A Little Question in Ladies' Rights

PART ONE

MARGERY was sitting under the cherry tree with a certain air of expectancy. She seemed to be waiting for something or some one. Willie Jones's head popped over the back fence and Willie Jones himself, a tin pail in one hand, dropped into the Blair yard and made for the cherry tree. But Margery still gazed earnestly, tensely, into nothing. Willie Jones, evidently, was not the object of her thoughts.

"What's the matter, Margery?"

"Nothing. I'm just waiting."

"What for?"

There was no reason for telling Willie Jones, but, by the same token, there was no reason for not telling him. So Margery answered frankly:

"I et a whole bagful of bananas and now Effie says I'm going to be sick and thr'up. So I'm just waiting."

"Whew! How many was they, Margery?"

"I don't know, but a good many."

"Think you might have shared with a fella."

"Well, you see, Willie, I didn't know anything about them. None of us did. I thought I smelled something good in the pantry, and when Effie went upstairs I sneaked in to see. Sure enough, there was a bag of bananas, real soft and sweet, don't you know. I et one and then I et another and, before I knew it, they were all gone. Then Effie caught me as I was coming out."

"Will she tell on you?"

"No, I don't think she'll tell on me. But she says I'm going to be awful sick. I was once before. So I'm just waiting."

"Aw, you're not going to be sick, Margery. That's only Effie's bluff. Listen: I'm going out blackberrying. There are just dead loads of great big ripe ones on the graveyard patch. My mother'll give me ten cents if I bring her back two quarts."

Margery looked at the tin pail longingly. She, too, would go blackberrying, but she realized that home was the best place for sick folk.

"Aw, come on," Willie urged. "You're not going to be sick. I bet anything you're not."

Confidence begets confidence, and, looking at Willie Jones's tin pail, Margery began to wonder whether, after all, Effie's prophecy might not prove a false one.

"I tell you what, Willie: Wait a minute and I'll ask Effie."

"Why do you got to ask her?"

"Because mother's not home. Besides, if I do get sick, I'll want Effie to take care of me."

This last was too sound a reason for Willie to gainsay, so Margery called Effie to the kitchen door.

"Blackberryin'! And in the sun!" Effie repeated, when Margery had delivered herself. "Well, I guess not! Here you are just stuffed full of ripe bananas and you want a-go out trampin' in the sun! Not much! You stay right where you are, me lady, and take care o' yourself."

"You see," Margery explained to Willie Jones.

"Aw, rats!" that young gentleman exclaimed, turning a hostile front toward the kitchen door. "Come on, Margery. What do you care what Effie says? She's nuthin' but an old hired girl! I wouldn't let any old hired girl boss me around!"

"Any old —what?" gasped Effie, her face turning red and her eyes opening wide with horror.

"Any old hired girl!" Willie Jones repeated defiantly. "Ain't she nuthin' but an old hired girl, Margery?"

It was a question Margery had never before considered. To her Effie had always been merely Effie – merely the person who cooked and sewed and swept and waited on table and combed your hair and buttoned your dress and did all the thousand and one things about the house that had to be done and always were done. She was merely Effie and, come to think of it, she must be the hired girl, for in every house in the neighborhood the person who did the things or a few of the things that Effie did was undoubtedly the hired girl. And if you are a thing, what's the sense pretending you aren't? Margery did not wish to offend Effie, but facts is facts.

"Of course Effie's our hired girl."

For a moment Effie looked hurt enough for tears.

"Oh, Margery, how can you? And after all the years I've took care of you and loved you! You don't mean it, do you? You're not going to call your poor old Effie such an ugly name, are you?"

"Well, I don't see why you talk that way, Effie. You are a hired girl, aren't you?"

"Of course she's a hired girl," Willie Jones insisted. "And I'd just like to see any old hired girl of ours telling me what I dast do and what I dassent. Come on, Margery, we can't wait all day."

