IN FLIGHT AGAIN
When Elizabeth lay down to rest that night, with Lizzie still chattering
by her side, she found that there was one source of intense pleasure in
anticipation, and that was the prospect of going to God's house to
Christian Endeavor. Now perhaps she would be able to find out what it all
had meant, and whether it were true that God took care of people and hid
them in time of trouble. She felt almost certain in her own little
experience that He had cared for her, and she wanted to be quite sure, so
that she might grasp this precious truth to her heart and keep it forever.
No one could be quite alone in the world if there was a God who cared and
loved and hid.
The aunt and the grandmother were up betimes the next morning, looking
over some meagre stores of old clothing, and there was found an old dress
which it was thought could be furbished over for Elizabeth. They were
hard-working people with little money to spare, and everything had to be
utilized; but they made a great deal of appearance, and Lizzie was proud
as a young peacock. She would not take Elizabeth to the store to face the
head man without having her fixed up according to the most approved style.
So the aunt cut and fitted before she went off for the day, and Elizabeth
was ordered to sew while she was gone. The grandmother presided at the
rattling old sewing-machine, and in two or three days Elizabeth was
pronounced to be fixed up enough to do for the present till she could
earn some new clothes. With her fine hair snarled into a cushion and
puffed out into an enormous pompadour that did not suit her face in the
least, and with an old hat and jacket of Lizzie's which did not become her
nor fit her exactly, she started out to make her way in the world as a
saleswoman. Lizzie had already secured her a place if she suited.
The store was a maze of wonder to the girl from the mountains--so many
bright, bewildering things, ribbons and tin pans, glassware and toys,
cheap jewelry and candies. She looked about with the dazed eyes of a
creature from another world.
But the manager looked upon her with eyes of favor. He saw that her eyes
were bright and keen. He was used to judging faces. He saw that she was as
yet unspoiled, with a face of refinement far beyond the general run of the
girls who applied to him for positions. And he was not beyond a friendly
flirtation with a pretty new girl himself; so she was engaged at once, and
put on duty at the notion-counter.
The girls flocked around her during the intervals of custom. Lizzie had
told of her cousin's long ride, embellished, wherever her knowledge
failed, by her extremely wild notions of Western life. She had told how
Elizabeth arrived wearing a belt with two pistols, and this gave Elizabeth
standing at once among all the people in the store. A girl who could
shoot, and who wore pistols in a belt like a real cowboy, had a social
distinction all her own.
The novel-reading, theatre-going girls rallied around her to a girl; and
the young men in the store were not far behind. Elizabeth was popular from
the first. Moreover, as she settled down into the routine of life, and
had three meals every day, her cheeks began to round out just a little;
and it became apparent that she was unusually beautiful in spite of her
dark skin, which whitened gradually under the electric light and
high-pressure life of the store.
They went to Christian Endeavor, Elizabeth and her cousin; and Elizabeth
felt as if heaven had suddenly dropped down about her. She lived from week
to week for that Christian Endeavor.
The store, which had been a surprise and a novelty at first, began to be a
trial to her. It wore upon her nerves. The air was bad, and the crowds
were great. It was coming on toward Christmas time, and the store was
crammed to bursting day after day and night after night, for they kept
open evenings now until Christmas. Elizabeth longed for a breath from the
mountains, and grew whiter and thinner. Sometimes she felt as if she must
break away from it all, and take Robin, and ride into the wilderness
again. If it were not for the Christian Endeavor, she would have done so,
perhaps.
Robin, poor beast, was well housed and well fed; but he worked for his
living as did his mistress. He was a grocer's delivery horse, worked from
Monday morning early till Saturday night at ten o'clock, subject to curses
and kicks from the grocery boy, expected to stand meekly at the
curbstones, snuffing the dusty brick pavements while the boy delivered a
box of goods, and while trolleys and beer-wagons and automobiles slammed
and rumbled and tooted by him, and then to start on the double-quick to
the next stopping-place.
He to be thus under the rod who had trod the plains with a free foot and
snuffed the mountain air! It was a great come-down, and his life became a
weariness to him. But he earned his mistress a dollar a week besides his
board. There would have been some consolation in that to his faithful
heart if he only could have known it. Albeit she would have gladly gone
without the dollar if Robin could have been free and happy.
One day, one dreadful day, the manager of the ten-cent store came to
Elizabeth with a look in his eyes that reminded her of the man in Montana
from whom she had fled. He was smiling, and his words were unduly
pleasant. He wanted her to go with him to the theatre that evening, and he
complimented her on her appearance. He stated that he admired her
exceedingly, and wanted to give her pleasure. But somehow Elizabeth had
fallen into the habit ever since she left the prairies of comparing all
men with George Trescott Benedict; and this man, although he dressed well,
and was every bit as handsome, did not compare well. There was a sinister,
selfish glitter in his eyes that made Elizabeth think of the serpent on
the plain just before she shot it. Therefore Elizabeth declined the
invitation.
It happened that there was a missionary meeting at the church that
evening. All the Christian Endeavorers had been urged to attend. Elizabeth
gave this as an excuse; but the manager quickly swept that away, saying
she could go to church any night, but she could not go to this particular
play with him always. The girl eyed him calmly with much the same attitude
with which she might have pointed her pistol at his head, and said
gravely,
"But I do not want to go with you."
