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 BY 
 RALPH KENT BUCKLAND 
 
 << 
 
 Author of In the Land of the Fili- 
 pino," and Philippine Journeys " 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 
i 
 
 
 Copyright, 1914 
 Shebman, French &• Company 
 
TO 
 DOROTHY ELIZABETH PERRIN 
 
 WHO, THROUGH THE GLOOM OF A NORTHERN WINTER 
 
 AND THE DREARINESS OF A RAIN-DRENCHED SPRING, 
 
 TRACED WITH FREQUENT LETTERS 
 
 THE FLOWER -BEDECKED LAND, CALIFORNIA, 
 
 WITH ITS MOUNTAINS AND ITS SEA, 
 
 THIS BOOK OF "WORRY" 
 
 IS MODESTLY INSCRIBED. 
 
 320290 
 
IN WAY OF PREFACE 
 
 " Worry/' once upon a time, 
 
 So quaint legends run, 
 Killed a great big Thomas cat — 
 Killed him dead ! Clean through at that ! 
 So he was not worth a rat! 
 
 Shot as with a gun! 
 
 Putrid in the sun! 
 
 'Tis a story sad to tell, 
 
 How the germ got in. 
 First a back yard fenc-ing party; 
 Then a rival, fat and hearty. 
 Envy, unrest — meanness — partly, 
 
 Soaked him full of sin, 
 
 Letting " worry " in. 
 
 " Worry " since that far-off time 
 
 Many scores has claimed; 
 Bored each like a gimlet small; 
 Cracked and seamed each cranium wall; 
 Forced upon each death's dread call. 
 
 All for what they aimed 
 
 " Worry " all retained. 
 
 " Worry " then with hand of iron 
 
 Must be held in tight, 
 Lest Life's sorrows troubles brew; 
 Lest Life's burdens dungeons hew; 
 Lest Life's pathway ruins strew; 
 
 And the struggler's might 
 
 End in darkest night. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Introducing a Querulous Matron 1 
 
 II When a Girl Graduates . . .IS 
 
 III Bleakdale Economics .... 26 
 
 IV Down the Car Line .... 39 
 
 V Dressmaking: Preparations . . .51 
 
 VI Dressmaking: Actualities ... 59 
 
 VII A Walk and a Talk .... 72 
 
 VIII Making a Party Suit the Season . 77 
 
TPSl@'ft1Rl2" 
 
CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCING A QUERULOUS MATRON 
 
 Mrs. Simkins lolled back in her rocking-chair 
 before the stove, rubbing her eyes wearily as, 
 with her feet on an old-fashioned hassock, she 
 strained with all the weight of her ponderous, 
 unwieldy bulk the sustaining power of the rear 
 curves of the rockers. 
 
 Rockers, well she knew, were designed primar- 
 ily, to ease the troubled mind, to soothe with 
 assuaging rhythm the torn and wretched nerves 
 of the tired housewife, or to help the man of 
 the house through an evening of restful motion 
 after a more than usually strenuous battle with 
 world cares. Rockers, she realized full well, 
 were intended solely to offer to a more or less 
 miserable state a mild and, if properly manip- 
 ulated, an inexpensive nerve tonic in form of a 
 diverting sameness of movement such as that 
 with which the fond mother allays the restless- 
 ness of her babe — back and forth, back and 
 forth. They never were fashioned to serve as 
 points upon which one might balance with de- 
 licious though precarious indecision while sub- 
 mitting to the process of cerebral digestion a 
 
-.•:>\ : >:V *;; J ^ WORRY" 
 
 thought or a plan causing in itself not a little 
 infelicity of mind in the slow process of its being 
 paraded before an already tantalized and much 
 harassed intellect. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins knew all this, yet she sat poised 
 regardless, cogitating, very much absorbed, 
 deep in the mental gymnastics which have taken 
 unto themselves among Americans as a class the 
 name " worry." With the backward swing of 
 the chair she paused, perilously poised, her 
 weight on the tips of the rockers, her balance 
 maintained by the hassock upon which her gen- 
 erous sized feet rested. She stopped a moment 
 in her even back and forth, hesitating as though 
 the better to assimilate a hazy or but half- 
 grasped portion of what was on her mind. 
 
 Sufficient evidence there lay down in the front 
 cellar under the parlor (for though the house 
 was small, its cellar was walled off into rooms) 
 of the risks to be chanced in attempting thus to 
 interrupt the steady swing of a chair, in trying 
 thus to pervert the long well-understood func- 
 tions of the rocker; there in that front cellar, 
 a crippled article of ease, lay John's favorite 
 chair, a relic of their first days of housekeeping, 
 one of the long curved rockers broken squarely 
 off close to the frame. There doubtless it would 
 lie for some time to come ere it could be restored 
 to its erstwhile usefulness and beauty. Certain 
 monetary annoyances obsessed the family, the 
 
" WORRY " 3 
 
 repairing of broken pieces of furniture could 
 not be planned for even for a moment. 
 
 Reasons there were for even stricter economy 
 than ordinarily: a distressing accident had ac- 
 companied the collapse of the chair. Its con- 
 sequent state of lameness (for it had lost, if not 
 a leg, at least a rocker) had in the bringing 
 about thereof been the cause of consequences 
 that had been a source of deep-seated and per- 
 sistent " worry " to Mrs. Simkins, gifted as she 
 was in that line, for John, to whom Mrs. Sim- 
 kins was indebted for the surname she, with 
 such conscious pride, bore aloft far above the 
 perplexities of a sordid world, had, in his fall 
 from the height to which he had attained at the 
 tip end of the rockers, been precipitated in the 
 general collapse backward as well as downward, 
 and in such a doubled-up manner that his right 
 arm had been fractured between the elbow and 
 the wrist : " the radius," said the doctor. 
 
 John had not only been considerably shaken 
 up and broken up in this sudden and quite un- 
 anticipated descent from balanced dreaminess; 
 his mental equilibrium as well had been wrenched 
 quite a twist out of plumb. He was and had 
 been since the " catastrophe," as he persisted 
 in dignifying his hasty and unlocked for drop 
 to carpet levels, very much troubled in mind as 
 well as in body. In a word, he too was. worried. 
 
 Other accidents and unlucky incidents had, 
 
4 " WORRY " 
 
 from time to time during the married life of 
 the Simkins, been brought to them (or thrust 
 upon them rather) for them to bear. Anxie- 
 ties, however, had not been with this pair some- 
 thing coming to them solely and inseparably 
 through the marital state. Each could still re- 
 member certain unpleasantries, worry breeders, 
 appertaining to that now distant period well 
 along in the half-forgotten past, some twenty- 
 five years ago, when each was breasting as best 
 each could the trials and wrinkle-developing 
 episodes forming, of the torture of existence in 
 this human shape, a very large share — at any 
 rate, so thought the Simkins. 
 
 Despite Mrs. Simkins' proclivities for bor- 
 rowing trouble, for urging herself across all 
 sorts and lengths of bridges before any of them 
 came well within the scope of her eager, always- 
 reaching-out imagination, she had always main- 
 tained a very generous avoirdupois from the 
 day she and John decided to worry along to- 
 gether till the very day and hour she taxed in 
 a moment of abstraction the ability of mere 
 wood to sustain her. She had, in fact and in 
 consistency, always felt more or less concerned 
 about her weight for fear it might be significant 
 of a tendency toward a dropsical disorder. But 
 as yet nothing save fat had developed, and she 
 was what one might with unblinking veracity 
 call well. 
 
" WORRY * 5 
 
 Her unevenness of mind, it is true, her search- 
 ing after petty anxieties, in the long-drawn-out 
 introspection and self-analysis to which she 
 daily brought her brain in torture, had made 
 her face so thin and wan that it scarcely seemed 
 to belong at all to her corpulent body ; her face 
 revealed her daily perturbation. 
 
 And John ! Mr. Simkins ! He worried too ; 
 but mayhap — early leanings in that direction 
 to the contrary — it was largely a matter of 
 falling in with his spouse. 
 
 Just at this time there was, perhaps, legiti- 
 mate cause in the Simkins family to give free 
 rein to the insignificant little imp that " ravels 
 the sleeve " ; for with John's broken arm and 
 the double trial of doctor's bills to pay coupled 
 with the inability to go to do any work at the 
 factory, besides the tiresome details of the day- 
 by-day struggle always and forever with Mrs. 
 Simkins, a load more weighty than her burden 
 of flesh seemed weighing her down. 
 
 She rubbed her eyes again as though to mas- 
 sage and to make less noticeable the tell-tale 
 crow's feet lined at the corners, then : 
 
 " John," she called, jeopardizing her almost 
 teetering position the more by craning her neck 
 around the edge of the tilted chair-back so as 
 to bring within view her patient and incapaci- 
 tated husband seated as comfortably as possible, 
 his disabled arm resting easily pillowed on an- 
 
6 U WORRY » 
 
 other chair. " John ! " she reiterated argu- 
 mentatively, " I'm worried." Saying which, 
 Mrs. Simkins dropped from her pivot perch and 
 began once more her slow, easy swing. 
 
 " Yes ? " vouchsafed he to whom she spoke, 
 with just a shade of weariness in the interroga- 
 tion, just enough to hint at a lack of sympathy 
 with her state of mind, an inclination the in- 
 dulgence of which Mrs. Simkins never allowed 
 John for a moment to give way to without an 
 altercation. She enjoyed, reveled even, in 
 having concerted action in all pertaining to 
 family cares ; she brooked no half-hearted 
 acquiescence in bearing the burdens of life. 
 
 " Yes ? " she caught up his question. 
 " Yes ! " she threw back at him emphatically, 
 " and I should think you would be worried, too. 
 Here it's been two whole weeks since we've had 
 nothing coming in and doctor's bills to pay, 
 and, and," she hung on her word and stopped 
 atip once more the motion of her chair. 
 
 " Whole weeks?" facetiously muttered John, 
 for though he worried, he could sometimes see 
 a faint glimmer of the leaven of life away off in 
 the gloom. 
 
 " And," went on Mrs. Simkins, " you know 
 May fifth's Em's birthday, her eighteenth, and 
 she just wants to give a party — a class party 
 she calls it, though why when it's her birthday ! 
 Well, it's only two weeks off, anyway. If the 
 
" WORRY " 7 
 
 weather would just warm up, so as we could do 
 away with this fire, and if you hadn't broken 
 that chair, and — " 
 
 Again Mrs. Simkins paused. When she wor- 
 ried the results of her cogitation were apt to be 
 brought forth in sections. 
 
 " It's her eighteenth birthday," Mr. Simkins 
 took up the thread of controversy ; " but that 
 only means that she's almost out of school — " 
 
 " Almost out of school ! " interrupted Mrs. 
 Simkins. " Almost out of school ! And do you 
 know, Mr. Simkins, may I ask, what almost out 
 of school means?" Mrs. S. rocked with nerv- 
 ous energy. " May I ask ? " she iterated with 
 some show of sarcasm. 
 
 " You may," mildly agreed Mr. S., a twinge 
 of pain in his arm and that terrible itchy feel- 
 ing always accompanying the healing of a 
 fractured bone distracting for a moment his 
 thoughts from the import of the question. 
 
 "Oh! I may! Well, I was just a-going to 
 say that her getting out of school means that 
 there'll be her graduation dress and a whole pile 
 of other truck to get ready for her. Besides, 
 she's just set, clean set, on havin' a class party. 
 Of course, we'll have it for a birthday party 
 too and maybe we'll shove it a little further on 
 into May, but do you know what all that 
 means? " 
 
 " If you would hear me out ! " 
 
8 " WORRY " 
 
 Mr. Simkins picked up his splintered arm 
 tenderly, the pillow on which it rested too, and 
 began pacing to and fro, as is the manner of 
 men who find expense piling inconsiderately on 
 lack of income. 
 
