She told herself, as she lay there, that she must deal with him coolly and firmly, though she wanted to spank5 him. The time for spankings6 was past. Some one was coming down the street with a quick, light step. She sat up in bed, listening. The steps passed the house, went on. A half hour passed. Some one turned the corner, whistling blithely7. But, no, he would not be whistling, she told herself. He would sneak8 in, quietly. It was a little after twelve when she heard the front door open (Winnebago rarely locked its doors). She was surprised to feel her heart beating rapidly. He was trying to be quiet, and was making a great deal of noise about it. His shoes and the squeaky fifth stair alone would have convicted him. The imp9 of perversity10 in Molly Brandeis made her smile, angry as she was, at the thought of how furious he must be at that stair.
“Theodore!” she called quietly, just as he was tip-toeing past her room.
“Yeh.”
“Come in here. And turn on the light.”
He switched on the light and stood there in the doorway11. Molly Brandeis, sitting up in bed in the chilly12 room, with her covers about her, was conscious of a little sick feeling, not at what he had done, but that a son of hers should ever wear the sullen13, defiant14, hang-dog look that disfigured Theodore's face now.
“Bauer's?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I just stopped in there for a minute after the concert. I didn't mean to stay. And then Bauer introduced me around to everybody. And then they asked me to play, and—”
“And you played badly.”
“Well, I didn't have my own violin.”
“No football game Saturday. And no pocket money this week. Go to bed.”
He went, breathing hard, and muttering a little under his breath. At breakfast next morning Fanny plied15 him with questions and was furious at his cool uncommunicativeness.
“Was it wonderful, Theodore? Did he play—oh—like an angel?”
“Played all right. Except the `Swan' thing. Maybe he thought it was too easy, or something, but I thought he murdered it. Pass the toast, unless you want it all.”
It was not until the following autumn that Theodore went to New York. The thing that had seemed so impossible was arranged. He was to live in Brooklyn with a distant cousin of Ferdinand Brandeis, on a business basis, and he was to come into New York three times a week for his lessons. Mrs. Brandeis took him as far as Chicago, treated him to an extravagant16 dinner, put him on the train and with difficulty stifled17 the impulse to tell all the other passengers in the car to look after her Theodore. He looked incredibly grown up and at ease in his new suit and the hat that they had wisely bought in Chicago. She did not cry at all (in the train), and she kissed him only twice, and no man can ask more than that of any mother.
Molly Brandeis went back to Winnebago and the store with her shoulders a little more consciously squared, her jaw18 a little more firmly set. There was something almost terrible about her concentrativeness. Together she and Fanny began a life of self-denial of which only a woman could be capable. They saved in ways that only a woman's mind could devise; petty ways, that included cream and ice, and clothes, and candy. It was rather fun at first. When that wore off it had become a habit. Mrs. Brandeis made two resolutions regarding Fanny. One was that she should have at least a high school education, and graduate. The other that she should help in the business of the store as little as possible. To the first Fanny acceded19 gladly. To the second she objected.
“But why? If you can work, why can't I? I could help you a lot on Saturdays and at Christmas time, and after school.”
“I don't want you to,” Mrs. Brandeis had replied, almost fiercely. “I'm giving my life to it. That's enough. I don't want you to know about buying and selling. I don't want you to know a bill of lading from a sales slip when you see it. I don't want you to know whether f. o. b. is a wireless20 signal or a branch of the Masons.” At which Fanny grinned. No one appreciated her mother's humor more than she.
“But I do know already. The other day when that fat man was selling you those go-carts I heard him say. `F. o. b. Buffalo,' and I asked Aloysius what it meant and he told me.”
It was inevitable22 that Fanny Brandeis should come to know these things, for the little household revolved23 about the store on Elm Street. By the time she was eighteen and had graduated from the Winnebago high school, she knew so many things that the average girl of eighteen did not know, and was ignorant of so many things that the average girl of eighteen did know, that Winnebago was almost justified24 in thinking her queer. She had had a joyous25 time at school, in spite of algebra26 and geometry and physics. She took the part of the heroine in the senior class play given at the Winnebago opera house, and at the last rehearsal27 electrified28 those present by announcing that if Albert Finkbein (who played the dashing Southern hero) didn't kiss her properly when the curtain went down on the first act, just as he was going into battle, she'd rather he didn't kiss her at all.
