The Cass County Sun (Linden, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 13, 1940 Page: 3 of 8
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THE CASS COUNTY SUN
II IRIS 111 EYES
by . . .
Kathleen Norris
© KATHLEEN NO*Rl$—WNU SHVIC«
CHAPTER XI—Continued
—11—
Mrs. O'Connor was making entries
with a fat soft hand, in a big book.
Sheila said she would pay half.
"That's entirely satisfactory to
me," Mrs. O'Connor told her, ami-
ably. "They want nice, quiet-looking
girls, and they'll like you. I sup-
pose you haven't a sister or a cousin
who'd like to go with you? It's quite
a lark, the girls say."
"No, I haven't," Sheila said. And
to herself she added, when she was
in the quiet, snowy street again,
"I very likely won't go myself!"
She went home, and found the
three dreary rooms of the Bronx
apartment empty and dark. An-
gela had gone away with Neely and
Lizzie. The sight of the place re-
minded Sheila of the day's desolat-
ing adventures, of Ma's unkindness,
of Joe's doubts, of the Mc Cann
family, who were so ready to be-
lieve that she would run away with
their precious son and be married
by a justice of the peace!
Joe had an old imitation leather
suitcase. Sheila dragged it out from
under the big bed and began to pack
it, crying hard as she did so. She
prayed that they would come in and
find her at it; they would be a long
time persuading her not to go!
To be sure, she had given Mrs.
O'Connor three dollars, but then
what were three dollars in a crisis
like this? The thought-of the money
reminded Sheila of her precious fifty
dollars, and she took it out of the
drawer of the kitchen table, to
look at it lovingly. She put two bills
back again, crying harder than ever.
Ma should have them, Ma hadn't
had forty dollars very often in her
life.
Less than an hour later, turning
into their street, and supporting his
emotionally exhausted mother with
a firm arm, Joe Carscadden said
suddenly:
"Did you see that girl across the
street, Ma?"
"I saw nobody."
"I guess I'm seeing Sheila every-
where!" Joe said. "It looked like
her."
"Now I tell you," said his mother,
"they have that child all wrong,
them Mc Canns."
Joe all but stopped short in his
slow pacing, to give his mother an
astounded glance.
"But, Ma, you didn't take her
part then!"
"I blame meself that I didn't,
then," Mrs. Carscadden said, walk-
ing on.
"You have to hand it to her for
this," Joe said. "His having money
didn't matter two cents to her! She
didn't want him, and that was all
there was to it."
"It spakes well for her, it does
so," said her mother.
"I thought it did!"
"There's tew ger'rls wouldn't
jump at a lad that has all he has.
"I'll tell the world there are!"
"But you'd not get Sheila to in-
thrigue for 'um, just because he was
a rich man's son."
"I'll swear I felt sorry for her!"
Joe said suddenly, as they entered
the dark, odorous doorway of home.
"She seemed so alone, poor kid,
there in that big room, with every
one of us riding her."
"They had me so twisted about,
Joe," Mrs. Carscadden said confi-
dentially, arresting him on the long
stairs, "I didn't know what they
were after. Did they want her to
marry 'um, or didn't they?"
"I think they thought Peter had
got her into something, and the only
decent thing for him to do was stand
by her."
"But you don't think so, Joe?" his
mother asked seriously.
"No." He hesitated. "Of course,
at first I thought she and Peter
were just stringing us," he con-
fessed, "and then all of a sudden
while we were there it came over
me that she was telling the truth."
"I hope she's not mad at us," Mrs.
Carscadden murmured fearfully at
the door.
"Sheila? Oh, she never stays
mad," he said comfortably.
"I'll make her a batch of muffins
for supper; she likes them!" the
woman decided. "It scalds me that
she told me yesterda', Joe," she
added, "that she'd been cookin' a
pot-roast, an' I never said anny-.
thing to her about it!"
"You certainly rode her!" Joe
said, stooping to grope for the door-
knob in the dark.
"Not anny more than the rest of
you," the mother protested uncom-
fortably. "Look how Lizzie done!"
"Yes, but Sheila only minded it
from you, Ma."
"Oh, Joe," Mrs. Carscadden said,
pathetically, "don't say that,
dear'rl'
"Why, you know darned well how
Sheila feels when she thinks youre
off her, Ma. It's locked; she's not
home!" Joe said blankly, of the
door.
