Three Lives, Gertrude Stein [graded readers .txt] 📗

drawn and firm, and her light blue eyes were very bright. Sometimes they were full of lightning and sometimes full of humor, but they were always sharp and clear.

Her voice was a pleasant one, when she told the histories of bad Peter and of Baby and of little Rags. Her voice was a high and piercing one when she called to the teamsters and to the other wicked men, what she wanted that should come to them, when she saw them beat a horse or kick a dog. She did not belong to any society that could stop them and she told them so most frankly, but her strained voice and her glittering eyes, and her queer piercing german english first made them afraid and then ashamed. They all knew too, that all the policemen on the beat were her friends. These always respected and obeyed Miss Annie, as they called her, and promptly attended to all of her complaints.

For five years Anna managed the little house for Miss Mathilda. In these five years there were four different under servants.

The one that came first was a pretty, cheerful irish girl. Anna took her with a doubting mind. Lizzie was an obedient, happy servant, and Anna began to have a little faith. This was not for long. The pretty, cheerful Lizzie disappeared one day without her notice and with all her baggage and returned no more.

This pretty, cheerful Lizzie was succeeded by a melancholy Molly.

Molly was born in America, of german parents. All her people had been long dead or gone away. Molly had always been alone. She was a tall, dark, sallow, thin-haired creature, and she was always troubled with a cough, and she had a bad temper, and always said ugly dreadful swear words.

Anna found all this very hard to bear, but she kept Molly a long time out of kindness. The kitchen was constantly a battleground. Anna scolded and Molly swore strange oaths, and then Miss Mathilda would shut her door hard to show that she could hear it all.

At last Anna had to give it up. “Please Miss Mathilda won’t you speak to Molly,” Anna said, “I can’t do a thing with her. I scold her, and she don’t seem to hear and then she swears so that she scares me. She loves you Miss Mathilda, and you scold her please once.”

“But Anna,” cried poor Miss Mathilda, “I don’t want to,” and that large, cheerful, but faint hearted woman looked all aghast at such a prospect. “But you must, please Miss Mathilda!” Anna said.

Miss Mathilda never wanted to do any scolding. “But you must please Miss Mathilda,” Anna said.

Miss Mathilda every day put off the scolding, hoping always that Anna would learn to manage Molly better. It never did get better and at last Miss Mathilda saw that the scolding simply had to be.

It was agreed between the good Anna and her Miss Mathilda that Anna should be away when Molly would be scolded. The next evening that it was Anna’s evening out, Miss Mathilda faced her task and went down into the kitchen.

Molly was sitting in the little kitchen leaning her elbows on the table. She was a tall, thin, sallow girl, aged twenty-three, by nature slatternly and careless but trained by Anna into superficial neatness. Her drab striped cotton dress and gray black checked apron increased the length and sadness of her melancholy figure. “Oh, Lord!” groaned Miss Mathilda to herself as she approached her.

“Molly, I want to speak to you about your behaviour to Anna!”, here Molly dropped her head still lower on her arms and began to cry.

“Oh! Oh!” groaned Miss Mathilda.

“It’s all Miss Annie’s fault, all of it,” Molly said at last, in a trembling voice, “I do my best.”

“I know Anna is often hard to please,” began Miss Mathilda, with a twinge of mischief, and then she sobered herself to her task, “but you must remember, Molly, she means it for your good and she is really very kind to you.”

“I don’t want her kindness,” Molly cried, “I wish you would tell me what to do, Miss Mathilda, and then I would be all right. I hate Miss Annie.”

“This will never do Molly,” Miss Mathilda said sternly, in her deepest, firmest tones, “Anna is the head of the kitchen and you must either obey her or leave.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” whimpered melancholy Molly. “Well Molly then try and do better,” answered Miss Mathilda, keeping a good stern front, and backing quickly from the kitchen.

“Oh! Oh!” groaned Miss Mathilda, as she went back up the stairs.

Miss Mathilda’s attempt to make peace between the constantly contending women in the kitchen had no real effect. They were very soon as bitter as before.

At last it was decided that Molly was to go away. Molly went away to work in a factory in the town, and she went to live with an old woman in the slums, a very bad old woman Anna said.

Anna was never easy in her mind about the fate of Molly. Sometimes she would see or hear of her. Molly was not well, her cough was worse, and the old woman really was a bad one.

After a year of this unwholesome life, Molly was completely broken down. Anna then again took her in charge. She brought her from her work and from the woman where she lived, and put her in a hospital to stay till she was well. She found a place for her as nursemaid to a little girl out in the country, and Molly was at last established and content.

Molly had had, at first, no regular successor. In a few months it was going to be the summer and Miss Mathilda would be gone away, and old Katie would do very well to come in every day and help Anna with her work.

Old Katy was a heavy, ugly, short and rough old german woman, with a strange distorted german-english all her own. Anna was worn out