 " I was about to say when you interrupted 
 me," Mr. Simkins continued with dignity, " I 
 was about to say that when Emma was finally 
 out of school for good and all she could get a 
 place somewheres and could help us out here at 
 home a little, and (as though by second thought) 
 she can help Myra a little with her clothes until 
 she gets through her schooling, and then, why 
 then, of course, she'll prob'ly find some likely 
 fellow and up and marry him." 
 
 " Up and marry him," sniffed Mrs. Simkins. 
 " Yes, she'll up and marry him all right ; but I 
 guess from the way that Joe Kuntz hangs 
 around her, she'll up and marry before she ups 
 much to help us out any here at home. And 
 Joe workin' reg'lar and a-gettin' his two a 
 day." 
 
 The rocking-chair kept up a steady oscilla- 
 tion for some little time, then Mrs. Simkins 
 commenced again — this time a little remi- 
 niscently : 
 
 " And as for helping My ! You know the 
 way it's always been, and is always likely to be. 
 Em's the one likely to be helped, and My's the 
 one likely to do the helping, besides the little 
 
" WORRY » 9 
 
 we can do. Why, now she braids her hair tight 
 and ties it up with strings so that Em can flash 
 that hair ribbon we bought for My's Christmas 
 up and down that high school room. I hain't 
 said nothin', but I've noticed lots. Do you 
 know My hain't (Mrs. Simkins' grammatical 
 errors were the result of carelessness rather 
 than of ignorance — even thus it was with her 
 dropped ' g's,' — for as she always kept before 
 her family, she had been 'to school') a single 
 nice handkerchief to her name? Em, she just 
 rakes in all she can get." 
 
 To this recital of his elder daughter's pe- 
 culiarities of disposition Mr. Simkins uttered 
 not a word in reply. Never before had such an 
 analytical presentation as to the relative merits 
 of his two daughters from the standpoint of 
 selfishness been the topic of conversation between 
 the two. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins had talked long-windedly be- 
 fore — indeed she had, and on more than one 
 occasion — but never had " the girls " come up 
 as far back as he could recollect for such a 
 thorough going-over. The social obligations of 
 Miss Simkins were evidently bearing down upon 
 his wife, and the lack of funds — well, that was 
 getting on his mind also. Since his fall there 
 had been much to think of. 
 
 If they but owned their home they could — 
 but they didn't. They were renting, and so 
 
10 " WORRY * 
 
 there was no use thinking anything about rais- 
 ing a little money that way. 
 
 And John, having walked off a little of his 
 nervousness, reseated himself in his chair and 
 rearranged his several cushions and pillows. 
 
 " My dear," he observed, glancing back to 
 the stove where his wife still sat rocking, " my 
 dear, if you are thinking of going down town 
 this afternoon, you might as well get me six or 
 so cigars. That box Jacobs gave me is all 
 gone. You know I didn't have a smoke yester- 
 day ; and I guess this worry — " 
 
 But he was not allowed to finish. 
 
 " Yes, this worry ! " almost screamed Mrs. 
 Simkins, as she skated her chair away from her, 
 and stood in her righteous wrath. " This 
 worry ! " scornfully. " There's never been a 
 man yet, at least that I've known anything 
 about, that didn't think trouble, just a mite 
 of extra care, was brought around to his door 
 special just to give him leave to go and bolster 
 up his pet habits." 
 
 Mrs. S. made her way toward her husband. 
 
 M I am going down town this afternoon," she 
 added impressively, standing before him, " I am 
 going down town ; but I'll confine my purchases 
 to necessary things, Mr. Simkins. I shall buy 
 sugar, beans and a piece of meat." 
 
 " But you know, my dear, I didn't mind so 
 long as the swelling was so bad and my arm 
 
" WORRY » 11 
 
 hurt me so. It seemed then as though I 
 couldn't think of nothing but the ache. But 
 now it's better, some you know, I just seem to 
 feel so fidgety and unsettled all the while. I 
 want my smoke." 
 
 " Well, you can fidget and unsettle about that 
 party Em's got to give, if you must have some- 
 thing to feel flighty about. Planning how we're 
 going to manage it will likely ease your consti- 
 tution a bit. If you want to risk gettin' that 
 arm bumped out of place on the car you can 
 go down to the city and buy your own tobacco. 
 But I wouldn't if I was you. As for me, Mr. 
 Simkins, I draw the line at caterin' to notions." 
 
 Mrs. Simkins whirled, and sailed with a 
 women's-temperance mien out into the dining- 
 room and thence to the kitchen where, in this 
 most important of all rooms of her home, she 
 began that series of mysterious shakings, mix- 
 ings, stirrings and tastings which with the noon 
 hour was to go to the table a deliciously whole- 
 some though inexpensive meal; for Mrs. Sim- 
 kins, after the manner of many of her sex, 
 counteracted the heat of her temper and abated 
 the worry frittering away her composure by 
 expending all her skill in the preparation of a 
 meal befitting the appetites of two hungry 
 schoolgirls, to say nothing of a (doubtless by 
 this time) penitently tractable better-half. 
 
 Promptly on time with the coming of the car 
 
18 "WORRY" 
 
 up the street from the city came the two Simkins 
 daughters. They found not only a meal await- 
 ing them, but a mother, capable and persistent, 
 with a look of strong purpose lighting her eyes. 
 They wondered in an undertone to one another : 
 " What is Mother worrying about now? " 
 As Mrs. Simkins glanced at her daughter Em, 
 the thought flashed through her brain, " She's 
 just like her father, a mite selfish." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 WHEN A GIRL GRADUATES 
 
 Spring came to Bleakdale rather tardily that 
 year. January and February had' stuck and 
 clung to the very letter of that old saying which 
 makes the lengthening of days bear along with 
 their added hours of sunlight a corresponding 
 length of vacuum above the mercury in ther- 
 mometers. March had come in snowy, windy, 
 and then intensely cold, the freezing weather 
 forming a heavy crust all over the white cover- 
 ing so thick and strong that the proverbial lion 
 might have prowled around for days over the 
 dazzling white parquetry of closely set crystals 
 without breaking through, and without any- 
 where in his roving coming in contact with his 
 compatriot in simile. March continued a lion 
 down to the very last hour, and even the first 
 few days of April felt the lashing of his angry 
 tail as the raw winds swept the city and the 
 country round about. 
 
 Bleakdale did not belie its name those days. 
 
 The latter part of April, although generally 
 
 sunny and springlike in the feel of the air, was 
 
 nevertheless too chilly and damp, especially in- 
 13 
 
14 " WORRY " 
 
 doors, for one to think of being able to get along 
 without a fire, even for the sake of relieving just 
 a trifle the strain on the family income. And 
 so the long, dreary, cold days brought with them 
 considerable expense to the denizens of this 
 north temperate region ; and to that large ma- 
 jority, those having but slender, altogether in- 
 sufficient purses, with the expense came the 
 necessity for careful management of the family 
 funds, for painstaking watchfulness along all 
 lines of expenditure. 
 
 Wood had been so scarce early in the fall and 
 after the cold spell set in as to be practically 
 unprocurable at any price ; and coal, though to 
 be had when one paid cash — that is, certain 
 unprivileged " ones " — came at what has been 
 incongruously called a " pretty " figure. It did 
 not seem at all a " pretty " figure to those 
 dwellers in cold, desolate Bleakdale. 
 
 Provisions rose sympathetically in price. 
 Those who had been able in the early fall to lay 
 in bushels of potatoes, some onions and a few 
 squashes, and had had the foresight and the 
 industry to " put up " tomatoes and a few cans 
 of fruit managed on a fairly economical scale. 
 Others, less wary of the turns of fate, of the 
 weather, and of fluctuating market values, found 
 themselves almost mired monetarily, and only 
 able to struggle along toward a reluctant 
 spring, with its promises of warmth and a 
 
" WORRY * 15 
 
 cheaper livelihood, by painful exactions on 
 bodily strength and on patience. 
 
 The inhabitants of Rleakdale were not greatly 
 concerned at any time with the dictates of Dame 
 Fashion. Tight fitting costumes for women, 
 with their specious hint at economy because 
 under-garments were through the scantiness of 
 the dresses made well-nigh superfluous, had 
 passed Bleakdale by, as had the balloon sleeves 
 and skirts of an interminable number of yards 
 around some years previously. Those of Bleak- 
 dale — that is, the feminine portion — main- 
 tained what they among themselves considered 
 the happy medium in styles ; they neither gath- 
 ered an exorbitantly impossible number of yards 
 around the waist, nor did they, on the other 
 hand, go to the extreme of having their skirts — 
 when, at rare intervals, some one of the little 
 suburban place contrived to get enough together 
 to buy a new one — so tight that there would 
 be a stretch at the seams and a give in the weft 
 and in the warp at every sitting. Clothes, with 
 most of those of Bleakdale, were made on a good, 
 comfortable, easy-going, utilitarian pattern, so 
 as to last from season to season until actually 
 threadbare and quite past wearing. 
 
 Notwithstanding durability of style as well as 
 of material, a winter of such exceptionally low 
 temperatures had made necessary the purchase 
 of some new clothing. 
 
16 " WORRY " 
 
 There was, to be sure, one man of the com- 
 munity who never felt the " pinch of poverty." 
 This was Jacobs — Mr. Jacobs, as every one 
 called him to his face — the pioneer, the aristo- 
 crat of Bleakdale, one of the first to take up his 
 home to the right of the electric line running 
 on to the city whose outskirts were even then 
 reaching out as though to enclose and hold on 
 to the little settlement. And Mr. Jacobs, like 
 many another on the ground early with a fund 
 of stick- to-itiveness and some ability, prospered 
 apace. 
 
 To him and to the monthly rent they paid 
 him, many times with flagrant irregularity, 
 several families of his immediate neighborhood 
 were indebted for the roofs over their heads. 
 To him and to his good nature — and likewise 
 to his forethought in acquiring a competency — 
 those living in his vicinity as well as in his vari- 
 ous houses were indebted now and then for little 
 pleasantries, little kindnesses, which, together 
 with his lack of stringency in regard to prompt 
 payment of rent due him, made him one for 
 whom everybody had a good word. 
 
 In all Bleakdale there was no one — such is 
 the solicitous attention always accompanying 
 the comings and goings, yes, even the stayings, 
 of one of comparative riches — to whom those 
 dwelling in the village looked up with greater 
 respect, tinged just a shade with obsequious- 
 
" WORRY " 17 
 
 ness, and among those who, having been spe- 
 cially favored, had had occasion more than once, 
 to feel a warm glow of gratitude suffuse them, 
 with an affection bordering almost on reverence, 
 for, after all, Mr. Jacobs was one of the oldest 
 thereabouts. 
 
 The extreme cold and its accompanying ex- 
 penses and discomforts had, as with many an- 
 other to whom Mr. Jacobs had found it necessary 
 to be lenient, struck the Simkins family heavily. 
 The severity of the weather of the opening 
 months of the year, followed by the accident 
 which had befallen Mr. Simkins while attempt- 
 ing to abate his financial difficulties by a pivotal 
 recapitulation of his affairs, had all together 
 brought the family funds to a very low state. 
 
 The girls still continued to attend school, 
 walking the couple of miles or more in the morn- 
 ing (" East End High " was in the residence 
 district) sometimes carrying with them their 
 lunches, sometimes coming home on the car when 
 there had seemed little or nothing left over in 
 the house with which one might make ready a 
 shoe-box luncheon. 
 
 Had it not been her last year in school, her 
 graduation year, Emma, because of the accumu- 
 lation of family trials, would perhaps have given 
 up the struggle, and would have sought some 
 employment more lucrative than that of now 
 and then helping out Mrs. Jacobs with a bit of 
 
18 "WORRY" 
 
 work on Saturdays or afternoons after school 
 — " would perhaps," for one could not always 
 place Emma. What work she did was not done 
 that she might add the little she received to the 
 family fund; selfish motives guided her occa- 
 sional industry. 
 
 But Mrs. Simkins, mindful of her own pride 
 in her girlhood advantages, was determined that 
 both her children, could she by any contriving 
 manage it, should graduate, as she incorrectly 
 put it. And so schooling climbed bravely over 
 purse barriers, though Mrs. S., even in the 
 doing, worried with consistent constancy as to 
 how it was going to be done. 
 
