ROAST BEEF, MEDIUM

THE BUSINESS ADVENTURES OF EMMA McCHESNEY

BY EDNA FERBER

Author of "Dawn O'Hara, " "Buttered Side Down, " Etc. 

With twenty-seven illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg

[Illustration: "'And they call that thing a petticoat!'"]

FOREWORD

Roast Beef, Medium, is not only a food. It is a philosophy. 

Seated at Life's Dining Table, with the Menu of Morals before you, your eye wanders a bit over the entrees, the hors d'oeuvres, and thethings _a la_, though you know that Roast Beef, Medium, is safe, andsane, and sure. It agrees with you. As you hesitate there sounds inyour ear a soft and insinuating Voice. 

"You'll find the tongue in aspic very nice today, " purrs the Voice. "May I recommend the chicken pie, country style? Perhaps you'd relishsomething light and tempting. Eggs Benedictine. Very fine. Or someflaked crab meat, perhaps. With a special Russian sauce. "

Roast Beef, Medium! How unimaginative it sounds. How prosaic, and dry!You cast the thought of it aside with the contempt that it deserves, and you assume a fine air of the epicure as you order. There are setbefore you things encased in pastry; things in frilly paper trousers;things that prick the tongue; sauces that pique the palate. There arestrange vegetable garnishings, cunningly cut. This is not only Food. These are Viands. 

"Everything satisfactory?" inquires the insinuating Voice. 

"Yes, " you say, and take a hasty sip of water. That paprika has burnedyour tongue. "Yes. Check, please. "

You eye the score, appalled. "Look here! Aren't you over-charging!"

"Our regular price, " and you catch a sneer beneath the smugness of theVoice. "It is what every one pays, sir. "

You reach deep, deep into your pocket, and you pay. And you rise andgo, full but not fed. And later as you take your fifth Moral PepsinTablet you say Fool! and Fool! and Fool!

When next we dine we are not tempted by the Voice. We are wary ofweird sauces. We shun the cunning aspics. We look about at ourneighbor's table. He is eating of things French, and Russian andHungarian. Of food garnished, and garish and greasy. And with a littlesigh of Content and resignation we settle down to our Roast Beef, Medium. 

E. F. 

CONTENTS

 I. ROAST BEEF, MEDIUM II. REPRESENTING T. A. BUCK III. CHICKENS IV. HIS MOTHER'S SON V. PINK TIGHTS AND GINGHAMS VI. SIMPLY SKIRTS VII. UNDERNEATH THE HIGH-CUT VEST VIII. CATCHING UP WITH CHRISTMAS IX. KNEE-DEEP IN KNICKERS X. IN THE ABSENCE OF THE AGENT

ILLUSTRATIONS

"'And they call that thing a petticoat!'"

"'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, ' he announced, glibly"

"'That was a married kiss--a two-year-old married kiss at least'"

"'I won't ask you to forgive a hound like me'"

"'You'll never grow up, Emma McChesney'"

"'Well, s'long then, Shrimp. See you at eight'"

"'I'm still in a position to enforce that ordinance against pouting'"

"'Son!' echoed the clerk, staring"

"'Well!' gulped Jock, 'those two double-bedded, bloomin', blastedBisons--'"

"'Come on out of here and I'll lick the shine off your shoes, youblue-eyed babe, you!'"

"'You can't treat me with your life's history. I'm going in'"

"'Now, Lillian Russell and cold cream is one; and new potatoes andbrown crocks is another'"

"'Why, girls, I couldn't hold down a job in a candy factory'"

"'Honestly, I'd wear it myself!'"

"'I've lived petticoats, I've talked petticoats, I've dreamedpetticoats--why, I've even worn the darn things!'"

"And found himself addressing the backs of the letters on the doormarked 'Private'"

"'Shut up, you blamed fool! Can't you see the lady's sick?'"

"At his gaze that lady fled, sample-case banging at her knees"

"In the exuberance of his young strength, he picked her up"

"She read it again, dully, as though every selfish word had notalready stamped itself on her brain and heart"

"'Not that you look your age--not by ten years!"'

"'Christmas isn't a season . . . It's a feeling; and, thank God, I'vegot it!'"

"No man will ever appreciate the fine points of this little garment, but the women--"

"Emma McChesney . . . I believe in you now! Dad and I both believe inyou'"

"It had been a whirlwind day"

"'Emma, ' he said, 'will you marry me?'"

'"Welcome home!' she cried. 'Sketch in the furniture to suityourself"'

I

ROAST BEEF, MEDIUM

There is a journey compared to which the travels of Bunyan's hero werea summer-evening's stroll. The Pilgrims by whom this forced march istaken belong to a maligned fraternity, and are known as traveling men. Sample-case in hand, trunk key in pocket, cigar in mouth, brown derbyatilt at an angle of ninety, each young and untried traveler starts onhis journey down that road which leads through morasses of chicken _ala_ Creole, over greasy mountains of queen fritters made doublyperilous by slippery glaciers of rum sauce, into formidable jungles ofbreaded veal chops threaded by sanguine and deadly streams of tomatogravy, past sluggish mires of dreadful things _en casserole_, overhills of corned-beef hash, across shaking quagmires of veal glace, plunging into sloughs of slaw, until, haggard, weary, digestionshattered, complexion gone, he reaches the safe haven of roast beef, medium. Once there, he never again strays, although the pompadoured, white-aproned siren sing-songs in his ear the praises of Irish stew, and pork with apple sauce. 

Emma McChesney was eating her solitary supper at the Berger house atThree Rivers, Michigan. She had arrived at the Roast Beef haven manyyears before. She knew the digestive perils of a small town hoteldining-room as a guide on the snow-covered mountain knows eachtreacherous pitfall and chasm. Ten years on the road had taught her torecognize the deadly snare that lurks in the seemingly calm bosom ofminced chicken with cream sauce. Not for her the impenetrablemysteries of a hamburger and onions. It had been a struggle, brief butterrible, from which Emma McChesney had emerged triumphant, hercomplexion and figure saved. 

No more metaphor. On with the story, which left Emma at her safe andsolitary supper. 

She had the last number of the _Dry Goods Review_ propped up againstthe vinegar cruet and the Worcestershire, and the salt shaker. Betweenconscientious, but disinterested mouthfuls of medium roast beef, shewas reading the snappy ad set forth by her firm's bitterestcompetitors, the Strauss Sans-silk Skirt Company. It was a goodreading ad. Emma McChesney, who had forgotten more about petticoatsthan the average skirt salesman ever knew, presently allowed her luke-warm beef to grow cold and flabby as she read. Somewhere in hersubconscious mind she realized that the lanky head waitress had placedsome one opposite her at the table. Also, subconsciously, she heardhim order liver and bacon, with onions. She told herself that as soonas she reached the bottom of the column she'd look up to see who thefool was. She never arrived at the column's end. 

"I just hate to tear you away from that love lyric; but if I mighttrouble you for the vinegar--"

Emma groped for it back of her paper and shoved it across the tablewithout looking up. "--and the Worcester--"

One eye on the absorbing column, she passed the tall bottle. But atits removal her prop was gone. The _Dry Goods Review_ was too weightyfor the salt shaker alone. 

"--and the salt. Thanks. Warm, isn't it?"

There was a double vertical frown between Emma McChesney's eyes as sheglanced up over the top of her _Dry Goods Review_. The frown gave wayto a half smile. The glance settled into a stare. 

"But then, anybody would have stared. He expected it, " she said, afterwards, in telling about it. "I've seen matinee idols, andtailors' supplies salesmen, and Julian Eltinge, but this boy had anymale professional beauty I ever saw, looking as handsome and dashingas a bowl of cold oatmeal. And he knew it. "

Now, in the ten years that she had been out representing T. A. Buck'sFeatherloom Petticoats Emma McChesney had found it necessary to make arule or two for herself. In the strict observance of one of these shehad become past mistress in the fine art of congealing the warmadvances of fresh and friendly salesmen of the opposite sex. But thiscase was different, she told herself. The man across the table waslittle more than a boy--an amazingly handsome, astonishingly impudent, cockily confident boy, who was staring with insolent approval at EmmaMcChesney's trim, shirt-waisted figure, and her fresh, attractivecoloring, and her well-cared-for hair beneath the smart summer hat. 

[Illustration: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, " heannounced, glibly. ]

"It isn't in human nature to be as good-looking as you are, " spakeEmma McChesney, suddenly, being a person who never trifled with half-way measures. "I'll bet you have bad teeth, or an impediment in yourspeech. "

The gorgeous young man smiled. His teeth were perfect. "Peter Piperpicked a peck of pickled peppers, " he announced, glibly. "Nothingmissing there, is there?"

"Must be your morals then, " retorted Emma McChesney. "My! My! And onthe road! Why, the trail of bleeding hearts that you must leave allthe way from Maine to California would probably make the Red Sea turnwhite with envy. "

The Fresh Young Kid speared a piece of liver and looked soulfully upinto the adoring eyes of the waitress who was hovering over him. "Gotany nice hot biscuits to-night, girlie?" he inquired. 

"I'll get you some; sure, " wildly promised his handmaiden, anddisappeared kitchenward. 

"Brand new to the road, aren't you?" observed Emma McChesney, cruelly. 

"What makes you think--"

"Liver and bacon, hot biscuits, Worcestershire, " elucidated she. "Noold-timer would commit suicide that way. After you've been out for twoor three years you'll stick to the Rock of Gibraltar--roast beef, medium. Oh, I get wild now and then, and order eggs if the girl saysshe knows the hen that layed 'em, but plain roast beef, unchloroformed, is the one best bet. You can't go wrong if you stickto it. "

The god-like young man leaned forward, forgetting to eat. 

"You don't mean to tell me you're on the road!"

"Why not?" demanded Emma McChesney, briskly. 

"Oh, fie, fie!" said the handsome youth, throwing her a languishinglook. "Any woman as pretty as you are, and with those eyes, and thathair, and figure--Say, Little One, what are you going to do to-night?"

Emma McChesney sugared her tea, and stirred it, slowly. Then shelooked up. "To-night, you fresh young kid, you!" she said calmly, "I'mgoing to dictate two letters, explaining why business was rotten lastweek, and why it's going to pick up next week, and then I'm going tokeep an engagement with a nine-hour beauty sleep. "

"Don't get sore at a fellow. You'd take pity on me if you knew how Ihave to work to kill an evening in one of these little townpump burgs. Kill 'em! It can't be done. They die harder than the heroine in a ten, twenty, thirty. From supper to bedtime is twice as long as frombreakfast to supper. Honest!"

But Emma McChesney looked inexorable, as women do just before theyrelent. Said she: "Oh, I don't know. By the time I get through tryingto convince a bunch of customers that T. A. Buck's FeatherloomPetticoat has every other skirt in the market looking like a piece ofFourth of July bunting that's been left out in the rain, I'm aboutready to turn down the spread and leave a call for six-thirty. "

"Be a good fellow, " pleaded the unquenchable one. "Let's take in allthe nickel shows, and then see if we can't drown our sorrows in--er--"

Emma McChesney slipped a coin under her plate, crumpled her napkin, folded her arms on the table, and regarded the boy across the way withwhat our best talent calls a long, level look. It was so long and solevel that even the airiness of the buoyant youngster at whom it wasdirected began to lessen perceptibly, long before Emma began to talk. 

"Tell me, young 'un, did any one ever refuse you anything? I thoughtnot. I should think that when you realize what you've got to learn itwould scare you to look ahead. I don't expect you to believe me when Itell you I never talk to fresh guys like you, but it's true. I don'tknow why I'm breaking my rule for you, unless it's because you're sounbelievably good-looking that I'm anxious to know where the blemishis. The Lord don't make 'em perfect, you know. I'm going to get outthose letters, and then, if it's just the same to you, we'll take awalk. These nickel shows are getting on my nerves. It seems to me thatif I have to look at one more Western picture about a fool girl withher hair in a braid riding a show horse in the wilds of ClaphamJunction and being rescued from a band of almost-Indians by thehandsome, but despised Eastern tenderfoot, or if I see one more ofthose historical pictures, with the women wearing costumes that are apass between early Egyptian and late State Street, I know I'll gethysterics and have to be carried shrieking, up the aisle. Let's walkdown Main Street and look in the store windows, and up as far as thepark and back. "

"Great!" assented he. "Is there a park?

"I don't know, " replied Emma McChesney, "but there is. And for yourown good I'm going to tell you a few things. There's more to thistraveling game than just knocking down on expenses, talking to everypretty woman you meet, and learning to ask for fresh white-bread heelsat the Palmer House in Chicago. I'll meet you in the lobby at eight. "

Emma McChesney talked steadily, and evenly, and generously, from eightuntil eight-thirty. She talked from the great storehouse of practicalknowledge which she had accumulated in her ten years on the road. Shetold the handsome young cub many things for which he should have beenundyingly thankful. But when they reached the park--the cool, dim, moon-silvered park, its benches dotted with glimpses of white showingclose beside a blur of black, Emma McChesney stopped talking. Not onlydid she stop talking, but she ceased to think of the boy seated besideher on the bench. 

In the band-stand, under the arc-light, in the center of the prettylittle square, some neighborhood children were playing a noisy game, with many shrill cries, and much shouting and laughter. Suddenly, fromone of the houses across the way, a woman's voice was heard, evenabove the clamor of the children. 

"Fred-dee!" called the voice. "Maybelle! Come, now. "

And a boy's voice answered, as boys' voices have since Cain was achild playing in the Garden of Eden, and as boys' voices will as longas boys are:

"Aw, ma, I ain't a bit sleepy. We just begun a new game, an' I'mleader. Can't we just stay out a couple of minutes more?"

"Well, five minutes, " agreed the voice. "But don't let me call youagain. "

Emma McChesney leaned back on the rustic bench and clasped her strong, white hands behind her head, and stared straight ahead into the softdarkness. And if it had been light you could have seen that the bitterlines showing faintly about her mouth were outweighed by the sweet andgracious light which was glowing in her eyes. 

"Fred-dee!" came the voice of command again. "May-belle! This minute, now!"

One by one the flying little figures under the arc-light melted awayin the direction of the commanding voice and home and bed. And EmmaMcChesney forgot all about fresh young kids and featherloom petticoatsand discounts and bills of lading and sample-cases and grouchy buyers. After all, it had been her protecting maternal instinct which had beenaroused by the boy at supper, although she had not known it then. Shedid not know it now, for that matter. She was busy remembering justsuch evenings in her own life--summer evenings, filled with the high, shrill laughter of children at play. She too, had stood in thedoorway, making a funnel of her hands, so that her clear call throughthe twilight might be heard above the cries of the boys and girls. Shehad known how loath the little feet had been to leave their play, andhow they had lagged up the porch stairs, and into the house. Years, whose memory she had tried to keep behind her, now suddenly loomedbefore her in the dim quiet of the little flower-scented park. 

A voice broke the silence, and sent her dream-thoughts scattering tothe winds. 

"Honestly, kid, " said the voice, "I could be crazy about you, if you'dlet me. "

The forgotten figure beside her woke into sudden life. A strong armencircled her shoulders. A strong hand seized her own, which wereclasped behind her head. Two warm, eager lips were pressed upon herlips, checking the little cry of surprise and wrath that rose in herthroat. 

Emma McChesney wrenched herself free with a violent jerk, and pushedhim from her. She did not storm. She did not even rise. She sat veryquietly, breathing fast. When she turned at last to look at the boybeside her it seemed that her white profile cut the darkness. The manshrank a little, and would have stammered something, but EmmaMcChesney checked him. 

[Illustration: "'That was a married kiss--a two-year-old married kissat least. '"]

"You nasty, good-for-nothing, handsome young devil, you!" she said. "So you're married. "

He sat up with a jerk. "How did you--what makes you think so?"

"That was a married kiss--a two-year-old married kiss, at least. Noboy would get as excited as that about kissing an old stager like me. The chances are you're out of practise. I knew that if it wasn't teethor impediment it must be morals. And it is. "

She moved over on the bench until she was close beside him. "Now, listen to me, boy. " She leaned forward, impressively. "Are youlistening?"

"Yes, " answered the handsome young devil, sullenly. 

"What I've got to say to you isn't so much for your sake, as for yourwife's. I was married when I was eighteen, and stayed married eightyears. I've had my divorce ten years, and my boy is seventeen yearsold. Figure it out. How old is Ann?"

"I don't believe it, " he flashed back. "You're not a day over twenty-six--anyway, you don't look it. I--"

"Thanks, " drawled Emma. "That's because you've never seen me innegligee. A woman's as old as she looks with her hair on the dresserand bed only a few minutes away. Do you know why I was decent to youin the first place? Because I was foolish enough to think that youreminded me of my own kid. Every fond mama is gump enough to thinkthat every Greek god she sees looks like her own boy, even if her ownhappens to squint and have two teeth missing--which mine hasn't, thankthe Lord! He's the greatest young--Well, now, look here, young 'un. I'm going to return good for evil. Traveling men and geniuses shouldnever marry. But as long as you've done it, you might as well startright. If you move from this spot till I get through with you, I'llyell police and murder. Are you ready?"

"I'm dead sorry, on the square, I am--"

"Ten minutes late, " interrupted Emma McChesney. "I'm dishing up asermon, hot, for one, and you've got to choke it down. Whenever I heara traveling man howling about his lonesome evenings, and what a dog'slife it is, and no way for a man to live, I always wonder what kind ofa summer picnic he thinks it is for his wife. She's really a widowseven months in the year, without any of a widow's privileges. Did youever stop to think what she's doing evenings? No, you didn't. Well, I'll tell you. She's sitting home, night after night, probablyembroidering monograms on your shirt sleeves by way of diversion. Andon Saturday night, which is the night when every married woman has theinalienable right to be taken out by her husband, she can listen tothe woman in the flat upstairs getting ready to go to the theater. Thefact that there's a ceiling between 'em doesn't prevent her fromknowing just where they're going, and why he has worked himself into arage over his white lawn tie, and whether they're taking a taxi or thecar and who they're going to meet afterward at supper. Just bylistening to them coming downstairs she can tell how much Mrs. ThirdFlat's silk stockings cost, and if she's wearing her new La Valliereor not. Women have that instinct, you know. Or maybe you don't. There's so much you've missed. "

"Say, look here--" broke from the man beside her. But Emma McChesneylaid her cool fingers on his lips. 

"Nothing from the side-lines, please, " she said. "After they've goneshe can go to bed, or she can sit up, pretending to read, but reallywondering if that squeaky sound coming from the direction of thekitchen is a loose screw in the storm door, or if it's some one tryingto break into the flat. And she'd rather sit there, scared green, thango back through that long hall to find out. And when Tillie comes homewith her young man at eleven o'clock, though she promised not to stayout later than ten, she rushes back to the kitchen and falls on herneck, she's so happy to see her. Oh, it's a gay life. You talk aboutthe heroism of the early Pilgrim mothers! I'd like to know what theyhad on the average traveling man's wife. "

"Bess goes to the matinee every Saturday, " he began, in feebledefense. 

"Matinee!" scoffed Emma McChesney. "Do you think any woman goes tomatinee by preference? Nobody goes but girls of sixteen, and confirmedold maids without brothers, and traveling men's wives. Matinee! Say, would you ever hesitate to choose between an all-day train and asleeper? It's the same idea. What a woman calls going to the theateris something very different. It means taking a nap in the afternoon, so her eyes will be bright at night, and then starting at about fiveo'clock to dress, and lay her husband's clean things out on the bed. She loves it. She even enjoys getting his bath towels ready, andputting his shaving things where he can lay his hands on 'em, andtelling the girl to have dinner ready promptly at six-thirty. It meansgetting out her good dress that hangs in the closet with a cretonnebag covering it, and her black satin coat, and her hat with theparadise aigrettes that she bought with what she saved out of thehousekeeping money. It means her best silk stockings, and her diamondsunburst that he's going to have made over into a La Valliere just assoon as business is better. She loves it all, and her cheeks getpinker and pinker, so that she really doesn't need the little dash ofrouge that she puts on 'because everybody does it, don't you know?'She gets ready, all but her dress, and then she puts on a kimono andslips out to the kitchen to make the gravy for the chicken because thegirl never can get it as smooth as he likes it. That's part of whatshe calls going to the theater, and having a husband. And if there arechildren--"

There came a little, inarticulate sound from the boy. But Emma's quickear caught it. 

"No? Well, then, we'll call that one black mark less for you. But ifthere are children--and for her sake I hope there will be--she'sfather and mother to them. She brings them up, single-handed, whilehe's on the road. And the worst she can do is to say to them, 'Justwait until your father gets home. He'll hear of this. ' But shucks!When he comes home he can't whip the kids for what they did sevenweeks before, and that they've forgotten all about, and for what henever saw, and can't imagine. Besides, he wants his comfort when hegets home. He says he wants a little rest and peace, and he's darnedif he's going to run around evenings. Not much, he isn't! But hedoesn't object to her making a special effort to cook all those littlethings that he's been longing for on the road. Oh, there'll be a seatin Heaven for every traveling man's wife--though at that, I'll betmost of 'em will find themselves stuck behind a post. "

"You're all right!" exclaimed Emma McChesney's listener, suddenly. "How a woman like you can waste her time on the road is more than Ican see. And--I want to thank you. I'm not such a fool--"

"I haven't let you finish a sentence so far and I'm not going to yet. Wait a minute. There's one more paragraph to this sermon. You rememberwhat I told you about old stagers, and the roast beef diet? Well, thatapplies right through life. It's all very well to trifle with thelittle side-dishes at first, but there comes a time when you've got toquit fooling with the minced chicken, and the imitation lamb chops ofthis world, and settle down to plain, everyday, roast beef, medium. That other stuff may tickle your palate for a while, but sooner orlater it will turn on you, and ruin your moral digestion. You stick toroast beef, medium. It may sound prosaic, and unimaginative and dry, but you'll find that it wears in the long run. You can take me over tothe hotel now. I've lost an hour's sleep, but I don't consider itwasted. And you'll oblige me by putting the stopper on anyconversation that may occur to you between here and the hotel. I'vetalked until I'm so low on words that I'll probably have to sellfeatherlooms in sign language to-morrow. "

They walked to the very doors of the Berger House in silence. But atthe foot of the stairs that led to the parlor floor he stopped, andlooked into Emma McChesney's face. His own was rather white and tense. 

"Look here, " he said. "I've got to thank you. That sounds idiotic, butI guess you know what I mean. And I won't ask you to forgive a houndlike me. I haven't been so ashamed of myself since I was a kid. Why, if you knew Bess--if you knew--"

"I guess I know Bess, all right. I used to be a Bess, myself. Justbecause I'm a traveling man it doesn't follow that I've forgotten theBess feeling. As far as that goes, I don't mind telling you that I'vegot neuralgia from sitting in that park with my feet in the dampgrass. I can feel it in my back teeth, and by eleven o'clock it willbe camping over my left eye, with its little brothers doing a wardance up the side of my face. And, boy, I'd give last week'scommissions if there was some one to whom I had the right to say:'Henry, will you get up and get me a hot-water bag for my neuralgia?It's something awful. And just open the left-hand lower drawer of thechiffonier and get out one of those gauze vests and then get me asafety pin from the tray on my dresser. I'm going to pin it around myhead. '"

[Illustration: "'I won't ask you to forgive a hound like me'"]

II

REPRESENTING T. A. BUCK

Emma McChesney, Mrs. (I place it in the background because shegenerally did) swung off the 2:15, crossed the depot platform, anddived into the hotel 'bus. She had to climb over the feet of a fat manin brown and a lean man in black, to do it. Long practise had made herperfect in the art. She knew that the fat man and the thin man werehogging the end seats so that they could be the first to register andget a choice of rooms when the 'bus reached the hotel. The vehiclesmelled of straw, and mold, and stables, and dampness, and tobacco, as'buses have from old Jonas Chuzzlewit's time to this. Nine years onthe road had accustomed Emma McChesney's nostrils to 'bus smells. Shegazed stolidly out of the window, crossed one leg over the other, remembered that her snug suit-skirt wasn't built for that attitude, uncrossed them again, and caught the delighted and understanding eyeof the fat traveling man, who was a symphony in brown--brown suit, brown oxfords, brown scarf, brown bat, brown-bordered handkerchiefjust peeping over the edge of his pocket. He looked like a colossalchocolate fudge. 

"Red-faced, grinning, and a naughty wink--I'll bet he sells coffinsand undertakers' supplies, " mused Emma McChesney. "And the other one--the tall, lank, funereal affair in black--I suppose his line would besheet music, or maybe phonographs. Or perhaps he's a lyceum bureaureader, scheduled to give an evening of humorous readings for theYoung Men's Sunday Evening Club course at the First M. E. Church. "

During those nine years on the road for the Featherloom Skirt CompanyEmma McChesney had picked up a side line or two on human nature. 

She was not surprised to see the fat man in brown and the thin man inblack leap out of the 'bus and into the hotel before she had had timeto straighten her hat after the wheels had bumped up against thecurbing. By the time she reached the desk the two were disappearing inthe wake of a bell-boy. 

The sartorial triumph behind the desk, languidly read her signatureupside down, took a disinterested look at her, and yelled:

"Front! Show the lady up to nineteen. "

Emma McChesney took three steps in the direction of the stairwaytoward which the boy was headed with her bags. Then she stopped. 

"Wait a minute, boy, " she said, pleasantly enough; and walked back tothe desk. She eyed the clerk, a half-smile on her lips, one arm, inits neat tailored sleeve, resting on the marble, while her rightforefinger, trimly gloved, tapped an imperative little tattoo. (Perhaps you think that last descriptive sentence is as unnecessary asit is garbled. But don't you get a little picture of her--trim, taut, tailored, mannish-booted, flat-heeled, linen-collared, sailor-hatted?)

"You've made a mistake, haven't you?" she inquired. 

Mistake?" repeated the clerk, removing his eyes from their lovingcontemplation of his right thumb-nail. "Guess not. "

"Oh, think it over, " drawled Emma McChesney. "I've never seennineteen, but I can describe it with both eyes shut, and one hand tiedbehind me. It's an inside room, isn't it, over the kitchen, and justnext to the water butt where the maids come to draw water for thescrubbing at 5 A. M. ? And the boiler room gets in its best bumps fornineteen, and the patent ventilators work just next door, and there'sa pet rat that makes his headquarters in the wall between eighteen andnineteen, and the housekeeper whose room is across the hail isafflicted with a bronchial cough, nights. I'm wise to the brand ofwelcome that you fellows hand out to us women on the road. This is newterritory for me--my first trip West. Think it over. Don't--er--say, sixty-five strike you as being nearer my size?"

The clerk stared at Emma McChesney, and Emma McChesney coolly staredback at the clerk. 

"Our aim, " began he, loftily, "is to make our guests as comfortable aspossible on all occasions. But the last lady drummer who--"

"That's all right, " interrupted Emma McChesney, "but I'm not the kindthat steals the towels, and I don't carry an electric iron with me, either. Also I don't get chummy with the housekeeper and the dining-room girls half an hour after I move in. Most women drummers areliving up to their reputations, but some of us are living 'em down. I'm for revision downward. You haven't got my number, that's all. "

A slow gleam of unwilling admiration illumined the clerk's chill eye. He turned and extracted another key with its jangling metal tag, fromone of the many pigeonholes behind him. 

"You win, " he said. He leaned over the desk and lowered his voicediscreetly. "Say, girlie, go on into the cafe and have a drink on me. "

"Wrong again, " answered Emma McChesney. "Never use it. Bad for thecomplexion. Thanks just the same. Nice little hotel you've got here. "

In the corridor leading to sixty-five there was a great litter ofpails, and mops, and brooms, and damp rags, and one heard the sigh ofa vacuum cleaner. 

"Spring house-cleaning, " explained the bellboy, hurdling a pail. 

Emma McChesney picked her way over a little heap of dust-cloths and aladder or so. 

"House-cleaning, " she repeated dreamily; "spring house-cleaning. " Andthere came a troubled, yearning light into her eyes. It lingered thereafter the boy had unlocked and thrown open the door of sixty-five, pocketed his dime, and departed. 

Sixty-five was--well, you know what sixty-five generally is in a smallMiddle-Western town. Iron bed--tan wall-paper--pine table--pinedresser--pine chair--red carpet--stuffy smell--fly buzzing at window--sun beating in from the west. Emma McChesney saw it all in oneaccustomed glance. 

"Lordy, I hate to think what nineteen must be, " she told herself, andunclasped her bag. Out came the first aid to the travel-stained--a jarof cold cream. It was followed by powder, chamois, brush, comb, tooth-brush. Emma McChesney dug four fingers into the cold cream jar, slapped the stuff on her face, rubbed it in a bit, wiped it off with adry towel, straightened her hat, dusted the chamois over her face, glanced at her watch and hurriedly whisked downstairs. 

"After all, " she mused, "that thin guy might not be out for a musichouse. Maybe his line is skirts, too. You never can tell. Anyway, I'llbeat him to it. "

Saturday afternoon and spring-time in a small town! Do you know it?Main Street--on the right side--all a-bustle; farmers' wagons drawn upat the curbing; farmers' wives in the inevitable rusty black withdowdy hats furbished up with a red muslin rose in honor of spring;grand opening at the new five-and-ten-cent store, with women streamingin and streaming out again, each with a souvenir pink carnation pinnedto her coat; every one carrying bundles and yellow paper bags thatmight contain bananas or hats or grass seed; the thirty-twoautomobiles that the town boasts all dashing up and down the street, driven by hatless youths in careful college clothes; a crowd of atleast eleven waiting at Jenson's drug-store corner for the nextinterurban car. 

