The Valley of the Moon | Page 4

cloth drifting ominously
through the air.
"It's sickenin'," said Mary.
And thereafter, for a long time, the many irons rose and fell, the pace of
the room in no wise diminished; while the forewoman strode the aisles
with a threatening eye for incipient breakdown and hysteria.
Occasionally an ironer lost the stride for an instant, gasped or sighed,
then caught it up again with weary determination. The long summer
day waned, but not the heat, and under the raw flare of electric light the
work went on.

By nine o'clock the first women began to go home. The mountain of
fancy starch had been demolished--all save the few remnants, here and
there, on the boards, where the ironers still labored.
Saxon finished ahead of Mary, at whose board she paused on the way
out.
"Saturday night an' another week gone," Mary said mournfully, her
young cheeks pallid and hollowed, her black eyes blue-shadowed and
tired. "What d'you think you've made, Saxon?"
"Twelve and a quarter," was the answer, just touched with pride "And
I'd a-made more if it wasn't for that fake bunch of starchers."
"My! I got to pass it to you," Mary congratulated. "You're a sure fierce
hustler--just eat it up. Me--I've only ten an' a half, an' for a hard
week . . . See you on the nine-forty. Sure now. We can just fool around
until the dancin' begins. A lot of my gentlemen friends'll be there in the
afternoon."
Two blocks from the laundry, where an arc-light showed a gang of
toughs on the corner, Saxon quickened her pace. Unconsciously her
face set and hardened as she passed. She did not catch the words of the
muttered comment, but the rough laughter it raised made her guess and
warmed her checks with resentful blood. Three blocks more, turning
once to left and once to right, she walked on through the night that was
already growing cool. On either side were workingmen's houses, of
weathered wood, the ancient paint grimed with the dust of years,
conspicuous only for cheapness and ugliness.
Dark it was, but she made no mistake, the familiar sag and screeching
reproach of the front gate welcome under her hand. She went along the
narrow walk to the rear, avoided the missing step without thinking
about it, and entered the kitchen, where a solitary gas-jet flickered. She
turned it up to the best of its flame. It was a small room, not disorderly,
because of lack of furnishings to disorder it. The plaster, discolored by
the steam of many wash-days, was crisscrossed with cracks from the
big earthquake of the previous spring. The floor was ridged,

wide-cracked, and uneven, and in front of the stove it was worn
through and repaired with a five-gallon oil-can hammered flat and
double. A sink, a dirty roller-towel, several chairs, and a wooden table
completed the picture.
An apple-core crunched under her foot as she drew a chair to the table.
On the frayed oilcloth, a supper waited. She attempted the cold beans,
thick with grease, but gave them up, and buttered a slice of bread.
The rickety house shook to a heavy, prideless tread, and through the
inner door came Sarah, middle-aged, lop-breasted, hair-tousled, her
face lined with care and fat petulance.
"Huh, it's you," she grunted a greeting. "I just couldn't keep things
warm. Such a day! I near died of the heat. An' little Henry cut his lip
awful. The doctor had to put four stitches in it."
Sarah came over and stood mountainously by the table.
"What's the matter with them beans?" she challenged.
"Nothing, only . . ." Saxon caught her breath and avoided the
threatened outburst. "Only I'm not hungry. It's been so hot all day. It
was terrible in the laundry."
Recklessly she took a mouthful of the cold tea that had been steeped so
long that it was like acid in her mouth, and recklessly, under the eye of
her sister-in-law, she swallowed it and the rest of the cupful. She wiped
her mouth on her handkerchief and got up.
"I guess I'll go to bed."
"Wonder you ain't out to a dance," Sarah sniffed. "Funny, ain't it, you
come home so dead tired every night, an' yet any night in the week you
can get out an' dance unearthly hours."
Saxon started to speak, suppressed herself with tightened lips, then lost
control and blazed out. "Wasn't you ever young?"

Without waiting for reply, she turned to her bedroom, which opened
directly off the kitchen. It was a small room, eight by twelve, and the
earthquake had left its marks upon the plaster. A bed and chair of cheap
pine and a very ancient chest of drawers constituted the furniture.
Saxon had known this chest of drawers all her life. The vision