Letty Fox Read Online Free PDF

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    M y office friends and Captain White came on Sunday and painted the apartment. I had no time to clean up on Monday before work. My father and his girl, Persia, came on Saturday evening and helped me to arrange things. I was obliged to put Mother off until Monday evening, so that she would not meet them on Saturday, or Captain White on Sunday. Mother was very liberal about my boy friends, but seemed quite bitter about my going about with any married man, even though we were still, you might have said, still under martial order. Father came back alone on Monday night and found Mother there; and so I got all my cleaning up done, for since they would not speak to each other, except to say “Good evening,” no time was lost. The next night my poor good mother came again, with my sister Andrea and Andrea’s friend Anita, and so between us all I got settled in. Mother had found out the rent and said it would have been better for all of us to get a place together, but I had no consideration. She and Andrea and Anita lived in a hole over in Chelsea while Mother and Anita worked long hours at mediocre pay in war work, and Andrea did all the housework and minded the baby. All that my father could give them went to a lawyer in a certain legal affair which I will explain later—to put it briefly here, a paternity suit against the father of Anita’s baby, a young war worker.
    What I said in response to Mother’s outcry was, “But, Mummy, you never had any consideration for us. In the first place, you did not get a divorce and so did not have regular alimony to keep us in security. Then, you were too proud to take help from Grandma Morgan, and so I never had the right clothes or atmosphere, till I earned them myself. Then, if you had settled everything as women usually do, instead of messing round in your habitual way, I believe the family would have taken you into Green Acres or Grandma’s Long Beach hotel long ago, and we would all have had a wonderful home for years. Grandma would certainly have found you another husband.” Mother and I had another squabble after this along the usual lines. She said I thought only of myself and I said she thought only of striking an attitude and what a gloomy, unrewarding attitude it was. “Some people, I know,” said I, “say I have bounce, I am preposterous, I elbow people out of my way and am out for myself. I am, Mummy, like the King of Siam, but at least it doesn’t impose on anyone; I am what I am, and I make my way in the world. But, goodness, I should have been much better off with a stepfather or with anything than with this perpetual casting back into the past. Could I bring my friends to a real home, even when I lived with you—no! Echo loudly answers no! Why? Because I was imposing on you. So I was. A youngster has to impose on its parents. I know you effaced yourself and went to the movies and all that, but was that a home? Well, you ask what kind of a home I wanted? Well, my own kind, I suppose. You’re a good woman, Mummy, but we don’t mix; and what is the use of pretending that we do. I know it’s unfair, I don’t say I’m the best daughter you could have had; but I’ve simply got to be on my own now. Do you know how old I am, Mother? I’m twenty-four. That’s awful. I’ve simply got to live my own life. I know we’ve been over this before, but I simply boil over with it every night. Think how I live! Men make me propositions every day—this, that, and the other: none of them so far honorable enough for me to take the plunge. You don’t like to hear that. I can’t help it. I’m sorry. I’ve got to make the right start in life. Mother, I’m absolutely determined, when I find the right man, to be the perfect wife. Now you know nothing about men, Mother; and I do. I don’t say I’m a genius at them. I’ve seen my friends marry and I wouldn’t say