The Iron Woman

The Iron Woman

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Title: The Iron Woman
Author: Margaret Deland
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THE IRON WOMAN
BY
MARGARET DELAND
"_This was the iniquity ... fulness of bread, and abundance of
idleness...._"--EZEKIEL, xvi., 49

TO MY
PATIENT, RUTHLESS, INSPIRING CRITIC LORIN DELAND
August 12, 1911

ILLUSTRATIONS
"LOOK!" "BLAIR IS IN LOVE WITH ME!" "I THINK YOU ARE
REASONABLE ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US" "ELIZABETH,
MARRY ME!" "OF COURSE YOU KNOW MY OPINION OF YOU"
SHE WHEELED ABOUT, AND STOOD, SWAYING WITH
FRIGHT "WILL YOU LIVE? WILL YOU GIVE ME LIFE?"
CLUTCHING HER SHOULDER, SHE LOOKED HARD INTO THE
YOUNGER WOMAN'S FACE

THE IRON WOMAN

CHAPTER I
"Climb up in this tree, and play house!" Elizabeth Ferguson
commanded. She herself had climbed to the lowest branch of an

apple-tree in the Maitland orchard, and sat there, swinging her
white-stockinged legs so recklessly that the three children whom she
had summoned to her side, backed away for safety. "If you don't," she
said, looking down at them, "I'm afraid, perhaps, maybe, I'll get mad."
Her foreboding was tempered by a giggle and by the deepening dimple
in her cheek, but all the same she sighed with a sort of impersonal
regret at the prospect of any unpleasantness. "It would be too bad if I
got mad, wouldn't it?" she said thoughtfully. The others looked at one
another in consternation. They knew so well what it meant to have
Elizabeth "mad," that Nannie Maitland, the oldest of the little group,
said at once, helplessly, "Well."
Nannie was always helpless with Elizabeth, just as she was helpless
with her half-brother, Blair, though she was ten and Elizabeth and Blair
were only eight; but how could a little girl like Nannie be anything but
helpless before a brother whom she adored, and a wonderful being like
Elizabeth?--Elizabeth! who always knew exactly what she wanted to do,
and who instantly "got mad," if you wouldn't say you'd do it, too; got
mad, and then repented, and hugged you and kissed you, and actually
cried (or got mad again), if you refused to accept as a sign of your
forgiveness her new slate-pencil, decorated with strips of red-
and-white paper just like a little barber's pole! No wonder Nannie,
timid and good-natured, was helpless before such a sweet, furious little
creature! Blair had more backbone than his sister, but even he felt
Elizabeth's heel upon his neck. David Richie, a silent, candid, very
stubborn small boy, was, after a momentary struggle, as meek as the
rest of them. Now, when she commanded them all to climb, it was
David who demurred, because, he said, he spoke first for Indians
tomahawking you in the back parlor.
"Very well!" said the despot; "play your old Indians! I'll never speak to
any of you again as long as I live!"
"I've got on my new pants," David objected.
"Take 'em off!" said Elizabeth. And there is no knowing what might
have happened if the decorous Nannie had not come to the rescue.

"That's not proper to do out-of-doors; and Miss White says not to say
'pants.'"
Elizabeth looked thoughtful. "Maybe it isn't proper," she admitted; "but
David, honest, I took a hate to being tommy-hocked the last time we
played it; so please, dear David! If you'll play house in the tree, I'll give
you a piece of my taffy." She took a little sticky package out of her
pocket and licked her lips to indicate its contents;--David yielded,
shinning up the trunk