Her voice fell, and the light in her eyes seemed to burn low, like night-light, turned down.
"He says," she did not call her husband by name, but Pearl knew who was meant, "he says that a man can sell all his property here without his wife's signature, and do what he likes with the money. He wants to sell the farm and buy the hotel at Millford. I won't consent, but he tells me he can take the children away from me, and I would have to go with him then. He says this is a man's country, and men can do as they like. I wonder if you know what the law is?"
"I'm not sure," said Pearl. "I've heard the women talking about it, but I will find out. I will write to them. If that is the law it will be changed—any one could see that it is not fair. Lots of these old laws get written down and no one bothers about them—and they just stay there, forgotten—but any one would see that was not fair, 'Men would not be as unjust as that'!"
"You don't know them", said Mrs. Paine; "I have no faith in men. They've made the world, and they've made it to suit themselves. My husband takes his family cares as lightly as a tomcat. The children annoy him."
She spoke in jerky sentences, often moistening her dry lips, and there was something in her eyes which made Pearl afraid—the very air of the room seemed charged with discords. Pearl struggled to free her heart from the depressing influence.
"All men are not selfish," she said, "and I guess God has done the best He could to be fair to every one. It's some job to make millions of people and satisfy them all."
"Well, the Creator should take some responsibility," Mrs. Paine interrupted, "none of us asked to be born—I'm not God, but I take responsibility for my children. I did not want them, but now they are here I'll stand by them. That's why I've stayed as long as this. But God does not stand by me."
Her voice was colorless and limp like a washed ribbon. It had in it no anger, just a settled conviction.
"See here, Mrs. Paine," began Pearl, "you've been too long alone in the house. You begin to imagine things. You work too hard, and never go out, and that would make an archangel cross. You've just got to mix up more with the rest of us. Things are not half so black as they look to you."
"I could stand it all—until he said he could take away my home," the words seemed to come painfully. "I worked for this," she said, "and though it's small and mean—it's home. Every bit of furniture in this house I bought with my butter money. The only trees we have I planted. I sowed the flowers and dug the place to put them. While he is away buying cattle and shipping them, and making plenty of money—all for himself—I stay here and run the farm. I milk, and churn, and cook for hired men, and manage the whole place, and I've made it pay too, but he has everything in his own name. Now he says he can sell it and take the money…. Even a cat will fight and scratch for its hay-loft."