Diantha cleared the table, lowered the leaves, set it back against the wall, spreading the turkey-red cloth upon it. She washed the dishes,—her kettle long since boiling, scalded them, wiped them, set them in their places; washed out the towels, wiped the pan and hung it up, swiftly, accurately, and with a quietness that would have seemed incredible to any mistress of heavy-footed servants. Then with heightened color and firm-set mouth, she took her place by the lamplit table and sat still.
Her mother was patiently darning large socks with many holes—a kind of work she specially disliked. “You'll have to get some new socks, Father,” she ventured, “these are pretty well gone.”
“O they'll do a good while yet,” he replied, not looking at them. “I like your embroidery, my dear.”
That pleased her. She did not like to embroider, but she did like to be praised.
Diantha took some socks and set to work, red-checked and excited, but silent yet. Her mother's needle trembled irregularly under and over, and a tear or two slid down her cheeks.
Finally Mr. Bell laid down his finished paper and his emptied pipe and said, “Now then. Out with it.”
This was not a felicitious opening. It is really astonishing how little diplomacy parents exhibit, how difficult they make it for the young to introduce a proposition. There was nothing for it but a bald statement, so Diantha made it baldly.
“I have decided to leave home and go to work,” she said.
“Don't you have work enough to do at home?” he inquired, with the same air of quizzical superiority which had always annoyed her so intensely, even as a little child.
She would cut short this form of discussion: “I am going away to earn my living. I have given up school-teaching—I don't like it, and, there isn't money enough in it. I have plans—which will speak for themselves later.”