It fell out that about this time she was passing their home on her way to her own, loaded down with bundles from the market because her cook, Aunt Dicey, was old and feeble and there had been nobody else to go this morning, when she raised her eyes and saw the Jackson back yard full of snowy wash on the line. Mrs. Jackson stood in the kitchen door, and, at the juxtaposition of the dark skin and the well-washed clothes, an idea promptly occurred to the lawyer's wife.
"Good morning," she called in a friendly tone. "I wanted to ask you something; I guess I'll come through the gate and go out your front way, if you don't mind."
Ezra Jackson's wife ran down the steps and put out a hand to help the tired woman with her packages. Mrs. Kendrick rested them on the railing of the back porch.
"Your clothes look lovely," she said meditatively. "You get them out so early. Aunt Dicey's too old to do the washing and cooking both any longer. I've been thinking for some time that I would really have to get me a washerwoman."
"It is hard to have the person who cooks wash also," said Mrs. Jackson, choosing her words carefully, and speaking in that serious tone which the new generation of colored people are apt to use toward their white neighbors. It is always as though they were on guard, or perhaps on parade is the better word, determined not to be guilty of lapses which would be excusable in those whom they address, but which are not permitted to the inferior race.
Fanny Kendrick looked at the handsome, well-kept house and its dignified, serious-faced mistress, and a feeling of irritation rose within her.
"I thought maybe you—I want a washerwoman—and seeing your clothes looked so nice made me think that maybe you——"
She came to an uncertain halt, and glanced again half impatiently at the other woman. After all, Ezra Jackson's wife was just a negro, and there was no use in feeling embarrassed or in supposing you didn't know how to deal with negroes. Good gracious! what was the world coming to if you couldn't offer work to folks without blushing? But she did not complete her sentence. The Jackson woman waited for a while that she might do so, and finally said, still in that slow, correct utterance which was in itself an offense:
"You thought I might tell you of some one? Mrs. Payson does mine. As you say she does it very nicely, and is quick about it. Her prices are high. I pay her half a dollar, and she gets done, as you see, a good deal before noon. But the work is satisfactory, and I think it pays better. I don't know whether she has a free day—but—shall I send her to you when she comes next week?"
Mrs. Kendrick blushed burning red, and took up her bundles with a jerk.