The nourishment, slight as it was, proved sufficient. On the days she had gone lunchless, she had developed headaches late in the afternoon, but the coffee and crackers, she found, were enough to sustain her from a seven o’clock breakfast to dinner at six-thirty. A nickel for lunch, a dime for carfare—sometimes she walked downtown—took less than a dollar out of her weekly wage. That left fourteen dollars to spend as she liked. She gave her mother nine and kept five for clothes. Five dollars a week for new clothes! Her heart never failed to leap with joy at the thought. Five dollars a week to save or to spend for whatever she fancied! Oh, life was too wonderful! Just to exist these days and to plan how she would dress herself, and what else she would do with her earnings, filled her cup of joy to the brim.
Her little mother protested vehemently when she put nine dollars in crisp bills into her hand at the end of the first week of work.
“Oh—dearie! What’s this? ... What’s all this money for?”
“It’s what I’m going to give you every week, Mama.”
Mrs. Sturgis for a moment was speechless, gazing with wide eyes into her daughter’s smiling face. She wouldn’t accept it. She wouldn’t hear of such a thing. It was the child’s own money that she had earned herself and not one cent of it should go for any old stupid bills or household expenses. She shook her head until her round fat cheeks trembled like cupped jelly.
But Jeannette had her way, as she knew, and her mother knew, and admiring, exclaiming Alice knew she would from the first. That same evening, after the pots and pans and the supper dishes had been washed, Mrs. Sturgis established herself under the light at the dining-room table with the canvas-covered ledger before her and began to figure. Thirty-six dollars a month! Thirty-six dollars a month! Six times six? That was ...? Why, they’d almost be out of debt in six months! And they wouldn’t need to fall behind a cent during summer! It was wonderful! It was too—too wonderful! Tears filmed Mrs. Sturgis’ bright blue eyes; her glasses fogged so that she had to take them off and wipe them. She didn’t deserve such daughters! No woman ever had better girls!
They got laughing happily, excitedly over this, an hysterical sob threatening each. They kissed each other, the girls kneeling by their mother’s chair, their arms around one another, and clung together. And then Alice said she had half a mind to go to work, too, and do her share.
But there was an immediate outcry at this from both her mother and sister. What nonsense! What a foolish idea! She mustn’t think of such a thing! Just because Jeannette had given up her schooling and gone out into the world was no reason why both sisters should do it. There was not the slightest necessity. Alice’s place was at school and at home. Some one had to run the house; that was her contribution. She was fitted for it in every way: she was domestic, she liked to cook and she liked to clean.
A still more convincing argument that persuaded apologetic Alice that indeed she was quite wrong, and her mother and sister were entirely right, was voiced by Jeannette. Alice had much too retiring a nature to be a success in business. Assurance, self-assertiveness, even boldness were required, and Alice had none of these qualities. This was undeniably true; they all agreed to it. It seemed to be the last word on the matter; the topic was dismissed. Mrs. Sturgis went back to figuring on her bills; Jeannette to speculating about Roy Beardsley as she darned a tear in an old shirtwaist.
“I’ve often wondered,” ventured Alice after a considerable pause, “just what I should do,—how I could support myself if both of you happened to die. I mean—well, if Jeannette should go off somewhere,—to Europe, maybe,—and Mother should get sick, and I should have to....”