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All a'one in my room at last!
I wonder how far they have traveled now?
'They’ll be very far when the night is past,
And so would I —if I knew but how.
How calm she was with her saint-like face,
Her eyes are violet, mine are blue.
How careless I am with my mother’s lace!
Her hands are whiter and softer, too.
They have gone to the city beyond the hills;
They must never come back to this place
again,
I’m almost afraid to sit here so still;
Wish it would thunder, lightning and rain.
Ch, no! for some one may not be at rest;
T'S for the new foreman, you see,
explained Milly Parker, in a whisper.
It’s a year tomorrow since he came
here —and he’s ever so much nicer, you
gr
know, than Wheeler Barton was. The hours
are shorter, and we get ten cents more for
piece-work, and he has had those new ventila
tors put in that Mr. Barton said were all non
sense —and you know how kind he was about
Lily Farr’s sprained wrist. Every one likes
Mr. Steelkirk. And if we give twenty-five
cents each it will put up such a nice sum! 1
shouldn’t wonder if we should not buy him
a watch chain, or a seal ring, or something
stylish ? ’ ’
“Twenty-five cents each?” repeated Bar
bara Shelton. “But twenty-five cents is quite
.a sum, and 1 really don’t know how to spare
it.”
“Oh, if you feel that way —” and Milly
Parker turned away to the next girl, shrug
ging her shoulders contemptuously as she did
so.
Emily Parker was the handsomest young wo
man in Blight & Co.’s factory; and what was
more, she was quite aware of it. She had
soft, velvety eyes of the shade of liquid brown
that merges so nearly on black, a peach-bloom
complexion, and beautiful brown hair, which
she wore in a fluffy cloud over her forehead.
Barbara Selton, on the contrary, was quite lit
tle, and brushed her wavy dark locks plainly
back, and lifted her eyes so seldom from her
work that you scarcely knew what color they
were.
She stitched diligently away at her machine,
while Milly glided from place to place, whis
pering her plans into willing ears, collecting
subscriptions, exchanging little jests with her
her mates, and —as poor Barabara felt almost
■certain —relating, with sorrowful emphasis, the
story of her own “stinginess.” For these girls,
■earning money so freely, and understanding so
little the duty of a wise economy, despised
nothing so heartily as what they termed “stin
giness.”
“Look!” cried Milly, when they all sat to
gether at the noon hour, eating their lunches.
“I’ve got fourteen dollars, all but a trifle, and
I mean to make it up to twenty before I get
through. There is the porter, you know,
and the engineer, and the girls in the fold
ing department. What do you say, girls, to a
twenty-dollar gold piece?”
AFTER THE WEDDING
A GIRL WHO WORKED
The Golden Age for March 27, 1913'
Some one, perhaps, is traveling tonight,
I hope that the moon may shine instead.
And heaven be starry, and earth all bright.
It is only one summer that she’s been here;
It has been my home for seventeen years!
And seventeen summers of happy bloom
Fall dead tonight in a rain of tears.
It is dark, all dark, in the midnight shades;
Father in heaven, may I have rest?
One hour of rest for this aching head?
For this throbbing heart in my weary breast?
I loved him more than she understands;
For him I prayed for my soul in truth,
For him I am kneeling with lifted hands,
There was a universal cry of exclamation;
but Barbara Shelton, eating her little slice of
dry bread in the corner, felt herself shut out
from all the warm sympathies of the rest.
Once or twice she had heard herself alluded
to as “Miss Miser” by the others. It was
perhaps a trifle —but it cut deep into her
heart.
Milly Parker was a little disconcerted, how
ever, when Mr. Steelkirk called her up to his
desk about the middle of the afternoon.
“Miss Parker,” he said, “I don’t want to
appear dictatorial, but have not the work
rooms been rather unsettled today? I think
we should accomplish more if every young
woman stayed at her machine!”
Milly colored.
“Are we to have such very strict disci
pline?” said she.
“We must have discipline!”
