Part 15 (2/2)

”Don't you suppose he needed the money as much as she did?” she asked rather timidly.

”Mebbe he needed it more,” said Aunt Katharine. ”The Billingses are worse off than the Esteys, but that ain't the p'int. It's a good thing for a girl to be earning money. It's worth something to her to make a few cents, and know it's her own. That's what the girls need more 'n anything else, and I always help 'em every chance I get.”

Esther pondered for a minute without speaking. The old woman's eyes had taken on a look of deep seriousness. ”That's the root of all the trouble,” she said almost fiercely, ”this notion that the women must be forever dependent on the men, and take what's given 'em and be thankful, without trying to do for themselves. I tell you it was never meant that one half of the world should hang on the other half, and look to 'em for the shelter over their heads, and the food they eat, and the clothes they wear. It degrades 'em both.”

Esther stopped seeding raisins and looked at her aunt in astonishment.

An arraignment of the existing order of things such as she had not heard before was suggested here. Perhaps the very blankness of her expression appealed more than any protest to the old woman. The defiance went out of her voice, and it was almost a pleading tone in which she went on:-

”Don't you see what comes of it? Don't you see? It makes the girls think they must get married so 's to have a home and somebody to support 'em, and then they plan 'n' contrive-they 'n' their mothers with 'em-how to catch a husband.” She shut her lips hard, as if her loathing of the thing were too great for utterance, then went on: ”But small blame to 'em, I say, if that's the only thing a woman's fit for; small blame to 'em if they won't let her choose her work for herself and live by it, without calling shame on her for doing it. It's a little better now-thank G.o.d and the women that have been brave enough to go ahead in the face of it!-but I've seen the day when an old maid was looked on as something almost out of nature. 'Let a girl dance in the pig's trough,'

if her younger sister gets married before her. Let her own she's disgraced, and be done with it. That's the old saying, and the spirit of it ain't all dead yet. It never will be till women are as free as men to do whatever thing is _in 'em_ to do, and make the most of it.”

Her face had grown white as she talked, and the color had paled a little even in Esther's. ”Oh,” she said, ”I've thought of that, too. I've hated it when people talked as if there was nothing for girls but to get married.” The color came back with a quick flush as she added: ”I'd rather die than be scheming about that myself; but what can you do? Boys always talk about the work they mean to follow. People would think there was something wrong with them, if they didn't; but if girls say anything-I did try once to talk about what I could do to earn my own living, but father acted as if I was somehow reflecting on him, and mother-though I'm sure she understood me better-seemed worried and troubled.”

”That's it, that's it!” said Aunt Katharine, bitterly. ”Even those that say a woman's got a right to choose, say under their breath that she'll never be happy if it's anything but getting married. I tell you it's finding your own work and doing it that makes people happy, and that's a law for women as much as men.”

”But if you knew your work!” said Esther, piteously. ”It seems to me there are very few girls who have anything special they can do.”

”That's no more true of girls than 'tis of boys,” said Aunt Katharine.

”We should find something for one as well as for the other, _something_ they could work at, if we settled it once for all that they had the same right and need. But we've got to start with that idea right from the beginning.”

After that, during the time which remained of the visit, the talk came often into the circle of this thought. Sometimes Miss Saxon talked of the wrongs of women, of their inequality before the law, and of the tyranny of men, with a bitterness before which the girl shrank, but the very vehemence of the other's belief carried her with it, and through it all one thing grew more and more clear to her. It was not hatred of men, but love of her own s.e.x, which lay at the bottom of Katharine Saxon's defiance of the social order. The longing to help women, to lift them into what seemed to her a larger, freer living, had laid hold of her wholly, and held her in the white heat of its consuming pa.s.sion.

Once, when she had been speaking of the struggle which lay before any woman confronted with the problem of supporting a family, Esther said softly: ”Grandpa told me about you one night, Aunt Katharine; how you gave up everything and worked so hard to help your sister when she came home with her children. I thought that was grand.”

The old woman did not speak for a moment, then she said, with a singular lack of emotion in her voice: ”Poor Nancy! Yes, I thought then 'twas my duty to do what I did, and mebbe 'twas; but sometimes I've thought-Nancy and her girls were only a han'ful out of the many-sometimes I've thought mebbe I might have done more good if I'd been fighting for 'em all. I gave the best fifteen years of my life to that old spinning-wheel, and scarcely looked out of my corner.” And then the lines of her face stiffened as she added: ”But I had my reward. I was saved from marrying-marrying Levi Dodge.”

The scorn in her voice as she said the last words was indescribable. For a while neither of them spoke. Then Esther said, leaning toward the other, her heart in her eyes, and her breath coming quick, ”Aunt Katharine, wouldn't you have women marry at all?”

She threw up her head with the quick, impatient movement which Esther had come to know so well. ”They might all marry and welcome,” she said,-”it's the Lord's way to preserve the race,-if only we could get rid of the notions that folks have joined onto it to spoil it.”

And then the note that was not of defiance, but pleading, came back to her voice, as she added: ”But I'd have some of the women that _see_ stay free from it till we've worked this thing out, and made a fair chance for those that come after us; I'd have 'em show that the world has some interests for women outside of their own homes, and some work they can do besides waiting on their husbands and children; I'd have 'em show that a woman ain't afraid nor ashamed to walk without leaning; and I'd have 'em keep their eyes open to see what's going on. I'd have 'em hold themselves clear of the danger of being blinded even by love to the things that need doing.”

No doubt there was much that was wholly vague to Esther Northmore in the vision of service which lay before the mind of Katharine Saxon. But the thought of some renunciation for the sake of others-some work, unselfish and lasting-what generous young soul has not at moments felt the thrill of it? Their eyes met in a glow of sympathy, if not of full understanding, and the clock ticked solemnly in a stillness which, for a minute, neither of them could break.

It was a light step at the open door which suddenly drew their attention. Kate was coming briskly up the walk with a letter in her hand.

”It's from home,” she said, as Esther rose to meet her, ”and I thought you ought to have it.”

She noticed the look of exaltation on her sister's face, and something she had never seen before in Aunt Katharine's. Her efforts at conversation met with little response. She was conscious of some atmosphere surrounding these two which she herself could not penetrate, and she was glad to slip away at the end of a very short call.

”They must have been talking about something awfully serious,” she said to Tom afterward. ”They looked as solemn as a pair of owls. I hope that girl of Aunt Katharine's will come home when she said she would. For my part, I think Esther's stayed there long enough.”

CHAPTER X

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