Winnie Childs by C. N. Williamson

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"I will, when next time comes!" Win was tempted to toss after him
impudently as, lifting his cap, the motorist took a hasty short cut to
the motor. Win was actually laughing when Earl Usher joined her. She
felt safe, and not even tired. The little adventure had had its uses,
after all! It had been, she thought, just as beneficial and not nearly
so expensive as a tonic or a Turkish bath.

"Was that mutt a gentleman friend of yours, kid, or was he some fresh
guy? 'Cause, if he was playing the fool, I'll break into the game and
go for his blood," remarked the rescuer.

"It was a Mr. Logan," replied Win hurriedly, making up her mind that
she must avoid any chance of trouble. "But--but I don't like him
much," she added. "I was very glad when I saw you. And I'm not going
to scold you for following me, because I know you meant well--and, as
it happened, it's _ending_ well. For a reward, I forgive you
everything. And I've just thought of a new name for you, Mr. Usher."

"Hope it's some better than Sadie Kirk's."

"What--Teddy Bear? Yes, it's better than that. Did you ever read 'Quo
Vadis?'"

"Not on your life. Sounds like a patent medicine."

"It's a novel. And in it a great, good giant of a young man devotes
himself to rescuing a maiden named _Lygia_. _His_ name was _Ursus_,
and he was so strong he could bring a bull to its knees---"

"Why, you silly little kid, that's a movie, not a novel. I've seen
_Ursus_ and his bull, all right. You're makin' me stuck on myself. I
feel as if I was it."

"Well, you are it. I christen you Ursus. And thank you very much for
taking so much trouble about me."

"I didn't take trouble," protested Ursus, half afraid that he was
being "kidded." "All I did was to beat it after you at what the swell
reporters call a respectful distance just to see you safe home if you
meant to hoof it. When you shot into the park, thinks I, 'maybe she's
made a date to chat with a gentleman friend, so I'll hang back.'
But---"

"It was quite an accident, meeting Mr. Logan, I assure you, Ursus,"
said Win, still unwilling to confide in him the details of the late
encounter, which seemed ridiculous now it was over. "I wanted a breath
of air. I've had it, and if you'll be very good and never use such a
word again as you did night before last, you may walk home with me if
you like."

"What word do you refer to? Cutie?"

"Yes. And another still more offensive."

"Sweetie?"

"Yes. Disgusting! 'Kid's' bad enough. But I thought you mightn't know
any better. I draw the line at the others."

"All right," said Ursus rather sulkily, sure that he was being made
fun of now. "But when a chap's a girl's friend what _is_ he to call
her?"

"'You' will do very well, if 'Miss Child' is beyond your vocabulary."

"I don't call that bein' friends. Say, is that your mutt's automobile
sort of following along in our wake?"

"I don't know, for I don't want to look back," said Win. (They were
out of the park by this time.) "But--I've changed my mind about
walking all the way. Let's hurry and take a Fifty-Ninth Street car!"

* * * * *

By day, in the shop, Win could laugh when she thought of the Columbus
Avenue house where she and Sadie "hung out." But at night, in her
room, trying desperately to sleep, she could not even smile. To do so,
with all those noises fraying the edges of her brain, would be to
gibber!

In that neighbourhood front rooms were cheaper than rooms at the back.
Lodgers who could afford to do so paid extra money for a little extra
tranquillity. Neither Sadie Kirk nor Winifred Child was of these
aristocrats. Their landlady had thriftily hired two cheap flats in a
fair-sized house whose ground floor was occupied by a bakery, and
whose fire-escapes gave it the look of a big body wearing its skeleton
outside. She "rented" her rooms separately, and made money on the
transaction, though she could afford to take low prices.

In the street below the narrow windows surface cars whirred to and fro
and clanged their bells. In front of the windows, and strangely,
terribly near to the six-inch-wide balconies, furnished with withered
rubber plants, roared the "L" trains, jointed, many-eyed dragons
chasing each other so fast that there seemed to be no pause between at
any hour of the day or during most hours of the night. Private life
behind those windows was impossible unless you kept your blinds down.
If you forgot, or said wildly to yourself that you didn't care, that
you _must_ breathe and see your own complexion by daylight at any
cost, thousands of faces, one after the other, stared into yours. You
could almost touch them, and it was little or no consolation to
reflect when they had seen you brushing your hair or fastening your
blouse, that these travellers in trains would never hear your name or
know who you were.

