Overtaking one of the attendants also on her way to the village, and finding her a companionable woman, I joined her. During our walk she told me that our fellow workers had looked me over, and decided that I “might” remain two days. That nettled me a bit, and I assured her of my intention to remain several weeks, perhaps the entire summer.
She inquired if Mrs. Howard had given me the schedule of my work.[work.] It so happened that an assistant had handed me two typed pages just as I was leaving to mail my letters. Though at first sight it did seem formidable I felt sure that by a little systematizing it would be well within my strength. Indeed my faith in Mrs. Howard was such that I resented the suggestion that she would overtax any worker.
Turning the conversation I soon learned that my companion was the widow of a well-known college professor. She had been “enticed,” she said, by an advertisement similar to the one I had answered.
“I did try to be careful,” she assured me, “because giving up the little I had in the way of a home meant so much to me. Once before I had been tricked by a woman. This time, to make sure that everything was all right, I came out to Rodman Hall and talked with Mrs. Howard. The place is so beautiful and that woman talked so fair I felt sure that I had found a comfortable home with congenial work for the balance of my life.” She shook her head, was silent for a few seconds, then added: “If I could I would leave to-morrow. As it is I’ve just got to stick it out until I get money enough to pay my way back to the West to my people.”
“But the other women!” I remonstrated, convinced that the woman was exaggerating conditions. “Surely refined, educated women——”
“Educated!” she scoffed. “Excepting Miss —— (naming the woman with whom I had talked) I don’t believe a one of them can do more than write her name. They are all foreigners. Do you know who she is?”
Admitting unwillingly that this woman had told me of having been the secretary of a man mixed up in some financial scandal, I added:
“But surely you don’t imagine that Mrs. Howard knows.”
“Don’t imagine she knows! I know she knows,” the clergyman’s widow declared. “That woman is one of Mrs. Howard’s standbys. Being an educated woman and fairly presentable, Mrs. Howard pushes her forward on any and all occasions. Did Mrs. Howard introduce you to any of the nurses?”
I shook my head.