"Was your mother an invalid?" asked Joan, a little startled by this breadth of tolerance.
"Oh, no. But kids come along once a year regular, and she wasn't ever, so to speak, well. I made up my mind when I wasn't more than ten never to get myself in the fix Ma was in!... My two older sisters felt that way, too, I guess. They always had fellows, but not the sort that'd do to marry. Men like Pa, you know. No 'count—One of the girls worked at a dressmaker's, and sewed till her eyes were red all the time, and her shoulders stooped and she coughed. The other—well, the other didn't keep straight, dearie. Awful few of the girls I knew did keep straight. But Mame went into one of those houses—you know?—and had a lot of swell clothes, and jewelry and all. I remember all us younger ones used to envy her. But she didn't last long at it, and she died—horrible."
Effie May's eyes were fixed on strange places, and the tragedy of the world was in them.
"She used to be a pretty thing, Mame; and sweet, too.... Well, it seemed to me there ought to be something better for a girl than marrying a man like Pa and slaving, or getting a good job like Jule's and slaving, or going wrong like Mame and slaving worst of all! Once when I was out delivering dresses for the dressmaker where Jule worked, I saw what I was looking for. Society women. Ladies.
"That's what I'm going to be," I says to myself, "a Society woman! (I was about twelve then.) You don't have to work, you live in a fine house and wear swell clothes, and you can keep as straight as you like.
"The others used to laugh at me, but Mom never did. She was real ambitious for her children, Mom was. 'You keep on thinkin' so and you'll get there,' she used to say. 'You're smart and pretty enough for anything!' And so I was, then!" Effie May gave a sigh.
"A fellow come along presently that looked pretty good to me. I met him over to Casey's dance-hall, I remember, and from the first it was all up with him. He was better than the fellows I'd been running with; a good dresser, always flashing his roll—you know race-horse people used to make good money before the Pari-Mutuels—And when he wanted me to come over here to Louisville with him—well, it looked to be my chance—Imagine starting out to be a lady, in company with Joe Markheim!" said Effie May grimly.
Joan exclaimed, "Not that dreadful-looking creature you were talking with to-day?"
The other nodded. "Only he wasn't dreadful-looking then. He was real handsome—or he looked that way to me. You see I was only sixteen," she sighed. "Almost anything in pants that'd take me away from home would have looked good to me then, I guess!—But I talked to Mom about it, and she thought I'd better take a chance, too. So I went."
The girl had begun to shiver a little. "You mean—you married him?"