"Any old hired girl!" shouted Effie. She was angry now, so angry that Margery and Willie Jones retreated a few steps in case of personal violence. "So I'm like any old hired girl, am I? I'm only one of them good-for-nuthin' tramps that go traipsin' about from house to house and never keep a place for more than two weeks, am I? I'm a dirty, careless, ignur'nt hussy that's out all night and sleepy and lazy all day, am I? In other words, I'm a hired girl! Well, it's just what Tom's been tellin' me all along, and I didn't believe him. 'Nonsense,' says he, 'they don't care nuthin' for you. To them yir only a hired girl,' says he. 'Now come over to my place and I'll make you the housekeeper,' says he, 'and all you'll have to do is give your orders to the servants.' And every time I says to Tom, 'No, Tom,' I says, 'I'm not ready yet. I've been with these children since before they was born and I can't leave 'em yet. But thank you just the same,' I says. And Tom says, 'Effie, yir a born fool! What do you think them children care for you?' he says. 'Only what they can get out of you,' he says. And," concluded Effie, her voice again choked with tears, "I am a fool and Tom's right. They don't care nuthin' for me and I'm only the hired girl!"

"Who's Tom, I'd like to know?" Willie Jones demanded offensively.

"Who's Tom?" echoed Effie. It was plain that insult was being added to injury. "Why, Tom, me young friend, is Thomas McGinniss, Conthractor and Builder, that built the house yir living in and every house on your street. And it's ten to one, me young gent, that yir own dad is still payin' his monthly installments to Tom McGinniss, brother of Effie the Hired Girl."

Effie turned haughtily away, then paused to add: "If either of yez ever again have anything to say to Effie, when ye ring Mr. Thomas McGinniss's doorbell, ye had better mind yir manners and ask for Miss McGinniss."

Effie slammed the kitchen door and Willie Jones showed how deeply impressed he was by putting his thumb on the end of his nose and wiggling his fingers in a manner that Margery had often been told was highly improper.

"Well, come on," he said briskly. "It's time for us to be moving or we never will get two quarts picked."

So off they started, a good half hour's tramp in the sun. The blackberry patch was in a far unused corner of the graveyard, adjoining a plot of unconsecrated ground where, as Willie and Margery had often heard, only murderers were buried. There was, of course, the usual No Trespassing sign to meet and pass, the wire fence to slip under, and a short stretch of clay and rubble which ended suddenly in a thick brake of blackberry bushes. Once in the patch all that was necessary was to keep a sharp eye on the gravedigger's house, which stood on a knoll beyond, in plain sight, but far enough away to give one a good chance of escape in case of detection.

"Now, I'll let you hold the pail, Margery, and I'll pick into my hat. Jiminy! They haven't been picked over to-day at all. We'll get our two quarts easy."

"H'm," murmured Margery, tentatively. There was a little matter upon which she had been speculating ever since they had left home. "Are – are you going to give me half the money?"

"What money?"

"Why, don't you know, the money your mother's going to pay you for these berries."

"Oh."

The Oh was all Willie had to answer.

"Well, are you?"

"Are I what?"

"Are you going to give me half the money?"

"Well, I – I hadn't thought about it," Willie admitted.

Margery felt perfectly sure of this and sure likewise that he never would think of it unless she herself insisted on her rights.

"Then just think about it now. Here I am picking berries for you as fast as I can. I haven't et one. Now if you go sell these berries, you ought to give me half, oughtn't you?"

"I dunno but what I ought."

A timid creature would have rested content with this, but Margery had had too many dealings with the other sex to put undue confidence in any concession so vaguely expressed, so grudgingly admitted. It was rather a hard thing to do – she knew beforehand Willie Jones would hate her for it – but a nickel is a nickel, and now or never, she realized, was the moment to demand a definite promise.

"Well, then, will you?"

Willie seemed not to hear.

"Will you?" Margery repeated, stopping her picking to make her question more emphatic.

Willie looked up apprehensively toward the gravedigger's house.

"If you don't stop arguing and go ahead picking we won't either of us have anything," he burst out querulously.

It was hard indeed not to act upon a suggestion so plainly expected to be of benefit to them both. Fortunately, Margery knew that if she had but character to persist a little longer she would probably gain her end. So, by a great effort of will, she continued idle and reiterated tiresomely:

"Well, will you?"

"Will I? Why, of course I will!" Willie raised his voice and screwed up his face into a tight little knot of impatience and disgust. "Haven't I been telling you that for half an hour? You are the dumbest ox sometimes! Why, do you suppose I'd ask you to help me if I hadn't expected to share with you? You must think I'm an awful tightwad!"

