A Little Question in Ladies' Rights

"Are you going to give me half the money?"

"Well, I – I hadn't thought about it," Willie admitted.

Margery felt perfectly sure of this and sure likewise that he never would think of it unless she herself insisted on her rights.

"Then just think about it now. Here I am picking berries for you as fast as I can. I haven't et one. Now if you go sell these berries, you ought to give me half, oughtn't you?"

"I dunno but what I ought."

A timid creature would have rested content with this, but Margery had had too many dealings with the other sex to put undue confidence in any concession so vaguely expressed, so grudgingly admitted. It was rather a hard thing to do – she knew beforehand Willie Jones would hate her for it – but a nickel is a nickel, and now or never, she realized, was the moment to demand a definite promise.

"Well, then, will you?"

Willie seemed not to hear.

"Will you?" Margery repeated, stopping her picking to make her question more emphatic.

Willie looked up apprehensively toward the gravedigger's house.

"If you don't stop arguing and go ahead picking we won't either of us have anything," he burst out querulously.

It was hard indeed not to act upon a suggestion so plainly expected to be of benefit to them both. Fortunately, Margery knew that if she had but character to persist a little longer she would probably gain her end. So, by a great effort of will, she continued idle and reiterated tiresomely:

"Well, will you?"

"Will I? Why, of course I will!" Willie raised his voice and screwed up his face into a tight little knot of impatience and disgust. "Haven't I been telling you that for half an hour? You are the dumbest ox sometimes! Why, do you suppose I'd ask you to help me if I hadn't expected to share with you? You must think I'm an awful tightwad!"

Margery bent her head humbly under this tirade. She had nothing more to say, no defense to utter. By her unwomanly persistence she had very clearly lost whatever admiration and respect Willie Jones might once have felt for her. But – but – but she was in for half the profits!.. Women are so prone nowadays to prefer some petty material gain to the grand old-fashioned whatchemaycallit.

"I think we're going to get our two full quarts," Margery remarked amiably. Of course she was amiable. She had every reason to be amiable.

Willie Jones, who by this time had fallen silent, made no comment.

"Don't you think so?" Margery pursued sweetly.

"Huh!" grunted Willie Jones.

When the tin pail was about full an accident happened to Margery. She stepped into something soft and clayey, and the next instant, seeing what it was, she started off by leaps and bounds, crying out the shrill warning: "Run, Willie, run! Bumble bees! I stepped on a bumble bee nest!"

A young gravedigger – if it be correct to call the offspring of an old gravedigger a young gravedigger – caught sight of the poachers just at this moment, and, shouting out, "Hey, there! You!" started toward them down the knoll. The incredible speed with which the poachers fled seemed to give the young gravedigger an erroneous idea of the fear that his presence inspired. There was small likelihood of his overtaking them before they reached the safety of the other side of the fence, but they seemed to him so little to realize this that, for the mere pleasure of pursuit, the young gravedigger pounded on, brandishing his arms and roaring his threats. By the time Margery and Willie made the fence they had so far outdistanced the bees that Willie had courage to face about and shout back defiance to all threats and to show his contempt for the whole race of gravediggers by pointing his thumb to his nose and wriggling his fingers in that same derisive and, it must be conceded, effective manner already mentioned. Although still at a considerable distance, the young gravedigger caught the full meaning of the insult and almost exploded with rage.

"You – you little – " he began. But he did not finish. They saw him stop suddenly, look up, and then, flinging his arms over his head, rush madly back the way he had just come.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Willie Jones shouted, hopping up and down in the intensity of his enjoyment. "Margery, do you see him? The bees are after him! Jiminy! Jiminy! Jiminy!"

Willie Jones lay down on the ground and rolled and kicked and plucked up handfuls of grass in an effort to work off the exuberance of his joy.

"Oh!" he gasped weakly, as the humor of the situation finally expended itself. "Isn't that the funniest thing you ever saw?"

As Margery made no answer, he turned, suddenly conscious that from the start she had not been sharing his transports.

"Why, what's the matter, Margery?"

There was a pained expression on Margery's face and she was panting.

"I'm stung," she murmured.

Willie Jones did not have to ask "Where?" for the middle finger of one hand was already standing straight out, swollen and red.

"I'm awfully sorry, Margery, honest I am. Put some mud on it. That'll help some."

"I don't see any mud," Margery panted, looking hopelessly over the green meadow.

"Can't we make some quick enough?" Willie asked, digging his heel into the turf. "Now, Margery, spit on this… Aw, that's not enough. Watch me."

By their united efforts they succeeded in mixing a mud plaster large enough to cover the wound.

"There now, does that feel better?"

"I don't know, Willie. Maybe it does. But do you know – do you know – I – I think I'm getting sick."

"Oh, no, you're not. You just think you are. Brace up now and you'll feel all right." Then, by way of changing the subject and giving praise where praise was due, he added: "That was dandy of you not dropping any berries when the bees chased us. There are not quite two quarts, but don't you care. I think my mother'll count them for two."

But Margery was not to be diverted.

"Oh, Willie," she groaned, "I feel awful sick! Oh, if I could only thr'up!"

"Well, thr'up if you want to," Willie advised. "There's no one around here, and I won't look, honest I won't."

Margery shook her head sadly.

"I can't do it alone. I got to have hot water and things. Come on. We better go home or I think I'll die. Oh, if my head just didn't ache so! Maybe you better lend me your cap, Willie. Thanks. I suppose that'll help my head some, but I don't believe it will. Oh, Willie, do you know what I wish?"

"What?"

"Oh, I do wish I had never et a single banana! And I knew all the time I oughtn't to eat so many, I knew it just as well! Oh, Willie, isn't it turrible the way a person does a thing even when they know they oughtn't to?"

All the way home Willie had very little to say, but he listened politely as Margery talked on and on, punctuating her sad moralizings with long labored breaths and weary headshakes.

"And then afterwards, Willie, if I had only sat still as Effie told me to, I might have got off all right. But no, I had to come racing off here in the hot sun and I knew I oughtn't to, and then I went into the blackberry patch and I knew I hadn't any right to, and all I got to say is, it's a wonder a hundred bees didn't sting me instead of one.."

Willie looked at her curiously.

"Do you think you got stung because you picked those berries?"

"I just know that was why."

"Well, the gravedigger was getting it worse than you, and I guess he had a right to be there, hadn't he?"