Maggie walked up to Dempsey Donovan. There was a brilliant spot of red in her cheeks, down which slow tears were running. But she looked him bravely in the eye.
I knew it, Dempsey, she said, as her eyes grew dull even in their tears. I knew he was a Guinea. His names Tony Spinelli. I hurried in when they told me you and him was scrappin. Them Guineas always carries knives. But you dont understand, Dempsey. I never had a fellow in my life. I got tired of comin with Anna and Jimmy every night, so I fixed it with him to call himself OSullivan, and brought him along. I knew thered be nothin doin for him if he came as a Dago[14]. I guess Ill resign from the club now.
Dempsey turned to Andy Geoghan.
Chuck that cheese slicer out of the window, he said, and tell em inside that Mr. OSullivan has had a telephone message to go down to Tammany Hall.
And then he turned back to Maggie.
Say, Mag, he said, Ill see you home. And how about next Saturday night? Will you come to the hop with me if I call around for you?
It was remarkable how quickly Maggies eyes could change from dull to a shining brown.
With you, Dempsey? she stammered. Say will a duck swim?
The Trimmed Lamp
Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other. We often hear shop-girls spoken of. No such persons exist. There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue as marriage-girls.
Lou and Nancy were chums. They came to the big city to find work because there was not enough to eat at their homes to go around. Nancy was nineteen; Lou was twenty. Both were pretty, active, country girls who had no ambition to go on the stage.
The little cherub that sits up aloft guided them to a cheap and respectable boarding-house. Both found positions and became wage-earners. They remained chums. It is at the end of six months that I would beg you to step forward and be introduced to them. Meddlesome Reader: My Lady friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While you are shaking hands please take notice cautiously of their attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a lady in a box at the horse show is.
Lou is a piece-work ironer in a hand laundry. She is clothed in a badly-fitting purple dress, and her hat plume is four inches too long; but her ermine muff and scarf cost $25, and its fellow beasts will be ticketed in the windows at $7.98 before the season is over. Her cheeks are pink, and her light blue eyes bright. Contentment radiates from her.
Nancy you would call a shop-girl because you have the habit. There is no type; but a perverse generation is always seeking a type; so this is what the type should be. She has the high-ratted pompadour[15], and the exaggerated straight-front. Her skirt is shoddy, but has the correct flare. No furs protect her against the bitter spring air, but she wears her short broadcloth jacket as jauntily as though it were Persian lamb[16]! On her face and in her eyes, remorseless type-seeker, is the typical shop-girl expression. It is a look of silent but contemptuous revolt against cheated womanhood; of sad prophecy of the vengeance to come. When she laughs her loudest the look is still there. The same look can be seen in the eyes of Russian peasants; and those of us left will see it someday on Gabriels[17] face when he comes to blow us up. It is a look that should wither and abash man; but he has been known to smirk at it and offer flowers with a string tied to them.
Now lift your hat and come away, while you receive Lous cheery See you again, and the sardonic, sweet smile of Nancy that seems, somehow, to miss you and go fluttering like a white moth up over the housetops to the stars.
The two waited on the corner for Dan. Dan was Lous steady company. Faithful? Well, he was on hand when Mary would have had to hire a dozen subpoena servers to find her lamb.
Aint you cold, Nance? said Lou. Say, what a chump you are for working in that old store for $8. a week! I made $18.50 last week. Of course ironing aint as swell work as selling lace behind a counter, but it pays. None of us ironers make less than $10. And I dont know that its any less respectful work, either.
You can have it, said Nancy, with uplifted nose. Ill take my eight a week and hall bedroom. I like to be among nice things and swell people. And look what a chance Ive got! Why, one of our glove girls married a Pittsburg steel maker, or blacksmith or something the other day worth a million dollars. Ill catch a swell myself some time. I aint bragging on my looks or anything; but Ill take my chances where theres big prizes offered. What show would a girl have in a laundry?
Why, thats where I met Dan, said Lou, triumphantly. He came in for his Sunday shirt and collars and saw me at the first board, ironing. We all try to get to work at the first board. Ella Maginnis was sick that day, and I had her place. He said he noticed my arms first, how round and white they was. I had my sleeves rolled up. Some nice fellows come into laundries. You can tell em by their bringing their clothes in suit cases; and turning in the door sharp and sudden.