The Homely Heroine
Millie Whitcomb, of the fancy goods and notions, beckoned me withher finger. I had been standing at Kate O'Malley's counter,pretending to admire her new basket-weave suitings, but in realityreveling in her droll account of how, in the train coming up fromChicago, Mrs. Judge Porterfield had worn the negro porter's coatover her chilly shoulders in mistake for her husband's. KateO'Malley can tell a funny story in a way to make the after-dinnerpleasantries of a Washington diplomat sound like the clumsy jeststold around the village grocery stove."I wanted to tell you that I read that last story of yours,"said Millie, sociably, when I had strolled over to her counter,"and I liked it, all but the heroine. She had an `adorable throat'and hair that `waved away from her white brow,' and eyes that `nowwere blue and now gray.' Say, why don't you write a story about anugly girl?""My land!" protested I. "It's bad enough trying to make themaccept my stories as it is. That last heroine was a raving beauty,but she came back eleven times before the editor of Blakely'ssuccumbed to her charms."Millie's fingers were busy straightening the contents of atray of combs and imitation jet barrettes. Millie's fingers werenot intended for that task. They are slender, tapering fingers,pink-tipped and sensitive."I should think," mused she, rubbing a cloudy piece of jetwith a bit of soft cloth, "that they'd welcome a homely one withrelief. These goddesses are so cloying."Millie Whitcomb's black hair is touched with soft mists ofgray, and she wears lavender shirtwaists and white stocks edgedwith lavender. There is a Colonial air about her that has nothingto do with celluloid combs and imitation jet barrettes. Itbreathes of dim old rooms, rich with the tones of mahogany and oldbrass, and Millie in the midst of it, gray-gowned, a soft whitefichu crossed upon her breast.In our town the clerks are not the pert and gum-chewing youngpersons that story-writers are wont to describe. The girls atBascom's are institutions. They know us all by our first names,and our lives are as an open book to them. Kate O'Malley, who hasbeen at Bascom's for so many years that she is rumored to havestock in the company, may be said to govern the fashions of ourtown. She is wont to say, when we express a fancy for gray as thecolor of our new spring suit:"Oh, now, Nellie, don't get gray again. You had it yearbefore last, and don't you think it was just the least leetle bittrying? Let me show you that green that came in yesterday. I saidthe minute I clapped my eyes on it that it was just the color foryou, with your brown hair and all."And we end by deciding on the green.The girls at Bascom's are not gossips--they are too busy forthat--but they may be said to be delightfully well informed. Howcould they be otherwise when we go to Bascom's for our weddingdresses and party favors and baby flannels? There is news atBascom's that our daily paper never hears of, and wouldn't dareprint if it did.So when Millie Whitcomb, of the fancy goods and notions,expressed her hunger for a homely heroine, I did not resent thesuggestion. On the contrary, it sent me home in thoughtful mood,for Millie Whitcomb has acquired a knowledge of human nature in thedispensing of her fancy goods and notions. It set me casting aboutfor a really homely heroine.There never has been a really ugly heroine in fiction.Authors have started bravely out to write of an unlovely woman, butthey never have had the courage to allow her to remain plain. OnPage 237 she puts on a black lace dress and red roses, and thecombination brings out unexpected tawny lights in her hair, andolive tints in her cheeks, and there she is, the same old beautifulheroine. Even in the "Duchess" books one finds the simple Irishgirl, on donning a green corduroy gown cut square at the neck,transformed into a wild-rose beauty, at sight of whom a ball-roomis hushed into admiring awe. There's the case of jane Eyre, too.She is constantly described as plain and mouse-like, but there arecovert hints as to her gray eyes and slender figure and clear skin,and we have a sneaking notion that she wasn't such a fright afterall.Therefore, when I tell you that I am choosing Pearlie Schultzas my leading lady you are to understand that she is ugly, not onlywhen the story opens, but to the bitter end. In the first place,Pearlie is fat. Not, plump, or rounded, or dimpled, or deliciouslycurved, but FAT. She bulges in all the wrong places, including herchin. (Sister, who has a way of snooping over my