THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN: Short Stories, Novels, Poems & Essays. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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the salary was only $300.00—and he was a man. This girl got $600, next year $700, $800, $900; why it made $3,000 she had earned in four years. Astonishing. Out of this she had a balance in the bank of $550.00. He was pleased to see that she had been so saving. And her clothing account—little enough he admitted for four years and six months, $300.00. All incidentals for the whole time, $50.00—this with her balance made just $900. That left $2,100.00.
"Twenty-one hundred dollars unaccounted for, young lady!—besides this nest egg in the bank—I'd no idea you were so wealthy. What have you done with all that?"
"Given it to you, Father," said she quietly, and handed him the third sheet of figures.
Board and lodging at $4.00 a week for 4 1/2 years made $936.00, that he could realize; but "cash advance" $1,164 more—he could not believe it. That time her mother was so sick and Diantha had paid both the doctor and the nurse—yes—he had been much cramped that year—and nurses come high. For Henderson, Jr.'s, expenses to San Francisco, and again for Henderson when he was out of a job—Mr. Bell remembered the boy's writing for the money, and his not having it, and Mrs. Bell saying she could arrange with Diantha.
Arrange! And that girl had kept this niggardly account of it! For Minnie's trip to the Yosemite—and what was this?—for his raisin experiment—for the new horse they simply had to have for the drying apparatus that year he lost so much money in apricots—and for the spraying materials—yes, he could not deny the items, and they covered that $1,164.00 exactly.
Then came the deadly balance, of the account between them:
Her labor... $2,047.00
Her board... $936.00
Her "cash advanced"... $1,164.00
————- $4,147.00
His expense for her... $3,600
————- Due her from him... $547.00
Diantha revolved her pencil between firm palms, and looked at him rather quizzically; while her mother rocked and darned and wiped away an occasional tear. She almost wished she had not kept accounts so well.
Mr. Bell pushed the papers away and started to his feet.
"This is the most shameful piece of calculation I ever saw in my life," said he. "I never heard of such a thing! You go and count up in cold dollars the work that every decent girl does for her family and is glad to! I wonder you haven't charged your mother for nursing her?"
"You notice I haven't," said Diantha coldly.
"And to think," said he, gripping the back of a chair and looking down at her fiercely, "to think that a girl who can earn nine hundred dollars a year teaching school, and stay at home and do her duty by her family besides, should plan to desert her mother outright—now she's old and sick! Of course I can't stop you! You're of age, and children nowadays have no sense of natural obligation after they're grown up. You can go, of course, and disgrace the family as you propose—but you needn't expect to have me consent to it or approve of it—or of you. It's a shameful thing—and you are an unnatural daughter—that's all I've got to say!"
Mr. Bell took his hat and went out—a conclusive form of punctuation much used by men in discussions of this sort.
CHAPTER III. BREAKERS
Duck! Dive! Here comes another one!
Wait till the crest-ruffles show!
Beyond is smooth water in beauty and wonder—
Shut your mouth! Hold your breath! Dip your head under!
Dive through the weight and the wash, and the thunder—
Look out for the undertow!
If Diantha imagined that her arithmetical victory over a too-sordid presentation of the parental claim was a final one, she soon found herself mistaken.
It is easy to say—putting an epic in an epigram—"She seen her duty and she done it!" but the space and time covered are generally as far beyond our plans as the estimates of an amateur mountain climber exceed his achievements.
Her determination was not concealed by her outraged family. Possibly they thought that if the matter was well aired, and generally discussed, the daring offender might reconsider. Well-aired it certainly was, and widely discussed by the parents of the little town before young people who sat in dumbness, or made faint defense. It was also discussed by the young people, but not before their parents.
She had told Ross, first of all, meaning to have a quiet talk with him to clear the ground before arousing her own family; but he was suddenly away just as she opened the subject, by a man on a wheel—some wretched business about the store of course—and sent word that night that he could not come up again. Couldn't come up the next night either. Two long days—two long evenings without seeing him. Well—if she went away she'd have to get used to that.
But she had so many things to explain, so much to say to make it right with him; she knew well what a blow it was. Now it was all over town—and she had had no chance to defend her position.
The neighbors called. Tall bony Mrs. Delafield who lived nearest to them and had known Diantha for some years, felt it her duty to make a special appeal—or attack rather; and brought with her stout Mrs. Schlosster, whose ancestors and traditions were evidently of German extraction.
Diantha retired to her room when she saw these two bearing down upon the house; but her mother called her to make a pitcher of lemonade for them—and having entered there was no escape. They harried her with questions, were increasingly offended by her reticence, and expressed disapproval with a fullness that overmastered the girl's self-control.
"I have as much right to go into business as any other citizen, Mrs. Delafield," she said with repressed intensity. "I am of age and live in a free country. What you say of children no longer applies to me."
"And what is this mysterious business you're goin' into—if one may inquire? Nothin you're ashamed to mention, I hope?" asked Mrs. Delafield.
"If a woman refuses to mention her age is it because she's ashamed of it?" the girl retorted, and Mrs. Delafield flushed darkly.
"Never have I heard such talk from a maiden to her elders," said Mrs. Schlosster. "In my country the young have more respect, as is right."
Mrs. Bell objected inwardly to any reprimand of her child by others; but she agreed to the principle advanced and made no comment.
Diantha listened to quite a volume of detailed criticism, inquiry and condemnation, and finally rose to her feet with the stiff courtesy of the young.
"You must excuse me now," she said with set lips. "I have some necessary work to do."
She marched upstairs, shut her bedroom door and locked it, raging inwardly. "Its none of their business! Not a shadow! Why should Mother sit there and let them talk to me like that! One would think childhood had no limit—unless it's matrimony!"
This reminded her of her younger sister's airs of superior wisdom, and did not conduce to a pleasanter frame of mind. "With all their miserable little conventions and idiocies! And what 'they'll say,' and 'they'll think'! As if I cared! Minnie'll be just such another!"
She heard the ladies going out, still talking continuously, a faint response from her mother now and then, a growing quiet as their steps receded toward the gate; and then another deeper voice took up the theme and heavily approached.
It was the minister! Diantha dropped into her rocker and held the arms tight. "Now I'll have to take it again I suppose. But he ought to know me well enough to understand."
"Diantha!" called her mother, "Here's Dr. Major;" and the girl washed her face and came down again.
Dr. Major was a