It was evident that peace did not sit enthroned in Georgia's soul. Her movements were not calm and self-contained as one by one she removed the paper bags from her typewriter. "So
silly!"--she sputtered to herself. What were the men in this office, anyway? College freshmen? Hanging paper bags all over her things every time she stepped out of the office--and just because one of her friends happened to be in the paper bag business! She'd like to know--as she pounded out her opening sentence with vindictiveness--if it wasn't just as good a business as newspaper reporting?
It was not a good day for teasing Georgia. She did not like the story she had been working on that morning. "Go out to the university," the city editor had said, "and get a good first-day-of-school story. Make the feature of it the reorganisation of Dr. Hubers' department, and use some human interest stuff about his old laboratory--the more of that the better."
She hated it! Were they never going to let Karl alone? Was it decent to put his own cousin on the story? Georgia's chin quivered as she wrote that part about Karl's laboratory. "If my own mother were killed in the street," she told herself, trying to blink back the tears, "I suppose they'd make
me handle it because I know more about her than any one else in the office!"
Resentment grew with the turning of each sentence. They knew that Karl was her cousin, and almost as close to her as her own brother. She was sure they had seen the tear stains on some of that maudlin copy she had handed in about him. When she turned in her story she was unable to contain herself longer.
"Mr. Lewis," she said, voice quivering, "here is another one of those outrageous stories about my cousin, Dr. Hubers. When you ask me to write the next one, you may consider it an invitation for my resignation." And then, cheeks very red, she went back to her desk and began getting up some stuff for her column "Just Dogs," which they had been running on the editorial page.
When the city editor was passing her desk about half an hour later he stopped and asked, very respectfully and meekly--Georgia was far too good to lose: "Miss McCormick, will you see Dr. Parkman some time before to-morrow, and ask him about this hospital story? You know, Miss McCormick, you're the only reporter in town he'll see."
"Very well," said Georgia, with dignity.
All summer long the papers had been printing stories about Karl. It made her loathe newspaper work every time she thought about it. To think of their hacking at him like that--and he so quiet and dignified and brave! A picture printed the Sunday before, of Karl fumbling his way around, had made her more furious than she had ever been in all her life.
She turned just in time to see a grinning reporter writing on the bulletin board: "Miss G. McCormick--Human interest story about the inner life of a paper bag."
Sometimes it might have brought a smile, usually it would have fired her to the desired rage, but to-day it contributed to her tearfulness. "Oh they needn't worry," she murmured, bending her head over a drawer, and tossing things about furiously, "there's no getting married for me! This office has settled that!"
The city editor seemed to take special delight in sending her out on every story which would "give married life a black eye." When the father left the little children destitute, when the mother ran away with the other man, or the jealous wife shot the other woman, Georgia was always right on the spot because they said she was so clever at that sort of thing. "Oh it makes one just
crazy to get married," she had said, witheringly, to Joe one night.
Why did he want to marry her, anyway? When she
told him she didn't want to--wasn't that enough? Was it respectful to treat her refusal as though it were a subtle kind of joke? Various nice boys had wanted at various times to marry her, and she had always explained to them that it was impossible, and sent them, more or less cheerfully, on their various ways. But this man who made paper bags, this jolly, good-natured, seemingly easy-going fellow, who held that the most important thing in the world was for her, Georgia, to have a good time, only seemed much amused at the idea of her not having time to marry him, and when she told him, with just as much conviction as she had ever told any of the others, that he had better begin looking around for some one else, he would reply, "All right--sure," and would straightway ask where she wished to go for dinner that night or whether she preferred an automobile ride to a spin in his new motor boat. Now what was one to do with a man like that? A man who laughed at refusals and mellowed with each passing snub!
"Telephone, Miss McCormick,"--the boy sang out from the booth. The opening "Hello" was very short, but the voice changed oddly on the "Oh, Ernestine." Her whole face softened. It was another Georgia now. "Why certainly--I'll get them for you; you know I love to do things for you down town, but my dear--what in the world do you want with flower seeds this time of year?"--"Oh--I see; planted in the fall--but the flowers that bloom in the spring--tra la."
They chatted for a little while and after Georgia had hung up the receiver she sat there looking straight into the phone--her face as dreamy as Georgia's freckled face well could be. "By Jinks,"--she was saying to herself--"it
can be like that!" It was a most opportune time for the paper bag man to telephone. He wondered why her voice was so soft, and why there was not the usual plea about being too busy when he asked her to meet him at the little Japanese place for a cup of tea. "And it's positively heroic of Joe to drink that tea," she smiled to herself, as she wrestled with her shirt waist sleeves and her jacket.
But out on the street she grew stern with herself. "Now don't go and do any fool thing," she admonished. "Don't jump at conclusions. You aren't Ernestine, and he isn't Karl. He's Joseph Tank--of all abominable names! And he makes paper bags--of all ridiculous things! Tank's Paper Bags!" she guessed
not! Suppose in some rash moment she did marry him. People would say: "What business is your husband in?" And she would choke down her rage and reply--"Why--why he makes paper bags!"
He was sitting there waiting for her, smiling. He was awfully good about waiting for her, and about smiling. It was nice to sit down in this cool, restful place and be looked after. He had a book which she had spoken about the week before, and he had a little pin, a dear little thing with a dog's head on it which he had seen in a window and thought should belong to her. And he was on track of the finest collie in the United States. After all, he thought it would be better for her to have a collie than a bulldog. She was losing ground! She was being very nice to him, and she had firmly intended telling him once for all that she could never marry a man whose name was Tank, and who contributed to the atrocities of fate by making paper bags. And then she had a beautiful thought. Perhaps he would be willing to go away somewhere and live it down. He might go to Boston and go into the book publishing business. Surely publishing books in Boston would go a long way toward removing the stigma of having made paper bags in Chicago. And meanwhile, sighing contentedly, and fastening on her new pin, as long as she was here she might as well forget about things and enjoy herself.