Occasionally Fred, too, came to see me in the evening, but if I was writing, he would go away at once. My writing to Fred loomed as something very important. He believed in me. Hamilton had called me a wonderful girl, but Fred believed I was an inspired genius. He let me copy all my stories on the type-writer at the office, and would literally steal time for me in which to do it, making Red Top do work I should have done.
Fred was "in bad" at the yards. It seems that his last "drunk" had completely exasperated certain heads of the firm, and there was a general opinion, so Hermann told me, that Fred's head might "come off" any day now.
I was so worried about this that I tried to warn him. He stuck his tongue in one cheek and winked at me. Then he said:
"Nora, I have an A No. 1 pull with old man Smith, and there ain't nobody going to get my job here; but I'm working them for the New York job. I want to go east."
That made me feel just as badly, for, if Fred was transferred to the New York branch, what would become of me? I could not go, too, and I disliked the thought of working under another.
I felt so badly about it that I wrote to Mr. Hamilton, who had not been to see me for three weeks. I suppose if I had not been working so hard, I should have felt worse about that, because I had thought he would be sure to come and see me again soon. But he did not; nor did he even write to me, though I wrote him four letters. My first letter was a very foolish one. It was this:
I know you do not love me, but I do you.
Nora.
I felt ashamed of that letter after I mailed it. So then I sent another to say I didn't mean it, and then I sent another immediately to say that I did.
Then, for a time, as I received no answers, I didn't write to him, but tried to forget him in my writing. It's a fact that I was fairly successful. Once I started upon a story, my mind centered upon nothing else; but as soon as I was through with it, I would begin to think about him again, and I suppose he really was in my mind all the time.