“Please take this,” she said, “and don’t cry any more. Can’t you get off to-night and have a good rest?”
The girl shook her head vigorously, smiling at Eleanor through her tears. “I’d lose my job like that, ma’am. I ain’t any worse off than the others; only it did make me sick to lose the money when I got so many depending on me—my old grandmother and two kid brothers—and I wanted to make a little Christmas for the kids. Thank you an awful lot, ma’am.”
The girls went on their way fairly bursting with indignation.
“The idea of fining her for sitting down to rest!” sputtered Madeline. “And for being late, when she’s worked half the night before, it’s outrageous!”
Eleanor had quite forgotten the odors and the risk of infection. “Let’s buy some ribbon,” she suggested. “That counter seems to be the hub of the shopping fray.”
So they bought ribbon of a dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty who proved to be Pietro’s sister. She beamed on Eleanor, and in the safe foreign tongue confided to Madeline that Cannon’s was certainly a bad place to work. She could look out for herself, she explained, flashing an imperious glance at an inspector. She brought in lots of Italian trade, and could interpret both in Italian and French for the women who hadn’t learned English. So they treated her better. Oh, they fined her, of course—that was the rule—and she worked most nights. But she was pretty sure of keeping her place, whatever happened. That was a big help. They should see the dirty hole of a lunch-room before they left, she called gleefully after them, under the very eye of the fat little man whom she had pointed out as Mr. Cannon. It was certainly “a big help” to be able to utter wholesome truths like that with impunity.
“Let’s go and reason with him,” suggested Madeline, looking angrily after the fat little proprietor. “Let’s make him take us to see the dirty hole of a rest-room. Let’s threaten to boycott him if he doesn’t reform his ways.”
Eleanor looked very much frightened. “We should only get the girls we’ve talked to into trouble. The boycott wouldn’t work because we’ve never bought anything anyway until to-day. I—I think I’m beginning to feel faint, Madeline. Let’s go home and talk it over with Betty and Mr. Thayer. They’ll think of just the right thing to do.”
But Mr. Thayer had gone to Boston, via Babbie Hildreth’s, and it was Eugenia Ford’s plan that, after much discussion, was settled upon, for the reason, as Madeline put it, that it was “just wild enough to work.”
So after chapel the next morning Eugenia, Georgia, and Fluffy—Straight had tearfully decided not to cut Logic—chaperoned by Betty, appeared at Cannon’s and asked to see the head of the firm.