The Sagebrusher | Page 9

was we never looked on this business of getting married with any kind of halfway business sense. Along comes a man, and we get foolish. Lord! Oughtn't both of us to know about bargain counters and basement sales?"
"Well, let's eat, Mary," she concluded, seeing she had no answer. And Mary Warren, broken-hearted, high-headed, silent, turned to the remaining routine of the day.
Annie busied herself at the little box behind the stove--a box with a flap of white cloth, which served as cupboard. Here she found a coffee pot, a half loaf of bread, some tinned goods, a pair of apples. She put the coffee pot to boil upon the little stove, pushing back the ornamental acorn which covered the lid at its top. Meantime Mary drew out the little table which served them, spread upon it its white cloth, and laid the knives and forks, scanty enough in their number.
They ate as was their custom every evening. Not two girls in all Cleveland led more frugal lives than these, nor cleaner, in every way.
"Let me wash the dishes, Sis," said Annie Squires. "You needn't wipe them--no, that's all right to-night. Let me, now."
"You're fine, Annie, you're fine, that's what you are!" said Mary Warren. "You're the best girl in the world. But we'll make it fifty-fifty while we can. I'm going to do my share."
"I suppose we'd better do the laundry, too, don't you think?" she added. "We don't want the fire to get too low."
They had used their single wash basin for their dish pan as well, and now it was impressed to yet another use. Each girl found in her pocket a cheap handkerchief or so. Annie now plunged these in the wash basin's scanty suds, washed them, and, going to the mirror, pasted them against the glass, flattening them out so that in the morning they might be "ironed," as she called it. This done, each girl deliberately sat down and removed her shoes and stockings. The stockings themselves now came in for washing--an alternate daily practice with them both since Mary had come hither. They hung the stockings over the back of the solitary spare chair, just close enough to the stove to get some warmth, and not close enough to burn--long experience had taught them the exact distance.
They huddled bare-footed closer to the stove, until Annie rose and tiptoed across to get a pair each of cheap straw slippers which rested below the bed.
"Here's yours, Sis," said she. "You just sit still and get warm as you can before we turn in--it's an awful night, and the fire's beginning to peter out already. I wish't Mr. McAdoo, or whoever it is, 'd see about this coal business. Gee, I hope these things'll get dry before morning--there ain't anything in the world any colder than a pair of wet stockings in the morning! Let's turn in--it'll be warmer, I believe."
The wind, steel-pointed, bored at the window casings all that night. Degree after degree of frost would have registered in that room had means of registration been present. The two young women huddled closer under the scanty covering that they might find warmth. Ten dollars a week. Two great-hearts, neither of them more than a helpless girl.
CHAPTER IV
HEARTS AFLAME
They rose the next morning and dressed in the room without fire, shivering now as they drew on their stockings, frozen stiff. They had their morning coffee in a chilly room downstairs, where sometimes their slatternly landlady appeared, lugubriously voluble. This morning they ate alone, in silence, and none too happily. Even Annie's buoyant spirits seemed inadequate. A trace of bitterness was in her tone when she spoke.
"I'm sick of it."
"Yes, Annie," said Mary Warren. "And it's cold this morning, awfully."
"Cotton vests, marked down--to what wool used to be. Huh! Call this America?"
"What's wrong, Annie?" suddenly asked Mary Warren, drawing her wrap closer as she sat.
"I'd go to the lake before I'd go to the streets, though you mightn't think it. But how about it with only the discards in Derby hats and false teeth left? If we two are going to get married, Mollie, we got to look around among the remnants and bargains--we can't be too particular when we're hunting bargains. Whether it's all off for you at the store or not ain't for me to say, but you might do worse than listen to me."
Mary Warren looked at her in a sort of horror. "Annie, what do you mean?" she demanded.
The real reply came in the hard little laugh with which Annie Squires drew from the pocket of her coat--in which she also was muffled at the breakfast table--a meager little newspaper, close-folded. She spread it out before she passed it to her companion.
"Hearts Aflame!" said she. "While you have to dry your own socks, while