“He just makes it ridiculous,” she protested. “He sort of gives a peck two inches from my nose, and then giggles29. Everybody will laugh, and it'll spoil everything.”
With the rather startled elocution teacher backing her she rehearsed the bashful Albert in that kiss until she had achieved the effect of realism that she thought the scene demanded. But when, on the school sleighing parties and hay rides the boy next her slipped a wooden and uncertain arm about her waist while they all were singing “Jingle30 Bells, Jingle Bells,” and “Good Night Ladies,” and “Merrily We Roll Along,” she sat up stiffly and unyieldingly until the arm, discouraged, withdrew to its normal position. Which two instances are quoted as being of a piece with what Winnebago termed her queerness.
Not that Fanny Brandeis went beauless through school. On the contrary, she always had some one to carry her books, and to take her to the school parties and home from the Friday night debating society meetings. Her first love affair turned out disastrously31. She was twelve, and she chose as the object of her affections a bullet-headed boy named Simpson. One morning, as the last bell rang and they were taking their seats, Fanny passed his desk and gave his coarse and stubbly hair a tweak. It was really a love tweak, and intended to be playful, but she probably put more fervor32 into it than she knew. It brought the tears of pain to his eyes, and he turned and called her the name at which she shrank back, horrified33. Her shock and unbelief must have been stamped on her face, for the boy, still smarting, had snarled34, “Ya-as, I mean it.”
It was strange how she remembered that incident years after she had forgotten important happenings in her life. Clarence Heyl, whose very existence you will have failed to remember, used to hover35 about her uncertainly, always looking as if he would like to walk home with her, but never summoning the courage to do it. They were graduated from the grammar school together, and Clarence solemnly read a graduation essay entitled “Where is the Horse?” Automobiles37 were just beginning to flash plentifully38 up and down Elm Street. Clarence had always been what Winnebago termed sickly, in spite of his mother's noodle soup, and coddling. He was sent West, to Colorado, or to a ranch21 in Wyoming, Fanny was not quite sure which, perhaps because she was not interested. He had come over one afternoon to bid her good-by, and had dangled39 about the front porch until she went into the house and shut the door.
When she was sixteen there was a blond German boy whose taciturnity attracted her volubility and vivacity40. She mistook his stolidness41 for depth, and it was a long time before she realized that his silence was not due to the weight of his thoughts but to the fact that he had nothing to say. In her last year at high school she found herself singled out for the attentions of Harmon Kent, who was the Beau Nash of the Winnebago high school. His clothes were made by Schwartze, the tailor, when all the other boys of his age got theirs at the spring and fall sales of the Golden Eagle Clothing Store. It was always nip and tuck between his semester standings and his track team and football possibilities. The faculty42 refused to allow flunkers to take part in athletics43.
He was one of those boys who have definite charm, and manner, and poise45 at seventeen, and who crib their exams off their cuffs46. He was always at the head of any social plans in the school, and at the dances he rushed about wearing in his coat lapel a ribbon marked Floor Committee. The teachers all knew he was a bluff47, but his engaging manner carried him through. When he went away to the state university he made Fanny solemnly promise to write; to come down to Madison for the football games; to be sure to remember about the Junior prom. He wrote once—a badly spelled scrawl—and she answered. But he was the sort of person who must be present to be felt. He could not project his personality. When he came home for the Christmas holidays Fanny was helping48 in the store. He dropped in one afternoon when she was selling whisky glasses to Mike Hearn of the Farmers' Rest Hotel.
They did not write at all during the following semester, and when he came back for the long summer vacation they met on the street one day and exchanged a few rather forced pleasantries. It suddenly dawned on Fanny that he was patronizing her much as the scion49 of an aristocratic line banters50 the housemaid whom he meets on the stairs. She bit an imaginary apron51 corner, and bobbed a curtsy right there on Elm Street, in front of the Courier office and walked off, leaving him staring. It was shortly after this that she began a queer line of reading for a girl—lives of Disraeli, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Mozart—distinguished Jews who had found their religion a handicap.
