New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Then she looked around her and began to wonder what could be keeping
her mother so long. She happened to see the door of the store open, as a
tall girl came in with a high pompadour and an immense black hat adorned
with three aggressive silver feathers.
The new-comer advanced toward the ribbon-counter, where she was greeted
effusively by two of the salesladies.
"For pity's sake," cried one of them, "I ain't seen you for a month of
Sundays!"
"Addie Brown!" said the other. "And you haven't been back here to see us
old friends since I don't know when."
"Addie Cameron now, if you please," and the new-comer bridled a little
as she gave herself her married name. "An' I was comin' in last
Saturday, but I had to have my teeth fixed first, and I went to dentist
after dentist and they were all full, and I was tired out."
"Well, it's Addie, any way you fix it," responded one of the
salesladies, "and we're glad to see you back, even if we did think you'd
shook us for keeps. Is this gettin' married all it's cracked up to be?"
"It's fine," the bride replied, "an' I wouldn't never come back here on
no account. Not but what things ain't what I'd like altogether. I went
to the Girls' Friendly last night, and there was that Miss Van Antwerp
that runs our class, and she was so interested, for all she's one of the
Four Hundred. An' she wanted to know about Sam, an' I told her he was a
good man an' none better, an' I was perfectly satisfied. 'But, Miss Van
Antwerp,' I says to her, I says, 'don't you never marry a
policeman--their hours are so inconvenient. You can't never tell when
he's comin' home.' That's what I told her, for she's always interested."
The other two salesladies laughed, and one of them asked, "What did Miss
Van Antwerp say to that?"
"She just said that she wasn't thinkin' of gettin' married, but she'd
remember my advice."
"I ain't thinkin' of gettin' married, either," said one of the
salesladies, the one with the gentler voice, "but I've had a dream an'
it may come true. I dreamed there was a young feller, handsome he was,
too, and the son of a charge customer. You've seen her, the old stiff
with those furs and the big diamond ear-rings, that's so fussy always
and so partic'lar, for all she belongs to the Consumers' League."
"I know who you mean; horrid old thing she is, too," interrupted the
other; "but I didn't know she had a son."
"I don't know it, either," was the reply. "But that's what I
dreamed--and I dreamed it three nights runnin', too. Fierce, wasn't it?
An' he kept hangin' round and wantin' to make a date to take me to the
opera. Said he could talk French an' he'd tell me what it was all about.
An'--"
Just then the floor-walker called "Forward!" as a customer came to the
other end of the counter; and the girl with the gentle voice moved away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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