Her scheme was as follows: After thinking over our financial condition
and puzzling her brain to find out some way of bettering it, she
had come to the conclusion that she would make some money by her own
exertions, to help defray our household expenses. She never had made any
money, but that was no reason why she should not begin. It was too bad
that I should have to toil and toil and not make nearly enough money
after all. So she would go to work and earn something with her own
hands.
She had heard of an establishment in the city, where ladies of limited
means, or transiently impecunious, could, in a very quiet and private
way, get sewing to do. They could thus provide for their needs without
any one but the officers of the institution knowing anything about it.
So Euphemia went to this place, and she got some work. It was not a very
large bundle, but it was larger than she had been accustomed to carry,
and, what was perfectly dreadful, it was wrapped up in a newspaper!
When Euphemia told me the story, she said that this was too much for her
courage. She could not go on the cars, and perhaps meet people belonging
to our church, with a newspaper bundle under her arm.
But her genius for expedients saved her from this humiliation. She had
to purchase some sewing-cotton, and some other little things, and when
she had bought them, she handed her bundle to the woman behind the
counter, and asked her if she would not be so good as to have that
wrapped up with the other things. It was a good deal to ask, she knew,
and the woman smiled, for the articles she had bought would not make a
package as large as her hand. However, her request was complied with,
and she took away a very decent package, with the card of the store
stamped on the outside. I suppose that there are not more than half a
dozen people in this country who would refuse Euphemia anything that she
would be willing to ask for.
So she took the work home, and she labored faithfully at it for about
a week, She did not suppose it would take her so long; but she was not
used to such very plain sewing, and was much afraid that she would not
do it neatly enough. Besides this, she could only work on it in the
daytime--when I was away--and was, of course, interrupted a great
deal by her ordinary household duties, and the necessity of a careful
oversight of Pomona's somewhat erratic methods of doing her work.
But at last she finished the job and took it into the city. She did not
want to spend any more money on the trip than was absolutely necessary,
and so was very glad to find that she had a remnant of pocket-money
sufficient to pay her fare both ways.
When she reached the city, she walked up to the place where her work was
to be delivered, and found it much farther when she went on foot than it
had seemed to her riding in the street cars. She handed over her bundle
to the proper person, and, as it was soon examined and approved, she
received her pay therefor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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