Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1914-Jan 1915)

MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE stand, but try to know this: Daddy has gone, and mother has got to make the money for us all. It will be hard. Perhaps we may not be able to have the time together we used to have. We may have to give up the old stories and games and romps, but your mother will be working for you, and she'll love you, love you, love you — that's what you must remember. ' ' "We will, mums!" Two pairs of strong young arms gripped her ; two earnest, warm-flushed faces looked promises into her eyes. Yet, somehow, her heart contracted. Somehow she was afraid. They were so young, so pliant, so malleable. The city was so gigantic. It would be the survival of the fittest. God grant that they be fit ! How gigantic the city really was Marie found when she went to meet it hand to hand. She was the veriest atom, a fragile, impotent thing at the doubtful mercy of a resistless tide.. And while she tramped the streets, wearied and futile, the children tramped them, too. While she, in the wisdom of her maturity, learnt the city's lesson, the children learnt it also in the greenness of their youth. Out of it all the mother gleaned despair and aching fear, yet ever crowning defeat — the Christhead. Out of it the children gleaned smirched truth, soiled honor, tawdriness of instinct and of tongue. Their birthright of gentle breeding gave way to the insistent murk of their environment. From the highest to the lowest Marie searched and hoped. Each new day was a new promise. Each night was a slough of despondency. The last rung of the ladder was reached when she applied at the dingy side entrance of a still dingier garment factory, where "Piece Work Taken Home" was placarded. The factory "Boss" sat at his littered desk, conventionally heavy, conventionally callous, conventionally coarsened. He really did not need additional workers — he did need the stimulus of a new and pretty face. Marie afforded him both. He appraised her carefully. "Yer on," he announced finally, with a chuckle ; " th ' foreman '11 give yer a bundle. I '11 want it back ' Tuesday — sure. Drop in my office when you return it. Dont forget — will you ? ' ' "I'll not forget," Marie promised. She felt vaguely uncomfortable. No one had ever looked at her quite like that before. She somehow felt that no one should. But he had given her work, and that meant food and a slight easing of the dreadful fear pressing at her heart. Then, one night while the children slept and the small machine sewed tirelessly on, the fear returned — in new form, more menacing, more sinister than ever before. The Boss came in. His intention was uncloaked. The vague feeling of distrust became a horrid actuality. "Little girl," he said, as he dropped familiarly into a chair nearby, "dont seem right you should be workin' nights, too." "I have to," she replied simply; "there are my children, you know. Is there — is there anything you wish to say?" "There's plenty I wish to say," the Boss said, his tones oily, "but between such a clever little dame and me there aint need of much jawing." "Please explain yourself. You must see that I am very busy." Marie rose and faced the bulky, insolent form with stony determination. "If you need) explaining, all right. Strikes me ye 're somewhat thick." The Boss rose also and leaned toward her, tapping the machine with a bejeweled finger. "We didn't need any hands at the shop. Got plenty. I didn't want your work — I wanted you." Marie went white and swayed a little. Swiftly before her mental vision rose Phil's fine, tender face, the children at her knee, John Wierman reading to them aloud. The peace of it, and the security; the haven, and the rest! A sob rose in her throat; her face tensed. The situation seemed luridly melodramatic; yet it was grippingly real — so