GIRLS AND GIRLS

It was much like a scene in a movie play.  The shabby dark room lighted by a single oil lamp if any light could make its way through the badly smoked glass that served as a chimney, the broken chair, and the table piled high with what appeared to be rags, but which might have been intended for wearing apparel, the torn window curtain hanging so disconsolately from the broken cord it had one time proudly swung from, and the indescribable bed!

Like some sentinel watching the calamitous surroundings, a girl stood in the midst of this squalor, her bright golden hair and her pretty fair face, with its azure blue eyes, marking a pathetic contrast to all the sordid, dark detail of the ill-kept room.  She took from the side pocket of her plaid skirt a bit of crumpled paper, and placing it directly under the lamp, followed its written lines.  Having finished the reading, she carefully folded the worn slip again, and returned it to her pocket.  Then she threw back her pretty head, and any frequenter of the screen world would have known instantly that the girl had decided—­and further, that her decision required courage, and perhaps defiance.

With determination marking every move, she crossed to the tumbled bed, and stooping, dragged from beneath it a bag, the sort called “telescope,” and used rarely now, even by the traveling salesman, who at one time found the sliding trunk so useful.  It would “telescope,” and being thus adjustable, lent its proportions to any sized burden imposed upon it.  Into this the girl tossed a few articles selected from the rummage on the table, a pair of shoes gathered from more debris in a corner, and on top a sweater and skirt, taken from a peg on the door.  All together this composed rather a pretentious assortment for the telescope.

But the girl did not jam down the cover in that “movie” way common to runaways, rather she paused, glanced furtively about the gloomy place, and finally taking a candle from a very high shelf, lighted the taper, evidently for some delicate task in the way of gathering up her very personal belongings.

In a remote corner of the room an upturned orange box served as sort of stand.  The front was covered and festooned with a curtain, dexterously made of a bright skirt, hung over the sides, and draped from a knot at the top.  The knot was drawn from the waist band of the skirt, and tied with the original string into a grotesque rosette.  All over the box top were such articles as a girl might deem necessary in making a civilized toilette, except at the knot—­where the table cover irradiated its fullness into really graceful folds, falling over the orange box-here, on account of the knob, no article was placed, and the rosette stood defiant over the whole surrounding.