Thursday, March 21. 1940
The Gold Hill News, Gold Hill, Oregon
IIIRIISIM IE Y IE S
•
•
•
Kathleen Norris
OKATMlttN NOSSIS— WNU SHVKI
S Y N O PSIS
Sheila Carscadden, blue-eyed, reddish­
haired and 21. loses her Job In New York
by offering useful but unwelcome sugges­
tions to her boss Typically feminine, she
chooses that time to show her "new " purse
—which she bought at a second-hand store,
to her cousin. Cecilia Moore. The purse
revives memories of a boy she had met
the previous summer—a boy whose first
name, all she remembered, was Peter
At
home that evening, watting for her. are her
mother; Joe. her brother, and Angela, her
crippled sister. Joe. too. has lost his Job.
CHAPTER II
“ What!” Joe exclaimed. Their
mother looked up, with her ready
tut-tutting noise.
“ It's a terrible winter; there’s
many worse off than ourselves,"
Mrs. Carscadden said, vaguely
moralizing.
"We're going to be bad enough
off,” Joe told his mother, darkly,
going on with his meal.
“ Sheila, they never fired you!”
Angela’s grieved, sweet little voice
said sadly.
“ Indeed they did, then. He said
I was too fresh.”
Mrs. Carscadden was pouring tea
in her turn. She looked at her daugh­
ter patiently.
“ You’d be saucy to the boss,” she
observed mildly.
“ Oh, well, this is only Wednesday,
and I'm there till Saturday,” Sheila
said lazily.
“ There’s hard times coming to
this city that you don’t know the
meaning of,” Joe observed, without
looking up.
“ But you’ll get another job, Joe,”
Angela said, anxiously.
“ Oh, sure I w ill!” he answered,
glancing up with an effort. “ But it
gripes me,” he added resentfully,
“ to have Sheila here act as if it
was all a joke.”
“ Well, it is.” Sheila assured him,
good-naturedly.
She was relaxed and lazy, her
senses dulled by the food and
warmth and leisure into a pleasant
sort of torpor.
Joe looked at her, and her blue-
and-cream-and-copper beauty blazed
back at him like a star. There was
a faint stain of color in her cheeks
now, her eyes smoldered with smoky
sapphire shadows, the film of silky
hair was sprayed once more across
her forehead.
“ Sure, I ’ll get a job, all right,”
Joe grumbled, mollified. He was
secretly proud of Sheila and even
comforted, deep in his heart, by the
spirit she showed. But he was tired,
angry jobless, young and in love.
He thought of Cecilia.
As if she read his thoughts—in­
deed, she often seemed to do so—
Sheila’s next words were of Cecilia.
“ We came home together, Cecilia
and I.”
“ None of you’ll ever know the
har’rd times I ’ve known,” the moth­
er’s voice said, dreamily.
“ I ’ m going down to see her, now.”
“ Going to tell her, Joe?”
“ Ford,”
Joe said, brooding,
“ asked me would I take a steward’s
job on a fru it boat. A swell chance!”
“ Oh, heavens, what fun!” Sheila
exclaimed, her eyes dancing.
“ Forty a month,” he muttered.
“ But all your expenses, Joe!”
“ I turned it down. I ’m going to
get forty a week, or nothing,” he
said stubbornly.
“ Eight pound a month would be
big money, at home,” Mrs. Cars­
cadden mused.
“ Mrs. Carscadden, me dear’r ,”
said a gentle voice at the door. A
neighbor
had
unceremoniously
opened it. “ Mrs. Bur’rke—” she an­
nounced apologetically.
“ Oh, God help the poor soul—and
me ating me supper!” the other
woman exclaimed, instantly rising.
Immediately she was gone, and Joe
had disappeared, too, leaping down­
stairs on his long legs, to see his
Cecilia.
Sheila and Angela finished their
tea peacefully, cleared the kitchen
and then sat on lazily, chatting,
laughing.
“ Oh, wait until I show you my
new purse, Angela!”
Sheila went to get it. She re­
turned to the kitchen and put it into
her sister's hands, and Angela
turned the dark smooth beauty of
the leather back and forth admir­
ingly.
“ Guess what I paid for it. Ten
cents.”
"You didn’t ! "
“ I did. At the rummage sale at
St. Leo’s. I went in there at noon.”
“ Ten cents!”
“ It has initials on it—they’re in­
side. That's why it was cheap. But
what do I care about that? I ’ll bet
it cost a lot, once.”
