It is a sad sight to see the women plunged headlong into the fight for existence in such places, to witness the cruel iron thrust upon them its searing brand, to watch all the natural softness of their sex harden to the necessary degree for a successful issue to the battle, to witness their frequent unsexing and ultimate degradation. Such results are common enough when a woman enters the lists. It is so often a mere question of time. And when the end is achieved, how awful, how revolting, but how natural.
How Birdie Mason came to find herself the one woman on Suffering Creek––leaving out the later advent of Scipio’s wife––it is not for us to ask. Whatever her little tragedy it is hers alone, and does not concern us. All that we need think of is her future, and the pity that so well-favored a woman has not found her lot cast in places where her womanhood has its best chances. However, she is there, living the life of all such hired “helps,” drudging from morning till night in one long round of sordid labor, in an atmosphere stinking with the fetid breath of debased humanity.
But as yet the life has made no inroads upon her moral health. Her sunny good nature sets her singing over the most grinding labors. Her smiling face, and ready tongue, give her an air of happiness and joy of life which seems well-nigh invincible. And her popularity contrives her many thrilling moments and advantages which she is too much a woman and a child to deny herself.
Her day’s work ends with the after supper “wash up,” a dreary routine which might well crush the most ardent spirit. Yet she bends over her tubs full of crockery dreaming her sunny dreams, building her little castles to the clink of enameled tin cups, weaving her romances to the clatter of cutlery, smiling upon the mentally conjured faces of her boys amidst the steaming odors of greasy, lukewarm water. The one blot upon her existence is perhaps the Chinese cook, with whom she has perforce to associate. She dislikes him for no other reason than that he is a “yaller-faced doper that ought to been set to herd with a menagerie of measly skunks.” But even this annoyance cannot seriously damp her buoyancy, and, with wonderful feminine philosophy, she puts him out of her mind as a “no account feller, anyway.”
She was putting the finishing touches to the long dining-table, making it ready for the next day’s breakfast. It was not an elaborate preparation. She “dumped” a box of knives and forks at each end of it, and then proceeded to chase any odd bits of débris from the last meal on to the floor with a duster. Then, with a hand-broom and pan, she took these up and with them any other rubbish that might be lying about. Finally, she set jugs of drinking water at intervals down the center of the table, and her work was done.
She looked about her, patting her fair hair with that eminently feminine touch which is to be seen in every woman from the millionaire’s wife down to the poorest emigrant. Then, with less delicacy, she lifted her apron and wiped the moisture from her round young face.
“Guess that’s ’most everything,” she murmured, her eyes brightening at the contemplation of her completed task. “I’ll just cut out them––”
She went to a cupboard and drew out a parcel of white lawn and paper patterns, which she carefully spread out on the table. And, in a few moments, she was bending absorbedly over the stuff, lost in the intricacies of hewing out an embryonic garment for her personal adornment.
It was at this task that Toby Jenks found her. He was worried to death at the thought that, as a member of the newly formed Zip Trust, it was his duty to gather information concerning the management of children. However, in the midst of his trouble he hit on the brilliant idea of consulting the only woman of his acquaintance.
Toby wanted to do something startling in the interests of the Trust. He felt that his membership had been conferred in a rather grudging spirit. And, to his mildly resentful way of thinking, it seemed it would be a good thing if he could surprise his friends with the excellence of his services in the general interests of the concern.