The Portion of Labor

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

“I never saw so many stars,” she said to herself. She looked with wonder at the Milky Way, which was like a zone of diamond dust. Suddenly a mighty conviction of God, which was like the blazing forth of a new star, was in her soul. Ellen was not in a sense religious, and had never united with the Congregational Church, which she had always attended with her parents; she had never been responsive to efforts made towards her so-called conversion, but all at once, under the stars that night, she told herself with an absolute certainty of the truth of it. “There is something beyond everything, beyond the stars, and beyond all poor men, and beyond me, which is enough for all needs. We shall have our portion in the end.”

She had been feeling discouraged lately, although she would not own it even to herself. She saw Robert but seldom, and her aunt was no better. She often wondered if there could be anything before her but that one track of drudgery for daily bread upon which she had set out. She wondered if she ought not to say positively to Robert that there must be no thought of anything between them in the future. She wondered if she were not wronging him. Once or twice she had seen him riding with Miss Hemingway, and thought that, after all, that was a girl better suited to him, and perhaps if he had no hope whatever of her he might turn to the other to his own advantage. But to-night, with the clear stimulus of the frost in her lungs, and her eyes and soul dazzled with the multiplicity of stars, she began to have a great impetus of courage, like a soldier on the morning of battle. She felt as if she could fight for her joy and the joy of others, and victory would in the end be certain; that the chances of victory ran to infinity, and could not be measured.

However, all the while, in spite of her stimulation of spirits, there was that vague sense of excitement, as over some impending crisis. That she could not throw off. Suddenly she found herself searching the road ahead of her, and often turning at the fancied sound of a footstep. She began to wish that her father had come with her; then she told herself how foolish she was, for he had a cold, and this keen air would have been sure to give him more. The electric-car passed her, and she had a grateful sense of companionship. She looked after its diminishing light in the distance, and almost wished that she had stopped it, but car-fares had to be counted carefully.

She began to dread unspeakably passing the factories. She told herself that there was no sense in it, that it was not late, that the electric-light made it like high noon, that there was a watchman in each building, that there was nothing whatever to fear; but it was in vain. It was only by a great effort of her will that she did not turn and go back home when she reached Lloyd's.

Lloyd's came first; then, a few rods farther, on the other side of the street, McGuire's, and then Briggs's.

Ellen had a library book under her arm, and she clutched her dress-skirt firmly. A terror as to the supernatural was stealing over her. She felt as she had when waking in the night from some dreadful dream, though all the time she was dinning in her ears how foolish she was. She saw the lantern of the night-watchman in Lloyd's moving down a stair which crossed a window.

She came opposite Lloyd's, and, just as she did so, saw a dark figure descending the right-hand flight of stairs from the entrance platform. She thought, from something in the carriage, that it was Mr. Lloyd, and hung back a little, reflecting that she would keep behind him all the way to town.

The man reached the ground at the foot of the stairs, then there was a flash of fire from the shadow underneath, and a shot rang out. Ellen did what she could never have counted upon herself for doing. She ran straight towards the man, who had fallen prostrate like a log, and was down on the ground beside him, with his head on her lap, shouting for the night-watchman, whose name was McLaughlin.

“McLaughlin!” she shouted. But there was no need of it, for he had heard the shot. The cry had not left Ellen's lips before she was surrounded by men, one of whom was Granville Joy, one was Dixon, and one was John Sargent.

Joy and Sargent had met down-town, and were walking home together, when the shot rang out, and they had rushed forward. Then there was McLaughlin, the watchman of Lloyd's, and the two watchmen from Briggs's and McGuire's came pelting down their stairs, swinging their lanterns.