 Of late the girls had been coming home for 
 dinner every day, for since their father's fall 
 their midday appearance had seemed to give 
 him pleasure. 
 
 The Friday afternoon, a half holiday, fol- 
 lowing Mrs. Simkins' admission that her mind 
 was a little more than usually askew, she fol- 
 lowed her youngest daughter, Myra, out into 
 the kitchen as they both busied themselves in 
 ridding the table of dishes and of " left-overs." 
 
 " Em's birthday's only a few days off. It 
 don't take long for a couple of weeks to slip 
 round when there's a lot to do to fill up the 
 time. Before we know it the house will be 
 runnin' over with that graduatin' class. I just 
 told your pa we'd have to strain a point, for 
 
" WORRY " 19 
 
 'tain't every year a girl can graduate. Oh! 
 They'll be runnin' all over, and maybe we'll be 
 ready, and maybe we won't." Indecisively 
 Mrs. S. rehearsed the theme of her morning's 
 mind's uneasiness. 
 
 Myra placed her load of coarse white dishes 
 in the sink, a plain unenameled iron one, infer- 
 ring a kitchen far from modern. 
 
 " If only the winter hadn't been so bad and 
 pa hadn't had to fall, and there hadn't been 
 so much to pay out and — " 
 
 Myra, like her mother and like the wife of a 
 certain Biblical character, would look back — 
 persisted in doing so, in fact, many times with 
 tears, salty ones. 
 
 " Come, My, crying don't pay. 'Tain't 
 your party anyway, though you'll have to do a 
 lot of the plannin' and a good large share of 
 the work, and if we can't afford it, it'll save 
 you just that much fuss. Em's studyin' now 
 and she'll be studyin' good and steady, depend 
 upon it, if there's much work around. I told 
 her 'twould be just as well to study Sunday 
 afternoon and catch up anything extra hard 
 after Sunday supper; but seems like there's no 
 time like dishwashing time for gettin' book 
 learnin' into your head. Oh, I don' know ! " 
 sighed Mrs. S., as she whisked through the open 
 door into the dining-room, pie tin and cloth in 
 hand to brush the crumbs from the table. 
 
20 " WORRY " 
 
 After the manner of women with the " worry " 
 temperament, Mrs. S. was a rapid though pains- 
 taking worker. Had she been more deliberate 
 in her movements while doing her work around 
 the house, less time would there have remained 
 to her in which to wrangle hazy suspicions and 
 to line up for minute analysis half-formed ideas 
 of what the future might hold in store for her. 
 In one quick, thorough round of brushing she 
 had rid the tablecloth of the little evidences of 
 carelessness on the part of those who had just 
 eaten; she had with a few whisks of the broom 
 made the faded rag carpet of the little dining- 
 room look brighter, as though carefully gone 
 over ; and, after setting the chairs straight back 
 against the wall, she had gone to help My finish 
 wiping the dishes. 
 
 " You know I'm goin' down town this after', 
 My," she confided, as though making a repeti- 
 tion, " and while I'm down I'm goin' to look at 
 some plain white lawn for Em's graduatin' 
 dress. She'll have to have one, though good- 
 ness knows what we'll do without to get it. 
 I've gone without sugar in my coffee ever since 
 pa was hurt, and we've all sopped our bread in 
 the gravy since I don't know when to save but- 
 ter, to say nothin' of how you've had to go to 
 school in any old thing, though whole, My, no 
 rags or tags." Mrs. S. wiped away a tear, 
 half of sympathy, half of lacerated pride. 
 
" WORRY " 21 
 
 " We'll have to get the goods early," went 
 on Mrs. S., " and you and I'll have to cut it out 
 and make it, for Em'll have her hands full with 
 her essay. I guess we can borrow a pattern of 
 Mrs. Jacobs. They're about of a size, for 
 Em's a bit big. We've got to have something 
 different from common duds. If Mrs. Jacobs 
 won't lend us, I'll have to get a pattern down 
 town." 
 
 And Mrs. S. rambled on with her elaborate 
 planning. Meanwhile dishes found themselves, 
 with scarcely a jar and never a nick in the find- 
 ing, neatly put away behind a faint-figured but 
 clean length of calico curtaining a set of pine 
 board shelves only too evidently of the store- 
 box variety. 
 
 Myra stayed to wipe off the stove, to rinse 
 the dishrag and to tidy the kitchen, while her 
 mother, her errands on her mind, hurried on her 
 way upstairs through into the front room where 
 sat Emma deep in her English grammar (the 
 high school teachers were making a final effort 
 to give the mother tongue a footing more cer- 
 tain, more secure than heretofore before send- 
 ing out into the world the recent products of 
 their pedagogical efforts) and where sat Mr. 
 Simkins lightly napping after his noonday 
 meal. 
 
 As Mrs. S., attired for the street and for the 
 shopping district in a dingy black skirt, a warm 
 
%% " WORRY " 
 
 though worn jacket, and a hat far from " chic," 
 descended the stairs but shortly after she had 
 ascended them, there was a step on the porch 
 and the sitting-room door opened with that fa- 
 miliar and assured ease indicative of the custom 
 of the near-by neighbor, privileged through' 
 long acquaintance or because of general com- 
 patibility of temper and similarity of taste, 
 imagined, assumed or real. Catching sight of 
 Mrs. Simkins as she opened the stair door into 
 the sitting-room, the visitor began volubly : 
 
 " You're goin' out, Mrs. Simkins. Go right 
 along. I just came in for a moment, anyway. 
 I won't let you set down now. Go right on 
 your errand, whatever it is. I will talk to Mr. 
 S. and the girls a moment, and then I'll be 
 a-runnin' home. Don't wait a moment for such 
 as me." 
 
 Mrs. Brown was one of those gifted mortals 
 who anticipate any likelihood of controversy 
 by a rapid fire of statements almost mandatory 
 in tone, and sometimes actually so in results; 
 but this time, having listened indecisively, Mrs. 
 S., already a little overstrung, with a feeling 
 of warding off an attempt at dictating (al- 
 though she well knew her neighbor's disposition) 
 settled herself down in the rocker near the fire 
 as Mrs. Brown took a chair over near Mr. S. 
 
 " There's no hurry at all. I'm goin' down 
 town, to be sure ; but I don't have to mind about 
 
" WORRY " S3 
 
 gettin' back early. Myra can get the supper." 
 It was peculiar of Mrs. Simkins that she never 
 pet-named any of her family outside the family 
 circle. 
 
 " Now go right along ; don't mind me. And 
 I'm goin' to bring you over some cooked toma- 
 toes with bread in them to help out My's meal," 
 — Mrs. Brown was always liberal with her liber- 
 ties. " Don't you wait another moment. It's 
 two o'clock already," insisted she; then turning 
 sympathizingly to Mr. Simkins : " how's the 
 arm this damp day ? Hurts, don't it ? " she 
 answered herself unhesitatingly, catching, 
 doubtless, a gleam of suffering in Mr. S's. off 
 eye. 
 
 " Well, Em," she kept on, glancing at the 
 open grammar, " school's most out, ain't it? 
 Glad of it, I'll bet." 
 
 " She'll be glad to graduate," replied Emma's 
 mother for her, M and I'll be glad to have her. 
 But she'll be sorry enough next year when she 
 sees Myra gettin' ready for school and knows 
 that she must be gettin' ready for work. One 
 thing I'm going down town for is to get Emma 
 some white goods for a dress, something that'll 
 make up nice and fluffy." 
 
 "Some dotted mull is wh'at she wants," 
 averred Mrs. Brown with compelling suggestive- 
 ness. 
 
 " Well, no, I think she's set her heart on 
 
M "WORRY" 
 
 lawn." Mrs. S. glided smoothly on, regardless 
 of Emma's hurried look toward her. " She says 
 it makes up so beautiful and looks so elegant 
 and slim. We don't buy many clothes, so I 
 thought this once I'd let her have just what 
 she wants." Mrs. S. braced everything all 
 along the line. 
 
 " I should think dotted mull would be better 
 and far prettier. Plain lawn is apt to look so 
 slazy, and there's always so much light at com- 
 mencement — not that I've been since Maggie 
 graduated — my niece in the city, you know, 
 Mr. Simkins," she explained to Mr. S. as though 
 his memory might have suffered along with his 
 arm. She had a way of being excruciatingly 
 specific when men were around, as though spe- 
 cial explanations were their just due. 
 
 " Well," she went on, rising, " it's plain to 
 be seen, Mrs. Simkins, you'll never get started 
 down town while I'm here talking, so come on. 
 There's a car up the street now. I'll go out 
 and wait with you at the gate till it comes along. 
 Good-by, Mr. Simkins, you'll soon be out, I'm 
 sure. And Em, mull's better than lawn. 
 Lawn's so wilty if the day's a bit damp, and 
 you'll sweat anyway somethin' awful up on that 
 stage. Get the mull, Em." 
 
 Just as the two got down the steps, Mrs. 
 Brown called back: 
 
 " My, you save a place for them tomatoes I'm 
 
" WORRY " 25 
 
 a-goin' to give you for your supper. Your 
 ma'll like 'em when she gets back. They're 
 mighty nice the way I fix them with bread," she 
 concluded complacently. 
 
 " Mrs. Simkins seems to me worried," men- 
 tally commented Mrs. Brown, as she waved a 
 sort of inclusive good-by to the rapidly disap- 
 pearing car. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 BLEAKDALE ECONOMICS 
 
 Mrs. Simkins returned from the city rather 
 late, hungry and altogether worn out, but bring- 
 ing with her, besides a few table supplies, the 
 dress pattern of plain white lawn which had 
 been the chief object of her visit down town. 
 
 She had started bravely on her search for 
 something suitable yet cheap, going from store 
 to store without finding just what she wanted 
 until she became so tired she had almost to drag 
 herself along. She had seen two or three pieces 
 she might possibly decide upon could she find 
 nothing better, but she would wait and go back 
 after she had tried a few other places. 
 
 It must have been the fifth (or was it the sixth 
 or seventh?) store where she had inquired, with 
 a hesitancy more of weariness than of timidity, 
 although she was not just at her ease on the 
 city streets, for " some lawn, some nice plain 
 white lawn for a graduatin' dress — not too 
 dear, about five cents " — that the clerk to 
 whom she addressed this set query, a woman of 
 about her own age, instead of immediately lead- 
 
" WORRY " 27 
 
 ing ner to a pile of loosely woven material, in- 
 quired with real interest : 
 
 " You have a daughter in this year's class ? " 
 " Yes, Emma Simkins, my oldest child." 
 " I think I have just what you want. I, too, 
 have a daughter being graduated this year. I 
 bought her a dress off the same piece. I'm sure 
 you'll like it. We've had the piece in the store 
 a good while, and it's a little shopworn, so it's 
 on the bargain counter." The kind-hearted 
 clerk turned to see if her apparently weary cus- 
 tomer were following as she made her way to 
 the rear of the store. " Now, if you don't want 
 to put very much into a dress and yet feel you 
 must have something fine, this is just what you 
 want," and she added with warm friendliness, 
 " that's just why I chose off this goods." 
 Hauling out a part of a bolt of fine white ma- 
 terial a little mussed and a bit creamed in tint 
 from having been long on hand, she unrolled a 
 yard or more and held it out that Mrs. Simkins 
 might see. " I'll tell you just what I am going 
 to do," she confided. " I had my pattern cut 
 off as soon as the goods was marked down for 
 fear it would all be gone, and I'm going to wash 
 it in light suds and put it out on the grass the 
 first hot sunny day. That will bleach it out 
 like new. You know this dreary weather won't 
 last much longer. It's such fine material I 
 know it will make up soft and lovely. The light 
 
28 " WORRY " 
 
 washing will, I should think, improve it. I told 
 my daughter — Carrie Jones is her name ; you 
 must ask your daughter Emma (Mrs. Jones re- 
 called names readily) about her — I told her 
 there would not be a daintier dress amongst 
 them. And it's only six cents," she continued; 
 " was fifteen. They call it Persian lawn. It's 
 nothing at all like the five cent kind of stuff you 
 were thinking of getting." 
 
