_ From the first of December the floor of the Haynes-Cooper
mail room looked like the New York Stock Exchange, after a
panic. The aisles were drifts of paper against which a
squad of boys struggled as vainly as a gang of snow-
shovelers against a blizzard. The guide talked in terms of
tons of mail, instead of thousands. And smacked his lips
after it. The Ten Thousand were working at night now,
stopping for a hasty bite of supper at six, then back to
desk, or bin or shelf until nine, so that Oklahoma and
Minnesota might have its Christmas box in time.
Fanny Brandeis, working under the light of her green-shaded
desk lamp, wondered, a little bitterly, if Christmas would
ever mean anything to her but pressure, weariness, work.
She told herself that she would not think of that Christmas
of one year ago. One year! As she glanced around the
orderly little office, and out to the stock room beyond,
then back to her desk again, she had an odd little feeling
of unreality. Surely it had been not one year, but many
years--a lifetime--since she had elbowed her way up and down
those packed aisles of the busy little store in Winnebago--
she and that brisk, alert, courageous woman.
"Mrs. Brandeis, lady wants to know if you can't put this
blue satin dress on the dark-haired doll, and the pink
satin. . . . Well, I did tell her, but she said for me to
ask you, anyway."
"Mis' Brandeis, this man says he paid a dollar down on a go-
cart last month and he wants to pay the rest and take it
home with him."
And then the reassuring, authoritative voice, "Coming! I'll
be right there."
"Coming!" That had been her whole life. Service. And now
she lay so quietly beneath the snow of the bitter northern
winter.
At that point Fanny's fist would come down hard on her desk,
and the quick, indrawn breath of mutinous resentment would
hiss through her teeth.
She kept away from the downtown shops and their crowds. She
scowled at sight of the holly and mistletoe wreaths, with
their crimson streamers. There was something almost
ludicrous in the way she shut her eyes to the holiday
pageant all around her, and doubled and redoubled her work.
It seemed that she had a new scheme for her department every
other day, and every other one was a good one.
Slosson had long ago abandoned the attempt to keep up with
her. He did not even resent her, as he had at first. "I'm
a buyer," he said, rather pathetically, "and a pret-ty good
one, too. But I'm not a genius, and I never will be. And I
guess you've got to be a genius, these days, to keep up. It
used to be enough for an infants' wear buyer to know
muslins, cottons, woolens, silks, and embroideries. But
that's old-fashioned now. These days, when you hire an
office boy you don't ask him if he can read and write. You
tell him he's got to have personality, magnetism, and
imagination. Makes me sick!"
The Baby Book came off the presses and it was good. Even
Slosson admitted it, grudgingly. The cover was a sunny,
breezy seashore picture, all blue and gold, with plump,
dimpled youngsters playing, digging in the sand, romping
(and wearing our No. 13E1269, etc., of course). Inside were
displayed the complete baby outfits, with a smiling mother,
and a chubby, crowing baby as a central picture, and each
piece of each outfit separately pictured. Just below this,
the outfit number and price, and a list of the pieces
that went to make it up. From the emergency outfit at $3.98
to the outfit de luxe (for Haynes-Cooper patrons) at $28.50,
each group was comprehensive, practical, complete. In the
back of the book was a personal service plea. "Use us," it
said. "We are here to assist you, not only in the matter of
merchandise, but with information and advice. Mothers in
particular are in need of such service. This book will save
you weariness and worry. Use us."
Fanny surveyed the book with pardonable pride. But she was
not satisfied. "We lack style," she said. "The practical
garments are all right. But what we need is a little snap.
That means cut and line. And I'm going to New York to get
it." That had always been Slosson's work.
She and Ella Monahan were to go to the eastern markets
together. Ella Monahan went to New York regularly every
three weeks. Fanny had never been east of Chicago. She
envied Ella her knowledge of the New York wholesalers and
manufacturers. Ella had dropped into Fanny's office for a
brief moment. The two women had little in common, except
their work, but they got on very well, and each found the
other educating.
"Seems to me you're putting an awful lot into this,"
observed Ella Monahan, her wise eyes on Fanny's rather tense
face.
"You've got to," replied Fanny, "to get anything out of it."
"I guess you're right," Ella agreed, and laughed a rueful
little laugh. "I know I've given 'em everything I've got--
and a few things I didn't know I had. It's a queer game--
life. Now if my old father hadn't run a tannery in Racine,
and if I hadn't run around there all the day, so that I got
so the smell and feel of leather and hides were part of me,
why, I'd never be buyer of gloves at Haynes-Cooper.
And you----"
"Brandeis' Bazaar." And was going on, when her office boy
came in with a name. Ella rose to go, but Fanny stopped
her. "Father Fitzpatrick! Bring him right in! Miss
Monahan, you've got to meet him. He's"--then, as the great
frame of the handsome old priest filled the doorway--"he's
just Father Fitzpatrick. Ella Monahan."
The white-haired Irishman, and the white-haired Irish woman
clasped hands.
