner of receiving the news 
 was more unprecedented still. The proprietor was 
 apparently reading the morning paper with much in 
 terest, when two more foremen, heads of other depart 
 ments, came hurrying in. 
 
 "I have heard already," said Robert, in response to 
 their gasped information. Then he turned another 
 page of the paper. 
 
 490 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " What s to be done, sir?" said one of the new-comers, 
 after a prolonged stare at his companion and Dennison. 
 He was a spare man, with a fierce glimmer of blue eyes 
 under bent brows. 
 
 "Let them strike if they want to," replied Robert. 
 
 It was in his mind to explain at length to these men 
 his reasons for cutting the wages for his own attitude 
 as he knew it himself was entirely reasonable but the 
 pride of a proud family was up in him. 
 
 " The strike would never have been on, for the men 
 went to work quietly enough, if it hadn t been for that 
 Brewster girl," Dennison said, presently, but rather 
 doubtfully. He was not quite sure how the information 
 would be received. 
 
 Robert dropped his paper, and stared at him with 
 angry incredulity. 
 
 "What are you talking about?" he said. "What 
 had Miss Brewster to do with it?" 
 
 He said " Miss Brewster " with a meaning emphasis 
 of respect, and Dennison w r as quick to adopt the hint. 
 
 "Oh, nothing," he replied, uneasily, "only she talked 
 with them." 
 
 " You mean that Miss Brewster talked to the 
 men?" 
 
 "Yes; she said a good deal yesterday, and to-day 
 the men would not have struck if it had not been for her. 
 It only needs a spark to set them off sometimes." 
 
 Robert was very pale. "Well," he said, coolly, 
 "there is no need for you to remain longer, since the 
 factory is shut down. You may as well go." 
 
 " The engineer is seeing to the fires, Mr. Lloyd," said 
 Dennison. 
 
 "Very well." Robert turned to the girl at the desk. 
 "The factory is closed, Miss Stone," he said; "there 
 is no need for you to remain longer to-day. Come to 
 morrow at ten o clock, and I will have something for you 
 
 491 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 to do with regard to settling up accounts. There is 
 nothing in shape now." 
 
 That afternoon Robert went to see Ellen. He could 
 not wait until evening. 
 
 Fanny greeted him at the door, and there was the 
 inevitable flurry about lighting the parlor stove, and 
 presently Ellen entered. 
 
 She had changed the gown which she had worn at 
 her factory-work for her last winter s best one. Her 
 young face was pale, almost severe, and she met him 
 in a way which made her seem a stranger. 
 
 Robert realized suddenly that she had, as it were, 
 closed the door upon all their old relations. She seemed 
 years older, and at the same time indefinably younger, 
 since she was letting the childish impulses, which are at 
 the heart of all of us untouched by time and experience, 
 rise rampant and unchecked. She was following the 
 lead of her own convictions with the terrible unswerving 
 of a child, even in the face of her own hurt. She was, 
 metaphorically, bumping her own head against the 
 floor in her vain struggles for mastery over the mightjr 
 conditions of her life. 
 
 She bowed to Robert, and did not seem to see his 
 proffered hand. 
 
 " Won t you shake hands with me?" he asked, almost 
 humbly, although his own wrath was beginning to 
 rise. 
 
 " No, I would rather not," she replied, with a straight 
 look at him. Her blue eyes did not falter in the least. 
 
 "May I sit down?" he said. "I have something I 
 would like to say to you." 
 
 "Certainly, if you wish," she replied. Then she 
 seated herself on the sofa, with Robert opposite in the 
 crushed-plush easy-chair. 
 
 The room was still very cold, and the breath could 
 be seen at the lips of each in white clouds. Robert had 
 
 492 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 on his coat, but Ellen had nothing over her blue gown. 
 It was on Robert s tongue to ask if she were not cold, 
 then he refrained. The issues at stake seemed to make 
 the question frivolous to offensiveness. He felt that 
 any approach to tenderness when Ellen was in her 
 present mood would invoke an indignation for which 
 he could scarcely blame her, that he must try to meet 
 her on equal fighting-ground. 
 
 Ellen sat before him, her little, cold hands tightly 
 folded in her lap, her mouth set hard, her steady fire of 
 blue eyes on his face, waiting for him to speak. 
 
 Robert felt a decided awkwardness about beginning 
 to talk. Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder w r hat 
 there was to say. It amounted to this : they were in 
 their two different positions, their two points of view 
 would either leave for any argument of the other? 
 Then he wondered if he could, in the face of a girl who 
 wore an expression like that, stoop to make an argu 
 ment, for the utter blindness and deafness of her very 
 soul to any explanation of his position was too evident 
 in her face. 
 
 " I called to tell you, if you will permit me, how much 
 I regret the unfortunate state of affairs at the factory/ 
 Robert said, and the girl s eyes met his as with a flash 
 of flame. 
 
 "Why did you not prevent it, then?" asked she. El 
 len had all the fire of her family, but a steadiness of 
 manner which never deserted her. She was never 
 violent. 
 
 " I could not prevent it," replied Robert, in a low voice. 
 
 Ellen said nothing. 
 
 " You mistake my position," said Robert. It was in 
 his mind then to lay the matter fully before her, as he 
 had disdained to do before the committee, but her next 
 words deterred him. 
 
 * l understand your position very fully/ said she. 
 
 493 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Robert bowed. 
 
 "There is only one way of looking at it," said Ellen, 
 in her inexpressibly sweet, almost fanatical voice. She 
 tossed her head, and the fluff of fair hair over her tem 
 ples caught a beam of afternoon sunlight. 
 
 "She is only a child/ thought Robert, looking at 
 her. He rose and crossed over to the sofa, and sat down 
 beside her with a masterful impatience. "Look here, 
 Ellen/ he said, leaving all general issues for their own 
 personal ones, "you are not going to let this come be 
 tween us?" 
 
 Ellen sat stiff and straight, and made no reply. 
 
 "All this can make very little difference to you," 
 Robert urged. "You know how I feel. That is, it 
 can make very little difference to you if you still feel 
 as you did. You must know that I have only been 
 waiting that I am eager and impatient to lift you out 
 of it all." 
 
 Ellen faced him. " Do you think I would be lifted out 
 of it now?" she said. 
 
 "Why, but, Ellen, you cannot" 
 
 "Yes, I can. You do not know me." 
 
 "Ellen, you are under a total misapprehension of 
 my position." 
 
 "No, I am not. I apprehend it perfectly." 
 
 "Ellen, you cannot let this separate us." 
 
 Ellen looked straight ahead in silence. 
 
 "You at least owe it to me to tell me if, irrespective 
 of this, your feelings have changed," Robert said, in 
 a low voice. 
 
 Ellen said nothing. 
 
 "You may have come to prefer some one else," said 
 Robert. 
 
 " I prefer no one before my own, before all these poor 
 people who are a part of my life," Ellen cried out, sud 
 denly, her face flaming. 
 
 494 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Then why do you refuse to let me act for their final 
 good? You must know what it means to have them 
 thrown out of work in midwinter. You know the fac 
 tory will remain closed for the present on account of 
 the strike." 
 
 " I did not doubt it," said Ellen, in a hard voice. All 
 the bitter thoughts to which she would not give utter 
 ance were in her voice. 
 
 " I cannot continue to run the factory at the present 
 rate and meet expenses/ said Robert; "in fact, I have 
 been steadily losing for the last month." He had, after 
 all, descended to explanation. " It amounts to my either 
 reducing the wage-list or closing the factory altogether," 
 he continued. " For my own good I ought to close the 
 factory altogether, but I thought I would give the men 
 a chance." 
 
 Robert thought by saying that he must have finally 
 settled matters. It did not enter his head that she 
 would really think it advisable for him to continue los 
 ing money. The pure childishness of her attitude 
 was something really beyond the comprehension of 
 a man of business who had come into hard business 
 theories along with his uncle s dollars. 
 
 "What if you do lose money?" said Ellen. 
 
 Robert stared at her. " I beg your pardon?" said he. 
 
 "What if you do lose money?" 
 
 "A man cannot conduct business on such princi 
 ples," replied Robert. "There would soon be no busi 
 ness to conduct. You don t understand." 
 
 "Yes, I do understand fully," replied Ellen. 
 
 Robert looked at her, at the clear, rosy curve of her 
 young cheek, the toss of yellow hair above a forehead 
 as candid as a baby s, at her little, delicate figure, and 
 all at once such a rage of masculine insistence over all 
 this obstinacy of reasoning was upon him that it was 
 all he could do to keep himself from seizing her in his 
 
 495 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 arms and forcing her to a view of his own Horizon. He 
 felt himself drawn up in opposition to an opponent at 
 once too delicate, too unreasoning, and too beloved to 
 encounter. It seemed as if the absurdity of it would 
 drive him mad, and yet he was held to it. He tried to 
 give a desperate wrench aside from the main point of 
 the situation. He leaned over Ellen, so closely that 
 his lips touched her hair. 
 
 "Ellen, let us leave all this," he pleaded; "let me 
 talk to you. I had to wait a little while. I knew you 
 would understand that, but let me talk to you now." 
 
 Ellen sat as rigid as marble. " I wish to talk of noth 
 ing besides the matter at hand, Mr. Lloyd," said she. 
 " That is too close to my heart for any personal consid 
 eration to come between." 
 
CHAPTER LIV 
 
 WHEN Robert went home in the winter twilight he 
 was more miserable than he had ever been in his life. 
 He felt as if he had fceen assaulting a beautiful alabas 
 ter wall of unreason. He felt as if that which he could 
 shatter at a blow had yet held him in defiance. The 
 idea of this girl, of whom he had thought as his future 
 wife, deliberately setting herself against him, galled 
 him inexpressibly, and in spite of himself he could 
 not quite free his mind of jealousy. On his way home 
 he stopped at Lyman Risley s office, and found, to his 
 great satisfaction, that he was alone, writing at his 
 desk. Even his stenographer had gone home. He 
 turned around when Robert entered, and looked at 
 him with his quizzical, yet kindly, smile. 
 
 " Well, how are you, boy?" he said. 
 
 Robert dropped into the first chair, and sat therein, 
 haunched up as in a lapse of despair and weariness. 
 
 " What is the matter?" asked Risley. 
 
 "You have heard about the trouble in the factory?" 
 
 For answer Risley held up a night s paper with glar 
 ing head-lines. 
 
 "Yes, of course it is in the papers," assented Robert, 
 wearily. 
 
 Risley stared at him in a lazily puzzled fashion. 
 " Well," he said, " what is it all about? Why are you 
 so broken up about it?" Risley laid considerable em 
 phasis on the you. 
 
 "Yes," cried Robert, in a sudden stress of indigna 
 tion. "You look at it like all the rest. Why are all 
 
 497 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 the laborers to be petted and coddled, and the capital 
 ists held up to execration? Good Lord, isn t there any 
 pity for the rich man without his drop of water, in the 
 Bible or out? Are all creation born with blinders on, 
 and can they only see before their noses?" 
 
 "What are you talking about, Robert?" said Risley, 
 laughing a little. 
 
 " I say why should all the sympathy go to the work 
 men who are acting like the pig-headed idiots they are, 
 and none for the head of the factory, who has the sharp- 
 edged, red-hot brunt of it all to bear?" 
 
 " You wouldn t look at it that way if you were one of 
 the poor men just out on strike such weather as this/ 
 said Risley, dryly. He glanced as he spoke at the 
 window, which was beginning to be thickly furred with 
 frost in spite of the heat of the office. Robert followed 
 his gaze, and noted the spreading fairy jungle of crys 
 talline trees and flowers on the broad field of glass. 
 
 " Do you think that is the worst thing in the world to 
 bear?" he demanded, angrily. 
 
 "What? Cold and hunger not only for yourself, but 
 for those you love?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I think it is pretty bad," replied Risley. 
 
 " Well, suppose you had to bear that, at least for those 
 you loved, and and " said the young man, lamely. 
 
 Risley remained silent, waiting. 
 
 "If I had been my uncle instead of myself I should 
 simply have shut down with no ado," said Robert, pres 
 ently, in an angry, argumentative voice. 
 
 "I suppose you would; and as it was?" 
 
 "As it was, I thought I would give them a chance. 
 Good God, Risley, I have been running the factory at 
 a loss for a month as it is. With this new wage-list 
 I should no more than make expenses, if I did that. 
 What was it to me? I did it to keep them in some sort 
 
 49* 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of work. As for myself, I would much rather have 
 shut down and done with it, but I tried to keep it run 
 ning on their account, poor devils, and now I am exe 
 crated for it, and they have deliberately refused what 
 little I could offer/ 
 
 "Did you explain all this to the committee?" asked 
 Risley. " * 
 
 " Explain? No! I told them my course was founded 
 upon strict business principles, and was as much for 
 their good as for mine. They understood. They 
 know how hard the times are. Why, it was only 
 last week that Weeks & McLaughlin failed, and that 
 meant a heavy loss. I didn t explain/ Then Robert 
 hesitated and colored. "I have just explained to her/ 
 he said, with a curious hang of his head, like a boy, 
 "and if my explanation was met in the same fashion 
 by the others in the factory I might as well have ad 
 dressed the north wind. They are all alike ; they are a , ; 
 different race. We cannot help them, and they cannot 
 help themselves, because they are themselves." 
 
 "You mean by her, Ellen Brewster?" Risley said. 
 
 Robert nodded gloomily. 
 
 "That is all in the paper," said Risley "what she 
 said to the men." 
 
 Robert made an impatient move. 
 
 " If ever there was a purely normal outgrowth, a per- v 
 feet flower of her birth and environments and train 
 ing, that girl is one," said Risley, with an accent of 
 admiration. 
 
 "She is infected with the ranting idiocy of those 
 with whom she has been brought in daily contact," 
 said Robert ; but even as he spoke he seemed to see the 
 girl s dear young face, and his voice faltered. 
 
 " Even as you may be infected with the conservatism 
 of those with whom you are brought in contact/ said 
 Risley, dryly. 
 
 499 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "What a democrat you are, Risley!" said Robert, 
 impatiently. " I believe you would make a good walk 
 ing delegate." 
 
 Risley laughed. "I think I would myself/ he said. 
 " Wouldn t she listen to you, Robert?" 
 
 " She listened with such utter dissent that she might 
 as well have been dumb. It is all over between us, 
 Risley." 
 
 "How precipitate you are, you young folks!" said 
 the other, good-humoredly. 
 
 " How precipitate? Do you mean to say ?" 
 