Margery bent her head humbly under this tirade. She had nothing more to say, no defense to utter. By her unwomanly persistence she had very clearly lost whatever admiration and respect Willie Jones might once have felt for her. But – but – but she was in for half the profits!.. Women are so prone nowadays to prefer some petty material gain to the grand old-fashioned whatchemaycallit.

"I think we're going to get our two full quarts," Margery remarked amiably. Of course she was amiable. She had every reason to be amiable.

Willie Jones, who by this time had fallen silent, made no comment.

"Don't you think so?" Margery pursued sweetly.

"Huh!" grunted Willie Jones.

When the tin pail was about full an accident happened to Margery. She stepped into something soft and clayey, and the next instant, seeing what it was, she started off by leaps and bounds, crying out the shrill warning: "Run, Willie, run! Bumble bees! I stepped on a bumble bee nest!"

A young gravedigger – if it be correct to call the offspring of an old gravedigger a young gravedigger – caught sight of the poachers just at this moment, and, shouting out, "Hey, there! You!" started toward them down the knoll. The incredible speed with which the poachers fled seemed to give the young gravedigger an erroneous idea of the fear that his presence inspired. There was small likelihood of his overtaking them before they reached the safety of the other side of the fence, but they seemed to him so little to realize this that, for the mere pleasure of pursuit, the young gravedigger pounded on, brandishing his arms and roaring his threats. By the time Margery and Willie made the fence they had so far outdistanced the bees that Willie had courage to face about and shout back defiance to all threats and to show his contempt for the whole race of gravediggers by pointing his thumb to his nose and wriggling his fingers in that same derisive and, it must be conceded, effective manner already mentioned. Although still at a considerable distance, the young gravedigger caught the full meaning of the insult and almost exploded with rage.

"You – you little – " he began. But he did not finish. They saw him stop suddenly, look up, and then, flinging his arms over his head, rush madly back the way he had just come.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Willie Jones shouted, hopping up and down in the intensity of his enjoyment. "Margery, do you see him? The bees are after him! Jiminy! Jiminy! Jiminy!"

Willie Jones lay down on the ground and rolled and kicked and plucked up handfuls of grass in an effort to work off the exuberance of his joy.

"Oh!" he gasped weakly, as the humor of the situation finally expended itself. "Isn't that the funniest thing you ever saw?"

As Margery made no answer, he turned, suddenly conscious that from the start she had not been sharing his transports.

"Why, what's the matter, Margery?"

There was a pained expression on Margery's face and she was panting.

"I'm stung," she murmured.

Willie Jones did not have to ask "Where?" for the middle finger of one hand was already standing straight out, swollen and red.

"I'm awfully sorry, Margery, honest I am. Put some mud on it. That'll help some."

"I don't see any mud," Margery panted, looking hopelessly over the green meadow.

"Can't we make some quick enough?" Willie asked, digging his heel into the turf. "Now, Margery, spit on this… Aw, that's not enough. Watch me."

By their united efforts they succeeded in mixing a mud plaster large enough to cover the wound.

"There now, does that feel better?"

"I don't know, Willie. Maybe it does. But do you know – do you know – I – I think I'm getting sick."

"Oh, no, you're not. You just think you are. Brace up now and you'll feel all right." Then, by way of changing the subject and giving praise where praise was due, he added: "That was dandy of you not dropping any berries when the bees chased us. There are not quite two quarts, but don't you care. I think my mother'll count them for two."

But Margery was not to be diverted.

"Oh, Willie," she groaned, "I feel awful sick! Oh, if I could only thr'up!"

"Well, thr'up if you want to," Willie advised. "There's no one around here, and I won't look, honest I won't."

Margery shook her head sadly.

"I can't do it alone. I got to have hot water and things. Come on. We better go home or I think I'll die. Oh, if my head just didn't ache so! Maybe you better lend me your cap, Willie. Thanks. I suppose that'll help my head some, but I don't believe it will. Oh, Willie, do you know what I wish?"

"What?"

"Oh, I do wish I had never et a single banana! And I knew all the time I oughtn't to eat so many, I knew it just as well! Oh, Willie, isn't it turrible the way a person does a thing even when they know they oughtn't to?"

All the way home Willie had very little to say, but he listened politely as Margery talked on and on, punctuating her sad moralizings with long labored breaths and weary headshakes.