"And who are you, daughter, besides being Ella Monahan?"
"Buyer of gloves at Haynes-Cooper, Father."
"You don't tell me, now!" He turned to Fanny, put his two
big hands on her shoulders, and swung her around to face the
light. "Hm," he murmured, noncommittally, after that.
"Hm--what?" demanded Fanny. "It sounds unflattering,
whatever it means."
"Gloves!" repeated Father Fitzpatrick, unheeding her.
"Well, now, what d'you think of that! Millions of dollars'
worth, I'll wager, in your time."
"Two million and a half in my department last year," replied
Ella, without the least trace of boastfulness. One talked
only in terms of millions at Haynes-Cooper's.
"What an age it is! When two slips of women can earn
salaries that would make the old kings of Ireland look like
beggars." He twinkled upon the older woman. "And what a
feeling it must be--independence, and all."
"I've earned my own living since I was seventeen," said Ella
Monahan. "I'd hate to tell you how long that is." A murmur
from the gallant Irishman. "Thanks, Father, for the
compliment I see in your eyes. But what I mean is this:
You're right about independence. It is a grand thing. At
first. But after a while it begins to pall on you. Don't
ask me why. I don't know. I only hope you won't think I'm a
wicked woman when I say I could learn to love any man who'd hang a
silver fox scarf and a string of pearls around my neck, and ask me
if I didn't feel a draft."
"Wicked! Not a bit of it, my girl. It's only natural, and
commendable--barrin' the pearls."
"I'd forego them," laughed Ella, and with a parting
handshake left the two alone.
Father Fitzpatrick looked after her. "A smart woman, that."
He took out his watch, a fat silver one. "It's eleven-
thirty. My train leaves at four. Now, Fanny, if you'll get
on your hat, and arrange to steal an hour or so from this
Brobdingnagian place a grand word that, my girl, and nearer
to swearing than any word I know--I'll take you to the
Blackstone, no less, for lunch. How's that for a poor
miserable old priest!"
"You dear, I couldn't think of it. Oh, yes, I could get
away, but let's lunch right here at the plant, in the
grill----"
"Never! I couldn't. Don't ask it of me. This place scares
me. I came up in the elevator with a crowd and a guide, and
he was juggling millions, that chap, the way a newsboy flips
a cent. I'm but a poor parish priest, but I've got my
pride. We'll go to the Blackstone, which I've passed,
humbly, but never been in, with its rose silk shades and its
window boxes. And we'll be waited on by velvet-footed
servitors, me girl. Get your hat."
Fanny, protesting, but laughing, too, got it. They took the
L. Michigan avenue, as they approached it from Wabash, was
wind-swept and bleak as only Michigan avenue can be in
December. They entered the warm radiance of the luxurious
foyer with a little breathless rush, as wind-blown
Chicagoans generally do. The head waiter must have thought
Father Fitzpatrick a cardinal, at least, for he seated them
at a window table that looked out upon the icy street,
with Grant Park, crusted with sooty snow, just across the
way, and beyond that the I. C. tracks and the great gray
lake. The splendid room was all color, and perfume, and
humming conversation. A fountain tinkled in the center, and
upon its waters there floated lily pads and blossoms,
weirdly rose, and mauve, and lavender. The tables were
occupied by deliciously slim young girls and very self-
conscious college boys, home for the holidays, and marcelled
matrons, furred and aigretted. The pink in Fanny's cheeks
deepened. She loved luxury. She smiled and flashed at the
handsome old priest opposite her.
"You're a wastrel," she said, "but isn't it nice!" And
tasted the first delicious sip of soup.
"It is. For a change. Extravagance is good for all of us,
now and then." He glanced leisurely about the brilliant
room, then out to the street, bleakly windswept. He leaned
back and drummed a bit with his fingers on the satin-smooth
cloth. "Now and then. Tell me, Fanny, what would you say,
off-hand, was the most interesting thing you see from here?
You used to have a trick of picking out what they call the
human side. Your mother had it, too."
Fanny, smiling, glanced about the room, her eyes
unconsciously following the track his had taken. About the
room, and out, to the icy street. "The most interesting
thing?" Back to the flower-scented room, with its music,
and tinkle, and animation. Out again, to the street. "You
see that man, standing at the curb, across the street. He's
sort of crouched against the lamp post. See him? Yes,
there, just this side of that big gray car? He's all drawn
up in a heap. You can feel him shivering. He looks as if
he were trying to crawl inside himself for warmth. Ever
since we came in I've noticed him staring straight across at
these windows where we're all sitting so grandly, lunching.
I know what he's thinking, don't you? And I wish I
didn't feel so uncomfortable, knowing it. I wish we hadn't
ordered lobster thermidor. I wish--there! the policeman's
moving him on."
Father Fitzpatrick reached over and took her hand, as it lay
on the table, in his great grasp. "Fanny, girl, you've told
me what I wanted to know. Haynes-Cooper or no Haynes-
Cooper, millions or no millions, your ravines aren't choked
up with ashes yet, my dear. Thank God." _