“Do you think I’m too homely to fix up?” anxiously asked Mamie, as her
visitor did not at once respond.
“Oh no, indeed!” said Celia laughing, “I was only trying to think how to
answer you, and it’s so funny for you to want to copy me. I have never
tried to be ‘pretty’ as you call it. I only tried to be clean and neat,
and have things look as nice as I could without spending much money. But
now that you’ve asked me, if you really want to know how you could
improve your appearance, in my eyes at least, I’ll try to tell you a few
things. What is it that troubles you most? We’ll begin with that.”
“Oh my sakes!” giggled Mamie. “There’s so many things. Well, my hands
and my feet. They’re so big, and in the way. My hands are red and rough
and bony, and my face is always breaking out in little ugly black
pimples, and my hair won’t get into any shape I want it to, and my teeth
aren’t pretty, and then of course my clothes, and I just _wish_ I could
walk across a room like you,” she finished with a sigh.
Celia laughed and began,
“Your hands,” she said, “let me see them.” She turned up the gas and
surveyed them critically a moment, while Mamie waited in breathless
anxiety comparing her red, beringed fingers to Celia’s small white ones.
“Well, if I were you I would take all those rings off first,” said
Celia, decidedly. “They look gaudy and out of place, except perhaps on a
woman in society, and even then I should prefer to see just one or two
at a time, and not a whole jewelry store at once.”
Mamie looked disappointed. She drew them off slowly. “I thought they
were pretty,” she said, the least bit of dismay in her voice. “Don’t you
like any rings?”
“Not for young girls,—unless they mean something. Have you any that
have tender associations?”
“Some,” simpered Mamie looking conscious.
Celia ignored or did not understand this answer. “Which one?” she asked.
“Did your mother, or father, or brother, or sister give it to you?”
Mamie blushed. “Well, yes, I have got one ma give me, but it isn’t any
of them. It’s a little plain gold thing, looks kind of out of style now.
I don’t wear it any more.”
“I’d wear that one,” said the oracle, “and put the others all away.
You’re too young to have rings given you to wear by strangers. Now about
training those hands, I can give you some little exercises that they
gave me when I was taking music lessons, which I think help the hands to
be graceful. First, if I were you, I would go into the bathroom and give
them a good washing in hot soap suds, finishing off with cold water.
That will make them more pliable. Have you a nail brush? You ought to
have one. There is nothing like it for making the nails look rosy. I
suppose you find great trouble in keeping them clean, working all day,
don’t you? I do. But a nail brush makes the work much easier. I would
cut the nails more in this shape if I were you, see?” and Celia held out
one seashell tipped hand to be inspected.
When the hands were duly scrubbed, Celia gave her a short lesson in
Delsarte, an exercise for each joint of the finger and hand. Mamie’s
eyes sparkled and she proved herself an apt pupil. “Now,” said Celia,
“practice that, but be sure you never do it where any one can see you.
It will have its effect on your movements in time, but never practice in
public. Don’t think about your hands. That’s the best way to do. If they
are clean they will take care of themselves, and the more you think
about them and think how awkward they are, the more awkward they become.
Did you never try making people stop staring at you by looking hard at
their feet in the street cars? Well, try it some time. It is very funny.
I have been annoyed once or twice by somebody staring at me till I was
very uncomfortable. I remembered what I had read somewhere, and looked
down at their feet as if I was very much interested in them. They very
soon took their eyes from me and began to draw their feet back out of
sight and to fidget around and wonder what was the matter with their
shoes.”
Mamie laughed and looked at her new teacher with admiration. She began
to think she had made a mistake in saying Celia was not pretty.
“Now the complexion,” began Celia again in a business-like tone. “Your
general health will affect that. You ought not to eat much fat or sweets
for one thing, and you ought to bathe all over every day and rub your
skin till it’s all in a glow. That will make a great difference in the
complexion. How often do you bathe?”
“Oh my!” gasped Mamie, “I do hate to take a bath. Why, ma used always to
scrub us children all around oncet a week, and I s’pose I’d ought to
keep that up, but sometimes I do skip a week, it’s so dreadful cold in
the morning.”
