Page:I, Mary MacLane (1917).pdf/211

 To-morrow

O-DAY came the Finn woman and cleaned my blue-and-white.

She comes now and again and cleans excellently.

I would like to clean my room myself but lack the strength and skill to do it well.

But I stay with the Finn woman and show her how and I watch her work and muse upon her. She would be called in England a charwoman, but in this America of the vast mongrel heterogenesis she is an unclassified laborer.

I like to watch her and talk with her a bit and dwell on her mixed potentialities. She contrasts fascinatingly with me.

She is a human being and so am I, and beyond and with that there are odd parallels and similarities and distinctions between her and me.

Her name is Josephina and she looks as if it might be.

Mine is Mary MacLane but I don't look entirely like it.

She lives a lonely life and so do I, differing in sort and circumstance.

I am middle-class and American of Canadian reminiscence, and early-thirty.

Josephina is Finn and lower-class with a 'foreign'