Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885

"Celandine is a real bright girl," said Mrs. Stiles, who had now regained her breath. Was this the woman who had knocked so timidly at the door? "Celandine is a real bright girl; her mind is thorough, logical, and comprehensive,—that's what Professor Jamieson said, up to the High School. Them was his very words. Celandine is to graduate this year: she's in the class with girls two and three years older than herself, Mrs. Tarbell. It was a terrible strain on me to keep her at school, ma'am, and again and again I've thought I couldn't stand it, what with her being in the shop only in the afternoon, and the washing, and trying to keep her clothes always nice; though she's been as good as gold,—making all her dresses her_self_, and wearing a calico till you'd have thought the stitches would have dropped right out of it. And she's ambitious, as I say. She don't seem to be able to face the idea of going into a store; and, oh, dear me! they're terrible places, those big stores, for girls. They're as bad as the factories; and often and often when I see those poor creatures that stand behind counters all day coming home at night and thinking so much about the way their hair's done, and then consider what slaves they are, and what they're exposed to, and how many wicked people are on the watch to work them to death for no pay at all, and bully them, and to lead them all wrong, if they can, why, it just makes me think how sensible the good Lord is, that he's able to take care of them so well and look after them as much as he does. Professor Jamieson has been as kind as could be about Celandine, and said he'd try to get a place for her as teacher; but you can't do that, you know, Mrs. Tarbell, not onless you've got friends in politics; and I haven't, not one. And a governess ain't often asked for; and you need influence for that, too. And Celandine, though she would take copying or typewriting, or be a telegraph operator, her own idea is to be a lawyer. And I just thought, Mrs. Tarbell, that I'd come to you and ask your advice; for I knew you'd sympathize."

"I—I don't know," gasped Mrs. Tarbell. The shock was almost as great as if she had thought Mrs. Stiles was a client. And what was she to do? Mrs. Stiles was not asking her to accept Miss Celandine as a student: she was asking her whether Miss Celandine ought to study at all. Mrs. Tarbell would have given anything to have a few platitudes at her tongue's end, but her conscience rendered her helpless. "Well, you see, Mrs. Stiles," she said at length, "we are trying a—hem—an experiment, you know."

"An experiment!" cried Mrs. Stiles, astounded. "Law bless us, you're admitted to be a lawyer, ain't you? And if one lady can be a lawyer—"

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily; "but that is not the question. I mean that it is not yet certain that women are going to succeed at the bar." Absolutely, though she was no fool, she had never made the concession before,—not even to herself.

"But you are a lawyer," repeated Mrs. Stiles.

"It doesn't follow that I shall make money at the law," said Mrs. Tarbell impatiently, but with a sense of her own justice.

Mrs. Stiles was staggered. "Not make any money?" she faltered.

"My good woman," said Mrs. Tarbell, "let me tell you that I have not yet had a single client, that I have not yet made a single dollar!" And, really, this was rather magnanimous. "The fact is, Mrs. Stiles," she continued, "it is impossible to say how long it will be before women inspire public confidence in their ability to do what has always been supposed to be man's work."

"Law!" said Mrs. Stiles.

"And your daughter had better wait till that is settled in our favor before she commits herself."

In Mrs. Stiles's cheeks a queer tinge appeared upon the gingerbread hue before spoken of,—a faint reddish tinge, a sprinkling of powdered cinnamon and sugar, as it were. "But, Mrs. Tarbell," she cried, "I thought—why, I thought the courts arranged all that."

"You don't mean to tell me it was your belief that the members of the bar are paid by the court?" said Mrs. Tarbell, aghast.

"Why, no, not exactly," stammered Mrs. Stiles. "But, then, I thought they—sort of—distributed things, you know. Don't they? I heerd of a young gentleman who was appointed to be lawyer for a man who cut his wife's throat with a pair of scissors, and the gentleman had never seen him before, not once."

"Did you suppose," said Mrs. Tarbell,—the affair was arranging itself very easily, after all,—"did you suppose that the judges undertake to see that the business of the courts is equally distributed among the lawyers?"

"I—I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure."

"My good, woman," said Mrs, Tarbell, with great seriousness, "a lawyer is just as much dependent upon custom as you are. There are many confectioners who do a large business, there are some who fail. So it is with lawyers. And many lawyers have to wait ten or twelve years before they become known at all. So you see in what a critical situation your daughter runs the risk of placing herself, and how seriously you ought to reflect before you allow her to take such a risk."