After that the manager hated her. He always hated girls who resisted him.
He hated her, and wanted to do her harm. But he fairly persecuted her to
receive his attentions. He was a young fellow, extremely young to be
occupying so responsible a position. He undoubtedly had business ability.
He showed it in his management of Elizabeth. The girl's life became a
torment to her. In proportion as she appeared to be the manager's favorite
the other girls became jealous of her. They taunted her with the manager's
attentions on every possible occasion. When they found anything wrong,
they charged it upon her; and so she was kept constantly going to the
manager, which was perhaps just what he wanted.
She grew paler and paler, and more and more desperate. She had run away
from one man; she had run away from a woman; but here was a man from whom
she could not run away unless she gave up her position. If it had not been
for her grandmother, she would have done so at once; but, if she gave up
her position, she would be thrown upon her grandmother for support, and
that must not be. She understood from the family talk that they were
having just as much as they could do already to make both ends meet and
keep the all-important god of Fashion satisfied. This god of Fashion had
come to seem to Elizabeth an enemy of the living God. It seemed to occupy
all people's thoughts, and everything else had to be sacrificed to meet
its demands.
She had broached the subject of school one evening soon after she arrived,
but was completely squelched by her aunt and cousin.
"You're too old!" sneered Lizzie. "School is for children."
"Lizzie went through grammar school, and we talked about high for her,"
said the grandmother proudly.
"But I just hated school," grinned Lizzie. "It ain't so nice as it's
cracked up to be. Just sit and study all day long. Why, they were always
keeping me after school for talking or laughing. I was glad enough when I
got through. You may thank your stars you didn't have to go, Bess."
"People who have to earn their bread can't lie around and go to school,"
remarked Aunt Nan dryly, and Elizabeth said no more.
But later she heard of a night-school, and then she took up the subject
once more. Lizzie scoffed at this. She said night-school was only for very
poor people, and it was a sort of disgrace to go. But Elizabeth stuck to
her point, until one day Lizzie came home with a tale about Temple
College. She had heard it was very cheap. You could go for ten cents a
night, or something like that. Things that were ten cents appealed to her.
She was used to bargain-counters.
She heard it was quite respectable to go there, and they had classes in
the evening. You could study gymnastics, and it would make you graceful.
She wanted to be graceful. And she heard they had a course in millinery.
If it was so, she believed she would go herself, and learn to make the new
kind of bows they were having on hats this winter. She could not seem to
get the right twist to the ribbon.
Elizabeth wanted to study geography. At least, that was the study Lizzie
said would tell her where the Desert of Sahara was. She wanted to know
things, all kinds of things; but Lizzie said such things were only for
children, and she didn't believe they taught such baby studies in a
college. But she would inquire. It was silly of Bessie to want to know,
she thought, and she was half ashamed to ask. But she would find out.
It was about this time that Elizabeth's life at the store grew
intolerable.
One morning--it was little more than a week before Christmas--Elizabeth
had been sent to the cellar to get seven little red tin pails and shovels
for a woman who wanted them for Christmas gifts for some Sunday-school
class. She had just counted out the requisite number and turned to go
up-stairs when she heard some one step near her, and, as she looked up in
the dim light, there stood the manager.
"At last I've got you alone, Bessie, my dear!" He said it with suave
triumph in his tones. He caught Elizabeth by the wrists, and before she
could wrench herself away he had kissed her.
With a scream Elizabeth dropped the seven tin pails and the seven tin
shovels, and with one mighty wrench took her hands from his grasp.
Instinctively her hand went to her belt, where were now no pistols. If one
had been there she certainly would have shot him in her horror and fury.
But, as she had no other weapon, she seized a little shovel, and struck
him in the face. Then with the frenzy of the desert back upon her she
rushed up the stairs, out through the crowded store, and into the street,
hatless and coatless in the cold December air. The passers-by made way for
her, thinking she had been sent out on some hurried errand.
She had left her pocketbook, with its pitifully few nickels for car-fare
and lunch, in the cloak-room with her coat and hat. But she did not stop
to think of that. She was fleeing again, this time on foot, from a man.
She half expected he might pursue her, and make her come back to the hated
work in the stifling store with his wicked face moving everywhere above
the crowds. But she turned not to look back. On over the slushy
pavements, under the leaden sky, with a few busy flakes floating about
her.
The day seemed pitiless as the world. Where could she go and what should
she do? There seemed no refuge for her in the wide world. Instinctively
she felt her grandmother would feel that a calamity had befallen them in
losing the patronage of the manager of the ten-cent store. Perhaps Lizzie
would get into trouble. What should she do?
She had reached the corner where she and Lizzie usually took the car for
home. The car was coming now; but she had no hat nor coat, and no money to
pay for a ride. She must walk. She paused not, but fled on in a steady
run, for which her years on the mountain had given her breath. Three miles
it was to Flora Street, and she scarcely slackened her pace after she had
settled into that steady half-run, half-walk. Only at the corner of Flora
Street she paused, and allowed herself to glance back once. No, the
manager had not pursued her. She was safe. She might go in and tell her
grandmother without fearing he would come behind her as soon as her back
was turned.