There wasn't a minute to lose now, because if Keddie was groaning he'd be up and out again and looking for both of us. Mother and Mis' Bingy and the baby was still out in the yard by the well-house, and Father was just starting down the road after me.
It's funny, but what, just the day before, would have been a thing so big I wouldn't have thought of doing it, chiefly on account of the row it'd make, was now just easy and natural. They must have said things, I remember how loud their voices were and how I wished they wouldn't. And I remember them saying over and over the same thing:
"You don't need to go. You don't need to go. Ain't you always had a roof over you and enough to eat? A girl had ought to be thankful for a good home."
But I went and got my things ready and got myself dressed. I wanted to tell them about the feeling I had that I had to go, but I couldn't tell about that, now that I was going, any more than I could tell when I thought I mustn't go.
I did say something to Mother when she come and stood in the bedroom door and told me I was an ungrateful girl.
"Ungrateful for what?" I says.
"For me bringing you up and working my head off for you," she says, "and your Pa the same."
"But, Mother," I says, "that was your job to do. And me—I ain't found my job—yet."
"Your job is to do as we tell you to," says Mother. "The idea!"
I tried, just that once, to make her see.