“That’s why I want to see you do better, that’s why,” her mother responded. “It’s I that knows how foolish I was, I know it, and I don’t want you to go through all the strugglin’ I’ve had. ’F you marry a man like Mister Campbell, now, you’ll live in a swell apartment an’ you’ll have the things you want.”
“You don’t know what I want, ma,” Blanche said, sadly. “I want to be somebody, and find out what’s the reason for things, and use my head for something besides a hat-rack. Any girl can marry and let a man use her—there’s no trick in that. I’m tired of being just like other people—I want to act, ’r write, ’r paint, and make a name for myself. You think a woman shouldn’t do anything except have children and be as comfortable as she can. You can’t understand what I’m looking for, ma.”
“It’s I that can’t, it’s all foolishness to me,” her mother replied, perplexedly. “I don’t see why a woman should be anythin’ ’cept a good wife ’n’ a good mother, ’f she finds a man that’ll treat her right ’n’ provide f’r her. This bein’ somebody you’re always talkin’ about, I don’t see how it’ll ever make you happy, I don’t. It’s your heart that counts most, an’ nothin’ else. You never talked like this ’fore you met that Rosinburg. I’m glad you’re not goin’ to meet him again.”
“We’re both just wasting our words—let’s cut it out,” Blanche said, depressedly, as she walked into her room.
Her mother looked after her with a sorrowful, uncomprehending expression. What was her poor daughter coming to, with all this unlady-like nonsense, and all this refusing to listen to the counsel of her family, who only wanted her to have a happy and respected future. Well, maybe she’d change, now that she wasn’t seeing that Jew-fellow any more. Jews were human beings, but they were tricky and queer and always out after the money, and they had no right to be picking on Gentile girls.... Of course, if Blanche didn’t change, then her pa and Harry would have to take hold of her. She mustn’t be allowed to go to the dogs and ruin herself and her chances. While she, the mother, would never let the menfolks abuse her daughter or lay their hands on her, she still felt that they would have to act sternly to bring Blanche to her senses. It couldn’t be helped as long as Blanche refused to behave.
When Blanche rose on the following morning, Harry was still asleep, and they did not collide until she returned from work that night. The family were seated around the supper-table, and Mabel looked at Blanche, with curiosity and reproach interwoven, while her father squinted questioningly at her, and Philip squirmed in his chair, like some one waiting for a dynamite detonation. He hated family quarrels—you couldn’t agree with both sides and yet you were always expected to. He felt that the others were “too hard” on Blanche, and he hoped that she would give them a piece of her mind.
Harry had a nonchalant mien which placated the fear within him which he did not quite admit to himself—there was something about Blanche that he couldn’t fathom, and no matter how much he sought to squelch this alien foe, with word and action, it never died—a derided but still-threatening specter.
Blanche was silent until she had seated herself at the table, and then she burst forth.
“Harry, I’m going to tell you something—’f you ever beat up any one I’m with again, and try to order me around, I’ll break something over your head! Just try it once more and see what happens!”
“I’ll do that little thing,” Harry answered. “The last person I was afraid of, he died ten years ago.”