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For Woman’s Work.
AMBITION: MAN—WOMAN.
HEN Ambition comes to visit man,
With confidence preempting
w
Th? choicest seat within his soul,
1 hen sits him down and sups and sups,
And shames his host, whose poverty
That insatiate thirst cannot supply'== =
IJenignant hands stretch forth their aid,
Tongues his remotest virtues sing;
Purses do burst their tightened bounds,
The man’s embarrassment to sta\?.
Triumphant o’er all obstacles==«
Now hail the honored host.
When this unbidden guest arrives,
And deigns to sup with woman;
With air imperious demands
True welcome at her hands:
Then noses rise and shoulders shrug,
Veiled hints and accusations
Os things disastrously vile;
breathings of thoughts vituperous,
Os guilty schemes intangible
Seethe through all space beneath the sky!
And then---
We stop and wonder why! b. A.
For Woman’s Work.
DewDiDjpedl JtatonttSom.
HEN her son entered, Mrs. Carleton
had Just totaled the credit balances
in her account book at nineteen
W
thousand dollars.
‘ Good morning, Mother; ran in to see
if you were busy and happy.”
‘‘l am always happy,” she said, smil
ingly, “when people will let me be.”
“And sometimes when they won’t, eh,
Mother?” he laughed. ‘ Mary tells me
that you are quite incorrigible. She found
you down in the kitchen yesterday with
your sleeves rolled up, helping the cook,
didn’t sh._?”
The old lady adjusted the cap over her
fine grey hair, and smoothed out the
wrinkles in the lap of her dress.
“Yes,” she responded, ‘‘the cook was
rushed to death, and I couldn’t resist the
temptation to help her.”
The young man crossed over and placed
an arm about her shoulders affectionately.
A quizzical smile had given place to an
affected solemnity.
“Don’t you know, Mother dear, that we
are too well-off for you to work as a ser
vant? Folk will say we are heathen. Yes
terday, when Mrs. Delany asked for you,
Mary says you came down stairs In a dust
cap and with a broom in your hand.
Think of it!”
She looked up into his face with evi
dent expectation of finding rebuke there.
Instead she found only amusement.
“Is it such a crime to work?” she ask
ed, as she stroked the hand lying on her
shoulder. You know, my boy, there was
a time when I had to work very hard to
Ind something for my little ones to eat.
When your Father died and left me poor
and with three babies, I must have worked
or starved”
“Yes, I know,” he admitted, in a more
serious and gentle voice, as he bent over
and kissed her: “I know, Mother dear;
and I shall always be proud of you be
cause ot those days—always. Don’t im
agine that I ever forget the old times!”
“And you know,’’ she went on, “when
one has worked all her life, it is hard to
stop in later days. I enjoy being busy;
and there is so litt'e to do in this house,
with all the servants around. Dear me,
it’s not eo pleasant to be rich, after aid”
“No, Mother,” her son agreed, as he
stood up. “it isn’t everything in the
world. One of the disadvantages is that
we must live up more or less to our ma
terial blessings—or down to thorn,” he
qualified with a laugh; “I came to rebuke
iou for not remembering that. Aheml
lary says you distress her very much by
insiating upon your right to help the ser
vants. You must not do that. If you
cannot live without strenuously occupy
ing every moment of your existence, I
shall have to get you a position as presi
dent of some woman’s club. Then you
will be too busy to eat.”
‘Oh dear,” the little lady sighed, “I
rever supposed it was a sin for rich peo
ple to work."
“It is not a sin,” her son declared, sit
ting on the arm of her big chair; ‘‘but it
is a sin to do that which you can well af
ford to pay some one else thirty dollars a
month for doing. First thing you know,”
and he bent over to kiss her and soften the
terrible prediction, “the servants* union
will boycott us and we shall have to do
our own work, whether or not.”
“Glory bel” ejaculated his mother.
“Yes, glory bel” he echoed. “But wait
until the day you see the big automobile
stop in front of the house with its load of
sightseers, and hear the man with the
megaphone shout out: ‘The home of the
wealthy Mr. Carleton, boycotted by the
Laundry League because he allows his
mother to do the washing!' **
She chuckled delightedly, as with all of
a child’s glee she pictured the scene.
“I’d put my dust cap on and shake a
broom out of the window at them,” she
declared, vehemently.
He smiled in sympathy as he arose to go:
“Now I do trust, dear Mother, that you
will live up to the social requirements of
your station, and not distress the poor
little girl who has the misfortune to be my
wife.”
“Huh!” the old lady sniffed, with gentle
scorn; “I guess Mary Mallory knows she
is the luckiest girl in the world. But I’ll
try to do what is right. I’m sorry it is
wrong to work just because one has erough
to eat.”