"And then afterwards, Willie, if I had only sat still as Effie told me to, I might have got off all right. But no, I had to come racing off here in the hot sun and I knew I oughtn't to, and then I went into the blackberry patch and I knew I hadn't any right to, and all I got to say is, it's a wonder a hundred bees didn't sting me instead of one.."

Willie looked at her curiously.

"Do you think you got stung because you picked those berries?"

"I just know that was why."

"Well, the gravedigger was getting it worse than you, and I guess he had a right to be there, hadn't he?"

For a moment Margery was stumped, but only for a moment.

"Yes, Willie," she said simply, "he had a right to chase us, but – he had no right to use such turrible langwedge. I'm not one bit surprised he got stung for it. You heard him yourself, Willie, you know you did."

Yes, Willie had heard him, and Margery was certainly right in intimating that the young gravedigger was exceptionally fluent in cuss words. With cause and effect so clearly demonstrated, Willie Jones had no further argument against Margery's conception of a prompt and well-deserved judgment. He was silent a moment, then went back to something else.

"So you think you oughtn't to have gone into the blackberry patch at all?"

"Why, of course I think so! I know so! Wasn't there a sign up not to? Why, taking blackberries when there's a sign up is not much better than downright stealing!"

"H'm," murmured Willie Jones with interest. Then after a pause he said: "Now, Margery, listen here: if you feel as bad about it as all that I tell you what I'll do – I'll take your share of blame for the berries. I'll tell everybody that I picked 'em all."

Margery turned heavy eyes on her companion and, sick as she was, saw through his little scheme at once. He was offering her a chance to give up her share of tainted profits.

"Thank you, Willie, thank you very much, but I guess I'll just tell the truth about the berries. It wouldn't be fair to you if I didn't."

Willie protested that it would be all right, but Margery was firm.

"No, Willie, I did pick half of them, that's all there is about it, and you mustn't pretend I didn't… Oh, oh, I wonder do I look as sick as I feel?"

Willie scanned her colorless face and, under the delusion that sick folk desire to look as nearly well as possible, said: "No, you're looking all right." The expression of indignant protest which his cheerful remark excited showed him his mistake, and he added, rather lamely: "You do look kind of thin, though."

"Thin!" Margery snorted. "Why, Willie Jones, if you were one-half as sick as I am this minute, why, you – you'd be dead long ago! O-oh! My head, and my stummick, and my finger, too! But my finger's not as bad as my head and my stummick. Oh, how I wish that Effie was here!"

"Effie?"

"Yes, Effie. She'd have me well in two minutes."

"I hope you don't think we'll find Effie when we get home."

"Why not?"

"Don't you remember what she said when we started out? Don't you know she said she was going to her brother's house because we called her a hired girl?"

For the moment Margery had forgotten, and now, at this sudden reminder, she was so overcome she had to sit down for a few moments and rest on the curbstone.

"Oh," she groaned, "you don't think she really meant it, do you, Willie? What'll I do if she's not there? There's no one else knows how to make me thr'up like Effie! She always does it for me. Why, I'll just die, I know I will, if she's not there!"

"I'm sorry, Margery, but even if she is there, I don't think she'll do anything for you this time. She's pretty mad at both of us."

"Willie Jones," Margery said, with sudden determination, "you've got to do something. You've just got to!"

"What?"

"You've got to apologize to Effie for calling her a hired girl."

"Well, ain't she a hired girl?" Willie protested.

It was the same question Margery had asked herself earlier in the day. Now, however, she was ready to answer it differently.

"No," she said firmly, "she's not a hired girl. She stays with us because she loves us and wants to take care of us. Once a lady sneaked in and tried to get Effie away from us, and do you know what Effie did? She chased the lady out of the yard! So you see she's our true friend and just like one of the family, too. Now you're not friends with a person you call a hired girl, are you? Effie was just right not to let us call her that. Why, do you know, Willie Jones," Margery concluded impressively, "I love Effie much better than I do some of my relations!"

This seemed an irrefutable argument to Margery, but Willie Jones again protested.

"She's a hired girl even if you do love her."

"She's not, I say!" roared Margery. "And, Willie Jones, you stop arguing! You're making me sicker! Just see how my head wobbles!" She wobbled it shakily a moment to show, and then demanded sharply: "Now, then, Willie Jones, is Effie a hired girl or isn't she?"