"Joe, she must be home!"
"She's not. She couldn't lock her-
self in, could she?" Joe asked, pro-
ducing the key from its usual hid-
ing-place on the top of the door
jamb.
"Oh, God forgive us, Joe, where
would she be!"
"Maybe she went to Marg'ret's."
"She'd not do that, Joe. She was
droppin' with the fatigue that was
on her!"
"She'll be back," Joe said, anx-
iously. N
His mother made no answer. Joe
heard her whispering prayers as
they went into the dark, empty
rooms together.
Sheila wore an alpaca uniform
that had belonged to some girl who
had basely deserted the Pendergast
Hotel thre season before, and a white
organdie apron and butterfly cap.
She slept in a long loft room above
the garage where there were six
beds. At one end of the room was
a washroom with a shower and two
tin basins, and above the basins
was hung a card of printed rules
for all the chambermaids and wait-
resses at the hotel. They must wear
fresh uniforms daily, bathe daily,
wear hair-nets and manicure at
least once daily.
"Does anyone?" Sheila asked Nel-
ly, the girl who had showed her
where things were and what she
must do.
Nelly merely laughed disagreea-
bly. Never in the world had there
ever been contempt more stinging,
biting, complete than that Nelly felt
for everything connected with the
Pendergast Hotel. Nelly's favorite
comment upon Sheila's innocence
and ignorance was a scornful smile,
and Sheila came to the point when
she could anticipate the smile, and
avoid it.
Sheila only asked questions the
first day. After that she was too
tired to be interested in anything.
Her feet burned, her ankles ached,
and she told Nelly that her spine
was like a rope with red-hot knots
in it.
CHAPTER XII
Days merged themselves into
nights, and nights into days. Shei-
la was not conscious of their begin-
nings or endings. These were lost
in a haze of exhausted sleep. The
dining-room opened at seven, and
on alternate days she was supposed
to be downstairs, filling salt cellars,
cutting butter squares, stacking
plates, folding napkins, an hour ear-
lier than that. On alternate days
she could sleep until almost seven.
She set tables, reset tables,
brushed crumbs, filled glasses. She
went out with penciled orders, filled
□
"Does anyone?" Sheila asked
Nelly—
trays, staggered in with loaded plat-
ters, staggered out with trays of
empty soup plates. The guests at
the Pendergast were paying for ev-
erything anyway; they wanted ev-
erything.
Sheila learned not to overlook any-
thing. There was a disagreeable,
pimply young man of nineteen in
the pantry, who checked the trays
and made all the trouble he could
about doubled orders. He had au-
thority, and anyone who wanted to
work in the Pendergast dining-room
had to take orders from Mr. Benny.
"Tear it up, and go out and get
their entire order written over!" he
said scornfully to Sheila on the first
terrible day.
"I only have to add the two ex-
tras to it," Sheila said. "They came
in late, and the mother said they'd
have what the rest have."
"Tear it up and go out and get
the entire order over," said Mr.
Benny, unruffled.
"I've got their order! Ai. I have
to do is add two .more to it."
Mr. Benny tore up the order him-
self and smiled at Sheila.
"Now you go back and get the
whole order," he said, "and next
time don't lose your head about
it!"
"I didn't lose my head. The two
boys came in late—"
"That'll be about enough,' said
Mr. Benny, lighting a cigarette and
glancing up over the match at Shei-
la. "I tell you to go get the order
again, and not to lose your head
about it!"
The dining-room hours were pre-
sumably from seven to ten, from
twelve-thirty to two, and from six
to nine. This was the official state-
ment. But in fact they were from
almost any early hour until after
ten o'clock at night. At half-past
sue in the morning, at six even,
fishermen were rattling the dining-
room doors, and nurses with fret-
ful and wakeful babies were clam-
oring for admittance, and at half-
past nine at night tremendously
good-natured and apologetic persons
were arriving for dinner. This was
all very well for Miss Watts, the
gracious and capable and specta-
cled head waitress, who got the big
tips, but it told heavily on Sheila
and the other girls. They had to
take on extra tables, to hunt about
for tablecloths and napkins not orig-
inally provided, to apologize for food
that had been used up, and to make
additional trips for substitutes.
They worked in an enormous pan-
try served from the kitchen below
by dumb-waiters. The order slips,
with Mr. Benny's O. K. on them,
went down on the erhpty elevators;
each tray had a slip on it when it
came up. Sometimes when a big
party required more than one tray
a bus boy was summoned to assist.