“It’s not wrong; but the work must fit
the conditions, ” her son insisted. “Now
if you can find some supervising work to
do it will be all right. Put on your best silk,
Mother, then find something to do that
won’t soil that, and you are safe from
criticism. Goodbye for a little while,’’
and he kissed her slowly and lovingly.
When he had gone she resumed her seat
by the window and fell into a study.
“Something that won’t spoil a silk dress,’’
she mused. “I see; got to draw a line
sharply between the people who work for
wages and the ones who draw a salary.
I’ll see what I can do,’’ she continued, as
she arose and began to array herself for
the street.
“I suppose I don’t really know much
about the ways of society,” she mused, as
she tied her bonnet strings. “If Mary
thinks it is wrong for me to help the ser-
Woman’s Work.
vants, I suppose she is right. She ought to
know more about those things than I do.
She is a good girl—if she hadn’t been
James would never have married her.
“Scmehow it seems as if James under
stands better than anyone else what a
hankering I have to be doing something,”
she continued to herself, after she had
closed the front door and was out upon the
street. “At any rate he told me anything
that wouldn’t spoil a silk dress was all
right,’’ and, with a satisfied smack of her
lips, Mrs. Carleton proceeded on her way.
Turning several corners, she at last
came to a dingy little millinery shop.
With a taste for bonnets that she could
easily afford to indulge, she had discover
ed in the proprietor of this little shop what
she considered a veritable genius; and in
the course of frequent visits there had
sprung up a great friendship between the
simple old lady and the younger woman.
The milliner recognized a keen critic of
her work in the generous patron who, in
turn, admired the ability of the obscure
artist.
Little Mrs. Felton was much surprised
at the scheme which Mrs. Carleton had
come to unfold. After it had been repeat
ed the women arrived at a mutual agree
ment, and Mrs. Carleton left the shop with
a delicious sense of being very busy in
deed. Her next objective point was the
< ffice of a real estate dealer, where she was
also successful to her entire satisfaction.
Neither that day nor the next sufficed
for all the business calls she found it neces
sary to make. Except for meal times, as
she herself admitted, she was hardly in
the house.
“Gracious, James,” the younger Mrs.
Carleton observed that evening, in her
precise tones, “1 am afraid your Mother
is engaged in some mysterious project.
She has had on her good clothes all the
time these last three days. What do you
suppose she is doing?’’
•‘I don’t know,” her husband answered,
frankly. ‘I told her to occupy herself
with something that allowed her to wear
silk. Daresay she has found something of
that kind—joined some charitable organi
sation, no doubt,” and he attempted to re
sume his paper.
•‘You don’t imagine she would do any
thing unusual, do you?” Mrs. Carleton
persisted, with a note of fear in her voice.
‘‘Such as what?” her husband queried,
as he poised his glasses on his thumb.
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she confessed,
hopelessly. “Suppose she should start an
amateur orphan asylum, or something of
that sort, and have a lot of strange people
running here all the time.”
“Don’t be absurd, my dear.”
“I’m not; but your mother is simply
consumed with an ambition for work.
Mark my words, she is contriving some
thing in the way of a surprise. Dear! I
wish I had left her in the kitchen. Then
I knew what she was doing.”
Mr. Carleton smiled at his wife’s fears.
With all due respect to the conventions of
society, he took most of them at second
hand from his wife—who came of the ultra
aristocratic stock imbued with a gentle
horror of all things out of the usual.
"Some people do such queer things!”
his wife sighed, half to herself, when she
found that her husband was interested
more in the paper than her forebodings.
“Only to-day 1 discovered that the little
French cottage down lhe street is being
renovated; I verily believe someone is
going to open a store there. Who in the
world could be so err zy as to come into
the very most aristocratic street of the city
with such a purpose, I wonder?’’
That query was not answered for days,
though it became clearly evident that she
was right in suspecting the renovation to
be in the interest of trade. At the end of
two weeks a posted notice made known
the fact that a millinery store would be
opened shortly. The younger Mrs. Carle
ton brought up the subject again, and gave
expression to her utter indignation. With
masculine nonchalance her husband made
light ot the matter.
“Some ignorant persons have tried it as
an experiment,” he said. “Let it alone
and I promise you that in a month or so
the place will be closed.”
‘ Can’t you do something to persuade the
misguided people of their folly? ’ his wife
asked, plaintively: “I declare, if this is
going to be a street for little shops like
that, I want to move. 1 ’
• Very well, dear,” was her husband’s
soothing reply, “give the project rope
enough to hang itself, and if it doesn’t die
a natural death we will talk about moving.”
