CHAPTER XXII
The four women were standing in the driveway by the side of the house, and if you had been there as Mary approached, they might have reminded you of four lost sheep catching sight of their shepherd.
"Come and sit down," said Mary, "and tell me what's the matter."
"We've been discharged," said one with a red face. "Of course I know that we shouldn't have come to bother you about it, Miss Spencer, but it was you who hired us, and I told him, said I, 'Miss Spencer's going to hear about this. She won't stand for any dirty work.'"
Mary had seated herself on the veranda steps and, obeying her gesture, the four women sat on the step below her, two on one side and two on the other.
"Who discharged you?" she asked.
"Mr. Woodward."
"Which Mr. Woodward?"
"The young one—Burdon."
"What did he discharge you for?"
"That's it. That's the very thing I asked him."
"Perhaps they need your places for some of the men who are coming back."
"No, ma'm. We wouldn't mind if that was it, but there's nobody expected back this week."
"Then why is it?"
There was a moment's hesitation, and then the one who had been crying said, "It's because we're women."
A shadow of unconscious indignation swept over Mary's face and, seeing it, the four began speaking at once.
"Things have never been the same, Miss Spencer, since you were sick—"
"First they shut down the nursery—"
"Then the rest room—said it was a bad example for the men—"
"A bad example for the men, mind you—us!"
"And then the canteen was closed—"
"And behind our backs, they called us 'Molls.'"
"Not that I care, but 'Molls,' mind you—"
"Then they began hanging signs in our locker room—"
"'A woman's place is in the home' and things like that—"
"And then they began putting us next to strange men—"
"And, oh, their language, Miss Spencer—"
"Don't tell her—"
As the chorus continued, Mary began to feel hot and uncomfortable. "I had no right to leave them in the lurch like that," she thought, and her cheeks stung as she recalled her old plans, her old visions.
"And now they've got to go back to their kitchens for the rest of their lives—and told they are not wanted anywhere else—because they are women—"
The more she thought about it, the warmer she grew; and the higher her indignation arose, the more remote were her thoughts of Wally—Wally with his greatest adventure that was ever lived—Wally with his sweetest story ever told. She looked at the hands of the two women below her and saw three wedding rings.
"The roses and lilies didn't last long with them," thought Mary grimly. "Oh, I'm sure it's all wrong, somehow…. I'm sure there's some way that things could be made happier for women…."
She interrupted the quartette, in her voice a note which Wally had never heard before and which made him exchange a glance with Helen.
"Now first of all," she said, "just how badly do you four women need your pay envelopes every week?"
They told her, especially the one who had been crying, and who now started crying again.
"Wait here a minute, please," said Mary, that note in her voice more marked than before. She arose and went in the house, and Wally guessed that she had gone to telephone the factory. For a while they couldn't hear her, except when she said "I want to speak to Mr. Burdon Woodward—yes—Mr. Burdon Woodward—"
They could faintly hear her talking then, but toward the end her voice came full and clear.
"I want you to set them to work again! They are coming right back! Yes, the four of them! I shall be at the office in the morning. That's all. Good-bye."
She came out, then, like a young Aurora riding the storm.
"You're to go right back to your work," she said, and in a gentler voice,
"Wally, can I speak to you, please?"
He followed her into the house and when he came out alone ten minutes later, he drew a deep sigh and sat down again by Helen, a picture of utter dejection.
"Never mind, Wally," she said, and patted his arm.
"I can't make her out at times," he sighed.
"No, and nobody else," she whispered.
"What do you think, Helen?" he asked. "Don't you think that love is the greatest thing in life?"
"Why, of course it is," she whispered, and patted his arm again.