As for a bath--but then the great, magnificent advantage of living at
Mrs. McFarrell's was the bathroom. It was dark and small and smelled
of the black beetles who lived happily around the hot-water pipes. You
were not expected to take more than one bath a week, and for that one
bath towel was provided free.

"Oh, I thought you'd _had_ your bath this week!" was the answer Win
got on her second night, when mildly asking for a towel which had
disappeared. But if you were silly enough to pay thirty cents extra
for putting water on your body every day, you could do so. And, anyhow
a bathroom was a splendid advertisement. One lodger told another:
"The use of the bathroom is thrown in."

That night, when Win had bathed and laid herself carefully down in the
narrow bed which shook and groaned as if suffering from palsy, it
seemed more impossible than ever to go to sleep. Each new train that
rumbled by was a giant, homing bee, her brain the hive for which it
aimed. Her hot head was crowded with thoughts, disturbing, fighting,
struggling thoughts, yet the giant bee pushed the throng ruthlessly
aside and darted in. Each time it seemed impossible to bear it again.
She felt as if she had caterpillars in her spine and ants on her
nerves.

Win thought about the superintendent, Mr. Meggison, and wondered again
and again whether she would be discharged or whether he had merely
"taken a fancy" to her looks and wished to see if she were
flirtatiously inclined. She knew now, from Sadie, that Meggison's
desire was to be a "gay dog," though his courage did not always march
with his ambition.

The red-haired girl, Sadie supposed, had perhaps come to the Hands
armed with an introduction from some "lady friend." This theory would
account for Meggison's mysterious murmur of, "That's different." What
should she--Win--do if Father invited her to dine with him, as it
seemed he did invite some of the girls? Sadie said that if such a
thing happened to her she would accept, because she wasn't afraid of
Father. She "could scare him more than he could scare her," and an
extra hand might "get the push" if she refused a civil invitation.

With Mr. Croft, "Saint Peter's Understudy," it was more dangerous. You
had to beware of him. If you were a "looker," like Win, the best
thing that could happen to you was never to come within eyeshot of
Henry Croft. He lived in the suburbs, was married, and the
superintendent of a Sunday school. His name was on all the charity
lists. He was so tall and thin and sprawling that he looked like a
human hatrack, and his solemn circle of a face, surrounded with
yellowish whiskers, had a sunflower effect. He had written a book,
"Week-Day Sermons by a Layman"; nevertheless, he was a terror.

There were, according to Sadie, girls in the store who were of no more
use as saleswomen than baby alligators would have been, but they "gave
the glad eye" to Mr. Croft, and accepted his flowers and invitations
for moonlight motor rides. Nearly every one knew, but nobody told.

What use? Who was there to tell? Croft was "up at the top and then
some." Only Saint Peter himself stood above. And who would dare
complain to Saint Peter about his respectable right hand? Even if
there were any chance of getting near P.R., which there wasn't. He
came mostly at night, as if it were a disgrace to show himself in a
shop, even if it was his own. If ever he did any "prowling" in
business hours, it was with the understudy glued to his side.

As for "sweating" and "grinding" there wasn't a cent's worth of
difference between Croft and Meggison, said Sadie. Nevertheless, Win
was feeling thankful, as the "L" train bees boomed through her brain,
that at worst it was Mr. Meggison who had mysteriously summoned her,
not Mr. Croft.

If only she could go to sleep and forget them both, and the trains
and the cars and the man in the park and Miss Stein, who still had
against her a "grouch." If only she could forget even big, blundering
Ursus, who wanted to treat her to oyster stews that he couldn't afford
and take her to a dance hall next Sunday! And Sadie, too, who knew
such strange and awful things about the world and life, although she
was so good.

But no. Impossible to stop thinking, impossible to forget, impossible
to sleep. All New York seemed to be about her ears. She could hear the
frantic rush of everything which true New Yorkers love, and she could
feel its sky-scrapers closing in around her like an unclimbable wall.
As she thought of the great, noisy city she saw it consisting entirely
of vastly high towers, with inhabitants who spent their time in
tearing about--people who looked at her in the street as if she were
not there, or, if she was, they would rather she were somewhere else.

She dared not picture the ship sailing for England nearly every day of
the week. If she were free to do what she liked--or almost what she
liked--she would go at least as often as every Saturday to watch a big
liner move out from the dock, just for the delicious torture of it.