Emma McChesney found herself strolling when she should have beenhustling in the direction of the Novelty Cloak and Suit Store. She wasaware of a vague, strangely restless feeling in the region of herheart--or was it her liver?--or her lungs?

Reluctantly she turned in at the entrance of the Novelty Cloak andSuit Store and asked for the buyer. (Here we might introduce one ofthose side-splitting little business deal scenes. But there can bepaid no finer compliment to Emma McChesney's saleswomanship than tostate that she landed her man on a busy Saturday afternoon, with astore full of customers and the head woman clerk dead against her fromthe start. )

As she was leaving:

"Generally it's the other way around, " smiled the boss, regardingEmma's trim comeliness, "but seeing you're a lady, why, it'll be onme. " He reached for his hat. "Let's go and have--ah--a littlesomething. "

"Not any, thanks, " Emma McChesney replied, a little wearily. 

On her way back to the hotel she frankly loitered. Just to look at hermade you certain that she was not of our town. Now, that doesn't implythat the women of our town do not dress well, because they do. Butthere was something about her--a flirt of chiffon at the throat, orher hat quill stuck in a certain way, or the stitching on her gloves, or the vamp of her shoe--that was of a style which had not reached usyet. 

As Emma McChesney loitered, looking in at the shop windows andwatching the women hurrying by, intent on the purchase of their Sundaydinners, that vaguely restless feeling seized her again. There wererows of plump fowls in the butcher-shop windows, and juicy roasts. Thecunning hand of the butcher had enhanced the redness of the meat bytrimmings of curly parsley. Salad things and new vegetables glowedbehind the grocers' plate-glass. There were the tender green oflettuces, the coral of tomatoes, the brown-green of stout asparagusstalks, bins of spring peas and beans, and carrots, and bunches ofgreens for soup. There came over the businesslike soul of EmmaMcChesney a wild longing to go in and select a ten-pound roast, takingcare that there should be just the right proportion of creamy fat andred meat. She wanted to go in and poke her fingers in the ribs of abroiler. She wanted to order wildly of sweet potatoes and vegetables, and soup bones, and apples for pies. She ached to turn back hersleeves and don a blue-and-white checked apron and roll out noodles. 

She still was fighting that wild impulse as she walked back to thehotel, went up to her stuffy room, and, without removing hat or coat, seated herself on the edge of the bed and stared long and hard at thetan wall-paper. 

There is this peculiarity about tan wall-paper. If you stare at itlong enough you begin to see things. Emma McChesney, who pulled downsomething over thirty-two hundred a year selling FeatherloomPetticoats, saw this:

A kitchen, very bright and clean, with a cluttered kind of cleanlinessthat bespeaks many housewifely tasks under way. There were mixingbowls, and saucepans, and a kettle or so, and from the oven there camethe sounds of sputtering and hissing. About the room there hung thedivinely delectable scent of freshly baked cookies. Emma McChesney sawherself in an all-enveloping checked gingham apron, her sleeves rolledup, her hair somewhat wild, and one lock powdered with white where shehad pushed it back with a floury hand. Her cheeks were surprisinglypink, and her eyes were very bright, and she was scraping a bakingboard and rolling-pin, and trimming the edges of pie tins, and turningwith a whirl to open the oven door, stooping to dip up spoonfuls ofgravy only to pour the rich brown liquid over the meat again. Therewere things on top of the stove that required sticking into with afork, and other things that demanded tasting and stirring with aspoon. A neighbor came in to borrow a cup of molasses, and Emma urgedupon her one of her freshly baked cookies. And there was a ring at thefront-door bell, and she had to rush away to do battle with apersistent book agent. . . . 

The buzzing fly alighted on Emma McChesney's left eyebrow. She swattedit with a hand that was not quite quick enough, spoiled the picture, and slowly rose from her perch at the bedside. 

"Oh, damn!" she remarked, wearily, and went over to the dresser. Thenshe pulled down her shirtwaist all around and went down to supper. 

The dining-room was very warm, and there came a smell of lardy thingsfrom the kitchen. Those supping were doing so languidly. 

"I'm dying for something cool, and green, and fresh, " remarked Emma tothe girl who filled her glass with iced water; "something springishand tempting. "

"Well, " sing-songed she of the ruffled, starched skirt, "we haveham'n-aigs, mutton chops, cold veal, cold roast--"

"Two, fried, " interrupted Emma hopelessly, "and a pot of tea--black. "

Supper over she passed through the lobby on her way upstairs. Theplace was filled with men. They were lolling in the big leather chairsat the window, or standing about, smoking and talking. There was arattle of dice from the cigar counter, and a burst of laughter fromthe men gathered about it. It all looked very bright, and cheery, andsociable. Emma McChesney, turning to ascend the stairs to her room, felt that she, too, would like to sit in one of the big leather chairsin the window and talk to some one. 

Some one was playing the piano in the parlor. The doors were open. Emma McChesney glanced in. Then she stopped. It was not the appearanceof the room that held her. You may have heard of the wilds of anAfrican jungle--the trackless wastes of the desert--the solitude ofthe forest--the limitless stretch of the storm-tossed ocean; they arecozy and snug when compared to the utter and soul-searing drearinessof a small town hotel parlor. You know what it is--red carpet, redplush and brocade furniture, full-length walnut mirror, battered pianoon which reposes a sheet of music given away with the Sundaysupplement of a city paper. 

A man was seated at the piano, playing. He was not playing the Sundaysupplement sheet music. His brown hat was pushed back on his head andthere was a fat cigar in his pursy mouth, and as he played he squintedup through the smoke. He was playing Mendelssohn's Spring Song. Not asyou have heard it played by sweet young things; not as you have heardit rendered by the Apollo String Quartette. Under his fingers it was afragrant, trembling, laughing, sobbing, exquisite thing. He wasplaying it in a way to make you stare straight ahead and swallow hard. 

Emma McChesney leaned her head against the door. The man at the pianodid not turn. So she tip-toed in, found a chair in a corner, andnoiselessly slipped into it. She sat very still, listening, and thepast-that-might-have-been, and the future-that-was-to-be, stretchedbehind and before her, as is strangely often the case when we arelistening to music. She stared ahead with eyes that were very wideopen and bright. Something in the attitude of the man sitting hunchedthere over the piano keys, and something in the beauty and pathos ofthe music brought a hot haze of tears to her eyes. She leaned her headagainst the back of the chair, and shut her eyes and wept quietly andheart-brokenly. The tears slid down her cheeks, and dropped on hersmart tailored waist and her Irish lace jabot, and she didn't care abit. 

The last lovely note died away. The fat man's hands dropped limply tohis sides. Emma McChesney stared at them, fascinated. They were quitemarvelous hands; not at all the sort of hands one would expect to seeattached to the wrists of a fat man. They were slim, nervous, sensitive hands, pink-tipped, tapering, blue-veined, delicate. As EmmaMcChesney stared at them the man turned slowly on the revolving stool. His plump, pink face was dolorous, sagging, wan-eyed. 

He watched Emma McChesney as she sat up and dried her eyes. Asatisfied light dawned in his face. 

"Thanks, " he said, and mopped his forehead and chin and neck with thebrown-edged handkerchief. 

"You--you can't be Paderewski. He's thin. But if he plays any betterthan that, then I don't want to hear him. You've upset me for the restof the week. You've started me thinking about things--about thingsthat--that-"

The fat man clasped his thin, nervous hands in front of him and leanedforward. 

"About things that you're trying to forget. It starts me that way, too. That's why sometimes I don't touch the keys for weeks. Say, whatdo you think of a man who can play like that, and who is out on theroad for a living just because he knows it's a sure thing? Music!That's my gift. And I've buried it. Why? Because the public won't takea fat man seriously. When he sits down at the piano they begin to howlfor Italian rag. Why, I'd rather play the piano in a five-cent movingpicture house than do what I'm doing now. But the old man wanted hisson to be a business man, not a crazy, piano-playing galoot. That'sthe way he put it. And I was darn fool enough to think he was right. Why can't people stand up and do the things they're out to do! Not oneperson in a thousand does. Why, take you--I don't know you from Eve, but just from the way you shed the briny I know you're busyregretting. "

"Regretting?" repeated Emma McChesney, in a wail. "Do you know what Iam? I'm a lady drummer. And do you know what I want to do this minute?I want to clean house. I want to wind a towel around my head, and pinup my skirt, and slosh around with a pail of hot, soapy water. I wantto pound a couple of mattresses in the back yard, and eat a colddinner off the kitchen table. That's what I want to do. "

"Well, go on and do it, " said the fat man. 

"Do it? I haven't any house to clean. I got my divorce ten years ago, and I've been on the road ever since. I don't know why I stick. I'mpulling down a good, fat salary and commissions, but it's no life fora woman, and I know it, but I'm not big enough to quit. It's differentwith a man on the road. He can spend his evenings taking in two orthree nickel shows, or he can stand on the drug-store corner and watchthe pretty girls go by, or he can have a game of billiards, or maybecards. Or he can have a nice, quiet time just going up to his room, and smoking a cigar and writing to his wife or his girl. D'you knowwhat I do?"

"No, " answered the fat man, interestedly. "What?"

"Evenings I go up to my room and sew or read. Sew! Every hook and eyeand button on my clothes is moored so tight that even the hand laundrycan't tear 'em off. You couldn't pry those fastenings away withdynamite. When I find a hole in my stockings I'm tickled to death, because it's something to mend. And read? Everything from the Rules ofthe House tacked up on the door to spelling out the French short storyin the back of the Swell Set Magazine. It's getting on my nerves. Doyou know what I do Sunday mornings? No, you don't. Well, I go tochurch, that's what I do. And I get green with envy watching the otherwomen there getting nervous about 11:45 or so, when the minister isstill in knee-deep, and I know they're wondering if Lizzie has bastedthe chicken often enough, and if she has put the celery in cold water, and the ice-cream is packed in burlap in the cellar, and if she hasforgotten to mix in a tablespoon of flour to make it smooth. You cantell by the look on their faces that there's company for dinner. Andyou know that after dinner they'll sit around, and the men will smoke, and the women folks will go upstairs, and she'll show the other womanher new scalloped, monogrammed, hand-embroidered guest towels, and thewaist that her cousin Ethel brought from Paris. And maybe they'll slipoff their skirts and lie down on the spare-room bed for a ten minutes'nap. And you can hear the hired girl rattling the dishes in thekitchen, and talking to her lady friend who is helping her wipe up sothey can get out early. You can hear the two of them laughing abovethe clatter of the dishes--"

The fat man banged one fist down on the piano keys with a crash. 

"I'm through, " he said. "I quit to-night. I've got my own life tolive. Here, will you shake on it? I'll quit if you will. You're a bornhousekeeper. You don't belong on the road any more than I do. It's nowor never. And it's going to be now with me. When I strike the pearlygates I'm not going to have Saint Peter say to me, 'Ed, old kid, whathave you done with your talents?'"

"You're right, " sobbed Emma McChesney, her face glowing. 

"By the way, " interrupted the fat man, "what's your line?"

"Petticoats. I'm out for T. A. Buck's Featherloom Skirts. What'syours?"

"Suffering cats!" shouted the fat man. "D' you mean to tell me thatyou're the fellow who sold that bill to Blum, of the Novelty Cloak andSuit concern, and spoiled a sale for me?"

"You! Are you--"

"You bet I am. I sell the best little skirt in the world. Strauss'sSans-silk Petticoat, warranted not to crack, rip, or fall into holes. Greatest little skirt in the country. "

Emma McChesney straightened her collar and jabot with a jerk, and satup. 

"Oh, now, don't give me that bunk. You've got a good little seller, all right, but that guaranty don't hold water any more than thepetticoat contains silk. I know that stuff. It looms up big in thewindow displays, but it's got a filler of glucose, or starch ormucilage or something, and two days after you wear it it's as limp asa cheesecloth rag. It's showy, but you take a line like mine, forinstance, why--"

"My customers swear by me. I make DeKalb to-morrow, and there'sNussbaum, of the Paris Emporium, the biggest store there, who just--"

"I make DeKalb, too, " remarked Emma McChesney, the light of battle inher eye. 

"You mean, " gently insinuated the fat man, "that you were going to, but that's all over now. "

"Huh?" said Emma. 

"Our agreement, you know, " the fat man reminded her, sweetly. "Youaren't going back on that. The cottage and the Sunday dinner for you, remember. "

Of course, " agreed Emma listlessly. " I think I'll go up and get somesleep now. Didn't get much last night on the road. "

"Won't you--er--come down and have a little something moist? Or wecould have it sent up here, " suggested the fat man. 

"You're the third man that's asked me that to-day, " snapped EmmaMcChesney, somewhat crossly. "Say, what do I look like, anyway? Iguess I'll have to pin a white ribbon on my coat lapel. "

"No offense, " put in the fat man, with haste. "I just thought it wouldbind our bargain. I hope you'll be happy, and contented, and all that, you know. "

"Let it go double, " replied Emma McChesney, and shook his hand. 

"Guess I'll run down and get a smoke, " remarked he. 

He ran down the stairs in a manner wonderfully airy for one so stout. Emma watched him until he disappeared around a bend in the stairs. Then she walked hastily in the direction of sixty-five. 

Down in the lobby the fat man, cigar in mouth, was cautioning theclerk, and emphasizing his remarks with one forefinger. 

"I want to leave a call for six thirty, " he was saying. "Not a minutelater. I've got to get out of here on that 7:35 for DeKalb. Got aSunday customer there. "

As he turned away a telephone bell tinkled at the desk. The clerk benthis stately head. 

"Clerk. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am, there's no train out of here to-nightfor DeKalb. To-morrow morning. Seven thirty-five A. M. I sure will. Atsix-thirty? Surest thing you know. "

III

CHICKENS

For the benefit of the bewildered reader it should be said that thereare two distinct species of chickens. There is the chicken which youfind in the barnyard, in the incubator, or on a hat. And there is thetype indigenous to State Street, Chicago. Each is known by itsfeathers. The barnyard variety may puzzle the amateur fancier, butthere is no mistaking the State Street chicken. It is known by itssoiled, high, white canvas boots; by its tight, short black skirt; byits slug pearl earrings; by its bewildering coiffure. By every line ofits slim young body, by every curve of its cheek and throat you knowit is adorably, pitifully young. By its carmined lip, its near-smarthat, its babbling of "him, " and by the knowledge which looks boldlyout of its eyes you know it is tragically old. 

Seated in the Pullman car, with a friendly newspaper protecting herbright hair from the doubtful gray-white of the chair cover, EmmaMcChesney, traveling saleswoman for T. A. Buck's FeatherloomPetticoats, was watching the telegraph poles chase each other back toDuluth, Minnesota, and thinking fondly of Mary Cutting, who is themother-confessor and comforter of the State Street chicken. 

Now, Duluth, Minnesota, is trying to be a city. In watching itsstruggles a hunger for a taste of the real city had come upon EmmaMcChesney. She had been out with her late Fall line from May untilSeptember. Every Middle-Western town of five thousand inhabitants orover had received its share of Emma McChesney's attention andpetticoats. It had been a mystifyingly good season in a bad businessyear. Even old T. A. Himself was almost satisfied. Commissions piledup with gratifying regularity for Emma McChesney. Then, quitesuddenly, the lonely evenings, the lack of woman companionship, andthe longing for a sight of her seventeen-year-old son had got on EmmaMcChesney's nerves. 

She was two days ahead of her schedule, whereupon she wired her son, thus:

_"Dear Kid:_

"Meet me Chicago usual place Friday large time my treat. MOTHER. "

Then she had packed her bag, wired Mary Cutting that she would see herThursday, and had taken the first train out for Chicago. 

You might have found the car close, stuffy, and uninteresting. Tenyears on the road had taught Emma McChesney to extract a maximum ofenjoyment out of a minimum of material. Emma McChesney's favoriteoccupation was selling T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats, and herfavorite pastime was studying men and women. The two things went welltogether. 

When the train stopped for a minute or two you could hear a faintrattle and click from the direction of the smoking compartment wherethree jewelry salesmen from Providence, Rhode Island, were indulgingin their beloved, but dangerous diversion of dice throwing. Justacross the aisle was a woman, with her daughter, Chicago-bound to buya trousseau. They were typical, wealthy small-town women smartlygarbed in a fashion not more than twenty minutes late. In the quietermoments of the trip Emma McChesney could hear the mother's high-pitched, East End Ladies' Reading Club voice saying:

"I'd have the velvet suit made fussy, with a real fancy waist to forafternoons. You can go anywhere in a handsome velvet three-piecesuit. "

The girl had smiled, dreamily, and gazed out of the car window. "Iwonder, " she said, "if there'll be a letter from George. He said hewould sit right down and write. "

In the safe seclusion of her high-backed chair Emma McChesney smiledapprovingly. Seventeen years ago, when her son had been born, and tenyears ago, when she had got her divorce, Emma McChesney had thankedher God that her boy had not been a girl. Sometimes, now, she was notso sure about it. It must be fascinating work--selecting velvet suits, made "fussy, " for a daughter's trousseau. 

Just how fully those five months of small-town existence had got onher nerves Emma McChesney did not realize until the train snorted intothe shed and she sniffed the mingled smell of smoke and stockyards andfound it sweet in her nostrils. An unholy joy seized her. She enteredthe Biggest Store and made for the millinery department, yielding toan uncontrollable desire to buy a hat. It was a pert, trim, smartlittle hat. It made her thirty-six years seem less possible than ever, and her seventeen-year-old son an absurdity. 

It was four-thirty when she took the elevator up to Mary Cutting'soffice on the tenth floor. She knew she would find Mary Cutting there--Mary Cutting, friend, counselor, adviser to every young girl in thegreat store and to all Chicago's silly, helpless "chickens. "

A dragon sat before Mary Cutting's door and wrote names on slips. Butat sight of Emma McChesney she laid down her pencil. 

"Well, " smiled the dragon, "you're a sight for sore eyes. There'snobody in there with her. Just walk in and surprise her. "

At a rosewood desk in a tiny cozy office sat a pink-cheeked, white-haired woman. You associated her in your mind with black velvet andreal lace. She did not look up as Emma McChesney entered. EmmaMcChesney waited for one small moment. Then:

"Cut out the bank president stuff, Mary Cutting, and make a fuss overme, " she commanded. 

The pink-cheeked, white-haired woman looked up. You saw that her eyeswere wonderfully young. She made three marks on a piece of paper, pushed a call-button at her desk, rose, and hugged Emma McChesneythoroughly and satisfactorily, then held her off a moment and demandedto know where she had bought her hat. 

"Got it ten minutes ago, in the millinery department downstairs. Hadto. If I'd have come into New York after five months' exile like thisI'd probably have bought a brocade and fur-edged evening wrap, torelieve this feeling of wild joy. For five months I've spent myevenings in my hotel room, or watching the Maude Byrnes Stock Companyplaying "Lena Rivers, " with the ingenue coming out between the acts ina calico apron and a pink sunbonnet and doing a thing they bill asvaudeville. I'm dying to see a real show--a smart one that hasn't runtwo hundred nights on Broadway--one with pretty girls, and pinktights, and a lot of moonrises, and sunsets and things, and a primadonna in a dress so stunning that all the women in the audience arebusy copying it so they can describe it to their home-dressmaker nextday. "

"Poor, poor child, " said Mary Cutting, "I don't seem to recall anysuch show. "

"Well, it will look that way to me, anyway, " said Emma McChesney. "I've wired Jock to meet me to-morrow, and I'm going to give the childa really sizzling little vacation. But to-night you and I will have anold-girl frolic. We'll have dinner together somewhere downtown, andthen we'll go to the theater, and after that I'm coming out to thatblessed flat of yours and sleep between real sheets. We'll have somesandwiches and beer and other things out of the ice-box, and thenwe'll have a bathroom bee. We'll let down our back hair, and slap coldcream around, and tell our hearts' secrets and use up all the hotwater. Lordy! It will be a luxury to have a bath in a tub that doesn'tmake you feel as though you wanted to scrub it out with lye andcarbolic. Come on, Mary Cutting. "

Mary Cutting's pink cheeks dimpled like a girl's. 

[Illustration: "'You'll never grow up, Emma McChesney'"]

"You'll never grow up, Emma McChesney--at least, I hope you neverwill. Sit there in the corner and be a good child, and I'll be readyfor you in ten minutes. "

Peace settled down on the tiny office. Emma McChesney, there in hercorner, surveyed the little room with entire approval. It breathed ofthings restful, wholesome, comforting. There was a bowl of sweet peason the desk; there was an Indian sweet grass basket filled with autumnleaves in the corner; there was an air of orderliness and good taste;and there was the pink-cheeked, white-haired woman at the desk. 

"There!" said Mary Cutting, at last. She removed her glasses, snappedthem up on a little spring-chain near her shoulder, sat back, andsmiled upon Emma McChesney. 

Emma McChesney smiled back at her. Theirs was not a talkingfriendship. It was a thing of depth and understanding, like thefriendship between two men. 

They sat looking into each other's eyes, and down beyond, where thesoul holds forth. And because what each saw there was beautiful andsightly they were seized with a shyness such as two men feel when theylove each other, and so they awkwardly endeavored to cover up theirshyness with words. 

"You could stand a facial and a decent scalp massage, Emma, " observedMary Cutting in a tone pregnant with love and devotion. "Your hairlooks a little dry. Those small-town manicures don't know how to givea real treatment. "

"I'll have it to-morrow morning, before the Kid gets in at eleven. Asthe Lily Russell of the traveling profession I can't afford to let mybeauty wane. That complexion of yours makes me mad, Mary. It goesthrough a course of hard water and Chicago dirt and comes up lookinglike a rose leaf with the morning dew on it. Where'll we have supper?"

"I know a new place, " replied Mary Cutting. "German, but not greasy. "

She was sorting, marking, and pigeonholing various papers andenvelopes. When her desk was quite tidy she shut and locked it, andcame over to Emma McChesney. 

"Something nice happened to me to-day, " she said, softly. "Somethingthat made me realize how worth while life is. You know we have fivethousand women working here--almost double that during the holidays. Alot of them are under twenty and, Emma, a working girl, under twenty, in a city like this--Well, a brand new girl was looking for me today. She didn't know the way to my office, and she didn't know my name. Soshe stopped one of the older clerks, blushed a little, and said, 'Canyou tell me the way to the office of the Comfort Lady?' That's worthworking for, isn't it, Emma McChesney?"

"It's worth living for, " answered Emma McChesney, gravely. "It--it'sworth dying for. To think that those girls come to you with theirlittle sacred things, their troubles, and misfortunes, andunhappinesses and--"

"And their disgraces--sometimes, " Mary Cutting finished for her. "Oh, Emma McChesney, sometimes I wonder why there isn't a national schoolfor the education of mothers. I marvel at their ignorance more andmore every day. Remember, Emma, when we were kids our mothers used tosend us flying to the grocery on baking day? All the way from ourhouse to Hine's grocery I'd have to keep on saying, over and over:'Sugar, butter, molasses; sugar, butter, molasses; sugar, butter, molasses. ' If I stopped for a minute I'd forget the whole thing. Itisn't so different now. Sometimes at night, going home in the carafter a day so bad that the whole world seems rotten, I make myselfsay, over and over, as I used to repeat my 'Sugar, butter, andmolasses. ' 'It's a glorious, good old world; it's a glorious, good oldworld; it's a glorious, good old world. ' And I daren't stop for aminute for fear of forgetting my lesson. "

For the third time in that short half-hour a silence fell between thetwo--a silence of perfect sympathy and understanding. 

Five little strokes, tripping over each other in their haste, camefrom the tiny clock on Mary Cutting's desk. It roused them both. 

"Come on, old girl, " said Mary Cutting. "I've a chore or two still todo before my day is finished. Come along, if you like. There's a newgirl at the perfumes who wears too many braids, and puffs, and curls, and in the basement misses' ready-to-wear there's another who likes tobreak store rules about short-sleeved, lace-yoked lingerie waists. Andone of the floor managers tells me that a young chap of that callow, semi-objectionable, high-school fraternity, flat-heeled shoe type hasbeen persistently hanging around the desk of the pretty little bundleinspector at the veilings. We're trying to clear the store of thattype. They call girls of that description chickens. I wonder why someone hasn't found a name for the masculine chicken. "

[Illustration: "'Well, s'long, then, Shrimp. See you at eight'"]

"I'll give 'em one, " said Emma McChesney as they swung down a broad, bright aisle of the store. "Call 'em weasels. That covers their style, occupation, and character. "

They swung around the corner to the veilings, and there they saw thevery pretty, very blond, very young "chicken" deep in conversationwith her weasel. The weasel's trousers were very tight and English, and his hat was properly woolly and Alpine and dented very much on oneside and his heels were fashionably flat, and his hair was slicklypompadour. 

Mary Cutting and Emma McChesney approached them very quietly just intime to hear the weasel say:

"Well, s' long then, Shrimp. See you at eight. "

And he swung around and faced them. 

That sick horror of uncertainty which had clutched at Emma McChesneywhen first she saw the weasel's back held her with awful certaintynow. But ten years on the road had taught her self-control, amongother things. So she looked steadily and calmly into her son's scarletface. Jock's father had been a liar. 

She put her hand on the boy's arm. 

"You're a day ahead of schedule, Jock, " she said evenly. 

"So are you, " retorted Jock, sullenly, his hands jammed into hispockets. 

"All the better for both of us, Kid. I was just going over to thehotel to clean up, Jock. Come along, boy. "

The boy's jaw set. His eyes sought any haven but that of EmmaMcChesney's eyes. "I can't, " he said, his voice very low. "I've anengagement to take dinner with a bunch of the fellows. We're goingdown to the Inn. Sorry. "

A certain cold rigidity settled over Emma McChesney's face. She eyedher son in silence until his miserable eyes, perforce, looked up intohers. 

"I'm afraid you'll have to break your engagement, " she said. 

She turned to face Mary Cutting's regretful, understanding gaze. Hereyebrows lifted slightly. Her head inclined ever so little in thedirection of the half-scared, half-defiant "chicken. "

"You attend to your chicken, Mary, " she said. "I'll see to my weasel. "

So Emma McChesney and her son Jock, looking remarkably like brotherand sister, walked down the broad store aisles and out into thestreet. There was little conversation between them. When the pillaredentrance of the hotel came into sight Jock broke the silence, sullenly:

"Why do you stop at that old barracks? It's a rotten place for awoman. No one stops there but clothing salesmen and boobs who stillthink it's Chicago's leading hotel. No place for a lady. "

"Any place in the world is the place for a lady, Jock, " said EmmaMcChesney quietly. 

Automatically she started toward the clerk's desk. Then sheremembered, and stopped. "I'll wait here, " she said. "Get the key forfive-eighteen, will you please? And tell the clerk that I'll want theroom adjoining beginning to-night, instead of to-morrow, as I firstintended. Tell him you're Mrs. McChesney's son. "

He turned away. Emma McChesney brought her handkerchief up to hermouth and held it there a moment, and the skin showed white over theknuckles of her hand. In that moment every one of her thirty-six yearswere on the table, face up. 

"We'll wash up, " said Emma McChesney, when he returned, "and thenwe'll have dinner here. "

"I don't want to eat here, " objected Jock McChesney. "Besides, there'sno reason why I can't keep my evening's engagements. "

"And after dinner, " went on his mother, as though she had not heard, "we'll get acquainted, Kid. "

It was a cheerless, rather tragic meal, though Emma McChesney saw itthrough from soup to finger-bowls. When it was over she led the waydown the old-fashioned, red-carpeted corridors to her room. It was thesort of room to get on its occupant's nerves at any time, with its redplush arm-chairs, its black walnut bed, and its walnut center tableinlaid with an apoplectic slab of purplish marble. 

[Illustration: "'I'm still in position to enforce that ordinanceagainst pouting'"]

Emma McChesney took off her hat before the dim old mirror, and stoodthere, fluffing out her hair here, patting it there. Jock had thrownhis hat and coat on the bed. He stood now, leaning against thefootboard, his legs crossed, his chin on his breast, his wholeattitude breathing sullen defiance. 

"Jock, " said his mother, still patting her hair, "perhaps you don'tknow it, but you're pouting just as you used to when you worepinafores. I always hated pouting children. I'd rather hear them howl. I used to spank you for it. I have prided myself on being a modernmother, but I want to mention, in passing, that I'm still in aposition to enforce that ordinance against pouting. " She turned aroundabruptly. "Jock, tell me, how did you happen to come here a day aheadof me, and how do you happen to be so chummy with that pretty, weak-faced little thing at the veiling counter, and how, in the name of allthat's unbelievable, have you managed to become a grown-up in the lastfew months?"

Jock regarded the mercifully faded roses in the carpet. His lower lipcame forward again. 

"Oh, a fellow can't always be tied to his mother's apron strings. Ilike to have a little fling myself. I know a lot of fellows here. Theyare frat brothers. And anyway, I needed some new clothes. "

For one long moment Emma McChesney stared, in silence. Then: "Ofcourse, " she began, slowly, "I knew you were seventeen years old. I'veeven bragged about it. I've done more than that--I've gloried in it. But somehow, whenever I thought of you in my heart--and that was agreat deal of the time it was as though you still were a little tykein knee-pants, with your cap on the back of your head, and a chunk ofapple bulging your cheek. Jock, I've been earning close to sixthousand a year since I put in that side line of garters. Just howmuch spending money have I been providing you with?"

