Alice Adams

dams had a restless morning, and toward noon he asked Miss Perry to
call his daughter; he wished to say something to her.

“I thought I heard her leaving the house a couple of hours ago--maybe
longer,” the nurse told him. “I'll go see.” And she returned from the
brief errand, her impression confirmed by information from Mrs. Adams.
“Yes. She went up to Miss Mildred Palmer's to see what she's going to
wear to-night.”

Adams looked at Miss Perry wearily, but remained passive, making no
inquiries; for he was long accustomed to what seemed to him a kind of
jargon among ladies, which became the more incomprehensible when they
tried to explain it. A man's best course, he had found, was just to let
it go as so much sound. His sorrowful eyes followed the nurse as she
went back to her rocking-chair by the window, and her placidity showed
him that there was no mystery for her in the fact that Alice walked
two miles to ask so simple a question when there was a telephone in
the house. Obviously Miss Perry also comprehended why Alice thought it
important to know what Mildred meant to wear. Adams understood why Alice
should be concerned with what she herself wore “to look neat and tidy
and at her best, why, of course she'd want to,” he thought--but he
realized that it was forever beyond him to understand why the clothing
of other people had long since become an absorbing part of her life.

Her excursion this morning was no novelty; she was continually going to
see what Mildred meant to wear, or what some other girl meant to wear;
and when Alice came home from wherever other girls or women had been
gathered, she always hurried to her mother with earnest descriptions of
the clothing she had seen. At such times, if Adams was present, he might
recognize “organdie,” or “taffeta,” or “chiffon,” as words defining
certain textiles, but the rest was too technical for him, and he
was like a dismal boy at a sermon, just waiting for it to get itself
finished. Not the least of the mystery was his wife's interest: she was
almost indifferent about her own clothes, and when she consulted Alice
about them spoke hurriedly and with an air of apology; but when Alice
described other people's clothes, Mrs. Adams listened as eagerly as the
daughter talked.

“There they go!” he muttered to-day, a moment after he heard the front
door closing, a sound recognizable throughout most of the thinly built
house. Alice had just returned, and Mrs. Adams called to her from the
upper hallway, not far from Adams's door.

“What did she SAY?”

“She was sort of snippy about it,” Alice returned, ascending the stairs.
“She gets that way sometimes, and pretended she hadn't made up her mind,
but I'm pretty sure it'll be the maize Georgette with Malines flounces.”

“Didn't you say she wore that at the Pattersons'?” Mrs. Adams inquired,
as Alice arrived at the top of the stairs. “And didn't you tell me she
wore it again at the----”

“Certainly not,” Alice interrupted, rather petulantly. “She's never worn
it but once, and of course she wouldn't want to wear anything to-night
that people have seen her in a lot.”

Miss Perry opened the door of Adams's room and stepped out. “Your father
wants to know if you'll come and see him a minute, Miss Adams.”

“Poor old thing! Of course!” Alice exclaimed, and went quickly into the
room, Miss Perry remaining outside. “What's the matter, papa? Getting
awful sick of lying on his tired old back, I expect.”

“I've had kind of a poor morning,” Adams said, as she patted his hand
comfortingly. “I been thinking----”

“Didn't I tell you not to?” she cried, gaily. “Of course you'll have
poor times when you go and do just exactly what I say you mustn't. You
stop thinking this very minute!”

He smiled ruefully, closing his eyes; was silent for a moment, then
asked her to sit beside the bed. “I been thinking of something I wanted
to say,” he added.

“What like, papa?”

“Well, it's nothing--much,” he said, with something deprecatory in his
tone, as if he felt vague impulses toward both humour and apology. “I
just thought maybe I ought to've said more to you some time or other
about--well, about the way things ARE, down at Lamb and Company's, for
instance.”

“Now, papa!” She leaned forward in the chair she had taken, and
pretended to slap his hand crossly. “Isn't that exactly what I said you
couldn't think one single think about till you get ALL well?”

