The She Boss | Page 6

other shore. Hiram breathed the keen
salt breeze in gulps and looked steadily and curiously at the world that
waited for him. Somewhere there, perhaps, the girl of his dreams was
beckoning, and begging him not to be afraid. The boat nosed into her
slip and the crowd swept him ashore, swept him through the Ferry
Building, and, as it went its thousand ways, left him stranded, staring
unbelievingly up Market Street.
Ten minutes he stood there. Thousands pressed by him. The laughter
and grumblings of life buzzed in his uncomprehending ears. No one
noticed him. The continuous clang-clang-clang of the street cars grew
to a rhythmic roar. Strange odors filled his nostrils. What held him
most was the lights--the myriad lights that blinked away in perspective
up Market Street, clusters of them, pillars of them, wheels of them,
stars and squares of them. They all blended into a shower of diamonds
and held him spellbound. Then the clang of the street cars, the clatter of
hoofs on cobbles, the crunch of wheels, the raucous toots of automobile
horns and the purring of the engines, the ceaseless laughing and
murmuring of the crowds, the unfamiliar odors all blended with the
lights, and Hiram Hooker was breathing life, and knew that it was

warm, knew that he loved it, and was unafraid!
At last he sighed and began warily crossing the street from the Ferry
Building to Market Street. He had read of country boys in the city. He
knew enough not to stand in the street and stare. He wisely kept with a
crowd while crossing, and made their experience in braving the dangers
of traffic protect him. He reached the other curb in safety and started up
the long, broad street.
Hiram Hooker will never forget that night. Not once after leaving the
water front did he know his location, and it would have mattered little
if he had. He walked on and on untiringly through an entrancing dream.
He was alone in a great museum--the other human beings were not
fellow spectators, but specimens on exhibition.
The beauty of the women fascinated him. Never in his wildest
imaginings had he fancied such forms and faces. The most beautiful
girl in Bear Valley bore the face of a gargoyle compared with the soft,
creamy faces he saw that night. The flashing, long-lashed eyes, the red
lips, the coils on coils of fluffy hair, the swishing silk, unfamiliar furs,
sparkling jewels, and the slender French heels were stupefying.
He was growing hungry. He had not eaten a bite since early morning,
and now it was eleven o'clock at night. It appalled him to think of
entering a restaurant and being confronted by one of those
white-skinned, slim-formed divinities he saw flitting from table to table.
He did not know what to order nor how to order it. Even the smallest
places looked imposing with their myriad lights and fixtures of gilt and
white and glittering glass. But he knew he must screw his courage to it.
There seemed to be a restaurant nearly every other door in the locality
he was now passing through. Not only that, but many electric letters
blazing down the street notified him that he would have no trouble in
finding rooms; rooms by the day or week; rooms and board; rooms 15
cents and up; lodging; rooms with or without board; beds 10 cents and
up. He was on Kearny Street, he knew, but he did not know where
Kearny Street was in relation to the rest of the city.

He strolled along, staring through the windows at the appetizing
displays and searching for a restaurant where none of those
creamy-skinned beings that caused him so much uneasiness were
employed. At last he found one where, it seemed, only smooth-faced
men in short black coats and low-cut vests were serving. His abused
stomach goaded him to slink through the doorway and seek a table.
Just within the door he paused. The place seemed crowded. He was
about to slink out again when a woman's voice said in his ear: "This
side, please--all full here."
He turned quickly, with a gulp, to see a slim, black-clad girl, with one
of those appalling piles of fluffy hair topping her head, whisking past
behind him. Now he noticed that the restaurant was divided in half by a
screen which ran the length of the building, and that one side--the side
he had seen through the window--was for men, and the other for
women. The tables on the men's side were filled. The girl stood
beckoning from a table on the women's side. Other waitresses he had
not seen before were working here. Hiram could not back out now. His
legs trembled as he obeyed the girl's beckoning finger.
He reached