ght in as cook,
scullion, laundress, and maid-of-all-work, and Jenny who, after all, did
more than she taught. It was Jenny who cut and fashioned almost every
garment worn by either her mother or herself, who made and trimmed the
modest little hats or bonnets, who watched the bargain-counters at the
great retail shops and wished that women didn't have to wear gloves and
buttoned boots; Jenny who had to follow up their flitting
lodgers,--young men who folded their tents like the Arabs they were, and
as silently stole away out of the house, leaving sometimes a big
lodging-bill and little luggage; Jenny who presently had to nurse Mart's
wife and baby, just as she expected, for Mart lost that job, and the
house he had rented, and the furniture he hadn't paid for and that was
seized just when most needed. So baby Number One first saw the light
under the roof that Jenny's hard work paid for,--a lodger having
opportunely "skipped." And all the while she managed to keep up her
study and practice, and to do little odd jobs in copying, sitting far
into the dawn sometimes with aching arms and wrists and burning eyes and
whirling brain. There was no yielding to "beauty sleep" for poor Jenny.
Dark circles often settled underneath the brave, steadfast eyes, and
big, blinding tears sometimes welled up from unseen depths when no one
was near to spy upon her woman's weakness, and the very people she
slaved for were often querulous and complaining, and Mart's wife had
about as much helpfulness as a consumptive old cow. Jenny had to tell
Mart he must find work and pay their board, or some portion of it, and
Mart got another berth at another railway depot, and, without paying
anything whatever for the months he and his had lived under the mother's
roof, or much for the new furniture, moved into another house, where the
family circle was presently reinforced by the coming of another baby.
Meantime, however, Jenny's skill, quickness, and accuracy had been
steadily bringing her work into favor. A girl friend and fellow-student
had a good position in a down-town office, where lawyers and
business-men brought many a long paper demanding immediate copies, and
thither Jenny moved her typewriter, shrewdly calculating that the money
she could earn would more than offset the expense of a good servant at
home. As for car-fare, she meant to walk: she needed exercise. As for
luncheon, she'd carry it with her in her little basket. The plan worked
well. T