Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter?Gardener, Helen H. (Helen Hamilton)
General
Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter?
Gardener, Helen H. (Helen Hamilton)
Fiction
"Pa, give me ten cents; I want it fer car fare. Thanks. Now fork over
six dollars; I got to get a dress after the car gets me to the store,"
was Ettie Berton's method. Her father would pretend not to have the
money, and she would laugh and proceed to rifle his pockets. The scuffle
would usually end in the girl getting more than she asked for, and was
no unpleasant experience to her, and it appeared to amuse her father
greatly. It was not, therefore, the same motive which actuated the two
when they decided to try their fortunes as shop girls. The desire to be
with Francis, to be where others were, for the sight and touch of the
pretty things, for new faces and for mild excitement, were moving causes
with Ettie Berton. The money she liked, too; but if she could have had
the place without the money or the money without the place, her choice
would have been soon made. She would stay at the store. That she was a
general favorite was a matter of course. She would do anything for the
other girls, and the floorwalkers and clerks found her always obedient
and gaily willing to accept extra burdens or to change places. For some
time past, however, she had been on a different floor from the one where
Francis presided over a trimming counter, and the girls saw little of
each other, except on their way to and from the store.
At last this changed too, for Francis was obliged to remain to see that
the stock of her department was properly put away. At first Ettie waited
for her, but later on she had fallen into the habit of going with a
child nearer her own age, a little cash girl. Ettie was barely fourteen,
and her new friend a year or two younger. At last Francis King found
that the motherless child had invited her new friends home with her, and
had gone with them to their homes.
As spring came on, Ettie went one Sunday to Coney Island, and did not
tell Francis until afterward. She said that she had had a lovely time,
hut she appeared rather disinclined to talk about it. At the Guild one
Wednesday evening, after the class began again in the fall, Francis King
told Gertrude this, and asked her advice. She said: "It's none o' my
business, and she don't like me much any more, but I thought maybe I had
ought to tell you, for--for--since I been in the store, I've learnt a
good deal about--about things; an' Ettie she don't seem to learn much of
anything."
"Is Ettie still living at her cousin's?" asked Gertrude.
"Yes," said Francis, scornfully, "but she 'bout as well be livin' by
herself. Her cousin's always just gaddin' 'round tryin' t' get
married. I never did see such an awful fool. Before Et's pa went to the
Legislature, we all did think he was goin' t' marry her, but now--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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