 " I mean that you are forever thinking you are on 
 the brink of nothingness, when the true horizon-line is 
 too far for you ever to reach in your mortal life." 
 
 "Not in this case," said Robert. 
 
 "You know nothing about it. But if you will excuse 
 me, it seems to me that the matter of all these people be 
 ing reduced to starvation in a howling winter is of more 
 importance than the coming together of two people in 
 the bonds of wedlock. It is the aggregate against the 
 individual." 
 
 "I don t deny that," said Robert, doggedly, "but I 
 am not responsible for the starvation, and the aggregate 
 have brought it on themselves." 
 
 "You have shut down finally?" 
 
 "Yes, I have. I would rather shut down than not, 
 as far as I am concerned. It is distinctly for my in 
 terest. The only one objection is losing experienced 
 workmen, but in a community like this, and in times 
 like this, that objection is reduced to a minimum. I 
 can hire all I want in the spring if I wish to open again. 
 I should run a risk of losing on every order I should 
 have to fill in the next three months, even with the re 
 duced list. I would rather shut down than not; I only 
 reduced the wages for them." 
 
 Robert rose as he spoke. He felt in his heart that 
 50 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 he had gotten scant sympathy and comfort. The 
 older man looked with pity at the young fellow s hand 
 some, gloomy face. 
 
 " There s one thing to remember/ he said. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "All the troubles of this world are born with wings." 
 Risley laughed, as he spoke, in his half-cynical fash 
 ion. 
 
 As Robert walked home for there was no car due 
 he felt completely desolate. It seemed to him that every 
 body was in league against him. When he reached his 
 uncle s splendid house and entered, he felt such an 
 isolation from his kind in the midst of his wealth that 
 something like an actual terror of solitude came over 
 him. 
 
 The impecunious cousin of his aunt s who had come 
 to her during her last illness acted as his housekeeper. 
 There was something inexpressibly irritating about 
 this woman, who had suffered so much, and was now 
 nestling, with a sense of triumph over the passing of 
 her griefs, in a luxurious home. 
 
 She asked Robert if it were true that the factory was 
 closed, and he felt that she noted his gloomy face, and 
 realized a greater extent of comfort from her own exemp 
 tion from such questions. 
 
 " Business must be a great care," said she, and a look 
 of utter peaceful reflection upon her own lot overspread 
 her face. 
 
 After supper Robert went down to his aunt Cynthia s. 
 He had not been there for a long time. The minute he 
 entered she started up with an eagerness which had 
 been completely foreign to her of late years. 
 
 "What is the matter, Robert?" she asked, softly. 
 She took both his hands as she spoke, and her look in 
 his face was full of delicate caressing. 
 
 Robert succumbed at once to this feminine solicitude, 
 
 501 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of which he had had lately so little. He felt as if he 
 had relapsed into childhood. A sense of injury which 
 was exquisite, as it brought along with it a sense of his 
 demand upon love and sympathy, seized him. 
 
 "I am worried beyond endurance, Aunt Cynthia/ 
 said he. 
 
 "About the strike? I have read the night papers." 
 
 " Yes ; I tried to do what was right, even at a sacrifice 
 to myself, and " 
 
 Cynthia had read about Ellen, but she was a woman, 
 and she said nothing as to that. 
 
 "I tried to do what was right/ Robert said, fairly 
 broken down again. 
 
 Cynthia had seated herself, and Robert had taken 
 a low foot-stool at her side. It came over him as he did 
 so that it had been a favorite seat of his when a child. 
 As for Cynthia, influenced by the appealing to the 
 vulnerable place of her nature, she put her slim hands 
 on her nephew s head, and actually seemed to feel his 
 baby curls. 
 
 "Poor boy/ she whispered. 
 
 Robert put both his arms around her and hid his face 
 on her shoulder, for love is a comforter, in whatever 
 guise. 
 
CHAPTER LV 
 
 ON the day after the strike Ellen went to McGuire s 
 and to Briggs s, the two other factories in Rowe, to see 
 if she could obtain a position ; but sjie was not success 
 ful. McGuire had discharged some of his employe s, 
 reducing his force to its smallest possible limits, since 
 he had fewer orders, and was trying in that way to avert 
 the necessity of a cut in wages, and a strike or shut 
 down. McGuire s was essentially a union factory, as 
 was Briggs s. Ellen would have found in either case 
 difficulty about obtaining employment, because she did 
 not belong to the union, if for no other reason. At 
 Briggs s she encountered the proprietor himself in the 
 office, and he dismissed her with a bluff, almost brutal, 
 peretnptoriiiess which hurt her cruelly, although she 
 held up her head high as she left. Briggs turned to a 
 foreman who was standing by before she was well out 
 of hearing. 
 
 "I like that!" he said. "Mrs. Briggs read about 
 that girl in the paper last night, and the strike wouldn t 
 have been on at Lloyd s if it hadn t been for her. I would 
 as soon take a lighted match into a powder-magazine." 
 
 The foreman grinned. " She s a pretty, mild-looking 
 thing," he said ; " doesn t look as if she could say boo 
 to a goose." 
 
 "That s all you can tell," returned Briggs. "De 
 liver me from a light-complexioned woman. They re/ 
 all the very devil. Mrs. Briggs says it s the same girl 
 that read that composition that made such a stir at the 
 high -school exhibition. She d make more trouble 
 
 503 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 in a factory than a dozen ordinary girls, and just now, 
 when everything is darned ticklish-looking/ 
 
 " That s so/ assented the foreman, "and all the more 
 because she s good-looking." 
 
 "I don t know what you call good-looking," returned 
 Briggs. 
 
 He had two daughters, built upon the same heavy lines 
 as himself and wife, and he adored them. Insensibly 
 he regarded all more delicate feminine beauty as a 
 disparagement of theirs. As Briggs spoke, the foreman 
 seemed to see in the air before his eyes the faces of the 
 two Briggs girls, large and massive, and dull of hue, 
 the feminine counterpart of their father s. 
 
 "Well, maybe you re right," said he, evasively. "I 
 suppose some might call her good-looking." 
 
 As he spoke he glanced out of the window at Ellen s 
 retreating figure, moving away over the snow -path 
 with an almost dancing motion of youth and courage, 
 though she was sorely hurt. The girl had scarcely 
 ever had a hard word said to her in her whole life, for 
 she had been in her humble place a petted darling. 
 She had plenty of courage to bear the hard words now, 
 but they cut deeply into her unseasoned heart. 
 
 Ellen went on past the factories to the main street of 
 Rowe. She had no idea of giving up her efforts to 
 obtain employment. She said to herself that she must 
 have work. She thought of the stores, that possibly she 
 might obtain a chance to serve as a sales-girl in one of 
 them. She actually began at the end of the long street, 
 and worked her way through it, with her useless in 
 quiries, facing proprietors and superintendents, T at with 
 no success. There was not a vacancy in more than one 
 or two, and there they wished only experienced hands. 
 She found out that her factory record told against her. 
 The moment she admitted that she had worked in a fac 
 tory the cold shoulder was turned. The position of a 
 
 504 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 shop-girl was so far below that of a sales-lady that the 
 effect upon the superintendent was almost as if he had 
 met an unworthy aspirant to a throne. He would smile 
 insultingly and incredulously, even as he regarded her. 
 
 " You would find that our goods are too fine to handle 
 after leather. Have you tried all the shops?" 
 
 At last Ellen gave that up, and started homeward. 
 She paused once as she came opposite an intelligence 
 office. There was one course yet open to her, but from 
 that she shrank, not on her own account, but she dared 
 not knowing what would be the sufferings of her rela 
 tives should she do so apply for a position as a servant. 
 
 As for herself, strained as she was to her height of 
 youthful enthusiasm for a great cause, as she judged 
 it to be, clamping her feet to the topmost round of her 
 ladder of difficulty, she would have essayed any honest 
 labor with no hesitation whatever. But she thought 
 of her father and mother and grandmother, and went 
 on past the intelligence office. 
 
 When she came to her old school-teacher s Miss 
 Mitchell s house, she paused and hesitated a moment, 
 then she went up the little path between the snow-banks 
 to the front door, and rang the bell. The door was opened 
 before the echoes had died away. Miss Mitchell had 
 seen her coming, and hastened to open it. Miss Mitchell 
 had not been teaching school for some years, having 
 retired on a small competency of her savings. Her 
 mortgage was paid, and there was enough for herself 
 and her mother to live upon, with infinite care as to de 
 tails of expenditure. Every postage-stamp and car 
 fare had its important part in the school-teacher s sys 
 tem of economy ; but she was quite happy, and her large 
 face wore an expression of perfect peace and placidity. 
 
 She was a woman who was not tortured by any strong, ] 
 ungratified desires. Her allotment of the gifts of the / 
 gods quite satisfied her. 
 
 33 505 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 When Ellen entered the rather stuffy sitting-room 
 for Miss Mitchell and her mother were jealous of any 
 breath of cold air after the scanty fire was kindled 
 it was like entering into a stratum of peace. It seemed 
 quite removed from the turmoil of her own life. The 
 school-teacher s old mother sat in her rocker close to 
 the stove, stouter than ever, filling up her chair with 
 those wandering curves and vague outlines which 
 only the over-fleshy human form can assume. She 
 looked as indefinite as a quivering jelly until one reached 
 her face. That wore a fixedness of amiability which 
 accentuated the whole like a high light. She had not 
 seen Ellen for a long time, and she greeted her with 
 delight. 
 
 "Bless your heart!" said she, in her sweet, throaty, 
 husky voice. "Go and get her some of them cookies, 
 Fanny, do." The old woman s faculties were not in 
 the least impaired, although she was very old, neither 
 had her hands lost their cunning, for she still retained 
 her skill in cookery, and prepared the simple meals 
 for herself and daughter, seated in a high chair at the 
 kitchen table to roll out pastry or the famous little cook 
 ies which Ellen remembered along with her childhood. 
 
 There was something about these cookies which 
 Miss Mitchell presently brought to her in a pretty 
 china plate, with a little, fine-fringed napkin, which 
 was like a morsel of solace to the girl. With the first 
 sweet crumble of the cake on her plate, she wished to 
 cry. Sometimes the rush of old, kindly, tender asso 
 ciations will overcome one who is quite equal to the 
 strain of present emergency. But she did not cry; she 
 ate her cookies, and confided to Miss Mitchell and her 
 mother her desire to obtain a position elsewhere, since 
 her factory-work had failed her. It had occurred to 
 her that possibly Miss Mitchell, who was on the school- 
 board, might know of a vacancy in a primary school 
 
 506 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 for the coming spring term, and that she might ob 
 tain it. 
 
 " I think I know enough to teach a primary school/ 
 Ellen said. 
 
 "Of course you do, bless your heart/ said old Mrs. 
 Mitchell. " She knows enough to teach any kind of a 
 school, don t she, Fanny? You get her a school, dear, 
 right away." 
 
 But Miss Mitchell knew of no probable vacancy, since 
 one young woman who had expected to be married had 
 postponed her marriage on account of the strike in 
 Lloyd s, and the consequent throwing out of employ 
 ment of her sweetheart. Then, also, Miss Mitchell 
 owned with hesitation, in response to Ellen s insistent 
 question, that she supposed that the fact that she had 
 worked in a shop might in any case interfere with her 
 obtaining a position in a school. 
 
 " There is no sense in it, dear child, I know/ she said, 
 "but it might be so." 
 
 " Yes, I supposed so," replied Ellen, bitterly. " They 
 would all say that a shop-girl had no right to try to 
 teach school. Well, I m much obliged to you, Miss 
 Mitchell." 
 
 "What are you going to do?" Miss Mitchell asked, 
 anxiously, following her to the door. 
 
 "I m going to Mrs. Doty, to get some of the wrap 
 pers that mother works on, until something else turns 
 up," replied Ellen. 
 
 "It seems a pity." 
 
 Ellen smiled bravely. "Beggars mustn t be choos 
 ers," she said. " If we can only keep along, somehow, 
 I don t care." 
 
 There came a vehement pound of a stick on the floor, 
 for that was the way the old woman in the sitting-room 
 commanded attention. Miss Mitchell opened the door 
 on a crack, that she might not let in the cold air. 
 
 507 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "What is it, mother?" she said. 
 
 "You get Ellen a school right away, Fanny." 
 
 "All right, mother; I ll do my best." 
 
 "Get her the grammar-school you used to have." 
 
 "All right, mother." 
 
 There was something about the imperative solici 
 tude of the old woman which comforted Ellen in 
 spite of its futility as she went on her way. The 
 good -will of another human soul, even when it 
 cannot be resolved into active benefits, has undoubt 
 edly a mighty force of its own. Ellen, with the 
 sweet of the cookies still lingering on her tongue, 
 and the sweet of the old woman s kindness in her 
 soul, felt refreshed as if by some subtle spiritual 
 cake and wine. She even went to the door of 
 Mrs. Doty s house. Mrs. Doty was the woman 
 who let out wrappers to her impecunious neigh 
 bors with an undaunted heart. She had no dif 
 ficulty there. The demand for cheap wrappers was 
 not on the wane, even in the hard times. When 
 Ellen reached her grandmother s house, with a great 
 parcel under her arm, Mrs. Zelotes opened her side 
 door. 
 
 "What have you got there, Ellen Brewster?" she 
 called out sharply. 
 
 "Some wrappers," replied Ellen, cheerfully. 
 
 "Are you going to work on wrappers?" 
 
 "Yes, grandma." 
 
 The door was shut with a loud report. 
 
 When Ellen entered the house and the sitting-room, 
 her mother looked up from a pink wrapper which she 
 was finishing. 
 
 "What have you got there?" she demanded* 
 
 "Some wrappers." 
 
 " Why, I haven t finished the last lot." 
 
 "These are for me to make, mother." 
 508 
 
tME PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 Andrew got up and went out of the room. Fanny 
 shut her mouth hard, and drew her thread through 
 with a jerk. 
 
 " Well/ she said, in a second, " take off your things, 
 and let me show you how to start on them. There s a 
 little knack about it. 
 
CHAPTER LVI 
 
 THAT was a hard winter for Rowe. Aside from 
 the financial stress, the elements seemed to conspire 
 against the people who were so ill-prepared to meet 
 their fury. It was the coldest winter which had been 
 known for years ; coal was higher, and the poor people 
 had less coal to burn. Storm succeeded storm; then, 
 when there came a warm spell, there was an epidemic 
 of the grippe, and doctors bills to pay and quinine to 
 buy and quinine was very dear. 
 
