“Because you all say the same thing,” she flashed; “everywhere I work. They tell me I’m bad, so I’m discharged, but they all give me that lecture on how to be good—out of a job.” She named places she had worked: stores where the managers and the conditions were notorious. “They gave it to me at Freeman’s,” she sneered, “and,” she jeered, “at the One Price Stores! Everywhere I get it, and not only from you bosses. I see the other girls catch on to my story, and, with looks at me, pass it on. ‘Poor Thing,’ they whisper and, then, of course, the Poor Thing is fired.”
She didn’t look like a Poor Thing. She looked like a very Brave Thing to this manager of women, but he felt, with his man’s intuition, the despair that was washing her courage away. So he was kind.
“How old is the child?” he asked brutally.
“Five.”
“Who takes care of it while you’re at work?”
“Mother.”
“And you support all three?”
“Yes, and,” she blazed, “you needn’t worry about that. You fire away. I’ll make out, somehow. Only don’t, don’t tell me I’m bad again. I know that, too. Don’t I tell it to myself every hour, every day, and, if I forget it for one little hour, doesn’t some one remind me?”
He was afraid she’d break, and he didn’t want her to; not her. “Too proud, too brave.”
“You needn’t worry about me, either,” he said. “This is a business house, strictly business. No sentiment, and no scruples. We’re here to make money, and we’re on the lookout for women who’ll work and work hard for us. We don’t mind a little thing like a little child. Fact is, a little——”