“Most folks is,” added Mrs. Rust.
“Doc’s a bad one to get up against,” observed Pretty. “If he’s going to make Will talk, our men-folk ’ll all get chasin’ gold. I don’t know, I’m sure. Seems to me a roast o’ beef in the cook-stove’s worth a whole bunch o’ cattle that ain’t yours. Well, I’ll get on to home, an’ get busy on the children’s summer suitings––if you can call such stuff as Abe sells any sort o’ suitings at all. Good-bye, girls.”
She left the matrons and hurried away. A moment later Jane Restless went on to the butcher’s, while Mrs. Rust pottered heavily along to Smallbones’ store to obtain some iron bolts for her husband.
But these good women wronged Annie Gay when they hinted at time-serving to Eve on account of the money her husband was making. Her friendship for Eve was of much too long standing, and much too disinterested for it to be influenced by the other’s sudden rise to prosperity. As a matter of fact it made her rejoice at the girl’s sudden turn of fortune. She was cordially, unenviously glad of it.
She found Eve hard at work at her sewing-machine, in the midst of an accumulation of dress stuff, such as might well have appalled one unused to the business. But the busy rush of the machine, and the concentrated attitude of the sempstress, displayed neither confusion nor worry beyond the desire to complete that which she was at work on.
Eve glanced up quickly as Annie came in. She gave her a glance of welcome, and silently bent over her work again. Annie possessed herself of a chair and watched. 200 She liked watching Eve at work. There was such a whole-hearted determination in her manner, such a businesslike directness and vigor.
But just now there was more to hold her interest. The girl was not looking well. Her sweet young face was looking drawn, and, as she had told her that very morning, she looked like a woman who had gone through all the trials of rearing a young family on insufficient means. Now she was here she meant to have it out with Eve. She was going to abandon her rôle of sympathetic onlooker. She was going to delve below the surface, and learn the reason of Eve’s present unsmiling existence.
All this she thought while the busy machine rattled down the cloth seams of Jane Restless’s new fall suit. The low bent head with its soft wavy hair held her earnest attention, the bending figure, so lissome, yet so frail as it swayed to the motion of the treadle. She watched and watched, waiting for the work to be finished, her heart aching for the woman whom she knew to be so unhappy.
How she would have begun her inquiries she did not know. Nor did she pause to think. It was no use. She knew Eve’s proud, self-reliant disposition, and the possibilities of her resenting any intrusion upon her private affairs. But she was spared all trouble in this direction, for suddenly the object of her solicitude looked up, raised her needle, and drew the skirt away from the machine.
“Thank goodness that’s done,” she exclaimed. Then she leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms and eased her aching back. “Annie, I’m sick of it all. Sick to death. It’s grind, grind, grind. No lightness, nothing but dark, uncheered work.” She turned her eyes to the 201 window with a look of sorrowful regret. “Look at the sunlight outside. It’s mocking, laughing. Bidding us come out and gather fresh courage to go on, because it knows we can’t. I mean, what is the use of it if we do go out? It is like salt water to the thirsty man. He feels the moisture he so needs, and then realizes the maddening parching which is a hundred times worse than his original state. Life’s one long drear, and––and I sometimes wish it were all over and done with.”