Part 48 (2/2)
”I don't want to be anything.”
”Don't you want to do something?”
”No.”
”But, Rosie dear, that's no way to talk. You know you can't sit through life with folded hands, doing nothing.”
Rosie protested: ”But, Danny, I don't expect to do nothing. I know I have to work and I do work, too. You ask ma. I take care of Geraldine night and day, and you needn't think it isn't a big job taking care of a baby, because it is. And I used to take care of Jarge Riley, too. Old Mis' Riley herself told me I took as good care of him as she did. And she meant it, too. Oh, I could just work forever for Geraldine and Jarge.”
Danny looked at her a few moments in silence. ”Rosie dear,” he said gently, ”pull your chair over close. I want to talk to you.”
Rosie obeyed and, after a slight pause, Danny continued: ”You're troubled about Jarge, aren't you, Rosie?”
Rosie's eyes filled with tears. ”I suppose I am, Danny.”
”Rosie,” Danny asked slowly, ”are you in love with Jarge?”
The question startled Rosie. She stared blankly through her tears. ”Why, Danny, how can you say a thing like that? I'm only a little girl and Jarge is a grown man!”
”But you'd like to take care of him all the time, wouldn't you, Rosie?”
Rosie nodded. ”You bet I would! If I could have just Jarge and Geraldine, I wouldn't care how hard I'd have to work! I'd do anything for both of them. Don't you know, Danny, I just feel like they're _mine_!”
”I thought so, Rosie.” Danny sighed and cleared his throat. ”Now listen carefully, Rosie, what I've got to say. As you say yourself you're only a little girl now, but in a few years you'll be a big girl, as big as Ellen is today. And then perhaps, Rosie, you'll be marrying some one.”
”No, Danny, no!” Rosie cried. ”I don't want to be marrying some one, honest I don't!”
Danny waved aside the interruption. ”As I was saying, perhaps you'll be marrying some one, and then after while you'll be having babies of your own.”
”Oh, Danny!” A look of wonder, almost of ecstasy, spread over Rosie's face. Instinctively her arms reached out for the precious burden of the future. ”Do you really mean it, Danny?” she whispered. ”My _own_!”
”Yes, Rosie, I mean it. And you'll be a wonderful mother, for you'll know how to feed your children properly and take proper care of them.
But in one way, Rosie, I fear you'll be a pretty poor mother.”
The light in Rosie's eyes went out. ”Why do you say that, Danny?”
”You won't be able to help them in their schoolin' and they'll probably all turn out poor ignur'nt b'ys and girls, with no opportunity to rise in the world. And if they do get on in school, they'll soon be scornin'
their poor mother and lookin' down on her because she hasn't had the education she might have had. And when their father sees how they feel, I'm afeared he'll begin feelin' the same and thinkin' he'd made an awful mistake marryin' such an ignur'nt woman.”
”Oh, Danny, stop! Stop!” Tears of self-pity already filled Rosie's eyes.
”So I say to you, Rosie, if I was a little girl, I'd want to keep on going to school even if I didn't expect to be a teacher. And for that matter, darlint, isn't a mother the greatest teacher in the world?
Aren't you yourself Geraldine's teacher every day of your life?”
Rosie's eyes stretched wide in surprise. ”Danny, I believe you're right!
A mother is a teacher, isn't she?”
”Sure she is, Rosie. And the better her own education is, the better chance she has of being a good teacher. That stands to reason, don't it now?”
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