desk in myabsence, says that I may as well drop this now, because nobodywould ever read it, anyway, least of all any sane editor. Iprotest when I discover that Sis has been over my papers. Itbothers me. But she says you have to do these things when you havea genius in the house, and cites the case of Kipling's"Recessional," which was rescued from the depths of his wastebasketby his wife.)Pearlie Schultz used to sit on the front porch summer eveningsand watch the couples stroll by, and weep in her heart. A fat girlwith a fat girl's soul is a comedy. But a fat girl with a thingirl's soul is a tragedy. Pearlie, in spite of her two hundredpounds, had the soul of a willow wand.The walk in front of Pearlie's house was guarded by a row ofbig trees that cast kindly shadows. The strolling couples used tostep gratefully into the embrace of these shadows, and from theminto other embraces. Pearlie, sitting on the porch, could see themdimly, although they could not see her. She could not helpremarking that these strolling couples were strangely lacking insprightly conversation. Their remarks were but fragmentary,disjointed affairs, spoken in low tones with a queer, tremulousnote in them. When they reached the deepest, blackest, kindliestshadow, which fell just before the end of the row of trees, thestrolling couples almost always stopped, and then there came aquick movement, and a little smothered cry from the girl, and thena sound, and then a silence. Pearlie, sitting alone on the porchin the dark, listened to these things and blushed furiously.Pearlie had never strolled into the kindly shadows with a littlebeating of the heart, and she had never been surprised with a quickarm about her and eager lips pressed warmly against her own.In the daytime Pearlie worked as public stenographer at theBurke Hotel. She rose at seven in the morning, and rolled forfifteen minutes, and lay on her back and elevated her heels in theair, and stood stiff-kneed while she touched the floor with herfinger tips one hundred times, and went without her breakfast. Atthe end of each month she usually found that she weighed threepounds more than she had the month before.The folks at home never joked with Pearlie about her weight.Even one's family has some respect for a life sorrow. WheneverPearlie asked that inevitable question of the fat woman: "Am I asfat as she is?" her mother always answered: "You! Well, I shouldhope not! You're looking real peaked lately, Pearlie. And yourblue skirt just ripples in the back, it's getting so big for you."Of such blessed stuff are mothers made.But if the gods had denied Pearlie all charms of face or form,they had been decent enough to bestow on her one gift. Pearliecould cook like an angel; no, better than an angel, for no angelcould be a really clever cook and wear those flowing kimono-likesleeves. They'd get into the soup. Pearlie could take a piece ofrump and some suet and an onion and a cup or so of water, andevolve a pot roast that you could cut with a fork. She could turnout a surprisingly good cake with surprisingly few eggs, allcovered with white icing, and bearing cunning little jelly figureson its snowy bosom. She could beat up biscuits that fell apart atthe lightest pressure, revealing little pools of golden butterwithin. Oh, Pearlie could cook!On week days Pearlie rattled the typewriter keys, but onSundays she shooed her mother out of the kitchen. Her mother went,protesting faintly:"Now, Pearlie, don't fuss so for dinner. You ought to getyour rest on Sunday instead of stewing over a hot stove allmorning.""Hot fiddlesticks, ma," Pearlie would say, cheerily. "Itain't hot, because it's a gas stove. And I'll only get fat if Isit around. You put on your black-and-white and go to church.Call me when you've got as far as your corsets, and I'll puff yourhair for you in the back."In her capacity of public stenographer at the Burke Hotel, itwas Pearlie's duty to take letters dictated by traveling men andbeginning: "Yours of the 10th at hand. In reply would say. . . ."or: "Enclosed please find, etc." As clinching proof of herplainness it may be stated that none of the traveling men, not evenMax Baum, who was so fresh that the girl at the cigar counteractually had to squelch him, ever called Pearlie "baby doll," ortried to make a date with her. Not that Pearlie would ever haveallowed them to. But she never had had to reprove them. Duringpauses in dictation she had a way of peering near-sightedly, overher glasses at the dapper, well-dressed traveling salesman who wasrolling