Jock twirled a coat button uncomfortably "Well, quite a lot. But afellow's got to have money to keep up appearances. A lot of thefellows in my crowd have more than I. There are clothes, and tobacco, and then flowers and cabs for the skirts--girls, I mean, and--"

"Kid, " impressively, "I want you to sit down over there in that plushchair--the red one, with the lumps in the back. I want you to beuncomfortable. From where I am sitting I can see that in you there isthe making of a first-class cad. That's no pleasant thing for a motherto realize. Now don't interrupt me. I'm going to be chairman, speaker, program, and ways-and-means committee of this meeting. Jock, I got mydivorce from your father ten years ago. Now, I'm not going to sayanything about him. Just this one thing. You're not going to follow inhis footsteps, Kid. Not if I have to take you to pieces like a nickelwatch and put you all together again. You're Emma McChesney's son, andten years from now I intend to be able to brag about it, or I'll wantto know the reason why--and it'll have to be a blamed good reason. "

"I'd like to know what I've done!" blurted the boy. "Just because Ihappened to come here a few hours before you expected me, and justbecause you saw me talking to a girl! Why--"

"It isn't what you've done. It's what those things stand for. I'vebeen at fault. But I'm willing to admit it. Your mother is a workingwoman, Jock. You don't like that idea, do you? But you don't mindspending the money that the working woman provides you with, do you?I'm earning a man's salary. But Jock, you oughtn't to be willing tolive on it. 

"What do you want me to do?" demanded Jock. "I'm not out of highschool yet. Other fellows whose fathers aren't earning as much--"

"Fathers, " interrupted Emma McChesney. "There you are. Jock, I don'thave to make the distinction for you. You're sufficiently my son toknow it, in your heart. I had planned to give you a college education, if you showed yourself deserving. I don't believe in sending a boy inyour position to college unless he shows some special leaning toward aprofession. "

"Mother, you know how wild I am about machines, and motors, andengineering, and all that goes with it. Why I'd work--"

"You'll have to, Jock. That's the only thing that will make a man ofyou. I've started you wrong, but it isn't too late yet. It's all verywell for boys with rich fathers to run to clothes, and city jaunts, and 'chickens, ' and cabs and flowers. Your mother is working tooth andnail to earn her six thousand, and when you realize just what it meansfor a woman to battle against men in a man's game, you'll stop being aspender, and become an earner--because you'll want to. I'll tell youwhat I'm going to do, Kid. I'm going to take you on the road with mefor two weeks. You'll learn so many things that at the end of thattime the sides of your head will be bulging. "

"I'd like it!" exclaimed the boy, sitting up. "It will be regularfun. "

"No, it won't, " said Emma McChesney; "not after the first three orfour days. But it will be worth more to you than a foreign tour and aprivate tutor. "

She came over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "Your room'sjust next to mine, " she said. "You and I are going to sleep on this. To-morrow we'll have a real day of it, as I promised. If you want tospend it with the fellows, say so. I'm not going to spoil this littlelark that I promised you. "

"I think, " said the boy, looking up into his mother's face, "I thinkthat I'll spend it with you. "

The door slammed after him. 

Emma McChesney remained standing there, in the center of the room. Sheraised her arms and passed a hand over her forehead and across herhair until it rested on the glossy knot at the back of her head. Itwas the weary little gesture of a weary, heart-sick woman. 

There came a ring at the 'phone. 

Emma McChesney crossed the room and picked up the receiver. 

"Hello, Mary Cutting, " she said, without waiting for the voice at theother end. "What? Oh, I just knew. No, it's all right. I've had somehigh-class little theatricals of my own, right here, with me in theroles of leading lady, ingenue, villainess, star, and heavy mother. I've got Mrs. Fiske looking like a First Reader Room kid that'sforgotten her Friday piece. What's that?"

There was no sound in the room but the hollow cackle of the voice atthe other end of the wire, many miles away. 

Then: "Oh, that's all right, Mary Cutting. I owe you a great big debtof gratitude, bless your pink cheeks and white hair! And, Mary, " shelowered her voice and glanced in the direction of the room next door, "I don't know how a hard, dry sob would go through the 'phone, so Iwon't try to get it over. But, Mary, it's been 'sugar, butter, andmolasses' for me for the last ten minutes, and I'm dead scared to stopfor fear I'll forget it. I guess it's 'sugar, butter, and molasses'for me for the rest of the night, Mary Cutting; just as hard and fastas I can say it, 'sugar, butter, molasses. '"

IV

HIS MOTHER'S SON

"Full?" repeated Emma McChesney (and if it weren't for the compositorthere'd be an exclamation point after that question mark). 

"Sorry, Mrs. McChesney, " said the clerk, and he actually looked it, "but there's absolutely nothing stirring. We're full up. TheBenevolent Brotherhood of Bisons is holding its regular annual stateconvention here. We're putting up cots in the hall. "

Emma McChesney's keen blue eyes glanced up from their inspection ofthe little bunch of mail which had just been handed her. "Well, pickout a hall with a southern exposure and set up a cot or so for me, "she said, agreeably; "because I've come to stay. After sellingFeatherloom Petticoats on the road for ten years I don't see myselftrailing up and down this town looking for a place to lay my head. I've learned this one large, immovable truth, and that is, that ahotel clerk is a hotel clerk. It makes no difference whether he isstuck back of a marble pillar and hidden by a gold vase full ofthirty-six-inch American Beauty roses at the Knickerbocker, or settingthe late fall fashions for men in Galesburg, Illinois. "

By one small degree was the perfect poise of the peerless personagebehind the register jarred. But by only one. He was a hotel nightclerk. 

"It won't do you any good to get sore, Mrs. McChesney, " he began, suavely. "Now a man would--"

"But I'm not a man, " interrupted Emma McChesney. "I'm only doing aman's work and earning a man's salary and demanding to be treated withas much consideration as you'd show a man. "

The personage busied himself mightily with a pen, and a blotter, andsundry papers, as is the manner of personages when annoyed. "I'd liketo accommodate you; I'd like to do it. "

"Cheer up, " said Emma McChesney, "you're going to. I don't mind alittle discomfort. Though I want to mention in passing that if thereare any lady Bisons present you needn't bank on doubling me up withthem. I've had one experience of that kind. It was in Albia, Iowa. I'dsleep in the kitchen range before I'd go through another. "

Up went the erstwhile falling poise. "You're badly mistaken, madam. I'm a member of this order myself, and a finer lot of fellows it hasnever been my pleasure to know. "

"Yes, I know, " drawled Emma McChesney. "Do you know, the thing thatgets me is the inconsistency of it. Along come a lot of boobs whonever use a hotel the year around except to loaf in the lobby, andwear out the leather chairs, and use up the matches and toothpicks andget the baseball returns, and immediately you turn away a travelingman who uses a three-dollar-a-day room, with a sample room downstairsfor his stuff, who tips every porter and bell-boy in the place, asksfor no favors, and who, if you give him a half-way decent cup ofcoffee for breakfast, will fall in love with the place and boom it allover the country. Half of your Benevolent Bisons are here on theEuropean plan, with a view to patronizing the free-lunch counters orbeing asked to take dinner at the home of some local Bison whose wifehas been cooking up on pies, and chicken salad and veal roast for thelast week. "

[Illustration: "'Son!' echoed the clerk, staring"]

Emma McChesney leaned over the desk a little, and lowered her voice tothe tone of confidence. "Now, I'm not in the habit of making anuisance of myself like this. I don't get so chatty as a rule, and Iknow that I could jump over to Monmouth and get first-classaccommodations there. But just this once I've a good reason forwanting to make you and myself a little miserable. Y'see, my son istraveling with me this trip. "

"Son!" echoed the clerk, staring. 

"Thanks. That's what they all do. After a while I'll begin to believethat there must be something hauntingly beautiful and girlish about meor every one wouldn't petrify when I announce that I've a six-foot sonattached to my apron-strings. He looks twenty-one, but he's seventeen. He thinks the world's rotten because he can't grow one of those fuzzylittle mustaches that the men are cultivating to match their hats. He's down at the depot now, straightening out our baggage. Now I wantto say this before he gets here. He's been out with me just four days. Those four days have been a revelation, an eye-opener, and a series ofrude jolts. He used to think that his mother's job consisted oftraveling in Pullmans, eating delicate viands turned out by the hotelchefs, and strewing Featherloom Petticoats along the path. I gave himplenty of money, and he got into the habit of looking lightly uponanything more trifling than a five-dollar bill. He's changing his mindby great leaps. I'm prepared to spend the night in the coal cellar ifyou'll just fix him up--not too comfortably. It'll be a great lessonfor him. There he is now. Just coming in. Fuzzy coat and hat andEnglish stick. Hist! As they say on the stage. "

The boy crossed the crowded lobby. There was a little worried, annoyedfrown between his eyes. He laid a protecting hand on his mother's arm. Emma McChesney was conscious of a little thrill of pride as sherealized that he did not have to look up to meet her gaze. 

"Look here, Mother, they tell me there's some sort of a conventionhere, and the town's packed. That's what all those banners and thingswere for. I hope they've got something decent for us here. I came upwith a man who said he didn't think there was a hole left to sleepin. "

"You don't say!" exclaimed Emma McChesney, and turned to the clerk. "This is my son, Jock McChesney--Mr. Sims. Is this true?"

"Glad to know you, sir, " said Mr. Sims. "Why, yes, I'm afraid we arepretty well filled up, but seeing it's you maybe we can do somethingfor you. "

He ruminated, tapping his teeth with a pen-holder, and eying the pairbefore him with a maddening blankness of gaze. Finally:

"I'll do my best, but you can't expect much. I guess I can squeezeanother cot into eighty-seven for the young man. There's--let's seenow--who's in eighty-seven? Well, there's two Bisons in the doublebed, and one in the single, and Fat Ed Meyers in the cot and--"

Emma McChesney stiffened into acute attention. "Meyers?" sheinterrupted. "Do you mean Ed Meyers of the Strauss Sans-silk SkirtCompany?"

"That's so. You two are in the same line, aren't you? He's a greatlittle piano player, Ed is. Ever hear him play?"

"When did he get in?"

"Oh, he just came in fifteen minutes ago on the Ashland division. He'sin at supper. " "Oh, " said Emma McChesney. The two letters breathedrelief. 

But relief had no place in the voice, or on the countenance of JockMcChesney. He bristled with belligerence. "This cattle-car style ofsleeping don't make a hit. I haven't had a decent night's rest forthree nights. I never could sleep on a sleeper. Can't you fix us upbetter than that?"

"Best I can do. "

"But where's mother going? I see you advertise three 'large andcommodious steam-heated sample rooms in connection. ' I supposemother's due to sleep on one of the tables there. "

"Jock, " Emma McChesney reproved him, "Mr. Sims is doing us a greatfavor. There isn't another hotel in town that would--"

"You're right, there isn't, " agreed Mr. Sims. "I guess the young manis new to this traveling game. As I said, I'd like to accommodate you, but--Let's see now. Tell you what I'll do. If I can get thehousekeeper to go over and sleep in the maids' quarters just for to-night, you can use her room. There you are! Of course, it's over thekitchen, and there may be some little noise early in the morning--"

Emma McChesney raised a protesting hand. "Don't mention it. Just leadme thither. I'm so tired I could sleep in an excursion special thatwas switching at Pittsburgh. Jock, me child, we're in luck. That'stwice in the same place. The first time was when we were inspired toeat our supper on the diner instead of waiting until we reached hereto take the leftovers from the Bisons' grazing. I hope thathousekeeper hasn't a picture of her departed husband dangling, life-size, on the wall at the foot of the bed. But they always have. Good-night, son. Don't let the Bisons bite you. I'll be up at seven. "

But it was just 6:30 A. M. When Emma McChesney turned the little bendin the stairway that led to the office. The scrub-woman was still inpossession. The cigar-counter girl had not yet made her appearance. There was about the place a general air of the night before. All butthe night clerk. He was as spruce and trim, and alert and smooth-shaven as only a night clerk can be after a night's vigil. 

"'Morning!" Emma McChesney called to him. She wore blue serge, and asmart fall hat. The late autumn morning was not crisper and sunnierthan she. 

"Good-morning, Mrs. McChesney, " returned Mr. Sims, sonorously. "Have agood night's sleep? I hope the kitchen noises didn't wake you. "

Emma McChesney paused with her hand on the door. "Kitchen? Oh, no. Icould sleep through a vaudeville china-juggling act. But---what anextraordinarily unpleasant-looking man that housekeeper's husband musthave been. "

That November morning boasted all those qualities which November-morning writers are so prone to bestow upon the month. But the wordswine, and sparkle, and sting, and glow, and snap do not seem to coverit. Emma McChesney stood on the bottom step, looking up and down MainStreet and breathing in great draughts of that unadjectivable air. Hercomplexion stood the test of the merciless, astringent morning andcame up triumphantly and healthily firm and pink and smooth. The townwas still asleep. She started to walk briskly down the bare and uglyMain Street of the little town. In her big, generous heart, and herkeen, alert mind, there were many sensations and myriad thoughts, butvaried and diverse as they were they all led back to the boy up therein the stuffy, over-crowded hotel room--the boy who was learning hislesson. 

Half an hour later she reentered the hotel, her cheeks glowing. Jockwas not yet down. So she ordered and ate her wise and cautiousbreakfast of fruit and cereal and toast and coffee, skimming over hermorning paper as she ate. At 7:30 she was back in the lobby, newspaperin hand. The Bisons were already astir. She seated herself in a deepchair in a quiet corner, her eyes glancing up over the top of herpaper toward the stairway. At eight o'clock Jock McChesney came down. 

There was nothing of jauntiness about him. His eyelids were red. Hisface had the doughy look of one whose sleep has been brief andfeverish. As he came toward his mother you noticed a stain on hiscoat, and a sunburst of wrinkles across one leg of his modish browntrousers. 

"Good-morning, son!" said Emma McChesney. "Was it as bad as that?"

Jock McChesney's long fingers curled into a fist. 

"Say, " he began, his tone venomous, "do you know what those--those--those--"

"Say it!" commanded Emma McChesney. "I'm only your mother. If you keepthat in your system your breakfast will curdle in your stomach. "

Jock McChesney said it. I know no phrase better fitted to describe histone than that old favorite of the erotic novelties. It was vibrantwith passion. It breathed bitterness. It sizzled with savagery. It--Oh, alliteration is useless. 

"Well, " said Emma McChesney, encouragingly, "go on. "

[Illustration: "'Well!' gulped Jock, 'those two double-bedded, bloomin' blasted Bisons--'"]

"Well!" gulped Jock McChesney, and glared; "those two double-bedded, bloomin', blasted Bisons came in at twelve, and the single one aboutfifteen minutes later. They didn't surprise me. There was a herd ofabout ninety-three of 'em in the hall, all saying good-night to eachother, and planning where they'd meet in the morning, and the time, and place and probable weather conditions. For that matter, there weredroves of 'em pounding up and down the halls all night. I never sawsuch restless cattle. If you'll tell me what makes more noise in themiddle of the night than the metal disk of a hotel key banging andclanging up against a door, I'd like to know what it is. My threeBisons were all dolled up with fool ribbons and badges and stripedpaper canes. When they switched on the light I gave a crack imitationof a tired working man trying to get a little sleep. I breathedregularly and heavily, with an occasional moaning snore. But if thosetwo hippopotamus Bisons had been alone on their native plains theycouldn't have cared less. They bellowed, and pawed the earth, andthrew their shoes around, and yawned, and stretched and discussedtheir plans for the next day, and reviewed all their doings of thatday. Then one of them said something about turning in, and I was sohappy I forgot to snore. Just then another key clanged at the door, inwalked a fat man in a brown suit and a brown derby, and stuff wasoff. "

"That, " said Emma McChesney, "would be Ed Meyers, of the Strauss Sans-silk Skirt Company. "

"None other than our hero. " Jock's tone had an added acidity. "It tookthose four about two minutes to get acquainted. In three minutes theyhad told their real names, and it turned out that Meyers belonged toan organization that was a second cousin of the Bisons. In fiveminutes they had got together a deck and a pile of chips and wereshirt-sleeving it around a game of pinochle. I would doze off to theslap of cards, and the click of chips, and wake up when the bell-boycame in with another round, which he did every six minutes. When I gotup this morning I found that Fat Ed Meyers had been sitting on thechair over which I trustingly had draped my trousers. This sunburst ofwrinkles is where he mostly sat. This spot on my coat is where a Bisondrank his beer. "

Emma McChesney folded her paper and rose, smiling. "It is sort oftrying, I suppose, if you're not used to it. "

"Used to it!" shouted the outraged Jock. "Used to it! Do you mean totell me there's nothing unusual about--"

"Not a thing. Oh, of course you don't strike a bunch of Bisons everyday. But it happens a good many times. The world is full of AncientOrders and they're everlastingly getting together and drawing upresolutions and electing officers. Don't you think you'd better go into breakfast before the Bisons begin to forage? I've had mine. "

The gloom which had overspread Jock McChesney's face lifted a little. The hungry boy in him was uppermost. "That's so. I'm going to havesome wheat cakes, and steak, and eggs, and coffee, and fruit, andtoast, and rolls. "

"Why slight the fish?" inquired his mother. Then, as he turned towardthe dining-room, "I've two letters to get out. Then I'm going down thestreet to see a customer. I'll be up at the Sulzberg-Stein departmentstore at nine sharp. There's no use trying to see old Sulzberg beforeten, but I'll be there, anyway, and so will Ed Meyers, or I'm no skirtsalesman. I want you to meet me there. It will do you good to watchhow the overripe orders just drop, ker-plunk, into my lap. "

Maybe you know Sulzberg & Stein's big store? No? That's because you'vealways lived in the city. Old Sulzberg sends his buyers to the NewYork market twice a year, and they need two floor managers on the mainfloor now. The money those people spend for red and green decorationsat Christmas time, and apple-blossoms and pink crepe paper shades inthe spring, must be something awful. Young Stein goes to Chicago tohave his clothes made, and old Sulzberg likes to keep the travelingmen waiting in the little ante-room outside his private office. 

Jock McChesney finished his huge breakfast, strolled over to Sulzberg& Stein's, and inquired his way to the office only to find that hismother was not yet there. There were three men in the little waiting-room. One of them was Fat Ed Meyers. His huge bulk overflowed thespindle-legged chair on which he sat. His brown derby was in hishands. His eyes were on the closed door at the other side of the room. So were the eyes of the other two travelers. Jock took a vacant seatnext to Fat Ed Meyers so that he might, in his mind's eye, pick out aparticularly choice spot upon which his hard young fist might land--ifonly he had the chance. Breaking up a man's sleep like that, the greatbig overgrown mutt!

"What's your line?" said Ed Meyers, suddenly turning toward Jock. 

Prompted by some imp--"Skirts, " answered Jock. "Ladies' petticoats. "("As if men ever wore 'em!" he giggled inwardly. )

Ed Meyers shifted around in his chair so that he might better stare atthis new foe in the field. His little red mouth was open ludicrously. 

"Who're you out for?" he demanded next. 

There was a look of Emma McChesney on Jock's face. "Why--er--the UnionUnderskirt and Hosiery Company of Chicago. New concern. "

"Must be, " ruminated Ed Meyers. "I never heard of 'em, and I know 'emall. You're starting in young, ain't you, kid! Well, it'll never hurtyou. You'll learn something new every day. Now me, I--"

In breezed Emma McChesney. Her quick glance rested immediately uponMeyers and the boy. And in that moment some instinct prompted JockMcChesney to shake his head, ever so slightly, and assume a blanknessof expression. And Emma McChesney, with that shrewdness which had madeher one of the best salesmen on the road, saw, and miraculouslyunderstood. 

"How do, Mrs. McChesney, " grinned Fat Ed Meyers. "You see I beat youto it. "

"So I see, " smiled Emma, cheerfully. "I was delayed. Just sold a nicelittle bill to Watkins down the Street. " She seated herself across theway, and kept her eyes on that closed door. 

"Say, kid, " Meyers began, in the husky whisper of the fat man, "I'mgoing to put you wise to something, seeing you're new to this game. See that lady over there?" He nodded discreetly in Emma McChesney'sdirection. 

"Pretty, isn't she?" said Jock, appreciatively. 

"Know who she is?"

"Well--I--she does look familiar but--"

"Oh, come now, quit your bluffing. If you'd ever met that dame you'dremember it. Her name's McChesney--Emma McChesney, and she sells T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats. I'll give her her dues; she's the bestlittle salesman on the road. I'll bet that girl could sell a ruffled, accordion-plaited underskirt to a fat woman who was trying to reduce. She's got the darndest way with her. And at that she's straight, too. "

If Ed Meyers had not been gazing so intently into his hat, trying atthe same time to look cherubically benign he might have seen a quickand painful scarlet sweep the face of the boy, coupled with a certaintense look of the muscles around the jaw. 

"Well, now, look here, " he went on, still in a whisper. "We're bothskirt men, you and me. Everything's fair in this game. Maybe you don'tknow it, but when there's a bunch of the boys waiting around to seethe head of the store like this, and there happens to be a ladytraveler in the crowd, why, it's considered kind of a professionalcourtesy to let the lady have the first look-in. See? It ain't sooften that three people in the same line get together like this. Sheknows it, and she's sitting on the edge of her chair, waiting to boltwhen that door opens, even if she does act like she was hanging on thewords of that lady clerk there. The minute it does open a crack she'lljump up and give me a fleeting, grateful smile, and sail in and cop afat order away from the old man and his skirt buyer. I'm wise. Say, hemay be an oyster, but he knows a pretty woman when he sees one. By thetime she's through with him he'll have enough petticoats on hand tolast him from now until Turkey goes suffrage. Get me?"

"I get you, " answered Jock. 

"I say, this is business, and good manners be hanged. When a womanbreaks into a man's game like this, let her take her chances like aman. Ain't that straight?"

"You've said something, " agreed Jock. 

"Now, look here, kid. When that door opens I get up. See? And shootstraight for the old man's office. See? Like a duck. See? Say, I maybe fat, kid, but I'm what they call light on my feet, and when I seean order getting away from me I can be so fleet that I have Dianalooking like old Weston doing a stretch of muddy country road in acoast to coast hike. See? Now you help me out on this and I'll seethat you don't suffer for it. I'll stick in a good word for you, believe me. You take the word of an old stager like me and you won'tgo far--"

The door opened. Simultaneously three figures sprang into action. Jockhad the seat nearest the door. With marvelous clumsiness he managed toplace himself in Ed Meyers' path, then reddened, began an apology, stepped on both of Ed's feet, jabbed his elbow into his stomach, anddropped his hat. A second later the door of old Sulzberg's privateoffice closed upon Emma McChesney's smart, erect, confident figure. 

Now, Ed Meyers' hands were peculiar hands for a fat man. They weretapering, slender, delicate, blue-veined, temperamental hands. At thismoment, despite his purpling face, and his staring eyes, they were themost noticeable thing about him. His fingers clawed the empty air, quivering, vibrant, as though poised to clutch at Jock's throat. 

Then words came. They spluttered from his lips. They popped like cornkernels in the heat of his wrath; they tripped over each other; theyexploded. 

"You darned kid, you!" he began, with fascinating fluency. "Youthousand-legged, double-jointed, ox-footed truck horse. Come on out ofhere and I'll lick the shine off your shoes, you blue-eyed babe, you!What did you get up for, huh? What did you think this was going to be--a flag drill?"

With a whoop of pure joy Jock McChesney turned and fled. 

They dined together at one o'clock, Emma McChesney and her son Jock. Suddenly Jock stopped eating. His eyes were on the door. "There's thatfathead now, " he said, excitedly. "The nerve of him! He's coming overhere. "

Ed Meyers was waddling toward them with the quick light step of thefat man. His pink, full-jowled face was glowing. His eyes were brightas a boy's. He stopped at their table and paused for one dramaticmoment. 

"So, me beauty, you two were in cahoots, huh? That's the second low-down deal you've handed me. I haven't forgotten that trick you turnedwith Nussbaum at DeKalb. Never mind, little girl. I'll get back at youyet. "

He nodded a contemptuous head in Jock's direction. "Carrying apacker?"

[Illustration: "'Come on out of here, and I'll lick the shine off yourshoes, you blue-eyed babe, you!'"]

Emma McChesney wiped her fingers daintily on her napkin, crushed it onthe table, and leaned back in her chair. "Men, " she observed, wonderingly, "are the cussedest creatures. This chap occupied the sameroom with you last night and you don't even know his name. Funny! Iftwo strange women had found themselves occupying the same room for anight they wouldn't have got to the kimono and back hair stage beforethey would not only have known each other's name, but they'd havetried on each other's hats, swapped corset cover patterns, foundmutual friends living in Dayton, Ohio, taught each other a new Irishcrochet stitch, showed their family photographs, told how theirmarried sister's little girl nearly died with swollen glands, anddivided off the mirror into two sections to paste their newly washedhandkerchiefs on. Don't tell _me_ men have a genius for friendship. "

"Well, who is he?" insisted Ed Meyers. "He told me everything but hisname this morning. I wish I had throttled him with a bunch of Bisons'badges last night. "

"His name, " smiled Emma McChesney, "is Jock McChesney. He's my one andonly son, and he's put through his first little business deal thismorning just to show his mother that he can be a help to his folks ifhe wants to. Now, Ed Meyers, if you're going to have apoplexy don'tyou go and have it around this table. My boy is only on his secondpiece of pie, and I won't have his appetite spoiled. "

V

PINK TIGHTS AND GINGHAMS

Some one--probably one of those Frenchmen whose life job it was tomake epigrams---once said that there are but two kinds of women: goodwomen, and bad women. Ever since then problem playwrights have beenputting that fiction into the mouths of wronged husbands and buildingtheir "big scene" around it. But don't you believe it. There are fourkinds: good women, bad women, good bad women, and bad good women. Andthe worst of these is the last. This should be a story of all fourkinds, and when it is finished I defy you to discover which is which. 

When the red stuff in the thermometer waxes ambitious, so that fat menstand, bulging-eyed, before it and beginning with the ninety markcount up with a horrible satisfaction--ninety-one--ninety-two--ninety-three--NINETY FOUR! by gosh! and the cinders are filtering into yourberth, and even the porter is wandering restlessly up and down theaisle like a black soul in purgatory and a white duck coat, then thething to do is to don those mercifully few garments which the laxityof sleeping-car etiquette permits, slip out between the green curtainsand fare forth in search of draughts, liquid and atmospheric. 

At midnight Emma McChesney, inured as she was to sleepers and alltheir horrors, found her lower eight unbearable. With the bravery ofdesperation she groped about for her cinder-strewn belongings, donnedslippers and kimono, waited until the tortured porter's footsteps hadsqueaked their way to the far end of the car, then sped up the dimaisle toward the back platform. She wrenched open the door, felt therush of air, drew in a long, grateful, smoke-steam-dust laden lungfulof it, felt the breath of it on spine and chest, sneezed, realizedthat she would be the victim of a summer cold next day, and, knowing, cared not. 

"Great, ain't it?" said a voice in the darkness. (Nay, reader. Awoman's voice. )

Emma McChesney was of the non-screaming type. But something inside ofher suspended action for the fraction of a second. She peered into thedarkness. 

"'J' get scared?" inquired the voice. Its owner lurched forward fromthe corner in which she had been crouching, into the half-light castby the vestibule night-globe. 

Even as men judge one another by a Masonic emblem, an Elk pin, or theband of a cigar, so do women in sleeping-cars weigh each otheraccording to the rules of the Ancient Order of the Kimono. Sevenseconds after Emma McChesney first beheld the negligee that stoodrevealed in the dim light she had its wearer neatly weighed, marked, listed, docketed and placed. 

It was the kind of kimono that is associated with straw-colored hair, and French-heeled shoes, and over-fed dogs at the end of a leash. TheJapanese are wrongly accused of having perpetrated it. In pattern itshowed bright green flowers-that-never-were sprawling on a purplebackground. A diamond bar fastened it not too near the throat. 

It was one of Emma McChesney's boasts that she was the only livingwoman who could get off a sleeper at Bay City, Michigan, at 5 A. M. , without looking like a Swedish immigrant just dumped at Ellis Island. Traveling had become a science with her, as witness her serviceabledark-blue silk kimono, and her hair in a schoolgirl braid down herback. The blonde woman cast upon Emma McChesney an admiring eye. 

"Gawd, ain't it hot!" she said, sociably. 

"I wonder, " mused Emma McChesney, "if that porter could be hypnotizedinto making some lemonade--a pitcherful, with a lot of ice in it, andthe cold sweat breaking out all over the glass?

"Lemonade!" echoed the other, wonder and amusement in her tone. "Arethey still usin' it?" She leaned against the door, swaying with themotion of the car, and hugging her. Plump, bare arms. "Travelin'alone?" she asked. 

"Oh, yes, " replied Emma McChesney, and decided it was time to go in. 

"Lonesome, ain't it, without company? Goin' far?"

"I'm accustomed to it. I travel on business, not pleasure. I'm on theroad, representing T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats!"

The once handsome violet eyes of the plump blonde widened withsurprise. Then they narrowed to critical slits. 

"On the road! Sellin' goods! And I thought you was only a kid. It'sthe way your hair's fixed, I suppose. Say, that must be a hard lifefor a woman--buttin' into a man's game like that. "

"Oh, I suppose any work that takes a woman out into the world--" beganEmma McChesney vaguely, her hand on the door-knob. 