The year of her graduation she did a thing for which Winnebago felt itself justified in calling her different. Each member of the graduating class was allowed to choose a theme for a thesis. Fanny Brandeis called hers “A Piece of Paper.” On Winnebago's Fox River were located a number of the largest and most important paper mills in the country. There were mills in which paper was made of wood fiber52, and others in which paper was made of rags. You could smell the sulphur as soon as you crossed the bridge that led to the Flats. Sometimes, when the wind was right, the pungent53 odor of it spread all over the town. Strangers sniffed54 it and made a wry55 face, but the natives liked it.
The mills themselves were great ugly brick buildings, their windows festooned with dust webs. Some of them boasted high detached tower-like structures where a secret acid process went on. In the early days the mills had employed many workers, but newly invented machinery56 had come to take the place of hand labor57. The rag-rooms alone still employed hundreds of girls who picked, sorted, dusted over the great suction bins58. The rooms in which they worked were gray with dust. They wore caps over their hair to protect it from the motes59 that you could see spinning and swirling60 in the watery61 sunlight that occasionally found its way through the gray-filmed window panes62. It never seemed to occur to them that the dust cap so carefully pulled down about their heads did not afford protection for their lungs. They were pale girls, the rag-room girls, with a peculiarly gray-white pallor.
Fanny Brandeis had once been through the Winnebago Paper Company's mill and she had watched, fascinated, while a pair of soiled and greasy64 old blue overalls65 were dusted and cleaned, and put through this acid vat66, and that acid tub, growing whiter and more pulpy67 with each process until it was fed into a great crushing roller that pressed the moisture out of it, flattened69 it to the proper thinness and spewed it out at last, miraculously70, in the form of rolls of crisp, white paper. On the first day of the Easter vacation Fanny Brandeis walked down to the office of the Winnebago Paper Company's mill and applied71 at the superintendent's office for a job. She got it. They were generally shorthanded in the rag-room. When Mrs. Brandeis heard of it there followed one of the few stormy scenes between mother and daughter.
“Why did you do it?” demanded Mrs. Brandeis.
“I had to, to get it right.”
“Oh, don't be silly. You could have visited the mill a dozen times.”
Fanny twisted the fingers of her left hand in the fingers of her right as was her way when she was terribly in earnest, and rather excited.
“But I don't want to write about the paper business as a process.”
“Well, then, what do you want?”
“I want to write about the overalls on some railroad engineer, perhaps; or the blue calico wrapper that belonged, maybe, to a scrub woman. And how they came to be spotted72, or faded, or torn, and finally all worn out. And how the rag man got them, and the mill, and how the girls sorted them. And the room in which they do it. And the bins. And the machinery. Oh, it's the most fascinating, and—and sort of relentless73 machinery. And the acid burns on the hands of the men at the vats74. And their shoes. And then the paper, so white. And the way we tear it up, or crumple75 it, and throw it in the waste basket. Just a piece of paper, don't you see what I mean? Just a piece of paper, and yet all that—” she stopped and frowned a little, and grew inarticulate, and gave it up with a final, “Don't you see what I mean, Mother? Don't you see what I mean?”
Molly Brandeis looked at her daughter in a startled way, like one who, walking tranquilly76 along an accustomed path, finds himself confronting a new and hitherto unsuspected vista77, formed by a peculiar63 arrangement of clouds, perhaps, or light, or foliage78, or all three blended. “I see what you mean,” she said. “But I wish you wouldn't do it. I—I wish you didn't feel that you wanted to do it.”
“But how can I make it real if I don't?”
“You can't,” said Molly Brandeis. “That's just it. You can't, ever.”
Fanny got up before six every morning of that Easter vacation, and went to the mill, lunch box in hand. She came home at night dead-tired. She did not take the street car to and from the mill, as she might have, because she said the other girls in the rag-room walked, some of them from the very edge of town. Mrs. Brandeis said that she was carrying things too far, but Fanny stuck it out for the two weeks, at the end of which period she spent an entire Sunday in a hair-washing, face-steaming, and manicuring bee. She wrote her paper from notes she had taken, and turned it in at the office of the high school principal with the feeling that it was not at all what she had meant it to be. A week later Professor Henning called her into his office. The essay lay on his desk.
“I've read your thesis,” he began, and stopped, and cleared his throat. He was not an eloquent79 man. “Where did you get your information, Miss Brandeis?”
