by Jack London
counters. Once, she even considered taking up with hand-painted
china, but gave over the idea when she learned its expensiveness.
She slowly replaced all her simple maiden underlinen with
garments which, while still simple, were wrought with beautiful
French embroidery, tucks, and drawnwork. She crocheted fine
edgings on the inexpensive knitted underwear she wore in winter.
She made little corset covers and chemises of fine but fairly
inexpensive lawns, and, with simple flowered designs and perfect
laundering, her nightgowns were always sweetly fresh and dainty.
In some publication she ran across a brief printed note to the
effect that French women were just beginning to wear fascinating
beruffled caps at the breakfast table. It meant nothing to her
that in her case she must first prepare the breakfast. Promptly
appeared in the house a yard of dotted Swiss muslin, and Saxon
was deep in experimenting on patterns for herself, and in sorting
her bits of laces for suitable trimmings. The resultant dainty
creation won Mercedes Higgins' enthusiastic approval.
Saxon made for herself simple house slips of pretty gingham, with
neat low collars turned back from her fresh round throat. She
crocheted yards of laces for her underwear, and made Battenberg
in abundance for her table and for the bureau. A great
achievement, that aroused Billy's applause, was an Afghan for the
bed. She even ventured a rag carpet, which, the women's magazines
informed her, had newly returned into fashion. As a matter of
course she hemstitched the best table linen and bed linen they
could afford.
As the happy months went by she was never idle. Nor was Billy
forgotten. When the cold weather came on she knitted him
wristlets, which he always religiously wore from the house and
pocketed immediately thereafter. The two sweaters she made for
him, however, received a better fate, as did the slippers which
she insisted on his slipping into, on the evenings they remained
at home.
The hard practical wisdom of Mercedes Higgins proved of immense
help, for Saxon strove with a fervor almost religious to have
everything of the best and at the same time to be saving. Here
she faced the financial and economic problem of keeping house in
a society where the cost of living rose faster than the wages of
industry. And here the old woman taught her the science of
marketing so thoroughly that she made a dollar of Billy's go half
as far again as the wives of the neighborhood made the dollars of
their men go.
Invariably, on Saturday night, Billy poured his total wages into
her lap. He never asked for an accounting of what she did with
it, though he continually reiterated that he had never fed so
well in his life. And always, the wages still untouched in her
lap, she had him take out what he estimated he would need for
spending money for the week to come. Not only did she bid him
take plenty but she insisted on his taking any amount extra that
he might desire at any time through the week. And, further, she
insisted he should not tell her what it was for.
"You've always had money in your pocket," she reminded him, "and
there's no reason marriage should change that. If it did, I'd
wish I'd never married you. Oh, I know about men when they get
together. First one treats and then another, and it takes money.
Now if you can't treat just as freely as the rest of them, why I
know you so well that I know you'd stay away from them. And that
wouldn't be right . . . to you, I mean. I want you to be together
with men. It's good for a man."
And Billy buried her in his arms and swore she was the greatest
little bit of woman that ever came down the pike.
"Why," he jubilated; "not only do I feed better, and live more
comfortable, and hold up my end with the fellows; but I'm
actually saving money--or you are for me. Here I am, with
furniture being paid for regular every month, and a little woman
I'm mad over, and on top of it money in the bank. How much is it
now?"
"Sixty-two dollars," she told him. "Not so bad for a rainy day.
You might get sick, or hurt, or something happen."
It was in mid-winter, when Billy, with quite a deal of obvious
reluctance, broached a money matter to Saxon. His old friend,
Billy Murphy, was laid up with la grippe, and one of his
children, playing in the street, had been seriously injured by a
passing wagon. Billy Murphy, still feeble after two weeks in bed,
had asked Billy for the loan of fifty dollars.
"It's perfectly safe," Billy concluded to Saxon. "I've known him
since we was kids at the Durant School together. He's straight as
a die."