"Sure, " agreed the other. "I ought to know. The hotels and time-tablesalone are enough to kill. Who do you suppose makes up train schedules?They don't seem to think no respectable train ought to leave anywherebefore eleven-fifty A. M. , or arrive after six A. M. We played Ottumwa, Iowa, last night, and here we are jumpin' to Illinois. "

In surprise Emma McChesney turned at the door for another look at thehair, figure, complexion and kimono. 

"Oh, you're an actress! Well, if you think mine is a hard life for awoman, why--"

"Me!" said the green-gold blonde, and laughed not prettily. "I ain't awoman. I'm a queen of burlesque. 

"Burlesque? You mean one of those--" Emma McChesney stopped, herusually deft tongue floundering. 

"One of those 'men only' troupes? You guessed it. I'm Blanche LeHaye, of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles. We get into North Bend at six to-morrow morning, and we play there to-morrow night, Sunday. " She took astep forward so that her haggard face and artificially tinted hairwere very near Emma McChesney. "Know what I was thinkin' just onesecond before you come out here?"

"No; what?"

"I was thinkin' what a cinch it would be to just push aside thatcanvas thing there by the steps and try what the newspaper accountscall 'jumping into the night. ' Say, if I'd had on my other lawnjerieI'll bet I'd have done it. "

Into Emma McChesney's understanding heart there swept a wave of pity. But she answered lightly: "Is that supposed to be funny?"

The plump blonde yawned. "It depends on your funny bone. Mine's gotblunted. I'm the lady that the Irish comedy guy slaps in the face witha bunch of lettuce. Say, there's something about you that makes aperson get gabby and tell things. You'd make a swell clairvoyant. "

Beneath the comedy of the bleached hair, and the flaccid face, and thebizarre wrapper; behind the coarseness and vulgarity and ignorance, Emma McChesney's keen mental eye saw something decent and clean andbeautiful. And something pitiable, and something tragic. 

"I guess you'd better come in and get some sleep, " said EmmaMcChesney; and somehow found her hand resting on the woman's shoulder. So they stood, on the swaying, jolting platform. Blanche LeHaye, ofthe Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles, looked down, askance, at the hand onher shoulder, as at some strange and interesting object. 

"Ten years ago, " she said, "that would have started me telling thestory of my life, with all the tremolo stops on, and the orchestra intears. Now it only makes me mad. "

Emma McChesney's hand seemed to snatch itself away from the woman'sshoulder. 

"You can't treat me with your life's history. I'm going in. "

"Wait a minute. Don't go away sore, kid. On the square, I guess Iliked the feel of your hand on my arm, like that. Say, I've done thesame thing myself to a strange dog that looked up at me, pitiful. Youknow, the way you reach down, and pat 'm on the head, and say, 'Nicedoggie, nice doggie, old fellow, ' even if it is a street cur, with achawed ear, and no tail. They growl and show their teeth, but theylike it. A woman--Lordy! there comes the brakeman. Let's beat it. Ain't we the nervy old hens!"

The female of the species as she is found in sleeping-car dressing-rooms had taught Emma McChesney to rise betimes that she might avoidcontact with certain frowsy, shapeless beings armed with bottles ofmilky liquids, and boxes of rosy pastes, and pencils that made archedand inky lines; beings redolent of bitter almond, and violet toilettewater; beings in doubtful corsets and green silk petticoats perfect asto accordion-plaited flounce, but showing slits and tatters fartherup; beings jealously guarding their ten inches of mirror space andconsenting to move for no one; ladies who had come all the way fromTexas and who insisted on telling about it, despite a mouthful ofhairpins; doubtful sisters who called one dearie and required to behooked up; distracted mothers with three small children who wipedtheir hands on your shirt-waist. 

[Illustration: "'You can't treat me with your life's history. I'mgoing in'"]

So it was that Emma McChesney, hatted and veiled by 5:45, saw thecurtains of the berth opposite rent asunder to disclose the rumpled, shapeless figure of Miss Blanche LeHaye. The queen of burlesque borein her arms a conglomerate mass of shoes, corset, purple skirt, bagand green-plumed hat. She paused to stare at Emma McChesney's trim, cool preparedness. 

"You must have started to dress as soon's you come in last night. Inever slep' a wink till just about half a hour ago. I bet I ain't gotmore than eleven minutes to dress in. Ain't this a scorcher!"

When the train stopped at North Bend, Emma McChesney, on her way out, collided with a vision in a pongee duster, rose-colored chiffon veil, chamois gloves, and plumed hat. Miss Blanche LeHaye had made the mostof her eleven minutes. Her baggage attended to, Emma McChesney climbedinto a hotel 'bus. It bore no other passengers. From her corner in thevehicle she could see the queen of burlesque standing in the center ofthe depot platform, surrounded by her company. It was a tawdry, miserable, almost tragic group, the men undersized, be-diamonded, their skulls oddly shaped, their clothes a satire on the fashions formen, their chins unshaven, their loose lips curved contentedly overcigarettes; the women dreadfully unreal with the pitiless light of theearly morning sun glaring down on their bedizened faces, theirspotted, garish clothes, their run-down heels, their vivid veils, their matted hair. They were quarreling among themselves, and a flameof hate for the moment lighted up those dull, stupid, vicious faces. Blanche LeHaye appeared to be the center about which the strife waged, for suddenly she flung through the shrill group and walked swiftlyover to the 'bus and climbed into it heavily. One of the women turned, her face lived beneath the paint, to scream a great oath after her. The 'bus driver climbed into his seat and took up the reins. After amoment's indecision the little group on the platform turned andtrailed off down the street, the women sagging under the weight oftheir bags, the men, for the most part, hurrying on ahead. When the'bus lurched past them the woman who had screamed the oath afterBlanche LeHaye laughed shrilly and made a face, like a naughty child, whereupon the others laughed in falsetto chorus. 

A touch of real color showed in Blanche LeHaye's flabby cheek. "I'llshow'm she snarled. That hussy of a Zella Dacre thinkin' she can getmy part away from me the last week or so, the lyin' sneak. I'll show'ma leadin' lady's a leadin' lady. Let 'em go to their hash hotels. I'mgoin' to the real inn in this town just to let 'em know that I got mydignity to keep up, and that I don't have to mix in with scum likethat. You see that there? She pointed at something in the street. EmmaMcChesney turned to look. The cheap lithographs of the Sam LevinCrackerjack Belles Company glared at one from the bill-boards. 

"That's our paper, " explained Blanche LeHaye. "That's me, in thecenter of the bunch, with the pink reins in my hands, drivin' thatfour-in-hand of johnnies. Hot stuff! Just let Dacre try to get it awayfrom me, that's all. I'll show'm. "

She sank back into her corner. Her anger left her with the suddennesscharacteristic of her type. 

"Ain't this heat fierce?" she fretted, and closed her eyes. 

Now, Emma McChesney was a broad-minded woman. The scars that she hadreceived in her ten years' battle with business reminded her to betender at sight of the wounds of others. But now, as she studied thewoman huddled there in the corner, she was conscious of a shudderingdisgust of her--of the soiled blouse, of the cheap finery, of thesunken places around the jaw-bone, of the swollen places beneath theeyes, of the thin, carmined lips, of the--

Blanche LeHaye opened her eyes suddenly and caught the look on EmmaMcChesney's face. Caught it, and comprehended it. Her eyes narrowed, and she laughed shortly. 

"Oh, I dunno, " drawled Blanche LeHaye. "I wouldn't go's far's that, kid. Say, when I was your age I didn't plan to be no bum burlesquerneither. I was going to be an actress, with a farm on Long Island, like the rest of 'em. Every real actress has got a farm on LongIsland, if it's only there in the mind of the press agent. It's a kindof a religion with 'em. I was goin' to build a house on mine that wasgoin' to be a cross between a California bungalow and theHorticultural Building at the World's Fair. Say, I ain't the worst, kid. There's others outside of my smear, understand, that I wouldn'tchange places with. "

A dozen apologies surged to Emma McChesney's lips just as the driverdrew up at the curbing outside the hotel and jumped down to open thedoor. She found herself hoping that the hotel clerk would not classher with her companion. 

At eleven o'clock that morning Emma McChesney unlocked her door andwalked down the red-carpeted hotel corridor. She had had two hours ofrestful sleep. She had bathed, and breakfasted, and donned cleanclothes. She had brushed the cinders out of her hair, and manicured. She felt as alert, and cool and refreshed as she looked, which speakswell for her comfort. 

Halfway down the hail a bedroom door stood open. Emma McChesneyglanced in. What she saw made her stop. The next moment she would havehurried on, but the figure within called out to her. 

Miss Blanche LeHaye had got into her kimono again. She was slumped ina dejected heap in a chair before the window. There was a tray, with abottle and some glasses on the table by her side. 

"Gawd, ain't it hot!" she whined miserably. "Come on in a minute. Ileft the door open to catch the breeze, but there ain't any. You looklike a peach just off the ice. Got a gent friend in town?"

"No, " answered Emma McChesney hurriedly, and turned to go. 

"Wait a minute, " said Blanche LeHaye, sharply, and rose. She slouchedover to where Emma McChesney stood and looked up at her sullenly. 

"Why!" gasped Emma McChesney, and involuntarily put out her hand, "why--my dear--you've been crying! Is there--"

"No, there ain't. I can bawl, can't I, if I _am_ a bum burlesquer?"She put down the squat little glass she had in her hand and staredresentfully at Emma McChesney's cool, fragrant freshness. 

"Say, " she demanded suddenly, "whatja mean by lookin' at me the wayyou did this morning, h'm? Whatja mean? You got a nerve turnin' upyour nose at me, you have. I'll just bet you ain't no better than youmight be, neither. What the--"

Swiftly Emma McChesney crossed the room and closed the door. Then shecame back to where Blanche LeHaye stood. 

"Now listen to me, " she said. "You shed that purple kimono of yoursand hustle into some clothes and come along with me. I mean it. Whenever I'm anywhere near this town I make a jump and Sunday here. I've a friend here named Morrissey--Ethel Morrissey--and she's thebiggest-hearted, most understanding friend that a woman ever had. She's skirt and suit buyer at Barker & Fisk's here. I have a standinginvitation to spend Sunday at her house. She knows I'm coming. I helpget dinner if I feel like it, and wash my hair if I want to, and sitout in the back yard, and fool with the dog, and act like a humanbeing for one day. After you've been on the road for ten years a realSunday dinner in a real home has got Sherry's flossiest effortslooking like a picnic collation with ants in the pie. You're comingwith me, more for my sake than for yours, because the thought of yousitting here, like this, would sour the day for me. "

Blanche LeHaye's fingers were picking at the pin which fastened hergown. She smiled, uncertainly. 

"What's your game?" she inquired. 

"I'll wait for you downstairs, " said Emma McChesney, pleasantly. "Doyou ever have any luck with caramel icing? Ethel's and mine alwayscurdles. "

"Do I?" yelled the queen of burlesque. "I invented it. " And she wasdown on her knees, her fingers fumbling with the lock of her suitcase. 

Only an Ethel Morrissey, inured to the weird workings of humanity byyears of shrewd skirt and suit buying, could have stood the test ofhaving a Blanche LeHaye thrust upon her, an unexpected guest, and withthe woman across the street sitting on her front porch taking it allin. 

At the door--"This is Miss Blanche LeHaye of the--er--Simon--"

"Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles, " put in Miss LeHaye. "Pleased to meetyou. "

"Come in, " said Miss Ethel Morrissey without batting an eye. "I just'phoned the hotel. Thought you'd gone back on me, Emma. I'm baking acaramel cake. Don't slam the door. This your first visit here, MissLeHaye? Excuse me for not shaking hands. I'm all flour. Lay yourthings in there. Ma's spending the day with Aunt Gus at Forest Cityand I'm the whole works around here. It's got skirts and suits beat amile. Hot, ain't it? Say, suppose you girls slip off your waists andI'll give you each an all-over apron that's loose and let's the breezeslide around. "

Blanche LeHaye, the garrulous, was strangely silent. When she steppedabout it was in the manner of one who is fearful of wakening asleeper. When she caught the eyes of either of the other women her ownglance dropped. 

When Ethel Morrissey came in with the blue-and-white gingham apronsBlanche LeHaye hesitated a long minute before picking hers up. Thenshe held it by both sleeves and looked at it long, and curiously. Whenshe looked up again she found the eyes of the other two upon her. Sheslipped the apron over her head with a nervous little laugh. 

"I've been a pair of pink tights so long, " she said, "that I guessI've almost forgotten how to be a woman. But once I get this on I'llbet I can come back. "

She proved it from the moment that she measured out the first cupfulof brown sugar for the caramel icing. She shed her rings, and pinnedher hair back from her forehead, and tucked up her sleeves, and asEmma McChesney watched her a resolve grew in her mind. 

The cake disposed of--"Give me some potatoes to peel, will you?" saidBlanche LeHaye, suddenly. "Give 'em to me in a brown crock, with achip out of the side. There's certain things always goes hand-in-handin your mind. You can't think of one without the other. Now, LillianRussell and cold cream is one; and new potatoes and brown crocks isanother. "

[Illustration: "'Now, Lillian Russell and cold cream is one; and newpotatoes and brown crocks is another'"]

She peeled potatoes, sitting hunched up on the kitchen chair with herhigh heels caught back of the top rung. She chopped spinach until herface was scarlet, and her hair hung in limp strands at the back of herneck. She skinned tomatoes. She scoured pans. She wiped up the whiteoilcloth table-top with a capable and soapy hand. The heat and bustleof the little kitchen seemed to work some miraculous change in her. Her eyes brightened. Her lips smiled. Once, Emma McChesney and EthelMorrissey exchanged covert looks when they heard her crooning one ofthose tuneless chants that women hum when they wring out dishcloths insoapy water. 

After dinner, in the cool of the sitting-room, with the shades drawn, and their skirts tucked halfway to their knees, things lookedpropitious for that first stroke in the plan which had worked itselfout in Emma McChesney's alert mind. She caught Blanche LeHaye's eye, and smiled. 

"This beats burlesquing, doesn't it?" she said. She leaned forward abit in her chair. "Tell me, Miss LeHaye, haven't you ever thought ofquitting that--the stage--and turning to something--something--"

"Something decent?" Blanche LeHaye finished for her. "I used to. I'vegot over that. Now all I ask is to get a laugh when I kick thecomedian's hat off with my toe. "

"But there must have been a time--" insinuated Emma McChesney, gently. 

Blanche LeHaye grinned broadly at the two women who were watching herso intently. 

"I think I ought to tell you, " she began, "that I never was aminister's daughter, and I don't remember ever havin' been deserted bymy sweetheart when I was young and trusting. If I was to draw apicture of my life it would look like one of those charts that theweather bureau gets out--one of those high and low barometer things, all uphill and downhill like a chain of mountains in a kid'sgeography. "

She shut her eyes and lay back in the depths of the leather-cushionedchair. The three sat in silence for a moment. 

"Look here, " said Emma McChesney, suddenly, rising and coming over tothe woman in the big chair, "that's not the life for a woman like you. I can get you a place in our office--not much, perhaps, but somethingdecent--something to start with. If you--"

"For that matter, " put in Ethel Morrissey, quickly, "I could get yousomething right here in our store. I've been there long enough to havesome say-so, and if I recommend you they'd start you in the basementat first, and then, if you made good, they advance you right along. "

Blanche LeHaye stood up and, twisting her arm around at the back, began to unbutton her gingham apron. 

"I guess you think I'm a bad one, don't you? Well, maybe I am. But I'mnot the worst. I've got a brother. He lives out West, and he's rich, and married, and respectable. You know the way a man can climb out ofthe mud, while a woman just can't wade out of it? Well, that's the wayit was with us. His wife's a regular society bug. She wouldn't admitthat there was any such truck as me, unless, maybe, the MunicipalProtective League, or something, of her town, got to waging a waragainst burlesque shows. I hadn't seen Len--that's my brother---inyears and years. Then one night in Omaha, I glimmed him sitting downin the B. H. Row. His face just seemed to rise up at me out of theaudience. He recognized me, too. Say, men are all alike. What they seein a dingy, half-fed, ignorant bunch like us, I don't know. But theminute a man goes to Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, or somewhere onbusiness he'll hunt up a burlesque show, and what's more, he'll enjoyit. Funny. Well, Len waited for me after the show, and we had a talk. He told me his troubles, and I told him some of mine, and when we gotthrough I wouldn't have swapped with him. His wife's a wonder. She'sclimbed to the top of the ladder in her town. And she's pretty, andyoung-looking, and a regular swell. Len says their home is one of thekind where the rubberneck auto stops while the spieler tells the crowdwho lives there, and how he made his money. But they haven't any kids, Len told me. He's crazy about 'em. But his wife don't want any. I wishyou could have seen Len's face when he was talking about it. "

She dropped the gingham apron in a circle at her feet, and stepped outof it. She walked over to where her own clothes lay in a gaudy heap. 

"Exit the gingham. But it's been great. " She paused before slippingher skirt over her head. The silence of the other two women seemed toanger her a little. 

[Illustration: '"Why, girls, I couldn't hold down a job in a candyfactory'"]

"I guess you think I'm a bad one, clear through, don't you? Well, Iain't. I don't hurt anybody but myself. Len's wife--that's what I callbad. "

"But I _don't_ think you're bad clear through, " tried Emma McChesney. "I don't. That's why I made that proposition to you. That's why I wantyou to get away from all this, and start over again. "

"Me?" laughed Blanche LeHaye. "Me! In a office! With ledgers, and salebills, and accounts, and all that stuff! Why, girls, I couldn't holddown a job in a candy factory. I ain't got any intelligence. I neverhad. You don't find women with brains in a burlesque troupe. If theyhad 'em they wouldn't be there. Why, we're the dumbest, most ignorantbunch there is. Most of us are just hired girls, dressed up. That'swhy you find the Woman's Uplift Union having such a blamed hard timesavin' souls. The souls they try to save know just enough to be wiseto the fact that they couldn't hold down a five-per-week job. Don'tyou feel sorry for me. I'm doing the only thing I'm good for. "

Emma McChesney put out her hand. "I'm sorry, " she said. "I only meantit for--"

"Why, of course, " agreed Blanche LeHaye, heartily. "And you, too. " Sheturned so that her broad, good-natured smile included Ethel Morrissey. "I've had a whale of a time. My fingers are all stained up with newpotatoes, and my nails is full of strawberry juice, and I hope itwon't come off for a week. And I want to thank you both. I'd like tostay, but I'm going to hump over to the theater. That Dacre's got thenerve to swipe the star's dressing-room if I don't get my trunks infirst. "

They walked with her to the front porch, making talk as they went. Resentment and discomfiture and a sort of admiration all played acrossthe faces of the two women, whose kindness had met with rebuff. At thefoot of the steps Blanche LeHaye, prima donna of the Sam LevinCrackerjack Belles turned. 

"Oh, say, " she called. "I almost forgot. I want to tell you that ifyou wait until your caramel is off the stove, and then add yourbutter, when the stuff's hot, but not boilin', it won't lump so. H'm?Don't mention it. "

VI

SIMPLY SKIRTS

They may differ on the subjects of cigars, samples, hotels, ball teamsand pinochle hands, but two things there are upon which they standunited. Every member of that fraternity which is condemned to a hotelbedroom, or a sleeper berth by night, and chained to a sample case byday agrees in this, first: That it isn't what it used to be. Second:If only they could find an opening for a nice, paying gents'furnishing business in a live little town that wasn't swamped withthat kind of thing already they'd buy it and settle down like a whiteman, by George! and quit this peddling. The missus hates it anyhow;and the kids know the iceman better than they do their own dad. 

On the morning that Mrs. Emma McChesney (representing T. A. Buck, Featherloom Petticoats) finished her talk with Miss Hattie Stitch, head of Kiser & Bloch's skirt and suit department, she found herselfin a rare mood. She hated her job; she loathed her yellow samplecases; she longed to call Miss Stitch a green-eyed cat; and she wishedthat she had chosen some easy and pleasant way of earning a living, like doing plain and fancy washing and ironing. Emma McChesney hadbeen selling Featherloom Petticoats on the road for almost ten years, and she was famed throughout her territory for her sane sunniness, andher love of her work. Which speaks badly for Miss Hattie Stitch. 

Miss Hattie Stitch hated Emma McChesney with all the hate that a flat-chested, thin-haired woman has for one who can wear a large thirty-sixwithout one inch of alteration, and a hat that turns sharply away fromthe face. For forty-six weeks in the year Miss Stitch existed in Kiser& Bloch's store at River Falls. For six weeks, two in spring, two infall, and two in mid-winter, Hattie lived in New York, with a capitalL. She went there to select the season's newest models (slightlymodified for River Falls), but incidentally she took a regulartrousseau with her. 

All day long Hattie picked skirt and suit models with unerring goodtaste and business judgment. At night she was a creature transformed. Every house of which Hattie bought did its duty like a soldier and agentleman. Nightly Hattie powdered her neck and arms, performed sacredrites over her hair and nails, donned a gown so complicated that ahotel maid had to hook her up the back, and was ready for herevening's escort at eight. There wasn't a hat in a grill room from oneend of the Crooked Cow-path to the other that was more wildly barbaricthan Hattie's, even in these sane and simple days when the bird ofparadise has become the national bird. The buyer of suits for athriving department store in a hustling little Middle-Western townisn't to be neglected. Whenever a show came to River Falls Hattiewould look bored, pass a weary hand over her glossy coiffure and say:"Oh, yes. Clever little show. Saw it two winters ago in New York. Thiswon't be the original company, of course. " The year that Hattie cameback wearing a set of skunk everyone thought it was lynx until Hattiedrew attention to what she called the "brown tone" in it. After thatOld Lady Heinz got her old skunk furs out of the moth balls andtobacco and newspapers that had preserved them, and her daughter cutthem up into bands for the bottom of her skirt, and the cuffs of hercoat. When Kiser & Bloch had their fall and spring openings the towncame ostensibly to see the new styles, but really to gaze at Hattie ina new confection, undulating up and down the department, talking witha heavy Eastern accent about this or that being "smart" or "good thisyear, " or having "a world of style, " and sort of trailing her toesafter her to give a clinging, Grecian line, like pictures of EthelBarrymore when she was thin. The year that Hattie confided to some onethat she was wearing only scant bloomers beneath her slinky silk thefloor was mobbed, and they had to call in reserves from the basementladies-and-misses-ready-to-wear. 

Miss Stitch came to New York in March. On the evening of her arrivalshe dined with Fat Ed Meyers, of the Strauss Sans-silk Skirt Company. He informed her that she looked like a kid, and that that was someclassy little gown, and it wasn't every woman who could wear that kindof thing and get away with it. It took a certain style. Hattie smiled, and hummed off-key to the tune the orchestra was playing, and Ed toldher it was a shame she didn't do something with that voice. 

"I have something to tell you, " said Hattie. "Just before I left I hada talk with old Kiser. Or rather, he had a talk with me. You know Ihave pretty much my own way in my department. Pity if I couldn't have. I made it. Well, Kiser wanted to know why I didn't buy Featherlooms. Isaid we had no call for 'em, and he came back with figures to provewe're losing a good many hundreds a year by not carrying them. He saidthe Strauss Sans-silk skirt isn't what it used to be. And he's right. "

"Oh, say--" objected Ed Meyers. 

"It's true, " insisted Hattie. "But I couldn't tell him that I didn'tbuy Featherlooms because McChesney made me tired. Besides, she neverentertains me when I'm in New York. Not that I'd go to the theater inthe evening with a woman, because I wouldn't, but--Say, listen. Whydon't you make a play for her job? As long as I've got to put in aheavy line of Featherlooms you may as well get the benefit of it. Youcould double your commissions. I'll bet that woman makes her I-don'tknow-how-many thousands a year. "

Ed Meyers' naturally ruddy complexion took on a richer tone, and hedropped his fork hastily. As he gazed at Miss Stitch his glance wasnot more than half flattering. "How you women do love each other, don't you! You don't. I don't mind telling you my firm's cutting downits road force, and none of us knows who's going to be beheaded next. But--well--a guy wouldn't want to take a job away from a woman--especially a square little trick like McChesney. Of course she'splayed me a couple of low-down deals and I promised to get back ather, but that's business. But--"

"So's this, " interrupted Miss Hattie Stitch. "And I don't know thatshe is so square. Let me tell you that I heard she's no better thanshe might be. I have it on good authority that three weeks ago, at theRiver House, in our town--"

Their heads came close together over the little, rose-shadedrestaurant table. 

At eleven o'clock next morning Fat Ed Meyers walked into the office ofthe T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company and asked to see old T. A. 

"He's in Europe, " a stenographer informed him, "spaing, andsprudeling, and badening. Want to see T. A. Junior?"

"T. A. Junior!" almost shouted Ed Meyers. "You don't mean to tell me_that_ fellow's taken hold--"

"Believe _me_. That's why Featherlooms are soaring and Sans-silks aresinking. Nobody would have believed it. T. A. Junior's got a live wirelooking like a stick of licorice. When they thought old T. A. Wasgoing to die, young T. A. Seemed to straighten out all of a sudden andtake hold. It's about time. He must be almost forty, but he don't showit. I don't know, he ain't so good-looking, but he's got swell eyes. "

Ed Meyers turned the knob of the door marked "Private, " and entered, smiling. Ed Meyers had a smile so cherubic that involuntarily youarmed yourself against it. 

"Hel-lo Buck!" he called jovially. "I hear that at last you're takingan interest in skirts--other than on the hoof. " And he offered youngT. A. A large, dark cigar with a fussy-looking band encircling itsmiddle. Young T. A. Looked at it disinterestedly, and spake, saying:

"What are you after?"

"Why, I just dropped in--" began Ed Meyers lamely. 

"The dropping, " observed T. A. Junior, "is bad around here thismorning. I have one little formula for all visitors to-day, regardlessof whether they're book agents or skirt salesmen. That is, what can Ido for you?"

Ed Meyers tucked his cigar neatly into the extreme right corner of hismouth, pushed his brown derby far back on his head, rested hisstrangely lean hands on his plump knees, and fixed T. A. Junior with ashrewd blue eye. "That suits me fine, " he agreed. "I never was one tobeat around the bush. Look here. I know skirts from the draw-string tothe ruffle. It's a woman's garment, but a man's line. There's fiftyreasons why a woman can't handle it like a man. For one thing thepacking cases weigh twenty-five pounds each, and she's as dependent ona packer and a porter as a baby is on its mother. Another is that if aman has to get up to make a train at 4 A. M. He don't require twenty-five minutes to fasten down three sets of garters, and braid his hair, and hook his waist up the back, and miss his train. And he don't haveneuralgic headaches. Then, the head of a skirt department in a storeis a woman, ten times out of ten. And lemme tell you, " he leanedforward earnestly, "a woman don't like to buy of a woman. Don't ask mewhy. I'm too modest. But it's the truth. "

"Well?" said young T. A. , with the rising inflection. 

"Well, " finished Ed Meyers, "I like your stuff. I think it's great. It's a seller, with the right man to push it. I'd like to handle it. And I'll guarantee I could double the returns from your Middle-Westernterritory. " T. A. Junior had strangely translucent eyes. Theirluminous quality had an odd effect upon any one on whom he happened toturn them. He had been scrawling meaningless curlycues on a piece ofpaper as Ed Meyers talked. Now he put down the pencil, turned, andlooked Ed Meyers fairly in the eye. 

"You mean you want Mrs. McChesney's territory?" he asked quietly. 

"Well, yes, I do, " confessed Ed Meyers, without a blush. 

Young T. A. Swung back to his desk, tore from the pad before him thepiece of paper on which he had been scrawling, crushed it, and tossedit into the wastebasket with an air of finality. 

"Take the second elevator down, " he said. "The nearest one's out oforder. "

For a moment Ed Meyers stared, his fat face purpling. "Oh, very well, "he said, rising. "I just made you a business proposition, that's all. I thought I was talking to a business man. Now, old T. A. --"

"That'll be about all, " observed T. A. Junior, from his desk. 

Ed Meyers started toward the door. Then he paused, turned, and cameback to his chair. His heavy jaw jutted out threateningly. 

"No, it ain't all, either. I didn't want to mention it, and if you'dtreated me like a gentleman, I wouldn't have. But I want to say to youthat McChesney's giving this firm a black eye. Morals don't figurewith a man on the road, but when a woman breaks into this game, she'sgot to be on the level. "

T. A. Junior rose. The blonde stenographer who had made the admiringremark anent his eyes would have appreciated those features now. Theyglowed luminously into Ed Meyers' pale blue ones until that gentlemandropped his eyelids in confusion. He seemed at a disadvantage in everyway, as T. A. Junior's lean, graceful height towered over the fatman's bulk. "I don't know Mrs. McChesney, " said T. A. Junior. "Ihaven't even seen her in six years. My interest in the business isvery recent. I do know that my father swears she's the best salesmanhe has on the road. Before you go any further I want to tell you thatyou'll have to prove what you just implied, so definitely, andconclusively, and convincingly that when you finish you'll have anordinary engineering blue-print looking like a Turner landscape. Begin. "

Ed Meyers, still standing, clutched his derby tightly and began. 

