The Crucible — Mark Lee Luther
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Title : The Crucible Author : Mark Lee Luther Illustrator : Rose Cecil O'Neill Release date : August 17, 2022 [eBook #68775] Most recently updated: October 19, 2024 Language : English, Spanish Original publication : United States: The Macmillan Company, 1907 Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68775 Credits : Carlos Colon, Mary Meehan, the University of California and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF , etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROSE CECIL O'NEILL New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1907 All rights reserved Copyright , 1907, By INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY. Copyright , 1907, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1907. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON - BOMBAY - CALCUTTA - MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO To E. M. R. AN OPTIMIST ILLUSTRATIONS "'A dimple will be a great handicap in my life.'" "And, among them, Jean." "'Do you know each other?'" "Her knight of the forest stood before her." "She was scoring." "From that dear shelter she, too, foresaw a kindlier future." THE CRUCIBLE I The girl heard the key rasp in the lock and the door open, but she did not turn. "When I enter the room, rise," directed an even voice. The new inmate obeyed disdainfully. The superintendent, a middle-aged woman of precise bearing and crisp accent, took possession of the one chair, and flattened a note-book across an angular knee. "Is Jean Fanshaw your full name?" she began. "I'm called Jack." "Jack!" The descending pencil paused disapprovingly in mid-air. "You were committed to the refuge as Jean." "Everybody calls me Jack," persisted the girl shortly—"everybody." "Does your mother?" Her face clouded. "No," she admitted; "but my father did. He began it, and I like it. Why isn't it as good as Jean? Both come from John." "It is not womanly," said Miss Blair, as one having authority. "Women of refinement don't adopt men's names." "How about George Eliot?" Jean promptly countered. "And that other George—the French woman?" The superintendent battled to mask her astonishment. Case-hardened by a dozen years' close contact with moral perverts, budding criminals, and the half-insane, she plumed herself that she was not easily taken off her guard. But the unexpected had befallen. The newcomer had given her a sensation, and moreover she knew it. Jean Fanshaw's dark eyes exulted insolently in her victory. Miss Blair took formal refuge in her notes. "Birthplace?" she continued. "Shawnee Springs." "Age?" "Seventeen, two months ago—September tenth." The official jotted "American" under the heading of nationality, and said,— "Where were your parents born?" "Father hailed from the South—from Virginia." Her face lighted curiously. "His people once owned slaves." "And your mother?" The girl's interest in her ancestry flagged. "Pure Shawnee Springs." She flung off the characterization with scorn. "Pure, unadulterated Shawnee Springs." But the superintendent was now on the alert for the unexpected. "I want plain answers," she admonished. "What has been your religious training?" "Mixed. Father was an Episcopalian, I think, but he wasn't much of a churchgoer; he preferred the woods. Mother's a Baptist." "And you?" "I don't know what I am. I guess God isn't interested in my case." The official retreated upon her final routine question. "Education?" "I was in my last year at high school when"—her cheek flamed—"when this happened." Miss Blair construed the flush as a hopeful sign. "You may sit down, Jean," she said, indicating the narrow iron bed. "Let me see your knitting." The girl handed over the task work which had made isolation doubly odious. The superintendent pursed her thin lips. "Have you never set up a stocking before?" she asked. "No." "Can you sew?" "No." "Or cook?" "No." "'No, Miss Blair,' would be more courteous. Have you been taught any form of housework whatsoever?" Jean looked her fathomless contempt. "We kept help for such drudgery," she explained briefly. "You must learn, then. They are things which every woman should know." "I don't care to learn the things every woman should know. I hate women's work. I hate women, too, and their namby-pamby ways. I'd give ten years of my life to be a man." Her listener contrasted Jean Fanshaw's person with her ideas. Even the flesh-mortifying, blue-and-white-check uniform of the refuge became the girl. Immature in outline, she was opulent in promise. Her features held no hint of masculinity; the mouth, chin, eyes—above all, the defiant eyes—were hopelessly feminine. Miss Blair's own pale glance returned again and again upon those eyes. They made her think of pools which forest leaves have dyed. The brows were brown, too, and delicately lined, but the thick rope of hair, which fell quite to the girl's hips, was fair. The other woman touched the splendid braid covetously. "You can't escape your sex," she said. "Don't try." "But I wasn't meant for a girl. They didn't want one when I was born. They'd had one girl, my sister Amelia, and they counted on a boy. They felt sure of it. Why, they'd even picked out his name. It was to be John, after my father. Then I came." "Nature knew best." Jean gave a mirthless laugh. "Nature made a botch," she retorted. "What business has a boy with the body of a girl?" The superintendent lost patience. "You must rid yourself of this nonsense," she declared firmly, and said again, "You can't escape your sex.