And yet--did she want to go back home? Whenever she asked herself this
question--and it was often--invariably for some silly reason, she saw
the blue, wistful eyes of that hypocrite, the younger Peter Rolls.
Also there came upon her a choking sense of homelessness, a
mother-want in a lonely world. But, as Sadie Kirk agreed with her in
saying, "What _was_ the good of squeezing juice out of your eyes just
because you happened to be low in your mind?" No, she would not cry!

Then, after all, she dropped asleep in a minute's interval between
trains, and dreamed that she was lost in Fifty-Ninth Street. It was as
long as the way to England, and a ghastly street to be lost in. Its
sky line--if it knew anything about the sky--was as irregular as a
Wagner dragon's teeth--high buildings and low buildings, and shanties
where coloured families lived; little, sinister-looking houses where
people could be murdered and their bodies never found, shops where you
could buy everything you didn't want and nothing that you did.

In the dream black and white children were fighting and skating on
roller skates over the pavement. Cars were clanging bells. Everybody
and everything was making a noise of some sort. Win was trying to get
past the skaters and catch a car. She must, or she would be late for
something! But what? This was horrible. She was going somewhere, and
could not remember where or what she had to do. She was lost forever,
and had forgotten her name and the name of the street where she lived.
A roller-skating boy with the face of a black monkey threw her down,
and a surface car and Peter Rolls's automobile were about to run over
her when she waked with a jump that shook the palsied bed. Another "L"
train booming by!

Despite lack of sleep and a tiredness of body that Sunday could not
cure, Win had never looked more attractive than when, at precisely
twelve forty-five on Monday afternoon she presented herself at Mr.
Meggison's door.

This was his private den, and a visit there, even on a less alarming
errand than hers, was far more formidable than pausing for inspection
at an office window. Sadie, with the best intentions, had been able to
give little encouragement There must be scolding or else flirting in
prospect. And Winifred's eyes were bright, her cheeks pink, her head
high, as the superintendent's voice bade her "Come in."

CHAPTER XIV

FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS

She went in. Mr. Meggison sat in front of his roll-top desk. No such
world-shaking event as his rising to receive her took place. His
stenographer's chair was vacant. The cherubic aspect had for the
moment dominated Mephistopheles. Mr. Meggison was smiling. But Win did
not know whether to fear the smile or to thank her stars for it.

Little girls--and sometimes big ones--should be seen and not heard, so
Win waited in meek, flushed silence for the great man to speak.

"Shut the door, please, Miss--er--Miss Child," said he. And the
cherubic eyes gazing from under the fierce contradiction of heavy
eyebrows up to the tall girl's face conveyed to her mind that "please"
was a tribute. Also, she suddenly knew that the superintendent had
hesitated over her name on purpose. A man in a high position may wish
to be agreeable to a girl beneath him, at the same time informing her
that she is of no vast importance.

With a certain stiff young dignity Win shut the office door.

"You may as well sit down. I want to talk to you."

She sat down in the chair of Mr. Meggison's absent stenographer. By
this time the pink of her cheeks had deepened to red. She was
wondering more than ever what he was going to do, and what she would
do when he had done it. But as she sat facing him she realized that
she was no longer afraid. She felt a sense of power and resource.

"Are you surprised that I remember your name, Miss Child?" he asked.

"I don't know the custom," she replied primly. Would he expect her to
say "Sir?" Anyhow, she wouldn't! She compromised with a dainty
meekness which might be interpreted as respect for a superior. Mr.
Meggison fixed her with a sharp look which would have detected the
impudence of a lurking laugh.

"That's a funny answer," said he. "You 'don't know the custom!' Well,
my idea of you is, you don't know much about any business customs, on
our side of the water or yours either." As he spoke he watched her
face to catch any guilty flicker of an eyelid. "I want you to tell me
what was your idea in going for a job with us."

"I saw your advertisement for extra hands."

"The woods--I mean the papers--are full of advertisements. What made
you pick out ours?"

"I'd tried to get other things and failed."

"So we were a last resort, eh?"

"I thought first of being a governess or a companion or getting into a
public library or--things of that sort."

"Why not the stage? You're a good-looking girl, with a figure."

"I promised my father I wouldn't go on the stage. But, anyhow, I don't
suppose I could have got on--an amateur like me. Every place in New
York seems full up. And I have no training of any sort."

"Just a young lady, eh?"

Win smiled. "I never thought of it as a profession--or a label."

He looked slightly puzzled, and when Mr. Meggison was puzzled by an
employee, he was generally annoyed. This case seemed, however, to be
an exception. He kept his temper, and even condescended to grin.

