"What have you been reading about to-night?" Hertha questioned. "A young woman who doesn't know her own mind?"
"I reckon there're plenty of that sort," was the answer, "or if they do know what they want they'll never get it. I just read a modest advertisement in which a refined young woman, graduating from a school of stenography, says she wants a position with an agreeable gentleman. Hours short. How would you like that now?"
"I might like it, but I reckon after he tried me with one of his letters he wouldn't like me."
"Nonsense, then he wouldn't be agreeable."
Hertha was silent, and Mrs. Pickens, seeing that she was in no mood for banter, asked sympathetically, "You're mighty tired, honey?"
Her voice with its southern drawl reminded Hertha poignantly of her mammy. She longed childishly to put her head on the older woman's shoulder as she would have put it on her colored mother's, and be comforted. But she remained in her seat and answered with the single word, "Discouraged."
"It's too hot to work," Mrs. Pickens said soothingly. "I've managed myself to-day to spoil ten pounds of perfectly good fruit."
"What a shame!" Hertha was alert at the disaster. "Why wasn't I here to help you! I know how to cook."
"You're a clever girl. You know the things you ought to know which is a lot more than I do, having been spoilt in my youth. And the things you don't know aren't worth worrying over."
"I don't seem to know how to earn my own living."