“Mr. Radbourn says work as things go now does degrade a man in spite of himself. He says men get coarse and violent in spite of themselves just as women do when everything goes wrong in the house,—when the flies are thick, and the fire won’t burn, and the irons stick to the clothes. You see, you both suffer. Don’t lay up this fit of temper against Sim—will you?”
The wife lifted her head and looked away. Her face was full of hopeless weariness.
“It aint this once. It aint that ‘t all. It’s having no let up. Just goin’ the same thing right over ‘n’ over—no hope of anything better.”
“If you had a hope of another world—”
“Don’t talk that—that’s rich man’s doctrine. I don’t want that kind o’ comfert. I want a decent chance here. I want ‘o rest an’ be happy now—then I’m sure of it.”
Lily’s big eyes were streaming with tears. What should she say to the desperate woman?
“What’s the use? We might jest as well die—all of us.”
The woman’s livid face appalled the beautiful girl. She was gaunt, heavy-eyed, nerveless. Her faded dress settled down over her limbs showing the swollen knees and thin calves, her hands with distorted joints protruded painfully from her sleeves. And all about was the ever-recurring wealth and cheer of nature that knows no fear or favor. The bees and flies buzzing in the sun, the jay and kingbird in the poplars, the smell of strawberries, the motion of lush grass, the shimmer of corn blades tossed gayly as banners in a conquering army.
Like a flash of keener light a sentence shot across the girl’s mind. “Nature knows no title-deed. The bounty of her mighty hands falls as the sunlight falls, copious, impartial; her seas carry all ships, her air is for all lips, her lands for all feet.”
“Poverty and suffering such as yours will not last.” There was something in the girl’s voice that roused the woman. She turned her dull eyes upon her face.