I try to help her with her errands and marketing and to-day I was staggering home under a load of parcels and slipped on the glassy pavement just in front of the house and fell flat. A smart motor which was spinning by slid to a standstill and the driver jumped out and ran back to me. He was a beautiful big youth and the machine was one of those low, classy, dachshund effects in mauve. The Maiden's Dream picked me up and all my packages and looked us all over to make sure we weren't damaged. One of the parcels contained liver, and it became unwrapped.... (Dost like the picture, Jane Vail bearing home the liver for her frugal evening meal?) He did it up very deftly and then he asked me if he couldn't give me a lift. I said he certainly could but for the fact that I was already arrived at my destination. Then he said, "I'll give you a hand with the plunder, then. Which house?"—and The Maiden's Dream and the liver and I mounted Mrs. Mussel's steps together. He was as big and bonny as the impossible young persons in the backs of magazines, and he said it was tough weather to be walking and I said it was tough weather to be out of a job, and he said that was tough luck. (See how I gave him an opening, E.E.?) I thanked him and he said it was nothing and sped down to his speedster and I went in to my Christian room. Mrs. Mussel had been doing her regular Sister Anne act at the window and had "seen it all," she assured me ... I will omit her Phillipic....
Jane.
Wednesday.
Still no gainful occupation, people! Compared to her present attitude, Mrs. Mussel was Jest and Youthful Jollity before. And the blacker things get the earlier we rise. It seems to me that no sooner have I fitted myself compactly into my doll's-size bed and closed my eyes than I hear her mournful summons to another day. Oh, the inky gloom of these murky mornings! I know that the young woman who said so lyrically, "If you're waking, call me early, call me early, Mother dear!" is popularly supposed to have died without issue, but that is a misconception. I shrink from putting a Spoon River scandal on her mossy tombstone, but my Mrs. Mussel is her lineal descendant.
To-day I was racked by a yearning for the flesh-pots. I made myself as near smart as possible and flew for the smartest tea-room on Michigan Avenue. If I could stay me with Orange Pekoe and comfort me with toasted crumpets and English marmalade—But just as I was blithely footing it across the threshold the S.F. rose up behind me like a genie from a bottle and plucked me back.
"Edna Miles," she gasped, "my poor child, you can't eat in there! It's the most expensive place in the city. Besides,—it is half-past four,—you'll spoil your dinner!"
Very peevishly and hollowly,
Jane.
Thursday Night.
On the Joyful New Job.
Oh, my dear people, but I do believe in Fairies! I've met one personally! While we sat at melancholy mending this morning, my doleful landlady and I, after my fruitless tour of the agencies, who should dash up to our dull door but The Maiden's Dream! In his shining chariot! Mrs. Mussel said, "Edna, you go straight upstairs and lock yourself in your room and I'll 'tend to him!" But I was at the door before he had time to ring the bell.