1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
343 
Miss Rutherford’s Wash. 
“Mary Ellen, I wish you’d carry Miss 
Rutherford’s wash home to her.” 
Mary Ellen, not one jot or tittle of 
whose name was ever abated at home, 
although the feather factory and her 
social circle knew her as Mamie, paused 
in her occupation of tying a wide white 
bow beneath her chin. She did not turn 
from the square little mirror that hung 
between the two windows of the tene¬ 
ment kitchen, to show her mother, iron¬ 
ing energetically behind her, the mutin¬ 
ous line of her lips at the request. 
She was tired of being told to carry 
Miss Rutherford’s clothes home. She 
could scarcely recall the time when she 
had not been tired of the command. 
Back into the remotest, pinafored past, 
every Saturday had seen her Miss Ruth¬ 
erford’s laundry bearer. Lately she oc¬ 
casionally effected a transfer of the task 
to Tim, but he was generally reserved 
for longer errands. 
“Where’s Tim?” she inquired now, 
shortly. 
The habit of obedience was strong, 
and even a few months of wage-earning 
independence at the factory had not 
given her the courage to refuse outright 
the behest of the old woman, who with 
practised arm was sending her iron over 
a pink shirt waist. 
“Tim’s at the ball game,” replied Mrs. 
McNulty, oblivious of Mary Ellen’s pro¬ 
testing attitude. “He won’t be home be¬ 
fore supper, an’ ye could get these things 
over to Miss Rutherford an’ be back in 
time to go to the store for me before 
then.” 
Mary Ellen looked steadily at some 
geraniums growing insolently bright in 
tin cans along the window ledge. They 
were but a painful blur of scarlet to her, 
for there was an angry mist before her 
eyes. She did not speak at once. 
“Well!” cried her mother sharply, as 
she turned from the board to put a chill¬ 
ing iron on the stove and to test the 
temperature of a fresh one by trying its 
hot breath against her cheek. “Well, 
are ye goin’ to stand there all night? 
Miss Rutherford’s wash is all done up 
there in the basket in the corner.” 
“I don’t want to go,” said Mary Ellen 
sullenly. 
“Don’t want to go!” cried Mary Ellen’s 
mother, scorching a handkerchief as she 
held her hot iron still in astonishment. 
“Don t want to go? I didn’t ask ye, 
miss, whether ye wanted to go or not. 
I’d have known ye didn’t want to go. 
Since ye’ve been to the factory it’s little 
ye want to do anywhere else. Ye’re 
ashamed, I suppose, to be takin’ home 
the wash ye ain’t ashamed to have yer 
mother doin’. Don’t want to go indade, 
miss-” 
Mrs. McNulty’s tongue was as tireless 
as her hard and misshapen hands and as 
sharp as her keen eyes. Her oration 
might have continued much longer had 
not Mary Ellen broken in, with a sud¬ 
den and unexpected flash of spirit. 
“An’ I ain’t agoin’ either,” she said, 
seizing her hat. “Of a Satiddy, too, the 
only day I have for a little pleasure!” 
With which declaration of indepen- 
uence she dashed through the door and 
was picking nor way through the babies 
in the narrow hall before Mrs. McNulty 
had recovered speech again. Then she 
sighed a little and shook her head. 
“She might have stayed and helped 
me,” she said. “Jim Dowd wouldn’t 
think less of her for it. I s’pose she 
imagines I don’ know what’s the matter 
with her, with her airs an’ graces an’ 
her new ties an’ sittin’ up till midnight 
to copy Miss Rutherford’s shirt waists 
an’ her askin’ me to stop callin’ her 
Mary Ellen.” 
Again Mrs. McNulty shook her neat 
gray head, but this time she laughed 
comfortably to herself, though her 
laughter ended wearily. 
“She might have helped me to-night, 
for I’m tired.” 
Meantime Mary Ellen, though she 
found Jim waiting at the corner, and 
though he told her with flattering 
promptness that she “looked out er 
sight,” did not experience the delight 
she had anticipated. Independence, to 
be enjoyed, should have no intermixture 
of remorse, and Mary Ellen’s cup of free¬ 
dom was bitterly tinctured with the 
thought of a stout, tired old woman 
journeying ceaselessly from an ironing 
board to the stove and back again. 
Whenever silences fell between her and 
Jim—and they were in the state when 
silences are many and sweet—a picture 
came before her of her mother, toiling, 
toiling, toiling. She was a little girl 
again, waking from sleep and seeing 
from her cot in the corner the ceaseless 
work of the woman. She remembered 
guiltily how she had been used to say 
at such drowsy times: “When I’m big 
you sha’n’t have to work so.” She re¬ 
called her pride when first she had been 
allowed to carry Miss Rutherford’s 
clothes home, the boundless dignity she 
had assumed when she presented the 
scrawl of a bill, the eagerness with 
which she had clutched the silver pay¬ 
ment and had borne it back to her 
mother. And to-day- 
“No, I don’t want to go on a boat,” 
she heard herself saying crossly. 