With that “bull” she had to be content,
though inwardly she raged. She could
not stoop to open battle, or she would have
challenged the right of the workmen to
compass such a monstrosity.
The prediction that the millinery shop
would fail of patronage was not fulfilled.
On the appointed day a neat sign was dis
played with the simple information: “Mrs.
Felton, Fashionable Milliner;’’ and al
most from the very first moment the lit
tle cottage shop boasted a growing
clientele of customers from all over the
city; the modest success of the new venture
was obvious from the start.
It was a tacitly avoided subject of con
versation at the family gatherings in the
home of the Carletons, until one evening
the elder Mrs. Carleton deliberately chal
lenged admiration for a hat which the
shop had turned out.
‘ I showed this to Mrs. Bascom and she
thought it perfectly beautiful. Don’t you
think it is line, Mary?”
“Ch, yes,” her daughter-in-law admit
ted, coldly; “it is pretty enough, but I am
so disgusted with that milliner for coming
into our street with her tiresome shop that
I wouldn’t go near it if I never wore a hat
again.”
“Shoo! Mary, how you talk! Why
shouldn’t she come here where people have
the means to insure her success? lam
going to do all I can to bring her trade!”
Mrs. Carleton was as good as her word.
Whereas she had been very much opposed
to social callings as such, she now spent
most of her leisure in that pastime, and
invariably wore the finest product of’ the
shop. At the end of six months the corps
of assistants became too large for the cot
tage, and Mrs. Car’eton, senior, casually
observed that Mrs. Felton would begin an
enlargement at once. Only then did her
son seriously heed the wailings of his wife.
“We’ll do something about it, dear,” h«y
assured her. “Perhaps we can buy the
lol; it looks like a scheme to make us de
that.”
That evening, when Mr. Carleton drop
ped into his mother’s room, she put into
his hand, without any comments what*
ever, a ledger. It did not take him more
than a brief second to discover that it was
the book-keeping plant of the “Carleton
and Felton Millinery Company.” His first
astonished move was to pucker his lipa
for a whistle; and only the fear that his
wife would hear prevented him from giv
ing vent to it. Then he spent a moment
looking over the financial condition of the
firm.
“Certainly, Mother, you have done well,” -
he declared, in frank admiration. “But
Mary will poison you, as sure as you live,
if she ever learns about this. Now what
in the world are we going to do? So
you’re the principal, ehl Well, I might
have known it! We’ll have to get rid of
you, that’s certain. State your price.”
“Do you think it’s a paying business?'
Have you confidence in it?” she laughing
ly asked.
“Oh, undoubtedly. Mrs. Felton is a dis
covery. I congratulate you. But you must
move. Ahem I you must clear out of this
street. On what basis will you do it?”
“You boys must guarantee the subscrip
tion of twenty thousand dollars worth of
stock in a company with me for its head;
then I will go down * town and open a
store. Nothing more and absolutely noth
ing less. Mary wouldn’t let me cook; she
drove me to this. Six months have proved
it a good thing. lam happy now—with a
business all my own, and the chance to
dictate a little. Isn’t that right?”
“I guess it is, Mother mine; you have
us cornered,” he admitted cheerfully.
‘■Then do I go ahead and enlarge the
cottage, or do I move?’’
“You move, Mother; and you move be
fore Mary leaves me. I’ll get your stock
and start you off in the company; but if
you ever tell Mary that you opened that
store in this fashionable street I’ll disown
you. Now lam going out with the osten
sible purpjse of persuading Mrs. Felton to
move. 1 shall be successful, but don’t you.
say a word when I return.”
In the course of an hour Mr. Carleton
came back, and in answer to the question
ing eyes of his wife he loftily informed her
that his potent influence had scored a vic
tory.
‘ It’s all right, my love; Mrs. Felton is
doing a good business here, but I have
persuaded the firm to let me have a share
in it, and to move the shop down town
where it should have been at first. In the
course of time you will see a new store in
the shopping district—a millinery empori
um, with our name over the door. Do
you mind? ’ and Mr. Carleton made a half
smiling face at his mother.
‘Oh, no,” his wife assured him, with a
sigh of relief; “anything to get them out
of this street! 1 ’
"You see, I had to take a goodly share
in the business to make my argument
count,” he explained; “but it might have
made a scandal if I had followed any other
course. The firm has a little bit of my
own obstinacy.”
" Yes, I suppose so,” his wife agreed,
while his mother nodded slowly and
thoughtfully.
Jambs William Jackson.
JANUARY, 190.