The Rosie World

Dave McFadden breathed heavily. "Then what?"

Janet took her hands from her face and, with a fresh assumption of indifference, continued: "Oh, a crowd gathered, of course, and after while a policeman came, and then the ambulance. And while we were in the ambulance she – had another. And when we got to the hospital – another. It was awful!" Janet dropped her head on the table and sobbed.

"Well?" demanded Dave gruffly.

Janet stifled her sobs. "They undressed her and put her to bed and gave her something and she went to sleep. Then the doctor took me into another room and wrote down what he said was a history of ma's case and he asked me questions about everything."

Dave McFadden's sombre gaze wandered off unhappily about the room. "What did you tell him?"

Janet's answer came a little slowly: "I told him everything."

Dave looked at her sharply. "Tell me what you told him!"

"All right. I'll tell you." There was a hint of unsteadiness in Janet's voice but no sign of wavering in her manner. Her eyes stared across at her father as sombre almost as his own. "He said from the looks of her he thought ma was all run down from overwork and worry. I told him she was. Then he asked me why and I told him why… I told him my father made good money but boozed every cent. I told him my mother had to support herself and me and even had to feed my father. I told him that when my father was sober he was cross and grouchy but he didn't hurt us and that, when he came home drunk, he'd kick us or beat us or do anything he could to hurt us."

With a roar like the roar of an angry animal, Dave McFadden reached across the table and clutched Janet roughly by the shoulder. "You told him that, you – you little skunk!"

His fury, instead of cowing Janet, roused her to like fury.

"Yes!" she shouted shrilly. "That's exactly what I told him and it's exactly what I'm going to tell everybody! I'm never going to tell another lie about you, Dave McFadden! Do you hear me? Never!"

At the unexpectedness of her attack, Dave's anger and strength seemed to flow from him like water. His clutch relaxed; he fell back weakly into his chair. For a moment confusion covered him utterly. Then he tried to speak and at last succeeded in voicing that ancient reproach with which unworthy parenthood has ever sought to beguile the just reproof of outraged offspring: "And is this the way you talk to your own father? Your – own – father!" Had he been a little drunk, he would have wept. As it was, even to himself, his words seemed not to ring very true.

Janet regarded him scornfully. "Yes, that's exactly the way I talk to my own father!" She paused and her eyes blazed anew. "And there's one thing, Dave McFadden, that I want to tell you." She stood up from the table and walked around to her father's place. "When you come in sober, as cross as a bear and without a word in your mouth for any one, ma and me hustle about to make you comfortable and don't even talk to each other for fear of riling you. Yes, we're so thankful you're not drunk that we crawl around like two little dogs just waiting to lick your hand and tell you how good you are. Then, when you come home drunk, wanting to kill some one, we do our best to coax you in here to keep you from getting mixed up with the neighbours. We're terribly careful to save the neighbours, and why? So's you won't get arrested. But do we ever save ourselves? There's never a time when I'm not black and blue all over with the bruises you give me – kicking me and pinching me and knocking me down."

In his senses Dave McFadden was not an unkind man, but most of the time he was not in his senses. Janet's tirade now seemed to be affecting him much as cheap whiskey did. He staggered to his feet and raised threatening hands.

"You little slut! If you don't shut up, I – I'll choke you!"

But Janet was far past any intimidation. She stood her ground calmly. "All right! Go ahead and choke! The thing I've made up my mind to tell you, Dave McFadden, is this: I'll never again lick your boots when you're sober nor run from you when you're drunk. Kill me now if you want to! Go on! You've probably killed ma and if she's lying there in the hospital dead this minute, I wish you would kill me! Then you could go drown yourself and that would be the end of all of us!"

Dave McFadden groaned. "For God's sake," he implored, "can't you let up on me?"

Janet looked at him steadily. "Have you ever let up on us?"

He stared about helplessly and asked, with the querulousness, almost, of a child: "What is it you want me to do? Do you want me to go to the hospital to see her?"

Janet laughed drearily. "They wouldn't let you in. I asked the doctor did he want you to come and he said, no, the sight of you would probably give her another attack."

Dave shuffled uneasily. "Then I suppose I might as well go to work."

"Yes," Janet agreed, "you might as well go to work. But before you go, will you please give me a quarter? I borrowed a quarter from Rosie to buy your breakfast."

Dave put his hand in his pocket and found a quarter. He flipped it across the table. "Here's your money, Rosie."

"And if you want me to get any supper for you," Janet went on, "you'll have to give me some money, too."

Dave hesitated. He was not accustomed to paying the household expenses. Before he realized what he was saying, he asked: "Hasn't your mother any money?" Under the instant fire of Janet's scorn, he saw his mistake and reddened with shame.

"Yes," Janet told him grimly, "she's got one dollar and I'll see you starve to death before I touch one cent of it for you! If you want any supper, you pay for it yourself; and you'll pay for mine, too, if I get any. If I don't get any, it won't be the first time."

