“I MUSTN’T seem to be too much interested in you,” said Irene when Grace reported for duty at Shipley’s on Monday morning. “I can’t play favorites and it wouldn’t do to make the other girls jealous. The first few days everything will seem strange but all you have to do is to stand around and keep your eyes open. Be nice to everybody—that’s the card to play. One girl in a department can make all the rest uncomfortable. Miss Boardman’s a little sharp sometimes—but never talk back! She knows her business and prides herself on keeping away ahead of her quota of sales. The management is strong for esprit de corps and there’s a social club that’s supposed to promote that sort of thing. There’ll be a few dances during the winter and a theatre party and a few little things like that. You won’t mind them. They’re really good fun.”
Grace was number eighteen. Her investiture with a number was the only real shock she experienced in taking her place in Shipley’s. One of her new associates who was instructing her in the routine, which began with inspection of the stock, tightening of buttons, the repair of minor damages incurred in the handling of garments, addressed her casually as “Eighteen” as though that had been Grace’s name bestowed in baptism. For an instant Grace resented her numerical designation; it was almost as though she had been robbed of her identity. Miss Boardman had given her a quick looking over to satisfy herself that the new employee met the store’s requirements as to raiment. She nodded her approval of the frock of dark taffeta which Grace had worn to simple afternoon affairs at college and told her to watch the other girls and lend a hand where she could.
Miss Boardman was beyond question a person of strong executive talent. Though burdened with much desk work as the head of the department, nothing escaped her watchful eye on the floor confided to her care. By eleven o’clock the ready-to-wear presented a scene of greatest animation. The day was fine and a throng of out-of-town customers, lured by double page advertisements of fall apparel in the newspapers, were attacking the department in dauntless battalions. Grace was constantly on the alert, keeping the much-examined stock in order, conducting customers to the trying-on room, and otherwise making herself useful to the experienced clerks.
A spectacled old lady fortified with a handbag appeared and surveyed the scene of confusion with dismay.
“Eighteen, see what that lady wants,” said Miss Boardman as she hurried by.
“What is it, please, that I can show you?” asked Grace, feeling her heart thump as she realized that she had accosted her first customer. She smiled encouragingly and the old lady returned the smile.
“I want two suits—a gray and a blue, cut as nearly like this thing I have on as possible. I’ve written my exact measurements on this card, so don’t jump at me with a tape-line. And I want a plain long coat for rough weather—something serviceable and unfashionable. You look like an intelligent girl, so I don’t expect you to show me anything in red or green. And don’t tell me what they’re wearing in Paris, London or New York—, as though I cared! I pay cash, so there’ll be no time lost in looking up my credit card.”
Grace placed a chair for her singular customer, took hurried counsel of Irene and was soon in the throes of her first sale. The little old lady asked few questions but her inquiries were much to the point.
“Show me only good quality,” she said, tossing aside a skirt after asking its price. “You know perfectly well it can’t be wool for that money, and the color will run the first time it gets rained on.”
“This,” began Grace, “is genuine home-spun, hand-wove——”
“That’s better. This will do for the blue. Find a gray of similar style.”
The gray was more difficult than the blue. She hadn’t wanted a mixed weave but a plain gray, which was not in stock. Grace warmed to her work, praising the quality of a gray with a misty heather mixture. Holding the coat at arm’s length and becoming eloquent as to the fine quality of the garment, Grace turned to find the customer regarding her with a whimsical smile.
“My dear child, you do that very well. How long have you been here?” she demanded.
Grace colored. “This is my first day,” she confessed. The old lady seemed greatly amused at her discomfiture. Her alert eyes brightened behind her glasses.
“Am I your first customer? Well, you’re going to get on. You’ve made me change my mind and not many people ever do that. That heather tone really pleases me better than the plain smooth cloth I had in mind and I’ll take it.”
The customer explained that she walked in all weathers, and wanted warmth, not style, in the topcoat with loose sleeves which she described succinctly. Grace produced half a dozen such coats, one of which her customer chose immediately. She slipped it on, said the sleeves were too short, and Irene passing along opportunely said that nothing could be easier than to let out the sleeve the required two inches.
“Be sure she’s perfectly satisfied before she leaves,” whispered Irene. “She looks like real money.”
The old lady who looked like real money was watching attentively an evening gown which was being displayed before a smartly-dressed young woman on the further side of the room. She drew out a memorandum book and turned over the leaves.
“I’ll wait a moment to see whether that woman over there buys that gown. You might find out the measurements, if it will do for a thirty-six I’ll take it for a niece of mine in Evansville. She’s very fond of that rose color.”
The rose colored gown was rejected a moment later by the lady who had been considering it and Grace laid it before her customer.
“My niece is just about your height and build, and has your coloring. I’d like to see that on you!”
Grace asked the nearest clerk whether there was any objection to meeting this unlooked for request. Certainly not, though there was a model for such purposes. The old lady who looked like real money didn’t care to see the model in the gown and frankly said so. She expressed her gratification when Grace paraded before her in the gray and ivory fitting room. The price was three hundred dollars.
“Thank you, I’ll take it.”
Grace got out of the gown as quickly as possible, and presented the garments already chosen for final approval. The old lady who looked like real money produced from her satchel a checkbook and a fountain pen.