Angela opened the flap, looked at
the three initials.
“ G. C. K .," she read aloud, and
then a number on East Eighty-
eighth Street.
“ Sheila, what do you suppose it
feels like?”
“ To be rich?”
"W ell. To have everything.”
“ Here’s what I was thinking,”
Sheila said, and hesitated again. “ I
was thinking,” she pursued, “ that—
that there must be something-
something in some girls that makes
them different from the others—that
lifts them out—out of it.”
“ Out of what?” Angela asked in­
tently.
“ Well, everything. Poverty, hard
work—this,” Sheila answered, with
a gesture that included the kitchen,
and the poor apartment, and the
house that contained them. "Lots
of the women who are rich today
were poor once; they were office
girls once,” she explained. “ What I
want to know is, what got them out
of it, what changed things?”
"P rayer,” Angela answered in­
stantly.
“ Oh, prayer! I might have known
you’d say prayer!” Sheila ex­
claimed, disappointed. Tears stood
in her laughing eyes. “ But I mean
something else than prayer,” she
explained.
“ There is nothing else but pray­
er,” Angela stated solemnly.
“ You can’t tell me that all the
rich women whose pictures are in
the society sections on Sundays got
there by prayer!"
“ Oh. no, Sheila, of course not.
But what have they got, after all?
How much does the honor and glory
of God—”
“ Oh, for heaven’s sake!" Sheila
interrupted. And suddenly covering
her face with her hands, she was
crying.
Angela knew these tears. The
stormy, brilliant older sister gave
way to them almost as readily as to
laughter, if less often. But they
always wrung Angela’s heart, nev­
ertheless.
Presently Sheila stopped crying
as abruptly as she had begun and,
straightening up, dried her eyes
firm ly, sniffed, gulped, and smiled
at her sister.
“ This g irl,” she said, touching the
blue purse and speaking in a voice
made rich and thick from tears,
“ this g irl probably spends three
months in the country every year. If
she meets a man, all she has to do
is ask him to come to dinner. Chick­
en, ice cream, clean tablecloth—she
has ’em every day. If I meet a man
I like, what break do I get? I don’t
even know his last name!”
“ You mean Peter?” Angela asked,
tim idly.
“ Peter—what?” Sheila said, blow­
ing her nose again, looking defiantly
at her sister, with a reddened nose
and wet eyes. “ I met him my last
night of vacation, at a barbecue. I
had to leave next morning. There
are seven million people in this c ity ;
there are five hundred thousand
women working. A swell chance I
have of ever finding him again!”
Angela’s expression was one of in­
finite distress. But she spoke cou­
rageously.
“ God could do it.”
“ Well, then, why doesn’t He?” the
other g irl demanded. “ I walk up a
different street every day at noon.
I look at every boy I see in the
subway. I ’ve never seen him.”
“ Maybe you do too much," Angela
suggested unexpectedly.
“ Maybe
you ought to just—trust.”
“ And then he’d open the door of
the kitchen and put his head in?”
“ It mightn’t—happen that way.”
"How would it happen?”
“ In some way we couldn’t see
coming, Sheila.” Angela was very
serious. Sheila stared at her; spoke
impulsively.
“ Well, w ill you pray about it, An­
gela, if I stop?”
“ I am praying about i t ! ” Angela
said, her cheeks red.
“ What, now?”
“ Right now. And I ’m remember­
ing,” said Angela, “ that without this
kitchen door opening—without any­
one coming in—it could begin.”
There was a pause. “ I t ’s one min­
ute to nine,” Sheila said, then yawn­
ing and smiling and stretching, “ and
when the clock strikes, I ’m going to
bed.”
The kitchen door did not open;
there was no telephone to ring; the
radio was still. Yet, before the
clock struck, the beginning of the
miracle was upon them, and the
current of Sheila Carscadden’s life
had changed forever. Long after­
ward, she was to look back upon
this quiet evening with Angela, look
back upon the rebellious, copper­
headed girl who had been laughing
and crying in the chair opposite An­
gela, and ask herself, if she could
call back that too-potent prayer
from her innocent little sister,
whether she would do so or no.
priestess who has been officiating
at the oldest of earth’s mysteries.
"W ell, the Bur-rkes've got their
boy!” she observed, sitting down
heavily, and wiping her forehead.
"Now maybe they'll make a little
fuss over their ger’rls. Light the
kettle there. Sheila—I ’ve been weak
for a cup of tay this hour gone."
