Chapter IV. THE SPENDINGS OF FANCY: FACTS ANSWER WITH SNEERS

       Table of Contents

      For the next two days Carrie indulged in the most high-flown speculations.

      Her fancy plunged recklessly into privileges and amusements which would have been much more becoming had she been cradled a child of fortune. With ready will and quick mental selection she scattered her meagre four-fifty per week with a swift and graceful hand. Indeed, as she sat in her rocking-chair these several evenings before going to bed and looked out upon the pleasantly lighted street, this money cleared for its prospective possessor the way to every joy and every bauble which the heart of woman may desire. “I will have a fine time,” she thought.

      Her sister Minnie knew nothing of these rather wild cerebrations, though they exhausted the markets of delight. She was too busy scrubbing the kitchen woodwork and calculating the purchasing power of eighty cents for Sunday’s dinner. When Carrie had returned home, flushed with her first success and ready, for all her weariness, to discuss the now interesting events which led up to her achievement, the former had merely smiled approvingly and inquired whether she would have to spend any of it for car fare. This consideration had not entered in before, and it did not now for long affect the glow of Carrie’s enthusiasm. Disposed as she then was to calculate upon that vague basis which allows the subtraction of one sum from another without any perceptible diminution, she was happy.

      When Hanson came home at seven o’clock, he was inclined to be a little crusty—his usual demeanour before supper. This never showed so much in anything he said as in a certain solemnity of countenance and the silent manner in which he slopped about. He had a pair of yellow carpet slippers which he enjoyed wearing, and these he would immediately substitute for his solid pair of shoes. This, and washing his face with the aid of common washing soap until it glowed a shiny red, constituted his only preparation for his evening meal. He would then get his evening paper and read in silence.

      For a young man, this was rather a morbid turn of character, and so affected Carrie. Indeed, it affected the entire atmosphere of the flat, as such things are inclined to do, and gave to his wife’s mind its subdued and tactful turn, anxious to avoid taciturn replies. Under the influence of Carrie’s announcement he brightened up somewhat.

      “You didn’t lose any time, did you?” he remarked, smiling a little.

      “No,” returned Carrie with a touch of pride.

      He asked her one or two more questions and then turned to play with the baby, leaving the subject until it was brought up again by Minnie at the table.

      Carrie, however, was not to be reduced to the common level of observation which prevailed in the flat.

      “It seems to be such a large company,” she said, at one place.

      “Great big plate-glass windows and lots of clerks. The man I saw said they hired ever so many people.”

      “It’s not very hard to get work now,” put in Hanson, “if you look right.”

      Minnie, under the warming influence of Carrie’s good spirits and her husband’s somewhat conversational mood, began to tell Carrie of some of the well-known things to see—things the enjoyment of which cost nothing.

      “You’d like to see Michigan Avenue. There are such fine houses. It is such a fine street.”

      “Where is H. R. Jacob’s?” interrupted Carrie, mentioning one of the theatres devoted to melodrama which went by that name at the time.

      “Oh, it’s not very far from here,” answered Minnie. “It’s in Halstead Street, right up here.”

      “How I’d like to go there. I crossed Halstead Street to-day, didn’t I?”

      At this there was a slight halt in the natural reply. Thoughts are a strangely permeating factor. At her suggestion of going to the theatre, the unspoken shade of disapproval to the doing of those things which involved the expenditure of money—shades of feeling which arose in the mind of Hanson and then in Minnie—slightly affected the atmosphere of the table. Minnie answered “yes,” but Carrie could feel that going to the theatre was poorly advocated here. The subject was put off for a little while until Hanson, through with his meal, took his paper and went into the front room.

      When they were alone, the two sisters began a somewhat freer conversation, Carrie interrupting it to hum a little, as they worked at the dishes.

      “I should like to walk up and see Halstead Street, if it isn’t too far,” said Carrie, after a time. “Why don’t we go to the theatre to-night?”

      “Oh, I don’t think Sven would want to go to-night,” returned Minnie. “He has to get up so early.”

      “He wouldn’t mind—he’d enjoy it,” said Carrie.

      “No, he doesn’t go very often,” returned Minnie.

      “Well, I’d like to go,” rejoined Carrie. “Let’s you and me go.”

      Minnie pondered a while, not upon whether she could or would go—for that point was already negatively settled with her—but upon some means of diverting the thoughts of her sister to some other topic.

      “We’ll go some other time,” she said at last, finding no ready means of escape.

      Carrie sensed the root of the opposition at once.

      “I have some money,” she said. “You go with me.” Minnie shook her head.

      “He could go along,” said Carrie.

      “No,” returned Minnie softly, and rattling the dishes to drown the conversation. “He wouldn’t.”

      It had been several years since Minnie had seen Carrie, and in that time the latter’s character had developed a few shades. Naturally timid in all things that related to her own advancement, and especially so when without power or resource, her craving for pleasure was so strong that it was the one stay of her nature. She would speak for that when silent on all else.

      “Ask him,” she pleaded softly.

      Minnie was thinking of the resource which Carrie’s board would add. It would pay the rent and would make the subject of expenditure a little less difficult to talk about with her husband. But if Carrie was going to think of running around in the beginning there would be a hitch somewhere. Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and saw the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming to the city to profit them? These thoughts were not those of a cold, hard nature at all. They were the