 The Brewsters managed to keep up the interest on 
 the house mortgage, but their living expenses were re 
 duced to the smallest possible amount. In those days 
 there was no wood laid ready for kindling in the parlor 
 stove, since there was neither any wood to spare nor 
 expectation of Robert s calling. Ellen and her mother 
 sat in the dining-room, for even the sitting-room fire 
 had been abolished, and they heated the dining-room 
 whenever the weather admitted it from the kitchen 
 stove, and worked on the wrappers for their miserable 
 pittance. 
 
 The repeated storms were in a way a boon to Andrew, 
 since he got many jobs clearing paths, and thus secured 
 a trifle towards the daily expenses. 
 
 In those days Mrs. Zelotes watched the butcher- 
 cart anxiously when it stopped before her son s 
 house, and she knew just what a tiny bit of meat 
 was purchased, and how seldom. On the days 
 when the cart moved on without any consulta 
 tion at the tail thereof, the old woman would buy 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 an extra portion, cook it, and carry some over to her 
 son s. 
 
 Times grew harder and harder. Few of the opera 
 tives who had struck in Lloyd s succeeded in obtaining 
 employment elsewhere, and most of them joined the 
 union to enable them to do so. There was actual pri 
 vation. One evening, when the strike was some six 
 weeks old, Abby Atkins came over in a pouring rain 
 to see Ellen. There were a number of men in the din 
 ing-room that night. Amos Lee and Frank Dixon 
 were among them. It was a singular thing that An 
 drew, taking, as he had done, no active part in any re 
 bellion against authority, should have come to see his 
 house the headquarters for the rallies of dissension. 
 Men seemed to come to Andrew Brewster s for the sake 
 of bolstering themselves up in their hard position of de 
 fiance against tremendous odds, though he sat by and 
 seldom said a word. As for Ellen, she and her mother 
 on these occasions sat out in the kitchen, sewing on the 
 endless seams of the endless wrappers. Sometimes 
 it seemed to the girl as if wrappers enough were being 
 made to clothe not only the present, but future genera 
 tions of poor women. She seemed to see whole armies 
 of hopeless, overburdened women, all arrayed in these 
 slouching garments, crowding the foreground of the 
 world. 
 
 That evening little Amabel, who had developed a 
 painful desire to make herself useful, having divined 
 the altered state of the family finances, was pulling out 
 basting-threads, with a puckered little face bent over 
 her work. She was a very thin child, but there was 
 an incisive vitality in her, and somehow Fanny and 
 Ellen contrived to keep her prettily and comfortably 
 clothed. 
 
 "I ve got to do my duty by poor Eva s child, if I 
 starve," Fanny often said. 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 When the side door opened, Ellen and her mother 
 thought it was another man come to swell the com 
 pany in the dining-room. 
 
 " It beats all how men like to come and sit round and 
 talk over matters ; for my part, I ain t got any time to 
 talk; I ve got to work/ remarked Fanny. 
 
 "That s so/ rejoined Ellen. She looked curiously 
 like her mother that night, and spoke like her. In her 
 heart she echoed the sarcasm to the full. She despised 
 those men for sitting hour after hour in a store, or in 
 the house of some congenial spirit, or standing on a 
 street corner, and talking talking, she was sure, to no 
 purpose. As for herself, she had done what she thought 
 right; she had, as it were, cut short the thread of her 
 happiness of life for the sake of something undefined 
 and rather vague, and yet as mighty in its demands 
 for her allegiance as God. And it was done, and there 
 was no use in talking about it. She had her wrappers 
 to make. However, she told herself, extenuatingly, 
 "Men can t sew, so they can t work evenings. They 
 are better off talking here than they would be in the 
 billiard-saloon."/ Ellen, at that time of her life, had a 
 slight, unacknowledged feeling of superiority over men of 
 her own class/ She regarded them very much as she re 
 garded children, with a sort of tolerant good-will and 
 contempt. Now, suddenly, she raised her head and 
 listened. " That isn t another man, it s a woman it s 
 Abby," she said to her mother. 
 
 "She wouldn t come out in all this rain/ replied 
 Fanny. As she spoke, a great, wind-driven wash of 
 it came over the windows. 
 
 " Yes, it is," said Ellen, and she jumped up and opened 
 the dining-room door. 
 
 Abby had entered, as was her custom, without knock 
 ing. She had left her dripping umbrella in the entry, 
 and her old hat was flattened on to her head with wet, 
 
 512 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and several damp locks of her hair straggled from under 
 it and clung to her thin cheeks. She still held up her 
 wet skirts around her, as she had held them out-of- 
 doors, but she was gesticulating violently with her 
 other hand. She was repeating what she had said 
 before. Ellen had heard her indistinctly through the 
 door. 
 
 " Yes, I mean just what I say/ she cried. " Get up 
 and go to work, if you are men ! Stop hanging around 
 stores and corners, and talking about the tyranny of 
 the rich, and go to work, and make them pay you 
 something for it, anyhow. This has been kept up long 
 enough. Get up and go to work, if you don t want 
 those belonging to you to starve." 
 
 Abby caught sight of Ellen, pale and breathless, 
 in the door, with her mother looking over her shoulder, 
 and she addressed her with renewed violence. "Come 
 here, Ellen," she said, "and put yourself on my side. 
 We ve got to give in." 
 
 " You go away," cried little Amabel, in a shrill voice, 
 looking around Ellen s arm; but nobody paid any at 
 tention to her. 
 
 "I never will," returned Ellen, with a great flash, 
 but her voice trembled. 
 
 "You ve got to," said Abby. "I tell you there s no 
 other way." 
 
 "I ll die before I give up/ cried Lee, in a loud, 
 threatening voice. 
 
 "I m with ye," said Tom Peel. 
 
 Dixon and the young laster who sat beside him looked 
 at each other, but said nothing. Dixon wrinkled his 
 forehead over his pipe. 
 
 " Then you d better go to work quick, before some 
 that I know of, who are enough sight better worth saving 
 than you are, starve," replied Abby, unshrinkingly. 
 "If I could I would go to Lloyd s and open it on my 
 
 513 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 own account to-morrow. I believe in bravery, but noth 
 ing except fools and swine jump over precipices." 
 
 Abby passed through the room, sprinkling rain 
 drops from her drenched skirts, and went into the kitch 
 en with Ellen. Fanny cast an angry glance at her, 
 then a solicitous one at her dripping garments. 
 
 "Abby Atkins, you haven t got any rubbers on/ 
 said she. 
 
 "Rubbers!" repeated Abby. 
 
 "You just slip off those wet skirts, and Amabel will 
 fetch you down Ellen s old black petticoat and brown 
 dress. Amabel " 
 
 But Abby seated herself peremptorily before the 
 kitchen stove and extended one soaked little foot in its 
 shabby boot. "I m past thinking or caring about 
 wet skirts," said she. "Good Lord, what do wet skirts 
 matter? We can t make wrappers any longer. We 
 had to sell the sewing-machine yesterday to pay the 
 rent or be turned out, and we haven t got a thing to 
 eat in the house except potatoes and a little flour. We 
 haven t had any meat for a week. Nice fare for a man 
 like poor father and a girl like Maria! We have come 
 down to the kitchen fire like you, but we can t keep 
 it burning as late as this. The rest went to bed an 
 hour ago to keep warm. Maria has got more cold. 
 She did seem better one spell, but now she s worse again. 
 Our chamber is freezing cold, and we haven t had a 
 fire in it since the strike. John Sargent has ransacked 
 every town within twenty miles for work, but he can t 
 get any, and his sick sister keeps sending to him for 
 money. He looks as if he was just about done, too. 
 He went off somewhere after supper. A great supper! 
 He don t smoke a pipe nowadays. Father don t get 
 the medicine he ought to have, and that cold spell he just 
 about perished for a little whiskey. The bedroom 
 was like ice with no fire in the sitting-room, and he 
 
 514 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 didn t sleep warm. It s one awful thing after another 
 happening. Did you know Mamie Brady took lauda 
 num last night? 
 
 "Good land!" said Fanny. 
 
 " Yes, she did. Ed Flynn has been playing fast and 
 loose with her for a long time, and she s none too well 
 balanced, and when it came to her not having enough 
 to eat, and to keep her warm, and her mother nag 
 ging at her all the time you know what an awful hard 
 woman her mother is she got desperate. She gulped 
 it down when the last car went past and Ed Flynn 
 hadn t come; she had been watchin out for him; then 
 she told her mother, and her mother shook her, then 
 run for Dr. Fox, and he called in Dr. Lord, and they 
 worked with a stomach - pump till morning, and she 
 isn t out of danger yet. Then that isn t all. Willy 
 Jones s mother is failing. He was over to our house 
 last evening, telling us about it, and he fairly cried, 
 poor boy. He said he actually could not get her what 
 she needed to make her comfortable this awful winter. 
 It was all he could do with odd jobs to keep the roof 
 over their heads, that she hadn t actually enough to eat 
 and keep her warm. It seemed as if he w r ould die when 
 he told about it. And that isn t all. Those little Blake 
 children next door are fairly starving. They are going 
 around to the neighbors swill-buckets it s a fact 
 just like little hungry dogs, and it s precious little 
 they find in them. Mrs. Wetherhed has let her sewing- 
 machine go, and Edward Morse is going to be sold out 
 for taxes. And that isn t all. " Abby lowered her voice 
 a little. She cast an apprehensive glance at the door 
 of the other room, and at Amabel. "Mamie Bemis 
 has gone to the bad. I had it straight. She s in Boston. 
 She didn t have enough to pay for her board, and got 
 desperate. I know her sister did wrong, but that was 
 no reason why she should have, and I don t believe 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 she would if it hadn t been for the strike. It s all on 
 account of the strike. There s no use talking: before 
 the sparrow flies in the eyes of the tiger, he d better 
 count the cost." 
 
 Fanny, quite white, stood staring from Abby to Ellen, 
 and back again. 
 
 Amabel was holding fast to a fold of Ellen s skirt. 
 Ellen looked rigid. 
 
 " I knew it all before," she said, in a low voice. 
 
 Suddenly Abby jumped up and caught the other 
 girl in a fierce embrace. " Ellen," she sobbed " Ellen, 
 isn t there any way out of it? I can t see " 
 
 Ellen freed herself from Abby with a curious impera 
 tive yet gentle motion, then she opened the door into 
 the other room again. The loud clash of voices hushed, 
 and every man faced towards her standing on the thresh 
 old, with her mother and Abby and little Amabel in 
 the background. "I want to say to you all," said 
 Ellen, in a clear voice, " that I think I did wrong. I have 
 been wondering if I had not for some time, and growing 
 more and more certain. I did not count the cost. All I 
 thought of was the principle, but the cost is a part of the 
 principle in this world, and it has to be counted in with it. 
 I see now. I don t think the strike ought ever to have 
 been. It has brought about too much suffering upon 
 those who were not responsible for it, who did not choose 
 it of their own free will. There are children starving, 
 and people dying and breaking their hearts. We have 
 brought too much upon ourselves and others. I am 
 sorry I said what I did in the shop that day, if I in 
 fluenced any one. Now I am not going to strike any 
 longer. Let us all accept Mr. Lloyd s terms, and go 
 back to work." 
 
 But Ellen s voice was drowned out in a great shout of 
 wrath and dissent from Lee. He directly leaped to the 
 conclusion that the girl took this attitude on account 
 
 516 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 of Lloyd, and his jealousy, which was always smoulder 
 ing, flamed. 
 
 "Well, I guess not!" he shouted. "I rather guess 
 not! I ve struck, and I m going to stay struck ! I ain t 
 goin to back out because a girl likes the boss, damn 
 him!" 
 
 Andrew and the young laster rose and moved quietly 
 before Ellen. Tom Peel said nothing, but he grinned 
 imperturbably. 
 
 " I ain t had a bit of tobacco, and the less said about 
 what I ve had to eat the better," Lee went on, in a loud, 
 threatening voice, "but I ain t going to give up. No, 
 miss; you ve het up the fightin blood in me, and it 
 ain t so easy coolin of it down." 
 
 The door opened, and Granville Joy entered. He 
 had knocked several times, but nobody had heard him. 
 He looked inquiringly from one to another, then moved 
 beside Andrew and the laster. 
 
 Dixon got up. " It looks to me as if it was too soon 
 to be giving up now," he said. 
 
 " It s easy for a man who s got nobody dependent upon 
 him to talk," cried Abby. 
 
 "I won t give up!" cried Dixon, looking straight at 
 Ellen, and ignoring Abby. 
 
 " That s so," said Lee. " We don t give up our rights 
 for bosses, or bosses misses." 
 
 As he said that there was a concerted movement of 
 Andrew, the laster, and Granville. Granville was 
 much slighter than Lee, but suddenly his right arm 
 shot out, and the other man went down like a log. An 
 drew followed him up with a kick. 
 
 "Get out of my house," he shouted, "and never set 
 foot in it again! Out with ye!" 
 
 Lee was easily cowed. He did not attempt to make 
 any resistance, but gathered himself up, muttering, 
 and moved before the three into the entry, where he 
 
 517 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 had left his coat and hat. Dixon and Peel followed 
 him. When the door was shut, Ellen turned to the 
 others, with a quieting hand on Amabel s head, who 
 was clinging to her, trembling. 
 
 " I think it will be best to talk to. John Sargent," said 
 she. "I think a committee had better be appointed 
 to wait upon Mr. Lloyd again, and ask him to open the 
 factory. I m not going to strike any longer." 
 
 "I m sure I m not," said Abby. 
 
 "Abby and I are not going to strike any longer," 
 said Ellen, in an indescribably childlike way, whicb 
 yet carried enormous weight with it. 
 
CHAPTER LVII 
 
 ELLEN had not arrived at her decision with regard 
 to the strike as suddenly as it may have seemed. All 
 winter, ever since the strike, Ellen had been wondering, 
 not whether the principle of the matter was correct or 
 not, that she never doubted; she never swerved in her 
 belief concerning the cruel tyranny of the rich and the 
 helpless suffering of the poor, and their good reason for 
 making a stand, but she doubted more and more the 
 wisdom of it. She used to sit for hours up in her cham 
 ber after her father and mother had gone to bed, wrapped 
 up in an old shawl against the cold, resting her elbows 
 on the window-sill and her chin on her two hands, 
 staring out into the night, and reflecting. Her youth 
 ful enthusiasm carried her like a leaping-pole to conclu-^ 
 sions beyond her years. " I wonder/ she said to herself, 
 "if, after all, this inequality of possessions is not a part 
 of the system of creation, if the righting of them is not 
 beyond the flaming sword of the Garden of Eden? I 
 wonder if the one who tries to right them forcibly is not 
 meddling, and usurping the part of the Creator, and 
 bringing down wrath and confusion not only upon his 
 own head, but upon the heads of others? I wonder if 
 it is wise, in order to establish a principle, to make those 
 who have no voice in the matter suffer for it the help 
 less women and children ?" She even thought with a 
 sort of scornful sympathy of Sadie Peel, who could 
 not have her nearseal cape, and had not wished to strike. 
 She reflected, as she had done so many times before, 
 that the world was very old thousands of years old 
 
 519 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and inequality was as old as the world. Might it not 
 even be a condition of its existence, the shifting of 
 weights which kept it to its path in the scheme of the 
 universe? And yet always she went back to her firm 
 belief that the strikers were right, and always, al 
 though she loved Robert Lloyd, she denounced him. 
 Even when it came to her abandoning her position 
 with regard to the strike, she had not the slight 
 est thought of effecting thereby a reconciliation with 
 Robert. 
 
