‹-----The New Job---«


It is the discomfort of the thing which comes back upon me, I believe, most forcibly. Of course it was horrible, too, emphatically horrible, but the prolonged, sustained, baffling discomfort of my position is what has left the mark. The growing suspicion, the uncanny circumstances, my long knowledge of that presence: it is all extraordinary, not least, the part I somehow managed to play.

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I remember the raw, colorless day, and how it made me shiver to face its bitter grayness as I came out of the dismal New York boardinghouse to begin my dreary, mortifying search for work. I remember the hollowness of purse and stomach; and the dullness of head. I even remember wondering that hair like mine, so conspiculously golden-red, could possibly keep its flame under such conditions. And halfway down the block, how very well I remember the decent-looking, black-clad woman who touched my arm, looked me hard in the face, and said, “A message for you, madam.”
She got away so quickly that I hadn't opened the blank envelope before she was round the corner and out of sight.
The envelope contained a slip of white paper on which was neatly printed in pen and ink: “Excellent position vacant at The Pines, Pine Cone, N.C. Mrs. Theodore Brane wants housekeeper. Apply at once.”
This was not signed at all. I thought: “Some one is thinking kindly of me, after all. Some oldtime friend of my father's, perhaps, has sent a servant to me with this message.”

The Pines
My dear Miss Gale:
I shall be delighted to try you as housekeeper. I think you will find the place satisfactory. It is a small household, and your duties will be light, though I am very much out of health and must necessarily leave every detail of management to you. I want you to take your meals with me. I shall be glad of your companionship. The salary is forty dollars a month.
Sincerely yours
Edna Worthington Brane.

And to my delight she enclosed the first month's salary in advance. I wonder if many such checks are blistered with tears. Mine was, when I cashed it at the bank at the corner, where my landlady, suddenly gracious, made me known.
Three days later, I was on my way to “The Pines.”
The country, more and more flat and sandy, sad under a low, moist sky, but my heart was high with a sense of adventure , I slept well in my berth that night and the next afternoon came safely to Pine Cone. My only experience had been the rather annoying, covert attention of a man on the train. He was a pleasant-enough looking fellow and, though he tried to conceal his scrutiny, it was disagreeably incessant. I was glad to leave him on the train, and I saw his face peering out of the window at me and caught a curious expression when I climbed into the cart that had been sent to meet me from “The Pines.” It was a look of intense excitement, and, it seemed to me, almost of alarm. Also, his fingers drew a note-book from his pocket and he fell to writing in it as the train went out. I could not help the ridiculous fancy that he was taking notes on me.
I had never been in the South before, and the country impressed me as being the most desolate I had ever seen. We passed through a small town blighted by poverty and dark with negro faces which had none of the gayety I associated with their race. These men and women greeted us, to be sure, but in rather a gloomy fashion, not without grace and even a certain stateliness. The few whites looked poorer than the blacks or were less able to conceal their poverty.
My driver was a grizzled negro, friendly, but, I soon found, very deaf. He was eager to talk, but so often misinterpreted my shouted questions that I gave it up. I learned, at least, that we had an eight-mile drive before us; that there was a swamp beyond the pine woods; that the climate was horribly unhealthy in summer so that most of the gentry deserted, but that Mrs. Brane always stayed, though she sent her little boy away.
“Little Massa Robbie, he's just got back.  we all is glad to see him too.”
I, too, was glad of the child's presence. A merry little lad is good company, and can easily be won by a housekeeper with the pantry keys in her hand.
“Mrs. Brane is an invalid?” was one of my questions, I remember, to which I had the curious answer, “Oh, no, missy, not to say timid, not timorous. It's just her way, don't mean nothing. She's a right peart little lady. No, missy, don' get notions into your head. We ain't none of us timid; no, indeed.”
And he gave his head a valiant roll and clipped his fat gray horse with a great show of valor. Evidently he had mistaken my word “invalid,” for “timid,” but the speech was queer, and gave me food for thought.
We had come to an end of our talk by the time we reached the low ridge of pines, and we plodded through the heavy sand into the gloom, out of it, and down into the sudden dampness of the swamp, in silence.......


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