IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL summer evening in a large mining camp. The small homes of the miners clung to the mountain sides which border one side of the Steptoe Valley. Outside of one of the smallest homes, Dave Lawson was busily splitting wood for the morning fire, close by on the low step of the dwelling sat his young wife, Madge, looking at a catalogue of women's and children's summer clothing. Putting it down she silently watched the sun as it sank behind the mountains across the valley. The kindling chopped, he called to the children to carry it in and smiled at the unequal grace of a girl of three and a boy of a year and a half. He picked up the catalogue. Madge turned. "You'll see, Dave, that I have marked the things I want. I'll need about ten dollars."
"Ten dollars! Why, we can't spare that much this month. I want to put every cent in that real estate company, so you will have to get along without these things. You have done it before, last winter when I only worked every other day because of the low price of copper you did not buy any of these things, and you looked just as nice."
"Yes,
but Dave, that's the reason I need more things now. We wore out all the
clothes we had and there is nothing to make over for the children. If
I had something to sew on I would not be so lonesome. You do not live
up to your agreement. You promised to give me half of what we saved to
do as I wished with, in return for the hard life I live in this awful
desert. When you bought the shares in the real estate, every thing was
done in your name, so I have my work and the disagreeable life in this
mining camp for nothing."
"Isn't what I have yours, and don't I stay home nights and do without as well as you? If I was a gambler, or drank every cent up, it would be different. I can't see why you are always discontented."
"Dave,
there is nothing to content me here. I cannot mix with the women whose
morals are degrading and keep myself as I am. I can't have a flower garden
because the smelter smoke would kill it even if I had the earth to plant
it in. There is no library from which I can get suitable books. There
are no places to go except the moving picture show, and the twenty cents
soon count up. If I had something to sew I would not mind the place so
much. Everything I make myself saves in the long run. I believe every
woman should have half the savings."
"I don't. If a woman has to be paid like a servant, I don't want one. If I did not deny myself everything, I would not expect you to. Why can't you make up your mind to this life for a few years, and then we will have our stake made? Then you can have a home of your own, and live in some nice place where you can have your garden, and so forth."
"Yes, that's all right, but you know men don't always do as they say. Suppose you put your money as you call it in this real estate and the company is a cheat, or draw the money out and leave me and the children like that McDonald done after his wife took in washing to help him save it. He was low enough to collect the money people owed for the last washing, leaving her without a cent to live on or to set the law on his track."
"My God, Madge, if you think I am like that you had better go home to your mother. If I have to pay for what you do for me, I might as well break up our home and board out. You would make more working for yourself. I will do what I please with my money, if I lose I lose, that's all."
"Your money! That's always what a man says. Isn't it as much mine as yours? Doesn't a woman who works to save the daily wage earn it just as man as the man who works eight hours and spends the rest of his time in idleness? A girl who does house work gets her wages when her month's work is finished. She has her evenings to herself, she has an afternoon off, she has her doctor bills paid, she can take the children to a park or amusement places and have her expenses paid. I work more than eight hours a day. If the children are sick, I stay up all night, or if they need a doctor I am the one who does without. I can't entertain because it runs up the bills. I wear shabby clothes and the women dress in silk and laugh because I save our money. I don't mind all that -- that's a wife's job, but she should be paid for it. A man and wife should share and share alike. What is right for a man is right for a woman. If I am to stay here, I insist that it is my right to have one-half of what we save. I would be more willing to save. It is not wise to invest all our savings in one concern. In case of sickness or any other necessity, we could not get it until the company has gone through a lot of red tape. We have been up against it before, and the children and I had to bear the burden."
"Well, I won't do that, so you might as well pack up and get out." Dave went into the house to get his hat, and was off down town.
Poor Madge, angry at his words, went into the house and began to gather the children's clothes and hers, also the few personal treasures which had been given her by her girlhood friends. As she gathered them one by one, she pondered. Was it right to leave a good man in order to uphold what she believed to be right, and go back to be pitied by these same girl friends, now married, whose husbands let them spend as fast and sometimes faster than they earned the money, whose lives were one long pleasure, who called her odd because she denied herself these pleasures to save for a home of her own, and the means to educate her children? If she stayed and let her husband invest their money might not all her work be in vain. Other women had done it, and were still doing it. Some took in washing to save while the man spent his at the saloon.
Her little trunk packed, she stepped to the door and called the children, washed each face and put melted tallow on to heal the skin chapped by the sand storms of the desert. After the children were in bed, she picked up the evening paper, her mind pondering over and over what she was going to do. Her eyes followed the headlines without seeing what they passed over. How could she bear to face her people. Would they care for her children while she earned her living? Was there no way that she could keep her children and work too? Yes, that's what she must find. Some place to work where she might keep them always near her, -- where she could teach them the things worth while and guard against the evil ways of other people. Hastily she turned to the "Want Ad" section, feverishly she ran her eyes down the female want ads. Most positions were for girls, others called for women who had no children. At last her eyes fell on the advertisement -- "Wanted, a housekeeper. $20.00 per month. Address Joe Sawyer, Bronco, Wyoming". This was just what she needed, -- her people lived in California, no one need know. She would let Dave think she had gone home, she would buy her ticket to Cobro and change there for the east instead of west.
It would take nearly a week for a letter to be answered, a telegram would be too brief, so she decided to send a night letter at once and get an answer before morning. She wrote hastily, walked to the station to send it and left word for the answer to be delivered early in the morning.
When she reached home she set the table for the early breakfast, put up her husband's lunch, and tired from her day's work, she went to bed and was soon sound asleep beside her children.
Dave returned late and unlike his wife tossed sleeplessly from side to side until nearly morning when he fell asleep only to be awakened by the repeated singing of an alarm clock, set for five-thirty.
He glanced at his sleeping wife, too stubborn to awaken her, he prepared his own breakfast and left for work. He never expected Madge to stay angry, he could give way to his feelings and say what he pleased. She should be ready to forgive him and have something extra good for his supper, that was the way with women. No woman, not even his wife, was going to run him, such were his thoughts as he went his way and was soon lost among the hundreds of men who spend the best years of their lives in the smeltering of copper.
Madge, awakened, noted the absence of her husband and thinking of past experience with his stubborn nature, grew all the ore determined to carry out her plan.
Breakfast over she hastily put things to rights and began dressing the children for their journey, when a messenger arrived with a telegram from Sawyer.
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