 For the first time, that night when she had gone to 
 bed, after announcing her determination to go back 
 to work, she questioned her affection for Robert. Be 
 fore she had always admitted it to herself with a sort 
 of shamed and angry dignity. "Other women feel 
 so about men, and why should I not?" she had said; 
 " and I shall never fail to keep the feeling behind more 
 important things/ She had accepted the fact of it 
 with childlike straightforwardness as she accepted all 
 other facts of life, and now she wondered if she really 
 did care for him so much. She thought over and over 
 everything Abby had said, and saw plainly before her 
 mental vision those poor women parting with their 
 cherished possessions, the little starving children snatch 
 ing at the refuse-buckets at the neighbors back doors. 
 She saw with incredulous shame, and something be 
 tween pity and scorn, Mamie Bemis,who had gone 
 wrong, and Mamie Brady, who had taken her foolish, 
 ill-balanced life in her own hands. She remembered 
 every word which she had said to the men on the morn 
 ing of the strike, and how they had started up and 
 left their machines. "I did it all," she told herself. 
 " I am responsible for it all all this suffering, for those 
 hungry little children, for that possible death, for the 
 ruin of another girl." Then she told herself, with a 
 stern sense of justice, that back of her responsibility 
 
 520 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 came Robert Lloyd s. If he had not cut the wages 
 it would never have been. It seemed to her that she 
 almost hated him, and that she could not wait to strive 
 to undo the harm which she had done. She could not 
 wait for morning to come. 
 
 She lay awake all night in a fever of impatience. 
 When she went down -stairs her eyes were brilliant, 
 there were red spots on her cheeks, her lips were tense, 
 her whole face looked as if she were strained for some 
 leap of action. She took hold of everything she touched 
 with a hard grip. Her father and mother kept watch 
 ing her anxiously. Directly after breakfast Ellen put 
 on her hat and coat. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" asked Fanny. 
 
 " I am going over to see John Sargent, and ask him 
 to get some other men and go to see Mr. Lloyd, and tell 
 him we are willing to go to work again/ replied Ellen. 
 
 Ellen discovered, when she reached the Atkins house, 
 that John Sargent had already resolved upon his course 
 of action. 
 
 " The first thing he said when he came in last night 
 was that he couldn t stand it any longer, and he was 
 going to see the others, and go to Lloyd, and ask him 
 to open the shop on his own terms/ said Abby. " I told 
 him how we felt about it." 
 
 " Yes, I am ready to go back whenever the factory is 
 opened/ said Ellen. " I am glad he has gone." 
 
 Ellen did not remain long. She was anxious to re 
 turn and finish some wrappers she had on hand. Abby 
 promised to go over and let her know the result of the 
 interview with Lloyd. 
 
 It was not until evening that Abby came over, and 
 John Sargent with her. Lloyd had not been at home 
 in the morning, and they had been forced to wait until 
 late afternoon. The two entered the dining-room, where 
 Ellen and her mother sat at work. 
 
 34 521 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Abby spoke at once, and to the point. " Well/ said 
 she, "the shop s going to be opened to-morrow." 
 
 "On what terms?" asked Ellen. 
 
 "On the boss s, of course," replied Abby, in a hard 
 voice. 
 
 "It s the only thing to do," said Sargent, with a sort 
 of stolid assertion. " If we are willing to be crushed un 
 der the Juggernaut of principle, we haven t any right 
 to force others under, and that s what we are doing." 
 
 "Bread without butter is better than no bread at 
 all," said Abby. "We ve got to live in the sphere 
 in which Providence has placed us." The girl said 
 " Providence " with a sarcastic emphasis. 
 
 Andrew was looking at Sargent. "Do you think 
 there will be any trouble?" he asked. 
 
 Sargent hesitated, with a glance at Fanny. " I don t 
 know; I hope not," said he. "Lee and Dixon are op 
 posed to giving in, and they are talking hard to-night 
 in the store. Then some of the men have joined the 
 union since the strike, and of course they swear by it, 
 because it has been helping them, and they won t ap 
 prove of giving up. But I doubt if there will be much 
 trouble. I guess the majority want to go to work, even 
 the union men. The amount of it is, it has been such a 
 tough winter it has taken the spirit out of the poor souls. " 
 Sargent, evidently, in yielding was resisting himself. 
 
 " You don t think there will be any danger?" Fanny 
 said, anxiously, looking at Ellen. 
 
 "Oh no, there s no danger for the girls, anyhow. I 
 guess there s enough men to look out for them. There s 
 no need for you to worry, Mrs. Brewster." 
 
 " Mr. Lloyd did not offer to do anything better about 
 the wages?" asked Ellen. 
 
 Sargent shook his head. 
 
 "Catch him!" said Abby, bitterly. 
 
 Ellen had a feeling as if she were smiting in the 
 522 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 face that image of Robert which always dwelt in her 
 heart. 
 
 "Well/ said Abby, with a mirthless laugh, "there s 
 one thing : according to the Scriptures, it is as hard for 
 the rich man to get into heaven as it is for the poor men 
 to get into their factories." 
 
 " You don t suppose there will be any danger?" Fanny 
 said again, anxiously. 
 
 "Danger no; who s afraid of Amos Lee and a few 
 like him?" cried Abby, contemptuously; "and Nahum 
 Deals is safe. He s going to be tried next month, they 
 say, but they ll make it imprisonment for life, because 
 they think he wasn t in his right mind. If he was here 
 we might be afraid, but there s nobody now that will do 
 anything but talk. I ain t afraid. I m going to march 
 up to the shop to-morrow morning and go to work, and 
 I d like to see anybody stop me." 
 
 However, before they left, John Sargent spoke aside 
 with Andrew, and told him of a plan for the returning 
 workmen to meet at the corner of a certain street, and 
 go in a body to the factory, and suggested that there 
 might be pickets posted by the union men, and Andrew 
 resolved to go with Ellen. 
 
 The next morning the rain had quite ceased, and there 
 was a faint something, rather a reminiscence than a 
 suggestion, of early spring in the air. People caught 
 themselves looking hard at the elm branches to see 
 if they were acquiring the virile fringe of spring or 
 if their eyes deceived them, and wondered, with respect 
 to the tips of maple and horse-chestnut branches, whether 
 or not they were swollen red and glossy. Sometimes 
 they sniffed incredulously when a soft gust of south 
 wind seemed laden with fresh blossom fragrance. 
 
 " I declare, if I didn t know better, I should think I 
 smelled apple blossoms," said Maria. 
 
 "Stuff!" returned Abby. She was marching along 
 523 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 with an alert, springy motion of her lean little body. 
 She was keenly alive to the situation, and scented some 
 thing besides apple blossoms. She had tried to induce 
 Maria to remain at home. " I don t know but there ll 
 be trouble, and if there is, you ll be just in the way," 
 she told her before they left the house, but not in their 
 parents hearing. 
 
 " Oh, I don t believe there ll be any. Folks will be too 
 glad to get back to work," replied Maria. She had a 
 vein of obstinacy, gentle as she was ; then, too, she had a 
 reason which no one suspected for wishing to be present. 
 She would not yield when John Sargent begged her 
 privately not to go. It was just because she was afraid 
 there might be trouble, and he was going to be in it, that 
 she could not bear to stay at home herself. 
 
 Andrew had insisted upon accompanying Ellen in 
 spite of her remonstrances. "I ve got an errand down 
 to the store," he said, evasively; but Ellen understood. 
 
 " I don t think there is any danger, and there wouldn t 
 be any danger for me not for the girls, sure," she said; 
 but he persisted. 
 
 " Don t you say a word to your mother to scare her," 
 he whispered. But they had not been gone long before 
 Fanny followed them, Mrs. Zelotes watching her fur 
 tively from a window as she went by. 
 
 All the returning emplo3 r es met, as agreed upon, at 
 the corner of a certain street, and marched in a solid 
 body towards Lloyd s. The men insisted upon placing 
 the girls in the centre of this body, although some of 
 them rebelled, notably Sadie Peel. She was on hand, 
 laughing and defiant. 
 
 "I guess I ain t afraid," she proclaimed. "Father s 
 keepin on strikin , but I guess he won t see his own 
 daughter hurt; and now I m goin to have my nearseal 
 cape, if it is late in the season. The3^ re cheaper now, 
 that s one good thing. On some accounts the strike has 
 
 524 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 been a lucky thing for me." She marched along, swing 
 ing her arms jauntily. Ellen and Maria and Abby were 
 close together. Andrew was on the right of Ellen, 
 Granville Joy behind ; the young laster, who had called 
 so frequently evenings, was with him. John Sargent 
 and Willy Jones were on the left. They all walked in 
 the middle of the street like an army. It was covertly 
 understood that there might be trouble. Some of the 
 younger men from time to time put hands on their 
 pockets, and a number carried stout sticks. 
 
 The first intimation of disturbance came when they 
 met an electric-car, and all moved to one side to let 
 it pass. The car was quite full of people going to 
 another town, some thirty miles distant, to work in a 
 large factory there. Nearly every man and woman 
 on the car belonged to the union. 
 
 As this car slid past a great yell went up from the 
 occupants ; men on the platforms swung their arms in 
 execration and derision. "Sc-ab, sc-ab!" they called. 
 A young fellow leaped from the rear platform, caught 
 up a stone and flung it at the returning Lloyd men, but 
 it went wide of its mark. Then he was back on the 
 platform with a running jump, and one of the Lloyd 
 men threw a stone, which missed him. The yell of 
 "Scab, scab!" went up with renewed vigor, until it 
 died out of hearing along with the rumble of the car. 
 
 " Sometimes I wish I had joined the union and stuck 
 it out/ said one of the Lloyd men, gloomily. 
 
 " For the Lord s sake, don t show the white feather 
 now!" cried a young fellow beside him, who was striding 
 on with an eager, even joyous outlook. He had fight 
 ing blood, and it was up, and he took a keen delight 
 in the situation. 
 
 "It s easy to talk," grumbled the other man. "I 
 don t know but all our help lies in the union, and we ve 
 been a pack of fools not to go in with them, because we 
 
 525 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 hoped Lloyd would weaken and take us back. He 
 hasn t weakened ; we ve had to. Good God, them that s 
 rich have it their own way!" 
 
 " I d have joined the union in a minute, and got a job, 
 and got my nearseal cape, if it hadn t been for father," 
 said Sadie Peel, with a loud laugh. " But, my land ! if 
 father d caught me joinin the union I dun no as there 
 would have been anything left of me to wear the cape." 
 
 They all marched along with no disturbance until 
 they reached the corner of the street into which they had 
 to turn in order to approach Lloyd s. There they were 
 confronted by a line of pickets, stationed there by the 
 union, and the real trouble began. Yells of "Scab, 
 scab! "filled the air. 
 
 "Good land, I ain t no more of a scab than you be!" 
 shrieked Sadie Peel, in a loud, angry voice. "Scab 
 yourself! Touch me if you dasse!" 
 
 Many young men among the returning force had 
 stout sticks in their hands. Granville Joy was one of 
 them. Andrew, who was quite unarmed, pressed in be 
 fore Ellen. Granville caught him by the arm and tried 
 to draw him back. 
 
 "Look here, Mr. Brewster," he said, "you keep in 
 the background a little. I am young and strong, and 
 here are Sargent and Mendon. You d better keep 
 back." 
 
 But Ellen, with a spring which was effectual because 
 so utterly uncalculated, was before Granville and her 
 father, and them all. She reasoned it out in a second 
 that she was responsible for the strike, and that she 
 would be in the front of whatever danger there was in 
 consequence. Her slight little figure passed them all 
 before they knew what she was doing. She was in the 
 very front of the little returning army. She saw the 
 threatening faces of the pickets; she half turned, and 
 waved an arm of encouragement, like a general in a 
 
 526 
 
r 
 r 
 
 %> 
 
 2 
 
 P 
 
 > O 
 
 H C 
 
 O ^ 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 battle. "Strike if you want to," she cried out, in her 
 sweet young voice. " If you want to kill a girl for going 
 back to work to save herself and her friends from starva 
 tion, do it. I am not afraid! But kill me, if you must 
 kill anybody, because I am the one that started the 
 strike. Strike if you want to." 
 
 The opposing force moved aside with an almost im 
 perceptible motion. Ellen looked like a beautiful child, 
 her light hair tossed around her rosy face, her eyes full 
 of the daring of perfect confidence. She in reality 
 did not feel one throb of fear. She passed the picket- 
 line, and turned instinctively and marched backward 
 with her blue eyes upon- them all. Abby Atkins sprang 
 forward to Ellen s side, with Sargent and Joy and 
 Willy Jones and Andrew. Andrew kept calling to 
 Ellen to come back, but she did not heed him. 
 
 The little army was several rods from the pickets 
 before a shot rang out, but that was fired into the air. 
 However, it was followed by a fierce clamor of " Scab " 
 and a shower of stones, which did little harm. The 
 Lloyds marched on without a word, except from Sadie 
 Peel. She turned round with a derisive shout. 
 
 "Scab yourselves !" she shrieked. "You dassen t 
 fire at me. You re scabs yourselves, you be!" 
 
 "Scabs, scabs!" shouted the men, moving forward. 
 
 "Scab yourself!" shouted Sadie Peel. 
 
 Abby Atkins caught hold of her arm and shook her 
 violently. "Shut up, can t you, Sadie Peel," she 
 said. 
 
 " I ll shut up when I get ready, Abby Atkins! I ain t 
 afraid of them if you be. They dassen t hit me. Scab, 
 scab!" the girl yelled back, with a hysteric laugh. 
 
 "Don t that girl know anything?" growled a man 
 behind her. 
 