"I don't want you should think I'm asking all these questions because
we have any fault to find with you," he said. "You've done very well.
I always know what's going on all over the place. I keep track of
everything in every department. I wouldn't be where I am if I wasn't
up to that. I called you here partly to compliment you on your
smartness in that little stunt of the first day. And you've gone on
all right since, _all_ right. These things don't get lost in the wash.
But before I come to that I'm bound to tell you that the report's come
up to me you're a spy."

He threw the cap at her in a way to make her jump if it fitted. But
Win did not flinch. What she had overheard on the first day saved her
now from a shock of surprise.

"I caught that word about me from one of the girls," she admitted
frankly. "I wondered what made her think me a spy, and I'm wondering
still."

"I guess she thought you looked a sort of swell, and any one could see
you weren't used to work."

"But--there must be lots of girls like me in your big shops, just as
there are at home."

"No, that's where you're mistaken, Miss Child. There's more chances
with us for women than with you, and more places for 'em. We don't
get many of your class in the stores. They can do better for
themselves. You, being a stranger, though, had no pull. And maybe you
haven't been over here long."

"I haven't been long. But my money ran short," smiled Win, encouraged
now, since neither of Sadie's prognostications seemed likely to be
fulfilled. "Still, I don't see why it should occur to anybody that I
was a _spy_. What would a spy do in a shop?"

"That depends whether the job came from outside or in."

"I don't understand!"

"Well, there's a set of smart Alecks who've banded together and call
themselves the Anti-Sweat League, or Work People's Aid Society, or any
old name like that. They smell around to see what goes on behind the
scenes in a department store, and drop on us if they can."

"Oh, I see! And you thought they might have hired me---"

"I _didn't_ think so, as a matter of fact. I pride myself on spotting
folks for what they are the minute I lamp them. There's something
about 'em I can _feel_. I was sure you weren't one of that bunch. But
I felt bound to mention the report. Now that's finished--breakfast
cleared away! We'll go on to the next thing."

Again Win waited. And her heart missed a beat, for Mr. Meggison was
looking at her as if he had something very special to say.

"Most of the extra people we let go the week after Christmas," he went
on slowly. "Even if they're smart, we have enough regular ones without
'em. But perhaps we can keep you if you make good. And if you want to
stay. Do you?"

"Yes, thank you. As far as I can tell now, I should like to stay, if I
give satisfaction," Win answered with caution.

"Well, we'll see. It's up to you, anyhow. I told you I was going to
test your character. That's why I put you where I did. I knew what
you'd be up against. Now the idea is to test you some more."

He paused an instant. This was a catch phrase of his: "the idea is."
He often used it. And when he said: "It is my habit," or "My way is,"
he spoke with the repressed yet bursting pride of the self-made man
who has suddenly been raised to a height almost beyond his early
dreams.

"I may change you into another department next week," he went on,
"where you'll have a better time and less work. What do you say to
_Gloves_?"

Win felt very stupid. "What ought I to say to Gloves?" she inquired
helplessly.

Then the great Mr. Meggison actually laughed. "Gee! You _are_ an
amateur, Miss Child. Why, the girls all think the Gloves are the pick
of the basket. What your London Gaiety is to actresses, that the glove
department is to our salesladies. It's called the marriage market.
Ladies' _and_ gents' gloves, you understand. Now do you see the
point?"

"I suppose I do," Win rather reluctantly confessed, faintly blushing.

"Some of the best lookers in our Gloves have married Fifth Avenue
swells. It's pretty busy there just now. The young fellows buy gloves
by the dozen for their best girls at Christmas time when they want to
ring a change on flowers. Maybe I'll put you into Gloves, if you'll
agree to make yourself useful."

"I'll try to do my best wherever you put me, Mr. Meggison" said Win,
sounding to herself like a heroine of a Sunday serial, and feeling not
unlike one in a difficult situation at the end of an instalment. At
home, in her father's house, she had occasionally been driven to read
Sunday serials on Sunday. They were the only fiction permitted on that
day.

