May Iverson's Career

by Elizabeth Garver Jordan

She raised her head the minute she felt me there, and sat up and stared at me with eyes that were big and dark and had a queer, desperate expression in them. It seemed to startle her to know that some one was so near her, but after she had looked at me her surprise changed to annoyance, and she moved as if she meant to get up and go away. That full glance at her had shown me what she was like. She was not pretty. Her face was dreadfully pale, her nose was ordinary in shape, and her firmly set, thin lips made her mouth look like a straight line. I did not see how I could have thought of Janet Trelawney in connection with her. However, I felt that I could not drive her away from her seat, so I stopped her and begged her pardon and asked if she was ill or had hurt herself in any way, and if I could help her.

At first she did not answer me. She merely sat still and looked me over slowly, as if she were trying to make up her mind about me. The longer she looked the more puzzled she seemed to be. It had been raining when I left home in the morning, so I had on a mackintosh and a little soft rainy-day hat. I knew I did not look impressive, and it was plain that the girl in gray did not think much of me. At last she asked what I wanted, and her voice sounded hard and indifferent—even rude. I was disappointed in that, too, as well as in her face. It would have been more interesting, of course, to help a refined, educated girl. There was no doubt, however, that she needed help of some kind, so I merely repeated in different words what I had said to her at first. She laughed then—a laugh I did not like at all—and stared at me again in her queer way, as if she could not make me out. She seemed to be more puzzled over me than I was over her.

She kept on staring at me a long time with her singular eyes, that had dark circles under them. At last she asked me if I was a "society agent" or anything of that sort, and when I said I was not she asked how I happened to be out so late, and what I was doing. Her voice was as queer as her eyes—low and husky. I did not like her manner. It almost seemed as if she thought I had no right to be there, so I told her rather coldly that I was a reporter on the Searchlight and that I was on my way home from the office. As soon as I said that her whole manner changed. I have noticed this quick change in others when they hear that I am a newspaper woman. Some are pleased and some are not, but few remain cold and detached. The girl in gray actually looked relieved about something. She laughed again, a husky, throaty laugh that sounded, however, much nicer and more human than before, and gave me a good-natured little push.

"Oh," she said, "all right. Better beat it now. So-long." And she waved me away as if she owned the park bench. I hesitated. I was sorry now that I had stopped, and I wanted to go; but it seemed impossible to leave her there. I sat still for a moment, thinking it over, and suddenly she leaned toward me and advised me very earnestly not to linger till the roundsman came to take my pedigree. She said he was letting her alone because he knew she was only out of the hospital two days and up against it, but the healthy thing for me was to move on while the walking was good.

I was sorry she used so much slang, but of course the fact that she was unrefined and uneducated made her situation harder, and demanded even more sympathy from those better off. What she had said about the hospital and being "up against it" proved that I had done right to stop.

I told her I was going home in a few minutes, but that I wanted to talk to her first if she did not mind, and that there was no reason why I could not sit in the park if she could. She looked at me and laughed again as if I had made a joke, and the laugh brought on an attack of coughing which kept her busy for a full minute. When she had stopped I pointed out my home to her. It was on the opposite side of the Square, but we could see it quite plainly from where we sat. We could even see the windows of my rooms, which faced the park. The girl in gray looked up at them a long time.

"Gee!" she said, "you're lucky. Think of havin' a joint to fall into, and not knowin' enough to go to it when you got a chance." She added, "It wouldn't take me long to hop there if I owned the latch-key."

I asked her where she lived, and she laughed again and swung one knee over the other as we were taught in the convent not to do, and muttered that her present address was Madison Square Park, but she hoped it would not be permanent. Then she got up and said, "So-long," and started to go. I got up, too, and caught her arm. Her last words had simply thrilled me. I had read about girls being sick and out of work and being dismissed from the hospital with no money and no place to go to. But to read of them in books is one thing, and to see one with your own eyes, to have one actually beside you, is another thing—and very different. My heart swelled till it hurt; so did my throat. The girl shook off my hand.

"Say," she said, and her voice was rude and cross again—"say, kid, what's the matter with you? You ain't got nothin' on me. Beat it, will you, or let me beat it. I can't set here and chin."

I held her arm. I knew what was the matter. She was too proud to ask for help. I knew another thing, too. There was a story in her, the story of what happens to the penniless girl in New York; and I could get it from her and write it and put the matter on a business basis that would mean as much to her as to me. Then I would have my story, the story I had not got to-day, and she would have a room and shelter, for of course I would give her some money in advance. My mind worked like lightning. I saw exactly how the thing could be done.