 Mrs. Simkins, already convinced that she 
 had within her hands just what she wanted, 
 hesitated a moment, partly to consider the extra 
 cent a yard over what she had planned to ex- 
 pend, partly to give the impression that she 
 was weighing the matter well and was taking 
 time to focus the light of keen judgment upon 
 the material in question. 
 
 "Well, you see I had only wanted to pay 
 five cents," she deliberated. 
 
 " I wouldn't mind, if I were you, the extra 
 cent. Let the worry go this time," Mrs. Jones 
 said laughing, as though looking back on many 
 of her own twis tings and turnings to stretch a 
 cent. " Your Emma will never dress herself 
 for her own commencement again, you know; 
 and really, there is no comparing this cloth 
 with anything anywhere around the price. To 
 be sure, you'll have to wash it, but I know you 
 can do it up to look like new." 
 
 Mrs. Jones was very patient, for she herself 
 
" WORRY " 89 
 
 had sailed her little craft of financial matters 
 very close to the wind for many and many a 
 year. Well she knew that a penny saved is a 
 penny safe. And so Mrs. Simkins decided on 
 the bargain, although it was a little more than 
 she had intended paying. 
 
 "Where do you live?" interestedly inquired 
 the clerk, Mrs. Jones, as she measured off the 
 lawn and wrapped it up. 
 
 " At Bleakdale — down the car line, you 
 know." 
 
 "Oh, yes! Quite a ways out, isn't it? I'll 
 tell my daughter who is going to have a dress 
 like hers. But, of course, they won't look alike 
 after they're made up. What are you going to 
 trim with ? " she turned again to her customer, 
 having replaced the bolt of lawn. " We have 
 some very pretty laces; cheap they are, too. 
 Would you like to look at them? " 
 
 Mrs. Simkins had thought to make tiny ruf- 
 fles of the material itself do for trimming, but 
 could not resist the temptation of a two and 
 one-half cent edging, especially when told that 
 all the girls would trim to some extent with lace, 
 as laces were very much " in." 
 
 " There goes the meat money for tomorrow's 
 dinner," said Mrs. S. to herself, as she rapidly 
 made mental arrangements for robbing Peter 
 to pay Paul ; " but we'll have potato soup in- 
 stead and that'll do just as well if I borrow a 
 
30 " WORRY " 
 
 piece of salt pork somewheres to make it nice 
 and rich. And to think," with some asperity, 
 " and to think that Mr. S. had the gall to ask 
 me to get him some tobacco, when we've so much 
 on hand already ! " The clerk caught a, to her 
 meaningless, jerk of her customer's head. 
 
 The package was opened, the few yards of 
 cheap lace were tucked within, and then it was 
 carefully done up again and tied, this time, for 
 fear the lace might fall out. 
 
 It was already late, so Mrs. Simkins, though 
 she meant to include only the clerk who had 
 been waiting upon her, nervously bid a sort of 
 general good-by to those near her, some of 
 whom looked somewhat surprised at the tired, 
 sensitive looking woman as she made her way 
 to the door. She had yet a few purchases to 
 make before taking the car for home: some 
 sugar and a little of one or two other things. 
 Tired she was, utterly exhausted, as along about 
 seven o'clock the car stopped at the corner to 
 let her off to walk on past the three or four 
 houses from the corner to her own gate. 
 
 Myra was on the lookout and rushed immedi- 
 ately to the kitchen to reheat the few things 
 they had had for supper for her mother's be- 
 lated meal. Emma sat indifferently, book in 
 hand. She herself had been out for a walk 
 down towards town in the late afternoon, and 
 had come home just as Myra and her father 
 
" WORRY " 81 
 
 were finishing their supper. She sometimes did 
 walk a while before the supper hour down the 
 road in the direction of the city following the 
 car line, but rarely was she late for her evening 
 meal. 
 
 There were those who said that at times the 
 car would stop on its way from the city at the 
 very outskirts of the little suburb to let off a 
 single passenger, empty dinner pail in hand, 
 who would make his way straight up to a young 
 woman ostensibly there in the path at the side 
 of the road with no other object in view than 
 that of meeting a stalwart young working man 
 and walking back, deep in conversation, toward 
 Bleakdale with him. There were those who felt 
 quite sure they knew the young fellow; but as 
 the meetings — almost clandestine, since the car 
 was generally filled with passengers for a town 
 still further down the line — had covered a 
 period only of weeks and even then only occa- 
 sionally, they had not remarked them sufficiently 
 to speak with any certainty about the matter. 
 
 Bleakdale, anyway, had several new families 
 who had settled there the September of the year 
 past, and the severity of the winter following 
 had somewhat congealed that spirit of curiosity 
 relative to the new arrival so prevalent in small 
 gossiping towns. It might be, very probably 
 was, a young man from one of these new families 
 who met the young lady, now and then, waiting 
 
M " WORRY » 
 
 near the trunk and beneath the shade of a large 
 oak growing almost on the roadside path. 
 
 Emma, at any rate, had been out for a walk, 
 and was busy with her book once more when her 
 mother, quite near the end of her powers of en- 
 durance, pulled herself with evident exertion up 
 the steps to the little landing before the front 
 door — by courtesy a porch, though there was 
 no roof. Mr. Simkins reached the door just 
 in time to turn the knob with his injured 
 hand. 
 
 " You hadn't ought to leave your arm with- 
 out a pillow. What did you want to be so ever- 
 lastingly polite anyway for? I guess I'm not 
 so done out but what I can turn a knob. I 
 didn't get you any tobacco, if that's what you're 
 so anxious to know about. Awful to be without 
 your smoke, ain't it, and here I didn't have 
 enough money even to buy our meat for tomor- 
 row ! " 
 
 Mrs. Simkins was tired enough and suffi- 
 ciently overwrought to indulge in sarcasm, the 
 certain outlet of nervous tension with the quick- 
 witted — unless tears come first — and judi- 
 ciously secretive enough to fail to say anything 
 about her little extravagance of the afternoon, 
 her indulgence in the pride she took in her 
 daughter's appearance. 
 
 Mr. S. with a sidelong glance at his weary 
 wife, decided in a rapid moment that a full 
 
" WORRY " S3 
 
 stomach helps over many a family divergence 
 of opinion and threatened altercation. 
 
 u Now, My has your supper all nicely warmed 
 over for you. You go right out and set down." 
 
 He forbore to tell her, however, sympathiz- 
 ingly, how tired she looked, and how sorry he 
 felt that she had had such a trying afternoon. 
 " Least said soonest mended " experience had 
 taught him. 
 
 Just then My, bringing in a cup of tea from 
 the kitchen, called cheerily: 
 
 " Supper, Mother." 
 
 And Mother, throwing aside her jacket, 
 slipped out into the dining-room and into a 
 chair as though she could not for the life of her 
 possibly tell how she had ever managed to get 
 there. 
 
 " Why Mother, your hat ! " 
 
 " Oh, never mind the hat ! Let me have a 
 sip of this tea." 
 
 But Myra, after having set the cup of tea be- 
 fore her mother, unpinned the hat, laid it on a 
 chair near by, and smoothed for a moment with 
 her steady young hand the tired brow. 
 
 " I put sugar in your tea, Mother," she said 
 affectionately. 
 
 " I'm glad of that " — Mrs. S. accepted the 
 little extravagance as something she had earned 
 — " a little sweetening when you're tired and 
 worried is just the thing." 
 
34 " WORRY " 
 
 " And I saved a dish of the tomatoes Mrs. 
 Brown brought in. She said I should be sure 
 not to eat them all up. Cooked with bread they 
 are. I know you'll like them." 
 
 There was besides a slice of bacon and some 
 potatoes fried in the fat, so altogether Mrs. S. 
 made out very well. True to her husband's 
 theory, her stomach's needs having been at- 
 tended to, immediately her spirits rose and her 
 temper lost its edge. 
 
 Emma all this time had sat by the lamp to 
 all appearances deeply absorbed in her book. 
 She had paid no attention to her mother's re- 
 turn other than barely to look up for a mo- 
 ment indolently, although she doubtless realized 
 that the long round parcel which her mother 
 carried under her arm (the other purchases in 
 her hands) contained something of interest to 
 her. She had let the package lie on the table 
 where her mother had aimlessly dropped it on 
 her way out to her supper. 
 
 Upon coming into the sitting-room Mrs. Sim- 
 kins, anxious to see whether her purchase of the 
 afternoon would still appeal to her, rested as 
 she was and more capable of judging — more- 
 over desirous of finding out what Emma thought 
 about the goods — went to the parcel and un- 
 wrapped it, laying a fold of the lawn across 
 Emma's lap, that she might examine it without 
 in any way incommoding herself. 
 
" WORRY " 35 
 
 " I think it's just beautiful. Don't you, 
 Em? So fine and soft!" 
 
 Emma nodded a half-hearted approval rather 
 as if to say she was sorry she had been born 
 into a family too poor or too " do-less " to af- 
 ford silk for daughters. 
 
 " But see, Em," went on her mother enthusi- 
 astically, as under the mellow light of the coal 
 oil lamp the material took on even a finer weave 
 than it had in the store, while its slight dingi- 
 ness was almost unnoticeable, " just see how fine 
 and hangy it is. You'll look as slim as a — as 
 a — " Mrs. S. groped for a suitable simile. 
 " You'll look as slim as a trolley pole," she 
 concluded, (smiling lightly at her far-fetched 
 comparison. " And Mrs. Jacobs she says, 
 * Slim's the thing,' though goodness knows we 
 never bother our heads about the styles here, 
 only Mrs. Jacobs; and she wouldn't if she 
 didn't have that sister-in-law down in the city 
 to spur her up — her brother's wife, Pa," an- 
 swering Mr. Simkins' look of inquiry. " And 
 do you know, Em, I never would have done so 
 well if I hadn't had a clerk who 's a mother to 
 wait on me. Her daughter is in your class, 
 Carrie Jones. Do you know her more than to 
 know of her? " 
 
 " Oh, Carrie ! " was Emma's languid, disin- 
 terested reply. 
 
 " Well, she's goin' to have a dress just like 
 
36 "WORRY" 
 
 yours. The material 's the same, though maybe 
 the makin' '11 be different. Likely will be. I 
 never would have got it if it hadn't been for that 
 Carrie's ma. She was so 'commodatin' and she 
 just had me get this bargain. Fifteen cents, 
 Em, a yard — " 
 
 Em brightened perceptibly. 
 
 " And I got it for six." 
 
 Em resumed her wooden manner. 
 
 " The lace, Em, see the lace ! Mrs. Jones' 
 daughter has some too. You two'll be the best 
 dressed on the stage." 
 
 But Myra was the one who took real interest 
 and enjoyment in the new dress goods. She 
 was glad of the feel of the lawn, glad to know 
 she was to help make the dress, glad to know, 
 after a long season of privation, that the family 
 had something new in the house even if it was 
 not to be hers. 
 
 " I'm going to run down to Mrs. Jacobs 
 right now, girls. It's not so very late and she 
 may be lending that pattern to some one else 
 if we don't speak for it early." Mrs. Simkins 
 looked toward her daughters, as she again put 
 on her jacket, so hurriedly thrown aside some 
 little time before. She did not tell Emma they 
 would have to wait for a hot May day sun to 
 whiten a new look into the bargain goods. 
 
 " But, Mother, you must be tired to death 
 
" WORRY " 37 
 
 after all your tramping around down town. 
 There wasn't much left of you when you got 
 home, remember," admonished Myra. 
 
