The Portion of Labor eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 629 pages of information about The Portion of Labor.

The Portion of Labor eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 629 pages of information about The Portion of Labor.

“It means,” said Ellen—­and she looked at her parents with the brave enthusiasm of a soldier on her beautiful face—­she even laughed—­“it means that I am going to work—­I have got a job in Lloyd’s.”

When Ellen made that announcement, her mother did a strange thing.  She ran swiftly to a corner of the room, and stood there, staring at the girl, with back hugged close to the intersection of the walls, as if she would withdraw as far as possible from some threatening ill.  At that moment she looked alarmingly like her sister; there was something about Fanny in her corner, calculated, when all circumstances were taken into consideration, to make one’s blood chill, but Andrew did not look at her.  He was intent upon Ellen, and the facing of the worst agony of his life, and Ellen was intent upon him.  She loved her mother, but the fear as to her father’s suffering moved her more than her mother’s.  She was more like her father, and could better estimate his pain under stress.  Andrew rose to his feet and stood looking at Ellen, and she at him.  She tried to meet the drawn misery and incredulousness of his face with a laugh of reassurance.

“Yes, I’ve got a job in Lloyd’s,” said she.  “What’s the matter, father?”

Then Andrew made an almost inarticulate response; it sounded like a croak in an unknown tongue.

Ellen continued to look at him, and to laugh.

“Now look here, father,” said she.  “There is no need for you and mother to feel bad over this.  I have thought it all over, and I have made up my mind.  I have got a good high-school education now, and the four years I should have to spend at Vassar I could do nothing at all.  There is awful need of money here, and not only for us, but for Aunt Eva and Amabel.”

“You sha’n’t do it!” Andrew burst out then, in a great shout of rage.  “I’ll mortgage the house—­that’ll last awhile.  You sha’n’t, I say!  You are my child, and you’ve got to listen.  You sha’n’t, I say!”

“Now, father,” responded Ellen’s voice, which seemed to have in it a wonderful tone of firmness against which his agonized vociferousness broke as against a rock, “this is nonsense.  You must not mortgage the house.  The house is all you have got for your and mother’s old age.  Do you think I could go to college, and let you give up the house in order to keep me there?  And as for grandma Brewster, you know what’s hers is hers as long as she lives—­we don’t want to think of that.  I have got this job now, which is only three dollars a week, but in a year the foreman said I might earn fifteen or eighteen, if I was quick and smart, and I will be quick and smart.  It is the best thing for us all, father.”

“You sha’n’t!” shouted Andrew.  “I say you sha’n’t!”

Suddenly Andrew sank into a chair, his head lopped, he kept moving a hand before his eyes, as if he were brushing away cobwebs.  Then Fanny came out of her corner.

“Get the camphor, quick!” she said to Ellen.  “I dun’no’ but you’ve killed your father.”

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The Portion of Labor from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.