“That didn’t last long. They found I could peel potatoes, so they put me to work. And I’ve been at work ever since.”
She spread out her hands and Florence saw that they were as seamed and hard as a farmer’s wife’s.
“I don’t mind work,” Meg continued. “I love it. But I like to learn things, too; like to learn them out of books, with folks to tell me what it means. I’ve gone to school all I could, but it wasn’t much. I want to go some more.
“Uncle has signed up for a sea voyage through the Canal to England. He wanted me to go along as cook. It’s a lumber ship; sure to be a rough crew. I don’t mind ’em much.”
Something suddenly clattered on the floor. It was Meg’s belaying pin.
“I—I guess you sort of get rough when you go on the sea,” she apologized, smiling. “That’s partly why I didn’t want to go. My uncle would have made me go that day you changed places with me, if he’d found me. He likes to have me along because he can get a better berth himself if he can bring along a good cook. Good sea cooks are scarce.
“I’m not going now. His train’s gone and he’s gone. He left that day.”
“So that was what the man and the woman meant by the train leaving at eleven-thirty?” asked Florence.
“Yes. That woman was the matron of the Seamen’s Home. She thought I ought to go. She didn’t know everything. She didn’t understand. I’m eighteen. My uncle hasn’t any right to claim me now, and I owe him nothing. Everything that’s been done for me I’ve paid for—paid with hard labor.” Again she spread her seamed hands out on her lap.
“But now,” she said after a moment’s silence, “now I’m not sure that I know how I’m going to school. It costs a lot, I suppose, and besides I’ve got to live. They let me stay on that ship. That’s something, but it’s a long way from any school, and besides——”