"No, thank you," she said shortly. "I couldn't any more afford that than I could fly. I didn't know Sally Payson had got to charging like that—fifty cents for less than half a day's work! I declare, prices are enough to ruin a body these days."
She went on to her own home smarting. She had called the washer woman "Sally Payson," to be sure, in correction of Eliza Jackson's "Mrs. Payson," which was a minor victory, yet it was not enough to wipe away a feeling of stinging exasperation and a curious sense of defeat. And when she told her husband about it afterward, he received her recital with a sort of humorous impatience.
"Good Lord, Fan," he broke in finally, "don't you know that every woman with a black skin isn't hungry to do your washing? It's not a question of complexion; it's money that talks. Ezra Jackson could buy me out two or three times over. I'm trying to act all his legal business. He's bringing a big suit against the railroad. If he gives it to me I shall be able to send Ellen to Baltimore this year instead of next."
"Well," said Mrs. Kendrick, submissively but acidly, "if you want me to go and apologize, I suppose I can. The South is getting to be a queer place when white gentlemen have to be under obligation to negro teamsters. I certainly don't want to interfere with your business in any way, Scott," she concluded plaintively. "We're hard up all the time; I feel it deeply that poor Ellen is such an expense to you."
Scott Kendrick's ready arm went round the weary little woman. "An apology would be worse than the offense, Fanny," he admonished gently. "It's just this. the Jacksons are in an absolutely new position, and have to be treated in a new way. You wouldn't go and ask Mrs. Ford or Mrs. Brashear to do your washing; and the Lord knows that neither Jim Brashear nor Bate Ford makes half what Ezra Jackson does. The world is changing, honey, and we have to change with it."
II
As they grew older, the association of the two girls, in spite of the affection between them—perhaps because of it—began to present almost daily problems and embarrassments. Ellen's health was worse, her nerves were shattered, and she clung with more and more insistence to this one healthy companion, who responded with a tireless devotion. Coming in from her wholesome outdoor life and her triumphs at school—where she always stood high—Ma'Lou brought to the sick room a very wind of comfort and cheer, which Mrs. Kendrick had not the heart to deny her pining young invalid. Once, when she spoke apprehensively of the matter to her husband, Scott Kendrick answered with astonishment:
"Why, Fanny, it's only a question of health—a little bodily improvement. We'd break it off to-morrow if Ellen was well. You'll see; there would never be any more of it if I could send her away for that operation."
But the white people had not, as they supposed, this anxiety all to themselves. The timid, conservative, colored mother regarded the friendship with growing anxiety. And before Scott Kendrick got together the money to send Ellen to Baltimore, Ezra Jackson's wife had coaxed her husband into letting Mary Louise go North to school. The Watauga public schools, with a term or two of Fiske, at Nashville, afterward, had been good enough for the other children. But the mother craved wider opportunities for this, her youngest; money was freer with them now; and Mary Louise went to a preparatory school, then to Oberlin.
Ellen Kendrick returned from the hands of the surgeons in Baltimore much improved in health. She was sent back twice afterward for treatment. Finally she walked as well as other girls, and hastily made up her arrears of education, as best she might, at a private school in Watauga. She would always be frail; the invalid habit had gotten into both mind and body; she would continue dependent, demanding; and somewhat irritable; yet there was a fragile prettiness about her, and her very childishness had its own charm.