 " Buyin' somethin' nice and gettin' it cheap 
 and havin' a nice meal to end the day when a 
 person is worn to a shadder would rest any 
 soul. This mornin' I was all in pieces worryin' 
 about that dress and that party and when I got 
 home tonight I was ' all in ' ; now here's the dress 
 already bought and lace to trim it, which I 
 hadn't thought of buyin'. Oh, I could walk a 
 mile," resumed Mrs. Simkins, " and never know 
 I was goin'. You'd rather have lace on your 
 sister's dress than meat in your stomach any- 
 way, wouldn't you, you unselfish child ! " And 
 Mrs. Simkins in the exuberance of her mood 
 kissed her younger daughter warmly. " Never 
 you mind, I've a very nice dinner planned for 
 tomorrow. Do you know," presciently, " I can 
 almost see Em's party just around the corner 
 of the middle of May." 
 
 Mrs. Simkins had spells of being far, far up 
 afloat the fleecy whiteness of the clouds, and 
 they in part compensated for her periods of 
 deep, wrinkling depression. 
 
 The whole family was to feel the uplifting 
 effects of having something new in the house. 
 When the next week wore on and a few days 
 more, and the weather became sunny and warm 
 
38 " WORRY " 
 
 with the coming of May, the Simkins household 
 began to bloom in spirits as did the flowers 
 under the urging of the summer sunshine. 
 
 It Was close on to ten o'clock when Mrs. Sim- 
 kins returned from her visit to the Jacobs. 
 She had the promise of the paper pattern for 
 the " slim " dress just as soon as Mrs. Jacobs 
 could cut out a new cambric she was going to 
 make from it. Besides the promise she had 
 something else on a little plate covered over 
 with an inverted paper bag. This she took im- 
 mediately down cellar and put it into her little 
 screen cupboard. 
 
 " I guess we'll have some mighty fine potato 
 soup for tomorrow's dinner, good and rich," 
 she said to the family upon returning to the 
 sitting-room. " I'll tell you, Em," she added 
 with marked emphasis, " I'm awfully glad I 
 could see my way through to getting you that 
 lace." 
 
 Obviously Emma's ambitions were not to be 
 compassed by a bit of trimming. She seemed 
 preoccupied. Had she, too, caught the 
 " worry " fever? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 DOWN THE CAR LINE 
 
 The car stopped this bright, sunny, beauti- 
 ful, zephyry May morning, as was its custom 
 morning after morning, probably from force 
 of habit on the part of the motorman, for no- 
 body ever seemed to press any of the little shell 
 buttons at intervals along the interior. The 
 car stopped for more than a moment down past 
 the heart of the city quite in the " West End " 
 at the corner of a large brick building back a 
 ways from the street, on its face a factory — 
 unquestionably so from the immense stacks in 
 the rear over what was evidently the boiler room 
 and, too, from the thick, jetty volume of smoke 
 issuing for the moment therefrom. 
 
 It was but a little after the first whistle, so 
 the crowd of some twenty (most of them men 
 whom the car had picked up from corner to cor- 
 ner on its first trip down from the east end of the 
 line) filed leisurely out, dinner pails held close 
 to the sides for fear an inadvertent jostling 
 might dislodge thereby some of the viands 
 within and might in the spilling render un- 
 
40 " WORRY " 
 
 eatable a choice piece of pie or else of cake, for 
 like the plaster of the world's second city, 
 lunches lose much — if not all — by a too early 
 mixing. Having disgorged well-nigh all its 
 early morning load, slowly the car moved on 
 down the line on its way to the suburbs of the 
 " West End." 
 
 The men and the four or five girls who had 
 just alighted stood, for the most part, in inti- 
 mate little groups in the factory yard, gossip- 
 ing and chatting, or else talking seriously. 
 There were many others there also waiting to 
 begin work besides these who had just arrived, 
 for the factory was a large concern employing 
 both men and women by the score, many of 
 whom lived within walking distance of the plant, 
 others who came in by car from various parts 
 of the city. All were waiting in the delightful 
 air of the fresh, crisp morning for the second 
 whistle to summon them to their day's work. 
 
 Even those who took a real interest in their 
 monotonous employment (the vast majority do 
 not, for factory work of the day laborer is to 
 many a nerve-racking repetition of doing this 
 or that little, trifling bit of thing, in itself alone 
 insignificant, meaningless, always the same — 
 only in its assembled form having a definite and 
 realizable value), even the painstaking, wished 
 the whistle might forget to blow that delicious 
 morning, so much more enjoyable was it to 
 
" WORRY " 41 
 
 stand on the grass beneath the trees out in the 
 open air than to sit or stand at thought-stifling 
 employment within the close, ugly red brick of 
 the walls doing this or that tiny mite of thing 
 over and over again interminably. Had any 
 of them stopped to think, they might have 
 reached the conclusion that even their daily 
 wage scarcely compensated for the complete 
 sinking of personality, the merging of individ- 
 uality, at least for a large portion of the day, 
 into one dreadful abyss of sameness. 
 
 But many of them had no individuality, no 
 personality worth sinking or in truth sinkable. 
 Many there were, in fact, who lolled listlessly 
 in the sun against the hot tinted red of the 
 wall speaking to nobody, apparently waiting, 
 waiting, waiting, just languidly loitering, re- 
 signed to begin the daily grind, waiting as 
 doubtless they would wait thirty, forty, fifty 
 years hence to be swept as uncomplainingly, as 
 dormantly, as unresistingly, into eternity. 
 
 One of one of the live groups who awaited 
 the beginning of his toil, not on the hard gravel 
 of the walk close to the horrid red of the brick, 
 but out on the refreshing green of the grass 
 close to the maples, was a young man of perhaps 
 three and twenty, certainly not many months 
 more. His coat hung evenly over one arm 
 stretched out, the hand lightly, not leaningly, 
 placed against a maple's trunk as though he 
 
m " WORRY » 
 
 enjoyed the cool feel and slight unevenness of 
 its bark, and the dinner pail in the other kept 
 up a slight, easy, not-at-all-impatient swing. 
 
 The seven or eight in the group waiting near 
 him, of which he formed a part, seemed to take 
 rather a special interest in him, as though they 
 enjoyed something in his personality, restful 
 perhaps, attractive certainly in that it attracted 
 — or was it by accident that these same ones 
 grouped themselves on so many occasions when 
 time was theirs near him? 
 
 There are those even in the common walks of 
 life who seem to possess a magnetic something 
 about them, quite without their being conscious 
 of it or its power, that raises them a little or 
 a great deal above the level of those with whom 
 they are constantly thrown. Not always a 
 brilliancy is it; many times only a friendliness, 
 a constancy, a sincerity of disposition. 
 
 This young man of about three and twenty 
 had not been for long at the factory — merely 
 a matter of months — yet in that length of 
 time he had made a place for himself save in the 
 hearts of those apathetic automatons to be 
 found in all large groups of individuals. He 
 was accounted a fine workman by his employers, 
 a good, well-meaning fellow by all the employees 
 who did any accounting, and by a certain few 
 with intimate friendliness bordering on some- 
 thing akin to homage. 
 
" WORRY » 43 
 
 They had been talking such a little while it 
 seemed to them when the second whistle blew 
 and the workers in this busy hive filed in rapidly 
 to their several places. 
 
 " Hurry up, Joe," called some one, without 
 looking back, as he hurriedly ascended the three 
 steps to the open factory door. But there was 
 no need, for " Joe " had started at the first sizz 
 of steam in the great whistle, and was even then 
 busily at work finishing off little castings of 
 iron which when assembled with other compan- 
 ion pieces made up the mechanism, a labor-sav- 
 ing device, the principal product of this " West 
 End " house. 
 
 So passed the morning, each one in this busy 
 place intent upon doing the little successively 
 given him to do as well as he could from force of 
 character rather than from any absorbing in- 
 terest in his lack-variety occupation; or slight- 
 ing the tasks as near the border line of loss of 
 salary as could be risked with any degree of se- 
 curity in not being found out. 
 
 Joe Kuntz was not one to slight anything to 
 which he might lay his hand. Into his work, 
 no matter what, he threw a quiet enthusiasm 
 which compelled whatever he might be doing to 
 yield to him, if to no one else similarly engaged, 
 an interesting side, and so Joe's working period, 
 as with any one trying to make the most out of 
 the flying hours, passed as time always did for 
 
44 " WORRY " 
 
 him, whatever he might be doing, rapidly and 
 pleasantly. Each pay day found waiting for 
 him a full pay envelope without a cent deducted 
 for any cause whatsoever. Those who knew 
 said that Joe had been able to lay up quite a 
 nice little sum of money. 
 
 " You must have about enough to start house- 
 keeping on by this time," one of the group by 
 the maple had said jokingly that very morning, 
 one who for all his agreeableness as an ac- 
 quaintance and faithfulness as an employee was 
 known to indulge in recreation a little more 
 stimulating and considerably more expensive 
 than that of attending picture shows. And 
 just a boy he was, too. 
 
 One could not anger Joe, and " kidding " 
 slipped over his head as though he thought it 
 quite beyond any possibility that any one would 
 consider him of sufficient importance to care to 
 waste any time trying to tease him. He had 
 answered readily enough without a hint of com- 
 placency : 
 
 " You are right, Jack. I have quite a bit 
 laid by — for a rainy day," he added vaguely, 
 smiling slightly and coloring almost imper- 
 ceptibly. One could see with but half a try 
 that Joe was getting off one of his dry little 
 pleasantries. Evidently the money was not for 
 a rainy day at all, for there was equivocation 
 in the meaning smile and covert sensitiveness in 
 
" WORRY " 45 
 
 the slight blush. Could it be the money was for 
 a sunny day, a day without a cloud anywhere 
 in the blue above, a day of great happiness for 
 Joe — and for one other? 
 
 Joe's morning passed away and in the pass- 
 ing there was always a half formed smile lighting 
 his contented countenance; in his eyes there 
 was the light of joy agone and joy ahead. 
 
 When the noon hour came several there were 
 who made their way to where Joe sat with his 
 lunch, and Jack had much to say about a gener- 
 ous sized piece of cake which Joe ate — so they 
 all said — as though it were something more than 
 ordinary cake, to which Joe ingenuously re- 
 plied : 
 
 " It is more than ordinary cake, to be sure. 
 My mother made it," and then added without 
 a show of suspicion, scarcely of average curi- 
 osity, " come, Jack, what are you driving at ? " 
 
 After all, nobody knew very much about Joe 
 except as they were thrown with him on the 
 car and in and around the factory where they 
 all worked. They knew that he had not been 
 working at the factory more than a few 
 months ; and they had half an idea that he and 
 his people had come from another state a day 
 or so before Joe had taken up his work amongst 
 them, though as a matter of fact nobody cared 
 to know more than that Joe was a thoroughly 
 good, whole-souled fellow, one who, judging 
 
46 " WORRY " 
 
 from his manner and his habits, was beyond 
 question a " saver." They did know, however 
 — and that for a certainty — that he lived 
 farther down the car line than any of the men 
 of the factory out that way, probably in or 
 near Bleakdale, for he was always on the car 
 mornings when it made its first corner stop to 
 let on two brothers living what was thought to 
 be a good ways down the line, taking it from 
 the factory in the " West End." 
 
 Once about three weeks ago, before these two 
 brothers and fellow workmen had come to their 
 getting off place, Joe had left the car hurriedly, 
 while still within the outskirts of the city, and 
 had rushed to meet a young lady on the side- 
 walk, evidently there with no other purpose 
 than awaiting him. But this had occurred only 
 the one time. Always before and since Joe re- 
 mained behind in the car when they themselves 
 alighted. Whether or not it was his custom to 
 meet young ladies on his way home from work, 
 whether it was his custom to meet a certain 
 young lady some where along the way, they 
 could not say. All they knew about it was they 
 had seen him leave the car that once. It told 
 on its face value for just what it was worth. 
 They had seen him get off the car that once 
 and go to meet a young lady unknown to either 
 of them. 
 
 But " that once " had occasioned endless and 
 
" WORRY " 47 
 
 searching conjecture, especially among those 
 who were not " savers." It was surreptitiously 
 circulated, even among the girls at the factory, 
 that friend " Joe " had seriously under consid- 
 eration the project of transforming himself into 
 a benedict. 
 
