CHAPTER IV.
SOME UNPLEASANT INFORMATION.
Faith's face turned scarlet, but she obeyed at once. The next instant the buyer was forgotten. She was thinking of Miss Jennings.
So the superintendent had not carried out his threat after all. He could not have forgotten it, his anger had been too genuine.
Faith was thankful enough that the poor girl was still at work, although she looked sick enough to be in bed in the care of a doctor.
As Faith looked at her she could see plainly the stamp of death upon her brow. Her cheeks were bloodless and her eyes were sunken.
After eleven o'clock the girls took turns in going to their luncheons. Some repaired to the basement lunch room, while others who could afford it patronized the nearby restaurants.
It was a pleasant surprise to Faith when Miss Jennings joined her in the lunch room. She had a paper bag in her hand, while Faith carried a small basket.
Almost instinctively the two girls drew away from the others. There was a bond of sympathy between them that they could not account for.
"Do tell me your name," whispered Miss Jennings at once. "It does sound so 'shoppy' to be always saying 'packer.'"
She had opened her bag and taken out a cracker. It was evident that there was no time to be wasted in lunching.
"Call me Faith, if you will. I should like to have you so much! I think it will make me feel a little less strange," was the impulsive answer.
"I will if you'll call me Mary," replied Miss Jennings. "I've just been longing to talk to you all the morning, but there's no dodging Miss Fairbanks' eye; it's always upon you."
"Are we not supposed to speak at all?" asked Faith, who was forgetting to eat her luncheon.
"Oh, yes, we can speak, but not if there are customers waiting. But, tell me, how do you happen to be a packer? You are too old for that kind of work, and quite too clever, I'm sure," said Miss Jennings kindly.
Faith told her how difficult it had been to get any position at all, but she did not dream of telling her how closely her name and work had been connected with the matter.
When she spoke of Mr. Forbes, Miss Jennings fairly shuddered.
"He's a terrible brute," she said in a nervous whisper. "And what do you think, Faith; he's a Sunday-school teacher!"
"Oh no, it can't be!"
Faith caught her breath with a shiver.
"I mean, it doesn't seem possible," she added after a minute.
"Yes, he is," reiterated Miss Jennings soberly.
"I used to go to the same church. Now I don't go to any—I have no use for religion!"
She started coughing, and this gave Faith an opportunity to recover from the shock. When the spasm was over she put her arms affectionately over Miss Jennings' shoulder.
"What has turned you against religion, dear?" she asked very softly. "Is it such men as Mr. Forbes, or just the bitterness from misfortune?"
"Both," said Miss Jennings stubbornly and with a little frown on her face.
"If God is good, why is there so much misery? If He is just, why are we subjected to such terrible oppression, and if He is merciful, why doesn't He hear us when we pray to Him to help us bear our burdens?"
There was a ring of defiance in Miss Jennings' tones. As Faith looked at the pinched features her frame became almost convulsed with anguish.
"Oh, I wish I could answer all your questions, dear!" she cried softly, "and I can, I am sure, if you will just lay aside your bitterness! You are holding black glasses to your own eyes, you poor child, but the light will come; you must keep on praying for it!"
"There is no use, Faith. I've prayed until I'm tired. But don't mind me, dear. I'm what they call a pessimist. I look on the dark side of everything, I suppose; but listen, do you hear what that cash girl is saying?"
Faith shook her head. She had heard nothing but her companion's words.
"Jack Forbes is dying! I saw it in the paper. That's why the old bear isn't here to-day, I suppose! It will just serve him right! I'm not a bit sorry!"
Cash girl Number 9 laughed shrilly as she finished her announcement, and in the remarks that followed Faith learned who Jack Forbes was, and that he was a really fine fellow in spite of his gold-loving father.
In a second she understood also why Miss Jennings was still working. No doubt she would be discharged as soon as Mr. Forbes came back to business.
She moved nearer to her companion as this thought flashed through her mind.
Just then a man stuck his head in the lunch room and looked around. When he saw Faith he stared a minute, and then disappeared very suddenly.
"Hello! Wonder who Hardy is after?" cried one of the girls.
"Who was he?" asked Faith in a whisper of Miss Jennings. "I've seen him watching me several times this morning."
Miss Jennings straightened up and looked at her a minute.
"He's one of the house detectives," she said slowly, "and you happen to be a new girl. Don't bother about him, Faith. They are always watching some one."
"Couldn't hold their jobs if they didn't," chimed in a clerk who had overheard her.
"They have to arrest some one regularly about once in so often. I hope some day they'll arrest the wrong person. It would cost old Denton a pretty penny!"
Just then another clerk from the ribbon counter came up and joined them.
"Did you hear about that inspector coming here yesterday, girls? Well, it didn't do any good, for old Forbes fooled her completely! She didn't get a peep at this room or a sniff at these odors. He means to poison us all to death with sewer gas before he's done with us, but perhaps it will be just as pleasant a death as any other."
Faith Marvin looked up at the speaker with an expression of horror in her eyes.
"Do you mean to say that this place is really unhealthy, and that the firm refuses to comply with the law on such matters?"
"I mean to say that Denton, Day & Co. comply with no law whatever except their own sweet will, and that is to overwork, underpay and bulldoze their employees and then kick them out at a minute's notice."
The girl spoke the words with apparent indifference. Only a long-drawn sigh at their conclusion showed the inmost feeling on the subject.
Faith sprang to her feet with flashing eyes.
"Then that accounts for the haggard faces of the girls whom I have seen this morning! Oh, we must do something at once to alter these conditions! Our employers are but men; they must have hearts in their bosoms!"
"You don't know them, Faith."
It was Miss Jennings who spoke. She was trying her best to conquer another fit of coughing.
"Our employers look upon us girls as so many machines, created for the sole purpose of filling their coffers, and it is this God whom you respect who allows them to abuse us! to grind us into the dust because we are helpless!"
The ring of bitterness in her tones appalled all who heard her except Faith, who threw her arms about her tenderly as she answered:
"No, no, Mary! Don't say that! You are mistaken, dear! God is watching over us all with the tenderest love, and from this whirlwind of injustice He will yet reap a harvest of good! I believe it! I know it, and I shall live to see it!"