The girls spread their treasure be­
fore her amazed eyes; her look
tightened.
“ It's well you have their street
number there, that you can tuke it
back to them and not l ’ave anny of
the rummage sale ger’rls forget to
retur’ rn it,” she observed instantly.
“ Mamma, it's hers!”
Mrs. Carscadden's brow clouded.
“ You’ll take it back, of course.
Sheila,” she said.
“ Listen, Mamma—”
Ponderously, Mrs. Carscadden re­
turned from the stove with the new
boiling kettle, poured the hot water
upon the cool tea leaves in the emp­
ty pot.
"Save your breath, Sheila," she
directed. “ We’ll have no stealin’
here, thanks be to the glory of
G o d !"
"No. dear. He’d never intind an-
nyone should have stolen good»."
"Stolen!" Sheila said hotly, and
was still.
Joe came in; they consulted Joe
And Joe said of course the fifty had
to go back. Sheila sat on the arm
of his chair, and wept, but she knew
there was no guinsaying Joe's de­
cision. They were all “ said” by
Joe; even Neely and Marg’ret, mar­
ried and gone, still came back some­
times to ask advice of wise, gentle,
clever Joe.
“ Because, look here. Sheila,” Joe
reasoned, “ suppose it had been a
diamond ring?”
"Well, it isn’t, Joe."
“ No, I know it isn’t. But suppose
it hud been a diamond ring in that
same little pocket, what then?”
“ I'd think lucky her that had a
diamond to lose!" Sheila persisted
stubbornly. But she was beaten,
and she knew it. " I t makes me cry,
thinking of my blue coat!" she said.
"Let me buy your coat for you."
"You, Joe!" She kissed the rough
hard young face. “ You that have
lost your job, and want to marry
Cecilia!” she mourned, rubbing her
cheek against his.
"Celie's been crying, too,” he
said, in his good-humored patient
way. “ I t ’s your turn, Ma."
“ There was weeks I fed the lot of
ye on syrup and oatmale," Mrs.
Carscadden observed, unalarmed
“ I guess the bad times won't come
to that."
“ Why, no, because we have each
other!" Angela exclaimed, in her
soft, ecstatic voice.
She stirred her tea, took a heart­
ening sip, and pushed the hair from
her wet forehead with a great clum­
On the morning after the eventful
sy hand that was like a caricature day of the lost jobs and the discov­
of Sheila’s fine, square, young one. ered money, they all breakfasted to­
“ If there’s annything cud make gether, and once again Sheila re­
widowhood light to ye, it'd be seein’ turned to the attack.
a ger’r l in that fix !” she muttered.
“ Listen, Ma, supposing I go to
Immediately she perceived that this Eighty-eighth Street placé, say,
there was small sympathy in the Saturday afternoon. I t ’ll be my last
morning at the office, and I ’ll be
free after one. And supposing that
some butler or somebody won’t let
me in to see this “ G. C. K.,” who­
ever she is, and suppose they’re
nasty to me. Then am I to hand it
over to somebody who'll pocket it
themselves?"
“ I t ’d be no sin on your soul if they
did," Mrs. Carscadden answered
readily.
“ I ’ll tell you w hat!" Sheila sud­
denly exclaimed. " I ’ll get myself
up—well, you w a it!"
Her eyes were dancing.
“ I'll fix ’em I ’ll bet I get my blue
coat!” she said.
“ Sheila, how?” Angela demanded,
eagerly.
But Sheila would only
laugh, and made no answer.
That evening, immediately after
dinner, when Joe and Angela and
Mrs. Carscadden were lingering
over the remains of the meal, Sheila
suddenly appeared in the bedroom
door. Or rather, someone appeared
who must be Sheila, but who was
not instantly identified even by her
mother, brother and sister.
She had strained her hair back
from her always rather pale face,
which was devoid of powder or lip
"Prayer,” Angela answered
red, and looked young and pathetic.
instantly.
She wore an old black dress of An­
air, and reverted to the moment’s gela's that was scanty and tight on
her more generous figure.
problem again.
“ Me mamma and papa is dead,
“ What’s that street number
and I wor'rks for a lady that bates
there, Angela?”
Angela reluctantly consulted the me,” she said, in the soft, pathetic
accents of County Mayo. “ I found
purse, read out the number.
"Is that annywheres near where the little purse, and sure I t'ought at
fir’rst I cud pay me doctor's bills
you work, Sheila?"