"She's a looker, Emma is. And smooth! As the top of your desk. Butshe's getting careless. Now a decent, hard-working, straight girl likeMiss Hattie Stitch, of Kiser & Bloch's, River Falls, won't buy of her. You'll find you don't sell that firm. And they buy big, too. Why, lastsummer I had it from the clerk of the hotel in that town that she ranaround all day with a woman named LeHaye--Blanche LeHaye, of anaggregation of bum burlesquers called the Sam Levin CrackerjackBelles. And say, for a whole month there, she had a tough young kidtraveling with her that she called her son. Oh, she's queering yourline, all right. The days are past when it used to be a signal for aloud, merry laugh if you mentioned you were selling goods on the road. It's a fine art, and a science these days, and the name of T. A. Buckhas always stood for--"

Downstairs a trim, well-dressed, attractive woman stepped into theelevator and smiled radiantly upon the elevator man, who had smiledfirst. 

"Hello, Jake, " she said. "What's old in New York? I haven't been herein three months. It's good to be back. "

"Seems grand t' see you, Mis' McChesney, " returned Jake. " Well, nothin' much stirrin'. Whatcha think of the Grand Central? Iunderstand they're going to have a contrivance so you can stand on amat in the waiting-room and wish yourself down to the track an' trainthat you're leavin' on. The G'ints have picked a bunch of shines thisseason. T. A. Junior's got a new sixty-power auto. Genevieve--thatyella-headed steno--was married last month to Henry, the shippingclerk. My wife presented me with twin girls Monday. Well, thank _you_, Mrs. McChesney. I guess that'll help some. "

Emma McChesney swung down the hall and into the big, bright office. She paused at the head bookkeeper's desk. The head bookkeeper was awoman. Old Man Buck had learned something about the faithfulness ofwomen employees. The head bookkeeper looked up and said someconvincing things. 

"Thanks, " said Emma, in return. "It's mighty good to be here. Is ittrue that skirts are going to be full in the back? How's business? T. A. In?"

"Young T. A. Is. But I think he's busy just now. You know T. A. Seniorisn't back yet. He had a tight squeeze, I guess. Everybody's talkingabout the way young T. A. Took hold. You know he spent years runningaround Europe, and he made a specialty of first nights, and firsteditions, and French cars when he did show up here. But now! He'schanged the advertising, and designing, and cutting departments aroundhere until there's as much difference between this place now and theplace it was three months ago as there is between a hoop-skirt and ahobble. He designed one skirt--Here, Miss Kelly! Just go in and getone of those embroidery flounce models for Mrs. McChesney. How's that?Honestly, I'd wear it myself. "

Emma McChesney held the garment in her two hands and looked it overcritically. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She looked up to replywhen the door of T. A. Buck's private office opened, and Ed Meyerswalked briskly out. Emma McChesney put down the skirt and crossed theoffice so that she and he met just in front of the little gate thatformed an entrance along the railing. 

Ed Meyers' mouth twisted itself into a smile. He put out a welcominghand. 

"Why, hello, stranger! When did you drive in? How's every littlething? I'm darned if you don't grow prettier and younger every day ofyour sweet life. "

"Quit Sans-silks?" inquired Mrs. McChesney briefly. 

[Illustration: "'Honestly. I'd wear it myself!'"]

"Why--no. But I was just telling young T. A. In there that if I couldonly find a nice, paying little gents' furnishing business in a livelittle town that wasn't swamped with that kind of thing already I'dbuy it, by George! I'm tired of this peddling. "

"Sing that, " said Emma McChesney. "It might sound better, " and marchedinto the office marked "Private. "

T. A. Junior's good-looking back and semi-bald head were toward her asshe entered. She noted, approvingly, woman-fashion, that his neckwould never lap over the edge of his collar in the back. Then Young T. A. Turned about. He gazed at Emma McChesney, his eyebrows raisedinquiringly. Emma McChesney's honest blue eyes, with no translucentnonsense about them, gazed straight back at T. A. Junior. 

"I'm Mrs. McChesney. I got in half an hour ago. It's been a goodlittle trip, considering business, and politics, and all that. I'msorry to hear your father's still ill. He and I always talked overthings after my long trip. "

Young T. A. 's expert eye did not miss a single point, from the tip ofMrs. McChesney's smart spring hat to the toes of her well-shod feet, with full stops for the fit of her tailored suit, the freshness of hergloves, the clearness of her healthy pink skin, the wave of her soft, bright hair. 

"How do you do, Mrs. McChesney, " said Young T. A. Emphatically. "Please sit down. It's a good idea--this talking over your trip. Thereare several little things--now Kiser & Bloch, of River Falls, forinstance. We ought to be selling them. The head of their skirt andsuit department is named Stitch, isn't she? Now, what would you say ofMiss Stitch?"

"Say?" repeated Emma McChesney quickly. "As a woman, or a buyer?"

T. A. Junior thought a minute. "As a woman. "

Mrs. McChesney thoughtfully regarded the tips of her neatly glovedhands. Then she looked up. "The kindest and gentlest thing I can sayabout her is that if she'd let her hair grow out gray maybe her facewouldn't look so hard. "

T. A. Junior flung himself back in his chair and threw back his headand laughed at the ceiling. 

Then, "How old is your son?" with disconcerting suddenness. 

"Jock's scandalously near eighteen. " In her quick mind Emma McChesneywas piecing odds and ends together, and shaping the whole to fit FatEd Meyers. A little righteous anger was rising within her. 

T. A. Junior searched her face with his glowing eyes. 

"Does my father know that you have a young man son? Queer you nevermentioned it. 

"Queer? Maybe. Also, I don't remember ever having mentioned whatchurch my folks belonged to, or where I was born, or whether I like mysteak rare or medium, or what my maiden name was, or the size of myshoes, or whether I take my coffee with or without. That's because Idon't believe in dragging private and family affairs into the businessrelation. I think I ought to tell you that on the way in I met EdMeyers, of the Strauss Sans-silk Skirt Company, coming out. Soanything you say won't surprise me. "

"You wouldn't be surprised, " asked T. A. Junior smoothly, "if I wereto say that I'm considering giving a man your territory?" EmmaMcChesney's eyes--those eyes that had seen so much of the world andits ways, and that still could return your gaze so clearly andhonestly--widened until they looked so much like those of a hurtchild, or a dumb animal that has received a death wound, that young T. A. Dropped his gaze in confusion. 

Emma McChesney stood up. Her breath came a little quickly. But whenshe spoke, her voice was low and almost steady. 

"If you expect me to beg you for my job, you're mistaken. T. A. Buck'sFeatherloom Petticoats have been my existence for almost ten years. I've sold Featherlooms six days in the week, and seven when I had aSunday customer. They've not only been my business and my means ofearning a livelihood, they've been my religion, my diversion, my life, my pet pastime. I've lived petticoats, I've talked petticoats, I'vesold petticoats, I've dreamed petticoats--why, I've even worn thedarned things! And that's more than any man will ever do for you. "

[Illustration: "'I've lived petticoats, I've talked petticoats, I'vedreamed petticoats--why, I've even worn the darn things!'"]

Young T. A. Rose. He laughed a little laugh of sheer admiration. Admiration shone, too, in those eyes of his which so many women foundirresistible. He took a step forward and laid one well-shaped hand onEmma McChesney's arm. She did not shrink, so he let his hand slip downthe neat blue serge sleeve until it reached her snugly gloved hand. 

"You're all right!" he said. His voice was very low, and there was anew note in it. "Listen, girlie. I've just bought a new sixty-powermachine. Have dinner with me to-night, will you? And we'll take a runout in the country somewhere. It's warm, even for March. I'll bringalong a fur coat for you. H'm?"

Mrs. McChesney stood thoughtfully regarding the hand that covered herown. The blue of her eyes and the pink of her cheeks were a marvel tobehold. 

"It's a shame, " she began slowly, "that you're not twenty-five yearsyounger, so that your father could give you the licking you deservewhen he comes home. I shouldn't be surprised if he'd do it anyway. TheLord preserve me from these quiet, deep devils with temperamentalhands and luminous eyes. Give me one of the bull-necked, red-faced, hoarse-voiced, fresh kind every time. You know what they're going tosay, at least, and you're prepared for them. If I were to tell you howthe hand you're holding is tingling to box your ears you'd marvel thatany human being could have that much repression and live. I've heardof this kind of thing, but I didn't know it happened often off thestage and outside of novels. Let's get down to cases. If I let youmake love to me, I keep my job. Is that it?"

"Why--no--I--to tell the truth I was only--"

"Don't embarrass yourself. I just want to tell you that before I'daccept your auto ride I'd open a little fancy art goods and needleworkstore in Menominee, Michigan, and get out the newest things inHardanger work and Egyptian embroidery. And that's my notion of zeroin occupation. Besides, no plain, everyday workingwoman could enjoyherself in your car because her conscience wouldn't let her. She'd bethinking all the time how she was depriving some poor, hard-workingchorus girl of her legitimate pastime, and that would spoileverything. The elevator man told me that you had a new motor car, butthe news didn't interest me half as much as that of his having newtwin girls. Anything with five thousand dollars can have a sixty-powermachine, but only an elevator man on eight dollars a week can affordthe luxury of twins. "

"My dear Mrs. McChesney--"

"Don't, " said Emma McChesney sharply. "I couldn't stand much more. Ijoke, you know, when other women cry. It isn't so wearing. "

She turned abruptly and walked toward the door. T. A. Junior overtookher in three long strides, and placed himself directly before her. 

"My cue, " said Emma McChesney, with a weary brightness, "to say, 'Letme pass, sir!'"

"Please don't, " pleaded T. A. Junior. "I'll remember this the rest ofmy life. I thought I was a statue of modern business methods, butafter to-day I'm going to ask the office boy to help me run thisthing. If I could only think of some special way to apologize to you--"

"Oh, it's all right, " said Emma McChesney indifferently. 

"But it isn't! It isn't! You don't understand. That human jellyfish ofa Meyers said some things, and I thought I'd be clever and prove them. I can't ask your pardon. There aren't words enough in the language. Why, you're the finest little woman--you're--you'd restore the faithof a cynic who had chronic indigestion. I wish I--Say, let me relieveyou of a couple of those small towns that you hate to make, and giveyou Cleveland and Cincinnati. And let me--Why say, Mrs. McChesney!Please! Don't! This isn't the time to--"

"I can't help it, " sobbed Emma McChesney, her two hands before herface. "I'll stop in a minute. There; I'm stopping now. For Heaven'ssake, stop patting me on the head!"

"Please don't be so decent to me, " entreated T. A. Junior, his fineeyes more luminous than ever. " If only you'd try to get back at me Iwouldn't feel so cut up about it. " Emma McChesney looked up at him, asmile shining radiantly through the tears. "Very well. I'll do it. Just before I came in they showed me that new embroidery flouncedmodel you just designed. Maybe you don't know it, but women wear onlyone limp petticoat nowadays. And buttoned shoes. The eyelets in thatembroidery are just big enough to catch on the top button of a woman'sshoe, and tear, and trip her. I ought to have let you make up a coupleof million of them, and then watch them come back on your hands. I wasgoing to tell you, anyway, for T. A. Senior's sake. Now I'm doing itfor your own. "

[Illustration: "And found himself addressing the backs of the letterson the door marked 'Private'"]

"For--" began T. A. Junior excitedly. And found himself addressing thebacks of the letters on the door marked "Private, " as it slammed afterthe trim, erect figure in blue. 

VII

UNDERNEATH THE HIGH-CUT VEST

We all carry with us into the one-night-stand country calledSleepland, a practical working nightmare that we use again and again, no matter how varied the theme or setting of our dream-drama. Yoursurgeon, tossing uneasily on his bed, sees himself cutting to removean appendix, only to discover that that unpopular portion of hispatient's anatomy already bobs in alcoholic glee in a bottle on thetop shelf of the laboratory of a more alert professional brother. Yourcivil engineer constructs imaginary bridges which slump and fall asquickly as they are completed. Your stage favorite, in the throes of apost-lobster nightmare, has a horrid vision of herself "resting" inJanuary. But when he who sells goods on the road groans and tosses inthe clutches of a dreadful dream, it is, strangely enough, never ofcanceled orders, maniacal train schedules, lumpy mattresses, or vilelycooked food. These everyday things he accepts with a philosopher'scheerfulness. No--his nightmare is always a vision of himself, sick onthe road, at a country hotel in the middle of a Spring season. 

On the third day that she looked with more than ordinary indifferenceupon hotel and dining-car food Mrs. Emma McChesney, representing theT. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, wondered if, perhaps, shedid not need a bottle of bitter tonic. On the fifth day she noticedthat there were chills chasing up and down her spine, and back andforth from legs to shoulder-blades when other people were wiping theirchins and foreheads with bedraggled-looking handkerchiefs, anddemanding to know how long this heat was going to last, anyway. On thesixth day she lost all interest in T. A. Buck's FeatherloomPetticoats. And then she knew that something was seriously wrong. Onthe seventh day, when the blonde and nasal waitress approached her inthe dining-room of the little hotel at Glen Rock, Minnesota, EmmaMcChesney's mind somehow failed to grasp the meaning of the all tooobvious string of questions which were put to her--questions ending inthe inevitable "Tea, coffee 'r milk?" At that juncture Emma McChesneyhad looked up into the girl's face in a puzzled, uncomprehending way, had passed one hand dazedly over her hot forehead, and replied, withgreat earnestness:

"Yours of the twelfth at hand and contents noted . . . The greatestlittle skirt on the market . . . He's going to be a son to be proud of, God bless him . . . Want to leave a call for seven sharp--"

The lank waitress's face took on an added blankness. One of the twotraveling men at the same table started to laugh, but the other putout his hand quickly, rose, and said, "Shut up, you blamed fool! Can'tyou see the lady's sick?" And started in the direction of her chair. 

Even then there came into Emma McChesney's ordinarily well-ordered, alert mind the uncomfortable thought that she was talking nonsense. She made a last effort to order her brain into its usual saneclearness, failed, and saw the coarse white table-cloth rising swiftlyand slantingly to meet her head. 

[Illustration: "'Shut up, you blamed fool! Can't you see the lady'ssick?'"]

It speaks well for Emma McChesney's balance that when she foundherself in bed, two strange women, and one strange man, and an all-too-familiar bell-boy in the room, she did not say, "Where am I? Whathappened?" Instead she told herself that the amazingly andunbelievably handsome young man bending over her with a stethoscopewas a doctor; that the plump, bleached blonde in the white shirtwaistwas the hotel housekeeper; that the lank ditto was a waitress; andthat the expression on the face of each was that of apprehension, tinged with a pleasurable excitement. So she sat up, dislodging thestethoscope, and ignoring the purpose of the thermometer which hadreposed under her tongue. 

"Look here!" she said, addressing the doctor in a high, queer voice. "I can't be sick, young man. Haven't time. Not just now. Put it offuntil August and I'll be as sick as you like. Why, man, this is themiddle of June, and I'm due in Minneapolis now. "

"Lie down, please, " said the handsome young doctor, "and don't dareremove this thermometer again until I tell you to. This can't be putoff until August. You're sick right now. "

Mrs. McChesney shut her lips over the little glass tube, and watchedthe young doctor's impassive face (it takes them no time to learn thattrick) and, woman-wise, jumped to her own conclusion. 

"How sick?" she demanded, the thermometer read. 

"Oh, it won't be so bad, " said the very young doctor, with aprofessionally cheerful smile. 

Emma McChesney sat up in bed with a jerk. "You mean--sick! Not ill, orgrippy, or run down, but sick! Trained-nurse sick! Hospital sick!Doctor-twice-a-day sick! Table-by-the-bedside-with-bottles-on-itsick!"

"Well--a--" hesitated the doctor, and then took shelter behind abristling hedge of Latin phrases. Emma McChesney hurdled it at a leap. 

"Never mind, " she said. "I know. " She looked at the faces of thosefour strangers. Sympathy--real, human sympathy--was uppermost in each. She smiled a faint and friendly little smile at the group. And at thatthe housekeeper began tucking in the covers at the foot of the bed, and the lank waitress walked to the window and pulled down the shade, and the bell-boy muttered something about ice-water. The doctor pattedher wrist lightly and reassuringly. 

"You're all awfully good, " said Emma McChesney, her eyes glowing withsomething other than fever. "I've something to say. It's just this. IfI'm going to be sick I'd prefer to be sick right here, unless it'ssomething catching. No hospital. Don't ask me why. I don't know. Wepeople on the road are all alike. Wire T. A. Buck, Junior, of theFeatherloom Petticoat Company, New York. You'll find plenty of cleannightgowns in the left-hand tray of my trunk, covered with whitetissue paper. Get a nurse that doesn't sniffle, or talk about thepalace she nursed in last, where they treated her like a queen andwaited on her hand and foot. For goodness' sake, put my switch wherenothing will happen to it, and if I die and they run my picture in the_Dry Goods Review_ under the caption, 'Veteran Traveling SaleswomanSuccumbs at Glen Rock, ' I'll haunt the editor. " She paused a moment. 

"Everything will be all right, " said the housekeeper, soothingly. "You'll think you're right at home, it'll be so comfortable. Was thereanything else, now?"

"Yes, " said Emma McChesney. "The most important of all. My son, JockMcChesney, is fishing up in the Canadian woods. A telegram may notreach him for three weeks. They're shifting about from camp to camp. Try to get him, but don't scare him too much. You'll find the addressunder J. In my address book in my handbag. Poor kid. Perhaps it's justas well he doesn't know. "

Perhaps it was. At any rate it was true that had the tribe ofMcChesney been as the leaves of the trees, and had it held a familyreunion in Emma McChesney's little hotel bedroom, it would havemattered not at all to her. For she _was_ sick--doctor-three-times-a-day-trained-nurse-bottles-by-the-bedside sick, her head, with itsbright hair rumpled and dry with the fever, tossing from side to sideon the lumpy hotel pillow, or lying terribly silent and inert againstthe gray-white of the bed linen. She never quite knew how narrowly sheescaped that picture in the _Dry Goods Review_. 

Then one day the fever began to recede, slowly, whence fevers come, and the indefinable air of suspense and repression that lingers abouta sick-room at such a crisis began to lift imperceptibly. There came atime when Emma McChesney asked in a weak but sane voice:

"Did Jock come? Did they cut off my hair?"

"Not yet, dear, " the nurse had answered to the first, "but we'll hearin a day or so, I'm sure. " And, "Your lovely hair! Well, not if I knowit!" to the second. 

The spirit of small-town kindliness took Emma McChesney in its arms. The dingy little hotel room glowed with flowers. The story of the sickwoman fighting there alone in the terrors of delirium had gone up anddown about the town. Housewives with a fine contempt for hotel soupssent broths of chicken and beef. The local members of the U. C. T. Sent roses enough to tax every vase and wash-pitcher that the hotelcould muster, and asked their wives to call at the hotel and see whatthey could do. The wives came, obediently, but with suspicion anddistrust in their eyes, and remained to pat Emma McChesney's arm, askto read aloud to her, and to indulge generally in that process knownas "cheering her up. " Every traveling man who stopped at the littlehotel on his way to Minneapolis added to the heaped-up offerings atEmma McChesney's shrine. Books and magazines assumed the proportionsof a library. One could see the hand of T. A. Buck, Junior, in thecases of mineral water, quarts of wine, cunning cordials and tinybottles of liqueur that stood in convivial rows on the closet shelfand floor. There came letters, too, and telegrams with such phrases as"let nothing be left undone" and "spare no expense" under T. A. Buck, Junior's, signature. 

So Emma McChesney climbed the long, weary hill of illness and pain, reached the top, panting and almost spent, rested there, and began theeasy descent on the other side that led to recovery and strength. Butsomething was lacking. That sunny optimism that had been EmmaMcChesney's most valuable asset was absent. The blue eyes had losttheir brave laughter. A despondent droop lingered in the corners ofthe mouth that had been such a rare mixture of firmness andtenderness. Even the advent of Fat Ed Meyers, her keenest competitor, and representative of the Strauss Sans-silk Company, failed to awakenin her the proper spirit of antagonism. Fat Ed Meyers sent a bunch ofviolets that devastated the violet beds at the local greenhouse. EmmaMcChesney regarded them listlessly when the nurse lifted them out oftheir tissue wrappings. But the name on the card brought a tiny smileto her lips. 

"He says he'd like to see you, if you feel able, " said Miss Haney, thenurse, when she came up from dinner. 

Emma McChesney thought a minute. "Better tell him it's catching, " shesaid. 

"He knows it isn't, " returned Miss Haney. "But if you don't want him, why--"

"Tell him to come up, " interrupted Emma McChesney, suddenly. 

A faint gleam of the old humor lighted up her face when Fat Ed Meyerspainfully tip-toed in, brown derby in hand, his red face properlydoleful, brown shoes squeaking. His figure loomed mountainous in alight-brown summer suit. 

"Ain't you ashamed of yourself?" he began, heavily humorous. "Couldn'tyou find anything better to do in the middle of the season? Say, onthe square, girlie, I'm dead sorry. Hard luck, by gosh! Young T. A. Himself went out with a line in your territory, didn't he? I didn'tthink that guy had it in him, darned if I did. "

"It was sweet of you to send all those violets, Mr. Meyers. I hopeyou're not disappointed that they couldn't have been worked in theform of a pillow, with 'At Rest' done in white curlycues. "

"Mrs. McChesney!" Ed Meyers' round face expressed righteous reproof, pain, and surprise. "You and I may have had a word, now and then, andI will say that you dealt me a couple of low-down tricks on the road, but that's all in the game. I never held it up against you. Say, nobody ever admired you or appreciated you more than I did--"

"Look out!" said Emma McChesney. "You're speaking in the past tense. Please don't. It makes me nervous. "

Ed Meyers laughed, uncomfortably, and glanced yearningly toward thedoor. He seemed at a loss to account for something he failed to findin the manner and conversation of Mrs. McChesney. 

"Son here with you, I suppose, " he asked, cheerily, sure that he wason safe ground at last. 

Emma McChesney closed her eyes. The little room became very still. Ina panic Ed Meyers looked helplessly from the white face, with itshollow cheeks and closed eyelids to the nurse who sat at the window. That discreet damsel put her finger swiftly to her lips, and shook herhead. Ed Meyers rose, hastily, his face a shade redder than usual. 

"Well, I guess I gotta be running along. I'm tickled to death to findyou looking so fat and sassy. I got an idea you were just stalling fora rest, that's all. Say, Mrs. McChesney, there's a swell little damein the house named Riordon. She's on the road, too. I don't know whather line is, but she's a friendly kid, with a bunch of talk. A womanalways likes to have another woman fussin' around when she's sick. Itold her about you, and how I'd bet you'd be crazy to get a chance totalk shop and Featherlooms again. I guess you ain't lost your interestin Featherlooms, eh, what?"

Emma McChesney's face indicated not the faintest knowledge ofFeatherloom Petticoats. Ed Meyers stared, aghast. And as he staredthere came a little knock at the door--a series of staccato raps, withfeminine knuckles back of them. The nurse went to the door, disapproval on her face. At the turning of the knob there bounced intothe room a vision in an Alice-blue suit, plumes to match, pearlearrings, elaborate coiffure of reddish-gold and a complexion thatshowed an unbelievable trust in the credulity of mankind. 

"How-do, dearie!" exclaimed the vision. "You poor kid, you! I heardyou was sick, and I says, 'I'm going up to cheer her up if I have tomiss my train out to do it. ' Say, I was laid up two years ago in IdahoFalls, Idaho, and believe me, I'll never forget it. I don't know howsick I was, but I don't even want to remember how lonesome I was. Ijust clung to the chamber-maid like she was my own sister. If yournurse wants to go out for an airing I'll sit with you. Glad to. "

"That's a grand little idea, " agreed Ed Meyers. "I told 'em you'dbrighten things up. Well, I'll be going. You'll be as good as new in aweek, Mrs. McChesney, don't you worry. So long. " And he closed thedoor after himself with apparent relief. 

Miss Haney, the nurse, was already preparing to go out. It was herregular hour for exercise. Mrs. McChesney watched her go with asinking heart. 

"Now!" said Miss Riordon, comfortably, "we girls can have a real, old-fashioned talk. A nurse isn't human. The one I had in Idaho Falls wasstrictly prophylactic, and antiseptic, and she certainly could givethe swell alcohol rubs, but you can't get chummy with a humandisinfectant. Your line's skirts, isn't it?"

"Yes. "

"Land, I've heard an awful lot about you. The boys on the roadcertainly speak something grand of you. I'm really jealous. Say, I'dlove to show you some of my samples for this season. They're justgreat. I'll just run down the hall to my room--"

She was gone. Emma McChesney shut her eyes, wearily. Her nerves weretwitching. Her thoughts were far, far away from samples and samplecases. So he had turned out to be his worthless father's son afterall! He must have got some news of her by now. And he ignored it. Hewas content to amuse himself up there in the Canadian woods, while hismother--

Miss Riordon, flushed, and panting a little, burst into the roomagain, sample-case in hand. 

"Lordy, that's heavy! It's a wonder I haven't killed myself beforenow, wrestling with those blamed things. "

Mrs. McChesney sat up on one elbow as Miss Riordon tugged at thesample-case cover. Then she leaned forward, interested in spite ofherself at sight of the pile of sheer, white, exquisitely embroideredand lacy garments that lay disclosed as the cover fell back. 

"Oh, lingerie! That's an ideal line for a woman. Let's see the yoke inthat first nightgown. It's a really wonderful design. "

Miss Riordon laughed and shook out the folds of the topmost garment. "Nightgown!" she said, and laughed again. "Take another look. "

"Why, what--" began Emma McChesney. 

"Shrouds!" announced Miss Riordon complacently. 

"Shrouds!" shrieked Mrs. McChesney, and her elbow gave way. She fellback on the pillow. 

"Beautiful, ain't they?" Miss Riordon twirled the white garment in herhand. "They're the very newest thing. You'll notice they're made upslightly hobble, with a French back, and high waist-line in the front. Last season kimono sleeves was all the go, but they're not used thisseason. This one--"

"Take them away!" screamed Emma McChesney hysterically. "Take themaway! Take them away!" And buried her face in her trembling whitehands. 

Miss Riordon stared. Then she slammed the cover of the case, rose, andstarted toward the door. But before she reached it, and while the sickwoman's sobs were still sounding hysterically the door flew open toadmit a tall, slim, miraculously well-dressed young man. The nextinstant Emma McChesney's lace nightgown was crushed against the top ofa correctly high-cut vest, and her tears coursed, unmolested, down thefolds of an exquisitely shaded lavender silk necktie. 

"Jock!" cried Emma McChesney; and then, "Oh, my son, my son, mybeautiful boy!" like a woman in a play. 

Jock was holding her tight, and patting her shoulder, and pressing hishealthy, glowing cheek close to hers that was so gaunt and pale. 

"I got seven wires, all at the same time. They'd been chasing me fordays, up there in the woods. I thought I'd never get here. "

And at that a wonderful thing happened to Emma McChesney. She liftedher face, and showed dimples where lines had been, smiles where tearshad coursed, a glow where there had been a grayish pallor. She leanedback a bit to survey this son of hers. 

"Ugh! how black you are!" It was the old Emma McChesney that spoke. "You young devil, you're actually growing a mustache! There'ssomething hard in your left-hand vest pocket. If it's your fountainpen you'd better rescue it, because I'm going to hug you again. "

But Jock McChesney was not smiling. He glanced around the stuffylittle hotel room. It looked stuffier and drearier than ever incontrast with his radiant youth, his glowing freshness, his outdoortan, his immaculate attire. He looked at the astonished Miss Riordon. At his gaze that lady muttered something, and fled, sample-casebanging at her knees. At the look in his eyes his mother hastened, woman-wise, to reassure him. 

[Illustration: "At his gaze that lady fled, sample-case banging at herknees"]

"It wasn't so bad, Jock. Now that you're here, it's all right. Jock, Ididn't realize just what you meant to me until you didn't come. Ididn't realize--"

Jock sat down at the edge of the bed, and slid one arm under hismother's head. There was a grim line about his mouth. 

"And I've been fishing, " he said. "I've been sprawling under a tree infront of a darned fool stream and wondering whether to fry 'em forlunch now, or to put my hat over my eyes and fall asleep. "

His mother reached up and patted his shoulder. But the line aroundJock's jaw did not soften. He turned his head to gaze down at hismother. 

"Two of those telegrams, and one letter, were from T. A. Buck, Junior, " he said. "He met me at Detroit. I never thought I'd standfrom a total stranger what I stood from that man. "

"Why, what do you mean?" Alarm, dismay, astonishment were in her eyes. 

"He said things. And he meant 'em. He showed me, in a perfectly well-bred, cleancut, and most convincing way just what a miserable, selfish, low-down, worthless young hound I am. "

"He--dared!--"

"You bet he dared. And then some. And I hadn't an argument to comeback with. I don't know just where he got all his information from, but it was straight. "

He got up, strode to the window, and came back to the bed. Both handsthrust deep in his pockets, he announced his life plans, thus:

"I'm eighteen years old. And I look twenty-three, and act twenty-five--when I'm with twenty-five-year-olds. I've been as much help andcomfort to you as a pet alligator. You've always said that I was to goto college, and I've sort of trained myself to believe I was. Well, I'm not. I want to get into business, with a capital B. And I want tojump in now. This minute. I've started out to be a first-class slob, with you keeping me in pocket money, and clothes, and the Lord knowswhat all. Why, I--"

"Jock McChesney, " said that young man's bewildered mother, "just whatdid T. A. Buck, Junior, say to you anyway?"

