“Jimmie,” said Lizzie, “couldn’t
we go see the pictures?”
And Jimmie set down the saucer of hot coffee which
he was in the act of adjusting to his mouth, and stared
at his wife. He did not say anything; in three
years and a half as a married man he had learned that
one does not always say everything that comes into
one’s mind. But he meditated on the abysses
that lie between the masculine and feminine intellects.
That it should be possible for anyone to wish to see
a movie idol leaping into second-story windows, or
being pulled from beneath flying express trains, on
this day of destiny, this greatest crisis in history!
“You know, Lizzie,” he said, patiently,
“I’ve got to help at the Opera-house.”
“But you’ve got all morning!”
“I know; but it’ll take all day.”
And Lizzie fell silent; for she too had learned much
in three years and a half of married life. She
had learned that working men’s wives seldom
get all they would like in this world; also that to
have a propagandist for a husband is not the worst
fate that may befall. After all, he might have
been giving his time and money to drink, or to other
women; he might have been dying of a cough, like the
man next door. If one could not have a bit of
pleasure on a Sunday afternoon—well, one
might sigh, but not too loud.
Jimmie began telling all the things that had to be
done that Sunday morning and afternoon. They
seemed to Lizzie exactly like the things that were
done on other occasions before meetings. To be
sure, this was bigger—it was in the Opera-house,
and all the stores had cards in the windows, with
a picture of the Candidate who was to be the orator
of the occasion. But it was hard for Lizzie to
understand the difference between this Candidate and
other candidates—none of whom ever got
elected! Lizzie would truly rather have stayed
at home, for she did not understand English very well
when it was shouted from a platform, and with a lot
of long words; but she knew that Jimmie was trying
to educate her, and being a woman, she was educated
to this extent—she knew the way to hold
on to her man.
Jimmie had just discovered a new solution of the problem
of getting the babies to meetings; and Lizzie knew
that he was tremendously proud of this discovery.
So long as there had been only one baby, Jimmie had
carried it. When there had come a second, Lizzie
had helped. But now there were three, the total
weight of them something over sixty pounds; and the
street-car line was some distance away, and also it
hurt Jimmie in his class-consciousness to pay twenty
cents to a predatory corporation. They had tried
the plan of paying something to a neighbour to stay
with the babies; but the first they tried was a young
girl who got tired and went away, leaving the little
ones to howl their heads off; and the second was a
Polish lady whom they found in a drunken stupor on
their return.