 " It might have been his sister, for all you 
 know about it," one of the younger of the women 
 had advanced apologetically. She was rather 
 pretty and much preferred to have young men 
 safe under the protecting guidance of obliging 
 sisters unless, perchance, she should be the one 
 to receive little attentions. 
 
 " Yes, and it might have been his grand- 
 mother," some one had retorted, teasingly. 
 
 That evening on their way home from the 
 factory, if the two brothers who had that first 
 time noticed and remarked upon their fellow- 
 worker's interest in a young woman standing 
 expectantly by the roadside as the car came 
 along, had but remained in the car and ridden 
 on to the next stop past their own, they would 
 have seen a repetition of the incident that had 
 caused them mildly to wonder; for Joe, well 
 they knew, was certainly not one to put him- 
 self out to the extent of getting off a car to 
 walk unless there was some special reason for 
 it. 
 
 " I've been waiting for twenty minutes or 
 more, Joe," complained Emma, as he joined her 
 
48 « WORRY " 
 
 and they began to walk on in the direction of 
 the rapidly receding car, toward Bleakdale. 
 "Was the car late?" 
 
 " It may have been a little," vouchsafed Joe 
 breezily, " but very likely your clock at home 
 needs a little fixing. I guess you started out 
 a little too early." 
 
 " I didn't start out at all," began Emma 
 enigmatically. " I haven't been home yet. I 
 walked from school and stopped into Kemble's 
 to wait until time to go down to the tree where 
 I've always waited for you. It was their clock, 
 I guess." 
 
 " But yours is off too, because last night I 
 looked particular at your clock just before I 
 left your house, and when I got home ours was 
 twenty minutes slower. And I allowed myself 
 exactly fifteen minutes for the walk," concluded 
 Joe with accuracy. 
 
 " Well, then, if you think it's off you can 
 regulate it when you come up. Pa don't pay 
 much attention to the clock since he's been laid 
 up. But the doctor says Monday sure his arm 
 will be all right and he can go to work, so it'll be 
 just as well to have the clock right, though 
 he always hears his factory whistle easy unless 
 the wind's blowing strong the other way." 
 Then Emma continued confidentially : " It'll be 
 awfully nice to have Pa out of the house 
 through the day. Someway or other he seems 
 
" WORRY " 49 
 
 to get on Ma's nerves something fierce. She 
 says he * worries ' her. I wonder if I'll ever 
 worry anybody ," she queried aimlessly. 
 
 " You'll worry that mother of yours if we 
 don't hurry along," ejaculated Joe practically. 
 " Let's walk faster." 
 
 " I was just a-wondering whether I'll always 
 be * a-worrying ' Ma," she asked demurely, and 
 then a trifle coquettishly, " do you think any 
 one else will ever want me around to worry 
 them?" 
 
 They walked on in silence. 
 
 " I was eighteen day before yesterday," she 
 volunteered after a little, with some show of 
 spirit. 
 
 " Do you think your ma would be very much 
 more worried if she had two men around the 
 house instead of just one? " he inquired with 
 marked hesitancy. 
 
 She gave him one look. Though it was dusk 
 she caught a gleam in his eye that flashed into 
 the very depths of her own spirit and then — 
 
 It was quite pitch-dark when the lovers 
 reached home, and Mrs. Simpkins was out on 
 the " courtesy porch," looking this way and 
 that, up and down the road, skywards even, as 
 though she thought possibly her eldest child 
 might have been transfigured. 
 
 " Here they are, Pa," she called, very much 
 relieved, as Joe and Emma made their appear- 
 
50 "WORRY" 
 
 ance as two dark somethings down at the gate. 
 She rushed down the steps and down the path 
 to meet them. " My goshen ! Dearie me ! I 
 was worried," she exclaimed nervously, all in a 
 flutter, " until I see you was with her, Joe." 
 Then with confidence, " But I ain't goin' to 
 worry no more." 
 
 " Thanks," said Joe, feeling in some way or 
 other complimented, and he kissed Mrs. Sim- 
 kins a rousing smack square on the lips, dark as 
 it was. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins wondered for sometime that 
 night how Joe Kuntz had acquired such skill 
 and precision in matters osculatory. 
 
 " But I haint goin' to worry no more," she 
 finally remembered. Then she rolled over and 
 dropped off into deep slumber. 
 
 Doubtless through some sympathetic influ- 
 ence the others of the Simkins household rested 
 more quietly that night and the following morn- 
 ing awakened more than usually refreshed, 
 
CHAPTER V 
 DRESSMAKING: PREPARATIONS 
 
 May had seen several hot days, but Mrs. 
 Simkins had not yet got around to the work of 
 renovating the bargain lawn for the new dress, 
 though the brightness and bleaching power of 
 the intense sun could not have in any way fallen 
 short of her requirements. There seemed to 
 be plenty of time on hand. Original plans had 
 missed their mark as originals have a way of 
 doing in certain poorly regulated families. 
 
 Emma for reasons best known to herself, 
 
 reasons which though urged strongly to do so 
 
 she refused pertinaciously to divulge, had 
 
 altered all her ideas and desires about the party 
 
 she was to give. It could not now very well 
 
 be called a birthday party — save arbitrarily 
 
 I — for her birthday, her eighteenth, was an 
 
 event already several days buried in the dead 
 
 past ; it should not be a " class " party, for, 
 
 though she should invite the members of her 
 
 class and they could come or not as they chose, 
 
 there were others that she wished to include 
 
 among her guests, some outsiders, many of them 
 51 
 
52 « WORRY " 
 
 much older than was she herself. The presence 
 of these would preclude styling the function a 
 " class " party. Moreover, the date for the 
 giving of the affair was to be postponed until 
 the evening of June first instead of some time 
 near the middle of May. 
 
 Emma persisted in refusing to give a reason 
 for altering her ideas as to what she considered 
 a fitting day for her party. She did, however, 
 advance the veiled excuse that, as the season 
 had been late anyway, the party might as well 
 be a little far along too. This change of date 
 fell in with Mrs. Simkins' opinion about the 
 matter too, for she knew that by the day de- 
 cided upon by Emma, June first, there would 
 be quite a bit more lucre in the family till. Mr. 
 Simkins had been working steadily since he 
 began that Monday morning now over a week 
 ago, and though some of the cash had gone 
 skyward in well-defined wreaths and shadowy 
 wraiths of bluish white smoke — for pa was 
 smoke-hungry — enough had found its way 
 into Mrs. Simkins' keep to make her, with the 
 certainty of more soon, feel that they, the fam- 
 ily, would before long be on an easy financial 
 footing. Debts there were to pay, but that 
 was only a sign that people had confidence in 
 them. The debts could wait a while longer. 
 
 Commencement, of course, would not be until 
 June eighth and Mrs. S. would try to squeeze 
 
" WORRY " 53 
 
 out of that week between the party and the 
 graduation exercises enough money to buy 
 Emma a narrow sash of white satin ribbon to 
 wear with the lawn and brighten it up some. 
 To be sure, she did not know whether or not it 
 would be just appropriate or " in," as the 
 woman at the store had said of laces ; but she 
 did know they wore ribbon sashes when she was 
 a girl, and she did know a sash would alter 
 the appearance of the dress which had of neces- 
 sity to be worn first at the June party, and 
 therefore would be likely to stand in need of a 
 little touching up. 
 
 The girls had been in regular attendance at 
 their classes and Emma had been more and more 
 preoccupied as the final term of her school work 
 drew to its close. Even Mrs. Jacobs, to whom 
 she was as a matter largely of sentiment almost 
 feudally attached in part because of a friendly 
 leniency in anything touching rent and its 
 prompt payment, could never any more get 
 Emma to do any of the little tasks which it had 
 been her custom, by way of accommodation, 
 heretofore to perform in her spare moments. 
 The preparation of her commencement essay 
 was her ready excuse for not doing the little 
 things she was expected to do, and this excuse 
 stood her in good stead in more than one in- 
 stance. 
 
 Her mother, though, had confided under seal 
 
54 " WORRY " 
 
 of secrecy — when at last she got it settled in 
 her mind that Emma's dress must be bleached 
 and made up and so had gone down the street 
 to Mrs. Jacobs to borrow the " slim " pattern — 
 that Emma's time seemed to be considerably 
 more taken up with " sayin' " than with " es- 
 sayin'." 
 
 " Do you know, Mrs. Jacobs, she just sits 
 and talks by the hour evenin' after evenin' with 
 that Joe. He's been kind a-sweet on her ever 
 since that Christmas tree social last year at 
 our church. They spend so much time talkin', 
 low-like, that when she's goin' to get that essay 
 composed I can't for the life of me make out. 
 I've heard tell you can buy 'em already writ 
 out if you want to. Maybe Joe's gone and 
 bought her one, and that's why she seems so 
 satisfied and lazy all the while. Joe's got 
 money. He makes his two a day, and he says 
 he would do anything for Emma. I hope if 
 he buys her an essay, I hope he'll just get her 
 a good one with a whole lot of high-falutin' 
 words and gestures like a windmill put in. I 
 would feel so proud." Mrs. S. enjoyed in an- 
 ticipation the efforts of her firstborn. 
 
 But Mrs. Simkins could stay but a moment 
 in spite of Mrs. Jacobs' urging. 
 
 " No, thank you, I've got to get back and 
 get the dinner on the stove," she had to insist 
 at last. " I'll be glad when vacation comes 
 
" WORRY " 55 
 
 and the girls are out of school. Maybe Myra 
 can help you some then if you need anybody. 
 But as for Emma — I don't know — like as 
 not she'll have another essay on hand, or a 
 po'm." There was just a shade of insinuation 
 in the remark, and both women laughed merrily 
 as they parted. 
 
 " I want to be there when Era begins that 
 po'm," Mrs. Jacobs called from her porch. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins, already at the gate, turned 
 for a moment and gaily waved the borrowed 
 pattern toward the porch in an understanding 
 farewell. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins hurried up the street to her 
 plain little house, paintless well-nigh, and glanc- 
 ing at the clock, recently regulated by Joe's 
 skillful hand and therefore correct, found she 
 still had plenty of time to get dinner before 
 the girls came home to sit down to their noon- 
 day fare. So she thought, as the sun was such 
 a blaze of heat, she would try to get the lawn 
 dress goods out on the grass to bleach. Taking 
 just a bit of soft soap from her crock full in 
 the cellar, she made a heavy white suds in a 
 small quantity of hot water, and this suds she 
 turned into her tub already half filled with warm 
 water, mixing thoroughly the while. Then lay- 
 ing the lawn in folds to fit the tub and placing 
 it in the soapy water, she left it there to soak. 
 
 " I guess I'll just let it soak all night," she 
 
56 " WORRY " 
 
 finally decided. " Tomorrow's sure to be a 
 proper twin to today, and I can just take it 
 over to Mrs. Brown's after I rinse it good and 
 let her bleach it on her grass plat. It's big- 
 ger'n our'n anyway and grassier, too. Em 
 need never know but what I bought it just that 
 way at the store. I know, after I get it pressed, 
 she nor nobody else could ever tell but what it 
 lay just that way on the counter. But Em 
 don't take no interest in it somehow. It's been 
 in my bureau drawer ever since that night." 
 
 And so Mr. Simkins after laying a molding- 
 board over the washtub, and attempting to dis- 
 guise the situation slightly by placing a couple 
 of pie tins, a flour sifter and a rolling-pin atop, 
 went complacently to the work of paring po- 
 tatoes and in other ways getting things in order 
 for dinner. 
 
