Jane couldn't leave her to go out to work. So Jane dug in the little
garden, and they lived largely on vegetables. She sewed for the
neighbors, and bought medicine and now and then a bit of meat. She was
young and strong and she had wonderful red hair. Tommy thought it was
the most beautiful hair in the world. Jane was for him a sort of goddess
woman. She was, he felt, infinitely above him. She knew a great deal
that he didn't, about books and things--like O-liver. She sewed for his
mother, and that was the way he had met her. He would go over and sit on
her front steps and talk. He felt that she treated him like a little dog
that she wouldn't harm, but wouldn't miss if it went away. He told her
of Vanity Fair and of how he felt about Becky.

"If she had been content to earn an honest living," Jane stated
severely, "the story would have had a different ending."

"Well, she wanted things," Tommy said.

"Most women do." Jane jabbed her needle into a length of pink gingham
which, when finished, would be rompers for a youngster across the
street. "I do; and I intend to have them."

"How?" asked the interested Tommy.

"Work for them."

"O-liver says that fifteen dollars a week is enough for anybody to
earn."

Jane had heard of O-liver. Tommy sang his constant praises.

"Why fifteen?"

"After that you get soft."

Jane laid down the length of pink gingham and looked at him. She hated
to sew on pink; it clashed dreadfully with her hair.

"I should say," she stated with scorn, "that your O-liver's lazy."

"No, he isn't. He only wants enough to eat and enough to smoke and
enough to read."

"That sounds all right, but it isn't. What's he going to do when he's
old?"

"He ain't ever going to grow old. He said so, and if you'd see him you'd
know."

Jane felt within her the stirring of curiosity. But she put it down
sternly. She had no time for it.

"Tommy," she said, "I've been thinking. I've got to earn more money, and
I want your help."

Tommy's faithful eyes held a look of doglike affection.

"Oh, if I can--" he quavered.

"I've got to get ahead." Jane was breathless. Her eyes shone.

"I've got to get ahead, Tommy. I can't live all my life like this." She
held up the pink strip. "Even if I am a woman, there ought to be
something more than making rompers for the rest of my days."

"You might," said the infatuated Tommy, "marry."

"Marry? Marry whom?"

Tommy wished that he might shout "Me!" from the ho