Down the river as far as the danger line just above the dam, with Tessie pretending fear just for the joy of having Chuck reassure her.Then back again in the dusk, Chuck bending to the task now against the current.And so up the hill, homeward bound.They walked very slowly, Chuck's hand on her arm.They were dumb with the tragic, eloquent dumbness of their kind.If she could have spoken the words that were churning in her mind, they would have been something like this:
"Oh, Chuck, I wish I was married to you.I wouldn't care if only I had you.I wouldn't mind babies or anything.I'd be glad.I want our house, with a dining-room set, and a mahogany bed, and one of those overstuffed sets in the living room, and all the housework to do.I'm scared.I'm scared I won't get it.
What'll I do if I don't?"
And he, wordlessly: "Will you wait for me, Tessie, and keep on thinking about me? And will you keep yourself like you are so that if I come back----"Aloud, she said: "I guess you'll get stuck on one of those French girls.I should worry! They say wages at the watch factory are going to be raised, workers are so scarce.I'll probably be as rich as Angie Hatton time you get back."And he, miserably: "Little old Chippewa girls are good enough for Chuck.I ain't counting on taking up with those Frenchies.I don't like their jabber, from what I know of it.I saw some pictures of 'em, last week, a fellow in camp had who'd been over there.Their hair is all funny, and fixed up with combs and stuff, and they look real dark likeforeigners."
It had been reassuring enough at the time.But that was six months ago.And now here was the Tessie who sat on the back porch, evenings, surveying the sunset.A listless, lackadaisical, brooding Tessie.Little point to going downtown Saturday nights now.There was no familiar, beloved figure to follow you swiftly as you turned off Elm Street, homeward bound.If she went downtown now, she saw only those Saturday-night family groups which are familiar to every small town.The husband, very damp as to hair and clean as to shirt, guarding the gocart outside while the woman accomplished her Saturday-night trading at Ding's or Halpin's.Sometimes there were as many as half a dozen gocarts outside Halpin's, each containing a sleeping burden, relaxed, chubby, fat-cheeked.The waiting men smoked their pipes and conversed largely."Hello, Ed.The woman's inside, buyin' the store out, I guess.""That so?Mine, to.Well, how's everything?"Tessie knew that presently the woman would come out, bundle laden, and that she would stow these lesser bundles in every corner left available by the more important sleeping bundle--two yards of oilcloth; a spool of 100, white; a banana for the baby; a new stewpan at the five-and-ten.
There had been a time when Tessie, if she thought of these women at all, felt sorry for them--worn, drab, lacking in style and figure.Now she envied them.
There were weeks upon weeks when no letter came from Chuck.In his last letter there had been some talk of his being sent to Russia.Tessie's eyes, large enough now in her thin face, distended with a great fear.Russia! His letter spoke, too, of French villages and chateaux.He and a bunch of fellows had been introduced to a princess or a countess or something--it was all one to Tessie--and what do you think? She had kissed them all on both cheeks!Seems that's the way they did in France.
The morning after the receipt of this letter the girls at the watch factory might have remarked her pallor had they not been so occupied with a new and more absorbing topic.
"Tess, did you hear about Angie Hatton?" "What about her?""She's going to France.It's in the Milwaukee paper, all about her being Chippewa's fairest daughter, and a picture of the house, and her being the belle of the Fox River Valley, and she's giving up her palatial home and all to go to work in a canteen for her country and bleeding France.""Ya-as she is!" sneered Tessie, and a dull red flush, so deep as to be painful, swept over her face from throat to brow."Ya-as she is, the doll- faced simp! Why, say, she never wiped up a floor in her life, or baked a cake, or stood on them feet of hers.She couldn't cut up a loaf of bread decent.Bleeding France! Ha! That's rich, that is." She thrust her chin out brutally, and her eyes narrowed to slits."She's going over there after that fella of hers.She's chasing him.It's now or never, and she knows it and she's scared, same's the rest of us.On'y we got to set home and make the best of it.Or take what's left." She turned her head slowly to where Nap Ballou stood over a table at the far end of the room.She laughed a grim, un- lovely little laugh."I guess when you can't go after what you want, like Angie, why you gotta take second choice."All that day, at the bench, she was the reckless, insolent, audacious Tessie of six months ago.Nap Ballou was always standing over her, pretending to inspect some bit of work or other, his shoulder brushing hers.She laughed up at him so that her face was not more than two inches from his.He flushed, but she did not.She laughed a reckless little laugh.
"Thanks for helping teach me my trade, Mr.Ballou.'Course I only been at it over three years now, so I ain't got the hang of it yet."He straightened up slowly, and as he did so he rested a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment.She did not shrug it off.