She looked anxiously toward the door. At that moment it opened, and the office-boy entered. She rose instantly, and Mrs. Stiles had to follow her example. Mrs. Tarbell represented to herself that the rain would not hurt her, and that Mrs. Stiles must be got rid of, and, feeling that this could now be accomplished, smiled at Mrs. Stiles in a friendly and reassuring manner.

"Who was the gentleman who was ten years before he got any work to do?" said Mrs. Stiles, standing up very crooked and looking very bewildered.

"Oh," said Mrs. Tarbell glibly, "that has happened to a great many lawyers. Let me see: I can't at this moment recall—Chief-Justice—no—Lord—Lord—Eldon," she mumbled hastily, "and Lord-Kilgobbin, and Chief-Justice Coleridge, all had to wait a—a longer or a shorter time. In fact, it is very often a matter of chance that a lawyer obtains any business at all." She walked past Mrs. Stiles, and took up her umbrella. Mrs. Stiles followed her with an irresolute glance. Mrs. Tarbell put on her ulster.

"Celandine will be dreadful disappointed," said Mrs. Stiles, in a mournful tone. "And, dear me, Mrs. Tarbell, I never said a word to you about what she's like; and me so proud of her, too."

In spite of her success, Mrs. Tarbell was by no means satisfied with herself, and the pathetic note in Mrs. Stiles's voice proved too much for her. "Mrs. Stiles," she said, turning round quickly, "perhaps I have been putting one side of the matter too strongly before you. If you will bring your daughter here some morning, we can discuss the subject together for a little while, and I can advise her definitely as to what course I think she had better pursue."

The expression of Mrs. Stiles's face changed a little; she seemed to be surprised and gratified; but it was evident that the overthrow of her delusions in regard to the remunerative character of the legal profession had saddened and disturbed her. "It's right kind of you to take so much trouble, Mrs. Tarbell," she said, buttoning up her gossamer. "I feel as grateful to you as can be; but I don't think I'll tell Celandine all you've said, because—"

"Perhaps it would be wiser," said Mrs. Tarbell impatiently.

"And then, in a week or so—"

"Precisely; a week or so." Mrs. Tarbell found that precisely was a very short and lawyer-like word, so she repeated it.

"Well, then—" said Mrs. Stiles.

"Some time during the morning," said Mrs. Tarbell; and she turned to the office-boy, with whom she began to converse in an undertone. Mrs. Stiles came walking across the floor, slow and lugubrious. She bade Mrs. Tarbell good-day. Mrs. Tarbell bowed her out as quickly as possible, and then waited for a couple of minutes to give her time to get out of the way.

But on going down-stairs Mrs. Tarbell found her standing in the door-way, holding her umbrella half open and peering out into the rain, Mrs. Stiles explained that she was waiting for a car.

"They run every two or three minutes," said Mrs. Tarbell sweetly. "Good-day."

"Here's one now," said Mrs. Stiles. "Mrs. Tarbell, I just wanted to say—mebbe you might think I wasn't appreciative of your kindness, and that all I cared about was—"

"Not at all," said Mrs. Tarbell. "Not at all, I assure you. I understand, perfectly. You will miss your—"

"That's so, that's so," said Mrs. Stiles. "Driver! driver!" And she ran down the steps, flourishing her umbrella wildly.

Mrs. Tarbell put up her own umbrella, and looked down the street. The rain splashed up from the pavement, the tree-boxes were wet and dismal, the little rivers in the gutters raced along, shaking their tawny manes, the umbrellas of the passing pedestrians were sleek and dripping, like the coats of the seals in the Zoological Garden. Now that she was rid of Mrs. Stiles, was it absolutely necessary for her to go out? She hesitated a moment.

Suddenly she heard a cry from the street. Two or three men in front of her stopped quickly, and then ran toward the prostrate figure of somebody who had fallen from the car which had halted a few steps farther on. The car-horses were plunging and swinging from one side of the car to the other; the conductor had alighted and was hurrying back toward the victim of the accident; the passengers were pushing out on the back platform. Mrs. Stiles had slipped or been thrown down on the muddy car-track. Mrs. Tarbell recognized her long black figure as it was lifted up. A sad sight the poor woman was, her india-rubber cloak spotted and streaked with mud and muddy water, her head hanging back from her shoulders, her face the color of a miller's coat exactly,—a dirty, grayish white,—and her arms shaking about with the motion of her bearers. She had fainted; her bearers were looking about in the hope of seeing an apothecary's shop, or some other such occasional hospital, when Mrs. Tarbell accosted them.

