“Yes,” answered Meg, unflinchingly, “I know I could. I’m strong for my age, and I’ve watched them doing things there. I can wash pans and bowls and cloths, and carry things about, and go anywhere I’m told. I know how clean things have to be kept.”
“AUNT MATILDA,” SHE SAID, SUDDENLY.
“Well,” said Aunt Matilda, looking her over sharply, “they’ve been complaining about the work being too much for them, lately. You go in there this morning and see what you can do. You shall have a dollar a week if you’re worth it. You’re right about its being time that you should begin earning something.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Meg, and she turned round and walked away in the direction of the dairy, with two deep red spots on her cheeks and her heart thumping again—though this time it thumped quickly.
She reached the scene of action in the midst of a rush of work, and after their first rather exasperated surprise at so immature and inexperienced a creature being supposed to be able to help them, the women found plenty for her to do. She said so few words and looked so little afraid that she made a sort of impression on them.
“See,” she said to the head woman, “Aunt Matilda didn’t send me to do things that need teaching. Just tell me the little things, it does not matter what, and I’ll do them. I can.”
How she worked that morning—how she ran on errands—how she carried this and that—how she washed and scrubbed milk-pans—and how all her tasks were menial and apparently trivial, though entirely necessary, and how the activity and rapidity and unceasingness of them tried her unaccustomed young body, and finally made her limbs ache and her back feel as if it might break at some unexpected moment, Meg never forgot. But such was the desperation of her indomitable little spirit and the unconquerable will she had been born with, that when it was over she was no more in the mood for giving up than she had been when she walked in among the workers after her interview with Aunt Matilda.
When dinner-time came she walked up to Mrs. Macartney, the manager of the dairy work, and asked her a question.
“Have I helped you?” she said.