Saturdays Child | Page 5

a mysterious, pretty girl, with wicked
eyes and a hard face, and a manner so artless, effusive and virtuous as
to awaken the basest suspicions among her associates. Miss Cashell
dressed very charmingly, and never expressed an opinion that would
not well have become a cloistered nun, but the girls read her colorless
face, sensuous mouth, and sly dark eyes aright, and nobody in Front
Office "went" with Miss Cashell. Next her was Mrs. Valencia, a
harmless little fool of a woman, who held her position merely because
her husband had been long in the employ of the Hunter family, and
who made more mistakes than all the rest of the staff put together.
Susan disliked Mrs. Valencia because of the jokes she told, jokes that
the girl did not in all honesty always understand, and because the little
widow was suspected of "reporting" various girls now and then to Mr.
Hunter.
Finishing the two rows of desks, down opposite Miss Thornton again
were Miss Kelly and Miss Garvey, fresh-faced, intelligent Irish girls,
simple, merry, and devoted to each other. These two took small part in
what did not immediately concern them, but went off to Confession

together every Saturday, spent their Sundays together, and laughed and
whispered together over their ledgers. Everything about them was
artless and pure. Susan, motherless herself, never tired of their talk of
home, their mothers, their married sisters, their cousins in convents,
their Church picnics and concerts and fairs, and "joshes"--"joshes" were
as the breath of life to this innocent pair. "Joshes on Ma," "joshes on
Joe and Dan," "joshes on Cecilia and Loretta" filled their conversations.
"And Ma yells up, 'What are you two layin' awake about?'" Miss
Garvey would recount, with tears of enjoyment in her eyes. "But we
never said nothing, did we, Gert? Well, about twelve o'clock we heard
Leo come in, and he come upstairs, and he let out a yell--'My God!' he
says--"
But at the recollection of Leo's discovery of the sheeted form, or the
pail of water, or whatever had awaited him at the top of the stairs, Miss
Garvey's voice would fail entirely, and Miss Kelly would also lay her
head down on her desk, and sob with mirth. It was infectious, everyone
else laughed, too.
To-day Susan, perceiving something amiss with Miss Thornton,
sauntered the length of the office, and leaned over the older woman's
desk. Miss Thornton was scribbling a little list of edibles, her errand
boy waiting beside her. Tea and canned tomatoes were bought by the
girls every day, to help out the dry lunches they brought from home,
and almost every day the collection of dimes and nickels permitted a
"wreath-cake" also, a spongy, glazed confection filled with chopped
nuts and raisins. The tomatoes, bubbling hot and highly seasoned, were
quite as much in demand as was the tea, and sometimes two or three
girls made their entire lunch up by enlarging this list with cheese,
sausages and fruit.
"Mad about something," asked Susan, when the list for to-day was
finished.
Miss Thornton, under "2 wreath" wrote hastily, "Boiling! Tell you
later," and turned it about for Susan to read, before she erased it.

"Shall I get that?" she asked, for the benefit of the attentive office.
"Yes, I would," answered her fellow-conspirator, as she turned away.
The hour droned by. Boys came with bills, and went away again.
Sudden sharp pangs began to assert themselves in Susan's stomach. An
odor of burning rubber drifted up from below, as it always drifted up at
about this time. Susan announced that she was starving.
"It's not more than half-past eleven," said Miss Cottle, screwing her
body about, so that she could look down through the glass walls of the
office to the clock, on the main floor below. "Why, my heavens! It's
twelve o'clock!" she announced amazedly, throwing down her pen, and
stretching in her chair.
And, in instant confirmation of the fact, a whistle sounded shrilly
outside, followed by a dozen more whistles, high and low, constant and
intermittent, sharp on the silent noon air. The girls all jumped up,
except Miss Wrenn, who liked to assume that the noon hour meant
nothing to her, and who often finished a bill or two after the hour
struck.
But among the others, ledgers were slammed shut, desk drawers jerked
open, lights snapped out. Miss Thornton had disappeared ten minutes
before in the direction of the lunch-room; now all the others followed,
yawning, cramped, talkative.
They settled noisily about the table, and opened their lunches. A joyous
confusion of talk rose above the clinking of spoons and plates, as the
heavy cups of steaming tea were passed and the sugar- bowl went the
rounds; there was no milk, and no girl at Hunter, Baxter