“I got it at the mill.”
“From one of the employees?”
“Oh, no. I worked there, in the rag-room.”
Professor Henning gave a little startled exclamation80 that he turned hastily into a cough. “I thought that perhaps the editor of the Courier might like to see it—it being local. And interesting.”
He brought it down to the office of the little paper himself, and promised to call for it again in an hour or two, when Lem Davis should have read it. Lem Davis did read it, and snorted, and scuffled with his feet in the drift of papers under his desk, which was a way he had when enraged81.
“Read it!” he echoed, at Professor Henning's question. “Read it! Yes, I read it. And let me tell you it's socialism of the rankest kind, that's what! It's anarchism, that's what! Who's this girl? Mrs. Brandeis's daughter—of the Bazaar82? Let me tell you I'd go over there and tell her what I think of the way she's bringing up that girl—if she wasn't an advertiser. `A Piece of Paper'! Hell!” And to show his contempt for what he had read he wadded together a great mass of exchanges that littered his desk and hurled83 them, a crumpled84 heap, to the floor, and then spat85 tobacco juice upon them.
“I'm sorry,” said Professor Henning, and rose; but at the door he turned and said something highly unprofessorial. “It's a darn fine piece of writing.” And slammed the door. At supper that night he told Mrs. Henning about it. Mrs. Henning was a practical woman, as the wife of a small-town high school principal must needs be. “But don't you know,” she said, “that Roscoe Moore, who is president of the Outagamie Pulp68 Mill and the Winnebago Paper Company, practically owns the Courier?”
Professor Henning passed a hand over his hair, ruefully, like a school boy. “No, Martha, I didn't know. If I knew those things, dear, I suppose we wouldn't be eating sausage for supper to-night.” There was a little silence between them. Then he looked up. “Some day I'm going to brag86 about having been that Brandeis girl's teacher.”
Fanny was in the store a great deal now. After she finished high school they sent Mattie away and Fanny took over the housekeeping duties, but it was not her milieu87. Not that she didn't do it well. She put a perfect fury of energy and care into the preparation of a pot roast. After she had iced a cake she enhanced it with cunning arabesques88 of jelly. The house shone as it never had, even under Mattie's honest regime. But it was like hitching89 a high-power engine to a butter churn. There were periods of maddening restlessness. At such times she would set about cleaning the cellar, perhaps. It was a three-roomed cellar, brick-floored, cool, and having about it that indefinable cellar smell which is of mold, and coal, and potatoes, and onions, and kindling90 wood, and dill pickles92 and ashes.
Other girls of Fanny's age, at such times, cleaned out their bureau drawers and read forbidden novels. Fanny armed herself with the third best broom, the dust-pan, and an old bushel basket. She swept up chips, scraped up ashes, scoured94 the preserve shelves, washed the windows, cleaned the vegetable bins, and got gritty, and scarlet-cheeked and streaked95 with soot96. It was a wonderful safety valve, that cellar. A pity it was that the house had no attic97.
Then there were long, lazy summer afternoons when there was nothing to do but read. And dream. And watch the town go by to supper. I think that is why our great men and women so often have sprung from small towns, or villages. They have had time to dream in their adolescence98. No cars to catch, no matinees, no city streets, none of the teeming99, empty, energy-consuming occupations of the city child. Little that is competitive, much that is unconsciously absorbed at the most impressionable period, long evenings for reading, long afternoons in the fields or woods. With the cloth laid, and the bread cut and covered with a napkin, and the sauce in the glass bowl, and the cookies on a blue plate, and the potatoes doing very, very slowly, and the kettle steaming with a Peerybingle cheerfulness, Fanny would stroll out to the front porch again to watch for the familiar figure to appear around the corner of Norris Street. She would wear her blue-and-white checked gingham apron deftly100 twisted over one hip93, and tucked in, in deference101 to the passers-by. And the town would go by—Hen Cody's drays, rattling102 and thundering; the high school boys thudding down the road, dog-tired and sweaty in their football suits, or their track pants and jersies, on their way from the athletic44 field to the school shower baths; Mrs. Mosher flying home, her skirts billowing behind her, after a protracted103 afternoon at whist; little Ernie Trost with a napkin-covered peach basket carefully balanced in his hand, waiting for the six-fifteen interurban to round the corner near the switch, so that he could hand up his father's supper; Rudie Mass, the butcher, with a moist little packet of meat in his hand, and lurching ever so slightly, and looking about defiantly104. Oh, Fanny probably never realized how much she saw and absorbed, sitting there on Brandeis' front porch, watching Winnebago go by to supper.