"Plenty. Enough to make me see things. I used to think that I wantedto get into one of the professions. Professions! You talk about theromance of a civil engineer's life! Why, to be a successful businessman these days you've got to be a buccaneer, and a diplomat, and adetective, and a clairvoyant, and an expert mathematician, and awizard. Business--just plain everyday business--is the gamiest, chanciest, most thrilling line there is to-day, and I'm for it. Letthe other guy hang out his shingle and wait for 'em. I'm going out andget mine. "

"Any particular line, or just planning to corner the business marketgenerally?" came a cool, not too amused voice from the bed. 

"Advertising, " replied Jock crisply. "Magazine advertising, to startwith. I met a fellow up in the woods--named O'Rourke. He was a starfootball man at Yale. He's bucking the advertising line now for the_Mastodon Magazine_. He's crazy about it, and says it's the greatestgame ever. I want to get into it now--not four years from now. "

He stopped abruptly. Emma McChesney regarded him, eyes glowing. Thenshe gave a happy little laugh, reached for her kimono at the foot ofthe bed, and prepared to kick off the bedclothes. 

"Just run into the hall a second, son, " she announced. "I'm going toget up. "

"Up! No, you're not!" shouted Jock, making a rush at her. Then, in theexuberance of his splendid young strength, he picked her up, swathedsnugly in a roll of sheeting and light blanket, carried her to the bigchair by the window, and seated himself, with his surprised andlaughing mother in his arms. 

But Mrs. McChesney was serious again in a moment. She lay with herhead against her boy's breast for a while. Then she spoke what was inher sane, far-seeing mind. 

[Illustration: "In the exuberance of his young strength, be picked herup"]

"Jock, if I've ever wished you were a girl, I take it all back now. I'd rather have heard what you just said than any piece ofunbelievable good fortune in the world. God bless you for it, dear. But, Jock, you're going to college. No--wait a minute. You'll have achance to prove the things you just said by getting through in threeyears instead of the usual four. If you're in earnest you can do it. Iwant my boy to start into this business war equipped with every meansof defense. You called it a game. It's more than that--it's a battle. Compared to the successful business man of to-day the RevolutionaryMinute Men were as keen and alert as the Seven Sleepers. I know thatthere are more non-college men driving street-cars than there arecollege men. But that doesn't influence me. You could get a job now. Not much of a position, perhaps, but something self-respecting andfairly well-paying. It would teach you many things. You might get aknowledge of human nature that no college could give you. But there'ssomething--poise--self-confidence--assurance--that nothing but collegecan give you. You will find yourself in those three years. After youfinish college you'll have difficulty in fitting into your properniche, perhaps, and you'll want to curse the day on which you heededmy advice. It'll look as though you had simply wasted those threeprecious years. But in five or six years after, when your characterhas jelled, and you've hit your pace, you'll bless me for it. As for aknowledge of humanity, and of business tricks--well, your mother isfairly familiar with the busy marts of trade. If you want to learnfolks you can spend your summers selling Featherlooms with me. "

"But, mother, you don't understand just why--"

"Yes, dear 'un, I do. After all, remember you're only eighteen. You'llprobably spend part of your time rushing around at class proms with ared ribbon in your coat lapel to show you're on the floor committee. And you'll be girl-fussing, too. But you'd be attracted to girls, inor out of college, and I'd rather, just now, that it would be somepretty, nice-thinking college girl in a white sweater and a blue sergeskirt, whose worst thought was wondering if you could be cajoled intotaking her to the Freshman-Sophomore basketball game, than some red-lipped, black-jet-earringed siren gazing at you across the table insome basement cafe. And, goodness knows, Jock, you wear your clothesso beautifully that even the haberdashers' salesmen eye you withrespect. I've seen 'em. That's one course you needn't take atcollege. "

Jock sat silent, his face grave with thought. "But when I'm earningmoney--real money--it's off the road for you, " he said, at last. "Idon't want this to sound like a scene from East Lynne, but, mother--"

"Um-m-m-m--ye-ee-es, " assented Emma McChesney, with no alarmingenthusiasm. "Jock dear, carry me back to bed again, will you? And thenopen the closet door and pull out that big sample-case to the side ofmy bed. The newest Fall Featherlooms are in it, and somehow, I've justa whimsy notion that I'd like to look 'em over. "

VIII

CATCHING UP WITH CHRISTMAS

Temptation himself is not much of a spieler. Raucous-voiced, red-faced, greasy, he stands outside his gaudy tent, dilating on thewonders within. One or two, perhaps, straggle in. But the crowd, madewary by bitter experience of the sham and cheap fraud behind thetawdry canvas flap, stops a moment, laughs, and passes on. ThenTemptation, in a panic, seeing his audience drifting away, summonsfrom inside the tent his bespangled and bewitching partner, Mlle. Psychological Moment, the Hypnotic Charmer. She leaps to the platform, bows, pirouettes. The crowd surges toward the ticket-window, nickel inhand. 

Six months of bad luck had dogged the footsteps of Mrs. EmmaMcChesney, traveling saleswoman for the T. A. Buck FeatherloomPetticoat Company, New York. It had started with a six-weeks' illnessendured in the discomfort of a stuffy little hotel bedroom at GlenRock, Minnesota. By August she was back in New York, attending to out-of-town buyers. 

Those friendly Middle-Western persona showed dismay at her pale, hollow-eyed appearance. They spoke to her of teaspoonfuls of olive-oiltaken thrice a day, of mountain air, of cold baths, and, above all, ofthe advisability of leaving the road and taking an inside position. Atthat Emma McChesney always showed signs of unmistakable irritation. 

In September her son, Jock McChesney, just turned eighteen, wentblithely off to college, disguised as a millionaire's son in a blueNorfolk, silk hose, flat-heeled shoes, correctly mounted walrus bag, and next-week's style in fall hats. As the train glided out of thegreat shed Emma McChesney had waved her handkerchief, smiling likefury and seeing nothing but an indistinct blur as the observationplatform slipped around the curve. She had not felt that sameclutching, desolate sense of loss since the time, thirteen yearsbefore, when she had cut off his curls and watched him march sturdilyoff to kindergarten. 

In October it was plain that spring skirts, instead of being full aspredicted, were as scant and plaitless as ever. That spelled gloom forthe petticoat business. It was necessary to sell three of the presentabsurd style to make the profit that had come from the sale of oneskirt five years before. 

The last week in November, tragedy stalked upon the scene in the deathat Marienbad of old T. A. Buck, Mrs. McChesney's stanch friend andbeloved employer. Emma McChesney had wept for him as one weeps at theloss of a father. 

They had understood each other, those two, from the time that EmmaMcChesney, divorced, penniless, refusing support from the man she hadmarried eight years before, had found work in the office of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. 

Old Buck had watched her rise from stenographer to head stenographer, from head stenographer to inside saleswoman, from that to a minor roadterritory, and finally to the position of traveling representativethrough the coveted Middle-Western territory. 

Old T. A. Buck, gruff, grim, direct, far-seeing, kindly, shrewd--hehad known Emma McChesney for what she was worth. Once, when she hadbeen disclosing to him a clever business scheme which might be turnedinto good advertising material, old Buck had slapped his knee with onebroad, thick palm and had said:

"Emma McChesney, you ought to have been a man. With that head on aman's shoulders, you could put us out of business. "

"I could do it anyway, " Mrs. McChesney had retorted. 

Old Buck had regarded her a moment over his tortoise-shell rimmedglasses. Then, "I believe you could, " he had said, quietly andthoughtfully. 

That brings her up to December. To some few millions of people D-e-c-e-m-b-e-r spells Christmas. But to Emma McChesney it spelled thedreaded spring trip. It spelled trains stalled in snowdrifts, baggagedelayed, cold hotel bedrooms, harassed, irritable buyers. 

It was just six o'clock on the evening of December ninth when Mrs. Emma McChesney swung off the train at Columbus, Ohio, five hours late. As she walked down the broad platform her eyes unconsciously searchedthe loaded trucks for her own trunks. She'd have recognized them inthe hold of a Nile steamer--those grim, travel-scarred sample-trunks. They had a human look to her. She had a way of examining them aftereach trip, as a fond mother examines her child for stray scratches andbruises when she puts it to bed for the night. She knew each nook andcorner of the great trunks as another woman knows her linen-closet orher preserve-shelves. 

Columbus, Ohio, was a Featherloom town. Emma McChesney had a fondnessfor it, with its half rustic, half metropolitan air. Sometimes shelikened it to a country girl in a velvet gown, and sometimes to a citygirl in white muslin and blue sash. Singer & French always had aFeatherloom window twice a year. 

The hotel lobby wore a strangely deserted look. December is a slackmonth for actors and traveling men. Mrs. McChesney registeredautomatically, received her mail, exchanged greetings with the affableclerk. 

"Send my trunks up to my sample-room as soon as they get in. Three of'em--two sample-trunks and my personal trunk. And I want to see aporter about putting up some extra tables. You see, I'm two days latenow. I expect two buyers to-morrow morning. 

"Send 'em right up, Mrs. McChesney, " the clerk assured her. "Jo'llattend to those tables. Too bad about old Buck. How's the skirtbusiness?"

"Skirts? There is no such thing, " corrected Emma McChesney gently. "Sausage-casing business, you mean. "

"Guess you're right, at that. By the way, how's that handsomeyoungster of yours? He's not traveling with you this trip?"

There came a wonderful glow into Emma McChesney's tired face. 

"Jock's at college. Coming home for the holidays. We're going to havea dizzy week in New York. I'm wild to see if those three months ofcollege have done anything to him, bless his heart! Oh, kind sir, forgive a mother's fond ravings! Where'd that youngster go with mybag?"

Up at last in the stuffy, unfriendly, steam-smelling hotel bedroomEmma McChesney prepared to make herself comfortable. A cocky bell-boyswitched on the lights, adjusted a shade, straightened a curtain. Mrs. McChesney reached for her pocket-book. 

"Just open that window, will you?"

"Pretty cold, " remonstrated the bell-boy. "Beginning to snow, too. "

"Can't help it. I'll shut it in a minute. The last man that had thisroom left a dead cigar around somewhere. Send up a waiter, please. I'mgoing to treat myself to dinner in my room. "

The boy gone, she unfastened her collar, loosened a shoe that hadpressed a bit too tightly over the instep, took a kimono and toilettearticles out of her bag. 

"I'll run through my mail, " she told herself. "Then I'll get intosomething loose, see to my trunks, have dinner, and turn in early. Wish Jock were here. We'd have a steak, and some French fried, and asalad, and I'd let the kid make the dressing, even if he does alwaysget in too much vinegar--"

She was glancing through her mail. Two from the firm--one from MaryCutting--one from the Sure-White Laundry at Dayton (hope they foundthat corset-cover)--one from--why, from Jock! From Jock! And he'dwritten only two days before. Well!

Sitting there on the edge of the bed she regarded the dear scrawllovingly, savoring it, as is the way of a woman. Then she took ahairpin from the knot of bright hair (also as is the way of woman) andslit the envelope with a quick, sure rip. M-m-m--it wasn't much as tolength. Just a scrawled page. Emma McChesney's eye plunged into ithungrily, a smile of anticipation dimpling her lips, lighting up herface. 

"_Dearest Blonde_, " it began. 

("The nerve of the young imp!")

He hoped the letter would reach her in time. Knew how this weathermussed up her schedule. He wanted her honest opinion about something--straight, now! One of the frat fellows was giving a Christmas house-party. Awful swells, by the way. He was lucky even to be asked. He'dnever remembered a real Christmas--in a home, you know, with a tree, and skating, and regular high jinks, and a dinner that left youfeeling like a stuffed gooseberry. Old Wells says his grandmotherwears lace caps with lavender ribbons. Can you beat it! Of course hefelt like a hog, even thinking of wanting to stay away from her atChristmas. Still, Christmas in a New York hotel--! But the fellows hadnagged him to write. Said they'd do it if he didn't. Of course hehated to think of her spending Christmas alone--felt like a bloodyvillain--

Little by little the smile that had wreathed her lips faded and wasgone. The lips still were parted, but by one of those miracles withwhich the face expresses what is within the heart their expression hadchanged from pleasure to bitter pain. 

She sat there, at the edge of the bed, staring dully until the blackscrawls danced on the white page. With the letter before her sheraised her hand slowly and wiped away a hot, blinding mist of tearswith her open palm. Then she read it again, dully, as though everyselfish word of it had not already stamped itself on her brain andheart. 

[Illustration: "She read it again, dully, as though every selfish wordhad not already stamped itself on her brain and heart"]

After the second reading she still sat there, her eyes staring down ather lap. Once she brushed an imaginary fleck of lint from the lap ofher blue serge skirt--brushed, and brushed and brushed, with amechanical, pathetic little gesture that showed how completely absenther mind was from the room in which she sat. Then her hand fell idle, and she became very still, a crumpled, tragic, hopeless look roundingthe shoulders that were wont to hold themselves so erect andconfident. 

A tentative knock at the door. The figure on the bed did not stir. Another knock, louder this time. Emma McChesney sat up with a start. She shivered as she became conscious of the icy December air pouringinto the little room. She rose, walked to the window, closed it with abang, and opened the door in time to intercept the third knock. 

A waiter proffered her a long card. "Dinner, Madame?"

"Oh!" She shook her head. "Sorry I've changed my mind. I--I shan'twant any dinner. "

She shut the door again and stood with her back against it, eying thebed. In her mind's eye she had already thrown herself upon it, buriedher face in the nest of pillows, and given vent to the flood of tearsthat was beating at her throat. She took a quick step toward the bed, stopped, turned abruptly, and walked toward the mirror. 

"Emma McChesney, " she said aloud to the woman in the glass, "buck up, old girl! Bad luck comes in bunches of threes. It's like breaking thefirst cup in a new Haviland set. You can always count on smashing twomore. This is your third. So pick up the pieces and throw 'em in theash-can. "

Then she fastened her collar, buttoned her shoe, pulled down hershirtwaist all around, smeared her face with cold cream, wiped it witha towel, smoothed her hair, donned her hat. The next instant thelittle room was dark, and Emma McChesney was marching down the long, red-carpeted hallway to the elevator, her head high, her face set. 

Down-stairs in the lobby--"How about my trunks?" she inquired of aporter. 

That blue-shirted individual rubbed a hard brown hand over his cheekworriedly. 

"They ain't come. "

"Ain't come!"--surprise disregarded grammar. 

Nope. No signs of 'em. I'll tell you what: I think prob'ly they wasoverlooked in the rush, the train being late from Dayton when youstarted. Likely they'll be in on the ten-thirteen. I'll send 'em upthe minute they get in. "

"I wish you would. I've got to get my stuff out early. I can't keepcustomers waiting for me. Late, as it is. "

She approached the clerk once more. "Anything at the theaters?"

"Well, nothing much, Mrs. McChesney. Christmas coming on kind of putsa crimp in the show business. Nice little bill on at the Majestic, ifyou like vaudeville. "

"Crazy about it. Always get so excited watching to see if the next actis going to be as rotten as the last one. It always is. "

From eight-fifteen until ten-thirty Mrs. McChesney sat absolutelyexpressionless while a shrill blonde lady and a nasal dark gentlemanwent through what the program ironically called a "comedy sketch, "followed by a chummy person who came out in evening dress to sing asentimental ditty, shed the evening dress to reappear in an ankle-length fluffy pink affair; shucked the fluffy pink affair for achild's pinafore, sash, and bare knees; discarded the kiddie frock, disclosing a bathing-suit; left the bathing-suit behind the wings infavor of satin knee-breeches and tight jacket--and very discreetlystopped there, probably for no reason except to give way to the nextact, consisting of two miraculously thin young men in lavender dresssuits and white silk hats, who sang and clogged in unison, like twothings hung on a single wire. 

The night air was grateful to her hot forehead as she walked from thetheater to the hotel. 

"Trunks in?" to the porter. 

"No sign of 'em, lady. They didn't come in on the ten. Think they'dbetter wire back to Dayton. "

But the next morning Mrs. McChesney was in the depot baggage-room whenDayton wired back:

_"Trunks not here. Try Columbus, Nebraska. "_

"Crash!" said Emma McChesney to the surprised baggage-master. "Theregoes my Haviland vegetable-dish. "

"Were you selling china?" he inquired. 

"No, I wasn't, " replied Emma McChesney viciously. "And if you don'tlet me stand here and give my frank, unbiased opinion of this road, its president, board of directors, stockholders, baggage-men, Pullmanporters, and other things thereto appertaining, I'll probably havehysterics. "

"Give it, " said the baggage-master. " You'll feel better. And we'reused to it. "

She gave it. When she had finished:

"Did you say you was selling goods on the road? Say, that's a hell ofa job for a woman! Excuse me, lady. I didn't mean--"

"I think perhaps you're right, " said Emma McChesney slowly. "It isjust that. "

"Well, anyway, we'll do our best to trace it. Guess you're in for await. "

Emma McChesney waited. She made the rounds of her customers, andwaited. She wired her firm, and waited. She wrote Jock to run alongand enjoy himself, and waited. She cut and fitted a shirt-waist, tookher hat apart and retrimmed it, made the rounds of her impatientcustomers again, threatened to sue the road, visited the baggage-roomdaily--and waited. 

Four weary, nerve-racking days passed. It was late afternoon of thefourth day when Mrs. McChesney entered the elevator to go to her room. She had come from another fruitless visit to the baggage-room. Shesank into a leather-cushioned seat in a corner of the lift. Two menentered briskly, followed by a bellboy. Mrs. McChesney did not lookup. 

"Well, I'll be dinged!" boomed a throaty voice. "Mrs. McChesney, bythe Great Horn Spoon! H'are you? Talking about you this minute to myfriend here. "

Emma McChesney, with the knowledge of her lost sample-trunks strikingher afresh, looked up and smiled bravely into the plump pink face ofFat Ed Meyers, traveling representative for her firm's bitterestrival, the Strauss Sans-silk Skirt Company. 

"Talking about me, Mr. Meyers? Sufficient grounds for libel, rightthere. "

The little sallow, dark man just at Meyers' elbow was gazing at herunguardedly. She felt that he had appraised her from hat to heels. EdMeyers placed a plump hand on the little man's shoulder. 

"Abe, you tell the lady what I was saying. This is Mr. Abel Fromkin, maker of the Fromkin Form-Fit Skirt. Abe, this is the wonderful Mrs. McChesney. "

"Sorry I can't wait to hear what you've said of me. This is my floor. "Mrs. McChesney was already leaving the elevator. 

"Here! Wait a minute!" Fat Ed Meyers was out and standing beside her, his movements unbelievably nimble. "Will you have dinner with us, Mrs. McChesney?"

"Thanks. Not to-night. "

Meyers turned to the waiting elevator. "Fromkin, you go on up with theboy; I'll talk to the lady a minute. "

A little displeased frown appeared on Emma McChesney's face. 

"You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Meyers, I--"

"Heigh-ho for that haughty stuff, Mrs. McChesney, " grinned Ed Meyers. "Don't turn up your nose at that little Kike friend of mine tillyou've heard what I have to say. Now just let me talk a minute. Fromkin's heard all about you. He's got a proposition to make. And itisn't one to sniff at. "

He lowered his voice mysteriously in the silence of the dim hotelcorridor. 

"Fromkin started in a little one-room hole-in-the-wall over on theEast Side. Lived on a herring and a hunk of rye bread. Wife used tohelp him sew. That was seven years ago. In three years, or less, she'll have the regulation uniform--full length seal coat, bunch ofparadise, five-drop diamond La Valliere set in platinum, electricbrougham. Abe has got a business head, take it from me. But he's wiseenough to know that business isn't the rough-and-tumble game it usedto be. He realizes that he'll do for the workrooms, but not for thefront shop. He knows that if he wants to keep on growing he's got tohave what they call a steerer. Somebody smooth, and polished, andpolitic, and what the highbrows call suave. Do you pronounce that witha long _a_, or two dots over? Anyway, you get me. You're all thosethings and considerable few besides. He's wise to the fact that abusiness man's got to have poise these days, and balance. And when itcomes to poise and balance, Mrs. McChesney, you make a Fairbanks scalelook like a raft at sea. "

"While I don't want to seem to hurry you, " drawled Mrs. McChesney, "might I suggest that you shorten the overture and begin on the firstact?"

"Well, you know how I feel about your business genius. "

"Yes, I know, " enigmatically. 

Ed Meyers grinned. "Can't forget those two little businessmisunderstandings we had, can you?"

"Business understandings, " corrected Emma McChesney. 

"Call 'em anything your little heart dictates, but listen. Fromkinknows all about you. Knows you've got a million friends in the trade, that you know skirts from the belt to the hem. I don't know just whathis proposition is, but I'll bet he'll give you half interest in thelivest, come-upest little skirt factory in the country, just for a fewthousands capital, maybe, and your business head at the executive end. Now just let that sink in before you speak. "

"And why, " inquired Emma McChesney, "don't you grab this matchlessbusiness opportunity yourself?"

"Because, fair lady, Fromkin wouldn't let me get in with a crowbar. He'll never be able to pronounce his t's right, and when he's dressedup he looks like a 'bus-boy at Mouquin's, but he can see a blufffarther than I can throw one--and that's somewhere beyond the horizon, as you'll admit. Talk it over with us after dinner then?"

Emma McChesney was regarding the plump, pink, eager face before herwith keen, level, searching eyes. 

"Yes, " she said slowly, "I will. "

"Cafe? We'll have a bottle--"

"No. "

"Oh! Er--parlor?"

Mrs. McChesney smiled. "I won't ask you to make yourself thatmiserable. You can't smoke in the parlor. We'll find a quiet corner inthe writing-room, where you men can light up. I don't want to takeadvantage of you. "

[Illustration: "'Not that you look your age--not by ten years!'"]

Down in the writing-room at eight they formed a strange little group. Ed Meyers, flushed and eager, his pink face glowing like a peony, talking, arguing, smoking, reasoning, coaxing, with the spur of a fatcommission to urge him on; Abel Fromkin, with his peculiarly pallidskin made paler in contrast to the purplish-black line where the razorhad passed, showing no hint of excitement except in the restlesslittle black eyes and in the work-scarred hands that rolled cigaretteafter cigarette, each glowing for one brief instant, only to die downto a blackened ash the next; Emma McChesney, half fascinated, halfdistrustful, listening in spite of herself, and trying to still asmall inner voice--a voice that had never advised her ill. 

"You know the ups and downs to this game, " Ed Meyers was saying. "WhenI met you there in the elevator you looked like you'd lost your lastcustomer. You get pretty disgusted with it all, at times, like therest of us. "

"At that minute, " replied Emma McChesney, "I was so disgusted that ifsome one had called me up on the 'phone and said, 'Hullo, Mrs. McChesney! Will you marry me?' I'd have said: 'Yes. Who is this?'"

"There! That's just it. I don't want to be impolite, or anything likethat, Mrs. McChesney, but you're no kid. Not that you look your age--not by ten years! But I happen to know you're teetering somewherebetween thirty-six and the next top. Ain't that right?"

"Is that a argument to put to a lady?" remonstrated Abel Fromkin. 

Fat Ed Meyers waved the interruption away with a gesture of hisstrangely slim hands. "This ain't an argument. It's facts. Another tenyears on the road, and where'll you be? In the discard. A man offorty-six can keep step with the youngsters, even if it does make himpuff a bit. But a woman of forty-six--the road isn't the place forher. She's tired. Tired in the morning; tired at night. She wants herkimono and her afternoon snooze. You've seen some of those old girlson the road. They've come down step by step until you spot 'em, bleached hair, crow's-feet around the eyes, mussy shirt-waist, yellowand red complexion, demonstrating green and lavender gelatine messesin the grocery of some department store. I don't say that a brainycorker of a saleswoman like you would come down like that. But you'vegot to consider sickness and a lot of other things. Those six weekslast summer with the fever at Glen Rock put a crimp in you, didn't it?You've never been yourself since then. Haven't had a decent chance torest up. "

"No, " said Emma McChesney wearily. 

"Furthermore, now that old T. A. 's cashed in, how do you know whatyoung Buck's going to do? He don't know shucks about the skirtbusiness. They've got to take in a third party to keep it a closecorporation. It was all between old Buck, Buck junior, and old ladyBuck. How can you tell whether the new member will want a woman on theroad, or not?"

A little steely light hardened the blue of Mrs. McChesney's eyes. 

"We'll leave the firm of T. A. Buck out of this discussion, please. "

"Oh, very well!" Ed Meyers was unabashed. "Let's talk about Fromkin. He don't object, do you, Abe? It's just like this. He needs your smarthead. You need his money. It'll mean a sure thing for you--a share ina growing and substantial business. When you get your road men trainedit'll mean that you won't need to go out on the road yourself, exceptfor a little missionary trip now and then, maybe. No more infernalearly trains, no more bum hotel grub, no more stuffy, hot hotel rooms, no more haughty lady buyers--gosh, I wish I had the chance!"

Emma McChesney sat very still. Two scarlet spots glowed in her cheeks. "No one appreciates your gift of oratory more than I do, Mr. Meyers. Your flow of language, coupled with your peculiar persuasive powers, make a combination a statue couldn't resist. But I think it would sortof rest me if Mr. Fromkin were to say a word, seeing that it's reallyhis funeral. "

Abel Fromkin started nervously, and put his dead cigarette to hislips. "I ain't much of a talker, " he said, almost sheepishly. "Meyers, he's got it down fine. I tell you what. I'll be in New York thetwenty-first. We can go over the books and papers and the wholebusiness. And I like you should know my wife. And I got a little girl--Would you believe it, that child ain't more as a year old, and saysPapa and Mama like a actress!"

"Sure, " put in Ed Meyers, disregarding the more intimate familydetails. "You two get together and fix things up in shape; then youcan sign up and have it off your mind so you can enjoy the festiveChristmas season. "

Emma McChesney had been gazing out of the window to where the street-lamps were reflected in the ice-covered pavements. Now she spoke, still staring out upon the wintry street. 

Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling. And I haven't got it. "

"Oh, come now, Mrs. McChesney!" objected Ed Meyers. 

With a sudden, quick movement Emma McChesney turned from the window tothe little dark man who was watching her so intently. She faced himsquarely, as though utterly disregarding Ed Meyers' flattery andbanter and cajolery. The little man before her seemed to recognize theearnestness of the moment. He leaned forward a bit attentively. 

"If what has been said is true, " she began, this ought to be a goodthing for me. If I go into it, I'll go in heart, soul, brain, andpocket-book. I do know the skirt business from thread to tape and backagain. I've managed to save a few thousand dollars. Only a woman couldunderstand how I've done it. I've scrimped on little things. I'vedenied myself necessities. I've worn silk blouses instead of linenones to save laundry-bills and taken a street-car or 'bus to save aquarter or fifty cents. I've always tried to look well dressed andimmaculate--"

"You!" exclaimed Ed Meyers. "Why, say, you're what I call a swelldresser. Nothing flashy, understand, or loud, but the quiet, goodstuff that spells ready money. "

"M-m-m--yes. But it wasn't always so ready. Anyway, I always managedsomehow. The boy's at college. Sometimes I wonder--well, that'sanother story. I've saved, and contrived, and planned ahead for arainy day. There have been two or three times when I thought it hadcome. Sprinkled pretty heavily, once or twice. But I've just turned upmy coat-collar, tucked my hat under my skirt, and scooted for a tree. And each time it has turned out to be just a summer shower, with thesun coming out bright and warm. "

Her frank, clear, honest, blue eyes were plumbing the depths of theblack ones. "Those few thousand dollars that you hold so lightly willmean everything to me. They've been my cyclone-cellar. If--"

Through the writing-room sounded a high-pitched, monotonous voice witha note of inquiry in it. 

"Mrs. McChesney! Mr. Fraser! Mr. Ludwig! Please! Mrs. McChesney! Mr. Fraser! Mr. Lud--"

"Here, boy!" Mrs. McChesney took the little yellow envelope from thesalver that the boy held out to her. Her quick glance rested on thewritten words. She rose, her face colorless. 

"Not bad news?" The two men spoke simultaneously. 

"I don't know, " said Emma McChesney. "What would you say?"

She handed the slip of paper to Fat Ed Meyers. He read it in silence. Then once more, aloud:

"'Take first train back to New York. Spalding will finish your trip. '"

"Why--say--" began Meyers. 

"Well?"

"Why--say--this--this looks as if you were fired!"

"Does, doesn't it?" She smiled. 

"Then our little agreement goes?" The two men were on their feet, eager, alert. "That means you'll take Fromkin's offer?"

"It means that our little agreement is off. I'm sorry to disappointyou. I want to thank you both for your trouble. I must have been crazyto listen to you for a minute. I wouldn't have if I'd been myself. "

"But that telegram--"

"It's signed, 'T. A. Buck. ' I'll take a chance. "

The two men stared after her, disappointment and bewilderment chasingacross each face. 

"Well, I thought I knew women, but--" began Ed Meyers fluently. 

Passing the desk, Mrs. McChesney heard her name. She glanced towardthe clerk. He was just hanging up the telephone-receiver. 

"Baggage-room says the depot just notified 'em your trunks were tracedto Columbia City. They're on their way here now. "

"Columbia City!" repeated Emma McChesney. "Do you know, I believe I'velearned to hate the name of the discoverer of this fair land. "

Up in her room she opened the crumpled telegram again, and regarded itthoughtfully before she began to pack her bag. 

The thoughtful look was still there when she entered the big brightoffice of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. And with itwas another expression that resembled contrition. 