“Well----” he said, and went on slowly, not looking at her, but at the
ceiling. “I just thought maybe it wouldn't been any harm if some time or
other I told you something about the way they sort of depend on me down
there.”

“Why don't they show it, then?” she asked, quickly. “That's just what
mama and I have been feeling so much; they don't appreciate you.”

“Why, yes, they do,” he said. “Yes, they do. They began h'isting my
salary the second year I went in there, and they've h'isted it a little
every two years all the time I've worked for 'em. I've been head of the
sundries department for seven years now, and I could hardly have more
authority in that department unless I was a member of the firm itself.”

“Well, why don't they make you a member of the firm? That's what they
ought to've done! Yes, and long ago!”

Adams laughed, but sighed with more heartiness than he had laughed.
“They call me their 'oldest stand-by' down there.” He laughed again,
apologetically, as if to excuse himself for taking a little pride in
this title. “Yes, sir; they say I'm their 'oldest stand-by'; and I guess
they know they can count on my department's turning in as good a report
as they look for, at the end of every month; but they don't have to take
a man into the firm to get him to do my work, dearie.”

“But you said they depended on you, papa.”

“So they do; but of course not so's they couldn't get along without me.”
He paused, reflecting. “I don't just seem to know how to put it--I
mean how to put what I started out to say. I kind of wanted to tell
you--well, it seems funny to me, these last few years, the way your
mother's taken to feeling about it. I'd like to see a better
established wholesale drug business than Lamb and Company this side the
Alleghanies--I don't say bigger, I say better established--and it's kind
of funny for a man that's been with a business like that as long as
I have to hear it called a 'hole.' It's kind of funny when you think,
yourself, you've done pretty fairly well in a business like that, and
the men at the head of it seem to think so, too, and put your salary
just about as high as anybody could consider customary--well, what I
mean, Alice, it's kind of funny to have your mother think it's mostly
just--mostly just a failure, so to speak.”

His voice had become tremulous in spite of him; and this sign of
weakness and emotion had sufficient effect upon Alice. She bent over him
suddenly, with her arm about him and her cheek against his. “Poor papa!”
she murmured. “Poor papa!”

“No, no,” he said. “I didn't mean anything to trouble you. I just
thought----” He hesitated. “I just wondered--I thought maybe it wouldn't
be any harm if I said something about how things ARE down there. I
got to thinking maybe you didn't understand it's a pretty good place.
They're fine people to work for; and they've always seemed to think
something of me;--the way they took Walter on, for instance, soon as I
asked 'em, last year. Don't you think that looked a good deal as if they
thought something of me, Alice?”

“Yes, papa,” she said, not moving.

“And the work's right pleasant,” he went on. “Mighty nice boys in our
department, Alice. Well, they are in all the departments, for that
matter. We have a good deal of fun down there some days.”

She lifted her head. “More than you do at home 'some days,' I expect,
papa!” she said.

He protested feebly. “Now, I didn't mean that--I didn't want to trouble
you----”

She looked at him through winking eyelashes. “I'm sorry I called it a
'hole,' papa.”

“No, no,” he protested, gently. “It was your mother said that.”

“No. I did, too.”

“Well, if you did, it was only because you'd heard her.”

She shook her head, then kissed him. “I'm going to talk to her,” she
said, and rose decisively.

But at this, her father's troubled voice became quickly louder: “You
better let her alone. I just wanted to have a little talk with you. I
didn't mean to start any--your mother won't----”

“Now, papa!” Alice spoke cheerfully again, and smiled upon him. “I want
you to quit worrying! Everything's going to be all right and nobody's
going to bother you any more about anything. You'll see!”

She carried her smile out into the hall, but after she had closed the
door her face was all pity; and her mother, waiting for her in the
opposite room, spoke sympathetically.

“What's the matter, Alice? What did he say that's upset you?”