At Christmas time she helped in the store, afternoons and evenings. Then, one Christmas, Mrs. Brandeis was ill for three weeks with grippe. They had to have a helper in the house. When Mrs. Brandeis was able to come back to the store Sadie left to marry, not one of her traveling-men victims, but a steady person, in the paper-hanging way, whose suit had long been considered hopeless. After that Fanny took her place. She developed a surprising knack105 at selling. Yet it was not so surprising, perhaps, when one considered her teacher. She learned as only a woman can learn who is brought into daily contact with the outside world. It was not only contact: it was the relation of buyer and seller. She learned to judge people because she had to. How else could one gauge106 their tastes, temperaments107, and pocketbooks? They passed in and out of Brandeis' Bazaar, day after day, in an endless and varied108 procession—traveling men, school children, housewives, farmers, worried hostesses, newly married couples bent109 on house furnishing, business men.
She learned that it was the girls from the paper mills who bought the expensive plates—the ones with the red roses and green leaves hand-painted in great smears110 and costing two dollars and a half, while the golf club crowd selected for a gift or prize one of the little white plates with the faded-looking blue sprig pattern, costing thirty-nine cents. One day, after she had spent endless time and patience over the sale of a nondescript little plate to one of Winnebago's socially elect, she stared wrathfully after the retreating back of the trying customer.
“Did you see that? I spent an hour with her. One hour! I showed her everything from the imported Limoges bowls to the Sevres cups and saucers, and all she bought was that miserable111 little bonbon112 dish with the cornflower pattern. Cat!”
Mrs. Brandeis spoke113 from the depths of her wisdom.
“Fanny, I didn't miss much that went on during that hour, and I was dying to come over and take her away from you, but I didn't because I knew you needed the lesson, and I knew that that McNulty woman never spends more than twenty-five cents, anyway. But I want to tell you now that it isn't only a matter of plates. It's a matter of understanding folks. When you've learned whom to show the expensive hand-painted things to, and when to suggest quietly the little, vague things, with what you call the faded look, why, you've learned just about all there is to know of human nature. Don't expect it, at your age.”
Molly Brandeis had never lost her trick of chatting with customers, or listening to them, whenever she had a moment's time. People used to drop in, and perch114 themselves on one of the stools near the big glowing base burner and talk to Mrs. Brandeis. It was incredible, the secrets they revealed of business, and love and disgrace; of hopes and aspirations115, and troubles, and happiness. The farmer women used to fascinate Fanny by their very drabness. Mrs. Brandeis had a long and loyal following of these women. It was before the day when every farmhouse116 boasted an automobile36, a telephone, and a phonograph.
A worn and dreary117 lot, these farmer women, living a skimmed milk existence, putting their youth, and health, and looks into the soil. They used often to sit back near the stove in winter, or in a cool corner near the front of the store in summer, and reveal, bit by bit, the sordid118, tragic119 details of their starved existence. Fanny was often shocked when they told their age—twenty-five, twenty-eight, thirty, but old and withered120 from drudgery121, and child-bearing, and coarse, unwholesome food. Ignorant women, and terribly lonely, with the dumb, lack-luster eyes that bespeak122 monotony. When they smiled they showed blue-white, glassily perfect false teeth that flashed incongruously in the ruin of their wrinkled, sallow, weather-beaten faces. Mrs. Brandeis would question them gently.
Children? Ten. Living? Four. Doctor? Never had one in the house. Why? He didn't believe in them. No proper kitchen utensils123, none of the devices that lighten the deadeningly monotonous124 drudgery of housework. Everything went to make his work easier—new harrows, plows125, tractors, wind mills, reapers126, barns, silos. The story would come out, bit by bit, as the woman sat there, a worn, unlovely figure, her hands—toil-blackened, seamed, calloused127, unlovelier than any woman's hands were ever meant to be—lying in unaccustomed idleness in her lap.