Dave slowly emptied his pocket. He had a two-dollar bill, a fifty-cent piece, and some small change. "Here," he said, offering Janet the bill and the fifty-cent piece. "Will that suit you?"

Janet took the money but refused to be placated. "It ain't what will suit me or won't suit me. You know as well as I do what's fair and square, and that's all there is to it. And while we're on money," she continued, "I might as well tell you if you don't pay five dollars on the rent we'll be dispossessed next Monday. On account of ma being sick so much lately we've dropped behind four weeks and the agent won't wait any longer."

Dave swallowed hard. "This is all I got till Saturday."

"Are you sure you'll have any more on Saturday?"

Dave looked hurt. "Won't I have a whole week's wages?"

"I don't know." Janet spoke without any feeling as one merely stating a fact. "Most weeks, you know, you're in debt to the saloon, and when you pay up there on Saturday afternoon you haven't much left by night."

Dave smothered an oath. It was plain that he thought he had done a very handsome thing in passing over the greater part of his money. It was also plain that he had expected a grateful "Thank you." And what did he feel he was receiving? An insult! He looked at Janet in sullen resentment. "You're a nice one, you are, talking that way to your own father! I tell you one thing, though: you wouldn't talk that way if your mother was around. She's got a heart, she has! All you've got is a turnip!"

At mention of her mother, Janet choked a little. "My mother don't think my heart's a turnip and Rosie don't, either. All I've got to say is, if it looks like a turnip to you, it's because you've changed it into one yourself."

To this Dave made no answer. Without further words he could better preserve the expression of grieved and unappreciated parenthood. Whatever he may have done or may not have done in the past, just now he had been noble and generous. And would his own child acknowledge this? No! He bore her no grudge; his face very plainly said so; but he was hurt, deeply hurt. Under cover of the hurt, he opened the door quietly and made his escape.

In Janet the fires of indignation flickered and went out, leaving her cold and lifeless. She threw herself into a chair and folded her hands.

"You certainly did give it to him straight, Janet!" Rosie spoke in tones of deep admiration.

Janet laughed scornfully. "Give it to him straight! Oh, yes, I gave it to him straight all right!" She shivered and clenched her hands. "I can talk! That's where we come in strong. Take the women in this tenement and they've all got tongues as sharp as ice-picks. Any one of them can talk a man to death. But what does it all amount to? Nothing! I tell you, Rosie, they've got the bulge on us, for, as soon as we make things hot for them, all they've got to do is clear out!" Janet sighed unhappily. "Then they pay us back by not coming home and when they get injured or pulled in it all comes out that it's our fault because we haven't made home pleasant for them. Huh! They always make it so awful pleasant for us, don't they?"

Rosie felt helpless and uncomfortable. Her own life had problems of its own but, compared to Janet's, how trivial they seemed, how inconsequential. And, by a like comparison, how inviting her own home suddenly appeared. She thought of it, ordinarily, as an overcrowded untidy little house where everybody was under every one else's feet. Not so this morning. This morning it was home as home should be, the centre of a very real family life supported by a father's industry and a mother's devotion. They were poor, of course, but not overwhelmingly so, for they had enough to eat and enough to wear. And, best of all, they loved each other. In the past Rosie had not always known this, but she knew it now. They loved each other and, without thinking anything about it, they were ready to stand by each other. Beneath all family discord there was a harmony, a family harmony, the burden of which was: all for one and one for all. A wave of homesickness swept over Rosie. She wanted to be off without the loss of another moment. Her hands reached out eagerly for the many tasks, the dear, the wearying tasks that were awaiting them.

"Well, Janet, I'm sorry, but I think I must go. You know Geraldine has to have her bath and I've got to go marketing. If you hurry, though, I'll help with the dishes first."

"No," Janet said. "You run along if you have to. I can do the dishes alone."

Rosie paused a moment longer. "You know if you want to you can come and have dinner with us, Janet."

Janet shook her head. "Thanks, but I won't have time. I've got to go to all of mother's customers and tell them she's sick, and I go to the hospital early in the afternoon."

"Then when will I see you?"

"I don't know unless you come and sleep with me again tonight."

"I don't see how I can, Janet." At that moment the thought of spending another night away from her beloved family was more than Rosie could bear. "You know, Janet, I've got so many things to do at home. Geraldine needs me all the time and so does ma and – "

"Yes, yes, Rosie, I understand. And I don't blame you one bit for liking it better at home."

"I didn't mean that at all!" Rosie declared; "honest I didn't!"

"That's all right," Janet assured her. "I like it better over at your house myself. It was good of you coming last night. I was kind o' scared last night and I didn't want to be alone with him."

Rosie was concerned. "You won't be scared tonight, will you?"