JOSIE DONS A HENNA WIG
"Believe me, there's something shady about that woman!" said Josie to
Mary Louise. "She was ready enough to leave the kids until Dr. Weston
told her she would have to produce some kind of information about them.
That is what scared her off."
"Dear little children," said Mary Louise sadly. "I wonder if she is
their mother."
"Of course not! There wasn't a trace of resemblance."
"I know she was a decided brunette and the children were blue-eyed and
tow-headed," Mary Louise remembered.
"Color isn't such a proof as line and certain tricks of pose and
motion. They had not one single thing in common with the woman and then
she was plainly indifferent to them and they were a little in awe of
her. That happens sometimes with a mother, but if she is indifferent to
her children she usually tries to hide it and makes a show of affection
with strangers. And children just have to love their mothers a little
bit and it was easy to see those poor kiddies actually hated her. I
watched the girl, Polly, and when the woman told the boy to stop
bawling Polly had a look in her blue eyes that suggested a desire to
bite and scratch and kick or even use a hatchet if one were handy. I
think I'll look those people up."
"But how, Josie?"
"There are ways," smiled Josie. "You see, I am kind of self-elected
detective for the Children's Home Society and my work has begun
already. It is not merely to look after the children in the home but
those who might, could, would or should be in the home."
"Well, I hope you can find out something. I'd like to know about my
poor little Peter. What a precious boy he is!"
That forenoon Josie happened, as if by chance, into the department
store of Temple & Sweet's. First she gave a cursory glance at the
bargain counters where georgette blouses were being tossed about by
eager shoppers like corks on the restless sea. She then looked in at
the shoe department. Seeing nothing there to interest her she made her
way to a lunch counter in the basement and satisfied her healthy
appetite with a club sandwich and a cup of chocolate. All the time she
kept her eye on the shoppers who passed back and forth. After her
luncheon she again visited the pile of rumpled blouses, much
diminished, and again made her way to the shoe department. Evidently
she saw something there that interested her keenly. She hurried to the
dressing room and in a moment emerged looking strangely unlike the
Josie her friends knew. Her sandy hair was completely covered by a
henna wig, bobbed and crimped. Her sedate sailor hat was cocked at a
rakish angle and draped with a much-ornamented veil, and mirabile
dictu! a lipstick had been freely and relentlessly applied to her
honest mouth and her cheeks were touched up with a paint of purplish
hue. Her sober Norfolk jacket was as much disguised as its wearer by a
silly lace frill pinned around the neck and down the front.
Back to the shoe department Josie hurried and flopped herself down by a
young woman who was busily engaged in trying on several styles of
bargain pumps. Her slender, high-arched foot was just the kind for the
shoes advertised as greatly reduced. It was the woman of the morning,
but she, too, was much changed--so much so that Josie herself might not
have recognized her had she not been looking for and expecting a
change. The dress she wore was no longer a cheap blue serge but a
handsome tricolette, richly trimmed according to the prevailing mode.
Her hat was plainly a Paris model in strong contrast to the battered,
flower-trimmed thing she had worn in the morning. She also had been
using a lip-stick and an extra touch of color was on her cheeks.
"Such sweet shoes!" ventured Josie in a mincing tone quite in keeping
with her henna wig and lace ruffle. "My, you have a pretty arch!"
The young woman smiled encouragement, while the admiring shoe clerk
tried on a smart brown suede pump.
"I have been trying to get my arch up," continued Josie, sticking out
her own well-shod little foot. Josie had very pretty feet and they were
one weakness. She always wore a sensible shoe, but it must be of the
best material and nobby cut.
"What do you advise?" she asked the clerk. "But maybe you can tell me,"
she said, addressing the young woman by her side. "Your foot is so
wonderful."
The woman was evidently pleased and flattered.
"Oh, thanks awfully," she drawled.
"I wonder if you dance much," continued Josie. "I bet you could do
barefoot dancing with such a foot as that. Now could you? Ain't her
foot a wonder?" to the clerk.
"I never saw a prettier," was his verdict.
"Well, I do dance," she confessed. "In fact, dancing is my profession.
I'm not working right now but expect to get back on the road
immediately."
"How thrilling!" cried Josie. Josie's intimates had often wondered at
her histrionic powers when she pretended to be stupid, which was her
usual way of disarming persons who might have been suspicious of her.
