Chapter XV

When Ellen was about sixteen, in her second year at the high-school, her own family never looked at her without a slight shock of wonder, as before the unexpected.  Her mates, being themselves in the transition state, received her unquestioningly as a fellow-traveller, and colored like themselves with the new lights of the journey.  But Ellen’s father and mother and grandmother never ceased regarding her with astonishment and admiration and something like alarm.  While they regarded Ellen with the utmost pride, they still privately regretted this perfection of bloom which was the forerunner of independence of the parent stalk—­at least, Andrew did.  Andrew had grown older and more careworn; his mine had not yet paid any dividends, but he had scattering jobs of work, and with his wife’s assistance had managed to rub along, and his secret was still safe.

One day in February there was a half-holiday.  Lloyd’s was shut for the rest of the day, for his brother in St. Louis was dead, and had been brought to Rowe to be buried, and his funeral was at two o’clock.

“Goin’ to the funeral, old man?” one of Andrew’s fellow-workmen had asked, jostling him as he went out of the shop at noon.  Before Andrew could answer, another voice broke in fiercely.  It belonged to Joseph Atkins, who was ghastly that day.

“I ain’t goin’ to no funerals,” he said; “guess they won’t shut up shop for mine.”  Then he coughed.  His daughter Abby, who had been working in the factory for some time then, pressed close behind her father, and the expression in her face was an echo of his.

“When I strike, that’s what I’m going to strike for—­to have the shop shut up the day of my funeral,” said she; and the remark had a ghastly flippancy, contradicted by her intense manner.  A laugh went around, and a young fellow with a handsome, unshaven face caught her by the arm.

“You’d better strike to have the shop shut up the day you’re married,” said he; but Abby flung away from him.

“I’ll thank you to let me alone, Tom Hardy,” she said, with a snap; and the men laughed harder.

Abby was attractive to men in spite of her smallness and leanness and incisiveness of manner.  She was called mighty smart and dry, which was the shop synonym for witty, and her favors, possibly because she never granted them, were accounted valuable.  Abby Atkins had more admirers than many a girl who was prettier and presumably more winning in every way, and could have married twice to their once.  But Abby had no wish for a lover.  “I’ve got all I can do to earn my own living and the living of them that belong to me,” said she.

That afternoon Andrew Brewster stayed at home.  After dinner Eva Tenny and her little girl came in, and Ellen went down street on an errand.