Little Miss By-The-Day Part 16

"Are you registered or new?"

"I--I think I'm new, I'm not registered."

The ledger was pushed around toward her, the shop keeper reached fretfully for the spattered ink bottle.

"By the day or home work?"

"By the day," said Felicia decisively.

"Then sign here," a trembling finger indicated the line.

It was a new page. No one had signed it yet. At the top was printed,

NAME ADDRESS JOB APPLIED FOR DATE Mrs. or Miss.

And Felicia wrote, guiding the rusty pen carefully. Last of all, she wrote just after the printed Miss, in firm letters, "By The Day," and pushed back the book.

The Disagreeable Walnut pursed her lips, she couldn't really see anything through the blur of her gla.s.ses.

The bell jangled, a brisk old person, much like the Disagreeable Walnut, save that she looked agreeable, entered breathlessly.

"Sorry I was late," she dumped various bundles on the counter, "How'd you make out, Susan?" She eyed Felicia as she began pulling at her gloves. "Did my sister find what you wanted?"

"She wants work," quavered Susan, considerably less reliant than she'd been a moment before. "I dunno where the work book is. I declare I can't keep track of where you put things, Sarah--is there anybody could use her? She wants sewing."

The brisk person swung the book around glancing at it capably as she removed her hat.

"Oh, you've signed it in the wrong place. You should have put your name there--not the way you were going to work"--her finger rested on the place Felicia had written. "What is your name? Your name isn't Miss By-the-Day is it?" she asked good-humoredly.

"Why, I think it is," Felicia smiled back, "I think it will have to be--it's Day," she added shyly.

"Miss or Mrs.?"

"Miss."

"And what kind of work, please?"

"Like the Wheezy--sewing--for two dollars a day and lunch"--she repeated it like a lesson.

"There's a day a week at 440 Linton Avenue--Mrs. Alden's, perhaps you could go there. Have you references?"

"I don't even know what they are," Miss By-the-Day replied.

The brisk person laughed.

"Well you must have an address, where do you live?"

"In my own house," her chin lifted proudly, "Montrose Place."

"But if you have a house," the interrogator's voice was kindly if her words were severe, "we can't possibly give you work. You see, our work is for persons who have no other means of support, no other ways of making their living."

Felicia's lips quivered.

"I haven't, that's why I came. You see it's all taxes and a.s.sessments and fines and--it's so fearfully dirty and I haven't any money"--she held out Louisa's reticule a bit ruefully. "You can see I haven't."

"I see"--the brisk person stepped back to the telephone. She was thoughtful as she waited for her connection. She talked quietly, murmuring things about some one who looked thoroughly responsible.

Presently she wrote down an address that she handed to Felicia. "You must be there at eight o'clock in the morning, can you do that, Miss By-the-Day?"

"There's something else I'd like you to write--it's the place where Miss Pease lives--"

"You can't go to see her except Sundays," Miss Sarah cautioned her.

"They're strict."

After Felicia had gone the brisk woman straightened things about a bit, humming under her breath.

"Su-san"--she called through the doorway, "haven't we seen that woman somewheres? She looks awful familiar." Miss Susan grunted.

"She tried to make out she knew me, but I dunno--she can't never sew to suit Mis' Freddie Alden and you know she can't--n.o.body can please young Miss' Alden--old Miss' Alden was bad enough but young Miss'

Alden is worse--"

Of her adventures "by-the-day" only Felicia could have "found the pattern." And as in the case of the garden of old, even she was a long time discovering any design in the confusing blur of their outlines.

Perhaps it was because each day was like a bit of gla.s.s in a child's kaleidoscope, an episode in itself, ugly, irregular and meaningless, until Felicia's rage against life tumbled each piece into position and let them all reflect in quaint order against the clear sweet mirrors of her faith and hope and charity.

Who but Felicia could have shaken beauty from that first unlovely "by- the-day"? Seamstress after seamstress had come and gone in that impossibly selfish household, the meek ones enduring it until they could endure no more, the proud ones hurrying angrily away; competent or incompetent, not one of them had ever been able to please her exacting employer, yet Felicia, mercifully unaware of the heart aches she would endure within, walked staunchly through the iron gates, with "440 Linton Avenue" boldly wrought in filagree upon their stern panels.

The house was set close to the street but wide side yards separated it from its newer neighbors. It was pretentiously ugly with its mansard roof, intricate porches, balconies and bay windows that had evidently been added after the original architectural atrocity had been committed. At her first glance as the pert and frilly maid opened the door it seemed as though the whole house were filled with innumerable elaborate draperies and fat-framed paintings and much stuffed furniture. While she waited for the maid to announce her, her quick ears caught the nervous undertone of the house--the whining voices of children above stairs, the quick clatter of dishes in the far off pantry and a politely peevish voice that was raised as its owner struggled with an imperfect telephone connection.

"--just at my wits' end--both maids have the day out,--the children are off my hands for the day--they're going to be in the pageant--but it is awkward for all that. Uncle Peter's nurse insists that she has to go out and it doesn't leave any one to stay with him. Fred is so unreasonable about our leaving Uncle Peter alone. Of course if the Exchange did send the sewing person to do the mending I could go--only you never can tell whether people like that are honest or not--they often aren't--" The "sewing person" in the overstuffed chair looked straight ahead of her. She shut her lips together and tried desperately not to listen.

"--that's all I can promise--if the sewing person comes and can sit in the hall--I think it would be perfectly horrid if you had to play a three table--if I can't get there in time for luncheon I'll hurry around by half past two--that is if I possibly can."

Her irritable voice was still raised to telephone pitch as she hurried toward her new seamstress. It wasn't until she had ushered Felicia into the draughty angle of the upper hall where she was to sew that Mrs. Alden discovered Babiche.

She objected.

Felicia cuddled her tiny dog.

"Why, she's a precious," she protested sweetly. "She'll just stay right beside me if you can find her a cushion--"

She felt very small and meek as she sat taking her wee neat st.i.tches.

All about her the unpleasant confusion of the house surged on. The half-grown children departed tempestuously for the pageant, their mother bustled out leaving a trail of half explicit instructions behind her. The last Felicia heard of her voice was a fretful instruction to the cook.

"--and you'll have to take something or other up to the sewing woman-- some of that cold lamb will do--"

Felice wrinkled her nose commiseratingly at Babiche's questioning eyes. Babiche the elder had hated cold lamb. From the door to her left she could hear soothing murmurs of a voice reading. A carefully modulated voice that evidently cared nothing at all about what it was reading. An irascible masculine "Well, well, never mind that!"

frequently interrupted the reader. At noon the voice stopped and a patient nurse appeared in the doorway.

"I'm going down for Mr. Alden's tray," she announced primly, "if he should speak will you call me?" Felicia nodded. She st.i.tched steadily.