Many a man before Willie Jones has been forced to make a choice between facts and a lady's increasing illness on the one hand and fancy and her smiles on the other. Like most of his kind, Willie Jones had not the moral courage to face the lady's increasing illness.

"Well, if you say she's not a hired girl, I guess she's not. You ought to know."

"And will you apologize to her for your mistake?"

"Yes, if you want me to."

"Well, I do want you to. So come on. I'm nearly dead now and I just tell you I can't stand it much longer."

When they reached the kitchen, they found Effie with nose a-tilt and eyes suspiciously red. At sight of them she burst into a loud and cheerful strain:

"Effie," Margery began. Effie did not hear, so Margery had to try again. "Effie!"

"Oh," remarked Effie, stopping her song and looking at them, as it were, for the first time. Then she asked, in her haughtiest tone: "Is it me yir talkin' to?"

"Willie Jones wants to say something to you, Effie."

Margery gave Willie a push and he began bravely:

"Say, Effie, I'm awfully sorry I called you that. But it wasn't my fault, honest it wasn't, because, don't you know, I thought you were. But Margery says you're not. She says you're one of the fambly."

"Did she honest?" cried Effie, eagerly, her face lighting up.

"Sure she did, Effie. Why, do you know, Effie, she says she loves you better than she does any of her real relations!"

When you undertake to do a thing it's a pleasure to do it properly.

"No!" said Effie, incredulously.

"Cross my heart!" vowed Willie Jones, suiting action to word.

"Oh, you darlint!" Effie cried, opening her arms to gather in her repentant child. Then she stopped in concern. "What's ailin' yir finger?"

"Stung!" Margery quavered. "But don't mind that, Effie. It don't hurt much now. It's my stummick! Ugh! Ugh! I'm just dying to thr'up! Please get the hot water and things, quick!"

"And are you feelin' sick, you poor lamb," Effie crooned, compassionately, as she rushed about making preparations. "Now, dearie – "

"Effie, make Willie Jones go out first."

"Whoop!" shouted Effie, turning upon Willie with brandished arms.

"Wait, Effie, wait a minute! Tell him when his mother pays him, he can bring over my nickel, and if I'm not here he can give it to you."

"Do you hear that, now?" Effie demanded roughly, pushing Willie out by the shoulder and closing the door.

"Now, then, darlint, just drink this down. That's right. Drink it all. Now swally yir little hand. That's right. That's right. Oh, now yir goin' a-feel fine! Now ye'll soon be a well girl. Once again. That's right. That's right… It's just a good thing to get rid of all that nasty old stuff, ain't it, now?."

When this part of Margery's illness was attended to, Effie bathed her finger, extracted the sting, and in a short time had her feeling delightfully convalescent.

"And, Effie," Margery began coaxingly in that moment of sweet intimacy between nurse and patient when relief has come, "you're never going to Tom McGinniss's house to live, are you?"

"Tom McGinniss's house!" snorted Effie, outraged and indignant at the mere suggestion. "Well, I should say not! Who's been puttin' such ideas into your head? Why, those McGinniss kids, even if they are me own flesh and blood, are a set of young ruffians! And Tom's wife! Whew! Would you believe it, she's tryin' to break into society! And the things I know about her! No, siree! Me and Maggie McGinniss couldn't live twenty-four hours under the same roof! Don't you ever insult me again by suggestin' such a thing!.. And now, darlint, I think it will be just as well if we go to bed and take a little rest."

After she had punched the pillow and smoothed the sheet and had been assured several times that the patient was feeling just lovely, honest she was, Effie lingered a moment uncertainly.

"And, darlint dear," she began half shyly, "you ain't never again goin' a-let any one call your poor old Effie that ugly name, are you now? It's a turrible thing to bunch a decent, hardworkin' girl with a set o' tramps like them neighborhood hired girls. I just tell you a girl has to be mighty careful nowadays what she lets folks call her. Even if she's a perfect lady, they're only too quick to take advantage of her. Especially these here men and boys."

"You just bet they are!" Margery agreed heartily. "They're always trying to get the best of us! But just let me tell you one thing: You needn't think I'm not going to get that nickel, because I am!"