"That's got nothing to do with it," Saxon chided. "If you were
single you'd have lent it to him immediately, wouldn't you?"
Billy nodded.
"Then it's no different because you're married. It's your money,
Billy."
"Not by a damn sight," he cried. "It ain't mine. It's ourn. And I
wouldn't think of lettin' anybody have it without seein' you
first."
"I hope you didn't tell him that," she said with quick concern.
"Nope," Billy laughed. "I knew, if I did, you'd be madder'n a
hatter. I just told him I'd try an' figure it out. After all, I
was sure you'd stand for it if you had it."
"Oh, Billy," she murmured, her voice rich and low with love;
"maybe you don't know it, but that's one of the sweetest things
you've said since we got married."
The more Saxon saw of Mercedes Higgins the less did she
understand her. That the old woman was a close-fisted miser,
Saxon soon learned. And this trait she found hard to reconcile
with her tales of squandering. On the other hand, Saxon was
bewildered by Mercedes' extravagance in personal matters. Her
underlinen, hand-made of course, was very costly. The table she
set for Barry was good, but the table for herself was vastly
better. Yet both tables were set on the same table. While Barry
contented himself with solid round steak, Mercedes ate
tenderloin. A huge, tough muttonchop on Barry's plate would be
balanced by tiny French chops on Mercedes' plate. Tea was brewed
in separate pots. So was coffee. While Barry gulped twenty-five
cent tea from a large and heavy mug, Mercedes sipped three-dollar
tea from a tiny cup of Belleek, rose-tinted, fragile as all
egg-shell. In the same manner, his twenty-five cent coffee was
diluted with milk, her eighty cent Turkish with cream.
"'Tis good enough for the old man," she told Saxon. "He knows no
better, and it would be a wicked sin to waste it on him."
Little traffickings began between the two women. After Mercedes
had freely taught Saxon the loose-wristed facility of playing
accompaniments on the ukulele, she proposed an exchange. Her time
was past, she said, for such frivolities, and she offered the
instrument for the breakfast cap of which Saxon had made so good
a success.
"It's worth a few dollars,
" Mercedes said. "It cost me twenty,
though that was years ago. Yet it is well worth the value of the
cap."
"But wouldn't the cap be frivolous, too?" Saxon queried, though
herself well pleased with the bargain.
"'Tis not for my graying hair," Mercedes frankly disclaimed. "I
shall sell it for the money. Much that I do, when the rheumatism
is not maddening my fingers, I sell. La la, my dear, 'tis not old
Barry's fifty a month that'll satisfy all my expensive tastes.
'Tis I that make up the difference. And old age needs money as
never youth needs it. Some day you will learn for yourself."
"I am well satisfied with the trade," Saxon said. "And I shall
make me another cap when I can lay aside enough for the
material."
"Make several," Mercedes advised. "I'll sell them for you,
keeping, of course, a small commission for my services. I can
give you six dollars apiece for them. We will consult about them.
The profit will more than provide material for your own."
CHAPTER V
Four eventful things happened in the course of the winter. Bert
and Mary got married and rented a cottage in the neighborhood
three blocks away. Billy's wages were cut, along with the wages
of all the teamsters in Oakland. Billy took up shaving with a
safety razor. And, finally, Saxon was proven a false prophet and
Sarah a true one.
Saxon made up her mind, beyond any doubt, ere she confided the
news to Billy. At first, while still suspecting, she had felt a
frightened sinking of the heart and fear of the unknown and
unexperienced. Then had come economic fear, as she contemplated
the increased expense entailed. But by the time she had made
surety doubly sure, all was swept away before a wave of
passionate gladness. HERS AND BILLY'S! The phrase was continually
in her mind, and each recurrent thought of it brought an actual
physical pleasure-pang to her heart.
The night she told the news to Billy, he withheld his own news of
the wage-cut, and joined with her in welcoming the little one.