"Mr. Buck's waiting for you, " a stenographer told her. 

Mrs. McChesney opened the door of the office marked "Private. "

Two men rose. One she recognized as the firm's lawyer. The other, whocame swiftly toward her, was T. A. Buck--no longer junior. There was anew look about him--a look of responsibility, of efficiency, of clear-headed knowledge. 

The two clasped hands--a firm, sincere, understanding grip. 

Buck spoke first. "It's good to see you. We were talking of you as youcame in. You know Mr. Beggs, of course. He has some things to tellyou--and so have I. His will be business things, mine will bepersonal. I got there before father passed away--thank God! But hecouldn't speak. He'd anticipated that with his clear-headedness, andhe'd written what he wanted to say. A great deal of it was about you. I want you to read that letter later. "

"I shall consider it a privilege, " said Emma McChesney. 

Mr. Beggs waved her toward a chair. She took it in silence. She heardhim in silence, his sonorous voice beating upon her brain. 

"There are a great many papers and much business detail, but that willbe attended to later, " began Beggs ponderously. "You are to becongratulated on the position of esteem and trust which you held inthe mind of your late employer. By the terms of his will--I'll put itbriefly, for the moment--you are offered the secretaryship of the firmof T. A. Buck, Incorporated. Also you are bequeathed thirty shares inthe firm. Of course, the company will have to be reorganized. The lateMr. Buck had great trust in your capabilities. "

Emma McChesney rose to her feet, her breath coming quickly. She turnedto T. A. Buck. "I want you to know--I want you to know--that justbefore your telegram came I was half tempted to leave the firm. To--"

"Can't blame you, " smiled T. A. Buck. "You've had a rotten six monthsof it, beginning with that illness and ending with those infernaltrunks. The road's no place for a woman. "

[Illustration: "'Christmas isn't a season. . . It's a feeling, and, thankGod, I've got it!'"]

"Nonsense!" flashed Emma McChesney. "I've loved it. I've gloried init. And I've earned my living by it. Giving it up--don't now think meungrateful--won't be so easy, I can tell you. "

T. A. Buck nodded understandingly. "I know. Father knew too. And Idon't want you to let his going from us make any difference in thisholiday season. I want you to enjoy it and be happy. "

A shade crossed Emma McChesney's face. It was there when the dooropened and a boy entered with a telegram. He handed it to Mrs. McChesney. It held ten crisp words:

_Changed my darn fool mind. Me for home and mother. _

Emma McChesney looked up, her face radiant. 

"Christmas isn't a season, Mr. Buck. It's a feeling; and, thank God, I've got it!"

IX

KNEE-DEEP IN KNICKERS

When the column of figures under the heading known as "Profits, " andthe column of figures under the heading known as "Loss" are sounevenly balanced that the wrong side of the ledger sags, then to thelistening stockholders there comes the painful thought that at thenext regular meeting it is perilously possible that the reading maycome under the heads of Assets and Liabilities. 

There had been a meeting in the offices of the T. A. Buck FeatherloomPetticoat Company, New York. The quarterly report had had astartlingly lop-sided sound. After it was over Mrs. Emma McChesney, secretary of the company, followed T. A. Buck, its president, into thebig, bright show-room. T. A. Buck's hands were thrust deep into hispockets. His teeth worried a cigar, savagely. Care, that clawing, mouthing hag, perched on his brow, tore at his heart. 

He turned to face Emma McChesney. 

"Well, " he said, bitterly, "it hasn't taken us long, has it? Father'sbeen dead a little over a year. In that time we've just about run thisgreat concern, the pride of his life, into the ground. "

Mrs. Emma McChesney, calm, cool, unruffled, scrutinized the harassedman before her for a long minute. 

"What rotten football material you would have made, wouldn't you?" sheobserved. 

"Oh, I don't know, " answered T. A. Buck, through his teeth. "I canstand as stiff a scrimmage as the next one. But this isn't a game. Youtake things too lightly. You're a woman. I don't think you know whatthis means. "

Emma McChesney's lips opened as do those of one whose tongue's endholds a quick and stinging retort. Then they closed again. She walkedover to the big window that faced the street. When she had stood therea moment, silent, she swung around and came back to where T. A. Buckstood, still wrapped in gloom. 

"Maybe I don't take myself seriously. I'd have been dead ten years agoif I had. But I do take my job seriously. Don't forget that for aminute. You talk the way a man always talks when his pride is hurt. "

"Pride! It isn't that. "

"Oh, yes, it is. I didn't sell T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats onthe road for almost ten years without learning a little somethingabout men and business. When your father died, and I learned that hehad shown his appreciation of my work and loyalty by making mesecretary of this great company, I didn't think of it as a legacy--astroke of good fortune. "

"No?"

"No. To me it was a sacred trust--something to be guarded, nursed, cherished. And now you say we've run this concern into the ground. Doyou honestly think that?"

T. A. Shrugged impotent shoulders. "Figures don't lie. " He plungedinto another fathom of gloom. "Another year like this and we're donefor. "

Emma McChesney came over and put one firm hand on T. A. Buck'sdrooping shoulder. It was a strange little act for a woman--the sortof thing a man does when he would hearten another man. 

"Wake up!" she said, lightly. "Wake up, and listen to the birdiessing. There isn't going to be another year like this. Not if theplanning, and scheming, and brain-racking that I've been doing for thelast two or three months mean anything. "

T. A. Buck seated himself as one who is weary, body and mind. 

"Got another new one?"

Emma McChesney regarded him a moment thoughtfully. Then she stepped tothe tall show-case, pushed back the sliding glass door, and pointed tothe rows of brilliant-hued petticoats that hung close-packed within. 

"Look at 'em!" she commanded, disgust in her voice. "Look at 'em!"

T. A. Buck raised heavy, lack-luster eyes and looked. What he saw didnot seem to interest him. Emma McChesney drew from the rack a skirt ofking's blue satin messaline and held it at arm's length. 

"And they call that thing a petticoat! Why, fifteen years ago thematerial in this skirt wouldn't have made even a fair-sized sleeve. "

T. A. Buck regarded the petticoat moodily. "I don't see how they getaround in the darned things. I honestly don't see how they wear 'em. "

"That's just it. They don't wear 'em. There you have the root of thewhole trouble. "

"Oh, nonsense!" disputed T. A. "They certainly wear something--somesort of an--"

"I tell you they don't. Here. Listen. Three years ago our taffetaskirts ran from thirty-six to thirty-eight yards to the dozen. We paidfrom ninety cents to one dollar five a yard. Now our skirts run fromtwenty-five to twenty-eight yards to the dozen. The silk costs us fromfifty to sixty cents a yard. Silk skirts used to be a luxury. Nowthey're not even a necessity. "

"Well, what's the answer? I've been pondering some petticoat problemsmyself. I know we've got to sell three skirts to-day to make theprofit that we used to make on one three years ago. "

Emma McChesney had the brave-heartedness to laugh. "This skirtbusiness reminds me of a game we used to play when I was a kid. Wecalled it Going to Jerusalem, I think. Anyway, I know each child satin a chair except the one who was It. At a signal everybody had to getup and change chairs. There was a wild scramble, in which the one whowas It took part. When the burly-burly was over some child was alwayschairless, of course. He had to be It. That's the skirt business to-day. There aren't enough chairs to go round, and in the scramblesomebody's got to be left out. And let me tell you, here and now, thatthe firm of T. A. Buck, Featherloom Petticoats, is not going to beIt. "

T. A. Rose as wearily as he had sat down. Even the most optimistic ofwatchers could have discerned no gleam of enthusiasm on his face. 

"I thought, " he said listlessly, "that you and I had tried everypossible scheme to stimulate the skirt trade. "

"Every possible one, yes, " agreed Mrs. McChesney, sweetly. "And nowit's time to try the impossible. The possibilities haven't worked. Myland! I could write a book on the Decline and Fall of the Petticoat, beginning with the billowy white muslin variety, and working up to thepresent slinky messaline affair. When I think of those dear dead daysof the glorious--er--past, when the hired girl used to complain andthreaten to leave because every woman in the family had at least threeruffled, embroidery-flounced white muslin petticoats on the line onMondays--"

The lines about T. A. Buck's mouth relaxed into a grim smile. 

"Remember that feature you got them to run in the _Sunday Sphere?_ Theone headed 'Are Skirts Growing Fuller, and Where?'"

"Do I remember it!" wailed Emma McChesney. "And can I ever forget themoney we put into that fringed model we called the Carmencita! We madeit up so it could retail for a dollar ninety-five, and I could havesworn that the women would maim each other to get to it. But it didn'tgo. They won't even wear fringe around their ankles. "

T. A. 's grim smile stretched into a reminiscent grin. "But nothing inour whole hopeless campaign could touch your Municipal Purity Leagueagitation for the abolition of the form-hugging skirt. You talkedpublic morals until you had A. Comstock and Lucy Page Gaston lookinglike Parisian Apaches. "

A little laugh rippled up to Emma McChesney's lips, only to die awayto a sigh. She shook her head in sorrowful remembrance. 

"Yes. But what good did it do? The newspapers and magazines did takeit up, but what happened? The dressmakers and tailors, who arecharging more than ever for their work, and putting in half as muchmaterial, got together and knocked my plans into a cocked hat. Inanswer to those snap-shots showing what took place every time a womanclimbed a car step, they came back with pictures of the styles of '61, proving that the street-car effect is nothing to what happened to abelle of '61 if she chanced to sit down or get up too suddenly in thehoop-skirt days. "

They were both laughing now, like a couple of children. "And, oh, say!" gasped Emma, "remember Moe Selig, of the Fine-Form SkirtCompany, trying to get the doctors to state that hobble skirts weremaking women knock-kneed! Oh, mercy!"

But their laugh ended in a little rueful silence. It was no laughingmatter, this situation. T. A. Buck shrugged his shoulders, and began arestless pacing up and down. "Yep. There you are. Meanwhile--"

"Meanwhile, women are still wearing 'em tight, and goingpetticoatless. "

Suddenly T. A. Stopped short in his pacing and fastened his surprisedand interested gaze on the skirt of the trim and correct littlebusiness frock that sat so well upon Emma McChesney's pretty figure. 

"Why, look at that!" he exclaimed, and pointed with one eager finger. 

"Mercy!" screamed Emma McChesney. "What is it? Quick! A mouse?"

T. A. Buck shook his head, impatiently. "Mouse! Lord, no! Plaits!"

"Plaits!"

She looked down, bewildered. 

"Yes. In. Your skirt. Three plaits at the front-left, and three in theback. That's new, isn't it? If outer skirts are being made fuller, then it follows--"

"It ought to follow, " interrupted Emma McChesney, "but it doesn't. Itlags way behind. These plaits are stitched down. See? That's thefiendishness of it. And the petticoat underneath--if there is one--must be just as smooth, and unwrinkled, and scant as ever. Don't let'em fool you. "

Buck spread his palms with a little gesture of utter futility. 

"I'm through. Out with your scheme. We're ready for it. It's our lastcard, whatever it is. "

There was visible on Emma McChesney's face that little tightening ofthe muscles, that narrowing of the eyelids which betokens intenseearnestness; the gathering of all the forces before taking a momentousstep. Then, as quickly, her face cleared. She shook her head with alittle air of sudden decision. 

"Not now. Just because it's our last card I want to be sure that I'mplaying it well. I'll be ready for you to-morrow morning in my office. Come prepared for the jolt of your young life. "

For the first time since the beginning of the conversation a glow ofnew courage and hope lighted up T. A. Buck's good-looking features. His fine eyes rested admiringly upon Emma McChesney standing there bythe great show-case. She seemed to radiate energy. Alertness, confidence. 

"When you begin to talk like that, " he said, "I always feel as thoughI could take hold in a way to make those famous jobs that Herculestackled look like little Willie's chores after school. "

"Fine!" beamed Emma McChesney. "Just store that up, will you? Anddon't let it filter out at your finger-tips when I begin to talk to-morrow. "

"We'll have lunch together, eh? And talk it over then sociably. "

Mrs. McChesney closed the glass door of the case with a bang. 

"No, thanks. My office at 9:30. "

T. A. Buck followed her to the door. "But why not lunch? You neverwill take lunch with me. Ever so much more comfortable to talk thingsover that way--"

"When I talk business, " said Emma McChesney, pausing at the threshold, "I want to be surrounded by a business atmosphere. I want the sceneall set--one practical desk, two practical chairs, one telephone, oneletter-basket, one self-filling fountain-pen, et cetera. And when Ilunch I want to lunch, with nothing weightier on my mind than thequestion as to whether I'll have chicken livers saute or creamedsweetbreads with mushrooms. "

"That's no reason, " grumbled T. A. "That's an excuse. "

"It will have to do, though, " replied Mrs. McChesney abruptly, andpassed out as he held the door open for her. He was still standing inthe doorway after her trim, erect figure had disappeared into thelittle office across the hail. 

The little scarlet leather clock on Emma McChesney's desk pointed to9:29 A. M. When there entered her office an immaculately garbed, miraculously shaven, healthily rosy youngish-middle-aged man wholooked ten years younger than the harassed, frowning T. A. Buck withwhom she had almost quarreled the evening before. Mrs. McChesney wasbusily dictating to a sleek little stenographer. The sleek littlestenographer glanced up at T. A. Buck's entrance. The glance, being afeminine one, embraced all of T. A. 's good points and approved themfrom the tips of his modish boots to the crown of his slightly baldhead, and including the creamy-white flower that reposed in hisbuttonhole. 

"'Morning!" said Emma McChesney, looking up briefly. "Be with you in aminute. . . . And in reply would say we regret that you have had troublewith No. 339. It is impossible to avoid pulling at the seams in thelower-grade silk skirts when they are made up in the present scantstyle. Our Mr. Spalding warned you of this at the time of yourpurchase. We will not under any circumstances consent to receive thegoods if they are sent back on our hands. Yours sincerely. That'll beall, Miss Casey. "

She swung around to face her visitor as the door closed. If T. A. Bucklooked ten years younger than he had the afternoon before, EmmaMcChesney undoubtedly looked five years older. There were little, worried, sagging lines about her eyes and mouth. 

T. A. Buck's eyes had followed the sheaf of signed correspondence, andthe well-filled pad of more recent dictation which the sleek littlestenographer had carried away with her. 

"Good Lord! It looks as though you had stayed down here all night. "

Emma McChesney smiled a little wearily. "Not quite that. But I washere this morning in time to greet the night watchman. Wanted to getmy mail out of the way. " Her eyes searched T. A. Buck's serene face. Then she leaned forward, earnestly. 

"Haven't you seen the morning paper?"

"Just a mere glance at 'em. Picked up Burrows on the way down, and wegot to talking. Why?"

"The Rasmussen-Welsh Skirt Company has failed. Liabilities threehundred thousand. Assets one hundred thousand. "

"Failed! Good God!" All the rosy color, all the brisk morningfreshness had vanished from his face. "Failed! Why, girl, I thoughtthat concern was as solid as Gibraltar. " He passed a worried hand overhis head. "That knocks the wind out of my sails. "

"Don't let it. Just say that it fills them with a new breeze. I'm allthe more sure that the time is ripe for my plan. "

T. A. Buck took from a vest pocket a scrap of paper and a fountainpen, slid down in his chair, crossed his legs, and began to scrawlmeaningless twists and curlycues, as was his wont when worried ordeeply interested. 

"Are you as sure of this scheme of yours as you were yesterday?"

"Sure, " replied Emma McChesney, briskly. Sartin-sure. "

"Then fire away. "

Mrs. McChesney leaned forward, breathing a trifle fast. Her eyes werefastened on her listener. 

"Here's the plan. We'll make Featherloom Petticoats because therestill are some women who have kept their senses. But we'll make themas a side line. The thing that has got to keep us afloat until fullskirts come in again will be a full and complete line of women's satinmessaline knickerbockers made up to match any suit or gown, and a fullline of pajamas for women and girls. Get the idea? Scant, smart, trimlittle taupe-gray messaline knickers for a taupe gray suit, bluemessaline for blue suits, brown messaline for brown--"

T. A. Buck stared, open-mouthed, the paper on which he had beenscrawling fluttering unnoticed to the floor. 

"Look here!" he interrupted. "Is this supposed to be humorous?"

"And, " went on Emma McChesney, calmly, "in our full and complete, notto say nifty line of women's pajamas--pink pajamas, blue pajamas, violet pajamas, yellow pajamas, white silk--"

T. A. Buck stood up. "I want to say, " he began, "that if you arejesting, I think this is a mighty poor time to joke. And if you areserious I can only deduce from it that this year of business worry andresponsibility has been too much for you. I'm sure that if you were--"

"That's all right, " interrupted Emma McChesney. "Don't apologize. Ipurposely broke it to you this way, when I might have approached itgently. You've done just what I knew you'd do, so it's all right. After you've thought it over, and sort of got chummy with the idea, you'll be just as keen on it as I am. "

"Never!"

"Oh, yes, you will. It's the knickerbocker end of it that scares you. Nothing new or startling about pajamas, except that more and morewomen are wearing 'em, and that no girl would dream of going away toschool without her six sets of pajamas. Why, a girl in a regulationnightie at one of their midnight spreads would be ostracized. Ofcourse I've thought up a couple of new kinks in 'em--new ways ofcutting and all that, and there's one model--a washable crepe, fortraveling, that doesn't need to be pressed--but I'll talk about thatlater. "

T. A. Buck was trying to put in a word of objection, but she wouldhave none of it. But at Emma McChesney's next words his indignationwould brook no barriers. 

"Now, " she went on, "the feature of the knickerbockers will be this:They've got to be ready for the boys' spring trip, and in all thelarger cities, especially in the hustling Middle-Western towns, andalong the coast, too, I'm planning to have the knickerbockersintroduced at private and exclusive exhibitions, and worn by--getthis, please--worn by living models. One big store in each town, see?Half a dozen good-looking girls--"

"Never!" shouted T. A. Buck, white and shaking. "Never! This firm hasalways had a name for dignity, solidness, conservatism--"

"Then it's just about time it lost that reputation. It's all very wellto hang on to your dignity when you're on solid ground, but when youfeel things slipping from under you the thing to do is to grab on toanything that'll keep you on your feet for a while at least. I tellyou the women will go wild over this knickerbocker idea. They've beenwaiting for it. "

"It's a wild-cat scheme, " disputed Buck hotly. "It's a drowning man'sstraw, and just about as helpful. I'm a reasonable man--"

"All unreasonable men say that, " smiled Emma McChesney. 

"--I'm a reasonable man, I say. And heaven knows I have the interestof this firm at heart. But this is going too far. If we're going tosmash we'll go decently, and with our name untarnished. Pajamas arebad enough. But when it comes to the firm of T. A. Buck beingrepresented by--by--living model hussies stalking about in satintights like chorus girls, why--"

In Emma McChesney's alert, electric mind there leapt about a dozenplans for winning this man over. For win him she would, in the end. Itwas merely a question of method. She chose the simplest. There was aset look about her jaw. Her eyes flashed. Two spots of carmine glowedin her cheeks. 

"I expected just this, " she said. "And I prepared for it. " She crossedswiftly to her desk, opened a drawer, and took out a flat package. "Iexpected opposition. That's why I had these samples made up to showyou. I designed them myself, and tore up fifty patterns before Istruck one that suited me. Here are the pajamas. "

She lifted out a dainty, shell-pink garment, and shook it out beforethe half-interested, half-unwilling eyes of T. A. Buck. 

"This is the jacket. Buttons on the left; see? Instead of the right, as it would in a man's garment. Semi-sailor collar, with knotted softsilk scarf. Oh, it's just a little kink, but they'll love it. They'reactually becoming. I've tried 'em. Notice the frogs and cord. Prettyneat, yes? Slight flare at the hips. Makes 'em set and hang right. Perfectly straight, like a man's coat. "

T. A. Buck eyed the garments with a grudging admiration. 

"Oh, that part of it don't sound so unreasonable, although I don'tbelieve there is much of a demand for that kind of thing. But theother---the--the knickerbocker things--that's not even practical. Itwill make an ugly garment, and the women who would fall for a fad likethat wouldn't be of the sort to wear an ugly piece of lingerie. Itisn't to be thought of seriously--"

Emma McChesney stepped to the door of the tiny wash-room off heroffice and threw it open. 

"Miss La Noyes! We're ready for you. "

And there emerged from the inner room a trim, lithe, almost boyishlyslim figure attired in a bewitchingly skittish-looking garmentconsisting of knickerbockers and snug brassiere of king's blue satinmessaline. Dainty black silk stockings and tiny buckled slippers setoff the whole effect. 

"Miss La Noyes, " said Emma McChesney, almost solemnly, "this is Mr. T. A. Buck, president of the firm. Miss La Noyes, of the 'Gay SocialWhirl' company. "

Miss La Noyes bowed slightly and rested one white hand at her side inan attitude of nonchalant ease. 

"Pleased, I'm shaw!" she said, in a clear, high voice. 

And, "Charmed, " replied T. A. Buck, his years and breeding standinghim in good stead now. 

Emma McChesney laid a kindly hand on the girl's shoulder. "Turnslowly, please. Observe the absence of unnecessary fulness about thehips, or at the knees. No wrinkles to show there. No man will everappreciate the fine points of this little garment, but the women!--Tothe left, Miss La Noyes. You'll see it fastens snug and trim with atiny clasp just below the knees. This garment has the added attractionof being fastened to the upper garment, a tight satin brassiere. Thesingle, unattached garment is just as satisfactory, however. Women arewearing plush this year. Not only for the street, but for eveningdresses. I rather think they'll fancy a snappy little pair of yellowsatin knickers under a gown of the new orange plush. Or a taupe pair, under a gray street suit. Or a natty little pair of black satin, finished and piped in white satin, to be worn with a black and whiteshopping costume. Why, I haven't worn a petticoat since I--"

"Do you mean to tell me, " burst from the long-pent T. A. Buck, "thatyou wear 'em too?"

"Crazy about 'em. Miss La Noyes, will you just slip on your streetskirt, please?"

She waited in silence until the demure Miss La Noyes reappeared. Anarrow, straight-hanging, wrinkleless cloth skirt covered the muchdiscussed under-garment. "Turn slowly, please. Thanks. You see, Mr. Buck? Not a wrinkle. No bunchiness. No lumps. No crawling up about theknees. Nothing but ease, and comfort, and trim good looks. "

T. A. Buck passed his hand over his head in a dazed, helpless gesture. There was something pathetic in his utter bewilderment andhelplessness in contrast with Emma McChesney's breezy self-confidence, and the show-girl's cool poise and unconcern. 

"Wait a minute, " he murmured, almost pleadingly. "Let me ask a coupleof questions, will you?"

"Questions? A hundred. That proves you're interested. "

"Well, then, let me ask this young lady the first one. Miss--er--LaNoyes, do you honestly and truly like this garment? Would you buy oneif you saw it in a shop window?"

Miss La Noyes' answer came trippingly and without hesitation. She didnot even have to feel of her back hair first. 

"Say, I'd go without my lunch for a week to get it. Mrs. McChesneysays I can have this pair. I can't wait till our prima donna sees 'em. She'll hate me till she's got a dozen like 'em. "

"Next!" urged Mrs. McChesney, pleasantly. 

But T. A. Buck shook his head. "That's all. Only--"

Emma McChesney patted Miss La Noyes lightly on the shoulder, andsmiled dazzlingly upon her. "Run along, little girl. You've donebeautifully. And many thanks. "

Miss La Noyes, appearing in another moment dressed for the street, stopped at the door to bestow a frankly admiring smile upon theabstracted president of the company, and a grateful one upon its pink-cheeked secretary. 

"Hope you'll come and see our show some evening. You won't know me atfirst, because I wear a blond wig in the first scene. Third from theleft, front row. " And to Mrs. McChesney: "I cer'nly did hate to get upso early this morning, but after you're up it ain't so fierce. And itcer'nly was easy money. Thanks. "

[Illustration: "'No man will ever appreciate the fine points of thislittle garment, but the women--!'"]

Emma McChesney glanced quickly at T. A. , saw that he was pliant enoughfor the molding process, and deftly began to shape, and bend, andsmooth and pat. 

"Let's sit down, and unravel the kinks in our nerves. Now, if you dofavor this new plan--oh, I mean after you've given it consideration, and all that! Yes, indeed. But if you do, I think it would be goodpolicy to start the game in--say--Cleveland. The Kaufman-Oster Companyof Cleveland have a big, snappy, up-to-the-minute store. We'll getthem to send out announcement cards. Something neat and flattering-looking. See? Little stage all framed up. Scene set to show a bedroomor boudoir. Then, thin girls, plump girls, short girls, high girls. They'll go through all the paces. We won't only show theknickerbockers: we demonstrate how the ordinary petticoat bunches andcrawls up under the heavy plush and velvet top skirt. We'll show 'emin street clothes, evening clothes, afternoon frocks. Each one in adifferent shade of satin knicker. And silk stockings and cunninglittle slippers to match. The store will stand for that. It's a big adfor them, too. "

Emma McChesney's hair was slightly tousled. Her cheeks were carmine. Her eyes glowed. 

"Don't you see! Don't you get it! Can't you feel how the thing's goingto take hold?"

"By Gad!" burst from T. A. Buck, "I'm darned if I don't believe you'reright--almost--But are you sure that you believe--"

Emma McChesney brought one little white fist down into the palm of theother hand. "Sure? Why, I'm so sure that when I shut my eyes I can seeT. A. Senior sitting over there in that chair, tapping the side of hisnose with the edge of his tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses, and noddinghis head, with his features all screwed up like a blessed oldgargoyle, the way he always did when something tickled him. That's howsure I am. "

T. A. Buck stood up abruptly. He shrugged his shoulders. His facelooked strangely white and drawn. "I'll leave it to you. I'll do myshare of the work. But I'm not more than half convinced, remember. "

"That's enough for the present, " answered Emma McChesney, briskly. "Well, now, suppose we talk machinery and girls, and cutters for awhile. "

Two months later found T. A. Buck and his sales-manager, both shirt-sleeved, both smoking nervously, as they marked, ticketed, folded, arranged. They were getting out the travelers' spring lines. EnteredMrs. McChesney, and stood eying them, worriedly. It was her dozenthvisit to the stock-room that morning. A strange restlessness seemed totrouble her. She wandered from office to show-room, from show-room tofactory. 

"What's the trouble?" inquired T. A. Buck, squinting up at her througha cloud of cigar smoke. 

"Oh, nothing, " answered Mrs. McChesney, and stood fingering the pilesof glistening satin garments, a queer, faraway look in her eyes. Thenshe turned and walked listlessly toward the door. There sheencountered Spalding--Billy Spalding, of the coveted Middle-Westernterritory, Billy Spalding, the long-headed, quick-thinking; Spalding, the persuasive, Spalding the mixer, Spalding on whom depended the fateof the T. A. Buck Featherloom Knickerbocker and Pajama. 

"'Morning! When do you start out?" she asked him. 

"In the morning. Gad, that's some line, what? I'm itching to spreadit. You're certainly a wonder-child, Mrs. McChesney. Why, the boys--"

Emma McChesney sighed, somberly. "That line does sort of--well, tug atyour heart-strings, doesn't it?" She smiled, almost wistfully. "Say, Billy, when you reach the Eagle House at Waterloo, tell Annie, thehead-waitress to rustle you a couple of Mrs. Traudt's dill pickles. Tell her Mrs. McChesney asked you to. Mrs. Traudt, the proprietor'swife, doles 'em out to her favorites. They're crisp, you know, andfirm, and juicy, and cold, and briny. "

Spalding drew a sibilant breath. "I'll be there!" he grinned. "I'll bethere!"

But he wasn't. At eight the next morning there burst upon Mrs. McChesney a distraught T. A. Buck. 

"Hear about Spalding?" he demanded. 

"Spalding? No. "

"His wife 'phoned from St. Luke's. Taken with an appendicitis attackat midnight. They operated at five this morning. One of those had-it-been-twenty-four-hours-later-etc. Operations. That settles us. "

"Poor kid, " replied Emma McChesney. "Rough on him and his brand-newwife. "

"Poor kid! Yes. But how about his territory? How about our new line?How about--"

"Oh, that's all right, " said Emma McChesney, cheerfully. 

"I'd like to know how! We haven't a man equal to the territory. He'sour one best bet. "

"Oh, that's all right, " said Mrs. McChesney again, smoothly. 

A little impatient exclamation broke from T. A. Buck. At that EmmaMcChesney smiled. Her new listlessness and abstraction seemed to dropfrom her. She braced her shoulders, and smiled her old sunny, heartening smile. 

"I'm going out with that line. I'm going to leave a trail of pajamasand knickerbockers from Duluth to Canton. "

"You! No, you won't!" A dull, painful red had swept into T. A. Buck'sface. It was answered by a flood of scarlet in Mrs. McChesney'scountenance. 