But the girls were not allowed to
ask for help; Mr. Benny decided
that, and if he did not like a girl
he would smile a teasing smile and
observe that she could make two
trips of it, just as well. The girls,
except perhaps for the favorite bf
the moment, detested him; when
they were especially tired or nerv-
ous he could make things hard for
them, and they wasted needed en-
ergy in despising him.
They ran to and fro breathlessly;
their collars wilted, their little but-
terfly aprons wilted; the girls them-
selves wilted. Sheila never had had
much color, but she developed a
pallor that was new. Her film of
copper hair stuck to her wet fore-
head, her clothes adhered to her
soaked body. She flung aside crum-
pled tablecloths and napkins, piled
ditty plates, checked penciled or-
ders feverishly. She talked so lit-
tle and worked so hard that Miss
Watts, the head waitress, soon sin-
gled her out for special impositions.
"Mary, there's a party just down
from New York; I'm sorry. You'll
have to start the order anyway—I
took it."
"At twenty-two minutes of ten,
mindja," Nelly might say pityingly.
Sheila would eye the slip.
"Four mock turtle, three supreme
of grapefruit, seven oyster cocktail,
four bouillon, two cream of let-
tuce—"
When Nelly, in the beginning, had
told her that in the quiet hours, say
between eleven and twelve each
morning, and three and five each
afternoon, she would be free to come
up to the dormitory loft and lie
down, Sheila had secretly laughed.
Lie down—with Atlantic City's win-
ter boardwalk, and the glorious
ocean at her very door—not she!
But by the third day she had dis-
covered that these intervals of rest
were all too short. She was not rest-
ed by an hour or two; flat and ex-
hausted, on her back; she could not
even begin resting in so short a
time. She ached all over, her nerves
throbbed and quivered, her head
was dizzy with confused thoughts,
her breath was short and her mouth
dry.
"It's a great life!" she said to
Nelly.
"It's a great life if you have an
infected corn, let me tell you," Nelly
said. "Sometimes I wonder why I
ever left home. My mother run a
boarding-house; lots of the railroad
fellers come over for meals. But my
stepfather done it, reely. He was ten
years older than Mamma, and what
he put over on her you wouldn't be-
lieve. He knew I was onto him!"
Much of the talk Sheila heard now-
adays was coarse, but most of the
girls were good girls.
Once she heard her own name.
Four of the six girls in the rather
small room were lying on their beds
one winter afternoon when one of
them said suddenly:
"That Carscadden girl we were
talking about is supposed to be stay-
ing with friends. They were mar-
ried all right. The Mc Canns have
scads of money, and they hushed
the whole thing up."
Sheila lay perfectly still, her very
heart stopped. But when a girl idly
spoke again, it was on a different
topic.
She had left a note for her mother
on that dreadful last afternoon of
packing and tears and flight. "Dear
Ma,-1 am safe and well; I will be
good. Sheila," she had written. And
every few days since she had seized
some opportunity to send further
reassurance. Once she had gone
into Philadelphia for an hour or two
and mailed a post-card picture of a
church from there. On this she had
written, "I am praying for you. Pray
for Sheila."
Almost every night she cried her-
self to sleep, longing for her moth-
er. But no matter how hard the
work in the dining-room was and no
matter how lonely and homesick her
free hours, she would not give in.
The loneliness of life—Sheila had
never known it—never suspected it
before. How lonely they were, these
Irish-born and Russian-born girls,
who were herded like sheep in the
top rooms of great hotels; these
maids and nurse-girls and chauf-
feurs and valets who stayed at the
hotel. They gave their lives to oth-
ers, for sixty and seventy and eighty
dollars a month.
All very well to argue, "They
have a day a week, haven't they?"
What girl could be satisfied, at eight-
een, or twenty-two, or thirty, with
a part of one day each week in
which to live her own life? Less
than one seventh of her life hers—
for she had to serve breakfast on
her "day out," and she must be
back in her cell of a room by mid-
night.
Sheila grew older, her manner
grew more sedate, her forehead had
a new gravity, her eyes were wiser.
Physically there was a change, too;
she was thinner, the contours of her
face were chiseled to finer lines.
She had been ten days on the job
when one morning, in the very heat
of the between-lunch-and-breakfast
flurry, Frank Mc Cann found her.
