Jewel Weed

Lena shut the door and came in without speaking. She flung her hat and

coat on the bed in the corner, where a forlorn counterpane showed by the

hollows and hills beneath that it had given up all attempt to play even.

The girl sat down listlessly with her hands in her lap.

"You've been gone a long time, Lena," said the mother in a delicately

querulous voice. "You're fortunate to be able to get out instead of

being cooped up in this little room the way I am." Mrs. Quincy coughed

with conscious pathos. "I sometimes wonder if you ever think of your

poor mother and how lonely she is most of the time. But I'd ought to be

used to people's always forgetting me."

"Much I have to come home to!" Lena answered. "You're about as cheerful

as barbed wire. But you can comfort yourself! I shan't be able to go

out at all much longer, any way."

"Why, what's the matter now?"

"Do you expect me to wear a felt hat all summer?" Lena asked sharply.

"I'm ashamed to be seen in that old thing and I should think you'd be

ashamed to be so stingy with me."

Her mother sighed and lapsed into the creaking comfort of her

rocking-chair.

"I ain't stingy," she said at last. "But if you had your way you'd spend

every last cent of the pension the very day it comes. I've got to look

out we don't starve. If you'd only make up your mind to work and earn a

little instead of livin' so pinched! I'm sure I'd work if I could. But

there! there ain't nothing for me to do but to set and suffer, and

nobody knows what I endure."

"I wasn't born to be a working girl," said Lena sullenly. "I've got the

blood of a lady if I haven't got the clothes of one."

"Well, when it comes to eating and drinking, blood don't count much.

Everybody's got the same appetite."

"No, everybody hasn't," retorted the girl. "I haven't any appetite for

canned baked-beans and liver."

"You eat them, anyway."

"I know it, worse luck!"

There was a tingling silence for a moment and then Lena spoke with

sudden energy.

"Mother, what can I do? I'm not one of those girls who can go ahead and

don't care. I haven't been brought up as they have. The only thing

you've taught me is that my father was a gentleman and that I am a

beauty. And what good does that do me?"

"Teachin' is respectable."

"I can't teach. I couldn't pass a teacher's examination to save my life.

I don't know how to do anything. And I won't sink below the level of

decent society. I'd starve first. Do you suppose I haven't thought it

all over a hundred times?"