[“Are you a deaf-mute or aren’t you?”]

[LARGER IMAGE]

CHAPTER I
JOAN GETS A JOB

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Joan called over her shoulder to Mother, as she scurried around past the lilac bushes by the kitchen windows.

Oh, suppose she were too late!

Tim had gone into the Journal office, just as she had started doing the dishes. Joan rarely minded doing dishes, because the windows above the kitchen sink looked across at the Journal office and she could watch everything that went on over there. Usually, she lingered over the dishes, just as she hustled over the bed making because the bedrooms were on the other side of the house. But to-day, she had done the dishes in less than no time, because she wanted to be nearer the scene of action than the kitchen windows.

She hurried now, though it was rather undignified for a person fourteen years old to run in a public place like this. That was the trouble with living right down town. No privacy. Joan thought of the rows and rows of new homes out at the end of Market Street, and then looked back at her own little home—also on Market Street. It was a tiny, red brick house, tucked in between the Journal office and the county court house, set back behind a space of smooth green lawn. It was like living in a public square. But Joan had lived there all her life and really loved the excitement of it.