"Oh, Mother," almost sobbed Helen, "that will be good; only," she nodded after a pause, "it won't help Father a bit. The money ought to come out of somebody else's pocket, not his."
"That's true," admitted Mrs. Morton, "but I should have to pay some one to do the work, so why not you? Unless, of course, you wanted to help Father by contributing your work."
"That sounds as if I didn't want to help Father or I'd do it for nothing," exclaimed Helen. "I do really want to help Father, but I want to do it by relieving Father of spending money for me. I'd like to pay my board!"
"This generation doesn't seem to understand family co-operation," said Grandfather Emerson.
"I do want to co-operate," insisted Helen. "I just said I'd like to pay my board and co-operate by contributing to the family expenses in that way. What I don't want is to have any work I do taken for granted just as if we were still pioneers in the wilderness when every member of the family had to give the labor of his hands. I'm willing to work—I'm trying to induce Mother to let me work—but I want a definite value put on it just as there will be a definite value put on Roger's work when he gets started. I'd like to make the middy blouses for the Ethels and have Mother pay me what they were worth, and then pay Mother for my board. Then I should feel that I was really earning my living. That's the way Roger will do when he's earning a salary. Why shouldn't I do it?"
Helen stopped, breathless. She was too young to realize it, but it was the cry of her time that she was trying to express—the cry of the woman to be considered as separate as the man, to be an individual.
"I understand," said Mrs. Morton soothingly; "but suppose you begin in the way I suggest; and meanwhile we'll put our minds on what you will do after you leave college. There are a good many years yet before you need actually to go out into the world."
"Then I may go this morning and arrange for my lessons?"
"Certainly you may."
"And—and I'm sorry I've done all the talking this morning," apologized Helen. "I'm afraid it hasn't been a very pleasant breakfast."