 " I'm glad today 's only Wednesday," she 
 said to herself; then, with a woman's remark- 
 able quickness in figuring things out, " tomor- 
 row 's Thursday," she calculated. " The girls'll 
 be gone all day if I put them up a nice lunch 
 and tell them it's too awful hot to come home 
 right in the heat of the day. That'll fix it just 
 right. Mrs. Brown'll help me bleach and press 
 that dress goods if I let her think she's doin' 
 it all. Even My'll never know there was any 
 need of a bit of soap and a May day sun. 
 Em's so squeamish. No tellin' what she would 
 
" WORRY " 57 
 
 do if she suspected. I'll just ask Mrs. B.'s ad- 
 vice about the whole business, and I shouldn't be 
 at all surprised if she sailed right in and did 
 the whole thing for me offhand. Mrs. B.'s a 
 splendid one at ironin'," Mrs. Simkins added 
 meditatively, " and I'm certainly not goin' to 
 hang back when it comes to lettin' her show 
 what she can do. My oh me! That woman 
 does like to have things her own way ! " 
 
 Dinner was ready when the girls came home, 
 so the three of them sat down immediately. 
 
 " Your pa took his lunch with him this morn- 
 in'," explained Mrs. S., as they took their 
 places. " It's pretty far for him to walk such 
 warm days. He has to walk so fast, you know. 
 And tomorrow I'm goin' to put up your lunch, 
 too. It's blazin' hot to hurry around so much." 
 
 Myra as usual helped to clear off the table, 
 though the dishwashing was left for Mrs. Sim- 
 kins' afternoon leisure, as a sort of diversion, 
 presumably. But then Myra really had no time 
 unless there happened to be no afternoon ses- 
 sion. 
 
 " Are you going to make pies, Mother? " 
 inquired Myra, scenting a little extra for 
 Thursday's luncheon basket. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins skimmed lightly over the inter- 
 rogation with a request. 
 
 " Come, My," she asked of her younger 
 daughter, offsetting curiosity, u come, I want 
 
58 " WORRY " 
 
 you to help me hold up this pattern I borrowed 
 off of Mrs. Jacobs so as I can get some idea 
 as to how it's goin' to fit Em." 
 
 " Has Mrs. Jacobs got her cambric finished? " 
 asked Emma absently, as she dreamily arose 
 to be measured. 
 
 " She's got it cut out," stuttered Mrs. S., 
 six pins in her mouth somewhat interfering with 
 her enunciation. 
 
 Emma, doubtless, was wondering if the cam- 
 bric would be worn at her party. Her mind 
 seemed to be anywhere rather than upon what 
 her sister and her mother were doing with Mrs. 
 Jacob's paper pattern. 
 
 " Em's so lifeless about some things it's enough 
 to worry a person," said Mrs. Simkins to her 
 spouse that night as they were about to retire. 
 
 " That essay's on her mind, Ma, depend upon 
 it," and Mr. Simkins dismissed any hint of 
 anxiety whatsoever from his tired brain and 
 slept. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 DRESSMAKING : ACTUALITIES 
 
 Bright and early the next morning Mrs. Sim- 
 kins got her husband and her daughters off, 
 one across field paths to his work at the only 
 factory near Bleakdale, the others on the car 
 to school, all with lunches nicely put up and 
 as inviting in variety of viands as her none too 
 plentifully supplied purse would permit. 
 
 They had all awakened more than usually 
 near the sun's time for appearing above the hori- 
 zon that morning, the birds' joyous welcoming 
 of the four o'clock dawn, warm and brilliant, 
 having been a little more clamorous than pre- 
 viously that season, so much so that no one of 
 the family could think of sleeping, though 
 Emma would perhaps have lain dozing, but half 
 awake, indefinitely — for her slumber had been 
 somewhat troubled and broken in a sub-con- 
 scious going over of plans for the morrow — 
 had not her sister, quite beside her usual self, 
 given her several vigorous tugs by her feet, not 
 at all in her accustomed character, infected, 
 
 doubtless, by the spirit of the early morning 
 59 
 
60 " WORRY " 
 
 electrifying all under its influence into new en- 
 ergy and unwonted height of spirit. 
 
 " Come on, Em ! Out you go, lazy ! " My 
 had called, pulling mischievously with quite a 
 show of strength the while; and Em surprised 
 and not a little angry at first at her sister's 
 outrof-the-ordinary behavior, had reluctantly 
 allowed herself to be persuaded to forego her 
 little cat-nap and to be talked into attiring her- 
 self for the enjoyment of the rare early morn- 
 ing hours for breakfast and for school. 
 
 " I guess I'll have to thank you after all, 
 My, for getting me out so early," Emma had 
 admitted with some hesitancy and just a shade 
 of inexplicable bashfulness as they sat at break- 
 fast. 
 
 Emma disliked ever to admit herself to be in 
 the wrong : her attitude toward her sister, gentle 
 and unselfish as she in her heart knew her sister 
 to be, had always been one of conscious superi- 
 ority with a sort of under-current idea that she 
 was there for no other purpose than to be good- 
 naturedly imposed upon and conveniently run 
 over (figuratively) whenever advantageous to 
 do so. 
 
 " I'm so put out with myself (glances of 
 incredulity had flashed amusedly among the 
 other members of the family), you see, I didn't 
 sleep well all night kind of half-dreaming about 
 it ; and here, if it hadn't been for My, I'd never 
 
" WORRY " ei 
 
 have been up to do it, I was that drowsy and 
 done out." 
 
 "And now since you are up," Mrs. Simkins 
 had offered, handing meanwhile a second cup 
 of coffee to the husband and father, " let's hear 
 why you were so very particular about gettin' 
 up so early." 
 
 " Why, I've got to get off for school on the 
 first car down this morning. It's a good thing 
 I got my breakfast in time and my lunch put 
 up." 
 
 M My word ! That essay ! " Mrs. S. had sym- 
 pathizingly remarked, instinctively picturing 
 to herself an early morning rehearsal with 
 teachers, taking everything — reasons included 
 — for granted. " I told Mrs. Jacobs yester- 
 day when I was down there to borrow that pat- 
 tern that I wished Joe would just go and buy 
 you a nice 'propriate essay with gesture direc- 
 tions; then you wouldn't have to fuss around 
 so and worry nights and everything. They 
 didn't have graduatin' essays in my day; but 
 I've heard enough since about buyin' 'em. I 
 just want you to ask Joe to go and get you 
 one." Mrs. Simkins had given her opinion 
 with finality. 
 
 " Maybe that's why Joe wanted me to take 
 the early car. He didn't just explain what he 
 was going to do." 
 
 " Oh! It's Joe, is it? I thought it was one 
 
62 « WORRY " 
 
 of them professor teachers wanted to see you. 
 Well, you just tell Joe you can't be late for 
 school. And you almost through all of it ! " 
 Mrs. Simkins had commanded with warmth, and 
 then : " My's to go on the early car, too. 
 When young folks go spookin' off at daybreak 
 it's just as well to have some one else along 
 snoopin'." 
 
 Thus it was that even before six o'clock Mrs. 
 Simkins found herself absolute master of her 
 entire house and of her time until nightfall. 
 Though the girls had never before taken the 
 early car for the city, rarely, in fact, being 
 up in time to do so even had they cared to, 
 the unusualness of the hour at which they had 
 set out did not seem to occupy her thoughts to 
 any marked extent. Her knowledge of the city 
 and its complexities was not full enough to en- 
 able her to picture what might possibly happen 
 to two young girls out in the hustle and bustle 
 and hurry of the city streets even in the " East 
 End," out in the rush of the early morning hours 
 when so many rush hither and thither to their 
 various employments. 
 
 Could she have known that Emma had, after 
 all her admonition and injunction, appeared in 
 her classroom fully an hour late ; could she have 
 known that Myra, ordered to the platform by 
 an implacable instructor, judgment-day venge- 
 ance in his eye, had suffered the humiliation 
 
" WORRY " 63 
 
 of a few terse remarks and some heartfelt advice, 
 eminently suited to impress upon her the fla- 
 grant enormity of living a lifetime with that 
 cornerstone of character, punctuality, cracked 
 and shamefully chipped; could she have known 
 that Joe Kuntz had been for the first time in 
 his factory experience " docked " a round fifty 
 cents' worth of silver for tardiness equivalent 
 in value to the factory management; could she 
 have known all this, Mrs. Simkins might have 
 dropped bodily with her whole soul and all 
 her existences in the spirit into her old habit 
 " worry." 
 
 But she knew naught of it all, and so serenely 
 and contentedly she manipulated the lawn in 
 an effort to rid it of as much soapy water (by 
 this time tinged a shade dark) as she could 
 wring irom it without endangering the evenness 
 of the weave, in order that she might lay it aside 
 and refill the tub with warm rinsing water. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins was not an adept at reasoning; 
 she would have been quite at sea even as to a 
 hazy meaning of the term had any one men- 
 tioned logic in her hearing. So she was quite 
 incapable of drawing a little lesson from the 
 peculiar set of circumstances surrounding the 
 movements of her daughters early that morn- 
 ing. Later, when but a few weeks had passed, 
 she knew all just as it had happened, and in 
 the telling she was the one of all that merry 
 
64. " WORRY " 
 
 crowd of listeners who laughed loudest ana long- 
 est ; yet could she have known aught of it before- 
 hand " worry n would have plucked and pulled, 
 would have nagged and plagued her despite her 
 resolution, into such a state that she might 
 have suspected herself, and with reason, guilty 
 of the " unforgivable sin," for who is there to 
 say persistent worry is not just that, narrow- 
 ing, unnerving, demoralizing as it certainly is. 
 
 But Joe and Emma were far too interested 
 to disclose what they knew, and Myra — Myra 
 was discreet; more than that, she was thor- 
 oughly loyal in whatever she was bound by her 
 true nature to consider solely the concern of 
 others. 
 
 So Mrs. Simkins, ignorant of all and worry- 
 less, continued in peace with the renovation 
 of the goods for her daughter's dress, lifting 
 it and sousing it again and again in the warm 
 rinse water till every trace of soap, even the 
 slight odor, had been completely removed. 
 
 By eight o'clock she knew that the Brown 
 household would have quieted down; the hus- 
 band having long since gone off to his work at 
 the factory, the same one in which Mr. Sim- 
 kins himself earned the support — or such as 
 went under that name — of his family ; the 
 children, a couple of boys and a girl, having 
 somewhat later passed down the street on the 
 way to the village school before the door of 
 
" WORRY " 65 
 
 which they- were due, the girl included, for a 
 game of marbles; and the baby — well she 
 would make it her part of the work, thought 
 Mrs. Simkins, to take care of baby while Mrs. 
 Brown demonstrated what she could do along 
 the line of making bargain material look just 
 like new. To be sure, though she had thought 
 about the matter several days, she had not yet 
 got around to inquire whether Mrs. Brown would 
 be otherwise engaged and unable to assist her, 
 or whether she would be quite free, with plenty 
 of time on her hands. Yet knowing Mrs. 
 Brown as she did, thoroughly, with the viscid 
 intimacy of small places, she felt — was sure 
 in truth — that Mrs. B. would rush gladly with 
 a helping hand (or two of them) to offer what- 
 ever assistance lay within her power to grant. 
 
 So having rinsed to a sufficiency the length 
 of lawn, Mrs. Simkins made her way up the 
 street to the house and home of that neighbor 
 among neighbors, the one with the spirit of 
 accommodation and good will writ in strong 
 though smiling lines over her entire countenance, 
 registered indelibly in the minds of the many 
 to whom she had been a friend in need. 
 
 Mrs. Brown was out on the only porch, which 
 by the way happened to be a front one, bathing 
 the baby when through the splashing of the 
 water in the tub — for the child was a three- 
 year-old and vigorous, not to say unmanageable 
 
66 " WORRY " 
 
 — she chanced to spy Mrs. Simkins through the 
 leafy barrier of the half-grown maples along 
 the street, evidently making her way to no other 
 house than hers. 
 
 As Mrs. Simkins turned in at the gate, the 
 bunch of still dripping white goods which she 
 was holding carefully away from her caught 
 Mrs. Brown's eye. She at once, in that mas- 
 terly though rather disagreeable fashion some 
 have, settled almost intuitively on the reason 
 for the early morning visit (though such were 
 not extraordinary in Bleakdale) and immedi- 
 ately, as was her custom, she voiced what was 
 in her mind without query or further hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 " You've brought over some goods to bleach 
 on my grass," she stated, disdaining, at least 
 neglecting, to question about the matter. 
 " Em's dress, I'll bet a dollar. Now you jest 
 set right down and watch baby a minute, and 
 I'll spread the goods out on the best bit of 
 grass there is in the whole plat." 
 