“Well, if I were you I would bathe every day, for a while anyway. You
don’t know what a lot of good it will do you, and after a while you will
get to love it. Once a week you ought to have a thorough wash with warm
water and plenty of soap, and finish off with a cold dash, and a good
hard rub, and then every morning take a sponge off in cool water and a
good rubbing. That you will find will make your complexion very
different. Then I would give the face some treatment of hot and cold
water. Wash it in water just as hot as you can stand it every morning
and then in very cold. That will make your cheeks have some color, too,
I think. As for your teeth, let me see them. Oh, Mamie, it’s too bad to
let such nice even teeth get into such a condition. They are hopelessly
black, and you can’t get them white yourself. Do you brush them every
day, after every meal?”
“My land, no!” exclaimed Mamie. “What an awful nuisance that would be! I
never had a tooth brush but once, and then Carrie used it to scrub the
ink off her fingers when she was going to the theatre.”
Celia could scarcely repress the exclamation of disgust that rose to her
lips on this announcement, but Mamie was luckily too interested in her
own words to hear.
“Don’t you think I could ever do anything with my teeth?”
“Why yes, you must go to a dentist at once and have them attended to.
They need a good cleaning, and while you are there you ought to have him
go over your teeth and put them in first-class order. It doesn’t pay to
let your teeth go before you are a woman yet. He will tell you how to
take care of them. You ought not to eat much candy or to chew gum. That
injures the teeth.”
“Oh!” said Mamie, in a sort of despair. “You don’t have much fun, do
you, if you try to do all them things? But I don’t mind, for I do want
to look pretty, an’ I’m willin’ for it all, if it’ll do any good.”
Celia’s pulses quickened, for she thought if this girl would do so much
for the outward adorning, perhaps she might be able some time to
persuade her to do as much for the beautiful inward adorning of a meek
and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price.
“Then your hair,” went on Celia, “needs to be washed often. I would wash
it first with powdered borax in the water. It isn’t good to use borax
often, for it makes the hair so brittle it breaks, but it will take out
the extra oil now, and that is what you need. Then it will need to be
thoroughly rinsed, and dried and combed. After that you can do almost
anything you want to with it. I’ll let you watch me do mine once, and
then you will see how it is done. That is the best way to learn. And
then about your dress, why that is a long subject. You will need to take
a lot of time for that. You’ll have to decide things one at a time. One
rule I go by, in buying. I never buy a thing that is in the very extreme
of fashion, because for one reason it will look queer very soon, and for
another it is sure to be poor material, or else it is very expensive. It
is always best to get good material. The plainer things are the better,
you can be sure, as a general rule. Then you ought to study your
complexion and eyes and buy things to become you. You will excuse me, if
I mention the necktie you have on. I don’t think you ought ever to wear
that color. Cerise may be becoming to some people with dark eyes and a
very clear complexion, but it ought not to be worn by blue-eyed people
with light brown hair. Dark blue would be more becoming to you. Then
too, I think a necktie is an unbecoming thing on you, anyway. You would
look much better in a close, round collar.”
Mamie looked down at her cherished silk scarf, to be able to buy which
she had gone without new stockings for some time. Her mind was something
akin to the maiden’s about whom our grandmothers used to tell, who said:
“I ken wear my palm-leaf and go bare-footed, but I _must_ have a buzzom
pin.”
Celia’s zeal was perhaps on the eve of getting the better of her wisdom.
She was growing interested in making over this girl as her aunt was
interested in making over Mrs. Morris’ boarding-house, and she forgot
that there were probably a long line of prejudices to be overcome before
the girl would be willing to walk in the way laid out for her, even
though she had asked to be directed in that path. It would look thorny
to her at first.
“Mamie,” she said, seeing the downcast expression on the young girl’s
face, “don’t get discouraged with all these new things. You can’t do
every one of them right at first, but, do you know, I think it makes a
great difference when people try to be and look the best that is in
them. You must not think you are a homely looking girl. You are not. You
were meant to be a pretty one, and I think you can make yourself look
ever so much prettier, I do indeed. Now I wonder if you would be willing
to do something just to please me.”