off the items on his sale bill. That is a trick whichwould make the prettiest kind of a girl look owlish.On the night that Sam Miller strolled up to talk to her,Pearlie was working late. She had promised to get out a long andintricate bill for Max Baum, who travels for Kuhn and Klingman, sothat he might take the nine o'clock evening train. Theirrepressible Max had departed with much eclat and clatter, andPearlie was preparing to go home when Sam approached her.Sam had just come in from the Gayety Theater across thestreet, whither he had gone in a vain search for amusement aftersupper. He had come away in disgust. A soiled soubrette withorange-colored hair and baby socks had swept her practiced eye overthe audience, and, attracted by Sam's good-looking blond head inthe second row, had selected him as the target of her song. Shehad run up to the extreme edge of the footlights at the risk ofteetering over, and had informed Sam through the medium of song--tothe huge delight of the audience, and to Sam's red-faceddiscomfiture--that she liked his smile, and he was just her style,and just as cute as he could be, and just the boy for her. Onreaching the chorus she had whipped out a small, round mirror and,assisted by the calcium-light man in the rear, had thrown awretched little spotlight on Sam's head.Ordinarily, Sam would not have minded it. But that evening,in the vest pocket just over the place where he supposed his heartto be reposed his girl's daily letter. They were to be married onSam's return to New York from his first long trip. In the letternear his heart she had written prettily and seriously abouttraveling men, and traveling men's wives, and her little code forboth. The fragrant, girlish, grave little letter had caused Sam tosour on the efforts of the soiled soubrette.As soon as possible he had fled up the aisle and across thestreet to the hotel writing-room. There he had spied Pearlie'sgood-humored, homely face, and its contrast with the silly, redand-white countenance of the unlaundered soubrette had attractedhis homesick heart.Pearlie had taken some letters from him earlier in the day.Now, in his hunger for companionship, he, strolled up to her desk,just as she was putting her typewriter to bed."Gee I This is a lonesome town!" said Sam, smiling down ather.Pearlie glanced up at him, over her glasses. "I guess youmust be from New York," she said. "I've heard a real New Yorkercan get bored in Paris. In New York the sky is bluer, and thegrass is greener, and the girls are prettier, and the steaks arethicker, and the buildings are higher, and the streets are wider,and the air is finer, than the sky, or the grass, or the girls, orthe steaks, or the air of any place else in the world. Ain'tthey?""Oh, now," protested Sam, "quit kiddin' me! You'd be lonesomefor the little old town, too, if you'd been born and dragged up init, and hadn't seen it for four months.""New to the road, aren't you?" asked Pearlie.Sam blushed a little. "How did you know?""Well, you generally can tell. They don't know what to dowith themselves evenings, and they look rebellious when they gointo the dining-room. The old-timers just look resigned.""You've picked up a thing or two around here, haven't you? Iwonder if the time will ever come when I'll look resigned to ahotel dinner, after four months of 'em. Why, girl, I've got so Ijust eat the things that are covered up--like baked potatoes in theshell, and soft boiled eggs, and baked apples, and oranges that Ican peel, and nuts.""Why, you poor kid," breathed Pearlie, her pale eyes fixed onhim in motherly pity. "You oughtn't to do that. You'll get sothin your girl won't know you."Sam looked up quickly. "How in thunderation did youknow----?"Pearlie was pinning on her hat, and she spoke succinctly, herhatpins between her teeth: "You've been here two days now, and Inotice you dictate all your letters except the longest one, and youwrite that one off in a corner of the writing-room all by yourself,with your cigar just glowing like a live coal, and you squint upthrough the smoke, and grin to yourself.""Say, would you mind if I walked home with you?" asked Sam.If Pearlie was surprised, she was woman enough not to showit. She picked up her gloves and hand bag, locked her drawer witha click, and smiled her acquiescence. And when Pearlie smiled shewas awful.It was a glorious evening in the early summer, moonless,velvety, and warm. As they strolled homeward, Sam told her allabout the Girl, as is the way of traveling men the world over. Hetold her about the