“Aw, come on, Kittie, be a sport! A stunning looker like that! What’re you after anyhow—money?”
“Cut that out. No, I tell you. What’s it to you why I won’t?”
She crushed her face into the pillow and wept silently. It seemed the last unkindness of fate that Mrs. Brown should give a party and not ask her.
V
The next day she dressed very carefully in a fresh white waist and her Indianhead skirt and went down to the telegraph-office to ask for a job. She knew where to find the office; she had often looked at its plate-glass front lettered in blue during her lonely walks on the crowded street. Her heart thumped loudly and her knees were weak when she went through the open door.
The big room was cut across by a long counter, on which a young man lounged in his shirtsleeves, a green eyeshade pushed back on his head. Behind him telegraph instruments clattered loudly, disturbing the stifling quiet of the hot morning. The young man looked at her curiously.
“Manager? Won’t I do?” he asked.
She heard her voice quavering:
“I’d rather see him—if he’s busy—I could—wait.”
The manager rose from the desk where he had been sitting. He was a tall, thin man, with thin hair combed carefully over the top of his head. His lips were thin, too, and there were deep creases on either side of his mouth, like parentheses. His eyes looked her over, interested. He was sorry, he said. He didn’t need another operator. She had experience?
She was a graduate of Weeks’ School of Telegraphy, she told him breathlessly. She could send perfectly, she wasn’t so sure of her receiving, but she would be awfully careful not to make mistakes. She had to have a job, she just had to have a job; it didn’t matter how much it paid, anything. She felt that she could not walk out of that office. She clung to the edge of the counter as if she were drowning and it were a lifeline.
“Well—come in. I’ll see what you can do,” he said. He swung open a door in the counter, and she followed him between the tables. There was a dusty instrument on a battered desk, back by the big switchboard. The manager took a message from a hook and gave it to her. “Let’s hear you send that.”
She began painstakingly. The young man with the eyeshade had wandered over. He stood leaning against a table, listening, and after she had made a few letters she felt that a glance passed between him and the manager, over her head. She finished the message, even adding a careful period. She thought she had done very well. When she looked up the manager said kindly:
“Not so bad! You’ll be an operator some day.”
“If you’ll only give me a chance,” she pleaded.
He said that he would take her address and let her know. She felt that the young man was slightly amused. She gave the manager her name and the street number. He repeated it in surprise.
“You’re staying with Kittie Brown?” Again a glance passed over her head. Both of them looked at her with intensified interest, for which she saw no reason. “Yes,” she replied. She felt keenly that it was an awkward moment, and bewilderment added to her confusion. The young man turned away and, sitting down, began to send a pile of messages, working very busily, sending with his right hand and marking off the messages with his left. But she felt that his attention was still upon her and the manager.
“Well! And you want to work here?” The manager rubbed one hand over his chin, smiling. “I don’t know. I might.”
“Oh, if you would!”
He hesitated for an agonizing moment.
“Well, I’ll think about it. Come and see me again.” He held her fingers warmly when they shook hands, and she returned the pressure gratefully. She felt that he was very kind. She felt, too, that she had conducted the interview very well, and returning hope warmed her while she went back to her room.
That afternoon she had a visitor. She had written her weekly letter to her mother, saying that she had almost finished school and was expecting to get a job, hesitating a long time, miserably, before she added that she did not have much money left and would like to borrow another five dollars. She had eaten a stale roll and an apple and was considering how long she could make the meal-ticket last when she heard the knock on her door.
She opened it in surprise, thinking there had been a mistake. A stout, determined-looking woman stood there, a well-dressed woman who wore black gloves and a veil. Immediately Helen felt herself young, inexperienced, a child in firm hands.
“You’re Helen Davies? I’m Mrs. Campbell.” She stepped into the room, Helen giving way before her assured advance. She swept the place with one look. “What on earth was your mother thinking of, leaving you in a place like this? Did you know what you were getting into?”
“I don’t—what—w‑won’t you take a chair?” said Helen.
Mrs. Campbell sat down gingerly, very erect. They looked at each other.
“I might as well talk straight out to you,” Mrs. Campbell said, as if it were a customary phrase. “I met Mrs. Morris, Mrs. Updike’s sister, at the lodge convention in Oakland last week, and she told me about you, and I promised to look you up. Well, when I found out! I told Mr. Campbell I was coming straight down here to talk to you. If you want to stay in a place like this, well and good, it’s your affair. Though I should feel it my duty to write to your mother. I wouldn’t want my own girl left in a strange town, at your age, and nobody taking any interest
