Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/176

166 "Wages!" her father stormed. "Wages! As if that was all! It's what the creatures waste—waste—throw away into the swill for the pigs! I know—oh, I know! And I'll have to pay for that, won't I? Hired girl! I won't have a hired-girl in this house!"

"But, Father," Reba replied, "you don't expect me to cook, and clean, and nurse, and do everything, do you? Why, how could I ever go out unless there was some one here to leave with mother? You've got to be reasonable."

"Reasonable! Do you know who you're talking to? You'll do as I say as long as you sleep and eat your victuals under my roof." He actually shook a menacing fist at Reba.

She had never seen him like this. He had not dared to resist Aunt Augusta. But, "He can't hurt me, he can't hurt me," Reba told herself. "I'm beyond him now. I'm Mrs. Cawthorne. I'm Mrs. Cawthorne." And outloudout-loud [sic] she said calmly, "No, Father, I don't think I will do as you say. Of course I can go away," she went on, "if you prefer, but as long as I choose to stay here, and you choose to have me, I'm going to use my own judgment about things a little."

Whatever timid hope Reba had entertained that alone with her parents they might find some basis of companionship, it disappeared after a week or two. Try as she might, she could not reach either of them—her mother even less than her father. Nothing was right that she did for the invalid. Time and again her mother would struggle pathetically with shawl, or piece of clothing, rather than allow Reba to help her. Reba seemed to grate on her mother's nerves. She was aware of the invalid's illy concealed recoil from