“I try to see that the workers are all safer and happier,” he helped her out. “It’s very hard to accomplish much. The manager thinks I’m crazy, and the workers won’t trust me because I’m my father’s son. It’s my father’s mill, you understand. If I plan a dance or a concert they think it’s some new kind of trap to lower wages or get in non-union workers, or to make them buy a lot of new clothes at the Company’s store.” He smiled sadly at Betty. “I suppose the tea-room business isn’t all roses, but I can tell you it looks like long-stemmed American beauties compared to my job. I must be off. Next time it will be your turn to grumble.”
But when the hour of Young-Man-Over-the-Fence struck the next day, Betty had a friend beside her desk—Babbie Hildreth, just arrived in response to a despairing summons from Betty, who had found the keeping up of the gift-shop department through the Christmas rush, with Mary off to hear Dr. Hinsdale read his famous paper, Madeline tired and worried over her neglected stories, and the college girl helpers overwhelmed with end-of-the-term papers and festivities, a good deal more than she could manage.
“Of course we oughtn’t to stop now,” Babbie agreed eagerly as she listened to Betty’s account of the situation. “I’m ready to pitch in day and night. I haven’t had anything on hand that I absolutely had to do for so long that I feel half asleep. Who’s the long-legged man, Betty?”
Betty explained. “We don’t know his name,” she concluded, “so Madeline calls him Young-Man-Over-the-Fence.”
Babbie nodded comprehendingly. “Of course he can jump fences, but if he couldn’t he’d get over them all the same—witness his chin. He’s got nice eyes and a nice smile, but I hate a chin like that.”
“You’ve got quite a determined chin yourself, Babbie Hildreth,” Betty reminded her laughingly.
“Probably that’s why I hate them for other people,” Babbie admitted. “Well, I’m going up to let Madeline set me to work.”
The “nice eyes” of Young-Man-Over-the-Fence followed her graceful little figure absently, as she climbed the stairs. He had dawdled an unprecedented time over his tea, watching the pretty picture that she and Betty made, absorbed in their merry, animated talk.
“Some day I think you might let me go up-stairs,” he told Betty, as he paid his bill. “I’ve noticed that all your very nicest customers do it. I’m a very regular customer—if that counts in any one’s favor.”
“Babbie isn’t a customer,” Betty explained. “She’s one of the firm. Mrs. Hinsdale is a customer, but she helps us make things. The gift-shop workroom is up there, you know.”