Margaret listened, waking to the sense
of a different pain in the world from her own,--lower deeps from which
women like herself draw delicately back, lifting their gauzy dresses.
"Openin's to hell, they're like. People as come down to preach in them
think that, 'pears to me,--'n' think we've but a little way to go, bein'
born so near. It's easy to tell they thinks it,--shows in their looks.
Miss Marg'et!"
Her face flashed.
"Well, Lois?"
"Th' Master has His people 'mong them very lowest, that's not for such
as yoh to speak to. He knows 'em: men 'n' women starved 'n' drunk into
jails 'n' work-houses, that'd scorn to be cowardly or mean,--that shows
God's kindness, through th' whiskey 'n' thievin', to th' orphints
or--such as me. Ther 's things th' Master likes in them, 'n' it'll
come right," she sobbed, "it'll come right at last; they'll have a
chance--somewhere."
Margaret did not speak; let the poor girl sob herself into quiet. What
had she to do with this gulf of pain and wrong? Her own higher life was
starved, thwarted. Could it be that the blood of these her brothers
called against _her_ from the ground? No wonder that the huckster-girl
sobbed, she thought, or talked heresy. It was not an easy thing to see
a mother drink herself into the grave.
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