Saturdays Child | Page 3

the office, and liked an excuse to come downtown every
day. Elsie, the prettier and younger, was often "mean" to her sister, but
Violet was always good-natured, and used to smile as she told the girls
how Elsie captured her--Violet's--admirers. The Kirks' conversation
was all of "cases," "the crowd," "the times of their lives," and "new
crushes"; they never pinned on their audacious hats to go home at night
without speculating as to possible romantic adventures on the car, on
the street, everywhere. They were not quite approved by the rest of the
Front Office staff; their color was not all natural, their clothes were
"fussy." Both wore enormous dry "rats," that showed through the thin
covering of outer hair, their stockings were quite transparent, and bows
of pink and lavender ribbon were visible under their thin shirt-waists. It
was known that Elsie had been "spoken to" by old Mr. Baxter, on the
subject of a long, loose curl, which had appeared one morning,
dangling over her powdered neck. The Kirks, it was felt, never gave an
impression of freshness, of soapiness, of starched apparel, and Front
Office had a high standard of personal cleanliness. Miss Sherman's ears
glowed coldly all morning long, from early ablutions, and her fingertips
were always icy, and Miss Thornton and Susan Brown liked to allude
casually to their "cold plunges" as a daily occurrence--although neither
one ever really took a cold bath, except, perhaps, for a few days in
mid-summer. But all of cleanliness is neither embraced nor denied by
the taking of cold baths, and the Front Office girls, hours and
obligations considered, had nothing on this score of which to be
ashamed. Manicuring went on in every quiet moment, and many of the
girls spent twenty minutes daily, or twice daily, in the careful
adjustment of large sheets of paper as cuffs, to protect their sleeves.
Two elastic bands held these cuffs in place, and only long practice
made their arrangement possible. This was before the day of elbow
sleeves, although Susan Brown always included elbow sleeves in a
description of a model garment for office wear, with which she
sometimes amused her associates.
"No wet skirts to freeze you to death," Susan would grumble, "no high

collar to scratch you! It's time that the office women of America were
recognized as a class with a class dress! Short sleeves, loose, baggy
trousers--"
A shriek would interrupt her.
"Yes, I SEE you wearing that in the street, Susan!"
"Well, I WOULD. Overshoes," the inventor would pursue,
"fleece-lined leggings, coming well up on your--may I allude to limbs,
Miss Wrenn?"
"I don't care what you allude to!" Miss Wrenn, the office prude, a little
angry at being caught listening to this nonsense, would answer
snappily.
"Limbs, then," Susan would proceed graciously, "or, as Miss Sherman
says, legs---"
"Oh, Miss Brown! I DIDN'T! I never use that word!" the little woman
would protest.
"You don't! Why, you said last night that you were trying to get into the
chorus at the Tivoli! You said you had such handsome--"
"Oh, aren't you awful!" Miss Sherman would put her cold red fingers
over her ears, and the others, easily amused, would giggle at intervals
for the next half hour.
Susan Brown's desk was at the front end of the room, facing down the
double line. At her back was a round window, never opened, and never
washed, and so obscured by the great cement scrolls that decorated the
facade of the building that it gave only a dull blur of light, ordinarily,
and no air at all. Sometimes, on a bright summer's morning, the
invading sunlight did manage to work its way in through the
dust-coated ornamental masonry, and to fall, for a few moments, in a
bright slant, wheeling with motes, across the office floor. But usually
the girls depended for light upon the suspended green-hooded electric

lights, one over each desk.
Susan though that she had the most desirable seat in the room, and the
other girls carefully concealed from her the fact that they thought so,
too. Two years before, a newcomer, she had been given this same desk,
but it faced directly against the wall then, and was in the shadow of a
dirty, overcrowded letter press. Susan had turned it about, straightened
it, pushed the press down the room, against the coat-closet, and now,
like all the other girls, she faced the room, could see more than any of
them, indeed, and keep an eye on Mr. Brauer, and on the main floor
below, visible through the glass inner wall of the office. Miss Brown
was neither orderly nor industrious, but she had an eye for proportion,
and a fine imagination. She loved small, fussy tasks, docketed and
ruled the contents of her