Alilly tossed her head.
“Oh, if I am to be a mere machine —”
“As far as Blight & Co. are concerned,”
said Mr. Steelkirk, “you are a machine, Miss
Parker. ’ ’
Milly Parker was thoroughly angered now.
“Perhaps,” she said, “if you knew what
I had been about —”
It was anticipating the anniversary day, but
Milly was too excited to care for trifles. She
put her hand into her pocket, where she had
placed the twenty-dollar gold piece, determin
ed that he should know what a thorough-paced
partisan he had.
To her dismay the gold piece was gone.
An almost infinitesimal rip in her pocket lin
ing explained the mystery. She turned first
red, then pale—the words of innocent triumph
died on her lips. Fortunately Mr. Steelkirk
attributed her silence to embarrassment.
“I need keep you no longer,” said he kind
ly. “All that I wished was to remind you
of the rules of the establishment, as to order,
quiet, and attention to work.”
Milly went back to her machine, feeling like
a little school girl who has been soundly lec
tured by the teacher, and ready to burst out
into weeping at the loss of the gold piece!
Mr. Steelkirk was at the factory before hours
the next morning. The engineer came up to
his sanctum with a smile.
“I can leave the engine for a few minutes,”
said he. “We had quite a commotion here
last night, Mr. Steelkirk.
By SHIRLEY BROWNE.
To lay at his feet my shattered youth.
I loved, and I love, I love him still,
More than father, mother or life;
My hope of hopes was to bear his name,
.My heaven of heavens to be his wife!
His wife! —the name that angels breathe —
The words shall not crimson my cheek with
shame;
’Twould have been my glory that name to
wreathe
In the princely heart from which it came,
And the kiss I gave to the bride tonight—
His bride till life and light grow dim —
God only knows how I pressed her lips,
That the kiss to her be given to him!
Steelkirk looked up from the books he was
arranging on the desk before him. “W hat sort
of a commotion?” said he.
“One of the girls had lost a twenty-dollar
gold piece. That little Emily Parker.”
Steelkirk shrugged his shoulders. “I did
not know,” said he, “that we paid wages
enough here to enable our hands to go about
with gold pieces in their possession.
“That’s the fun of it,” said the engineer,
who, having definitely ascertained that no sub
scription was being taken up for him, had a
sort of malicious amusement in spoiling the
girl's, surprise. “It 1 wasn’t hers, ft was
yours. ’ ’
«/
“Mine;” echoed Steelkirk.
“Or would have been soon. She was levy
ing a little tax on all the girls, to make you
a present. You know you have been here a
year today.”
Steelkirk compressed his lips. “I do not ap
prove of this sort of thing,” said he.
“Well, it don’t matter much now whether
you do or not,” said the engineer, “because
the money is lost. There’s an end of it. They
were hunting all around the floor with a lan
tern last night, when I was banking up my
fires, but to no avail. All of ’em had contrib
uted except Barbara Shelton, ‘Miss Miser,’
they nicknamed her, I believe; but they don’t
know all the circumstances of the case. Bar
bara is the most generous of the lot. There
was a porter hurt here last July—”
“Yes I remember.”
“He has been disabled ever since. They
lodge in the same house where Miss Shelton’s
people live, and she gives his wife half a
doh ar a week out of her slim earnings to help
pay the rent. She supports all her own fam
ily—the father is bedridden with rheumatism,
and the mother is very feeble —and she keeps
her brother in school instead of sending him
to be a cash boy somewhere. I tell you, Steel
kirk, she’s the bravest little soldier that ever
fought in the world’s battle. And yet these
cackling girls call her ‘Miss Miser.’
Wa'lace Steelkirk was silent. He did not
choose to tell this flippant young man that
he had known all these facts for some time.
It did not suit him that Barbara's name should
be the subject of discussion and comment in
the little world of Blight & Co.’s factory. But
he unlocked the desk drawer, and took out a
(Continued on page 16.)
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