Fanny learned, too, that the woman with the shawl, and with her money tied in a corner of her handkerchief, was more likely to buy the six-dollar doll, with the blue satin dress, and the real hair and eye-lashes, while the Winnebago East End society woman haggled128 over the forty-nine cent kind, which she dressed herself.
I think their loyalty129 to Mrs. Brandeis might be explained by her honesty and her sympathy. She was so square with them. When Minnie Mahler, out Centerville way, got married, she knew there would be no redundancy of water sets, hanging lamps, or pickle91 dishes.
“I thought like I'd get her a chamber130 set,” Minnie's aunt would confide131 to Mrs. Brandeis.
“Is this for Minnie Mahler, of Centerville?”
“Yes; she gets married Sunday.”
“I sold a chamber set for that wedding yesterday. And a set of dishes. But I don't think she's got a parlor132 lamp. At least I haven't sold one. Why don't you get her that? If she doesn't like it she can change it. Now there's that blue one with the pink roses.”
And Minnie's aunt would end by buying the lamp.
Fanny learned that the mill girls liked the bright-colored and expensive wares133, and why; she learned that the woman with the “fascinator” (tragic misnomer134!) over her head wanted the finest sled for her boy. She learned to keep her temper. She learned to suggest without seeming to suggest. She learned to do surprisingly well all those things that her mother did so surprisingly well—surprisingly because both the women secretly hated the business of buying and selling. Once, on the Fourth of July, when there was a stand outside the store laden135 with all sorts of fireworks, Fanny came down to find Aloysius and the boy Eddie absent on other work, and Mrs. Brandeis momentarily in charge. The sight sickened her, then infuriated her.
“Come in,” she said, between her teeth. “That isn't your work.”
“Somebody had to be there. Pearl's at dinner. And Aloysius and Eddie were—”
“Then leave it alone. We're not starving—yet. I won't have you selling fireworks like that—on the street. I won't have it! I won't have it!”
The store was paying, now. Not magnificently, but well enough. Most of the money went to Theodore, in Dresden. He was progressing, though not so meteorically136 as Bauer and Schabelitz had predicted. But that sort of thing took time, Mrs. Brandeis argued. Fanny often found her mother looking at her these days with a questioning sadness in her eyes. Once she suggested that Fanny join the class in drawing at the Winnebago university—a small fresh-water college. Fanny did try it for a few months, but the work was not what she wanted; they did fruit pictures and vases, with a book, on a table; or a clump137 of very pink and very white flowers. Fanny quit in disgust and boredom138. Besides, they were busy at the store, and needed her.
There came often to Winnebago a woman whom Fanny Brandeis admired intensely. She was a traveling saleswoman, successful, magnetic, and very much alive. Her name was Mrs. Emma McChesney, and between her and Mrs. Brandeis there existed a warm friendship. She always took dinner with Mrs. Brandeis and Fanny, and they made a special effort to give her all those delectable139 home-cooked dishes denied her in her endless round of hotels.
“Noodle soup!” she used to say, almost lyrically.
“With real hand-made, egg noodles! You don't know what it means. You haven't been eating vermicelli soup all through Illinois and Wisconsin.”
“We've made a dessert, though, that—”
“Molly Brandeis, don't you dare to tell me what you've got for dessert. I couldn't stand it. But, oh, suppose, SUPPOSE it's homemade strawberry shortcake!”
Which it more than likely was.
Fanny Brandeis used to think that she would dress exactly as Mrs. McChesney dressed, if she too were a successful business woman earning a man-size salary. Mrs. McChesney was a blue serge sort of woman—and her blue serge never was shiny in the back. Her collar, or jabot, or tie, or cuffs, or whatever relieving bit of white she wore, was always of the freshest and crispest. Her hats were apt to be small and full of what is known as “line.” She usually would try to arrange her schedule so as to spend a Sunday in Winnebago, and the three alert, humor-loving women, grown wise and tolerant from much contact with human beings, would have a delightful140 day together.
