Three Lives. Gertrude Stein
old woman, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, “but I think I keep her here with me. She can work and she don’t give me trouble like I had with Molly all the time.”
Anna always had a humorous sense from this old Katy’s twisted peasant english, from the roughness on her tongue of buzzing s’s and from the queer ways of her brutish servile humor. Anna could not let old Katy serve at table—old Katy was too coarsely made from natural earth for that—and so Anna had all this to do herself and that she never liked, but even then this simple rough old creature was pleasanter to her than any of the upstart young.
Life went on very smoothly now in these few months before the summer came. Miss Mathilda every summer went away across the ocean to be gone for several months. When she went away this summer old Katy was so sorry, and on the day that Miss Mathilda went, old Katy cried hard for many hours. An earthy, uncouth, servile peasant creature old Katy surely was. She stood there on the white stone steps of the little red brick house, with her bony, square dull head with its thin, tanned, toughened skin and its sparse and kinky grizzled hair, and her strong, squat figure a little overmade on the right side, clothed in her blue striped cotton dress, all clean and always washed but rough and harsh to see—and she stayed there on the steps till Anna brought her in, blubbering, her apron to her face, and making queer guttural broken moans.
When Miss Mathilda early in the fall came to her house again old Katy was not there.
“I never thought old Katy would act so Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, “when she was so sorry when you went away, and I gave her full wages all the summer, but they are all alike Miss Mathilda, there isn’t one of them that’s fit to trust. You know how Katy said she liked you, Miss Mathilda, and went on about it when you went away and then she was so good and worked all right until the middle of the summer, when I got sick, and then she went away and left me all alone and took a place out in the country, where they gave her some more money. She didn’t say a word, Miss Mathilda, she just went off and left me there alone when I was sick after that awful hot summer that we had, and after all we done for her when she had no place to go, and all summer I gave her better things to eat than I had for myself. Miss Mathilda, there isn’t one of them has any sense of what’s the right way for a girl to do, not one of them.”
Old Katy was never heard from any more.
No under servant was decided upon now for several months. Many came and many went, and none of them would do. At last Anna heard of Sallie.
Sallie was the oldest girl in a family of eleven and Sallie was just sixteen years old. From Sallie down they came always littler and littler in her family, and all of them were always out at work excepting only the few littlest of them all.
Sallie was a pretty blonde and smiling german girl, and stupid and a little silly. The littler they came in her family the brighter they all were. The brightest of them all was a little girl of ten. She did a good day’s work washing dishes for a man and wife in a saloon, and she earned a fair day’s wage, and then there was one littler still. She only worked for half the day. She did the house work for a bachelor doctor. She did it all, all of the housework and received each week her eight cents for her wage. Anna was always indignant when she told that story.
“I think he ought to give her ten cents Miss Mathilda any way. Eight cents is so mean when she does all his work and she is such a bright little thing too, not stupid like our Sallie. Sallie would never learn to do a thing if I didn’t scold her all the time, but Sallie is a good girl, and I take care and she will do all right.”
Sallie was a good, obedient german child. She never answered Anna back, no more did Peter, old Baby and little Rags and so though always Anna’s voice was sharply raised in strong rebuke and worn expostulation, they were a happy family all there together in the kitchen.
Anna was a mother now to Sallie, a good incessant german mother who watched and scolded hard to keep the girl from any evil step. Sallie’s temptations and transgressions were much like those of naughty Peter and jolly little Rags, and Anna took the same way to keep all three from doing what was bad.
Sallie’s chief badness besides forgetting all the time and never washing her hands clean to serve at table, was the butcher boy.
He was an unattractive youth enough, that butcher boy. Suspicion began to close in around Sallie that she spent the evenings when Anna was away, in company with this bad boy.
“Sallie is such a pretty girl, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, “and she is so dumb and silly, and she puts on that red waist, and she crinkles up her hair with irons so I have to laugh, and then I tell her if she only washed her hands clean it would be better than all that fixing all the time, but you can’t do a thing with the young girls nowadays Miss Mathilda. Sallie is a good girl but I got to watch her all the time.”
Suspicion closed in around Sallie more and more, that she spent Anna’s evenings out with this boy sitting in the kitchen. One early morning Anna’s voice was sharply raised.
“Sallie this ain’t the same banana that I brought home yesterday, for Miss Mathilda, for her breakfast, and you was out early in the street this morning, what was you doing there?”
“Nothing, Miss Annie, I just went out to see, that’s all and that’s the same banana, ‘deed it is Miss Annie.”
“Sallie, how can you say so and after all I do for you, and Miss Mathilda is so good to you. I never brought home no bananas yesterday with specks on it like that. I know better, it was that boy was here last night and ate it while I was away, and you was out to get another this morning. I don’t want no lying Sallie.”
Sallie was stout in her defence but then she gave it up and she said it was the boy who snatched it as he ran away at the sound of Anna’s key opening the outside door. “But I will never let him in again, Miss Annie, ‘deed I won’t,” said Sallie.
And now it was all peaceful for some weeks and then Sallie with fatuous simplicity began on certain evenings to resume her bright red waist, her bits of jewels and her crinkly hair.
One pleasant evening in the early spring, Miss Mathilda was standing on the steps beside the open door, feeling cheerful in the pleasant, gentle night. Anna came down the street, returning from her evening out. “Don’t shut the door, please, Miss Mathilda,” Anna said in a low voice, “I don’t want Sallie to know I’m home.”
Anna went softly through the house and reached the kitchen door. At the sound of her hand upon the knob there was a wild scramble and a bang, and then Sallie sitting there alone when Anna came into the room, but, alas, the butcher boy forgot his overcoat in his escape.
You see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life.
Anna had her troubles, too, with Miss Mathilda. “And I slave and slave to save the money and you go out and spend it all on foolishness,” the good Anna would complain when her mistress, a large and careless woman, would come home with a bit of porcelain, a new etching and sometimes even an oil painting on her arm.
“But Anna,” argued Miss Mathilda, “if you didn’t save this money, don’t you see I could not buy these things,” and then Anna would soften and look pleased until she learned the price, and then wringing her hands, “Oh, Miss Mathilda, Miss Mathilda,” she would cry, “and you gave all that money out for that, when you need a dress to go out in so bad.” “Well, perhaps I will get one for myself next year, Anna,” Miss Mathilda would cheerfully concede. “If we live till then Miss Mathilda, I see that you do,” Anna would then answer darkly.
Anna had great pride in the knowledge and possessions of her cherished Miss Mathilda, but she did not like her careless way of wearing always her old clothes. “You can’t go out to dinner in that dress, Miss Mathilda,” she would say, standing firmly before the outside door, “You got to go and put on your new dress you always look so nice in.” “But Anna, there isn’t time.” “Yes there is, I go up and help you fix it, please Miss Mathilda you can’t go out to dinner in that dress and next year if we live till then, I make you get a new hat, too. It’s a shame Miss Mathilda to go out like that.”
The poor mistress sighed