o it, but every word he says, every move he makes, goes
against me. If I tied myself to a man like that it would be one
continual fight to approve of him. Oh, he was so puffed up yesterday
that I wanted to pull his ears and make him see straight--talking all
the time about the dash we'd cut and the attention we attracted. I was
guilty of the crime and wanted to forget it, but it was all he could
talk about--well, that is, except one _other_ thing."

"One other thing?" Henley echoed.

"Yes, it was marry, marry, marry; wife, wife, wife--even before the
home-folks. He couldn't put a bite of my cooking in his big, red mouth
without saying what a blessing it would be to come to a table loaded
that way three times a day. I say! I had to laugh. There I was figuring
on using him to the end that I could set back in a rocking-chair and fan
myself and tell a nigger cook to rake any old scraps together and not
bother me with the details, while he saw me with my sleeves rolled up
humped over a hot stove, or in a cloud of steam at a wash-tub. He said
he could pay me the compliment of being the only girl who loved hard
work as much as his mother had till it killed her--_loved_ it, mind you!
Think of drudging all your life for a man that thought you loved dirty
work and was granting you a favor by keeping it piled up around you
while he was lying around a store telling a bunch of clerks what to do,
and wondering how long it would be before time to eat. Yes, I felt mean
all through the service and after he left. Little Joe sneaked over after
dark to get me to teach him his geography, and while I was doing it I
put my arm around his poor, little, wasted neck and hugged him. He
looked up and begun to cry and kissed me. Alfred, there ain't no
mistaking the article when you run across it. It is real love I have for
that boy--the love of a mother for her child that is suffering. I went
as far with him as the fence, and as me and him stood together in the
starlight I felt, somehow, that there was just one thing standing
between me and God, and that was the unworthy thing I had been doing
that day. I am thankful for my burdens, for under them I am free and
exalted. Love like I have for Joe shows what the other love ought to be
like, and until I yearn to help a man out of his troubles and cling to
him and want him by me every minute--until then I'll not sell myself.
You can't marry for pay and be honest, for you know you can't give value
for v