PART II.
“WHAT did you say?” This last sentence was addressed to a customer who had been standing for some seconds. “Green braid? No, we haven’t any to match that.”
“Are you sure?” questioned the young girl anxiously. “Haven’t you a little darker, then? that will do.”
“No, we haven’t!” sharp-voiced and spiteful.
“Saucy thing!” she added, as the girl turned away; “I told her I hadn’t; what business had she to ask again?”
“O, Nellie! I don’t think you are sure. I think I found some in your upper row of boxes yesterday which would answer for the sample.”
“Nonsense! as if you could tell without looking. I know I haven’t; I tumbled the whole lot over yesterday for a fussy woman, and I remember every shade in it. It is of no consequence, anyhow; a seven-cent braid!
“O, Jean! look here; let me see your photographs. Are they good?”
She had darted away to the counter below.
Marion stood for a moment irresolute, then moved toward the girl. “Let me see it, please; I think I can match it.”
The woman to whom she had sold a spool of thread turned at the sound of her voice and smiled on the girl. “Give it to her, Jennie, she will match it; she knows how,” she said. Marion answered the smile; her heart was warm over the simple words of commendation. She sought among the upper row of boxes for the one which her memory associated with yesterday’s shades, and found it. The girl made her seven-cent purchase and went away pleased, just as Nellie came back from her photographs.
“Such a stupid day!” she yawned toward its close. “Not a person of importance has even passed our counter. I’ve sold about a dollar’s worth of goods to-day. How much have you done?”
“Hardly that,” said Marion, smiling. “It has all been spools of cotton and darning needles. It has rained, you know, all day.”
The next morning’s sun shone brightly, and the large store was thronged early in the day with shoppers. Both Marion and Nellie were busy, the latter not much pleasanter than she had been the day before; it all seemed such trivial work to her.
“Are you sure you are not mistaken in the name?” one of the chiefs was saying, in a perplexed tone, to a lady who stood near Marion’s counter. “We have but one clerk of that name, and she is the youngest in the store.”
“This one is quite young, and she sells spool cotton,” said the lady, catching Marion’s eye and smiling a recognition. She had laid aside the long gossamer, and was carefully dressed. “I have a fancy to be waited on by her.”
“Marion,” said the chief, turning to her, “this lady wants to look at the light trimming silks; do you know anything about them?”
“Yes, sir,” said Marion promptly; “I know the shades and prices.”
“I thought so,” the lady said, and Marion moved down the archway at her side.
“I have a fancy that you can match silks,” the lady said; “at least I think you will patiently try. A girl who could do her best on a rainy day for a spool of cotton, can be depended upon for silk, I believe.”
From the silk department they went to the glove counter, and from there to the millinery, in each of which departments the young girl with wide-open eyes and deft fingers and careful taste gave satisfaction. “You ought to be in this room,” said the head milliner, smiling on her as she saw her select the right shade of velvet. “Where do you belong?” She laughed when told, and said that the spool-cotton department was fortunate.
“That Marion Wilkes,” said the chief on Saturday evening, “what about her?” The clerk told briefly what he knew about her.
“Promote her,” said the chief briefly. “Keep watch of her; if she succeeds in other departments as well, keep pushing her. She has been worth several hundred dollars to us this week. Miss Lamson told me she had expected to buy her niece’s outfit over at Breck’s, but was attracted here by that little girl selling her a spool of cotton on a rainy day. And Jennie Packard brought her mother here for the winter supplies for their family, because that girl matched a dress braid; in fact, I have heard half a dozen stories of the kind about her. She is valuable; we cannot spare her for spool cotton.”
It was four years ago that this true story happened. Last Saturday, as I stood near the spool counter in the fashionable store, I heard a voice ask: “And what has become of Marion Wilkes? She used to be here next to you, didn’t she, Nellie?”
“Why, yes, she was the spool-cotton girl; but she didn’t stay here long; she got to be a favorite with the proprietors somehow. I never understood it. She was a sly little thing; they promoted her all the while; you never saw anything like it. She gets the largest salary of any saleswoman in the store now, and I heard last week that they were going to put her at the head of the art department. That’s just the way with some people, always in luck. Here I have been at this tape and braid counter for years, and expect to be until my eyes are too dim to pick out the stupid things. I told you I had no tape of that width; what is the use in asking again?” This last sentence was addressed to a little girl who was waiting to be served.
