Treasured Brides Collection (38 page)

Then he gave a bitter thought or two to his old high school friends off in college. Not a line to him about their frats or how the last football game had gone. Never a cheering word or regret that he was not with them. Oh, at first, of course, that time they came after him, but when they found they couldn’t carry him off in triumph to be their hero in college as he had been, that was the end.

True, he hadn’t written to them, but that was different. He hadn’t anything to write about.

Suddenly, he knew as plainly as if a voice had spoken it that their ways had parted definitely. Life had swept them into separate worlds. Would it ever bring them into touch again?

W
hen Natalie started for the store on Monday morning, she noticed a man standing at the corner of the street with his hat drawn over his eyes and a watch in his hand.

A look of annoyance passed over her face. The same man had been there three times before, watching her come out of the house, almost as if he were waiting for her, timing her. He always gave her an ugly, familiar look as she passed, though she never seemed to notice him. She shrank from encountering it again. He was a big, tough-looking man, and she felt almost afraid of him, although it seemed absurd in broad daylight on a street where many people passed.

Impulsively, she turned the other way and walked around the whole block to escape him. But when she reached the avenue, there he was again at the next corner, standing in just the same position, watching her, but this time with an ugly, amused leer on his face, as if he wanted to let her know that he knew she had gone out of her way to escape.

She turned her face the other way and tried to act as if she had not seen him. It was getting on her nerves to have him do this way. The expression on his face somehow made her shudder. Perhaps he had no idea of watching her at all. Perhaps it was all her imagination.

And then, as if to answer her thought, the man spoke.

“Hello, girlie! Can’t get away from me, can ya?” he said, and her heart beat wildly. For an instant she wanted to run, but her feet felt like lead, and it occurred to her that she must control herself and walk steadily. She must not let him know she was frightened. She had made a mistake, of course, going out of her way. He must have seen her hesitate at her own door and then turn the other way to avoid him. She would not do that again. She would just hold her head and walk by him, as if he were not there. Perhaps she ought to warn Janice. It would be terrible if he got to bothering Jan on her way to school.

She forced herself to walk steadily down the avenue, but she was trembling so, she could scarcely stand up.

She made a distinct effort to put the man out of her thoughts. She would not look back to see if he were following her. He was probably just a common fellow without very high standards. There was nothing to be really afraid of and, of course, there were policemen whom she’d call upon if he attempted to follow her. She might report it to the one that often came into the store. It was just as well to have a man like that cleared of the neighborhood. It really wasn’t safe for a fifteen-year-old girl like Janice to have to pass such a man. Of course, Janice would have to learn to take care of herself, too. But somehow she felt ages older than her sister and as if she must protect her. Above all, she must not let her mother find out that that man had spoken to her. It would frighten her so that she would be anxious all the time either of them were away from the house.

She tried to concentrate her thoughts on the dress she was planning for Janice, on the other dress she meant to make possible for Janice’s commencement next spring. She wondered how much she dared put away each week from her meager salary to save for that time? She herself hadn’t minded so much staying out of the activities of her school at commencement time, but she hated to have Jan miss everything. Jan did love good times so much, and she had so few of them. Jan had been so sweet and good about staying out of school while Mother was sick, and now that Mother was well enough to be left alone all day, she did hope that Jan could have a little more freedom. Work would come soon enough. Also, now that Mother didn’t have to have extra food and medicine and a doctor all the time, there would be more chance of saving a little for a spring wardrobe for Janice. It was so hard for Janice to always wear makeovers because she was the smallest in the family. For once she should have a dress, perhaps two, which she might go to the store and pick out for herself and try on.

Suddenly, the thought of the man burst into her thoughts again. What if he should hang around and frighten Mother? It was silly, of course, to think that, and what could she do about it but pray? “Oh, God, take care of Mother dear, and Janice, please,” she prayed again and again as she walked down the street, her heart gradually growing quieter and more trustful, her nerves steadying.

As she neared the store, she remembered Chris. Would he really come there to work that day, or would he back out of it after thinking it over? Somehow, she couldn’t make it seem real that Chris Walton, the banker’s son, the most popular boy in high school—popular, too, she had heard, in his college—should be coming to work that morning in the store just as she was—to measure sugar and potatoes and bring up kegs of mackerel from the cellar. Probably, when his people found it out, they would put a stop to it. Probably, his lady mother would do something about it. She would want him in a profession. But anyway, Natalie herself was glad that Chris himself had been willing to do any good, honest work. It fitted so perfectly with the ideal she had formed of his character as she had watched him from afar through four years of high school. Natalie liked to keep her ideals of people she admired. Her standards were high, and not many came up to them. So far, this young man had. She would likely never have much to do with him. Her life and his were far apart as the poles, of course. Even if he came into the store for a time, there would presently be found something else for him, something more in the line of profession, and this little spurt of work in a store would only be used as a step to something fitter. But if he came, while he stayed she hoped he would make good. He would never be anything to her, of course, but she liked to think there were such fine, noble people in the world, a few such young men. It made the world more worthwhile to live in.

Of course, he had been kind to her, and just now he happened to be grateful to her for having him put on to the position, but she mustn’t presume upon that. She must keep her quiet, aloof way. Her act of introducing him to the manager had been the merest trifling kindness. Anyone would do that. She mustn’t let him think that she was expecting him to pay her any attention whatever. Indeed, she must manage to get away before he did, so that it would not look that way. He must not think he had to carry her bundles home for her.

However, if he came, and if he stayed, he would probably soon be so busy he wouldn’t think anything about it. The routine of the day would take care of that. He would be so tired by evening that he would want to get home quickly and wouldn’t have time for the little cashier. She needn’t worry about that. She only hoped he would make good—if he came.

