RUTH.  Your children!

MRS. HUNTER.  Beggars like myself!

BLANCHE.  But your children will work for you.

CLARA.  Work!  I see myself.

RUTH.  So do I.

MRS. HUNTER.  My children work!  Don’t be absurd!

JESSICA.  It is not absurd!  I can certainly earn my own living somehow and so can Clara.

CLARA.  Doing what, I should like to know!  I see myself!

BLANCHE.  Jess is right.  I’ll take care of this family—­father always said I was “his own child.”  I’ll do my best to take his place.

RUTH.  I will gladly give Jessica a home.

MRS. HUNTER. [Whimpers.] You’d rob me of my children, too!

JESSICA.  Thank you, Aunt Ruth, but I must stay with mother and be
Blanche’s right-hand man!

CLARA.  I might go on the stage.

MRS. HUNTER.  My dear, smart people don’t any more.

CLARA.  I’d like to be a sort of Anna Held.

JESSICA.  I don’t see why I couldn’t learn typewriting, Blanche?

MRS. HUNTER.  Huh!  Why, you could never even learn to play the piano; I don’t think you’d be much good at typewriting.

CLARA.  You want to be a typewriter, because in the papers they always have an old gentleman taking them to theatres and supper!  No, sir, if there is to be any “old man’s darling” in this family, I’ll be it!

RUTH. [Dryly.] You’ll have to learn to spell correctly first!

CLARA. [Superciliously.] Humph!

JESSICA.  There are lots of ways nowadays for women to earn their living.

RUTH.  Yes, typewriting we will consider.

MRS. HUNTER.  Never!

[No one pays any attention to her except CLARA, who agrees with her.

RUTH.  Jess, you learned enough to teach, didn’t you?—­even at that fashionable school your mother sent you to?

JESSICA.  Oh, yes, I think I could teach.

MRS. HUNTER.  Never!

[Still no one pays any attention except CLARA who again agrees with her.

CLARA.  No, indeed! I wouldn’t teach!

BLANCHE.  If we only knew some nice elderly woman who wanted a companion,
Jess would be a godsend.

CLARA.  If she was a nice old lady with lots of money and delicate health, I wouldn’t mind that position myself.

RUTH.  Clara, you seem to take this matter as a supreme joke!

MRS. HUNTER. [With mock humility.] May I speak? [She waits.  All turn to her.  A moment’s, silence.] MAY I speak?

RUTH.  Yes, yes.  Go on, Florence; don’t you see we’re listening?

MRS. HUNTER.  I didn’t know!  I’ve been so completely ignored in this entire conversation.  But there is one thing for the girls—­the easiest possible way for them to earn their living—­which you don’t seem for a moment to have thought of!