Pansy.
THE SPOILED FACE.
(Character Studies.)
“ISN’T he lovely?” asked Miss Henderson, as we three stood in front of Charlie’s portrait, which had just come from the artist’s hand. “He has such great expressive eyes, so soft, and yet so full of intelligence. The artist has caught the very expression. I think I never saw a more beautiful boy.”
“I think I never saw a greater nuisance,” said Miss Maylie, speaking with a good deal of energy and with a slight frown on her face, as though some unpleasant memory was stirred by the sight of the lovely face in the frame. We both turned and looked at her in surprise.
“Nuisance!” repeated Miss Henderson. “Why, what can you mean? I have heard that his character is as lovely as his face. He is one of the most generous little fellows, always dividing his goodies with the children.”
“Oh! I don’t doubt it,” said Miss Maylie; “but there are other traits in children to be sought after besides that of dividing their goodies.” Then she laughed, as if half-ashamed of the warmth of her manner, and said: “I’ve been a recent victim to one of his habits, and feel somewhat deeply, perhaps. I had an important engagement with his mother yesterday—a business matter for which I had asked an interview—and told her I was pressed for time, and had but a half-hour. I suppose we had been together about two minutes when the door opened without the ceremony of a knock, and Charlie appeared to ask if he might go over to Uncle Harry’s. He was told that he could not, it looked too much like rain; and he argued the matter, assuring his mother that the wind had changed and was blowing from the west; that the cook said it was not going to rain any more; that he would put on his rubbers and bundle up, and I don’t know what else. He was listened to patiently by his mother, and impatiently by me, for my precious half-hour was slipping away. He shut the door at last with a frown on his face which, if it had been painted, would have made this picture much less beautiful, but I am afraid more natural.
“It was certainly not five minutes before he was back, and this time it was, ‘Mamma, may I call Jerry to bring in the kittens?’
“‘O, no, dear! not this afternoon; you are dressed for dinner, you know.’
“‘That won’t make any difference; I won’t soil my clothes. The kittens haven’t been out in the mud. Do, mamma, let me.’
“‘No, Charlie; I do not want them in the parlor, you know.’
“‘Then I’ll go to the kitchen and play with them; Jane won’t care.’
“‘Yes, Jane cares very much; the kittens annoy her. Charlie will have to get along without them this afternoon.’
“Another slam to the door, with the scowl deepened. But we were by no means to be left in peace. I was just in the midst of the most intricate part of my business explanation, when Charlie arrived again. Now he was hungry; could not wait another minute, and wanted some bread and butter and syrup, and a piece of cake and a glass of milk. It was carefully explained to him that dinner would be served within the hour, and that syrup was not good for him, the doctor said—to which he replied that he did not care what the old doctor said—and that cake would be given him at the table when it was passed to the others. To each of these explanations he returned an answer which had to be answered, and when all was settled, he began over again to coax for something to eat! The fourth time he came he wanted the gas lighted in the library, and the fifth he wanted a certain great book which he could not lift placed conveniently for him to look at the pictures. When at last even his mother felt the strain on her patience and told him he must run away and not interrupt her again, he burst into a loud howl, and slammed the door after him so that my nerves all shivered at the jar.
“I must say it would be difficult for me to admire his face to-day; my annoyances are too recent. Seven times during a single half-hour to be interrupted by a little boy, when you are trying to transact important business with his mother, has spoiled his face for me. If he had wanted one single thing which it was important to have at that moment, it would have made a difference.”
“They all seemed important to him, I suppose,” said gentle Miss Henderson, who always tried to apologize for everybody.
“Yes, they did,” said Miss Maylie; “that is just the trouble; he evidently considered himself a very important person, and thought that his mother should leave her business and her caller and attend to him. I should call him a spoiled child.”
Myra Spafford.
CHARLIE’S PORTRAIT.