For Gold or Soul? Part 22

CHAPTER XX.

ANOTHER TALK WITH JAMES DENTON.

Poor Faith was driven to desperation now. Here was a situation far beyond her wisdom.

That the girl was a petty thief amounted to almost nothing beside her viciousness and animosity toward her fellow beings.

Faith was sorely puzzled over what to say, and while she was trying to collect her scattered wits Miss Willis poured out a little more of her venom.

"If there's a girl in this place I hate it's Mag Brady," she said candidly, "and she knows it, you bet! I haven't tried to conceal it! I'm different from Mag, I hit straight out from the shoulder! She's a sneak and a coward; she'll wait till it's dark before she fights you! You see you haven't been out in the world long enough to read people yet, but I have, I'm a regular veteran in the army of evil."

She laughed loudly as she finished, as though her words were highly amusing. To be experienced in the ways of evil seemed to her to be the highest possible recommendation.

"I hope I shall never know any more about sin than I do now," said Faith soberly, "but really, I seem to be learning more and more every day."

"It won't hurt you," responded her companion patronizingly. "You've got to hold your own, you know; if you don't you go to the bottom. The world is full of sharks and so is this store. The sooner you find it out the better it will be for you."

Faith saw that the girl was growing serious now. What she said was intended to be for Faith's good; whether it was good advice or not, it was the best she had to offer.

"h.e.l.lo!" cried Miss Willis suddenly. "Do my eyes deceive me, or is that really a plumber that I see over in that corner?"

She raised her voice so that every one heard her, and a clerk in the opposite corner made haste to answer her:

"That's what it is all right, Lou, a real, live plumber! The Board of Health has come to its senses at last, and, thanks to that Government Inspector, we are going to have some 'modern improvements.'"

"I hope we'll have basins enough to go around," cried another voice, "and perhaps there'll be an occasional glimpse of a really clean towel."

"Oh, you mustn't expect too much," answered the plumber, laughing. "I only got orders to do a little puttering. It's just a bluff they are chucking; it won't cost them much if nothin'."

"Which means that you can't get rich all at once!" cried Miss Willis, grinning. "Well, I'm sorry you can't squeeze a fairly good sum out of our nice, generous employers."

Faith went back to her counter, feeling sad at heart. She was beginning to question the wisdom of her mercy toward Miss Willis.

"I don't believe that anything would ever change her heart," she whispered to herself, and then a great wave of shame swept over her as she felt that she had questioned the power of the Almighty.

She stepped behind the counter just in time to see Miss Fairbanks changing the prices on a lot of special ribbons, but before she could ask any questions Miss Jones came up to her.

"There's a milliner in this block who is selling those same ribbons for fifty cents a yard," she said, "and of course, Denton, Day & Co. are not going to stand that; they are going to undercut her in everything until they break up her business. You see, if we sell them for thirty-nine cents, she'll have to come down, which will mean that she'll lose a whole lot of money."

"But won't Denton, Day & Co. be losing money, too?" asked Faith. She was a little too green to quite see the logic of this action.

"Not a cent," was the somewhat surprising answer. "You see, they buy in such large quant.i.ties that they get it cheaper than she does; but even if they didn't, they could still make it up on some other goods, while she, poor soul, has no way of squaring her losses."

Faith's eyes opened wide as she listened to this explanation.

"That is exactly what they did with my father," she said slowly. "They undercut his prices so that he could not sell his books, then when his bills came due he could not pay them. Oh, the thing is perfectly horrible, Miss Jones! That poor, poor milliner! Oh, how I pity her!"

Miss Jones had listened with considerable surprise. It was the first she had heard of Faith's personal grievance against the company.

Things moved along quietly after that, and Faith was kept very busy, but through the whole afternoon she was thinking of that ribbon. Every time a roll of it was sold a weight seemed added to her burdens. When she was obliged to sell it herself she felt that she was personally perpetrating a wrong on the milliner.

It was a terrible day, taken altogether, for so much misery and anxiety were crowded into it that she felt ten years older when the gong sounded for closing.

"Can you tell me what hospital Mr. Watkins was taken to, dear?" she asked of one of the little cash girls whom she had heard talking in the morning.

"Don't know," said the child. "I didn't hear. But he's pretty near dead, I guess, and his brother is a thief. He--"

"Hush, child!" cried Faith, quickly. "Don't talk about that, please! It can't do any good, and--and perhaps some one has been mistaken! It's better to say nothing! until one knows for sure. Poor Mr. Watkins! He is indeed in sore trouble!"

"Mr. Watkins is resting very comfortably, Miss Marvin," said a voice just behind her. She turned around quickly and confronted young Denton.

"Oh, have you seen him?" asked Faith, in genuine delight.

"I just dropped in at the office; they wouldn't let me see him," was the answer; "but I learned that there was a chance for him--he was what they call 'comfortable.'"

"I am glad to hear that," said Faith, moving slowly away. They had been standing at the head of the stairs which led down to the cloak-room, and she expected every minute that Maggie Brady would see them.

"Don't go just yet, Miss Marvin," urged Mr. Denton, hastily. "I've just arranged about that funeral; it is to be to-morrow evening."

"Where?" asked Faith softly.

"At the undertaker's," was the answer. "He has a private room for just such purposes. He will bury her the next morning."

"That will be better than I thought," said Faith, very slowly. "I will tell all the girls I know and ask them to tell the others."

"Here's the programme or whatever you choose to call it," said Mr.

Denton, sneering a little. "The firm got ahead of us this time, Miss Marvin."

He held out an evening paper as he spoke so that Faith could see it.

With a cry of horror the young girl read the headline. It was a regular "scare head," reaching across two full columns: "Denton, Day & Co.'s Generosity to an Employee!" "A Poor Girl's Funeral That Will Cost the Firm a Large Sum of Money!"

"How's that for hypocrisy?" asked the young man, still sneering. "I say, Miss Marvin, how would you like to be the child of such a father?"

For the first time in her life Faith could not rebuke disrespect. In spite of herself she could not help sympathizing with the sentiments of the young fellow.

"Oh, it is terrible!" she whispered in a heart-broken voice. "Poor Miss Jennings would rather have been buried in 'Potter's Field,' I really believe, than under such conditions!"

"Well, I'm mighty disgusted," said young Denton, bitterly, "although I'm sure I don't know what's got into me to care about it!"

"I guess you never knew just how you felt before," said Faith sweetly.

"Sometimes it takes a shock of some kind to bring us to our senses."

"Well, I'm shocked all right," said young Denton, quickly. "Why, when dad told me about that dying girl saying so distinctly that she forgave him, it went through me like a knife! Cut me up worse, I believe, than it did the Governor!"