Mrs. Tarbell stood in the established attitude of a woman in front of a rainy-day gutter, holding her skirts with one hand and leaning forward at such an angle that the drippings from the mid-rib of her umbrella fell in equal streams upon the small of her back and a point precisely thirteen inches from the tips of her galoshes.

"Bring her in here," cried Mrs, Tarbell, shaking her umbrella. "Bring her in here." And she waved the umbrella in an elliptical curve about her head.

"Where?" said the foremost of those addressed, an active-looking man with a red moustache, a wet fur cap, and an umbrella under his arm.

"Here," said Mrs. Tarbell, thrusting her umbrella at the Land and Water Company's building. To make her directions more accurate, she went to the steps and nodded at the hall-way.

"The lady is my—has just been having a consultation with me," said Mrs. Tarbell to the man in the red moustache, "and—"

"Which way?" said he.

"Right up-stairs: the first door at the head of the stairs, on the third floor. I think you had better take her up in the elevator, because—"

"Cert'nly, cert'nly," he said, interrupting Mrs. Tarbell, who had intended to be as brief and business-like as possible.

Mrs. Tarbell followed the procession into the elevator, and when they arrived on the third floor, John, the office-boy, had already opened the door, scenting an excitement afar off with curious nostril, as it were; and Mrs. Stiles was duly carried in and laid on the sofa. "John, get some water instantly," cried Mrs. Tarbell. And at the same moment a red-cheeked young man bustled into the room and said that he was a doctor.

He pushed everybody out of the way, darted to the sofa, took off his hat. "Heard there was an accident, and if my services—unless there is another practitioner—thank you, sir, you are doing the very best thing possible; and now let us see whether there is a fracture," he said.

The promptitude and directness with which this young gentleman went to work commanded the attention and admiration of all the spectators. He asked for water, he called for salts of ammonia, he ran his hands lightly over Mrs. Stiles's prostrate form, all in an instant; then he asked how the accident had happened.

"She tried to get on while the car was going," growled the conductor, who had accompanied the party up-stairs.

"I'll bet she didn't," observed the party with the red moustache.

"Ankle, probably," murmured the doctor to himself. "Possibly a rib also." And in a minute or two he was able to declare that the injury had been done to the lady's ankle, the lady herself having assisted him to this conclusion by coming to her senses, groaning, and putting her hand down to the suffering joint.

The conductor frowned. "What is the lady's name and address, please, ma'am?" he asked of Mrs. Tarbell. "I have to make a report of the accident."

"You'll find it out soon enough," said a thin man with a fresh complexion, very silvery hair, and spectacles. "The company will not have to wait long for the information." He looked about with a cheerful smile, and the conductor glared at him contemptuously. "She never tried to get on while you were going," continued the thin man. "It was your driver; that's what it was."

"The lady's name is Stiles, conductor," said Mrs. Tarbell,—"Stiles; and she lives—dear me!—on Pulaski Street. Can I do anything for you, doctor?"

"You might send your boy for a carriage," said the doctor, who was engaged in removing Mrs. Stiles's shoe. "Nothing else, thank you, unless you happen to have some lead-water about you." He gave a professional smile, and Mrs. Stiles groaned dismally.

Mrs. Tarbell despatched John for the carriage, and then, turning, and blushing in a way that was rather out of keeping with her tone of voice, she said, "Now, I should be obliged if you gentlemen who saw the accident would furnish me with your names and addresses."

On hearing this the crowd began to diminish rapidly; but the man with the red moustache set a good example by giving his name loudly and promptly as "Oscar B. Mecutchen, tobacconist, d'reckly opposite the City Hall." So three or four other men allowed Mrs. Tarbell to set them down as observers of the disaster. The gentleman in spectacles was named Stethson, another man, a tall, fat-cheeked countryman, Vickers, and a dried up little party, in a Grand-Army-of-the-Republic suit, Parthenheimer. Mrs. Tarbell had the names down pat, and scrutinized each prospective witness carefully, as if warning him that it would be no use for him to give a fictitious name in the hope of evading his duties, as she would now be able to pick him out of a regiment.

"I am very much obliged to you," she said, in a stately manner. "Now, you all agree that the accident was the result of the negligence of the driver of the car?"