"That's all right. But now I mean something in particular" explained
Meggison. "I told you what they were saying about you in your
department to see how you'd take it. Well, you didn't seem desperately
shocked at the idea of being engaged by a so-called charitable society
to watch out for any breaks we might make. Not that we do make any, so
your trouble would have been wasted. We give our girls seats and every
living thing the law asks for, and our men make no complaints that we
hear. But, of course, we ain't omnipotent. Things are said, things
happen we don't get onto, little tricks that cost us money. Folks
shirking, and even stealing; we have to keep a sharp lookout. We can't
turn the spotlights on to everybody at once. So when we come across a
pair of lamps that are bright, a long way above the average we
sometimes make it worth their while---"

"Oh, Mr. Meggison, please don't go on!" Win cut the great man short.
"I'd rather you didn't say it, because--I don't wish to hear. I--I
don't want to know what you mean."

It was his turn to flush. But the change of colour was only just
perceptible. He had himself under almost perfect control. His eyes
sent out a flash, then became dull and expressionless as blue-gray
marbles. He was silent and watchful. Win, after her outburst, was
breathlessly speechless.

"Good!" said he at last. "Very good. That's the second test. And it's
all right, like the first. _Now_ do you understand?"

"I--I'm not sure. I---"

"You just said you didn't want to know what I meant. But _I_ want you
to know. I was testing your character again. I'm sure now you're
straight. You're a good girl, as well as a smart one, Miss Child."

Suddenly, just as she had begun to feel so relieved that tears were on
the way to her eyes, Meggison bent forward with an abrupt movement and
laid his hot, plump hand heavily on hers. Up jumped the girl and down
fell the hand. She seemed to hear herself excusing herself and
explaining her rashness to Sadie: "I couldn't stand it. I wouldn't! I
didn't care what happened."

"What's the matter?" he asked, blustering, his face now very red. He
kept his seat and looked up at her with a bullish stare.

"Nothing is the matter, Mr. Meggison," she said. "Only I think I've
troubled you long enough. You--will be wanting me to go."

As she spoke she gazed straight and steadily down into his eyes, as if
he were an animal that could be mastered if your look never let his
go. She remembered how Sadie had said that Meggison wanted to be a
"dog," but his bark might be stopped if you showed him in time that
you were not afraid. Winifred _was_ afraid, but she acted as if she
were not, which was the great thing. And the "stunt," as Sadie would
have called it, seemed to work--if only for the moment.

When his face had cooled, he said: "Yes, you can go, Miss Child. I've
nothing more to say to you--at present. Except this: it won't be the
Gloves."

* * * * *

Tingling, burning, whirling with the excitement of her
interview--fully felt only after it was over--Win started to hurry
back to work. It was not a crowded time of the day in the shopping
world. Many ladies were lunching not buying, and employees, if on
business, were permitted to use the elevators, white light going up,
red light down. Only the boy in smart shop livery, who rushed the lift
from roof to basement, was in the mirrored vehicle when Win got in at
the superintendent's floor.

"Hats, Children's Wardrobes, Games, Toys, Books, Stationery!" shouted
the strident young voice mechanically as the doors whizzed back in
their groove at the story below.

In streamed some jaded mothers and children, for whom Win backed
humbly into a corner, and then, just as the doors were about to snap
shut once more for a downward plunge, a young man and woman hurried
laughing in. Winifred Child shrank farther into her corner, plastering
herself against the wall of the elevator, and turning her face away,
for the newcomers were Lord Raygan and Ena Rolls.

As the wall consisted entirely of mirrors, however, turning away gave
little protection. The mothers, refusing to retire with their young
before the latest arrivals, "swell" though they might be, Miss Rolls
and her companion were forced to push past the forms which kept the
door, and by the time the elevator had shot down a story or two
farther the pair were close to Win. Still she kept her face twisted as
far over her shoulder as it would go, at risk of getting a cramp in
the neck, and her heart was beating with such loud thuds under the
respectable black blouse that she feared lest they should hear it.

"Why, hello--it's the Lady in the Moon!" exclaimed Lord Raygan gayly,
just when Win had begun to hope she might reach the ground-floor level
without being discovered.

Involuntarily Ena turned with a slight start, recognized Win,
pretended not to, and presented the back instead of the side of a
wonderful hat. An aigret jabbed viciously at the tall shop-girl's eye,
and Miss Rolls said hastily: "What Lady in the Moon? I don't know whom
you're talking about, Lord Raygan. But oh, here's our floor! This is
where I want to get out."

"Never mind, let's stop in and come up again," commanded Raygan in the
masterful way which Ena loved for its British male brutality--when it
didn't interfere with her wishes. "It's Miss--oh, _you_ know, from the
_Monarchic_. Don't you remember her in the moon dress? How do you do,
Miss--er--er? Who would have thought of meeting you here?"

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