“Molly,” Mrs. McChesney would say, when they were comfortably settled in the living-room, or on the front porch, “with your shrewdness, and experience, and brains, you ought to be one of those five or ten thousand a year buyers. You know how to sell goods and handle people. And you know values. That's all there is to the whole game of business. I don't advise you to go on the road. Heaven knows I wouldn't advise my dearest enemy to do that, much less a friend. But you could do bigger things, and get bigger results. You know most of the big wholesalers, and retailers141 too. Why don't you speak to them about a department position? Or let me nose around a bit for you.”
Molly Brandeis shook her head, though her expressive142 eyes were eager and interested. “Don't you think I've thought of that, Emma? A thousand times? But I'm—I'm afraid. There's too much at stake. Suppose I couldn't succeed? There's Theodore. His whole future is dependent on me for the next few years. And there's Fanny here. No, I guess I'm too old. And I'm sure of the business here, small as it is.”
Emma McChesney glanced at the girl. “I'm thinking that Fanny has the making of a pretty capable business woman herself.”
Fanny drew in her breath sharply, and her face sparkled into sudden life, as always when she was tremendously interested.
“Do you know what I'd do if I were in Mother's place? I'd take a great, big running jump for it and land! I'd take a chance. What is there for her in this town? Nothing! She's been giving things up all her life, and what has it brought her?”
“It has brought me a comfortable living, and the love of my two children, and the respect of my townspeople.”
“Respect? Why shouldn't they respect you? You're the smartest woman in Winnebago, and the hardest working.”
Emma McChesney frowned a little, in thought. “What do you two girls do for recreation?”
“I'm afraid we have too little of that, Emma. I know Fanny has. I'm so dog-tired at the end of the day. All I want is to take my hairpins143 out and go to bed.”
“And Fanny?”
“Oh, I read. I'm free to pick my book friends, at least.”
“Now, just what do you mean by that, child? It sounds a little bitter.”
“I was thinking of what Chesterfield said in one of his Letters to His Son. `Choose always to be in the society of those above you,' he wrote. I guess he lived in Winnebago, Wisconsin. I'm a working woman, and a Jew, and we haven't any money or social position. And unless she's a Becky Sharp any small town girl with all those handicaps might as well choose a certain constellation144 of stars in the sky to wear as a breastpin, as try to choose the friends she really wants.”
From Molly Brandeis to Emma McChesney there flashed a look that said, “You see?” And from Emma McChesney to Molly Brandeis another that said, “Yes; and it's your fault.”
“Look here, Fanny, don't you see any boys—men?”
“No. There aren't any. Those who have any sense and initiative leave to go to Milwaukee, or Chicago, or New York. Those that stay marry the banker's lovely daughter.”
Emma McChesney laughed at that, and Molly Brandeis too, and Fanny joined them a bit ruefully. Then quite suddenly, there came into her face a melting, softening145 look that made it almost lovely. She crossed swiftly over to where her mother sat, and put a hand on either cheek (grown thinner of late) and kissed the tip of her nose. “We don't care—really. Do we Mother? We're poor wurkin' girruls. But gosh! Ain't we proud? Mother, your mistake was in not doing as Ruth did.”
“Ruth?”
“In the Bible. Remember when What's-his-name, her husband, died? Did she go back to her home town? No, she didn't. She'd lived there all her life, and she knew better. She said to Naomi, her mother-in-law, `Whither thou goest I will go.' And she went. And when they got to Bethlehem, Ruth looked around, knowingly, until she saw Boaz, the catch of the town. So she went to work in his fields, gleaning146, and she gleaned147 away, trying to look just as girlish, and dreamy, and unconscious, but watching him out of the corner of her eye all the time. Presently Boaz came along, looking over the crops, and he saw her. `Who's the new damsel?' he asked. `The peach?'”
“Fanny Brandeis, aren't you ashamed?”
“But, Mother, that's what it says in the Bible, actually. `Whose damsel is this?' They told him it was Ruth, the dashing widow. After that it was all off with the Bethlehem girls. Boaz paid no more attention to them than if they had never existed. He married Ruth, and she led society. Just a little careful scheming, that's all.”
“I should say you have been reading, Fanny Brandeis,” said Emma McChesney. She was smiling, but her eyes were serious. “Now listen to me, child. The very next time a traveling man in a brown suit and a red necktie asks you to take dinner with him at the Haley House—even one of those roast pork, queen-fritter-with-rum-sauce, Roman punch Sunday dinners—I want you to accept.”