 "Shut up, Sadie Peel," said Abby Atkins. 
 
 f I ain t afraid if you be, and I won t shut up till I get 
 
 5 2 7 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ready, for you or anybody else. I m goin to have my 
 nearseal cape ! Hi ! " 
 
 "I ain t afraid/ said Abby, contemptuously, "but 
 I ve got sense." 
 
 Maria pressed close to Sadie Peel. " Please do keep 
 still, Sadie," she pleaded. " Let us get into the fac 
 tory as quietly as we can. Think, if anybody was 
 hurt." 
 
 " I ain t afraid," shrieked the girl, with a toss of her 
 red fringe, and she laughed like a parrot. Abby At 
 kins gripped her arm so fiercely that she made her cry 
 out with pain. "If you don t keep still!" she said, 
 threateningly. 
 
 Willy Jones was walking as near as he could, and 
 he carried his right arm half extended, as if to guard her. 
 Now and then Abby turned and gave him a push back 
 ward. 
 
 " They won t trouble us girls, and you might as well 
 let us and the men that have sticks go first," she said 
 in a whisper. 
 
 "If you think " began the young fellow, coloring. 
 
 "Oh, I know you ain t afraid," said Abby, "but 
 you ve got your mother to think of, and there s no use 
 in running into danger." 
 
 The pickets were gradually left behind ; they were, 
 in truth, half-hearted. Many of them had worked in 
 Lloyd s, and had small mind to injure their old com 
 rades. They were not averse to a great show of in 
 dignation and bluster, but when it came to more they 
 hesitated. 
 
 Presently the company came into the open space 
 before Lloyd s. Robert and Lyman Risley and several 
 foremen were standing at the foot of the stairs. The 
 windows of the factory were filled with faces, and de 
 risive cries came from them. Lloyd s tall shaft of chim 
 ney was plumed with smoke. The employes advanced 
 
THE PORTION OF LABO& 
 
 towards the stairs, when suddenly Amos Lee, Dixon, 
 and a dozen others appeared, coming with a rush from 
 around a corner of the building, and again the air was 
 filled with the cry of "Scab!" Ellen and Abby linked 
 arms and sprang forward before the men with an im 
 petuous rush, with Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew 
 following. Ellen, as she rushed on towards the factory 
 stairs, was conscious of no fear at all, but rather of a 
 sort of exaltation of courage. It did not really occur 
 to her that she could be hurt, that it could be in the heart 
 of Lee or Dixon, or any of them, actually to harm her. 
 She was throbbing and intense with indignation and 
 resolution. Into that factory to her w r ork she was 
 bound to go. All that intimidated her in the least was 
 the fear for her father. She rushed as fast as she could 
 that her father might not get before her and be hurt 
 in some way. 
 
 "Scab! scab!" shouted Lee and the others. 
 
 "Scab yourself!" shrieked Sadie Peel. Her father 
 was one of the opposing party, and that gave her perfect 
 audacity. "Look out you don t hit me, dad," she 
 cried to him. "I m goin to get my nearseal cape. 
 Don t you hit your daughter, Tom Peel!" She raced 
 on with a sort of hoppity-skip. She caught a young 
 man near her by the arm and forced him into the same 
 dancing motion. 
 
 They were at the foot of the stairs, when Robert, 
 watching, saw Lee with a pistol in his hand aim 
 straight at Ellen. He sprang before her, but Risley 
 was nearer, and the shot struck him. When Risley 
 fell, a great cry, it would have been difficult to tell 
 whether of triumph or horror, went up from the open 
 windows of the other factories, and men came swarm 
 ing out. Lee and his companions vanished. 
 
 A great crowd gathered around Risley until the 
 doctors came and ordered them away, and carried him 
 
 5^9 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 in the ambulance to the hospital. He was not dead, 
 but evidently very seriously injured. 
 
 When the ambulance had rolled out of sight, the 
 Lloyd employes entered the factory, and the hum 
 of machinery began. 
 
 Fanny and Andrew stood together before the factory 
 after Ellen had entered. Andrew had started when he 
 had seen his wife. 
 
 "You here?" he said. 
 
 "I rather guess Fm here/ returned Fanny. "Do 
 you s pose I was goin to stay at home, and not know 
 whether you and her were shot dead or not?" 
 
 "I guess it s all safe now," said Andrew. He was 
 very pale. He looked at the blood-stained place where 
 Lyman Risley had lain. "It s awful work," he said. 
 
 "Who did it?" asked Fanny, sharply. "I heard 
 the shot just before I got here." 
 
 " I don t know for sure, and guess it s better I don t," 
 replied Andrew, sternly. 
 
 Then all at once as they stood there a woman came 
 up with a swift, gliding motion and a long trail of black 
 skirts straight to Fanny, who was the only woman 
 there. There were still a great many men and boys 
 standing about. The woman, Cynthia Lennox, caught 
 Fanny s arm with a nervous grip. Her finely cut face 
 was very white under the nodding plumes of her black 
 bonnet. 
 
 "Is he in there?" she asked, in a strained voice, 
 pointing to the shop. 
 
 Fanny stared at her. She was half dazed. She 
 did not know whether she was referring to the wounded 
 man or Robert. 
 
 Andrew was quicker in his perceptions. 
 
 "They carried him off to the hospital in the am 
 bulance," he told her. Then he added, as gently as 
 if he had been addressing Ellen : " I guess he wasn t 
 
 530 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 hurt so very bad. He came to before they took him 
 away." 
 
 "You don t know anything about it/ Fanny said, 
 sharply. "I heard them say something about his 
 eyes." 
 
 "His eyes!" gasped Cynthia. She held tightly to 
 Fanny, who looked at her with a sudden passion of 
 sympathy breaking through her curiosity. 
 
 " Oh, I guess he wasn t hurt so very bad ; he did come 
 to. I heard him speak," she said, soothingly. She 
 laid her hard hand over Cynthia s slim one. 
 
 "They took him to the hospital?" 
 
 "Yes, in the ambulance." 
 
 "Is my nephew in there?" 
 
 "No; he went with him." 
 
 Cynthia looked at the other woman with an expres 
 sion of utter anguish and pleading. 
 
 "Look here," said Fanny; "the hospital ain t very 
 far from here. Suppose we go up there and ask how 
 he is? We could call out your nephew." 
 
 " Will you go with me?" asked Cynthia, with a heart 
 breaking gasp. 
 
 If Ellen could have seen her at that moment, she 
 would have recognized her as the woman whom she 
 had known in her childhood. She was an utter sur 
 prise to Fanny, but her sympathy leaped to meet her 
 need like the steel to the magnet. 
 
 "Of course I will," she said, heartily. 
 
 "I would," said Andrew "I would go with her, 
 Fanny." 
 
 "Of course I will," said Fanny; "and you had bet 
 ter go home, I guess, Andrew, and see how I left the 
 kitchen fire. I don t know but the dampers are all 
 wide open." 
 
 Fanny and Cynthia hastened in one direction 
 towards the hospital, and Andrew towards home; 
 
 531 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 but he paused for a minute, and looked thought 
 fully up at the humming pile of Lloyd s. The bat 
 tle was over and the strike was ended. He drew 
 a great sigh, and went home to see to the kitchen 
 fire. 
 
CHAPTER LVIH 
 
 LYMAN RiSLEY was very seriously injured. There 
 was, as the men had reported, danger for his eyes. 
 When Robert was called into the reception-room of the 
 hospital to see his aunt, he scarcely recognized her. 
 Her soft, white hair was tossed about her temples, her 
 cheeks were burning. She ran up to him like an eager 
 child and clutched his arm. 
 
 " How is he?" she demanded. " Tell me quickl" 
 
 " They are doing everything they can for him. Why, 
 don t, poor Aunt Cynthia I" 
 
 "His eyes, they said " 
 
 " I hope he will come out all right. Don t, dear Aunt 
 Cynthia/ The young man put his arm around his 
 aunt and spoke soothingly, blushing like a girl before 
 this sudden revelation of an under-stratum of delicacy 
 in a woman s heart. 
 
 Cynthia lost control of herself completely ; or, rather, 
 the true self of her rose uppermost, shattering the sur 
 face ice of her reserve. " Oh," she said " oh, if he 
 if he is blind, if he is I I will lead him everywhere 
 all the rest of his life; I will, Robert." 
 
 "Of course you will, dear Aunt Cynthia," replied 
 Robert, soothingly. 
 
 Suddenly Cynthia s face took on a new expression. 
 She looked at Robert, deadly pale, and her jaw dropped. 
 "He will not die," she said, with stiff lips. "It is 
 not as bad as that?" 
 
 "Oh no, no; I am sure he will not," Robert cried, 
 wonderingly and pityingly. "Don t, Aunt Cynthia/ 1 
 
 533 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "If he dies," she said "if he dies and he has loved 
 me all this time, and I have never done anything for 
 him I cannot bear it; I will not bear it; I will not, 
 Robert!" 
 
 "Oh, he isn t going to die, Aunt Cynthia." 
 
 " I want to go to him," she said. " I will go to him." 
 
 Robert looked helplessly from her to Fanny. "I 
 am afraid you can t just now, Aunt Cynthia," he re 
 plied. 
 
 Fanny came resolutely to his assistance. " Of course 
 you can t, Miss Lennox," she said. " The doctors won t 
 let you see him now. You would do him more harm 
 than good. You don t want to do him harm!" 
 
 " No, I don t want to do him harm," returned Cynthia, 
 in a wailing, hysterical voice. She threw herself down 
 upon a sofa and began sobbing like a child, with her 
 face hidden. 
 
 A young doctor entered and stood looking at her. 
 
 Robert turned to him. "It is my aunt, and she is 
 agitated over Mr. Risley s accident," he said, coloring 
 a little. 
 
 Instantly the young physician s face lost its expres 
 sion of astonishment and assumed the soothing gloss 
 of his profession. "Oh, my dear Miss Lennox," he 
 said, "there is no cause for agitation, I assure you. 
 Everything is being done for Mr. Risley." 
 
 "Will he be blind?" gasped Cynthia, with a great 
 vehemence of woe, which seemed to gainsay the fact 
 of her years. It seemed as if such an outburst of emo 
 tion could come only from a child all unacquainted 
 with grief and unable to control it. 
 
 The young doctor laughed blandly. "Blind? No, 
 indeed," he replied. "He might have been blind had 
 this happened twenty-five years ago, but with the re 
 sources of the present day it is a different matter. Pray 
 don t alarm yourself, dear Miss Lennox." 
 
 534 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Can you call a carriage for my aunt?" asked Rob 
 ert. He went close to Cynthia and laid a hand on 
 her slender shoulder. " I am going to have a carriage 
 come for you, and perhaps Mrs. Brewster will be will 
 ing to go home with you in it." 
 
 "Of course I will," replied Fanny. 
 
 " You hear what Dr. Payson says, that there is noth 
 ing to be alarmed about," Robert said, in a low voice, 
 with his lips close to his aunt s ear. 
 
 Cynthia made no resistance, but when the carriage 
 arrived, and she was being driven off, with Fanny by 
 her side, she called out of the window with a fierce shame- 
 lessness of anxiety, "Robert, you must come and tell 
 me how he is this afternoon, or I shall come back here 
 and see him myself." 
 
 "Yes, I will, Aunt Cynthia," he replied, soothingly. 
 He met the doctor s curious eyes when he turned. The 
 young man had a gossiping mind, but he forbore to say 
 what he thought, which was to the effect that why 
 under the heavens, if that woman cared as much as that 
 for that man, she had not married him, instead of letting 
 him dangle after her so many years? But he merely 
 said : 
 
 " There is no use in saying anything to excite a wom 
 an further when she is in such a state of mind, but " 
 Then he paused significantly. 
 
 "You think the chances of his keeping his eyesight 
 are poor?" said Robert. 
 
 "Mighty poor," replied the doctor. 
 
 Robert stood still, with his pale, shocked face bent 
 upon the carpet. He could not seem to comprehend at 
 once the enormity of it all ; his mind was grasping at 
 and trying to assimilate the horrible fact with an in 
 finite pain. 
 
 " H? ve they got the man that did it?" asked the doctor. 
 
 " I don t know. I had to see to poor Risley," replied 
 
 535 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Robert. " I hope to God they have. " Then all at once 
 he thought, with- keen anxiety, of Ellen. Who knew 
 what new tragedy had happened? "I must go back 
 to the factory/ he said, hurriedly. " I will be back 
 here in an hour or so, and see how he is getting on. 
 For Heaven s sake, do all you can!" 
 
 Robert was desperately impatient to be back at the 
 factory. He was full of vague anxiety about Ellen. 
 He could not forget that the shot which had hit poor 
 Risley had been meant for her, and he remembered the 
 look on the man s face as he aimed. He found a car 
 riage at the street corner, and jumped in, and bade the 
 man drive fast. 
 
 When Robert entered the great building, and felt the 
 old vibration of machinery, he had a curious sensation, 
 one which he had never before had and which he had 
 not expected. For the first time in his life he knew 
 what it was to have a complete triumph of his own will 
 over his fellow-men. He had gotten his own way. All 
 this army of workmen, all this machinery of labor, was 
 set in motion at his desire, in opposition to their own. 
 He realized himself a leader and a conqueror. He went 
 into the office, and Flynn and Dennison came forward, 
 smiling, to greet him. 
 
 " Well," said Dennison, " we re off again." He spoke 
 as if the factory were a ship which had been launched 
 from a shoal. 
 
 "Yes," replied Robert, gravely. 
 
 Nellie Stone, at the desk, was glancing around, with 
 a half-shy, half-coquettish look. 
 
 "How is Mr. Risley?" asked Flynn. 
 
 "He is badly hurt," replied Robert. "Have they 
 found the man? Do you know what has been done 
 about it?" 
 
 "They ve got all the police force of the city out," 
 replied Flynn, "but it s no use. They ll never catch 
 
 536 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Amos Lee. His mother was a gypsy, I ve always 
 heard. He knows about a thousand ways out of traps, 
 and there s plenty to help him. They ve got Dixon 
 under arrest, and Tom Peel; but they didn t have any 
 fire-arms on em, and they can t prove anything. Peel 
 says he s ready to go back to work." Flynn had a 
 somewhat seedy and downcast appearance, although he 
 fought hard for his old jaunty manner. His impulsive 
 good-nature had gotten the better of his judgment and 
 his own wishes, and he had gone to Mamie Brady and 
 offered to marry her out of hand if she recovered from 
 her attempted suicide. The night before he had watched, 
 turn and turn about, with her mother. He gave a 
 curious effect of shamefaced and melancholy virtue. 
 He followed Robert to one side when he was hanging 
 up his hat and coat. " I m going to tell you, Mr. Lloyd," 
 he said, rather awkwardly; "maybe you won t be in 
 terested in the midst of all this, but it all came from 
 the strike. She s better this morning, and I m going 
 to marry her, poor girl." 
 