"What'll we do? Go to the theater to celebrate?" he asked,
relaxing the pressure of his embrace so that she might speak. "Or
suppose we stay in, just you and me, and . . . and the three of
us?"
"Stay in," was her verdict. "I just want you to hold me, and hold
me, and hold me."
"That's what I wanted, too, only I wasn't sure, after bein' in
the house all day, maybe you'd want to go out."
There was frost in the air, and Billy brought the Morris chair in
by the kitchen stove. She lay cuddled in his arms, her head on
his shoulder, his cheek against her hair.
"We didn't make no mistake in our lightning marriage with only a
week's courtin'," he reflected aloud. "Why, Saxon, we've been
courtin' ever since just the same. And now . . . my God, Saxon,
it's too wonderful to be true. Think of it! Ourn! The three of
us! The little rascal! I bet he's goin' to be a boy. An' won't I
learn 'm to put up his fists an' take care of himself! An'
swimmin' too. If he don't know how to swim by the time he's
six . . ."
"And if HE'S a girl?"
"SHE'S goin' to be a boy," Billy retorted, joining in the playful
misuse of pronouns.
And both laughed and kissed, and sighed with content. "I'm goin'
to turn pincher, now," he announced, after quite an interval of
meditation. "No more drinks with the boys. It's me for the water
wagon. And I'm goin' to ease down on smokes. Huh! Don't see why I
can't roll my own cigarettes. They're ten times cheaper'n tailor-
mades. An' I can grow a beard. The amount of money the barbers
get out of a fellow in a year would keep a baby."
"Just you let your beard grow, Mister Roberts, and I'll get a
divorce," Saxon threatened. "You're just too handsome and strong
with a smooth face. I love your face too much to have it covered
up.--Oh, you dear! you dear! Billy, I never knew what happiness
was until I came to live with you."
"Nor me neither."
"And it's always going to be so?"
"You can just bet," he assured her.
"I thought I was going to be happy married," she went on; "but I
never dreamed it would be like this." She turned her head on his
shoulder and kissed his cheek. "Billy, it isn't happiness. It's
heaven."
And Billy resolutely kept undivulged the cut in wages. Not until
two weeks later, when it went into effect, and he poured the
diminished sum into her lap, did he break it to her. The next
day, Bert and Mary, already a month married, had Sunday dinner
with them, and the matter came up for discussion. Bert was
particularly pessimistic, and muttered dark hints of an impending
strike in the railroad shops.
"If you'd all shut your traps, it'd be all right," Mary
criticized. "These union agitators get the railroad sore. They
give me the cramp, the way they butt in an' stir up trouble. If I
was boss I'd cut the wages of any man that listened to them."
"Yet you belonged to the laundry workers' union," Saxon rebuked
gently.
"Because I had to or I wouldn't a-got work. An' much good it ever
done me."
"But look at Billy," Bert argued "The teamsters ain't ben sayin'
a word, not a peep, an' everything lovely, and then, bang, right
in the neck, a ten per cent cut. Oh, hell, what chance have we
got? We lose. There's nothin' left for us in this country we've
made and our fathers an' mothers before us. We're all shot to
pieces. We Can see our finish--we, the old stock, the children of
the white people that broke away from England an' licked the tar
outa her, that freed the slaves, an' fought the Indians, 'an made
the West! Any gink with half an eye can see it comin'."
"But what are we going to do about it?" Saxon questioned
anxiously.
"Fight. That's all. The country's in the hands of a gang of
robbers. Look at the Southern Pacific. It runs California."
"Aw, rats, Bert," Billy interrupted. "You're takin' through your
lid. No railroad can ran the government of California."
"You're a bonehead," Bert sneered. "And some day, when it's too
late, you an' all the other boneheads'll realize the fact.
