The woman from whom I stole the three dollars, if she reads this, will recognize it. This will be inconvenient. I fervently hope she may not read it. It is true she is not of the kind that reads.
But, after all, it’s of no consequence. This Portrayal is Mary MacLane: her wooden heart, her young woman’s-body, her mind, her soul.
The world may run and read.
I will tell you what I did with the three dollars. In Dublin Gulch, which is a rough quarter of Butte inhabited by poor Irish people, there lives an old world-soured, wrinkled-faced woman. She lives alone in a small, untidy house. She swears frightfully like a parrot, and her reputation is bad—so bad, indeed, that even the old woman’s compatriots in Dublin Gulch do not visit her lest they damage their own. It is true that the profane old woman’s morals are not good—have never been good—judged by the world’s standards. She bears various marks of cold, rough handling on her mind and body. Her life has all but run its course. She is worn out.
Once in a while I go to visit this old woman—my reputation must be sadly damaged by now.
I sit with her for an hour or two and listen to her. She is extremely glad to have me there. Except me she has no one to talk to but the milkman, the groceryman, and the butcher. So always she is glad to see me. There is a certain bond of sympathy between her and me. We are fond of each other. When she sees me picking my way towards her house, her hard, sour face softens wonderfully and a light of distinct friendliness comes into her green eyes.
Don’t you know, there are few people enough in the world whose hard, sour faces will soften at sight of you and a distinctly friendly light come into their green eyes. For myself, I find such people few indeed.
So the profane old woman and I are fond of each other. No question of morals, or of immorals, comes between us. We are equals.
I talk to her a little—but mostly she talks. She tells me of the time when she lived in County Galway, when she was young—and of her several husbands, and of some who were not husbands, and of her children scattered over the earth. And she shows me old tin-types of these people. She has told me the varied tale of her life a great many times. I like to hear her tell it. It is like nothing else I have heard. The story in its unblushing simplicity, the sour-faced old woman sitting telling it, and the tin-types,—contain a thing that is absurdly, grotesquely, tearlessly sad.
Once when I went to her house I brought with me six immense, heavy, fragrant chrysanthemums.