The first half hour Irma confided in me that she had cravings. “Cravings? Cravings for what?” I asked her.
“Cravings for papers.”
It sounded a trifle goatlike.
“Papers?”
“Yes, papers. I want to read papers on the lecture platform.”
Whereat I heard all Irma's spiritual longings—cravings. She began in school to do papers. That was two years ago. Since then she has often been asked to read the papers she wrote in school before church audiences. Just last Sunday she read one at her church in New York, and four people asked her afterward for copies.
What was it about?
It was about the True Woman. When she wrote it, she began, “Dear Teacher, Pupils, and Friends.” But when she read it in churches she skipped the Teacher and Pupils and began: “Dear Friends, ... now we are met together on this memorable occasion to consider the subject of the True Woman. First we must ask” (here Irma bangs down on a helpless nightshirt and dries it out well beyond its time into a nice bunch of wrinkles) “What is woman? Woman was created by God because Dear Friends God saw how lonely man was and how lonesome and so out of man's ribs God created woman to be man's company and helpmate....”
“Irma!” Miss Cross's voice had an oft-repeated tone to it. She called out from the table where she checked over each girl's work without so much as turning her head. “You ironed only one leg of these pajamas!”
Irma shuffled over on her crooked high heels and returned with the half-done pajamas. “That fo'-lady!” sighed Irma, “she sure gets on ma nerves. She's always hollerin' at me 'bout somethin'. She never hollers at the other girls that way—she just picks on me.”