 Robert looked at him in a dazed fashion. For a 
 moment he had not the slightest idea what he was 
 talking about. 
 
 " I m going to marry Mamie Brady," explained Flynn. 
 "She took laudanum. It all happened on account of 
 the strike. I ll own I d been flirting some with her, 
 but she d never done it if she hadn t been out of work, 
 too. She said so. Her mother made her life a hell. 
 I m going to marry her, and take her out of it." 
 
 "It s mighty good of you," Robert said, rather 
 stupidly. 
 
 "There ain t no other way for me to do," replied 
 Flynn. " She thinks the world of me, and I suppose 
 I m to blame." 
 
 " I hope she ll make you a good wife and you ll be 
 happy," said Robert. 
 
 35 537 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " She thinks all creation of me/ replied Flynn, with 
 the simplest vanity and acquiescence in the respon 
 sibility laid upon him in the world. " That shot wasn t 
 meant for Mr. Risley," said Flynn, as Robert approach 
 ed the office door. His eyes flashed. He himself would 
 gladly have been shot for the sake of Ellen Brewster. 
 He was going to marry, and try to fulfil his simple code 
 of honor, but all his life he would be married to one 
 woman, with another ideal in his heart; that was in 
 evitable. 
 
 "I know it wasn t/ Robert replied, grimly. 
 
 "Everything is quiet now," said Dennison, with his 
 smooth smile. Robert made no reply, but entered 
 the great work-room. * He s mighty stand-offish, now 
 he s got his own way/ Dennison remarked in a whisper 
 to Nellie Stone. He leaned closely over her. Flynn 
 had followed Robert. The girl glanced up at the fore 
 man, who was unmarried, although years older than 
 she, and her face quivered a little, but it seemed due to 
 a surface sensitiveness. 
 
 " I want to know if you ve heard that Ed is going to 
 marry Mamie Brady, after all/ she whispered. 
 
 Dennison nodded. 
 
 She knitted her forehead over a column of figures. 
 Dennison leaned his face so close that his blond-bearded 
 cheek touched hers. She made a little impatient motion. 
 
 " Oh, go long, Jim Dennison/ she said, but her tone 
 was half-hearted. 
 
 Dennison persisted, bending her head gently back 
 ward until he kissed her. She pushed him away, but 
 she smiled weakly. 
 
 " You didn t want Ed Flynn. Why, he s a Roman 
 Catholic, and you re Baptist, Nell," he said. 
 
 "Who said I did?" she retorted, angrily. "Why, 
 I wouldn t marry Ed Flynn if he was the last man in 
 the world." 
 
 538 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "You d nough sight better marry me/ said Denni- 
 son. 
 
 "Go along; you re fooling/ 
 
 "No, I ain t. I mean it, honest." 
 
 "I don t want to marry anybody yet awhile/ said 
 Nellie Stone; but when Dennison kissed her again 
 she did not repulse him, and even nestled her head 
 with a little caressing motion into the hollow of his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Then they both started violently apart as Flynn en 
 tered. 
 
 "Say!" he proclaimed, "what do you think? The 
 boss has just told the hands that he ll split the differ 
 ence and reduce the wages five instead of ten per 
 cent" 
 
CHAPTER LIX 
 
 WHEN Robert Lloyd entered the factory that morning 
 he experienced one of those revulsions which come to 
 man in common with all creation. As the wind can 
 swerve from south to east, and its swerving be a part of 
 ; the universal scheme of things, so the inconsistency 
 I of a human soul can be an integral part of its consist- 
 " J ency. Robert, entering Lloyd s, flushed with triumph 
 over his workmen, filled also with rage whenever he 
 thought of poor Risley, became suddenly, to all ap 
 pearances, another man. However, he was the same 
 man, only he had come under some hidden law of growth. 
 All at once, as he stood there amidst those whirring and 
 clamping machines, and surveyed those bowed and 
 patient backs and swaying arms of labor, standing 
 aside to allow a man bending before a heavy rack of 
 boots to push it to another department, he realized that 
 his triumph was gone. 
 
 Not a man or woman in the factory looked at him. 
 
 All continued working with a sort of patient fierceness, 
 
 as if storming a citadel as, indeed, they were in one 
 
 sense and waging incessant and in the end hopeless 
 
 warfare against the destructive forces of life. Robert. 
 
 A stood in the midst of them, these fellow-beings who 
 
 ^L had bowed to his will, and saw, as if by some divine rev- 
 
 /t elation, in his foes his brothers and sisters. He saw 
 
 ^ Ellen s fair head before her machine, and she seemed 
 
 the key-note of a heart-breaking yet ineffable harmony 
 
 of creation which he heard for the first time. He was a 
 
 man whom triumph did not exalt as much a it humil- 
 
 540 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 iated. Who was he to make these men and women 
 do his bidding? They were working as hard as they 
 had worked for full pay. Without doubt he would not 
 gain as much comparatively, but he was going to lose 
 nothing actually, and he would not work as these men 
 worked. He saw himself as he never could have seen 
 
 himself had_the ^Ijike.^c^ntinuQd ; and yet, after all, 
 he was nol a woman, to be carried away by a sudden 
 wave of generous sentiment and /enthusiasm, for his 
 business instincts were too strong, inherited and de 
 veloped by the force of example. He could not for 
 get that this had been his uncle s factory. 
 
 He shut his mouth hard, and stood looking at the 
 scene of toil, then he resolved what to do. 
 
 He spoke to Flynn, who could not believe his ears, 
 and asked him over. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," he said. 
 
 " Go and speak to the engineer, and tell him to shut 
 down/ said Robert. 
 
 "You ain t going to turn them out, after all?" gasped 
 Flynn. He was deadly white. 
 
 "No, I am not. I only want to speak to them/ re 
 plied Robert, shortly. 
 
 When the roar of machinery had ceased, Robert 
 stood before the employes, whose faces had taken on 
 an expression of murder and menace. They antici 
 pated the worst by this order. 
 
 "I want to say to you all," said Robert, in a loud, 
 clear voice, "that I realize it will be hard for you to 
 make both ends meet with the cut of ten per cent. I 
 will make it five instead of ten per cent., although I shall 
 actually lose by so doing unless business improves. I 
 will, however, try it as long as possible. If the hard 
 times continue, and it becomes a sheer impossibility for 
 me to employ you on these terms without abandoning 
 the plant altogether, I will approach you again, and 
 
 541 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 trust that you will support me in any measures I am 
 forced to take. And, on the contrary, should business 
 improve, I promise that your wages shall be raised to 
 the former standard at once." 
 
 The speech was so straightforward that it sounded 
 almost boyish. Robert, indeed, looked very young 
 as he stood there, for a generous and pitying impulse 
 does tend to make a child of a man. The workmen 
 stared at him a minute, then there was a queer little 
 broken chorus of " Thank ye s," with two or three shrill 
 crows of cheers. 
 
 Robert went from room to room, repeating his short 
 speech, then work recommenced. 
 
 "He s the right sort, after all," said Granville Joy 
 to John Sargent, and his tone had a quality of heroism 
 in it. He was very thin and pale. He had suffered 
 privations, and now came additional worry of mind. 
 He could not help thinking that this might bring about 
 an understanding between Robert and Ellen, and yet 
 he paid his spiritual dues at any cost. 
 
 " It s no more than he ought to do/ growled a man at 
 Granville s right. " S pose he does lose a little money?" 
 
 "It ain t many out of the New Testament that are 
 going to lose a little for the sake of their fellow-men, 
 I can tell you that," said John Sargent. He was cut 
 ting away deftly and swiftly, and thinking with satis 
 faction of the money which he would be able to send his 
 sister, and also how the Atkins family would be no 
 longer so pinched. He was a man who would never 
 come under the grindstone of the pessimism of life for 
 his own necessities, but lately the necessities of others 
 had almost forced him there. Now and then he glanced 
 across the room at Maria, whose narrow shoulders he 
 could see bent painfully over her work. He was in love 
 with Maria, but no one suspected it, least of all Maria 
 herself. 
 
 542 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 "Lord! don t talk about the New Testament. Them" 
 days is past/ growled the man on the other side of Joy^j> 
 
 " They ain t past for me/ said John Sargent, stoutly. 
 A dark flush rose to his. cheek as if he were making a 
 confession of love. 
 
 "Lord! don t preach/ said the other man, with a 
 sneer. 
 
 Ellen had stopped work with the rest when Robert 
 addressed them. Then she recommenced her stitching 
 without a word. Her thoughts were in confusion. She 
 had so long held one attitude towards him that she could 
 not readily adjust herself to another. She was cramped 
 with the extreme narrowness of the enthusiasm of youth. 
 At noontime she heard all the talk which went on about 
 him. She heard some praise him, and some speak of 
 him as simply doing his manifest duty, and some say 
 openly that he should have put the wages back upon the 
 former footing, and she did not know which was right. 
 He did not come near her, and she was very glad of 
 that. She felt that she could not bear it to have him 
 speak to her before them all. 
 
 When she went home at night the news had preceded 
 her. Fanny and Andrew looked up eagerly when she 
 entered. " I hear he has compromised/ said Andrew, 
 with doubtful eyes on the girl s face. 
 
 " Yes ; he has cut the wages five instead of ten per 
 cent./ replied Ellen, and it was impossible to judge of 
 her feelings by her voice. She took off her hat and 
 smoothed her hair. 
 
 " Well, I am glad he has done that much," said Fanny, 
 "but I won t say a word as long as you ain t hurt." 
 
 With that she went into the kitchen, and Ellen and 
 Andrew heard the dishes rattle. "Your mother s been 
 dreadful nervous," whispered Andrew. He looked at 
 Ellen meaningly. Both of them thought of poor Eva 
 Tenny. Lately the reports with regard to her had 
 
 543 
 
THE PORTION OP LABOR 
 
 been more encouraging, but she was still in the asy 
 lum. 
 
 Suddenly, as they stood there, a swift shadow passed 
 the window, and they heard a shrill scream from up 
 stairs. It sounded like " Mamma, mamma!" " It s Am 
 abel!" cried Ellen. She clutched her father by the arm. 
 "Oh, what is it who is it?" she whispered, fearfully. 
 
 Andrew was suddenly white and horror-stricken. 
 He took hold of Ellen, and pushed her forcibly before 
 him into the parlor. " You stay in there till I call you," 
 he said, in a commanding voice, the like of which the 
 girl had never heard from him before ; then he shut the 
 door, and she heard the key turn in the lock. 
 
 " Father, I can t stay in here," cried Ellen. She ran 
 towards the other door into the front hall, but before she 
 could reach it she heard the key turn in that also. An 
 drew was convinced that Eva had escaped from the 
 asylum, and thus made sure of Ellen s safety in case 
 she was violent. Then he rushed out into the kitchen, 
 and there was Amabel clinging to her mother like a little 
 wild thing, and Fanny weeping aloud. 
 
 When Andrew entered Fanny flew to him. "0 
 Andrew Andrew!" she cried. "Eva s come out! 
 She s well! she s cured! She s as well as anybody! 
 She is! She says so, and I know she is! Only look 
 at her!" 
 
 " Mamma, mamma!" gasped Amabel, in a strange, lit 
 tle, pent voice, which did not sound like a child s. There 
 was something fairly inhuman about it. "Mamma," 
 as she said it, did not sound like a word in any known 
 language. It was like a cry of universal childhood for 
 its parent. Amabel clung to her mother, not only with 
 her slender little arms, but with her legs and breast and 
 neck ; all her slim body became as a vine with tendrils 
 of love and growth around her mother. 
 
 As for Eva, she could not have enough of her. She 
 544 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 was intoxicated with the possession of this little creature 
 of her own flesh and blood. 
 
 "She s grown; she s grown so tail/ she said, in a 
 high, panting voice. It was all she could seem to realize 
 the fact that the child had grown so tall and it 
 filled her at once with ineffable pain and delight. She 
 held the little thing so close to her that the two seemed 
 fairly one. "Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel again. 
 
 "She has grown so tall," panted Eva. 
 
 Fanny went up to her and tried gently to loosen her 
 grasp of the little girl. In her heart she was not yet 
 quite sure of her. This fierceness of delight began to 
 alarm her. " Of course she has grown tall, Eva Ten- 
 ny," she said. " It s quite a while since you were 
 taken sick." 
 
 " I ain t sick now," said Eva, in a steady voice. " I m 
 cured now. The doctors say so. You needn t be afraid, 
 Fanny Brewster." 
 
 "Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel. Eva bent down 
 and kissed the little, delicate face ; then she looked at 
 her sister and at Andrew, and her own countenance 
 seemed fairly illuminated. "I ain t told you all/ 
 said she. Then she stopped and hesitated. 
 
 " What is it, Eva?" asked Fanny, looking at her with 
 increasing courage. The tears were streaming openly 
 down her cheeks. " Oh, you poor girl, what have you 
 been through?" she said. " What is it?" 
 
 " I ain t got to go through anything more," said 
 Eva, still with that rapt look over Amabel s little, fair 
 head. "He s come back." 
 
 "EvaTenny!" 
 
 " Yes, he has," Eva went on, with such an air of 
 inexpressible triumph that it had almost a religio 
 quality in it. " He has. He left her a long time ago. 
 He he wanted to come back to me and Amabel, but 
 he was ashamed, but finally he came to the asylum, 
 
 545 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and then it all rolled off, all the trouble. The doctors 
 said I had been getting better, but they didn t know. 
 It was Jims coinin back. He s took me home, and 
 I ve come for Amabel, and he s got a job in Lloyd s, 
 and he s bought me this new hat and cape." Eva 
 flirted her free arm, and a sweep of jetted silk gleamed, 
 then she tossed her head consciously to display a hat 
 with a knot of pink roses. Then she kissed Amabel 
 again. " Mamma s come back," she whispered. 
 
 "Mamma, mamma!" cried Amabel. 
 
 Andrew and Fanny looked at each other. 
 
 "Where is he?" asked Andrew, in a slow, halting 
 voice. 
 
 Eva glanced from one to the other defiantly. " He s 
 outside, waitin in the road," said she; "but he ain t 
 comin in unless you treat him just the same as ever. 
 I ve set my veto on that." Eva s voice and manner 
 as she said that were so unmistakably her own that all 
 Fanny s doubt of her sanity vanished. She sobbed 
 aloud. 
 