“Wait a minute, mama.” Alice found a handkerchief, used it for eyes and
suffused nose, gulped, then suddenly and desolately sat upon the bed.
“Poor, poor, POOR papa!” she whispered.

“Why?” Mrs. Adams inquired, mildly. “What's the matter with him?
Sometimes you act as if he weren't getting well. What's he been talking
about?”

“Mama--well, I think I'm pretty selfish. Oh, I do!”

“Did he say you were?”

“Papa? No, indeed! What I mean is, maybe we're both a little selfish to
try to make him go out and hunt around for something new.”

Mrs. Adams looked thoughtful. “Oh, that's what he was up to!”

“Mama, I think we ought to give it up. I didn't dream it had really hurt
him.”

“Well, doesn't he hurt us?”

“Never that I know of, mama.”

“I don't mean by SAYING things,” Mrs. Adams explained, impatiently.
“There are more ways than that of hurting people. When a man sticks to a
salary that doesn't provide for his family, isn't that hurting them?”

“Oh, it 'provides' for us well enough, mama. We have what we need--if I
weren't so extravagant. Oh, I know I am!”

But at this admission her mother cried out sharply. “'Extravagant!'
You haven't one tenth of what the other girls you go with have. And
you CAN'T have what you ought to as long as he doesn't get out of that
horrible place. It provides bare food and shelter for us, but what's
that?”

“I don't think we ought to try any more to change him.”

“You don't?” Mrs. Adams came and stood before her. “Listen, Alice: your
father's asleep; that's his trouble, and he's got to be waked up. He
doesn't know that things have changed. When you and Walter were little
children we did have enough--at least it seemed to be about as much
as most of the people we knew. But the town isn't what it was in those
days, and times aren't what they were then, and these fearful PRICES
aren't the old prices. Everything else but your father has changed, and
all the time he's stood still. He doesn't know it; he thinks because
they've given him a hundred dollars more every two years he's quite a
prosperous man! And he thinks that because his children cost him more
than he and I cost our parents he gives them--enough!”

“But Walter----” Alice faltered. “Walter doesn't cost him anything at
all any more.” And she concluded, in a stricken voice, “It's all--me!”

“Why shouldn't it be?” her mother cried. “You're young--you're just at
the time when your life should be fullest of good things and happiness.
Yet what do you get?”

Alice's lip quivered; she was not unsusceptible to such an appeal, but
she contrived the semblance of a protest. “I don't have such a bad time
not a good DEAL of the time, anyhow. I've got a good MANY of the things
other girls have----”

“You have?” Mrs. Adams was piteously satirical. “I suppose you've got
a limousine to go to that dance to-night? I suppose you've only got
to call a florist and tell him to send you some orchids? I suppose
you've----”

But Alice interrupted this list. Apparently in a single instant all
emotion left her, and she became businesslike, as one in the midst of
trifles reminded of really serious matters. She got up from the bed
and went to the door of the closet where she kept her dresses. “Oh, see
here,” she said, briskly. “I've decided to wear my white organdie if you
could put in a new lining for me. I'm afraid it'll take you nearly all
afternoon.”

She brought forth the dress, displayed it upon the bed, and Mrs. Adams
examined it attentively.

“Do you think you could get it done, mama?”

“I don't see why not,” Mrs. Adams answered, passing a thoughtful hand
over the fabric. “It oughtn't to take more than four or five hours.”

“It's a shame to have you sit at the machine that long,” Alice said,
absently, adding, “And I'm sure we ought to let papa alone. Let's just
give it up, mama.”

Mrs. Adams continued her thoughtful examination of the dress. “Did you
buy the chiffon and ribbon, Alice?”

“Yes. I'm sure we oughtn't to talk to him about it any more, mama.”

“Well, we'll see.”

“Let's both agree that we'll NEVER say another single word to him about
it,” said Alice. “It'll be a great deal better if we just let him make
up his mind for himself.”