The White Flag

by Gene Stratton-Porter

Miss Nancy vibrated; she positively fluttered. Thinking of eggs made her want to cackle, but since it was the golden egg of a goose she craved—how did a goose voice rejoicings on such a momentous achievement? If she quacked, Miss Nancy was quite willing to quack. What she lacked was knowledge, not incentive.

All the time the drayman was carrying in furniture and bundles. Marcia opened a dresser drawer and took therefrom a dress, an apron of clean calico, and a pair of easy shoes. Standing in the back room, she stripped off the clothing she was wearing and put these on instead. Nancy was struggling to keep from asking Marcia where she came from, why she had brought furniture before she knew for certain that she would find work, but the lure of the Egg was upon her. She looked at the arms and shoulders and the curves of Marcia’s bust with eyes of frank envy.

“My goodness, you are the prettiest thing!” she said. “And your clothes are so tasty.”

Marcia smiled quietly, thinking of certain garments she had discarded.

“Now, the first thing to do is to arrange this bedroom and kitchen the best we can to accommodate my things,” she said, “then we’ll begin at the front and go straight through. When I’ve gotten everything clean, and in order, then you can tell me about who owes you and where they live and I’ll see what I can collect. And then, we’ll try to arrange the show windows more attractively, and since I can’t make hats, maybe I’d better try them on and sell them, while you go on making them. You really do make beautiful hats, but be as speedy as you can, because I feel it in my bones that I am going to sell lots of them.”

Then, with strong arms and assumed assurance, coupled with inborn abhorrence of dirt and disorder, Marcia Peters advanced to the rescue of the Bodkin Millinery.

The first visible sign of any change in that establishment came to the town of Bluffport when a good-looking woman emerged from the door with a bucket of foaming suds, a rag in her hand and a towel over her shoulder, and by standing on an empty packing case for necessary height, she polished the glass fronts and the glass of the door to iridescent sheen. After that it was evident from the outside that the activities of the newcomer included the vigorous use of a rag-covered broom on the ceiling and the side walls, the inner glass of the door and windows following. And then the shelves and the cases came in for their share of cleaning. The next day the front windows were filled with an appealing array of fall and winter hats judiciously and advantageously displayed. Between the stands that held the hats there wound lengths of ribbon of alluring colour and texture, while here and there were masses of colour from roses of velvet, the glitter of beads and bright leaves.

Straight back through the building went Marcia, every hour growing more interested, every hour given to intense thought as to what could be done, how it could best be done, and what the utmost financial return that could be extracted from it might be. One hard day’s work consisted in emptying the bedroom, thoroughly cleaning it and rearranging it with such of Marcia’s possessions as she had purchased herself. A small table that held a lamp was installed in the centre of the room, comfortable chairs placed on either side of it. The beds were attractively made and covered. Then the kitchen received attention.

The next Bluffport saw of the new venture was Marcia again mounted on her packing case with a bucket of white paint and a brush, energetically applying it to the window casings and the door. Pleased with results, Marcia recklessly painted as high as she could reach and then realized that the remainder of the false front, which reached two-story height with no backing in the dubious assumption that the building appealed to the eye of the beholder as what it was not, was out of her province. She had funds to hire a painter to complete the job, so she used them, although Nancy protested that she would pay half.

By that time, the change in appearance of the Bodkin Millinery was so great that parties interested in fall millinery and innovations, were beginning to come in. In the most attractive dress she possessed suitable for such use, with her really pretty hair drawn back loosely and coiled becomingly on her head, Marcia proved herself equal to the tongue of each newcomer. She had the advantage of not being taken unawares. She knew how the wolves of society harried the sheep of adventure; she had no intention of becoming their prey. Who she was, where she had come from, why she was there, she evaded, as slickly as the dews of night roll from the cabbage leaf of dawn. The qualities of satin and velvet, the colouring of ribbons and flowers, she found engrossing subjects. She had a way of picking up a wreath of artificial flowers and twisting the leaves into the most attractive shapes. Before she offered any hat for sale, she set it upon her own head and walked up and down behind the counter, turning and twisting to show the customer how it looked upon the head of a woman. When the customer had tried it upon her own head, if it did not fit or was not becoming, Marcia said so frankly. In these cases she ended by telling the purchaser that the shape of her head and her face were so individual that the only thing to do was to build a hat to suit her. She was capable of picking up a piece of buckram and with the shears deftly cutting therefrom a pattern for a hat, that with a little twist here and there, and trimming, would evolve into a shape that comfortably fitted and greatly enhanced the facial lines for which it was intended. Often she suggested a change in hair dressing, at times made a friend for life by deftly making the improvement herself.