She had found out much about those archvillains Felix and Hortense
Markle by an assumption of supreme dullness. But no one of her
acquaintances had ever seen Josie assume the role of a skittish,
dressed-up miss, painted and brazen, talkative and impertinent.
"I'm just dying to go on the stage," she continued. "I get awful tired
of pounding out a living on the typewriter. I'd a sight rather make a
living with my toes than with my fingers."
The young woman bought the brown suede pumps and also a pair of black
ones similar to them. She had already selected several pairs of oxfords
and walking boots.
"You have to be mighty particular with your feet when you have to show
them," she said, Josie's expansiveness having had its influence on her
indifference. "I never can wear old shoes. They are simply ruination to
one's feet. As for cheap shoes--never! Of course, these are bargains
merely because they are a bit shop-worn."
"Shall I send these, lady?" asked the clerk.
"Ye-es--No! I had better take them with me. Wrap them up in as small a
package as possible."
Josie noticed a fat roll of greenbacks as the woman paid for her
purchases. Then, the large package under her arm, she walked off with a
slow, lazy, long-limbed grace. In spite of the conversation she had
held with Josie and the clerk she neglected any word of farewell.
"What can I show you, miss?" the clerk asked Josie.
"Nothing today, thank you! I reckon I'm due at my job. I'll be in
another day. Good-by!" and Josie was off on her quest. She followed the
woman from a safe distance up one street for several blocks and around
a corner. She went in the front door of a cheap boarding house not far
from the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop. From the fact that she did not ring
the bell, but merely walked in, Josie gathered that there she was
making her temporary home. The place was frankly third-class, with a
large sign stating that boarders were wanted by the day or week. On the
porch were young women coifed according to the latest and most extreme
bushiness and young men with their feet on the railing, socks and
toothpicks much in evidence.
Josie noted the address: 126 East Centre Street. She also noted the
odors that exuded from the basement dining room.
"A veritable Todgers'," she said to herself. Dickens was Josie's
favorite author and she could usually find a parallel from him to suit
every case. "All the greens that were ever cooked there were evergreens
and flourished in immortal strength," she quoted. "A funny hole for my
lady of the high arches to choose to live in. And those kiddies--who
and why are they? Anyhow, I'm going to keep my eye on the bunch of
them."
Josie reported what she had discovered to Mary Louise, who was duly
impressed by her friend's cleverness.
"Not a bit of it," said Josie, repudiating anything more than just an
ordinary amount of knowledge of human nature. "I saw from the woman's
shoes that she thought something of her feet and the way she walked and
those very feet made me feel somehow she was accustomed walking on the
stage. I told her about the sale at Temple & Sweet's, feeling almost
sure the lure of bargain shoes would prove strong. There she was to be
sure and she had a big wad of money, which makes me think she is doing
those little kids dirt, not to have them better dressed. They were not
even clean and so ragged it was pathetic. They are more folksy than she
is, too. Something about their accent made me feel it. She had a
well-modulated voice, but that is because she is evidently an actress as
well as dancer; but there is something in her mode of speech that made
me feel she was not exactly the same class as the children with her.
She is some 'beaut,' though. You should see her in her glad rags."
Mary Louise spent a busy afternoon with her lawyer, Mr. Peter Conant,
going over her affairs and having him look into the necessary deeds for
the transfer of her old house to the Children's Home Society.
"And what does your young husband say to all of this giving away of
good money and land?" asked Uncle Peter.
"Danny thinks it is exactly as it should be. He takes a kind of pride
in being able to support me himself and he didn't have any too soft and
easy a childhood, so he is anxious to help some little ones to
happiness."
"Well, he is a good lad, a good lad," said Uncle Peter, "and I wish Jim
Hathaway could have done something like this in his lifetime, but he
was too busy trying to lay up treasures for you, my dear."
"I think sometimes he knew I'd do it and he was so unselfish he wanted
me to have all the fun of it instead of having it himself. I am not
depriving myself of anything to speak of. We have plenty left to buy us
a nice little home and a large amount to spare besides, and Danny is
making a very good salary." And Mary Louise hurried off to be home in
time to see that the little new maid had everything in the way of food
exactly right for her beloved young husband.