"Well, I guess that"s so," said Tommy, who made twenty and who had a hopeless pa.s.sion.
His hopeless pa.s.sion was Jane. Jane lived with her mother in a small rose-bowered bungalow at the edge of the town. She and her mother owned the bungalow, which was fortunate; they hadn"t a penny for rent. Jane"s father had died of a weak lung and the failure of his oil well. He had left the two women without an income. Jane"s mother was delicate and Jane couldn"t leave her to go out to work. So Jane dug in the little garden, and they lived largely on vegetables. She sewed for the neighbors, and bought medicine and now and then a bit of meat. She was young and strong and she had wonderful red hair. Tommy thought it was the most beautiful hair in the world. Jane was for him a sort of G.o.ddess woman. She was, he felt, infinitely above him. She knew a great deal that he didn"t, about books and things--like O-liver. She sewed for his mother, and that was the way he had met her. He would go over and sit on her front steps and talk. He felt that she treated him like a little dog that she wouldn"t harm, but wouldn"t miss if it went away. He told her of Vanity Fair and of how he felt about Becky.
"If she had been content to earn an honest living," Jane stated severely, "the story would have had a different ending."
"Well, she wanted things," Tommy said.
"Most women do." Jane jabbed her needle into a length of pink gingham which, when finished, would be rompers for a youngster across the street. "I do; and I intend to have them."
"How?" asked the interested Tommy.
"Work for them."
"O-liver says that fifteen dollars a week is enough for anybody to earn."
Jane had heard of O-liver. Tommy sang his constant praises.
"Why fifteen?"
"After that you get soft."
Jane laid down the length of pink gingham and looked at him. She hated to sew on pink; it clashed dreadfully with her hair.
"I should say," she stated with scorn, "that your O-liver"s lazy."
"No, he isn"t. He only wants enough to eat and enough to smoke and enough to read."
"That sounds all right, but it isn"t. What"s he going to do when he"s old?"
"He ain"t ever going to grow old. He said so, and if you"d see him you"d know."
Jane felt within her the stirring of curiosity. But she put it down sternly. She had no time for it.
"Tommy," she said, "I"ve been thinking. I"ve got to earn more money, and I want your help."
Tommy"s faithful eyes held a look of doglike affection.
"Oh, if I can--" he quavered.
"I"ve got to get ahead." Jane was breathless. Her eyes shone.
"I"ve got to get ahead, Tommy. I can"t live all my life like this." She held up the pink strip. "Even if I am a woman, there ought to be something more than making rompers for the rest of my days."
"You might," said the infatuated Tommy, "marry."
"Marry? Marry whom?"
Tommy wished that he might shout "Me!" from the housetops. But he knew the futility of it.
"I shall never marry," she said, "until I find somebody different from anything I"ve ever seen."
Jane"s ideas of men were bounded largely by the weakness of her father and the crudeness of men like Henry Bittinger, Atwood Jones and others of their kind. She didn"t consider Tommy at all. He was a nice boy and a faithful friend. His mother, too, was a faithful friend. She cla.s.sed them together.
Her plan, told with much coming and going of lovely color, was this: She had read that the way to make money was to find the thing that a community lacked and supply it. Considering it seriously she had decided that in Tinkersfield there was need of good food.
"There"s just one horrid little eating house," she told Tommy, "when the men come in from out of town."
"Nothing fit to eat either," Tommy agreed; "and they make up on booze."
She nodded. "Tommy," she said, and leaned toward him, "I had thought of sandwiches--home-made bread and slices of ham--wrapped in waxed paper; and of taking them down and selling them in front of the post-office on Sat.u.r.day nights."
Tommy"s eyes bulged. "You take them down?"
"Why not? Any work is honorable, Tommy."
Tommy felt that it wouldn"t be a G.o.ddess role.
"I can"t see it." The red crept up into his honest freckled face. "You know the kind of women that"s round on Sat.u.r.day nights."
"I am not that kind of woman." She was suddenly austere.
He found himself stammering. "I didn"t mean--"
"Of course you didn"t. But it"s a good plan, Tommy. Say you think it"s a good plan."
He would have said anything to please her. "Well, you might try."
The next day he found himself talking it over with O-liver. "She wants to sell them on Sat.u.r.day nights."
"Tell her," said O-liver, "to stay at home."
"But she"s got to have some money."
"Money," said O-liver, "is the root of evil. You say she has a garden.
Let her live on leeks and lettuce."
"Leeks and lettuce?" said poor Tommy, who had never heard of leeks.
"Her complexion will be better," said O-liver, "and her peace of mind great."
"Her complexion is perfect," Tommy told him, "and she isn"t the peaceful kind. Her hair is red."
"Red-haired women"--O-liver had his eye on Vanity Fair--"red-haired women always flaunt themselves."
Tommy, softening O-liver"s words a bit, gave them in the form of advice to Jane: "He thinks you"d better live on leeks and lettuce than go down-town like that."
Jane gasped. "Leeks and lettuce? Me? He doesn"t know what he"s talking about! And anyhow, what can you expect of a man like that?"