ng. So long as the father lived, both
brother and sister had been well educated and gently reared, for Mr.
Wallen was a man of scholarly tastes, but a poor man slaving on a poor
man's salary. He had little to leave his children beyond his blessing
and the care of their aging mother. Martin was already pledged to a girl
schoolmate when the father died, and Jeannette, his sister, who seemed
to be the only practical member of the household, promptly withdrew from
school, invested her savings in a typewriter, spent her days in the care
of her mother and the little house, two rooms in which were presently
advertised as to let furnished, went to evening school at a business
school, practised stenography and typewriting when not doing housework,
washing dishes, or making clothes for her mother and herself, and
patiently, pluckily, cheerily looked forward to the time when Mart could
help. Mart spent six months "hunting for something to suit," and found
nothing he liked so much as making love to his pretty, penniless
neighbor. The clerkships he was offered didn't pay twenty dollars a
week, which was the least he thought a man of his ability and education
should accept. Jeannette told him the proper way was to take ten if he
could get it, and work his way up; but Mart disapproved of women's
interference in his affairs. It ended in his finally getting a
bottom-of-the-list berth in the freight depot of a big railway, and a
wife forthwith. Jeannette said nothing. She had taken Mart's measure and
saw this coming. "If I do not soon have to take care of Mart's wife and
babies, I'll be in luck," was the thought that possibly occurred to
her; but she was a silent little body, much given to shrewd and
common-sense observation of the world in which she lived. She was a
sunny-natured, merry-hearted child in the old days, and even as she grew
older and more burdened with care the little home still echoed to the
sound of her blithe song as she flitted from room to room about her
work, ever brave, hopeful, uncomplaining. "If I only had Jenny's
spirits," said the widow to her one lodger, "I might do something, too,"
but, as she hadn't Jenny's spirits or disposition, by a good deal, the
bereaved lady thought it unnecessary to try. It was Jenny who bore the
burden of every detail, Jenny who did their humble marketing, Jenny who
made the hard bargains with landlord and coal-merchant, Jenny who taught
and supervised the one clumsy damsel who was brou