“Even if he wears an Elks148' pin, and a Masonic charm, and a diamond ring and a brown derby?” “Even if he shows you the letters from his girl in Manistee,” said Mrs. McChesney solemnly. “You've been seeing too much of Fanny Brandeis.”
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1
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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2
nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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3
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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4
well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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5
spank
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| v.打，拍打(在屁股上) | |
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6
spankings
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| n.打屁股( spanking的名词复数 ) | |
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7
blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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8
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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9
imp
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| n.顽童 | |
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10
perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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11
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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12
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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13
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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14
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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15
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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16
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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17
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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18
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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19
acceded
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| v.（正式）加入( accede的过去式和过去分词 )；答应；（通过财产的添附而）增加；开始任职 | |
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20
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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21
ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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22
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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23
revolved
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| v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想 | |
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24
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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25
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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26
algebra
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| n.代数学 | |
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27
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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28
electrified
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| v.使电气化( electrify的过去式和过去分词 )；使兴奋 | |
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29
giggles
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| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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30
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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31
disastrously
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| ad.灾难性地 | |
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32
fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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33
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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34
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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35
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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36
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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37
automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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38
plentifully
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| adv. 许多地，丰饶地 | |
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39
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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40
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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41
stolidness
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42
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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43
athletics
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| n.运动，体育，田径运动 | |
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44
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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45
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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46
cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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47
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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48
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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49
scion
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| n.嫩芽，子孙 | |
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50
banters
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| n.玩笑，逗乐( banter的名词复数 )v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的第三人称单数 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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51
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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52
fiber
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| n.纤维，纤维质 | |
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53
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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54
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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55
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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56
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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57
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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58
bins
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| n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 )；宽口箱（如面包箱，垃圾箱等）v.扔掉，丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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59
motes
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| n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点 | |
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60
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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61
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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62
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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63
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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64
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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65
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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66
vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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67
pulpy
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| 果肉状的，多汁的，柔软的； 烂糊； 稀烂 | |
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68
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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69
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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70
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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71
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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72
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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73
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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74
vats
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| varieties 变化，多样性，种类 | |
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75
crumple
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| v.把...弄皱，满是皱痕，压碎，崩溃 | |
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76
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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77
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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78
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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79
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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80
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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81
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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82
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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83
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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84
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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85
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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86
brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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87
milieu
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| n.环境；出身背景；(个人所处的)社会环境 | |
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88
arabesques
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| n.阿拉伯式花饰( arabesque的名词复数 )；错综图饰；阿拉伯图案；阿拉贝斯克芭蕾舞姿（独脚站立，手前伸，另一脚一手向后伸） | |
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89
hitching
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| 搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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90
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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91
pickle
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| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
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92
pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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93
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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94
scoured
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| 走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的过去式和过去分词 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮 | |
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95
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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96
soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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97
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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98
adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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99
teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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100
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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101
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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102
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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103
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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104
defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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105
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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106
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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107
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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108
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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109
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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110
smears
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| 污迹( smear的名词复数 )； 污斑； （显微镜的）涂片； 诽谤 | |
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111
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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112
bonbon
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| n.棒棒糖；夹心糖 | |
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113
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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114
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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115
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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116
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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bespeak
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| v.预定；预先请求 | |
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123
utensils
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| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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125
plows
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| n.犁( plow的名词复数 )；犁型铲雪机v.耕( plow的第三人称单数 )；犁耕；费力穿过 | |
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126
reapers
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| n.收割者，收获者( reaper的名词复数 )；收割机 | |
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calloused
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| adj.粗糙的，粗硬的，起老茧的v.（使）硬结，（使）起茧( callous的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）冷酷无情 | |
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128
haggled
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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misnomer
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| n.误称 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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meteorically
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| Meteorically | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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138
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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delectable
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| adj.使人愉快的；美味的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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141
retailers
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| 零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 ) | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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143
hairpins
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| n.发夹( hairpin的名词复数 ) | |
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144
constellation
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| n.星座n.灿烂的一群 | |
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softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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146
gleaning
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| n.拾落穗，拾遗，落穗v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的现在分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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147
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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148
elks
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| n.麋鹿( elk的名词复数 ) | |
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