tiny apartment they had taken, and how he wouldbe on the road only a couple of years more, as this was just atry-out that the firm always insisted on. And they stopped underan arc light while Sam showed her the picture in his watch, as isalso the way of traveling men since time immemorial.Pearlie made an excellent listener. He was so boyish, and somuch in love, and so pathetically eager to make good with the firm,and so happy to have some one in whom to confide."But it's a dog's life, after all," reflected Sam, again afterthe fashion of all traveling men. "Any fellow on the road earnshis salary these days, you bet. I used to think it was all gettingup when you felt like it, and sitting in the big front window ofthe hotel, smoking a cigar and watching the pretty girls go by. Iwasn't wise to the packing, and the unpacking, and the rotten trainservice, and the grouchy customers, and the canceled bills, and thegrub."Pearlie nodded understandingly. "A man told me once thattwice a week regularly he dreamed of the way his wife cookednoodle-soup.""My folks are German," explained Sam. "And my mother--can shecook! Well, I just don't seem able to get her potato pancakes outof my mind. And her roast beef tasted and looked like roast beef,and not like a wet red flannel rag."At this moment Pearlie was seized with a brilliant idea."To-morrow's Sunday. You're going to Sunday here, aren't you?Come over and eat your dinner with us. If you have forgotten thetaste of real food, I can give you a dinner that'll jog yourmemory.""Oh, really," protested Sam. "You're awfully good, but Icouldn't think of it. I----""You needn't be afraid. I'm not letting you in for anything.I may be homelier than an English suffragette, and I know my linesare all bumps, but there's one thing you can't take away from me,and that's my cooking hand. I can cook, boy, in a way to make yourmother's Sunday dinner, with company expected, look like Mrs.Newlywed's first attempt at `riz' biscuits. And I don't mean anydisrespect to your mother when I say it. I'm going to havenoodle-soup, and fried chicken, and hot biscuits, and creamed beansfrom our own garden, and strawberry shortcake with real----""Hush!" shouted Sam. "If I ain't there, you'll know that Ipassed away during the night, and you can telephone the clerk tobreak in my door."The Grim Reaper spared him, and Sam came, and was introducedto the family, and ate. He put himself in a class with Dr.Johnson, and Ben Brust, and Gargantua, only that his table mannerswere better. He almost forgot to talk during the soup, and he cameback three times for chicken, and by the time the strawberryshortcake was half consumed he was looking at Pearlie with a sortof awe in his eyes.That night he came over to say good-bye before taking histrain out for Ishpeming. He and Pearlie strolled down as far asthe park and back again."I didn't eat any supper," said Sam. "It would have beensacrilege, after that dinner of yours. Honestly, I don't know howto thank you, being so good to a stranger like me. When I comeback next trip, I expect to have the Kid with me, and I want her tomeet you, by George! She's a winner and a pippin, but she wouldn'tknow whether a porterhouse was stewed or frapped. I'll tell herabout you, you bet. In the meantime, if there's anything I can dofor you, I'm yours to command."Pearlie turned to him suddenly. "You see that clump of thickshadows ahead of us, where those big trees stand in front of ourhouse?""Sure," replied Sam."Well, when we step into that deepest, blackest shadow, rightin front of our porch, I want you to reach up, and put your armaround me and kiss me on the mouth, just once. And when you getback to New York you can tell your girl I asked you to."There broke from him a little involuntary exclamation. Itmight have been of pity, and it might have been of surprise. Ithad in it something of both, but nothing of mirth. And as theystepped into the depths of the soft black shadows he took off hissmart straw sailor, which was so different from the sailors thatthe boys in our town wear. And there was in the gesture somethingof reverence.Millie Whitcomb didn't like the story of the homely heroine,after all. She says that a steady diet of such literary fare wouldgive her blue indigestion. Also she objects on the ground that noone got married--that is, the heroine didn't. And she says that aheroine who does not get married isn't a heroine at all. Shethinks she prefers the pink-cheeked, goddess kind, in the end.
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