Rotten? I tell you it stinks. Why, there ain't a man who wants to
go to state legislature but has to make a trip to San Francisco,
an' go into the S. P. offices, an' take his hat off, an' humbly
ask permission. Why, the governors of California has been
railroad governors since before you and I was born. Huh! You
can't tell me. We're finished. We're licked to a frazzle. But
it'd do my heart good to help string up some of the dirty thieves
before I passed out. D'ye know what we are?--we old white stock
that fought in the wars, an' broke the land, an' made all this?
I'll tell you. We're the last of the Mohegans."
"He scares me to death, he's so violent," Mary said with
unconcealed hostility. "If he don't quit shootin' off his mouth
he'll get fired from the shops. And then
what'll we do? He don't
consider me. But I can tell you one thing all right, all right.
I'll not go back to the laundry." She held her right hand up and
spoke with the solemnity of an oath. "Not so's you can see it.
Never again for yours truly."
"Oh, I know what you're drivin' at," Bert said with asperity.
"An' all I can tell you is, livin' or dead, in a job or out, no
matter what happens to me, if you will lead that way, you will,
an' there's nothin' else to it."
"I guess I kept straight before I met you," she came back with a
toss of the head. "And I kept straight after I met you, which is
going some if anybody should ask you."
Hot words were on Bert's tongue, but Saxon intervened and brought
about peace. She was concerned over the outcome of their
marriage. Both were highstrung, both were quick and irritable,
and their continual clashes did not augur well for their future.
The safety razor was a great achievement for Saxon. Privily she
conferred with a clerk she knew in Pierce's hardware store and
made the purchase. On Sunday morning, after breakfast, when Billy
was starting to go to the barber shop, she led him into the
bedroom, whisked a towel aside, and revealed the razor box,
shaving mug, soap, brush, and lather all ready. Billy recoiled,
then came back to make curious investigation. He gazed pityingly
at the safety razor.
"Huh! Call that a man's tool!"
"It'll do the work," she said. "It does it for thousands of men
every day."
But Billy shook his head and backed away.
"You shave three times a week," she urged. "That's forty-five
cents. Call it half a dollar, and there are fifty-two weeks in
the year. Twenty-six dollars a year just for shaving. Come on,
dear, and try it. Lots of men swear by it."
He shook his head mutinously, and the cloudy deeps of his eyes
grew more cloudy. She loved that sullen handsomeness that made
him look so boyish, and, laughing and kissing him, she forced him
into a chair, got off his coat, and unbuttoned shirt and
undershirt and turned them in.
Threatening him with, "If you open your mouth to kick I'll shove
it in," she coated his face with lather.
"Wait a minute," she checked him, as he reached desperately for
the razor. "I've been watching the barbers from the sidewalk.
This is what they do after the lather is on."
And thereupon she proceeded to rub the lather in with her
fingers.
"There," she said, when she had coated his face a second time.
"You're ready to begin. Only remember, I'm not always going to do
this for you. I'm just breaking you in, you see."
With great outward show of rebellion, half genuine, half
facetious, he made several tentative scrapes with the razor. He
winced violently, and violently exclaimed:
"Holy jumping Jehosaphat!"
He examined his face in the glass, and a streak of blood showed
in the midst of the lather.
"Cut!--by a safety razor, by God! Sure, men swear by it. Can't
blame 'em. Cut! By a safety!"
"But wait a second," Saxon pleaded. "They have to be regulated.
The clerk told me. See those little screws. There. . . . That's
it . . . turn them around."
Again Billy applied the blade to his face. After a couple of
scrapes, be looked at himself closely in the mirror, grinned, and
went on shaving. With swiftness and dexterity he scraped his face
clean of lather. Saxon clapped her hands.
"Fine," Billy approved. "Great! Here. Give me your hand. See what
a good job it made."
He started to rub her hand against his cheek. Saxon jerked away
with a little cry of disappointment, then examined him closely.
"It hasn't shaved at all," she said.
"It's a fake, that's what it is. It cuts the hide, but not the
hair. Me for the barber."
But Saxon was persistent.
"You haven't given it a fair trial yet. It was regulated too