But he was there before her, waiting outside the store, and they stood together talking a minute or two. It was very pleasant to have him so friendly, the boy whom all the girls admired. And she couldn’t blame them. She had admired him herself, always. Had liked to listen to him recite in school, because he always did it as if he enjoyed it and knew what he was talking about. She had seldom had the pleasure of going to a school game because she had always had to hurry home to help her mother right after school. But she had often stood at the schoolroom window with a book spread on the windowsill before her, and watched the boys practicing in the yard below. And always she had singled out Chris as the most finished player, and exulted in the way he led them all and they deferred to him. Well, now she was enjoying a pleasant little contact with one whom she could enjoy as a friend, if their circumstances in life had been different. But she must not let her head get turned by it. He was Chris Walton, and she was Natalie Halsey, born into different worlds and stations. Of course, her family had been good, too, but the world had forgotten that, though all the families of the earth were one, after all! But then, she knew what people thought of a poor girl allowing a friendship with a boy who was in a higher social class, and she didn’t intend to put herself in such a position. So, as soon as the store opened, she retired to her little glass den and began to work with her cash register and her books. And Chris stood back by a counter and watched the day in the store open before him.

It interested him that he was to be a part of this busy new world.

Almost at once people began to swarm in, for coffee and butter and yeast cakes; for a loaf of bread and a box of Aunt Jemima’s prepared buckwheat; for cereals, dried beef, and glasses of jelly for lunches.

There came a lull in half an hour, and the manager started him to work, giving him a linen coat and an apron, setting him to picking over a barrel of potatoes and putting them up in paper sacks, so many pounds to a sack. There was to be a bargain sale of potatoes that day. And when the potatoes were all measured, he had a barrel to go over and pick out the perfect heads. Strange, bitter thoughts came to him now and then as he remembered the other boys in his class, all in college now, going about with college caps, whistling on the campus as they went from one class to another, wearing their fraternity pins and planning their pleasant careers for the future, while he sorted decaying vegetables.

But for the most part, Chris was rather interested than otherwise in what he had to do, conscientious to do it thoroughly, and ambitious to see how quickly he could get it done. He was too busy to contemplate the fate that had thrown him into a chain grocery instead of a college.

Now and then he cast a glance over at the little glass den where Natalie worked, busy every minute, making change, smiling pleasantly at the customers, a crowd always around her little window. How patient and sweet she looked. Her delicate face shone out, too fine for such surroundings. Of course, the store was nice and clean, and the people were all decent, respectable people, and there was nothing really unpleasant about her work. But somehow she looked a lady, made to be waited upon. There was a quiet refinement about her. What was that nursery rhyme Elise used to sing, “Sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream.” Somehow Natalie’s face made one feel like putting her at ease and caring for her.

So Chris’s thoughts moved, in and out all day, between the cabbages he brought up from the cellar and the empty crates and cans that he carried down to the cellar. He was literally an errand boy as he had said, taking orders moment by moment, never through with one activity before another was handed to him. By noon, he was hungry as a bear and ready to devour eagerly the hot coffee and sandwiches the manager had sent in for his helpers from the pie shop nearby, because he couldn’t spare any of them to go out and get it for themselves.

They inhaled the food, standing in the back room where the stores were kept, leaning back against the big refrigerator, or sitting on the cellar stairs or an empty crate, swallowed it down hastily, one at a time in turn, and hastened back to work again. Chris wondered that they had so much business all the time. He had never supposed that a grocery store would be such an active place. There seemed always to be somebody wanting something. By night, he was dog weary and sore in every muscle. Some muscles he hadn’t known he possessed. And he had thought that every muscle he had was in perfect training. He wondered why it seemed so much more strenuous than playing football. Perhaps because it was utterly new, and he was a little excited about it, anxious to please.

He heard that first day that the district manager would be around in the middle of the week, and his fate would probably be decided then. The district manager would possibly have a new man to put in the place, and Chris, being only a substitute, would have to step out.

That made it a sort of game, and Chris worked harder than ever. He might not have picked out the grocery business for a life work, and he might not want to remain in it forever, but he didn’t want to be put out of anything he had undertaken. He wanted to be so good that they would beg him to stay, even if he was leaving of his own free will for a better position. So he pitched into his work with all his might.

He discovered that his fellow workmen were most friendly among themselves, but they regarded him with suspicion. He had not yet won their confidence. He had to do that. They regarded him as an entire outsider. Perhaps some inkling of his former estate had already penetrated to their knowledge.

They answered him shortly, gave him no more information regarding his work than was absolutely necessary, and left him to find out for himself in every case possible. They let him search for an article in the cellar, instead of telling him how close it was to his hand, and were generally just as unpleasant as they could be without actually descending to open fight.

Chris was rather amazed at first, and then indignant. He longed to take them out and thrash them one by one. He found his heart in a continual fume over some rudeness or unnecessary taunt.

It did not help his cause that on the third day of his presence in the store there came an influx of young women, three of them. They were dressed up, apparently, for an afternoon tea. They breezed in, holding their dainty chiffons and handsome fur coats back from the barrels and boxes. Somewhat pompously, they demanded to see Christopher Walton.

C
hris was cleaning the cellar. He had been at it all day. There was to be a new arrangement of boxes and stores that were kept down there, and everything in the whole cellar had to be moved and thoroughly cleaned. He had never done anything quite like it before, except the washing of those windows in the Sullivan Street house, but he was working away like mad trying to get done before night. He was wearing a pair of borrowed overalls, which did not fit him, and his hair was sticking every way. He was just awkwardly wringing out a wet mop when the man from the meat counter yelled down the cellar stairs.