The boat had been the last of Jim’s 
suggestions. He looked at Mary Ellen, 
pondering deeply. 
“Come on over to the park, then,” he 
said, “an’ sit down, for I have somethin’ 
to say to yer.” 
Mary Ellen walked on. Her feet kept 
dragging time to a dialogue in her mind, 
in which one voice said: “You might 
have done that for her; it wasn’t much, 
an’ think of all she’s done for you,” 
while the other replied: “Any way, she 
needn’t have asked me to lug a basket of 
clothes home on a Satiddy afternoon.” 
“Mary Ellen,” began Jim solemnly, 
when he had seated her on a bench op¬ 
posite a fountain that showered pearls 
upon a pond of floating lilies, pink and 
pale and languid, “Mary Ellen-” 
“What are you callin’ me ‘Mary Ellen’ 
for?” inquired Miss McNulty, suddenly 
ceasing to attend to her two voices and 
listening to Jim instead. Jim belonged 
to the “Mamie” set of her acquaintances. 
“The old woman calls you that,” re¬ 
plied Jim. 
“Well, that’s no reason why you 
should,” said Mary Ellen smartly. 
“Yes, it is," said Jim sturdily, though 
he was slowly growing red beneath his 
tan and freckles. “Yes, it is, Mary Ellen. 
For I—I like you like the old woman 
does. An’ I want to take care er ye like 
she always has—and say, Mary Ellen, I 
can call ye Mary Ellen, can’t I?” 
In Mary Ellen’s breast was a tumult 
as though a flock of birds fluttered their 
tiny wings. The spray from the foun¬ 
tain was a shower of gold; the lilies 
swam in opalescent beauty. 
“Say, I can, can’t I?” Jim persisted, 
whispering—“Mary Ellen—Dowd?” 
And Mary Ellen shut out the dazzling 
vision of the enchanted fountain by cov¬ 
ering her happy face with her hands 
and saying tempestuously and irrele¬ 
vantly: 
“Oh, Jim, you’ll always be good to 
mother, won’t you?” 
It was dark when they walked east¬ 
ward again through the glittering, busy 
Saturday night streets. They held fast 
to each other’s hands and trusted the 
wide folds of Mary Ellen’s crash skirt 
to hide the embrace. They talked and 
planned, and bubbled with joy, or were 
silent in swift dreams of happiness. And 
Mary Ellen’s heart yearned toward her 
mother with a dim understanding of 
great tenderness and care. 
“I wish I’d taken them clothes home,” 
she mourned to Jim, to whom she had 
told the story of her revolt. 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use “Mrs.Wins¬ 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv. 
“She ain’t going to work so hard any 
more,” Jim replied, and Mary Ellen 
thrilled to hear his masterful, kind voice. 
There was a crowd at a corner as they 
crossed Second Avenue. A bicyclist was 
engaged in giving voluble explanations 
to a policeman who was making notes 
of his remarks. A wheel with splintered 
spokes leaned dejectedly against the 
curb. The proprietor of a drug store at 
the corner warned the mob away from 
his door. 
“Them bicyclists-” began Jim, 
fiercely. But Mary Ellen uttered a 
shriek. 
“See, see!” she screamed, pointing to 
a scattering of white garments on the 
sidewalk and to an overturned basket. 
“Oh, Jim! It’s a judgment on me. It’s 
mother!” 
They pushed their way to the officer 
and begged for details. Then they fought 
their way to the drug store. 
“It’s mother. I know it’s mother,” 
Mary Ellen moaned. 
The druggist made way for her. 
“Come in, if you think it’s your 
mother,” he said, and added reassuring¬ 
ly, “She isn’t much hurt.” 
On a lounge behind the prescription 
counter lay the stout figure of Mrs. Mc¬ 
Nulty. A physician bent over her. 
“Stunned by the fall,” he said to Mary 
Ellen. “That is all, I think. She won’t 
have to go to the hospital, if you don’t 
wish her to. She’s cornin’ around al¬ 
ready.” 
Mrs. McNulty's eyelids wavered a mo¬ 
ment, then lifted themselves. She gazed 
about her blankly. Then memory re¬ 
turned as she saw Mary Ellen, crying at 
the foot of the lounge. She smiled a 
little grimly, but when she spoke, celes¬ 
tial voices bidding sinners enter heaven 
could not have sounded sweeter in Mary 
Ellen’s ears than did her mother’s 
words: 
“You’ll have to take Miss Rutherford’s 
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