It does sound unbelievable. But after all you need not lift your black or your brown or your yellow eyebrows and say it is impossible. Far more impossible stories appear in your newspaper every day. Just this morning there was a tale of a set of china, one hundred and ten pieces, which was stolen from a residence on the River Drive and carried across the Mississippi River into Wisconsin and returned to its owner without one of the hundred and ten pieces being broken or even nicked. To prove this surprising story there were statements from Mrs. Joshua Cabot, who had been robbed, and from Stuttering Jimmie, the robber, who had showed that he was a quick and expert packer. Without the statement of Mrs. Joshua Cabot, easily the leader of the Waloo younger matrons, you never would have believed the tale, but no one could question the word of young Mrs. Joshua Cabot. Whoever made the phrase that truth is stranger than fiction knew exactly what he was talking about for nothing could have been stranger than for a burglar to steal a full set of Wedgewood china or for Tessie Gilfooly to find herself a queen with a real kingdom and some thousands of real subjects.
Only that morning Tessie had grumbled and twisted her face into a most unbecoming scowl because life for her was just a dreary, weary round of work. She found fault with her oatmeal and skim milk because they were not strawberries and thick yellow cream and was just as annoying and disagreeable as a discontented girl of nineteen could possibly be.
"I never have any fun!" she wailed, and her small brother Johnny, who was eating his oatmeal and skim milk as if they were strawberries and cream, looked at her in surprise. What was the matter with old Tessie this morning, anyway? "I never have anything!" went on Tessie passionately. "It isn't fair for some girls to have so much and for me to have nothing at all! Look at Ethel Kingley!" she told Granny fiercely, although she must have known that Granny's eyes, keen as they were, could never penetrate the hundreds of frame and brick and stucco houses which separated the shabby little Gilfooly cottage from the big brick and stucco mansion which housed the Kingleys. "Ethel Kingley has everything in the world, and I haven't anything at all! It isn't fair! It isn't fair! Ethel Kingley's shoes cost more than I earn in a week. She has a new dress every day and I've worn this cheap sateen rag all spring! Ethel Kingley goes to bridge parties and dances! You can read about them in the Gazette! And I only go to bed! Ethel Kingley's brother—" The color rushed into her pale face as she spoke of the lordly Bill Kingley, "is the most wonderful man!" Words failed her as she thought of Ethel Kingley's wonderful brother.
"I'm a Boy Scout!" interrupted Johnny, eager to remind her that her own brother, young as he was, was wonderful too.
Tessie sniffed at him and at all Boy Scouts and went on with her grievances. When a quart measure is full it must overflow if anything more is poured into it, and Tessie was just full of grievances. "And Ethel Kingley has heaps of men friends to take her out and give her a good time!"
"You've got Joe," reminded Granny. "A face is a better guide to what a man is than clothes, Tessie Gilfooly! You take my word for it. Joe Cary is one in a thousand. His money's ready the minute it's due, every Saturday night as regular as the clock." For Joe had occupied the front room of the shabby little cottage ever since he had returned from France. "Now look here, my girl!" She regarded Tessie over her spectacles with kind but firm eyes. "It's plain to be seen that you got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. You're old enough to know that there are two kinds of folks in the world, those who have and those who haven't. The good Lord thought best to put you in with the 'haven'ts' and if he didn't give you the brains to climb up to the 'haves' there isn't any use in complaining and fault-finding to me. Here you are, young and healthy and with a nice job at the Evergreen——"
"Selling aluminum!" interrupted Tessie passionately.
"Selling aluminum," Granny repeated firmly. "You know very well that you're a lucky girl to have me and Johnny to look after you and Joe Cary for a friend to take you to the movies and——"
"One movie in two weeks!" exclaimed Tessie indignantly.
"And one more than you deserve when you act like this! You've done enough complaining for one morning, my girl. And if you don't want to be late and have your pay docked you'll take that frown off your face and put on a smile with your hat and run along. And I'll have some nice liver and onions for dinner so you'll have something pleasant to look forward to all day."