The Red Cross ladies discussed the matter among themselves and decided that some one should put the matter before Mrs. Tweed and tell her how hard she was making it for the other dependents of soldiers. The president was selected for the task, which did not at first sight look like a pleasant one, but Mrs. Kent had done harder things than this, and she set out bravely to call on the wayward lady.
The D.O.E. visitor who called on all the soldiers' wives in that block had reported that Mrs. Tweed had actually put her out, and told her to go to a region which is never mentioned in polite society except in theological discussions.
"I know," Mrs. Tweed said, when the Red Cross President came to see her, "what you are coming for, and I don't blame you—I sure have been fierce, but you don't know what a good time I've had. Gee, it's great! I've had one grand tear!—one blow-out! And now I am almost ready to be good. Sit down, and I'll tell you about it; you have more give to you than that old hatchet-face that came first; I wouldn't tell her a thing!
"I am twenty-five years old, and I never before got a chance to do as I liked. When I was a kid, I had to do as I was told. My mother brought me up in the fear of the Lord and the fear of the neighbors. I whistled once in church and was sent to bed every afternoon for a week—I didn't care, though, I got in my whistle. I never wanted to do anything bad, but I wanted to do as I liked—and I never got a chance. Then I got married. William is a lot older than I am, and he controlled me—always—made me economize, scrimp, and save. I really did not want to blow money, but they never gave me a chance to be sensible. Every one put me down for a 'nut.' My mother called me 'Trixie.' No girl can do well on a name like that. Teachers passed me from hand to hand saying, 'Trixie is such a mischief!' I had a reputation to sustain.
"Then mother and father married me off to Mr. Tweed because he was so sensible, and I needed a firm hand, they said. I began everything in life with a handicap. Name and appearance have always been against me. No one can look sensible with a nose that turns straight up, and I will have bright colors to wear—I was brought up on wincey, color of mud, and all these London-smoke, battleship-gray colors make me sick. I want reds and blues and greens, and I am gradually working into them."
She held out a dainty foot as she spoke, exhibiting a bright-green stocking striped in gold.
"But mind you, for all I am so frivolous, I am not a fool exactly. All I ask is to have my fling, and I've had it now for three whole months. When William was at home I never could sit up and read one minute, and so the first night he was away I burned the light all night just to feel wicked! It was great to be able to let it burn. I've gone to bed early every night for a week to make up for it. What do you think of that? It is just born in me, and I can't help it. If William had stayed at home, this would never have showed out in me. I would have gone on respectable and steady. But this is one of the prices we pay for bringing up women to be men's chattels, with some one always placed in authority over them. When the authority is removed, there's the devil to pay!"
The President of the Red Cross looked at her in surprise. She had never thought of it this way before; women were made to be protected and shielded; she had said so scores of times; the church had taught it and sanctioned it.
"The whole system is wrong," Mrs. Tweed continued, "and nice women like you, working away in churches ruled by men, have been to blame. You say women should be protected, and you cannot make good the protection. What protection have the soldiers' wives now? Evil tongues, prying eyes, on the part of women, and worse than that from the men. The church has fallen down on its job, and isn't straight enough to admit it! We should either train our women to take their own part and run their own affairs, or else we should train the men really to honor and protect women. The church has done neither. Bah! I could make a better world with one hand tied behind my back!"
"But, Mrs. Tweed," said the president, "this war is new to all of us—how did we know what was coming? It has taken all of us by surprise, and we have to do our bit in meeting the new conditions. Your man was never a fighting man—he hates it; but he has gone and will fight, although he loathes it. I never did a day's work outside of my home until now, and now I go to the office every day and try to straighten out tangles; women come in there and accuse me of everything, down to taking the bread out of their children's mouths. Two of them who brought in socks the other day said, 'Do you suppose the soldiers ever see them?' I did all I could to convince them that we were quite honest, though I assure you I felt like telling them what I thought of them. But things are abnormal now, everything is out of sorts; and if we love our country we will try to remedy things instead of making them worse. When I went to school we were governed by what they called the 'honor system.' It was a system of self-government; we were not watched and punished and bound by rules, but graded and ruled ourselves—and the strange thing about it was that it worked! When the teacher went out of the room, everything went on just the same. Nobody left her desk or talked or idled; we just worked on, minding our own affairs; it was a great system."