She laid a newspaper down by the sink to keep it clean when she was done, and then straightened herself up and rested for a moment, wondering if the ache would ever go out of her back and knees again. It wasn’t just the scrubbing the floor, nor the working hard to get dinner; it was the culmination of the days since she had left home.
But she must not take time to think how tired she was. There were the dishes yet to wash, and the table to clear. All those dishes! How long the evening looked ahead! They were rising from the table at last and she must hurry with the dishes already there and get them out of the way.
So she went at the dish-pan again, her fingers flying as though she had just begun after a good night’s rest. And one by one, dozen by dozen, those dishes were marshaled again into shining freshness, and the table cleared.
She had just decided that she would slip out the back door and let Mrs. Powers send her the ten dollars when she got ready, when she heard the pantry door open and Mrs. Powers stood in it, surveying her coldly, a crisp ten dollar bill in her hand.
“Oh, you’re going! I was going to ask you to wipe up this floor before you left—”
She paused and glanced down at the shining floor, from which Joyce had just removed the newspapers. She seemed a trifle flustered.
“Oh, you’ve done it. Well, that’s all right. I never feel that a girl has finished until she has cleaned her kitchen.”
She handed out the money and Joyce took it as though it had been a hot coal that she wasn’t sure but she wanted to throw out the back door. Of course she had earned it, earned it hard, but it went against every grain in her body to take it. She felt humiliated and dragged in the dust.
“Surely He shall deliver thee!”
She drew a long breath. It was almost over. She was free to go at last.