A Little Question in Ladies' Rights

Excerpt

PART ONE

MARGERY was sitting under the cherry tree with a certain air of expectancy. She seemed to be waiting for something or some one. Willie Jones's head popped over the back fence and Willie Jones himself, a tin pail in one hand, dropped into the Blair yard and made for the cherry tree. But Margery still gazed earnestly, tensely, into nothing. Willie Jones, evidently, was not the object of her thoughts.

"What's the matter, Margery?"

"Nothing. I'm just waiting."

"What for?"

There was no reason for telling Willie Jones, but, by the same token, there was no reason for not telling him. So Margery answered frankly:

"I et a whole bagful of bananas and now Effie says I'm going to be sick and thr'up. So I'm just waiting."

"Whew! How many was they, Margery?"

"I don't know, but a good many."

"Think you might have shared with a fella."

"Well, you see, Willie, I didn't know anything about them. None of us did. I thought I smelled something good in the pantry, and when Effie went upstairs I sneaked in to see. Sure enough, there was a bag of bananas, real soft and sweet, don't you know. I et one and then I et another and, before I knew it, they were all gone. Then Effie caught me as I was coming out."

"Will she tell on you?"

"No, I don't think she'll tell on me. But she says I'm going to be awful sick. I was once before. So I'm just waiting."

"Aw, you're not going to be sick, Margery. That's only Effie's bluff. Listen: I'm going out blackberrying. There are just dead loads of great big ripe ones on the graveyard patch. My mother'll give me ten cents if I bring her back two quarts."

Margery looked at the tin pail longingly. She, too, would go blackberrying, but she realized that home was the best place for sick folk.

"Aw, come on," Willie urged. "You're not going to be sick. I bet anything you're not."

Confidence begets confidence, and, looking at Willie Jones's tin pail, Margery began to wonder whether, after all, Effie's prophecy might not prove a false one.

"I tell you what, Willie: Wait a minute and I'll ask Effie."

"Why do you got to ask her?"

"Because mother's not home. Besides, if I do get sick, I'll want Effie to take care of me."

This last was too sound a reason for Willie to gainsay, so Margery called Effie to the kitchen door.

"Blackberryin'! And in the sun!" Effie repeated, when Margery had delivered herself. "Well, I guess not! Here you are just stuffed full of ripe bananas and you want a-go out trampin' in the sun! Not much! You stay right where you are, me lady, and take care o' yourself."

"You see," Margery explained to Willie Jones.

"Aw, rats!" that young gentleman exclaimed, turning a hostile front toward the kitchen door. "Come on, Margery. What do you care what Effie says? She's nuthin' but an old hired girl! I wouldn't let any old hired girl boss me around!"

"Any old—what?" gasped Effie, her face turning red and her eyes opening wide with horror.

"Any old hired girl!" Willie Jones repeated defiantly. "Ain't she nuthin' but an old hired girl, Margery?"

It was a question Margery had never before considered....