Janet laughed scornfully. "Give it to him straight! Oh, yes, I gave it to him straight all right!" She shivered and clenched her hands. "I can talk! That's where we come in strong. Take the women in this tenement and they've all got tongues as sharp as ice-picks. Any one of them can talk a man to death. But what does it all amount to? Nothing! I tell you, Rosie, they've got the bulge on us, for, as soon as we make things hot for them, all they've got to do is clear out!" Janet sighed unhappily. "Then they pay us back by not coming home and when they get injured or pulled in it all comes out that it's our fault because we haven't made home pleasant for them. Huh! They always make it so awful pleasant for us, don't they?"
Rosie felt helpless and uncomfortable. Her own life had problems of its own but, compared to Janet's, how trivial they seemed, how inconsequential. And, by a like comparison, how inviting her own home suddenly appeared. She thought of it, ordinarily, as an overcrowded untidy little house where everybody was under every one else's feet. Not so this morning. This morning it was home as home should be, the centre of a very real family life supported by a father's industry and a mother's devotion. They were poor, of course, but not overwhelmingly so, for they had enough to eat and enough to wear. And, best of all, they loved each other. In the past Rosie had not always known this, but she knew it now. They loved each other and, without thinking anything about it, they were ready to stand by each other. Beneath all family discord there was a harmony, a family harmony, the burden of which was: all for one and one for all. A wave of homesickness swept over Rosie. She wanted to be off without the loss of another moment. Her hands reached out eagerly for the many tasks, the dear, the wearying tasks that were awaiting them.
"Well, Janet, I'm sorry, but I think I must go. You know Geraldine has to have her bath and I've got to go marketing. If you hurry, though, I'll help with the dishes first."
"No," Janet said. "You run along if you have to. I can do the dishes alone."
Rosie paused a moment longer. "You know if you want to you can come and have dinner with us, Janet."
Janet shook her head. "Thanks, but I won't have time. I've got to go to all of mother's customers and tell them she's sick, and I go to the hospital early in the afternoon."
"Then when will I see you?"
"I don't know unless you come and sleep with me again tonight."
"I don't see how I can, Janet." At that moment the thought of spending another night away from her beloved family was more than Rosie could bear. "You know, Janet, I've got so many things to do at home. Geraldine needs me all the time and so does ma and——"
"Yes, yes, Rosie, I understand. And I don't blame you one bit for liking it better at home."