“I guess that’s likely,” is my response.

“They don’t tell the truth always, in the first place.  They say there’s got to be deceit in society, and that these stylish people pretend all sorts of things.  Well, then, all I say is,” and she pricks the comb into the brush with emphasis, “all I say is, you better keep out of society.”

She had twisted her gray braids into a coil at the back of her head, and dish-washing is now the order of the day.  As we splash and wipe, Mrs. Brown looks at me rather closely.  She is getting ready to speak.  I can feel this by a preliminary rattle of her teeth.

“You’re a new girl here,” she begins; “you ain’t been long in Chicago.  I just thought I’d tell you about a girl who was workin’ here in the General Electric factory.  She was sixteen—­a real nice-lookin’ girl from the South.  She left her mother and come up here alone.  It wasn’t long before she got to foolin’ round with one of the young men over to the factory.  They were both young; they didn’t mean no harm; but one day she come an’ told me, cryin’ like anythin’, that she was in trouble, and her young man had slipped off up to Michigan.”

Here Mrs. Brown stopped to see if I was interested, and as I responded with a heartfelt “Oh, my!” she went on: 

“Well, you ought to have seen that girl’s sufferin’, her loneliness for her mother.  I’d come in her room sometimes at midnight—­the very room you have now—­and find her on the floor, weepin’ her heart out.  I want to tell you never to get discouraged.  Just you listen to what happened.  The gentleman from the factory got a sheriff and they started up north after the young man, determined to get him by force if they couldn’t by kindness.  Well, they found him and they brought him back; he was willin’ to come, and they got everythin’ fixed up for the weddin’ without tellin’ her a thing about it, and one day she was sittin’ right there,” she pointed to the rocking chair in the front parlour window, “when he come in.  He was carryin’ a big bunch of cream roses, tied with long white ribbons.  He offered ’em to her, but she wouldn’t look at them nor at him.  After awhile they went together into her room and talked for half an hour, and when they come back she had consented to marry him.  He was real kind.  He kept askin’ me if she had cried much and thankin’ me for takin’ care of her.  They were married, and when the weddin’ was over she didn’t want to stay with him.  She said she wanted her mother, but we talked to her and told her what was right, and things was fixed up between them.”

She had taken down from its hook in the corner sunlight the canary bird and his cage.  She put them on the table and prepared to give the bird his bath and fresh seed.

“You see,” she said, drawing up a chair, “that’s what good employers will do for you.  If you’re working in a good place they’ll do right by you, and it don’t pay to get down-hearted.”