 "0 God, I m so thankful! She s come home, and 
 she s all right! God, I m so thankful!" 
 
 "What about Jim?" asked Eva, with her old, proud, 
 defiant look. 
 
 "Of course he s comin in," sobbed Fanny. "An 
 drew, you go " 
 
 But Andrew had already gone, unlocking the parlor 
 door on his way. " It s your aunt Eva, Ellen," he said 
 as he passed. "She s come home cured, and your 
 uncle Jim is out in the yard, and I m goin to call him 
 in. I guess you d better go out and see her," 
 
CHAPTER LX 
 
 LLOYD S had been running for two months, and 
 spring had fairly begun. It was a very forward season. 
 The elms were leafed out, the cherry and peach blossoms 
 had fallen, and the apple-trees were in full flower. There 
 were many orchards around Rowe. The little city 
 was surrounded with bowing garlands of tenderest 
 white and rose, the well-kept lawns in the city limits 
 were like velvet, and golden-spiked bushes and pink 
 trails of flowering almond were beside the gates. Lilacs 
 also, flushed with rose, purpled the walls of old houses. 
 One morning Ellen, on her way to the factory, had for 
 the first time that year a realization of the full presence 
 of the spring. All at once she knew the goddess to be 
 there in her whole glory. 
 
 "Spring has really come," she said to Abby. As 
 she spoke she jostled a great bush of white flowers, 
 growing in a yard close to the sidewalk, and an over 
 powering fragrance, like a very retaliation of sweet- 
 jigss, came in her face. 
 
 "Yes," said Abby; "it seems more like spring than 
 it did last night, somehow!" Abby had gained flesh, 
 and there was a soft color on her cheeks, so that she was 
 almost pretty, as she glanced abroad with a sort of bright 
 gladness and a face ready with smiles. Maria also 
 looked in better health than she had done in the winter. 
 She walked with her arm through Ellen s. 
 
 Suddenly a carriage, driven rapidly, passed them, 
 and Cynthia Lennox s graceful profile showed like a 
 drooping white flower in a window. 
 
 547 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Sadie Peel came up to them with a swift run. " Say 1 " 
 she said, "know who that was?" 
 
 "We ve got eyes/ replied Abby Atkins, shortly. 
 
 "Who said you hadn t? You needn t be so up an 
 comin , Abby Atkins ; I didn t know as you knew they 
 were married, that s all. I just heard it from Lottie 
 Snell, whose sister works at the dressmaker s that made 
 the wedding fix. Weddin fix! My land! Think of 
 a weddin without a white dress and a veil ! All she had 
 was a gray silk and a black velvet, and a black lace, 
 and a travellin -dress!" 
 
 Abby Atkins eyed the other girl sharply, her curiosity 
 getting the better of her dislike. " Who did she marry ?" 
 said she, shortly. " I suppose she didn t marry the black 
 velvet, or the lace, or the travelling-dress. That s all 
 you seem to think about." 
 
 " I thought you didn t know," replied Sadie Peel, in a 
 tone of triumph. "They ve kept it mighty still, and 
 he s been goin there so long, ever since anybody can 
 remember, that they didn t think it was anything more 
 now than it had been right along. Lyman Risley and 
 Cynthia Lennox have just got married, and they ve 
 gone down to Old Point Comfort. My land, it s nice 
 to have money, if you be half blind!" 
 
 Ellen looked after the retreating carriage, and made 
 no comment. 
 
 She was pale and thin, and moved with a certain 
 languor, although she held up her head proudly, and 
 when people asked if she were not well, answered quickly 
 that she had never been better. Robert had not been 
 to see her yet. She had furtively watched for him a 
 long time, then she had given it up. She would not 
 acknowledge to herself or any one else that she was not 
 well or was troubled in spirit. Her courage was quite 
 equal to the demand upon it, yet always she was 
 aware of a peculiar sensitiveness to all happenings, 
 
 548 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 whether directly concerned with herself or not, which "N 
 made life an agony to her, and she knew that her phys- ( 
 ical strength was not what it had been. Only that ) 
 morning she had looked at her face in the glass, and 
 had seen how it was altered. The lovely color was gone 
 from her cheeks, there were little, faint, downward lines 
 about her mouth, and, more than that, out of her blue 
 eyes looked the eternal, unanswerable question of hu 
 manity, "Where is my happiness?" 
 
 It seemed to her when she first set out that she could 
 not walk to the factory. That sense of the full presence 
 of the spring seemed to overpower her. All the reyela- 
 tioELof beauty and sweetness seemed a refinement of 
 torture worse to bear than the sight of death and misery 
 would have been. Every blooming apple-bough seem 
 ed to strike her full on the heart. 
 
 " Only look at that bush of red flowers in that yard/ 
 Maria said once, and Ellen looked and was stung 
 by the sight as by the contact of a red flaming torch of 
 spring. "What ails you, dear; don t you like those 
 flowers?" Maria said, anxiously. 
 
 " Yes, of course I do; I think they are lovely/ replied 
 Ellen, looking. 
 
 She looked after the carriage which contained the 
 bridal party ; she thought how the bridegroom had al 
 most lost his eyesight to save her, and her old adoration 
 of Cynthia seemed to rise to a flood-tide. Then came the 
 thought of Robert, how he must have ceased to love her 
 how some day he would be starting off on a bridal trip 
 of his own. Maud Hemingway, with whom she had 
 often coupled him in her thoughts, seemed to start up 
 before her, all dressed in bridal white. It seemed to her 
 that she could not bear it all. She continued walking, 
 but she did not feel the ground beneath her feet, nor even 
 Maria s little, clinging fingers of tenderness on her arm. 
 She became to her own understanding like an instru-* 
 
 549 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 ment which is played upon with such results of harmo 
 nies and discords that all sense of the mechanism is 
 lost. 
 
 "Well, Ellen Brewster," said Sadie Peel, in her loud, 
 strident voice, " I guess you wouldn t have been walkin 
 along here quite so fine this mornin if it hadn t been 
 for Mr. Risley. You d ought to send him a weddin - 
 present a spoon, or something." 
 
 "Shut up," said Abby Atkins; "Ellen has worried 
 herself sick over him as it is. " She eyed Ellen anxious 
 ly as she spoke. Maria clung more closely to her. 
 
 "Shut up yourself, Abby Atkins," returned Sadie 
 Peel. "He s got a wife to lead him around, and 
 I don t see much to worry about. A great weddin l 
 My goodness, if I don t get married when I m young 
 enough to wear a white dress and veil, catch me gettin 
 married at all!" 
 
 Sadie Peel sped on with her news to a group of girls 
 ahead, and the wheels of the carriage flashed out of 
 sight in the spring sunlight. It was quite true that 
 Risley and Cynthia had been married that morning. 
 He had not entirely lost his vision, although it would 
 always be poor, and he would live happily, although 
 in a measure disappointedly, feeling that his partial 
 helplessness was his chief claim upon his wife s affec 
 tion. He had gotten what he had longed for for so many 
 years, but by means which tended to his humiliation 
 instead of his pride. But Cynthia was radiant. In 
 caring for her half-blind husband she attained the spir 
 itual mountain height of her life. She possessed love 
 in the one guise in which he appealed to her, and she 
 held him fast to the illumination of her very soul. 
 
 After the carriage had passed out of sight Abby came 
 close on the other side of Ellen and slid her arm through 
 hers. "Say!" she began. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Ellen. 
 550 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 Abby blushed. "Oh, nothing much/ she replied, 
 in a tone unusual for her. She took her arm away 
 from Ellen s, and laughed a little foolishly. 
 
 Ellen stared at her with grave wonder. She had not 
 the least idea what she meant. 
 
 Abby changed the subject. "Going to the park 
 opening to-night, Ellen?" she asked. 
 
 "No, I guess not." 
 
 "You d better. Do go, Ellen." 
 
 " Yes, do go, Ellen ; it will do you good," said Maria. 
 She looked into Ellen s face with the inexpressibly pure 
 love of one innocent girl for another. 
 
 The park was a large grove of oaks and birch-trees 
 which had recently been purchased by the street railway 
 company of Rowe, and it was to be used for the free en 
 tertainment of the people, with an undercurrent of con 
 sideration for the financial profit of the company. 
 
 " I m afraid I can t go," said Ellen. 
 
 " Yes, you can ; it will do you good ; you look like a 
 ghost this morning," said Abby. 
 
 "Do go, Ellen," pleaded Maria. 
 
 However, Ellen would not have gone had it not been 
 for a whisper of Abby s as they came out of the factory 
 that night. 
 
 " Look here, Ellen, you d better go," said she, " just 
 to show folks. That Sadie Peel asked me this noon 
 if it was true that you had something on your mind, and 
 was worrying about well, you know what that made 
 you look so." 
 
 Ellen flushed an angry red. "I ll stop for you and 
 Maria to-night," she answered, quickly. 
 
 "All right," Abby replied, heartily; "we ll go on the 
 eight-o clock car." 
 
 Ellen hurried home, and changed her dress after sup 
 per, putting on her new green silk waist and her spring 
 hat, which was trimmed with roses. When she went 
 
 551 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 down-stairs, and told her mother where she was going, 
 she started up. 
 
 " I declare, I d go too if your father had come home/ 
 she said. "I don t know when I ve been anywhere; 
 and Eva was in this afternoon and said that she and 
 Jim were going." 
 
 "I wonder where father is?" said Ellen, uneasily. 
 "I don t know as I ought to go till he comes home." 
 
 "Oh, stuff!" replied Fanny. "He s stopped to talk 
 at the store. Oh, here he is now. Andrew Brewster, 
 where in the world have you been?" she began as he 
 entered ; but his mother was following him, and some 
 thing in their faces stopped her. Fanny Brewster had 
 lived for years with this man, but never before had 
 she seen his face with just that expression of utter, 
 unreserved joy ; although joy was scarcely the word 
 for it, for it was more than that. It was the look of a 
 man who has advanced to his true measure of growth, 
 and regained self-respect which he had lost. All the 
 abject bend of his aging back, all the apologetic pa 
 tience of his outlook, was gone. She stared at him, 
 hardly believing her eyes. She was as frightened as 
 if he had looked despairing instead of joyful. "An 
 drew Brewster, what is it?" she asked. She tried 
 to smile, to echo the foolish width of grimace on his 
 face, but her lips were too stiff. 
 
 Ellen looked at him, trembling, and very white under 
 her knot of roses. Andrew held out a paper and tried 
 to speak, but he could not. 
 
 "For God s sake, what is it?" gasped Fanny. 
 
 Then Mrs. Zelotes spoke. " That old mining-stock 
 has come up," said she, in a harsh voice. " He d never 
 ought to have bought it. I should have told him better 
 if he had asked me, but it s come up, and it s worth 
 considerable more than he paid for it. I ve just been 
 down to Mrs. Pointdexter s, and Lawyer Samson was 
 
 552 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 in there seeing her about a bond she s got that s run 
 out, and he says the mine s going to pay dividends, and 
 for Andrew to hold on to part of it, anyhow. I bought 
 this paper, and it s in it. He never ought to have bought 
 it, but it s come up. I hope it will learn him a lesson. 
 He s had enough trouble over it." 
 
 Nothing could exceed the mixture of recrimination 
 and exultation with which the old woman spoke. She 
 eyed Fanny accusingly; she looked at Andrew with 
 grudging triumph. "Lawyer Samson says it will 
 make him rich, he guesses ; at any rate, he ll come out " 
 whole/ said she. "I hope it will learn you a lesson." 
 
 Andrew dropped into a chair. His face was distended 
 with a foolish smile like a baby s. He seemed to smile 
 at all creation. He looked at his wife and Ellen; then 
 his face again took on its expression of joyful vacuity. 
 
 Fanny went close to him and laid a firm hand on 
 his shoulder. "You ain t had a mite of supper, An 
 drew Brewster," said she; "come right out and have 
 something to eat." 
 
 Andrew shook his head, still smiling. His wife and 
 daughter looked at him alarmedly, then at each other. 
 Then his mother went behind him, laid a hard, old hand 
 on each shoulder, and shook him. 
 
 "If you have got a streak of luck, there s no need 
 of your actin like a fool about it, Andrew Brewster," 
 said she. "Go out and eat your supper, and behave 
 yourself, and let it be a lesson to you. There you had 
 worked and saved that little money you had in the bank, 
 and you bought an old mine with it, and it might have 
 turned out there wasn t a thing in it, no mine at all, and 
 there was. Just let it be a lesson to you, that s all; 
 and go out and eat your supper, and don t be too set up 
 over it." 
 
 Andrew looked at his wife and mother and daughter, 
 still with that expression of joy, so unreserved that it 
 36 553 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 was almost idiotic. They had all stood by him loyally ; 
 he had their fullest sympathy; but had one of them 
 fully understood? Not one of them could certainly un 
 derstand what was then passing in his mind, which 
 had been straitened by grief and self-reproach, and was 
 now expanding to hold its full measure of joy. That 
 poor little sum in the bank, that accumulation of his 
 hard earnings, which he had lost through his own bad 
 judgment, had meant much more than itself to him, 
 both in its loss and its recovery. It was more than 
 money; it was the value of money in the current coin 
 of his own self-respect. 
 
 His mother shook him again, but rather gently. " Get 
 up this minute, and go out and eat your supper," said 
 she ; " and then I don t see why you can t go with Fanny 
 and me to the park opening. They say lots pf folks 
 are goin , and there s goin to be fireworks./ It ll dis 
 tract your mind. It ain t safe for any^o/ty to dwell 
 too much on good luck any more than on misfortune. 
 Go right out and eat your supper; it s most time for 
 the car." 
 
 Andrew obeyed. 
 
CHAPTER LXI 
 
 THE new park, which had been named, in honor of 
 the president of the street railway company, Clemens 
 Park, was composed of a light growth of oak and birch 
 trees. With the light of the full moon, like a broadside 
 of silvery arrows, and the frequent electric-lights fil 
 tering through the young, delicate foliage, it was much 
 more effective than a grove of pine or hemlock would 
 have been. 
 