"I don't get you, " she said. "I'm afraid you don't realize what thistrip means. It's going to be a fight. They'll have to be coaxed andbullied and cajoled, and reasoned with. It's going to be a 'show-me'trip. "

T. A. Buck took a quick step forward. "That's just why. I won't haveyou fighting with buyers, taking their insults, kowtowing to them, salving them. It--it isn't woman's work. "

Emma McChesney was sorting the contents of her desk with quick, nervous fingers. "I'll. Get the Twentieth Century, " she said, over hershoulder. "Don't argue, please. If it's no work for a woman then Isuppose it follows that I'm unwomanly. For ten years I traveled thiscountry selling T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats. My first trip onthe road I was in the twenties--and pretty, too. I'm a woman ofthirty-seven now. I'll never forget that first trip--the heartbreaks, the insults I endured, the disappointments, the humiliation, untilthey understood that I meant business--strictly business. I'm tired ofhearing you men say that this and that and the other isn't woman'swork. Any work is woman's work that a woman can do well. I've giventhe ten best years of my life to this firm. Next to my boy at schoolit's the biggest thing in my life. Sometimes it swamps even him. Don'tcome to me with that sort of talk. " She was locking drawers, searchingpigeon-holes, skimming files. "This is my busy day. " She arose, andshut her desk with a bang, locked it, and turned a flushed and beamingface toward T. A. Buck, as he stood frowning before her. 

[Illustration: "Emma McChesney. . . I believe in you now! Dad and I bothbelieve in you'"]

"Your father believed in me--from the ground up. We understood eachother, he and I. You've learned a lot in the last year and a half, T. A. Junior-that-was, but there's one thing you haven't mastered. Whenwill you learn to believe in Emma McChesney?"

She was out of the office before he had time to answer, leaving himstanding there. 

In the dusk of a late winter evening just three weeks later, a manpaused at the door of the unlighted office marked "Mrs. McChesney. " Helooked about a moment, as though dreading detection. Then he openedthe door, stepped into the dim quiet of the little room, and closedthe door gently after him. Everything in the tiny room was quiet, neat, orderly. It seemed to possess something of the character of itsabsent owner. The intruder stood there a moment, uncertainly, lookingabout him. 

Then he took a step forward and laid one hand on the back of the emptychair before the closed desk. He shut his eyes and it seemed that hefelt her firm, cool, reassuring grip on his fingers as they clutchedthe wooden chair. The impression was so strong that he kept his eyesshut, and they were still closed when his voice broke the silence ofthe dim, quiet little room. 

"Emma McChesney, " he was saying aloud, "Emma McChesney, you great big, fine, brave, wonderful woman, you! I believe in you now! Dad and Iboth believe in you. "

X

IN THE ABSENCE OF THE AGENT

This is a love-story. But it is a love-story with a logical ending. Which means that in the last paragraph no one has any one else in hisarms. Since logic and love have long been at loggerheads, the storymay end badly. Still, what love passages there are shall be leftintact. There shall be no trickery. There shall be no runningbreathless, flushed, eager-eyed, to the very gateway of Love's garden, only to bump one's nose against that baffling, impregnable, stone-wallphrase of "let us draw a veil, dear reader. " This is the story of thelove of a man for a woman, a mother for her son, and a boy for a girl. And there shall be no veil. 

Since 8 A. M. , when she had unlocked her office door, Mrs. EmmaMcChesney had been working in bunches of six. Thus, from twelve to oneshe had dictated six letters, looked up memoranda, passed on samplesof petticoat silk, fired the office-boy, wired Spalding out inNebraska, and eaten her lunch. Emma McChesney was engaged in thatnerve-racking process known as getting things out of the way. WhenEmma McChesney aimed to get things out of the way she did not use ashovel; she used a road-drag. 

Now, at three-thirty, she shut the last desk-drawer with a bang, locked it, pushed back the desk-phone, discovered under it theinevitable mislaid memorandum, scanned it hastily, tossed the scrap ofpaper into the brimming waste-basket, and, yawning, raised her armshigh above her head. The yawn ended, her arms relaxed, came downheavily, and landed her hands in her lap with a thud. It had been awhirlwind day. At that moment most of the lines in Emma McChesney'sface slanted downward. 

But only for that moment. The next found her smiling. Up went thecorners of her mouth! Out popped her dimples! The laugh-lines appearedat the corners of her eyes. She was still dimpling like ananticipatory child when she had got her wraps from the tiny closet, and was standing before the mirror, adjusting her hat. 

[Illustration: "It had been a whirlwind day"]

The hat was one of those tiny, pert, head-hugging trifles that only avery pretty woman can wear. A merciless little hat, that gives noquarter to a blotched skin, a too large nose, colorless eyes. EmmaMcChesney stood before the mirror, the cruel little hat perched atopher hair, ready to give it the final and critical bash which shouldbring it down about her ears where it belonged. But even now, perchedgrotesquely atop her head as it was, you could see that she was goingto get away with it. 

It was at this critical moment that the office door opened, and thereentered T. A. Buck, president of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoatand Lingerie Company. He entered smiling, leisurely, serene-eyed, asone who anticipates something pleasurable. At sight of Emma McChesneystanding, hatted before the mirror, the pleasurable look became lessconfident. 

"Hello!" said T. A. Buck. "Whither?" and laid a sheaf of businesslike-looking papers on the top of Mrs. McChesney's well cleared desk. 

Mrs. McChesney, without turning, performed the cramming processsuccessfully, so that her hat left only a sub-halo of fluffy brighthair peeping out from the brim. 

Then, "Playing hooky, " she said. "Go 'way. "

T. A. Buck picked up the sheaf of papers and stowed them into aninside coat-pocket. "As president of this large and growing concern, "he said, "I want to announce that I'm going along. "

Emma McChesney adjusted her furs. "As secretary of said firm I rise tostate that you're not invited. "

T. A. Buck, hands in pockets, stood surveying the bright-eyed womanbefore him. The pleasurable expression had returned to his face. 

"If the secretary of the above-mentioned company has the cheek to playhooky at 3:30 P. M. In the middle of November, I fancy the presidentcan demand to know where she's going, and then go too. "

Mrs. McChesney unconcernedly fastened the clasp of her smart Englishglove. 

"Didn't you take two hours for lunch? Had mine off the top of my desk. Ham sandwich and a glass of milk. Dictated six letters between bitesand swallows. "

A frown of annoyance appeared between T. A. Buck's remarkably fineeyes. He came over to Mrs. McChesney and looked down at her. 

"Look here, you'll kill yourself. It's all very well to be interestedin one's business, but I draw the line at ruining my digestion for it. Why in Sam Hill don't you take a decent hour at least?"

"Only bricklayers can take an hour for lunch, " retorted EmmaMcChesney. "When you get to be a lady captain of finance you can'tafford it. "

She crossed to her desk and placed her fingers on the electric switch. The desk-light cast a warm golden glow on the smart little figure inthe trim tailored suit, the pert hat, the shining furs. She was rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed as a schoolgirl. There was about her thatvigor, and glow, and alert assurance which bespeaks congenial work, sound sleep, healthy digestion, and a sane mind. She was as tingling, and bracing, and alive, and antiseptic as the crisp, snappy Novemberair outdoors. 

T. A. Buck drew a long breath as he looked at her. 

"Those are devastating clothes, " he remarked. "D'you know, until now Ialways had an idea that furs weren't becoming to women. Make most of'em look stuffy. But you--"

Emma McChesney glanced down at the shining skins of muff and scarf. She stroked them gently and lovingly with her gloved hand. 

"M-m-m-m! These semi-precious furs _are_ rather satisfactory--untilyou see a woman in sealskin and sables. Then you want to use 'em for ahall rug. "

T. A. Buck stepped within the radius of the yellow light, so that itsglow lighted up his already luminous eyes--eyes that had a trick oftranslucence under excitement. 

"Sables and sealskin, " repeated T. A. Buck, his voice vibrant. "Ifit's those you want, you can--"

Snap! went the electric switch under Emma McChesney's fingers. It wasas decisive as a blow in the face. She walked to the door. The littleroom was dim. 

"I'm sending my boy through college with my sealskin-and-sable fund, "she said crisply; "and I'm to meet him at 4:30. "

"Oh, that's your appointment!" Relief was evident in T. A. Buck'stone. 

Emma McChesney shook a despairing head. "For impudent and unquenchableinquisitiveness commend me to a man! Here! If you must know, though Iintended it as a surprise when it was finished and furnished--I'mgoing to rent a flat, a regular six-room, plenty-of-closets flat, after ten years of miserable hotel existence. Jock's running over fortwo days to approve it. I ought to have waited until the holidays, sohe wouldn't miss classes; but I couldn't bear to. I've spent tenThanksgivings, and ten Christmases, and ten New Years in hotels. Hellhas no terrors for me. "

They were walking down the corridor together. 

"Take me along--please!" pleaded T. A. Buck, like a boy. "I know allabout flats, and gas-stoves, and meters, and plumbing, andeverything!"

"You!" scoffed Emma McChesney, "with your five-story house and yoursummer home in the mountains!"

"Mother won't hear of giving up the house. I hate it myself. Bathroomsin those darned old barracks are so cold that a hot tub is an icyplunge before you get to it. " They had reached the elevator. Astubborn look appeared about T. A. Buck's jaw. "I'm going!" heannounced, and scudded down the hail to his office door. EmmaMcChesney pressed the elevator-button. Before the ascending car showeda glow of light in the shaft T. A. Buck appeared with hat, gloves, stick. 

"I think the car's downstairs. We'll run up in it. What's the address?Seventies, I suppose?"

Emma McChesney stepped out of the elevator and turned. "Car! Not I! Ifyou're bound to come with me you'll take the subway. They're askingenough for that apartment as it is. I don't intend to drive up in afive-thousand-dollar motor and have the agent tack on an extra twentydollars a month. "

T. . Buck smiled with engaging agreeableness. "Subway it is, " he said. "Your presence would turn even a Bronx train into a rose-garden. "

Twelve minutes later the new apartment building, with its cream-tileand red-brick Louis Somethingth facade, and its tan brick and plasterMichael-Dougherty-contractor back, loomed before them, soaring evenabove its lofty neighbors. On the door-step stood a maple-coloredgiant in a splendor of scarlet, and gold braid, and glitteringbuttons. The great entrance door was opened for them by a half-portionduplicate of the giant outside. In the foyer was splendor to grace apalace hall. There were great carved chairs. There was a massive oakentable. There were rugs, there were hangings, there were dim-shadedlamps casting a soft glow upon tapestry and velours. 

Awaiting the pleasure of the agent, T. A. Buck, leaning upon hisstick, looked about him appreciatively. "Makes the Knickerbocker lobbylook like the waiting-room in an orphan asylum. "

"Don't let 'em fool you, " answered Emma McChesney, _sotto voce, _ justbefore the agent popped out of his office. "It's all included in therent. Dinky enough up-stairs. If ever I have guests that I want toimpress I'll entertain 'em in the hall. "

There approached them the agent, smiling, urbane, pleasing as tomanner--but not too pleasing; urbanity mixed, so to speak, with theleaven of caution. 

"Ah, yes! Mrs. --er--McChesney, wasn't it? I can't tell you how manyparties have been teasing me for that apartment since you looked atit. I've had to--well--make myself positively unpleasant in order tohold it for you. You said you wished your son to--"

The glittering little jewel-box of an elevator was taking them higherand higher. The agent stared hard at T. A. Buck. 

Mrs. McChesney followed his gaze. "My business associate, Mr. T. A. Buck, " she said grimly. 

The agent discarded caution; he was all urbanity. Their floorattained, he unlocked the apartment door and threw it open with agesture which was a miraculous mixture of royalty and generosity. 

"He knows you!" hissed Emma McChesney, entering with T. A. "Anotherten on the rent. "The agent pulled up a shade, switched on a light, straightened an electric globe. T. A. Buck looked about at the barewhite walls, at the bare polished floor, at the severe fireplace. 

"I knew it couldn't last, " he said. 

"If it did, " replied Emma McChesney good-naturedly, "I couldn't affordto live here, " and disappeared into the kitchen followed by the agent, who babbled ever and anon of views, of Hudsons, of express-trains, ofparks, as is the way of agents from Fiftieth Street to One Hundred and'Umpty-ninth. 

T. A. Buck, feet spread wide, hands behind him, was left standing inthe center of the empty living-room. He was leaning on his stick andgazing fixedly upward at the ornate chandelier. It was a handsomefixture, and boasted some of the most advanced ideas in modernlighting equipment. Yet it scarcely seemed to warrant the passionatescrutiny which T. A. Buck was bestowing upon it. So rapt was his gazethat when the telephone-bell shrilled unexpectedly in the hallway hestarted so that his stick slipped on the polished floor, and as EmmaMcChesney and the still voluble agent emerged from the kitchen thedignified head of the firm of T. A. Buck and Company presented ananimated picture, one leg in the air, arms waving wildly, expressionat once amazed and hurt. 

Emma McChesney surveyed him wide-eyed. The agent, unruffled, continuedto talk on his way to the telephone. 

"It only looks small to you, " he was saying. "Fact is, most peoplethink it's too large. They object to a big kitchen. Too much work. " Hegave his attention to the telephone. 

Emma McChesney looked troubled. She stood in the doorway, head on oneside, as one who conjures up a mental picture. 

"Come here, " she commanded suddenly, addressing the startled T. A. "You nagged until I had to take you along. Here's a chance to justifyyour coming. I want your opinion on the kitchen. "

"Kitchens, " announced T. A. Buck of the English clothes and thegardenia, "are my specialty, " and entered the domain of the gas-rangeand the sink. 

Emma McChesney swept the infinitesimal room with a large gesture. 

"Considering it as a kitchen, not as a locker, does it strike you asbeing adequate?"

T. A. Buck, standing in the center of the room, touched all four wallswith his stick. 

"I've heard, " he ventured, "that they're--ah--using 'em small thisyear. "

Emma McChesney's eyes took on a certain wistful expression. "Maybe. But whenever I've dreamed of a home, which was whenever I got lonesomeon the road, which was every evening for ten years, I'd start to plana kitchen. A kitchen where you could put up preserves, and a keg ofdill pickles, and get a full-sized dinner without getting things morethan just comfortably cluttered. "

T. A. Buck reflected. He flapped his arms as one who feels pressed forroom. "With two people occupying the room, as at present, the presenceof one dill pickle would sort of crowd things, not to speak of a kegof 'em, and the full-sized dinner, and the--er--preserves. Still--"

"As for a turkey, " wailed Emma McChesney, "one would have to go out onthe fire-escape to baste it. "

The swinging door opened to admit the agent. "Would you excuse me? Aparty down-stairs--lease--be back in no time. Just look about--anyquestions--glad to answer later--"

"Quite all right, " Mrs. McChesney assured him. Her expression was oneof relief as the hall door closed behind him. "Good! There's a spot inthe mirror over the mantel. I've been dying to find out if it was aflaw in the glass or only a smudge. "

She made for the living-room. T. A. Buck followed thoughtfully. Thoughtfully and interestedly he watched her as she stood on tiptoe, breathed stormily upon the mirror's surface, and rubbed the moistplace with her handkerchief. She stood back a pace, eyes narrowedcritically. 

"It's gone, isn't it?" she asked. 

T. A. Buck advanced to where she stood and cocked his head too, judicially, and in the opposite direction to which Emma McChesney'shead was cocked. So that the two heads were very close together. 

"It's a poor piece of glass, " he announced at last. 

A simple enough remark. Perhaps it was made with an object in view, but certainly it was not meant to bring forth the storm of protestthat came from Emma McChesney's lips. She turned on him, lipsquivering, eyes wrathful. 

"You shouldn't have come!" she cried. "You're as much out of place ina six-room flat as a truffle would be in a boiled New England dinner. Do you think I don't see its shortcomings? Every normal woman, nomatter what sort of bungalow, palace, ranch-house, cave, cottage, ortenement she may be living in, has in her mind's eye a picture of thesort of apartment she'd live in if she could afford it. I've had minemapped out from the wall-paper in the front hall to the laundry-tubsin the basement, and it doesn't even bear a family resemblance tothis. "

"I'm sorry, " stammered T. A. Buck. "You asked my opinion and I--"

"Opinion! If every one had so little tact as to give their trueopinion when it was asked this would be a miserable world. I asked youbecause I wanted you to lie. I expected it of you. I needed bolsteringup. I realize that the rent I'm paying and the flat I'm getting form ageometrical problem where X equals the unknown quantity and only theagent knows the answer. But it's going to be a home for Jock and me. It's going to be a place where he can bring his friends; where he canhave his books, and his 'baccy, and his college junk. It will be thefirst real home that youngster has known in all his miserableboarding-house, hotel, boys' school, and college existence. Sometimeswhen I think of what he's missed, of the loneliness and the neglectwhen I was on the road, of the barrenness of his boyhood, I--"

T. A. Buck started forward as one who had made up his mind aboutsomething long considered. Then he gulped, retreated, paced excitedlyto the door and back again. On the return trip he found smiling andrepentant Emma McChesney regarding him. 

"Now aren't you sorry you insisted on coming along? Letting yourselfin for a ragging like that? I think I'm a wee bit taut in the nervesat the prospect of seeing Jock--and planning things with him--I--"

T. A. Buck paused in his pacing. "Don't!" he said. "I had it coming tome. I did it deliberately. I wanted to know how you really felt aboutit. "

Emma McChesney stared at him curiously. "Well, now you know. But Ihaven't told you half. In all those years while I was selling T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats on the road, and eating hotel food thattasted the same, whether it was roast beef or ice-cream, I wasplanning this little place. I've even made up my mind to thescandalous price I'm willing to pay a maid who'll cook real dinnersfor us and serve them as I've always vowed Jock's dinners should beserved when I could afford something more than a shifting hotel home. "

T. A. Buck was regarding the head of his if walking-stick with a gazeas intent as that which he previously had bestowed upon thechandelier. For that matter it was a handsome enough stick--a choicething in malacca. But it was scarcely more deserving than thechandelier had been. 

Mrs. McChesney had wandered into the dining-room. She peered out ofwindows. She poked into butler's pantry. She inspected wall-lights. And still T. A. Buck stared at his stick. 

"It's really robbery, " came Emma McChesney's voice from the next room. "Only a New York agent could have the nerve to do it. I've a friendwho lives in Chicago--Mary Cutting. You've heard me speak of her. Hasa flat on the north side there, just next door to the lake. The rentis ridiculous; and--would you believe it?--the flat is equipped withbookcases, and gorgeous mantel shelves, and buffet, and bathroomfixtures, and china-closets, and hall-tree--"

Her voice trailed into nothingness as she disappeared into thekitchen. When she emerged again she was still enumerating the charmsof the absurdly low-priced Chicago flat, thus:

"--and full-length mirrors, and wonderful folding table-shelfgimcracks in the kitchen, and--"

T. A. Buck did not look up. But, "Oh, Chicago!" he might have beenheard to murmur, as only a New-Yorker can breathe those two words. 

"Don't 'Oh, Chicago!' like that, " mimicked Emma McChesney. "I've lainawake nights dreaming of a home I once saw there, with the lake in theback yard, and a couple of miles of veranda, and a darling vegetable-garden, and the whole place simply honeycombed with bathrooms, andsleeping-porches, and sun-parlors, and linen-closets, and--gracious, Iwonder what's keeping Jock!"

T. A. Buck wrenched his eyes from his stick. All previous remarksdescriptive of his eyes under excitement paled at the glow whichlighted them now. They glowed straight into Emma McChesney's eyes andheld them, startled. 

"Emma, " said T. A. Buck quite calmly, "will you marry me? I want togive you all those things, beginning with the lake in the back yardand ending with the linen-closets and the sun-parlor. "

And Emma McChesney, standing there in the middle of the dining-roomfloor, stared long at T. A. Buck, standing there in the center of theliving-room floor. And if any human face, in the space of seventeenseconds, could be capable of expressing relief, and regret, and alarm, and dismay, and tenderness, and wonder, and a great womanly sympathy, Emma McChesney's countenance might be said to have expressed all thoseemotions--and more. The last two were uppermost as she slowly cametoward him. 

"T. A. , " she said, and her voice had in it a marvelous quality, "I'mthirty-nine years old. You know I was married when I was eighteen andgot my divorce after eight years. Those eight years would have leftany woman who had endured them with one of two determinations: to takeup life again and bring it out into the sunshine until it was sound, and sweet, and clean, and whole once more, or to hide the hurt andbrood over it, and cover it with bitterness, and hate until itdestroyed by its very foulness. I had Jock, and I chose the sun, thankGod! I said then that marriage was a thing tried and abandonedforever, for me. And now--"

There was something almost fine in the lines of T. A. Buck's toofeminine mouth and chin; but not fine enough. 

"Now, Emma, " he repeated, "will you marry me?"

Emma McChesney's eyes were a wonderful thing to see, so full of painwere they, so wide with unshed tears. 

"As long as--he--lived, " she went on, "the thought of marriage wasrepulsive to me. Then, that day seven months ago out in Iowa, when Ipicked up that paper and saw it staring out at me in print that seemedto waver and dance"--she covered her eyes with her hand for a moment--"'McChesney--Stuart McChesney, March 7, aged forty-seven years. Funeral to-day from Howland Brothers' chapel. Aberdeen and Edinburghpapers please copy!'"

[Illustration: "'Emma. ' he said, 'will you marry me?'"]

T. A. Buck took the hand that covered her eyes and brought it gentlydown. 

"Emma, " he said, "will you marry me?"

"T. A. , I don't love you. Wait! Don't say it! I'm thirty-nine, but I'mbrave and foolish enough to say that all these years of work, anddisappointment, and struggle, and bitter experience haven't convincedme that love does not exist. People have said about me, seeing me inbusiness, that I'm not a marrying woman. There is no such thing asthat. Every woman is a marrying woman, and sometimes the light-heartedest, and the scoffingest, and the most self-sufficient of usare, beneath it all, the marryingest. Perhaps I'm making a mistake. Perhaps ten years from now I'll be ready to call myself a fool forhaving let slip what the wise ones would call a 'chance. ' But I don'tthink so, T. A. "

"You know me too well, " argued T. A. Buck rather miserably. "But atleast you know the worst of me as well as the best. You'd be taking norisks. "

Emma McChesney walked to the window. There was a little silence. Thenshe finished it with one clean stroke. "We've been good businesschums, you and I. I hope we always shall be. I can imagine nothingmore beautiful on this earth for a woman than being married to a manshe cares for and who cares for her. But, T. A. , you're not the man. "

And then there were quick steps in the corridor, a hand at the door-knob, a slim, tall figure in the doorway. Emma McChesney seemed towaft across the rooms and into the embrace of the slim, tall figure. 

"Welcome--home!" she cried. "Sketch in the furniture to suityourself. "

"This is going to be great--great!" announced Jock. "What do you knowabout the Oriental potentate down-stairs! I guess Otis Skinner hasnothing on him when it comes--Why, hello, Mr. Buck!" He was peeringinto the next room. "Why don't you folks light up? I thought you wereanother agent person. Met that one down in the hail. Said he'd beright up. What's the matter with him anyway? He smiles like awaxworks. When the elevator took me up he was still smiling from thefoyer, and I could see his grin after the rest of him was lost tosight. Regular Cheshire. What's this? Droring-room?"

[Illustration: "'Welcome home!' she cried. 'Sketch in the furniture tosuit yourself'"]

He rattled on like a pleased boy. He strode over to shake hands withBuck. Emma McChesney, cheeks glowing, eyed him adoringly. Then shegave a little suppressed cry. 

"Jock, what's happened?"

Jock whirled around like a cat. "Where? When? What?"

Emma McChesney pointed at him with one shaking finger. "You! You'rethin! You're--you're emaciated. Your shoulders, where are they? Your--your legs--"

Jock looked down at himself. His glance was pride. "Clothes, " he said. 

"Clothes?" faltered his mother. 

"You're losing your punch, Mother? You used to be up on men's rigging. All the boys look like their own shadows these days. English cut. Nopadding. No heels. Incurve at the waist. Watch me walk. " He flappedacross the room, chest concave, shoulders rounded, arms hanging limp, feet wide apart, chin thrust forward. 

"Do you mean to tell me that's your present form of locomotion?"demanded his mother. 

"I hope so. Been practising it for weeks. They call it the juvenilejump, and all our best leading men have it. I trailed DouglasFairbanks for days before I really got it. "

And the tension between T. A. Buck and Emma McChesney snapped with ajerk, and they both laughed, and laughed again, at Jock's air ofoffended dignity. They laughed until the rancor in the heart of theman and the hurt and pity in the heart of the woman melted into a bondof lasting understanding. 

"Go on--laugh!" said Jock. "Say, Mother, is there a shower in thebathroom, h'm?" And was off to investigate. 

The laughter trailed away into nothingness. "Jock, " called his mother, "do you want your bedroom done in plain or stripes?"

"Plain, " came from the regions beyond. "Got a lot of pennants andeverything. "

T. A. Buck picked up his stick from the corner in which it stood. 

"I'll run along, " he said. "You two will want to talk things overtogether. " He raised his voice to reach the boy in the other room. "I'm off, Jock. "

Jock's protest sounded down the hall. "Don't leave me alone with her. She'll blarney me into consenting to blue-and-pink rosebud paper in mybedroom. "

T. A. Buck had the courage to smile even at that. Emma McChesney waswatching him, her clear eyes troubled, anxious. 

At the door Buck turned, came back a step or two. "I--I think, if youdon't mind, I'll play hooky this time and run over to Atlantic Cityfor a couple of days. You'll find things slowing up, now that theholidays are so near. "

"Fine idea--fine!" agreed Emma McChesney; but her eyes still wore thetroubled look. 

"Good-by, " said T. A. Buck abruptly. 

"Good--" and then she stopped. "I've a brand-new idea. Give yousomething to worry about on your vacation. "

"I'm supplied, " answered T. A. Buck grimly. 

"Nonsense! A real worry. A business worry. A surprise. "

Jock had joined them, and was towering over his mother, her hand inhis. 

T. A. Buck regarded them moodily. "After your pajama and knickerbockerstunt I'm braced for anything. "

"Nothing theatrical this time, " she assured him. "Don't expect a showsuch as you got when I touched off the last fuse. "

An eager, expectant look was replacing the gloom that bad clouded hisface. "Spring it. "

Emma McChesney waited a moment; then, "I think the time has come toput in another line--a staple. It's--flannel nightgowns. "

"Flannel nightgowns!" Disgust shivered through Buck's voice. "_Flannelnightgowns!_ They quit wearing those when Broadway was a cow-path. "

"Did, eh?" retorted Emma McChesney. "That's the New-Yorker speaking. Just because the French near-actresses at the Winter Garden wear silklace and sea-foam nighties in their imported boudoir skits, and justbecause they display only those frilly, beribboned handmade affairs inthe Fifth Avenue shop-windows, don't you ever think that they're anational vice. Let me tell you, " she went on as T. A. Buck's demeanorgrew more bristlingly antagonistic, "there are thousands and thousandsof women up in Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and Oregon, andAlaska, and Nebraska, and Dakota who are thankful to retire everynight protected by one long, thick, serviceable flannel nightie, andone practical hot-water bag. Up in those countries retiring isn't asocial rite: it's a feat of hardihood. I'm keen for a line of plain, full, roomy old-fashioned flannel nightgowns of the improved T. A. Buck Featherloom products variety. They'll be wearing 'em long afterknickerbockers have been cut up for patchwork. "

The moody look was quite absent from T. A. Buck's face now, and thetroubled look from Emma McChesney's eyes. 

"Well, " Buck said grudgingly, "if you were to advise making up a lineof the latest models in deep-sea divers' uniforms, I suppose I'd givein. But flannel nightgowns! In the twentieth century--flannel night--"

"Think it over, " laughed Emma McChesney as he opened the door. "We'llhave it out, tooth and nail, when you get back. "

The door closed upon him. Emma McChesney and her son were left alonein their new home to be. 

"Turn out the light, son, " said Emma McChesney, "and come to thewindow. There's a view! Worth the money, alone. "

Jock switched off the light. "D' you know, Blonde, I shouldn't wonderif old T. A. 's sweetish on you, " he said as he came over to thewindow. 

"Old!"

"He's forty or over, isn't he?"

"Son, do you realize your charming mother's thirty-nine?"

"Oh, you! That's different. You look a kid. You're young in all thespots where other women of thirty-nine look old. Around the eyes, andunder the chin, and your hands, and the corners of your mouth. "

In the twilight Emma McChesney turned to stare at her son. "Just wheredid you learn all that, young 'un? At college?"

And, "Some view, isn't it, Mother?" parried Jock. The two stood there, side by side, looking out across the great city that glittered andswam in the soft haze of the late November afternoon. There arelovelier sights than New York seen at night, from a window eyrie witha mauve haze softening all, as a beautiful but experienced woman issoftened by an artfully draped scarf of chiffon. There are cities ofroses, cities of mountains, cities of palm-trees and sparkling lakes;but no sight, be it of mountains, or roses, or lakes, or waving palm-trees, is more likely to cause that vague something which catches youin the throat. 

It caught those two home-hungry people. And it opened the lips of oneof them almost against his will. 

"Mother, " said Jock haltingly, painfully, "I came mighty near cominghome--for good--this time. "

His mother turned and searched his face in the dim light. 

"What was it, Jock?" she asked, quite without fuss. 

The slim young figure in the jumping juvenile clothes stirred andtried to speak, tried again, formed the two words: "A--girl. "

Emma McChesney waited a second, until the icy, cruel, relentless handthat clutched her very heart should have relaxed ever so little. Then, "Tell me, sonny boy, " she said. 

"Why, Mother--that girl--" There was an agony of bitterness and ofdisillusioned youth in his voice. 

Emma McChesney came very close, so that her head, in the pert littleclose-fitting hat, rested on the boy's shoulder. She linked her armthrough his, snug and warm. 

"That girl--" she echoed encouragingly. 

And, "That girl, " went on Jock, taking up the thread of his grief, "why, Mother, that--girl--"

THE END