The Portion of Labor Part 48

"Isn't he well?" Ellen asked her mother, in quick alarm.

"Oh yes, he's well enough." f.a.n.n.y moved close to the girl with a motion of secrecy. "If I were you I wouldn't say one word about the shop, nor what you did, before father to-night; let him kind of get used to it. Amabel mustn't talk about it, either."

"I won't," said Amabel, with a wise air.

"You know father had set his heart on somethin' pretty different for you," said f.a.n.n.y.

f.a.n.n.y hushed her voice as Andrew came out of the dining-room, staggering a little as if the light blinded him. His nervous strength of the morning had pa.s.sed and left him exhausted. He moved and stood with a downward lope of every muscle, expressing unutterable patience, which had pa.s.sed beyond rebellion and questioning.

He stood before Ellen like some old, spent horse. He was expecting to hear something about the shop--expecting, as it were, a touch on a sore, and he waited for it meekly.

Ellen turned her lovely, glowing face towards him.

"Father," she said, as if nothing out of the common had happened, "are you going down-town to-night?"

Andrew brightened a little. "I can if you want anything, Ellen," he said.

"Well, I don't want you to go on purpose, but I do want a book from the library."

"I'd just as soon go as not, Ellen," said Andrew.

"It'll do him good," whispered f.a.n.n.y, as she pa.s.sed Ellen, carrying the dish of stew to the dining-room.

"Well, then, I'll give you my card after supper," said Ellen.

"Supper is ready now, isn't it, mother? I'm as hungry as a bear."

Andrew, when he was seated at the table and was ladling out the stew, had still that air of hopeless and defenceless apology towards life, but he held his head higher, and his frown of patient gloom had relaxed.

Then Ellen said something else. "Maybe I can write a book some time," said she.

A sudden flash illumined Andrew's face. It was like the visible awakening of hope and ambition.

"I don't see why you can't," he said, eagerly.

"Maybe she can," said f.a.n.n.y. "Give her some more of the potatoes, Andrew."

"I'll have plenty of time after--evenings," said Ellen.

"I guess lots of folks write books that sell, and sell well, that don't have any more talent than you," said Andrew. "Only think how they praised your valedictory."

"Well, it can't do any harm to try," said Ellen, "and you could copy it for me, couldn't you, father? Your writing is so fine, it would be as good as a typewriter."

"Of course I can," said Andrew.

When Andrew went down to the library, pa.s.sing along the drenched streets, seeing the lamps through s.h.i.+fting veils of heavy mist, he was as full of enthusiasm over Ellen's book as he had been over the gold-mine. The heart of a man is always ready to admit a ray of suns.h.i.+ne, and it takes only a small one to dispel the shadows when love dwells therein.

Chapter x.x.xVII

Ellen actually went to work, with sheets of foolscap and a new bottle of ink, on a novel, which was not worth the writing; but no one could estimate the comfort and encouragement it was to Andrew.

Ellen worked an hour or two every evening on the novel, and next day Andrew copied it in a hand like copperplate--large, with ornate flourishes. Andrew's handwriting had always been greatly admired, and, strangely enough, it was not in the least indicative of his character, being wholly acquired. He had probably some ability for drawing, but this had been his only outlet.

At the head of every chapter of Ellen's novel were birds and flowers done in colored inks, and every chapter had a tail-piece of elegant quirls and flourishes. f.a.n.n.y admired it intensely. She was not quite so sure of Ellen's work as she was of her husband's. She felt herself a judge of one, but not of the other.

"If Ellen could only write as well as you copy, it will do," she often said to Andrew.

"What she is writing is beautiful," said Andrew, fervently. He was quite sure in his own mind that such a book had never been written, and his pride in his decorations was a minor one.

Ellen, although she was not versed in the ways of books, yet had enough of a sense of the fitness of things, and of the ridiculous, to know that the ma.n.u.script, with its impossible pen-and-ink birds and flowers heading and finis.h.i.+ng every chapter, was grotesque in the extreme. She felt divided between a desire to laugh and a desire to cry whenever she looked at it. About her own work she felt more than doubtful; still, she was somewhat hopeful, since her taste and judgment, as well as her style, were alike crude. She told Abby and Maria what she was doing, under promise of strict secrecy, and after a while read them a few chapters.

"It's beautiful," said Maria--"perfectly beautiful. I had a Sunday-school book this week which I know wasn't half as good."

Ellen looked at Abby, who was silent. The three girls were up in Ellen's room. It was midwinter, some months after she had gone to work in the shop, and she had a fire in her little, air-tight stove.

"Well, what do you think of it, Abby?" asked Ellen. Ellen's cheeks were flushed as if with fever. She looked eagerly at the other girl.

"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" asked Abby, bluntly.

"Yes, of course I do."

"Well, then, I don't know a thing about books, and I'd knock anybody else down that said it, but it seems to me it's trash."

"Oh, Abby," murmured Maria.

"Never mind," said Ellen, though she quivered a little, "I want to know just how it looks to her."

"It looks to me just like that," said Abby--"like trash. It sounds as if, when you began to write it, you had mounted upon stilts, and didn't see things and people the way they really were. It ain't natural."

"Do you think I had better give it up, then?" asked Ellen.

"No, I don't, on account of your father."

"I believe it would about break father's heart," said Ellen.

"I don't know but it's worth as much to write a book for your father, to please him, and keep his spirits up, as it is to write one for the whole world," said Abby.

"Only, of course, she can't get any money for it," said Maria. "But I don't believe Abby is right, and don't you get discouraged, Ellen.

It sounds beautiful to me."

"Well, I suppose it is worth keeping on with for father's sake,"

said Ellen; but she had a discouraged air. She never again wrote with any hope or heart; she had faith in Abby's opinion, for she knew that she was always predisposed to admiration in her case.

Ellen at that time was earning more, for she had advanced, and had long ago left her station beside Mamie Brady; and now in a month or two she would have a machine. The girls, many of them, said openly that her rapid promotion was due to favoritism, and that Ed Flynn wouldn't do as much for anybody but Ellen Brewster. Flynn hung about her in the shop a good deal, but he had made no efforts to pay her decided attention. His religion was the prime factor for his hesitation. He could not see his way clear towards open addresses with a view to marriage. Still, he had a sharp eye for other admirers, and Ellen had not been in the factory two months before Granville Joy was sent into another room. Robert Lloyd, to whom the foreman appealed for confirmation of the plan, coincided with readiness.

"That fellow ain't strong enough to run that machine he's doing now," said Flynn.