"Why, yes, certainly," they all agreed at once.

"Leastways—" said Mecutchen.

"That is—" said Parthenheimer.

"How was it, anyway?" asked Stethson.

"Thought you saw it," cried the others, turning on him instantly.

"So I did," said Stethson; "but I thought I'd like to hear what you gentlemen's impression was."

"Well," said Mecutchen and Vickers, the tall man, together, tipping back their hats with a simultaneous and precisely similar movement on the part of each,—nothing is more indicative of the careful independence of the average American than the way in which he always keeps his head covered in the presence of his lawyer,—"Well," said Vickers and Mecutchen.

Mr. Mecutchen bowed to Mr. Vickers, and Mr. Vickers bowed to Mr. Mecutchen, with a sort of grotesque self-effacement. Mr. Vickers waved his hand, and Mr. Mecutchen proceeded.

"Why," said he, "the lady stopped the car in the middle of the block,—just like a woman,—got on the platform, car started with a jerk, and she fell off."

Vickers and Parthenheimer nodded assent, but Stethson said that his view of it was that the car started off again while she was trying to get on.

"That makes it stronger," said Mecutchen.

"Well, of course," said Stethson, settling his spectacles farther back on his nose; and Vickers murmured that you couldn't have it too strong, as he knew from the point of view (as he said) of cows. "It's wonderful what you can get for cows," he added pensively.

"Ag'in' a railroad company," said the grizzled old Parthenheimer, "the stronger the better, because some cases, no matter how aggerawated they are, you only git a specific sum and no damages. But a railroad case, which is a damage case right through, the worse they are the more you git. I had a little niece to be killed by a freight-train, and they took off that pore little girl's head, and her right arm, and her left leg, all three, like it was done by a mowing-machine,—so clean cut, you know. Well, sir, they got a werdick for six thousand dollars, my brother and his wife did; and their lawyer stood to it that the mangling brought in three thousand; and I think he was right about it, too."

"Six thousand!" said Vickers, with immense appreciation.

"The court set it aside for being excessive," said Parthenheimer," and aft'werds they compromised for less. But there it was. And the way it was done was odd, too. Right arm and left leg."

"Ah," said Vickers, "living right on a railroad, the way I do, you see some queerer accidents than that. Now, I remember—"

But Mrs. Tarbell found this conversation growing quite too ghastly to be listened to with composure, so she turned abruptly toward the sofa. The doctor was now bathing and examining Mrs. Stiles's ankle, and Mrs. Stiles looked not merely the picture but the dramatic materialization of misery.

"How do you feel now, Mrs. Stiles? How do you think she is, doctor?"

These two questions were put in Mrs. Tarbell's sweetest tones.

Mrs. Stiles lay for a moment without answering, but the doctor replied that he was afraid it was a nasty business. "There is a dislocation, and there may be nothing more, except a sprain," he said. "But it will be impossible to tell until the swelling is reduced; and if there is a fracture of the fibula, why, such a complication is apt to be serious."

Mrs. Stiles groaned feebly, and then looked up at Mrs. Tarbell with gratitude. "I never thought to be so much trouble to you," she murmured.

"Do not think of that for a moment," said Mrs. Tarbell. "If I only had my cologne-bottle," she said, half aloud, in an apologetic voice. This was one of the luxuries she had refused herself in her professional toilet; more than this, she did not allow herself to carry a smelling-bottle, though Mr. Juddson had told her it could be used with great effect to disconcert an opposing counsel.

"I am afraid you are suffering very much," she went on.

"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles sadly. "If I hadn't only been such a fool as to try to get on that there car while it was a-going."

Mrs. Tarbell started. The doctor rose and laughed.

"You don't mean that," said he.

"Mean what, doctor?"

"That you tried to get on while the car was going. All these gentlemen here say the car started while you were trying to get on, which is a very different thing, you know." The doctor had evidently kept his ears open while attending to the sufferer. Mrs. Tarbell, rather red in the face, kept silent, not knowing exactly what she ought to do.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Stiles feebly. "I don't s'pose I remember much."

"Of course you don't," said the doctor cheerfully. "Bless you, you'll sue the company and have a famous verdict; I wouldn't take ten thousand dollars for your chances if I had them. You observe," he went on confidentially to Mrs. Tarbell, "I am doing my best for the community of interests which, ought to exist among the learned professions. I raise this poor woman's spirits by suggesting to her dreams of enormous damages, and at the same time I promote litigation, to the great advantage of her lawyer. I think that is the true scientific spirit."

