Mother | Page 5

don't know but what you ought to
have a hearty lunch."
"Oh, I'm not hungry." Margaret dropped into a desk, put her elbows on
it, pushed her hair off her forehead. The other woman saw a tear slip by
the lowered, long lashes.
"You're exhausted, aren't you, Margaret?" she said suddenly.
The little tenderness was too much. Margaret's lip shook.
"Dead!" she said unsteadily. Presently she added, with an effort at
cheerfulness, "I'm just cross, I guess, Emily; don't mind me! I'm tired
out with examinations and--" her eyes filled again--"and I'm sick of wet
cold weather and rain and snow," she added childishly. "Our house is
full of muddy rubbers and wet clothes! Other people go places and do

pleasant things," said Margaret, her breast rising and falling stormily;
"but nothing ever happens to us except broken arms, and bills, and
boilers bursting, and chicken-pox! It's drudge, drudge, drudge, from
morning until night!"
With a sudden little gesture of abandonment she found a handkerchief
in her belt, and pressed it, still folded, against her eyes. Mrs. Porter
watched her solicitously, but silently. Outside the schoolroom windows
the wind battered furiously, and rain slapped steadily against the panes.
"Well!" the girl said resolutely and suddenly. And after a moment she
added frankly, "I think the real trouble to-day, Emily, is that we just
heard of Betty Forsythe's engagement--she was my brother's girl, you
know; he's admired her ever since she got into High School, and of
course Bruce is going to feel awfully bad."
"Betty engaged? Who to?" Mrs. Porter was interested.
"To that man--boy, rather, he's only twenty-one--who's been visiting
the Redmans," Margaret said. "She's only known him two weeks."
"Gracious! And she's only eighteen--"
"Not quite eighteen. She and my sister, Julie, were in my first class four
years ago; they're the same age," Margaret said. "She came fluttering
over to tell us last night, wearing a diamond the size of a marble! Of
course,"--Margaret was loyal,--"I don't think there's a jealous bone in
Julie's body; still, it's pretty hard! Here's Julie plugging away to get
through the Normal School, so that she can teach all the rest of her life,
and Betty's been to California, and been to Europe, and now is going to
marry a rich New York man! Betty's the only child, you know, so, of
course, she has everything. It seems so unfair, for Mr. Forsythe's salary
is exactly what Dad's is; yet they can travel, and keep two maids, and
entertain all the time! And as for family, why, Mother's family is one of
the finest in the country, and Dad's had two uncles who were
judges--and what were the Forsythes! However,"--Margaret dried her
eyes and put away her handkerchief,--"however, it's for Bruce I mind
most!"

"Bruce is only three years older than you are, twenty-three or four,"
Mrs. Porter smiled.
"Yes, but he's not the kind that forgets!" Margaret's flush was a little
resentful. "Oh, of course, you can laugh, Emily. I know that there are
plenty of people who don't mind dragging along day after day, working
and eating and sleeping--but I'm not that kind!" she went on moodily. "I
used to hope that things would be different; it makes me sick to think
how brave I was; but now here's Ju coming along, and Ted growing up,
and Bruce's girl throwing him over--it's all so unfair! I look at the
Cutter girls, nearly fifty, and running the post-office for thirty years,
and Mary Page in the Library, and the Norberrys painting pillows,--and
I could scream!"
"Things will take a turn for the better some day, Margaret," said the
other woman, soothingly; "and as time goes on you'll find yourself
getting more and more pleasure out of your work, as I do. Why, I've
never been so securely happy in my life as I am now. You'll feel
differently some day."
"Maybe," Margaret assented unenthusiastically. There was a pause.
Perhaps the girl was thinking that to teach school, live in a plain little
cottage on the unfashionable Bridge Road, take two roomers, and cook
and sew and plan for Tom and little Emily, as Mrs. Porter did, was not
quite an ideal existence.
"You're an angel, anyway, Emily," said she, affectionately, a little
shamefacedly. "Don't mind my growling. I don't do it very often. But I
look about at other people, and then realize how my mother's slaved for
twenty years and how my father's been tied down, and I've come to the
conclusion that while there may have been a time when a woman could
keep a house, tend a garden, sew and spin and raise twelve children,
things are different now; life is more complicated. You owe your
husband something, you owe yourself something. I want to get on, to
study