The total was six hundred and ninety dollars. Grace regarded the bit of paper with awe; it was the largest check she had ever seen. The customer wrote out the shipping directions for her niece’s gown, screwed the cap on her pen, took the cash-sale slip Grace gave her and tucked it carefully away.
“You’ve been very nice to me. Thank you very much.” She smilingly extended her hand. “Let this be a little secret between us!”
The secret was a ten dollar bill. The little old lady who really didn’t look like real money was already in the elevator and Grace turned with relief to Irene, who inspected the office end of the cash-sale slip, and read aloud the signature on the check.
“Beulah Reynolds—you certainly drew a prize! I never saw her before but you’ve heard of her. She belongs to the old Hoosier nobility. Her people landed before the Indians left. She’s lived all over the world and has just come back here and bought a house on Washington Boulevard. I read a piece about her in the paper. If she tipped you ten dollars it’s a good sign. Don’t you be squeamish about taking tips—it’s all perfectly right and it won’t happen often. Don’t let your good luck turn your head; there’s a lady coming now who looks as though she lived on lemons. Pass the sugar and see what you can do with her.”
Mrs. Durland was greatly distressed that a daughter of hers should have met Miss Beulah Reynolds in what she was pleased to term a servile capacity. Miss Reynolds was a personage, she said—a Colonial Dame, a D. A. R. and everything else that implied noble American ancestry. Mrs. Durland had met her at a tea, which she described with minute detail. It was in Harrison’s administration, she thought, though it might have been in the second consulship of Cleveland. That a lady so distinguished and wealthy should have given Grace ten dollars quite as though she were a waitress was humiliating. Miss Reynolds would never have thought of tipping the daughter of Alicia Morley Durland.
“I’m number Eighteen to all the world when I’m at Shipley’s,” Grace replied good-naturedly. “If I’d told her in a burst of confidence that I was your daughter she probably wouldn’t have given me the ten which I sorely need. She was nice as possible and I didn’t see anything wrong in taking her money.”
“Well, of course she meant to be kind, dear; but it hurts me just a little.”
Thanks to Mrs. Reynolds’ generous purchases, Grace’s envelope for the first week contained $35.21. Though warned by Irene that this was beginner’s luck she was satisfied that she could master the selling art and earn a good income.
“You’ve got the gift, my dear. You’ll build up a line of regular customers,” Irene expatiated, “who’ll always ask for you, and that’s what counts. I notice that a good many customers already pick you out and refuse to be steered to the other girls at your end of the room. All due to your beaux yeux, as we say in Paris, and general air of being somebody in particular.”
Grace quickly made friends in the store, both in and out of her own department. Two members of her sorority, who like herself had been obliged to leave college before finishing, sought her out; an alumna of the state university, a woman of thirty, who was employed in the office as auditor, took her to lunch; a charming English woman, stranded in America and plying her needle in the alteration room, brought her books to read. Miss Vail at the glove counter knew all there was to know about palmistry, table-tipping and automatic writing and aroused Grace’s curiosity as to the mysteries of the ouija board.
To break the monotony of her evenings, Grace asked Miss Vail and two other girls from the store to the house for some experiments. She had not announced in advance that the purpose of the meeting was to probe into the unknown, and had counted on Ethel’s assistance in entertaining her friends; but when the ouija board was produced Ethel expressed a chilling disapproval of ouija and everything else pertaining to the occult. Mrs. Durland, anxious to promote harmony, suggested that they read aloud an article in a late magazine that explained ouija writing and similar phenomena. Of course Grace and her friends did not want scientific explanations of ouija; they wanted to see the thing work.
“Much unhappiness may be caused by such things,” said Mrs. Durland; “and of course they mean nothing.”
“I’ve always felt,” remarked Ethel, “that there’s something just a little vulgar about it.”
“Oh, piffle!” exclaimed Grace impatiently. “We all know it’s a joke; we just wanted to have a little fun out of it.”
“Don’t bother, Grace,” said Miss Vail. “We’ll just forget about it.”
Stephen Durland, who had changed his clothes in honor of Grace’s party, broke his silence to say:
“I don’t see any harm in those things. They’re all explained on scientific grounds. I think it would be interesting to watch it work.”
“It probably wouldn’t work in such an atmosphere,” said Grace, thoroughly irritated.
“Suppose,” said Mrs. Durland with sudden inspiration, “you girls make fudge! I’ll get the things ready. I never saw a girl yet who didn’t like fudge.”
Something had to be done to amuse the guests and Grace assented. Ethel, however, did not participate in the fudge making, but took herself off to bed. Grace resolved never again to ask any one to the house. She said as much to Ethel the next morning.
“You seem to forget that I pay my board here and help with the housework, too. I ought to have a few privileges. Those are as nice girls as I ever knew and you and mother drove us into the kitchen as though we were a lot of silly children. You’re certainly the queen of the kill-joys.”
“I should think,” said Ethel, regarding her sister pityingly, “that with your education you’d be above putting yourself on the level with the cheap people who patronize fortune-tellers. People who really have faith that there’s a life to come don’t need such things. They have no place in a Christian home.”
Grace stared at her helplessly. Ethel was an enigma; it was incredible that any one could feel so intensely about so small a matter, or find so complete a joy in making others uncomfortable.