“ No, ma’am,” Sheila answered re­ w it’ it. But thin I rimimbered that
spectfully, but with bitterness in there'd be no blessin’ whatsoiver on
her tone. " I t ’s way up on the East that—”
The appreciative laughter of Joe
Side.”
and
Angela interrupted the pitiful
“ But you cud get up there tomor­
story.
Even Mrs. Carscadden
row, dear?”
"Sheila was silent for a full min­ laughed. But immediately her face
into a sort of scandalized
ute, during which she looked down sobered
pride in this prodigy who was her
at her own fingers, twisting the child, her rebellious daughter.
purse.
“ Listen, Mamma, I bought this!”
CHAPTER H I
she burst out presently.
“ Now, that’s no way to talk, Shei­
“ You’re not goin’ there like that?”
la,” her mother murmured, unruf­
“ I am, too!”
fled.
"They’ll give you another fifty,
“ But Mamma, I bought it. If a you big lia r,” Joe grinned.
girl is such a fool that she gives
“ No, but honestly, do you see how
away a purse with money in it, they can help handing it all back
doesn’t she give away the money as to me?” Sheila asked complacently.
well as the purse? Doesn’t she, “ Oh, Mrs. Carscadden, dear’ r,” she
Ma?”
parodied, sitting down at the table,
“ Doesn’t she?” Angela echoed ea­ and fixing her mother with tragic
gerly.
young eyes, "it's a har’rd winter on
“ That's the devil tim ptin’ ye,” the poor'r—it is, indade. Me man
Mrs. Carscadden said, inflexibly, but has been home it’s fre e weeks now,
gently, as to a persistent child. w it’ his fut swelled up the size of a
“ That’s no way to talk.”
gourd, and me bad luck is that an­
“ I t ’s a perfectly sensible way to other little one is cornin’—”
talk,” Sheila muttered, under her
“ I ’ll take you over my knee, and
breath.
learn you a little more, since you
The seconds ticked by. Angela
“ No, dear, it’s her money. It's know all that,” Mrs. Carscadden
was handling the blue morocco not yours.”
said with outraged dignity. But her
purse.
“ Mamma, how many people do mouth twitched.
“ There was a blue coat for you suppose would take it back?”
And as her only further comment
twelve,” Sheila said. She yawned
This kind of sophistry got nowhere after a general inspection of Sheila’s
again, made a movement toward with Mrs. Carscadden. She had nev­ costume was a reluctantly admiring
rising.
er read a book of philosophy or “ You’re a holy terror, and I wouldn’t
“ Sheila!” Angela said. “ Look!" theology, but she was sure of her wonder did the police take you up!”
Sheila was free to escape, with one
In her fingers were green bills; ground here.
she spread them on the table. Two
“ That has nothing to do with it, more burst of laughter, into the win­
ter streets, to follow up the invita­
twenties and a ten.
lovey.”
“ Where—what—?” Sheila stam­
“ Mamma, listen. They’re proba­ tion to adventure.
She descended through the house
mered, stupefied.
bly rich people—this came from Tif­
“ They were in the purse—right fany’s. She’s forgotten it a hun­ quietly enough—the few returning
workers who were coming in, tired
here, in this little inside pocket, fold­ dred times.”
ed tight.”
Silence.
Sheila opened, shut, and grimy, at half past six, were
“ They weren’t ! ”
snapped, reopened the bag, before not interested in the girl who slipped
by them so unobtrusively—and once
“ But they were.”
adding;
“ Heavenly day!” Sheila said, sit­
" I f Joe says it’s all right, can I in the street she aroused no interest
ting down again.
keep it? Listen, Mamma, I ’ll not at all.
She took a downtown train, and
“ Your coat!” Angela exclaimed waste it, honest I won’t. There was
with an exultant laugh.
a coat at the rummage today that came to the surface again only a
“ Oh, and everything—Oh, Angela, would save money.—I ’d wear it two few blocks east of her destination.
The neighborhood into which she
what luck! Angela, fifty dollars— years, I ’d wear it three years—”
The mother did not speak. She ascended was rather like her own
for ten cents!”
They were still rejoicing and mar­ looked up from her tea, looked down home environment in the Bronx, but
as she walked westward the street
veling, still spreading and inspect­ again.
“ No wonder we’re poor!” Sheila improved, with that abruptness
ing and handling the money, five
minutes later, when their mother said angrily, “ if we can throw mon­ characteristic of the biggest city,
and the brownstone house before
ey away like this!”
came back.