"I—I—" began Mrs. Tarbell, in some confusion.

"Beg pardon?" said the doctor. "Well, I must be off. I've done all I can for the poor woman. She ought to send for her own doctor as soon as she gets home. I suppose—will you—?" He looked at Mrs. Tarbell doubtfully, as if wondering whether he ought to take it for granted that she was in charge of the case.

"I will tell her," said Mrs. Tarbell.

"I could tell her myself," said the doctor. "To be sure. Well, if I could only inform her lawyer what I've done for him, he might induce my fair patient to employ me permanently." He smiled at his joke, shook his head waggishly, and turned to look for his hat.

As Mrs. Tarbell looked after him in some perplexity, John, the office-boy, came back to report that the carriage was engaged and at the door; and Mrs. Stiles was presently carried down-stairs again, it being quite impossible for her even to limp.

But before she was lifted up she turned her head and beckoned to Mrs. Tarbell.

"Could I," she said,—"could I have a case against the railway company?"

"Ye-es,—I suppose so," Mrs. Tarbell answered.

"Did they say it was the fault of the conductor that I fell off that car?"

"Of the driver,—yes."

"Well, then, ma'am, would you advise me to bring a case against them?"

"You had better decide for yourself," said Mrs. Tarbell faintly. But then, remembering that it was her duty to advise, she added, "Yes, I think you ought to sue."

"Then you'll take the case, Mrs. Tarbell, won't you, please?" said Mrs. Stiles, closing her eyes again, as if satisfied of the future.

Mrs. Tarbell! There was a general movement of surprise as the lady lawyer's name was pronounced, and the doctor was so much taken aback that heh burst out laughing.

"I'm sure I beg your pardon, Mrs. Tarbell," he cried. "I had no idea in the world—"

"Ah," said Stethson, "I looked at the sign on the door coming in. I knew it was the lady lawyer. My, if my wife could see you, Mrs. Tarbell!"

"And I never knew who I was talking to!" grumbled Mecutchen disgustedly.

A quarter of an hour later, when Mr. Juddson returned to his office,

Mrs. Tarbell was engaged in drawing up a paper which ran as follows:

ANNETTE GORSLEY STILES } Court of Common

vs. } Pleas.

THE BLANK AND DASH } May Term, 1883.

AVENUES PASSENGER } No. –

RAILWAY CO. }

To the Prothonotary of the said Court:

Issue summons in case returnable the first Monday in May, 1883.

TARBELL, pro plff.

It was a precipe for a writ.

"Alexander!" said Mrs. Tarbell, in an expressive voice, regardless of the office-boy.

"Yes?" said Mr. Juddson. The referee had refused to admit some of his testimony.

"Alexander, I have a client," said Mrs. Tarbell.

"Do you tell me so?" replied Mr. Juddson absently, as he redisarranged the papers upon his table. "I hope—Bless me, where is that—? Mrs. Tarbell, have you seen anything of an envelope?—John, what became of the papers in Muggins and Bylow? I gave them to you."

Mrs. Tarbell, deeply mortified, resumed her occupation, and completed the precipe by writing the words, "Tarbell, pro plff."

Mr. Juddson's papers were found for him, under his nose, and he was beginning to say that he was going out to lunch, when the enormity of his conduct made itself apparent to him.

"By George!" he said, stopping short, "you told me you had a client at last, eh, Mrs. Tarbell?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Tarbell coldly.

"Why,—bless my soul! It's your first client, is it not? And what kind of a case has your ewe-lamb brought you? Come, tell me about it. I did not properly appreciate the communication." And he went over to Mrs. Tarbell's desk, upon which he sat himself down in a position which Mrs. Tarbell had formerly considered very undignified; but now she could not help feeling that it was really a legal attitude.

She looked up with a smile, and then, though with a little shame, displayed the precipe.

"Well, that's good," said Mr. Juddson. "Accident case, I suppose. What is it? Death, and damages for the widow?—for I see there are no children,—or was the plaintiff herself the victim of the accident? Your sex has finally decided to stand by you, it seems."

"I shan't send out the writ just yet," said Mrs. Tarbell, blushing. "I was—wanted to see how the precipe would look. I must see the plaintiff again, I think, before I advise her definitely to sue."