She walked the streets for ten days, without success, looking for work. And then, on the eleventh, just when her money was beginning to be exhausted, she found it. Stating her age as seventeen, she obtained a situation as waitress in an attractive little tea-room on Fifth Avenue. Under ordinary circumstances she would never have been able to get such a place, for the other girls were of a higher type, but two waitresses had developed scarlet fever, and the proprietress was encountering difficulty in replacing them.
Frieda was given a black sateen dress and a white cap and apron, and instructed in the finer points of courtesy and service. She spent some of her first wages for powder and rouge, and learned to twist her hair up, according to the prevailing fashion. On the whole, she passed very easily for seventeen or eighteen.
But as the days went by, she found her life singularly monotonous. The proprietress paid the girls small salaries, expecting them to live on tips. But Frieda Hammer received very few tips, for she was not a very successful waitress. The regular patrons avoided her table, and the newcomers were usually displeased with her service, and tipped her grudgingly, or not at all.
Then, during the Thanksgiving holidays, she saw Marjorie and Lily, and a great longing to go back seized her, a desire to study more, and to accept the friendship these Girl Scouts so generously offered. But she thought of the canoe and the money she had stolen, and, overcome with shame, she disappeared into the kitchen to prevent the girls from recognizing her.
About the middle of December she lost her situation, and was forced to seek another, without even a reference. Christmas, which on the farm had meant little except what Mrs. Brubaker had done for her family, took on a new significance as she watched the shops and the decorations, and preparations everywhere. In her imagination she saw the Christmas the Girl Scouts would have, and thought of Mrs. Johnson; and in her heart she was homesick for what might have been.
She secured a temporary position as wrapper in a department store, with the understanding that she would be dropped after Christmas.
She spent Christmas day alone in her room—a small, bare attic, for she could no longer afford the comforts of a boarding house. She would have liked to go to the movies, but with no prospect of work, and not any too much money on hand, she dared not risk the expense.
All during the following week she looked for work, but could find none; for everywhere places were discharging, instead of taking on, girls.
And then the new year brought her the letter from Marjorie!
Marjorie had pictured Frieda now as a sullen, successful, working-girl, ready to scorn any advances on her part. She dreaded lest the girl would tear up the letter before she read it. But she never thought of her hugging and kissing it, as a veritable bond between her and the rest of mankind.