“ Mother,” Angela said earnestly, which she finally stopped was not
Mrs. Carscadden looked tired, as
indeed she well might; she was pale, her hands clasped imploringly, her only handsome in an old-fashioned
her hair and gown disordered, her flower-like face pale with emotion. way, but decorously set in a line of
face wet with sweat. But her eyes “ Mightn't God intend Sheila to have sim ilar homes, and close to the
white winter park.
shone with the mystic light of the it? ”
B
A**
ATTERN
A4ÀAAAAA A A A A
AAA A A
EPARTK ENT
a
half a dozen so that you’ll ulways
have a fresh one ready, and tuck
a few uway for occasional gifts
and bridge prizes, too. You may
be sure everyone w ill like it us
well ns you do. Gingham, per-
cule und chintz are practical cot­
tons to choose. You can easily
finish It In a few hours.
Pattern No. 8641 is designed for
sizes 33. 34, 36, 38, 4(1, 42, 44. and
46. Size 34 requires 2Vi yards of
35-inch material without nap. 8Mi
yards trimming.
Send order to:
K lllU M I C IK C I.K P A IIK M N U K IM
Its New M u ot(* * m « rr Av*.
Kan F ra n rltro
Calilurolu
GncluM IS cent» In calm (or
Pattern No....... .............. S ix *.................
N am * ............................................... , .........
A'lilrea* .. ...............................................
’As Tliin as Tliin’
Gold is one of the most mal­
leable of metals und cun he ham­
mered out into sheets one 300,000th
of an inch in thickness. Goldbeat­
er's skin is the base on which the
beaten gold is imposed. The gold
itself is known ns gold leaf, and
it is of amazing thinness. Hence
the necessity for u suitable base
to carry it.
The best leaf is made from 23
carat gold, and is usually beaten
out until it is only one 280.000th
of ao inch in thickness.
★
SATISFACTION*
‘ headquarters *
X L / HAT a comfort it is to get
’ ’ hold of un apron that but­
tons on easily over your head, and
stays right where it belongs, fit­
ting snugly at the waist and re­
fusing to slip from the shoulders!
This one (8641) w ill be the joy of
your life. The buck straps button
over the shoulders, the front is
cut to a decorative point, and
there are two patch pockets that
repeat the point, so that they are
no less decorative than useful.
If ever we saw u prize among
pinafores, this is it, and you
should have the pattern right
away quick. Make no less than
b
SB
There Was a Way,
Ami Lass Knew It!
F erry ’ s S eeds are de­
pendable. They come
u p to you r expecta­
tions. Buy from your
dealer’s display today.
It s convenient I Actual
color photographs on
packets help you plan
your garden.
'T ’ WO people were walking along
* a road together. One was a
young woman, the other a hand­
some furm lad. The farm lad
was carrying a large pail on his
back, holding a chicken in one
hand, a cane in the other, and
leading a goat. They came to a
dark lane.
Said the g irl: “ I ’m afraid to
walk here with you. You might
try to kiss me.”
Said the farm lad: “ You need
not be afraid. How could I kiss
you with all this I ’m carrying?”
"W ell, you might stick the cane
in the ground, tie the goat to it,
and put the chicken under the
pail,” was the ready reply.
H
|
TERM’S
SEEDS
F *rry
Mora* Seed Cowipaffif
I U K E SPEED
ON A RACING BOBSLED
BUT NOT IN M Y OGARETTE.
I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE
THE EXTRAS IN SMOKING
PLEASURE GO WITH
S L O W B U R N IN G : ISMOKe
CAMELS. THEY BURN SLOWER
|
—
SMOKE MILDER
ANP COOLER!
rj
rZ J
o rato ry tests,
led 25% ¡lotvtr
e o f the 15 other
jelling brands
o f the largest
r than any o f
tested— slowe
them. T hat iw sans, on the av-
erage, asmoki ng plus equal to
I n recent
CAM ELS
"BUCKY"
W ELLS ,
B o h- «/edd/n/
C h am pio n
SXTKE SMOKES
TSRPECK/
ES, speed is fine in Its
place, but in cigarettes the
coveted extras o f coolness,
mildness, and * more delicate
flavor go w ith slow burning.
For scientists know nothing
interferes w ith mildness and
cig arette flavor lik e excess
heat. Camels are slower-burn­
in g ... give more pleasure per
puff and more puffs per pack.
Y
amels
for extra m ildness , extra
coolness , extra FLAVOR -
SLOW-BURNINQ
COSTLIER TOBACCOS