 When the people streamed into it from the crowded 
 electric-cars, there were exclamations of rapture. Wom 
 en and girls fairly shrieked with delight. The ground, 
 which had been entirely cleared of undergrowth, was 
 like an etching in clearest black and white, of the tender 
 dancing foliage of the oaks and birches. The birches 
 stood together in leaning, white-limbed groups like 
 maidens, and the rustling spread of the oaks shed broad 
 flashes of silver from the moon. In the midst of the 
 grove the Hungarian orchestra played in a pavilion, 
 and dancing was going on there. Many of the people 
 outside moved with dancing steps. Children in swings 
 flew through the airs with squeals of delight. There 
 was a stand for the sale of ice-cream and soda, and 
 pretty girls blossomed like flowers behind the counters. 
 There were various rustic adornments, such as seats 
 and grottos, and at one end of the grove was a small 
 collection of wild animals in cages, and a little artificial 
 pond with swans. Now and then, above the chatter 
 of the people and the music of the orchestra, sounded 
 the growl of a bear or the shrill screech of a paroquet, 
 
 555 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 and the people all stopped and listened and laughed. 
 This little titillation of the unusual in the midst of their 
 sober walk of life affected them like champagne. Most 
 of them were of the poorer and middle classes, the em 
 ployes of the factories of Rowe. They moved back and 
 forth with dancing steps of exultation. 
 
 "My, ain t it beautiful!" Fanny said, squeezing 
 Andrew s arm. He had his wife on one arm, his mother 
 on the other. For him the whole scene appeared more 
 than it really was, since it reflected the joy of his own 
 soul. There was for him a^light greater than that of 
 the moon or electricity upon~rf that extreme light 
 of the world the happiness of a human being who 
 blesses in a moment of prosperity the hour he was 
 born. He knew for the first time in his life that hap 
 piness is as true as misery, and no mere creation of a 
 fairy tale. No trees of the Garden of Eden could have 
 outshone for him those oaks and birches. No gold or 
 precious stones of any mines on earth can equal the 
 light of the little star of happiness in one human soul. 
 
 Fanny, as they walked along, kept looking at her 
 husband, and her own face w^^trajnsfi^ure4. Mrs. 
 Zelotes, also, sejiieii_tQ_radiate^ with a sort of harsh 
 and prickly delight. She descanted upon the hard- 
 earned savings which Andrew had risked, but she held 
 her old head very high with reluctant joy, and her bon 
 net had a rakish cant. 
 
 Ellen, with Abby and Maria, walked behind them. 
 
 Presently Andrew met another man who had also 
 purchased stock in the mine, and stopped to exchange 
 congratulations. The man s face was flushed, as if 
 he had been drinking, but he had not. On his arm 
 hung his wife, a young woman with a showy red waist 
 and some pink ribbon bows on her hat. She was teeter 
 ing a little in time to the music, while a little girl clung 
 to her skirts and teetered also. 
 
 556 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 " Well, old man/ said the new-comer, with a hoarse 
 sound in his throat, " they needn t talk to us any more, 
 need they?" 
 
 " That s so/ replied Andrew, but his joy in prosperity 
 was not like the other man s. It placed him heights 
 above him, although from the same cause. Prosperity 
 means one thing to one man, and another to his brother. 
 
 Presently they met Jim Tenny and Eva and Amabel. 
 They were walking three abreast, Amabel in the mid 
 dle. Jim Tenny looked hesitatingly at them, although 
 his face was widened with irrepressible smiles. Eva 
 gazed at them with defiant radiance. " Well," said she, 
 "so luck has turned?" 
 
 Amabel laughed out, and her laugh trilled high with 
 a note of silver, above the chatter of the crowd and the 
 blare and rhythmic trill of the orchestra. " I ve had an 
 ice-cream, and I m going to have a new doll and a doll- 
 carriage/ said she. " Oh, Ellen!" She left her father 
 and mother for a second and clung to Ellen, kissing her ; 
 then she was back. 
 
 "Well, Andrew?" said Jim. He had a shamed face, 
 yet there was something brave in it struggling for ex 
 pression. 
 
 "Well, Jim?" said Andrew. 
 
 The two shook hands solemnly. Then they walked 
 on together, and the sisters behind, with Amabel cling 
 ing to her mother s hand. " Jim s goin to work if he 
 has had a little windfall," said Eva, proudly. "Oh, 
 Fanny, only think what it means!" 
 
 " I hope it will be a lesson to both of them," said Mrs. 
 Zelotes, stalking along after, but she smiled harshly. 
 
 " Oh, land, don t croak, if you ve got a chance to laugh I 
 There s few enough chances in this world," cried Eva, 
 with boisterous good humor. " As for me, I ve come 
 out of deep waters, and I m goin to take what com 
 fort I can in the feel of the solid ground under my 
 
 557 
 
V 
 
 THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 feet." She began to force Amabel into a dance in time 
 with the music, and the child shrieked with laughter. 
 
 "S pose she s all right?" whispered Mrs. Zelotes to 
 Fanny. 
 
 "Land, yes," replied Fanny; "it s just like her, just 
 the way she used to do. It makes me surer than any 
 thing else that she s cured." 
 
 The girls behind were loitering. Abby turned to Ellen 
 and pointed to a rustic seat under a clump of birches. 
 
 "Let s sit down there a minute, Ellen," said she. 
 
 "All right," replied Ellen. When she and Abby 
 seated themselves, Maria withdrew, standing aloof 
 under an oak, looking up at the illumined spread of 
 branches with the rapt, innocent expression of a saint. 
 
 " Why don t you come and sit down with us, Maria?" 
 Ellen called. 
 
 "In a minute," replied Maria, in her weak, sweet 
 voice. Then John Sargent came up and joined her. 
 
 " She ll come in a minute," Abby said to Ellen. " She 
 she knows I want to tell you something." 
 
 Abby hesitated. Ellen regarded her with wonder. 
 
 "Look here, Ellen," said Abby; "I don t know what 
 you re going to think of me after all I ve said, but I m 
 going to get married to Willy Jones. His mother has had 
 a little money left her, and she owns the house clear now, 
 and I m going to keep right on working; and I never 
 thought I would, Ellen, you know; but I ve come to 
 think lately that all you can get out of labor in this world 
 is the happiness it brings you, and the love. That s 
 more than the money, and he wants me pretty bad. 
 I suppose you think I m awful, Ellen Brewster." Abby 
 spoke with triumph, yet with shame. She dug her little 
 toe into the shadow-mottled ground. 
 
 "Oh, Abby, I hope you ll be real happy," said Ellen. 
 Then she choked a little. 
 
 "I ve made up my mind not to work for nothing," 
 
 558 
 
PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 said Abby ; " I ve made up my mind to get whatever work 
 is worth in this world if I can, and to get it for him too." 
 
 "I hope you will be very happy/ said Ellen again. 
 
 "There he is now/ whispered Abby. She rose as 
 Willy Jones approached, laughing confusedly. "I ve 
 been telling Ellen Brewster/ said Abby, with her per 
 functory air. 
 
 Ellen held out her hand, and Willy Jones grasped it, 
 then let it drop and muttered something. He looked 
 with helpless adoration at Abby, who put her hand 
 through his arm reassuringly. 
 
 "Let s go and see the animals/ said she; "I haven t 
 seen the animals." 
 
 " I guess I ll go and see if I can find my father and 
 mother," returned Ellen. "I want to see my mother 
 about something." 
 
 "Oh, come with us." Abby grasped Ellen firmly 
 around the waist and kissed her. " I don t love him a 
 mite better than I do you," she whispered; "so there! 
 You needn t think you re left out, Ellen Brewster." 
 
 " I don t," replied Ellen. She tried to laugh, but she 
 felt her lips stiff. An unconquerable feeling of desola 
 tion was coming over her, and in spite of herself her 
 tone \vas somewhat like that of a child who sees an 
 other with all the cake. 
 
 " I suppose you know Floretta got married last night," 
 said Abby, moving off with Willy Jones. John Sargent 
 and Maria had long since disappeared from under the 
 oak. 
 
 Ellen, left alone, looked for a minute after Abby and 
 Willy, and noted the tender lean of the girl s head towards 
 the young man s shoulder; then she started off to find 
 her father and mother. She could not rid herself of the 
 sense of desolation. She felt blindly that if she could 
 not get under the shelter of her own loves of life she 
 could not bear it any longer. She had borne up bravely 
 
 S59 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 under Robert s neglect, but now all at once, with the sight 
 of the happiness of these others before her eyes, it seemed 
 to crush her. All the spirit in her seemed to flag and 
 faint. She was only a young girl, who would fall to 
 the ground and be slain by the aw^ful law of gravitation 
 of the spirit without love. " Anyway, I ve got father and 
 mother/ she said to herself. 
 
 She rushed on alone through the merry crowd. The 
 orchestra was playing a medley. The violins seemed to 
 fairly pierce thought. A Roman-candle burst forth 
 on the right with a great spluttering, and the people, 
 shrieking with delight, rushed in that direction. Then 
 a rocket shot high in the air with a splendid curve, 
 and there was a sea of faces watching with speechless 
 admiration the dropping stars of violet and gold and 
 rose. 
 
 Ellen kept on, moving as nearly as she could in the 
 direction in which her party had gone. Then suddenly 
 she came face to face with Robert Lloyd. 
 
 She would have passed him without a word, but he 
 stood before her. 
 
 " Won t you speak to me?" he asked. 
 
 "Good-evening, Mr. Lloyd," returned Ellen. 
 
 Then she tried to move on again, but Robert still stood 
 before her. 
 
 " I want to say something to you," he said, in a low 
 voice. "I was coming to your house to-night, but I 
 saw you on the car. Please come to that seat over there. 
 There is nobody in that direction. They will all go 
 towards the fireworks now." 
 
 Ellen looked at him hesitatingly. At that moment 
 she seemed to throw out protecting antennae of maiden- 
 liness ; and, besides, there was always the memory of the 
 cut in wages, for which she still judged him; and then 
 there was the long neglect. 
 
 "Please come," said Robert. He looked at her at 
 560 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 once like a conqueror and a pleading child. Ellen placed 
 her hand on his arm, and they went to the seat under 
 the clump of birches. They were quite alone, for the 
 whole great company was streaming towards the fire 
 works. A fiery wheel was revolving in the distance, 
 and rockets shot up, dropping showers of stars. Ellen 
 gazed at them without seeing them at all. 
 
 Robert, seated beside her, looked at her earnestly. 
 " I am going to put back the wages on the old basis to 
 morrow/ he said. 
 
 Ellen made no reply. 
 
 "Business has so improved that I feel justified in 
 doing so, " said Robert . His tone was almost apologetic . 
 Never as long as he lived would he be able to look at such 
 matters from quite the same standpoint as that of the 
 girl beside him._jShe knew that, and yet she loved 
 him. She never would get his point of view, and yet 
 he loved her. " I have waited until I was able to do that 
 before speaking to you again/ said Robert. "I knew 
 how you felt about the wage-cutting. I thought when 
 matters were back on the old basis that you might feel 
 differently towards me. God knows I have been sorry 
 enough for it all, and I am glad enough to be able to 
 pay them full wages again. And now, dear?" 
 
 " It has been a long time/ said Ellen, looking at her 
 little hands, clasped in her lap. 
 
 " I have loved you all the time, and I have only waited 
 for that/ said Robert. 
 
 Later on Robert and Ellen joined Fanny and the 
 others. It was scarcely the place to make an announce 
 ment. After a few words of greeting the young couple 
 walked off together, and left the Brewsters and Tennys 
 and Mrs. Zelotes standing on the outskirts of the crowd 
 watching the fireworks. Granville Joy stood near 
 them. He had looked at Robert and Ellen with a white 
 
 561 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 face, then he turned again towards the fireworks with a 
 gentle, heroic expression. He caught up Amabel that 
 she might see the set piece which was just being put up. 
 "Now you can see, Sissy/ he said. 
 
 Eva looked away from the fireworks after the retreat 
 ing pair, then meaningly at Fanny and Andrew. 
 "That s settled," said she. 
 
 Andrew s face quivered a little, and took on some 
 thing of the same look which Granville Joy s wore. 
 CA11 love is at the expense of love, and calls for 
 ^heroes. 
 
 "It 11 be a great thing for her," said Fanny, in his 
 ear ; " it 11 be a splendid thing for her, you know that, 
 Andrew." 
 
 Andrew gazed after the nodding roses on Ellen s hat 
 vanishing towards the right. Another rocket shot up, 
 and the people cried out, and watched the shower of stars 
 with breathless enjoyment. Andrew saw their up 
 turned faces, in which for the while toil and trial were 
 blotted out by that delight in beauty and innocent pleas 
 ure of the passing moment which is, for human souls, 
 akin to the refreshing showers for flowers of spring; 
 and to him, since his own vision was made clear by 
 his happiness, came a mighty realization of it all, which 
 w^s_beyond it all. Another rocket described a wonder 
 ful golden curve of grace, then a red light lit all the 
 watching people. Andrew looked for Ellen and Robert, 
 and saw the girl s beautiful face turning backward 
 over her lover s shoulder. All his life Andrew had 
 been a reader of the Bible, as had his father and mother 
 before him. To-day, ever since he had heard of his 
 good fortune, his mind had dwelt upon certain verses 
 of Ecclesiastes. Now he quoted from them. "Live 
 joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days 
 of the life of thy vanity, which He hath given thee under 
 the sun, all the days of thy vanity, for that is thy por- 
 
 562 
 
THE PORTION OF LABOR 
 
 tion in this life and in thy labor which thou takest under 
 the sun." 
 
 Ellen saw her father, and smiled and nodded, then 
 she and her lover passed out of sight. Another rocket 
 trailed its golden parabola along the sky, and dropped 
 with stars; there was an ineffably sweet strain from 
 the orchestra ; the illuminated oaks tossed silver and 
 golden boughs in a gust of fragrant wind. Andrew 
 quoted again from the old King of Wisdom "^with 
 held not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced 
 in all my labor, and that was my portion of labor/ 
 Then Andrew thought of the hard winter which had 
 passed, as all hard things must pass, of the toilsome 
 lives of those beside him, of all the work which they 
 had done with their poor, knotted hands, of the tracks 
 which they had worn on the earth towards their graves, 
 with their weary feet, and suddenly he seemed to 
 grasp a new and further meaning for that verse of Ec- 
 clesiastes. 
 
 \ He seemed to see that labor is not alone for itself, 
 not for what it accomplishes of the tasks of the world, 
 not for its equivalent in silver and gold, not even for 
 the end of human happiness and love, but f or t,he growth 
 in character of the laborer .0 ovv ^ < 
 
 "That is the portion of labor/ he said. He spoke 
 in a strained, solemn voice, as he had done before. 
 Nobody heard him except his wife and mother. His 
 mother gave a sidewise glance at him, then she folded 
 her cape tightly around her and stared at the fire 
 works, but Fanny put her hand through his arm and 
 leaned her cheek against his shoulder. 
 
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