"But, I don't see why some people have a right to make others unhappy."
"They haven't. No more than a body has a right to make herself unhappy. But they do it, all the same."
"One wouldn't mind making one big sacrifice, or two, or three, in a lifetime, if that were all. But, it seems, nothing is ever enough. You think you've vanquished one thing, and, before you know it, you've got it all to do over again. Has your life been that way, Mrs. Slawson? Does one never get through having to give up one's own wishes and will to the wishes and will of others?"
Mrs. Slawson stirred in silence for a moment the delicious brew simmering on the stove.
"Did you ever scrub a floor?" she asked, at length. "No, o' course you didn't. Mostly, ladies thinks scrubbin' floors is dretful low work. Well, it ain't. Scrubbin' floors'll learn you a lot o' other things, if you let it. In the first place, there's a right an' wrong way to it, same's there is to tonier jobs. If you're goin' to begrutch your elbow grease, an' ain't willin' to get down on your marra-bones, an' attend strictly to business, you ain't goin' to succeed. Well, we'll say, you scrubbed a spot, good an' clean. That ain't all. You got to keep goin' back on yourself, scrubbin' back over the places where you left off, else there'll be streaks, an' when your floor dries on you, the streaks'll show up, for all they're worth, an' give you dead away. As I make it out, it's just the same with livin'. If you begrutch takin' pains, an' keep your eye out, all the time, for fear you'll do a little more'n your share, why, you can take it from me, you're goin' to show streaks. You better never done it at all, than done it so's it'll be a dead give-away on you. You can't scrub clean with dirty water, an' you can't live clean, 'less you keep turnin' out all the messy feelin's you got in you, an' refillin' your heart with fresh, same's you would your water-pail. But, even when you've done your job right, oncet ain't goin' to be enough. You couldn't keep clean with one scrub-down, no matter how thora. It's got to be done over to-morra, an' the next day, an' so on. If a body don't like it, why, that don't change the fax any."
"But all of us don't have to scrub floors. And I don't see why, if one had what you call a job one didn't like, he couldn't change it. Just say: I won't live like this any longer. I'll have something better. If there aren't ways of breaking loose from things one hates, and making happiness for one's self, there ought to be. We should invent them."
"Well, p'raps you're right. They certaintly do a lot o' inventin' these days. They invented a way o' flyin' above the earth. But there's no way I know of you can sail over your own particular place in the world. After all's said an' done, you gotta come back home, an' just stand flat, with your two little feet planted square in the middle o' that state o' life onto which it's pleased the Lord to call you."
"Then you don't believe people have the right to make their own happiness?"
"Certaintly I do. I don't only think they have the right to, I think they gotta. People have the right to make their happiness out o' every last thing comes in their way. Every last scrap an' drop they find anywheres about. Same's you'd make a perfectly good patch-quilt out o' the rag-bag, an' A1 soap out o' drippin's. Any gener'l houseworker at five dollars per, can make a roast out o' a prime cut o' beef. Any fool can be happy, if they're handed out happiness in chunks. But it takes a chef-cook to gather up all the sort o' queer little odds an' ends in the pantry, an' season'm here, an' whip'm up there, an' put'm on a dish, garnished with parsley, or smothered in cream, an' give'm a fancy French name on a menoo-card, so's when they come on the table, you smack your lips, an' say 'dee-licious!' an' feel you got your money's worth."
"But if one has tried and tried? And it was no use? Things only got more tangled?"