“What do you see?”
“You HAVE been at him about it!”
“Not one single word!”
“No!” Alice cried. “Not a WORD, but that's what you've meant all along! You haven't spoken the words to him, but all this urging him to change, to 'find something better to go into'—it's all been about nothing on earth but your foolish old glue factory that you know upsets him, and you gave your solemn word never to speak to him about again! You didn't say it, but you meant it—and he KNOWS that's what you meant! Oh, mama!”
Mrs. Adams, with her hands still automatically at work in the flooded dishpan, turned to face her daughter. “Alice,” she said, tremulously, “what do I ask for myself?”
“What?”
“I say, What do I ask for myself? Do you suppose I want anything? Don't you know I'd be perfectly content on your father's present income if I were the only person to be considered? What do I care about any pleasure for myself? I'd be willing never to have a maid again; I don't mind doing the work. If we didn't have any children I'd be glad to do your father's cooking and the housework and the washing and ironing, too, for the rest of my life. I wouldn't care. I'm a poor cook and a poor housekeeper; I don't do anything well; but it would be good enough for just him and me. I wouldn't ever utter one word of com——”
“Oh, goodness!” Alice lamented. “What IS it all about?”
“It's about this,” said Mrs. Adams, swallowing. “You and Walter are a new generation and you ought to have the same as the rest of the new generation get. Poor Walter—asking you to go to the movies and a Chinese restaurant: the best he had to offer! Don't you suppose I see how the poor boy is deteriorating? Don't you suppose I know what YOU have to go through, Alice? And when I think of that man upstairs——” The agitated voice grew louder. “When I think of him and know that nothing in the world but his STUBBORNNESS keeps my children from having all they want and what they OUGHT to have, do you suppose I'm going to hold myself bound to keep to the absolute letter of a silly promise he got from me by behaving like a crazy man? I can't! I can't do it! No mother could sit by and see him lock up a horn of plenty like that in his closet when the children were starving!”
“Oh, goodness, goodness me!” Alice protested. “We aren't precisely 'starving,' are we?”