“Leave her out of this, please!”
“Very well, father, just as you say.” And she sat there hurt and silent while again he looked slowly through the bills. He jotted down figures and added them up. They came to a bit over nine hundred dollars. Soon Deborah’s key was heard in the door, and Roger scowled the deeper. She came into the room, but he did not look up. He heard her voice:
“What’s the matter, Edith?”
“Bills for the house.”
“Oh.” And Deborah came to her father. “May I see what’s the trouble, dear?”
“I’d rather you wouldn’t. It’s nothing,” he growled. He wanted her to keep out of this.
“Why shouldn’t she see?” Edith tartly inquired. “Deborah is living here—and before I came she ran the house. In her place I should certainly want to know.”
Deborah was already glancing rapidly over the bills.
“Why, Edith,” she exclaimed, “most of these bills go back for months. Why didn’t you pay them when they were due?”
“Simply because I hadn’t the money!”
“You’ve had the regular monthly amount.”
“That didn’t last long—”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Laura was here.”
Deborah gave a shrug of impatience, and Roger saw how tired she was, her nerves on edge from her long day.
“Never mind about it now,” he put in.
“What a pity,” Deborah muttered. “If we had been told, we could have cut down.”
“I don’t agree with you!” Edith rejoined. “I have already done that myself! I’ve done nothing else!”
“Have the servants been paid?” her sister asked.
“No, they haven’t—”
“Since when?”
“Three months!”
Roger got up and walked the room. Deborah tried to speak quietly:
“I can’t quite see where the money has gone.”
“Can’t you? Then look at my check book.” And Edith produced it with a glare. Her sister turned over a few of the stubs.
“What’s this item?”
“Where?”
“Here. A hundred and twenty-two dollars.”
“The dentist,” Edith answered. “Not extravagant, is it—for five children?”
“I see,” said Deborah. “And this?”
“Bedding,” was Edith’s sharp response. “A mattress and more blankets. I found there weren’t half enough in the house.”
“You burned John’s, didn’t you?”
“Naturally!”
All at once both grew ashamed.
“Let’s be sensible,” Deborah said. “We must do something, Edith—and we can’t till we’re certain where we stand.”
“Very well—”
They went on more calmly and took up the items one by one. Deborah finished and was silent.
“Well, father, what’s to be done?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered shortly.
“Somehow or other,” Deborah said, “we’ve got to cut our expenses down.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Edith rejoined. “I’ve already cut as much as I can.”
“So did I, in my school,” said her sister. “And when I thought I had reached the end, I called in an expert. And he showed me ways of saving I had never dreamed of.”
“What kind of expert would you advise here?” Edith’s small lip curled in scorn.
“Domestic science, naturally—I have a woman who does nothing else. She shows women in their homes just how to make money count the most.”
“What women? And what homes? Tenements?”
“Yes. She’s one of my teachers.”
“Thank you!” said Edith indignantly. “But I don’t care to have my children brought down to tenement standards!”
“I didn’t mean to have them! But I know she could show you a great many things you can buy for less!”
“I’m afraid I shouldn’t agree with her!”
“Why not, Edith?”
“Because she knows only tenement children—nothing of children bred like mine!”
Deborah drew a quick short breath, her brows drew tight and she looked away. She bit her lip, controlled herself:
“Very well, I’ll try again. This house is plenty large enough so that by a little crowding we could make room for somebody else. And I know a teacher in one of my schools who’d be only too glad—”
“Take a boarder, you mean?”
“Yes, I do! We’ve got to do something!”
“No!”
Deborah threw up her hands:
“All right, Edith, I’m through,” she said. “Now what do you propose?”
“I can try to do without Hannah again—”
“That will be hard—on all of us. But I guess you’ll have to.”
“So it seems.”
“But unfortunately that won’t he enough.”
Edith’s face grew tenser:
“I’m afraid it will have to be—just now—I’ve had about all I can stand for one night!”
“I’m sorry,” Deborah answered. For a moment they confronted each other. And Edith’s look said to Deborah plainly, “You’re spending thousands, thousands, on those tenement children! You can get money enough for them, but you won’t raise a hand to help with mine!” And as plainly Deborah answered, “My children are starving, shivering, freezing! What do yours know about being poor?” Two mothers, each with a family, and each one baffled, brought to bay. There was something so insatiable in each angry mother’s eyes.
“I think you’d better leave this to me,” said Roger very huskily. And both his daughters turned with a start, as though in their bitter absorption they had forgotten his presence there. Both flushed, and now the glances of all three in that room avoided each other. For they felt how sordid it had been. Deborah turned to her sister.
“I’m sorry, Edith,” she said again, and this time there were tears in her eyes.
“So am I,” said Edith unsteadily, and in a moment she left the room. Deborah stood watching her father.
“I’m ashamed of myself,” she said. “Well? Shall we talk it over?”
“No,” he replied. “I can manage it somehow, Deborah, and I prefer that you leave it to me.”
Roger went into his study and sank grimly into his chair. Yes, it had been pretty bad; it had been ugly, ominous. He took paper and pencil and set to work. How he had come to hate this job of wrestling with figures. Of the five thousand dollars borrowed in August he had barely a thousand left. The first semiannual interest was due next week and must be paid. The balance would carry them through March and on well into April. By that time he hoped to be making money, for business was better every week. But what of this nine hundred dollars in debts? Half at least must be paid at once. Lower
