Poor Ellie was fast becoming helpless.  How different it had been a few months before!  What a sturdy, active, child she was, when one morning she set out in gay spirits “to earn money for mother!” Like Katy, she had obtained a position as cashgirl in McNaughton’s.  And how quick and smart she was about her duties!  The floor-walker commended her twice during the week, and said he would speak for an increase in her wages.  How proud she felt when Saturday came, and she knew she would have two dollars and a half to take home!  Unfortunately, it was to be dearly gained.

Saturday afternoon it happened that the store was unusually crowded; everything was stir and confusion.  Little Ellie and her companions dashed now here, now there, in response to the unceasing cry of “Cash!  Cash!” In the midst of the hurry, the floor-walker gave Ellie a message to deliver to one of the clerks in the basement.  “Don’t delay!” he called after her.  Eager to please, the child made her way through the throng, and was on the point of darting down the stairs, when, alas! her foot caught, she tripped, gave a little scream, and was precipitated down the entire flight.  In an instant several employees from the neighboring counters rushed to pick her up; but, to their alarm, though she strove to be brave, when they attempted to move her she could not repress a low moan of anguish.  The superintendent sent at once for a doctor, who discovered that she had sustained a severe injury, having struck against the edge of one of the iron steps.

Where was now the proud home-coming?  Ellie was taken to the hospital, whither frightened Mrs. Connors was summoned.  Upon one of the cots in the accident ward lay the child, her small face wan with pain, and in her eyes the startled expression noticeable in those of a person who has had a serious fall.  In one feverish hand she held something tightly clasped—­something for which she had asked before being carried from the store.  When the doctor turned aside she beckoned to her mother, and, with a pathetic little smile, folded into the palm of the weeping woman a small yellow envelope.  The next moment she fainted away, Mrs. Connors’ tears flowed faster as she beheld the precious offering—­Ellie’s first wages, and the last which she was likely ever to earn.

The firm of McNaughton & Co. investigated the accident, to see if they could by any means be liable to an action for damages brought by an employee.  But there was no loose nail in the stairway, not the least obstruction.  The proprietors were not to blame; it was simply the child’s heedlessness, they said.  In fact, the fault was with Ellie’s shoes:  the sole of one, being broken, caught on the top step and caused her fall.

And she was to have had a new pair that very evening.  Mrs. Connors had quietly determined that her first earnings should be expended in this way.  Poor Ellie! she would not need shoes now:  the doctors feared she would never walk again.  The firm sent a twenty-dollar bill to the child’s mother, another “Cash” was engaged to take Ellie’s place, and the matter was speedily forgotten.