“Why of course I would!” said Mamie, readily enough and brightening up
at the encouraging words. “What is it? You’ve been awful kind to me and
I sha’n’t forget it, Miss Murray,” she added.
“Well then, it is this. You see out in Cloverdale, where I used to live,
I belonged to a little society of girls. We were each pledged to read
one verse of the Bible every day, and to pray every day, and when some
of us left the home and the society, we each promised to try and get up
another band where we were going, even if we could get but one other
person to join it. Now I was wondering if you wouldn’t join it to start
my new circle? We called ourselves the Bible Band. I believe there are a
good many such bands all over the country. We have this little gold
badge. Isn’t it pretty?” and Celia held out a tiny scarf pin with a
pendant gold heart, on which were the letters engraved B. B. “If you
will join us, I’ll give you this pin of mine, and I can send and get
another.”
Mamie grew interested as soon as she saw the pin. Jewelry of all sorts
was attractive to her. It would be quite delightful to appear in the
store with a new pin on, engraved with mysterious letters, and let the
girls and the young men there try to guess what they meant. Of course
she didn’t need to tell them if she didn’t want to. She asked again what
would be required of her, though Mamie belonged to the class, from which
are derived so many untrue members of the Christian Endeavor societies,
and, sad to say, also of the church; that class who are eager and
willing to join anything, and care very little what obligations they
thus take upon themselves; as little as they care when they break these
solemn vows. To such, indeed, might apply the many and various arguments
against pledge taking, not because pledge taking is bad, but because the
pledgers themselves are not made to understand the solemnity of the
pledge they take. Mamie cared very little what pledge she took, so long
as the performing of it might be done in private and at her own
discretion. She did not stop to think long, but accepted the pledge card
and donned the pin with pride, thanking Celia.
“Though I ain’t much of a hand at prayin’, Miss Murray, I never could
think of anything to say when I was a little girl, and ma used to make
us say our prayers every Saturday night. I guess I could learn a prayer
and say the same one every time, if that would do. You write me out one,
can’t you? ’Course I’ll do it to please you, you’ve been so good to me,
and I’m awfully obliged for this pin. It’s a beauty, and won’t I have
fun to-morrow at the store with it? Say, I don’t mind telling you why I
want all this fixin’ up to be pretty, you know. You won’t tell Carrie,
will you? I wouldn’t have her know, for the first you’d see her settin’
up to the same thing. Why, you see it’s this way. There’s a new boss to
our store. The head of the firm’s going out to Chicago, and he’s put
this feller, Mr. Adams, Harold Adams his name is, in at the head. He’s
only just nineteen or twenty, though he made them think he was
twenty-one, but he’s dreadful smart. His father’s been at the head of a
three-cent store in Baltimore for a long time, and he kind of growed up
in the business. He’s handsome, too, and everybody likes him, and the
girls will just stand on their heads to please him, and you see he’s
been payin’ me attention for four weeks now, takin’ me to theatres, and
gettin’ me flowers and candy, and all the other girls was hoppin’ mad.
They’ve just done everything they could to get him to look at them, but
he never did till there come a new girl to the china teacup counter. She
has gold hair and I believe she paints her cheeks, and she’s awful
stylish, and has the littlest mite of a waist, and he’s just gone clean
crazy over her. He’s nice to me yet, but she gets half the flowers now,
and I want to get him back. You see, I don’t mind telling you I’m in
love with him myself, and of course I ain’t willin’ to just give him up
without tryin’, so I made up my mind if I could get to be good lookin’
an’ stylish, maybe I could do something.”
Before Celia had time to collect her thoughts, and say something in
response to this startling disclosure, there came a hurried knock at the
door, and Molly Poppleton’s strong voice demanded, “Is Miss Celia there?
Miss Hannah, she wants her right away bad. That old lady upstairs’s got
a fainting spell. She says to come right away.”
Celia dropped everything and ran. She wondered afterward if the heavenly
Father arranged that call to her for just that moment on purpose to
prevent her saying anything to Mamie, for she felt sure if she had
spoken then she would have expressed her mind in what might have proved,
for the sake of her influence on the girl, the wrong words.
“Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.”