At the minute when Junia Collingham was laying before her husband a plan which would bring comparative wealth to the Follett family, a number of things were happening in and about New York.
First, Lizzie Follett had dropped into a chair to think, an action rare with her. She generally thought as she whisked about her work, but this problem called for concentration. Briefly, it was as to how to cook the supper without heat. The gas-man had just gone away, and the gas for the range had been cut off because she couldn't pay a bill of twenty-nine dollars and sixty-seven cents, or anything on account. This was Wednesday, and she would have no more money till the children got their various pay-envelopes on Saturday.
Though in the back of her mind she blamed herself for an unwise distribution of the week's funds, it was one of those situations in which you blame yourself without seeing how you could have done otherwise. With six to feed, and all the subsidiary expenses of a family to meet, she had twenty-two dollars a week. Of his eighteen, Teddy gave her fifteen, three being needed for car fares and other small necessities. From the six she earned at the studio, Jennie contributed three. Gladys, who was now a cash girl on seven a week, was able to turn in four. Gussie brought nothing to the common fund as yet, for the reason that the three-fifty which Madame Corinne conceded for the privilege of "teaching her the millinery" allowed no margin over what she had to spend.
To Lizzie, during the past six months, life had become an exciting game. How to pay the minimum on every account and yet keep alive her credit had been the calculation with which she rose in the morning and lay down at night. It was a game that could be played successfully for two months, or three months, or four. When it came to six, the heaping-up of unpaid balances made it harder to go on.
It was making it impossible to go on. During the past fortnight she had found her credit stopped at three places in The Square where Pemberton Heights did its shopping. In vain she had tried to transfer her account elsewhere, but Pemberton Heights is no more than a huge village where the status of most families is known. More and more her small amount of cash was needed for cash purposes in order that the family might live.
Lizzie sat down to cast up her assets. She had the small remnants of a ham which could be eaten cold. She had bread and butter. If she could only make tea.... She might have done that in a neighbor's house, but she shrank from exposing a situation which a lucky stroke might change.
At the same moment Josiah was turning away from a wooden bar which shut off an office from the public. He had entered and stood there, meek, unobtrusive, trembling, while none of the young men or young women busy at desks or with one another paid him any attention. When a girl with hair combed over her ears, very bright eyes, and very short skirts, tripped by him accidentally, he managed to stammer out something in which she caught the word "job." The word being significant, and Josiah's appearance more so, she whispered to a gentleman, who left his desk and came forward.
"No; I'm very sorry. We can't do anything for you."
He hadn't waited for the word "job"; he hadn't waited for Josiah to speak at all. He knew the situation so well that his method was to end it there and then. Josiah turned away meekly as he had entered, and with no sinking of the heart. His heart used to sink; but that was four and five months previously, before he had exhausted his emotions. Now the bitterness of death was past. It had passed day by day and inch by inch, by stages of slow agony, leaving him with a dried soul that couldn't suffer any more.