Every fall we dig
down and buy her winter coal, and she hasn't bought any clothes for ten
years. Some one gives her an ex-dress and Mary does her best to make it
over, but she never looks much more enticing than a scarecrow in the
result.
Mary's hands are red with chilblains in the winter, and the poorhouse
yawns for her. But will she take a place as hired girl? Not she. Mary
has her pride. She'll sell you things you don't want, which is as near
begging as graft is to politics, and she'll wear second-hand clothes and
take home cold bread pudding from the hotel--but she will not be a hired
girl and go to Europe in the summer and marry into an automobile. Once
she did consent to become Mrs. Singer's second girl. Mrs. Singer was
desperate, and after a long defense Mary consented on condition that she
be called the "up-stairs maid." But she only lasted three days. Mary
could have drawn five dollars a week and Mrs. Singer's clothes, which
would have fitted her. But Mary couldn't take orders--not that kind. She
came back to take orders from us for a patent glass washtub or something
of the kind--and we sighed wearily.
V
HOMEBURG'S LEISURE CLASS
_It is not as large as New York's but it is twice as ingenious_
Confound it, Jim, I wish you hadn't told me that your friend Williston
never worked a day in his life! You don't know how it disappointed me.
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