At the moment Mr. Benny was
making himself particularly dis-
agreeable to an unfortunately argu-
mentative girl named Mabel, and
Sheila, listening to Mabel's feeble
self-defense, in an agony of sympa-
thy was inwardly saying to Mabel,
"Oh, shut up, you're just giving him
chance after chance—shut up, you
poor fool—he's just leading you
on—" when Mrs. Kearney, who was
assistant manager, suddenly ap-
peared on the scene.
This caused a lull, for Mrs. Kear-
ney, silk-clad, eye-glassed, authori-
tative, was a power at the Pender-
gast.
"Which girl is Mary Moore?
Mary, there's a gentleman wants
to see you," Mrs. Kearney said.
She sensed mutiny. "What's going
on here?" she asked sharply.
It was so delightful to see Mr.
Benny cringe, becoming instantly
conciliatory to Mabel, so gratifying
to hear Mabel's demure answer,
that Sheila quite forgot to worry
about any significance her own mes-
sage might have. Unsuspectingly
Once she heard her own name.
she followed Mrs. Kearney to one of
the little consultation rooms near
the main office. One of the guests
of the place had asked her that
morning if she had ever posed for
trade photographs, and had suggest-
ed that she let him have her photo-
graphed working a vacuum clean-
er, and if Sheila had thought of any-
thing at all except Mabel's triumph
and Mr. Benny's discomfiture, she
would have found some such expla-
nation of the summons.
But it was Frank Mc Cann who
was waiting for her.
Instantly she was frightened, of
what she did not know. She tried
to back out of the door.
"Listen, it's all right, nobody
knows but me!" Frank said. "Sit
down, nothing's going to happen to
you. Honestly, I promise you I
won't give you away!"
"How'd you find me?" Sheila whis-
pered, sitting down.
"I never lost you. There was a
fellow named Buckley waiting for
me in the hall that day," Frank ex-
plained, with a touch of his charac-
teristic complacence. "I had him
follow you. He's done that sort of
thing before—he's a plain-clothes
man, as a matter of fact. He saw
you go into the agency on Lexing-
ton."
"But after that I went home!"
"I know you did. But an hour
later your brother telephoned; they
couldn't locate you."
"That was it," she said.
Frank was silent, he half smiled
at her.
"Never a dull moment where you
are!" he observed dryly. "You see,
you didn't run away at all!"
"I wish people would leave me
alone." Sheila said simply.
"So you're a waitress, eh?"
"Some job," she said, with a smile
and shrug.
"Is it hard?"
"Oh, help!"
There was a silence.
"That woman—O'Connor, in the
agency, did she tell on me?"
"She had to."
"Ma know?"
"She knows I know. I told her
that night you were O. K."
"Is she all right?" Sheila asked.
It began as a casual question, but
suddenly her lips trembled, she was
crying.
"She's fine." He stopped, studied
her for a minute. "She misses you."
To this Sheila could make no an-
swer.
"How long you going to keep this
up?"
"I don't know."
"Well, we've had a great time,
since you left," Frank told her.
"There's been a reporter on the
front step about half the time. My
mother doesn't dare answer the tele-
phone."
(TO BE CONTINUED)
AROUND
>h. HOUSE
Items of Interest
to the Housewife
Wall outlets for electrical de-
vices used in the kitchen, pantry
or butler's pantry should be placed
at table height. This permits the
use of shorter cords with cooking
utensils, eliminating coils that are
likely to get in the housewife's
way.
• • •
Don't bang porcelain or enam-
eled kitchen equipment against
stoves, tables or sinks. It will
;chip or crack if it is roughly han-
dled. Many of the more modern,
lattractive pieces require special
care.
Cakes or cookies in which honey
is used as a sweetening require a
rather moderate temperature for
baking. . If the oven is too hot they
will burn.
• • •
Cloths saturated with polishing
liquids if stored away in a closet
often cause spontaneous combus-
tion. Keep these cloths in a cov-
ered tin container.
• • •
Ice cubes or desserts are frozen
faster in a mechanical refrigera-
tor if a quarter-cup of water ia
poured on the freezing surface be-
fore the trays are put in place.
For that marvelous
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Banger, J. E. A. & Erwin, W. L. The Cass County Sun (Linden, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 13, 1940, newspaper, June 13, 1940; Linden, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth341447/m1/3/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Atlanta Public Library.