 Unhesitatingly she reached for the cloth as 
 Mrs. Simkins dropped on the step near the 
 tub of water. Mrs. S. knew Mrs. B. so well. 
 They had been the greatest of friends, thick as 
 mud for over two years. 
 
 " All right. Go on. You know more about 
 your tormented old grass than I do, I guess," 
 she agreed and admitted all in a breath, and 
 
" WORRY » 67 
 
 then as though to make herself equally useful, 
 " I'll dry baby and dress her," she volunteered. 
 
 The goods was going to take up a stretch of 
 grass longer than Mrs. Brown had planned to 
 have it ; so she had to relay it, turning one end 
 back upon itself in order to have enough grass 
 right in the hottest place without a bit of 
 shade. 
 
 " Ain't you afraid that turned over place'U 
 look darker than the rest? " came from the 
 porch. 
 
 Without parley came back peremptorily, 
 " You jest tend to that baby. I'm goin' to 
 make this cloth do jest what I want it to. I'll 
 turn and change that place, and sprinkle the 
 whole thing again as soon as it dries. By one 
 it'll be through. And you're goin' to stay to 
 dinner. Get that? " 
 
 " Suits me." Mrs. S. fell in with the sug- 
 gestion so domineeringly expressed. " The folks 
 all took their lunches anyway, and I'm all 
 alone." 
 
 " 'Twouldn't make no difference. You'd have 
 to stay anyway to watch me press this cloth — 
 to see if I know how to do it right," Mrs. B. 
 added with mild sarcasm. 
 
 " You hain't goin' to press it," Mrs. S. spe- 
 ciously objected. " I didn't come over here to 
 get your help ; I come over for your grass," she 
 offered tactfully and drawingly. 
 
68 " WORRY " 
 
 "What do I care? I guess I jest enjoy 
 pressin' nice, soft, white goods like this here'll 
 be when the sun and me gets through. I'm goin' 
 to press it anyway," and she set her foot down 
 hard, as though that was all there was to be 
 said about it. 
 
 " Can't I watch, even? " playfully inquired 
 Mrs. S. 
 
 " No," with finality. " You're to give the 
 baby her nap. It won't take me no time at 
 all soon's we eat." Then she added, H And no 
 feelings, Mrs. S. ; but I'm a-thinkin' I can press 
 better'n you anyway." 
 
 " Oh, no feelings," agreed Mrs. S. smiling, 
 " and I'll see that the baby goes to sleep nice 
 and quiet, the little dear. But there's one thing, 
 Kate Brown," she went on seriously, " neither 
 Emma nor Myra is to know anything about 
 this bleachin' and pressin'. I ain't told them 
 the goods was soiled and I'm not goin' to — 
 so there ! " and her eyes snapped. 
 
 Telling tales out of school, however, was not 
 one of Mrs. Brown's failings. 
 
 Dinner over, Mrs. Brown went out to see if 
 the goods were ready for pressing, and Mrs. 
 Simkins retired to her friend's bedroom with 
 the baby. There the child, in consideration of 
 being allowed to pull Mrs. Simkins' front hair 
 back and forth rhythmically while Mrs. S. 
 hummed raspingly, went soundly to sleep in less 
 
" WORRY " 69 
 
 than ten minutes, leaving Mrs. S. to sit looking 
 out of the bedroom window at the pretty yard 
 and the trolley wires beyond. 
 
 Before the baby awakened in came Mrs. 
 Brown, tiptoeing. 
 
 " The goods is did up beautiful," she ex- 
 ulted. " Now you can go right home and get 
 that pattern — Milly Franks said you'd bor- 
 rowed it off of Mrs. Jacobs — and we'll have 
 that dress cut out and basted before four 
 o'clock." 
 
 " Well, I've got to be back home by five 
 to begin supper," bandied Mrs. S., knowing well 
 that Mrs. B. enjoyed the appearance of opposi- 
 tion, though not real obstinacy. 
 
 " Hurry along with you. Stop your gab, 
 and you'll get there in time, all right," Mrs. 
 B. counseled with characteristic warmth. 
 
 True to the estimation Mrs. B. had placed 
 upon her own abilities as a dressmaker of quick- 
 ness and dispatch, Mrs. S. found herself just a 
 little before five o'clock back in her own home, 
 the lawn dress for Emma's June day party and 
 afterwards for her commencement already cut 
 out and tentatively basted. 
 
 " And it's goin' to be handsome when I get 
 that pretty lace on," Mrs. S. had said, as Mrs. 
 B. held the lightly thrown together garment up 
 to her to get some idea (a faint one) as to how 
 the skirt was going to hang. " I wish Emma 
 
70 " WORRY " 
 
 wouldn't wear it to her party. That dimity of 
 hern's plenty good, and she could save this for 
 her commencement." 
 
 " Now you know you don't mean anything of 
 the kind," had overruled Mrs. Brown with keener 
 reasoning. " At the party they'll see her close 
 as can be, at the graduatin' all the class'U be 
 so flustered they won't know what's goin' on; 
 and not five people in the aujence will know her 
 from Eve anyway. I guess you can freshen it 
 up some, can't you? " Then reconsidering, 
 " the light is awful bright at commencement." 
 
 " I was thinkin' of buyin' a ribbon sash if I 
 can make to rake together enough after the 
 party," Mrs. S. had confided. 
 
 " Land sakes, Jul Simkins ! Here we've been 
 talkin' party and party as though I knew all 
 about it ; and goodness me ! this is the first I've 
 heard of it," had ejaculated Mrs. Brown. 
 " But I suspected enough to almost know," she 
 had concluded, and then as a sort of hearty 
 good-by, as Mrs. Simkins turned at the gate, 
 " of course, I'll be asked to come over." 
 
 The girls came home shortly after Mrs. S. 
 began to peel the potatoes for supper and to 
 set the table. Both were late, for Myra had 
 been asked to remain to make up a certain 
 lesson, and Emma as though with a feeling of 
 culpability, contritely elected to await Myra's 
 release from discipline, so that they both could 
 
" WORRY " 71 
 
 ride home together on the car and talk it over, 
 And this they accordingly did, constructing as 
 they rode along, at a single stroke, a " worry " 
 assuager of plausibility for their mother's ears 
 and a conscience balm for their own brains. 
 
 In addition Myra planned to divert her 
 mother's attention from the tardiness of their 
 homecoming by a judicious little bit of fault- 
 finding; for she knew her mother would spend 
 the following hour or two trying to justify 
 herself — so high were her ideals of mother-duty. 
 
 " There wasn't a bit of pie in that lunch," 
 she complained as soon as she had made her 
 way into the kitchen. 
 
 " I know there wasn't," Mrs. Simkins agreed 
 easily, quite out of her customary way. 
 
 " Heavens ! " thought Myra, " is Mother get- 
 ting emancipated? " 
 
 " But there's a lot of thread in Em's new 
 dress. Mrs. Brown helped me with it all and 
 that'll save you just so much." Then she added 
 (whatever had got into Mother?) with quite a 
 show of self-satisfaction and an inward titter: 
 " Don't think of pie, My, every time you see 
 a flour sifter laid out. Don't you know some 
 people use 'em for strainers ? " 
 
 Myra went down to the gate to await her 
 father's return from work. 
 
 " Ma's gettin' real light-headed," she men- 
 tally commented. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 A WALK AND A TALK 
 
 After the supper things had been cleared 
 away and the dishes had been washed so that 
 Myra could assist, Mrs. Simkins had Emma slip 
 off her dress and stand up — and she complied, 
 though reluctantly — while the new garment 
 with its preliminary bastings could be tried 
 on and altered a trifle here and there as it 
 might stand in the need of a little taking in or 
 a little letting out. 
 
 " You'll have to hurry up about it, Ma. 
 You know Joe's a-coming for me at half-past 
 seven. We're going over to Lottie Johnson's 
 for a little walk." Emma was fidgety and im- 
 patient and nervous still from her peculiar 
 experiences of the morning. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! And a little talk ! Hold still now 
 while I see if this wants to be taken up a little 
 on the shoulder seams. Seems it does," she 
 voiced her decision, squinting one eye and in- 
 dulging in a bit of cheap wit. " Now, My, the 
 pins," and she filled one corner of her mouth. 
 But there was another corner, happily, and 
 
 from this she continued to give vent to occa- 
 
 72 
 
" WORRY " 73 
 
 sional directions to My as she ripped bastings 
 and pinned anew wherever the " fit " of the 
 dress failed to coincide with her views as to how 
 it should look. 
 
 But as Mrs. Simkins had said, Emma was 
 in point of fact about Mrs. Jacobs* size, and 
 so the borrowed pattern had answered very 
 well. Only a few alterations were necessary; 
 there are always some. 
 
 " That's finished," at last announced Mrs. 
 Simkins. " Now, Em, stand up on this hassock 
 and I'll card you." 
 
 " What's that, Ma? " Myra wanted to know. 
 
 " A body would think we never had a   slim ' 
 dress in the house before to hear you talk," 
 returned Mrs. S. raspingly. " Now you just 
 watch me. Your ma'll show you what cardvrC 
 is. Get up on the hassock, Em," she com- 
 manded. 
 
 Emma obeyed, glancing sidelong at the clock. 
 
 " Hurry up with you, Ma," she uttered im- 
 patiently. " It's almost seven-thirty." 
 
 " Just you wait," soothingly urged Mrs. S. 
 " We'll soon be done now, so don't fret. This 
 pattern says the skirt must hang free just four 
 inches from the floor all around even-like. Now, 
 Myra, you cut me a card just — " 
 
 " Why didn't you say you wanted to make 
 the skirt straight around the bottom ? " Myra 
 was a little disgusted, the more since she had 
 
7* " WORRY " 
 
 not yet figured out what her mother had meant 
 her to understand about the flour sifter a while 
 before. 
 
 " I'm going out on the porch with Pa," she 
 said without offering to help hang the skirt, 
 and somewhat offended. 
 
 But the skirt got hung, nevertheless; for 
 Myra, though an interesting and useful mite 
 of humanity, was far from being indispensa- 
 ble. 
 
 Mrs. S. fixed everything about the dress just 
 as she wanted it, or thought she wanted it ; then 
 Emma got down off the hassock, and again 
 glancing at the clock, found it was still not 
 quite time for Joe to come for her. She lifted 
 the soft white from the chair across the back 
 of which her mother had thrown it for the mo- 
 ment, and with more interest than she had at 
 any time taken in it she asked: 
 
 " Do you think it is going to be pretty, 
 Mother? " — she always used " Mother " when 
 talking seriously, for it seemed more dignified, 
 more befitting one about to be graduated, on 
 the whole, less abrupt to her than just curt 
 " Ma " — and then almost with ardor, " I do 
 want it to look soft and white and beautiful and 
 — and pure," she added so meaningly that her 
 mother looked up quickly from where she sat 
 trying to wheedle an unmanageable thread into 
 
" WORRY " 75 
 
 the eye of a needle where it doubtless knew all 
 the time it by rights ought to be. 
 
 " Here, Em," she cut short all sentiment 
 without mercy ; " here, you thread this needle 
 for your Ma, and she'll guarantee you'll look 
 like the virgin queen." 
 
 Joe came shortly after and waited a while 
 on the step to talk with Pa Simkins and My 
 until Emma had got into her old dress again. 
 Then leaving Mrs. Simkins sewing in the altera- 
 tions on the new one and planning as to how 
 the lace was going to be put on, the two passed 
 through Pa's tobacco whiffs on down the path. 
 
 u Ma don't seem to worry so much as she 
 used to," Emma wonderingly remarked to Joe 
 as he took her arm and they turned through the 
 gateway to the path alongside the road. 
 
 " It ain't because your pa has given up smok- 
 ing, I know that much," Joe laughed lightly. 
 
 " I think it is because Pa's working again 
 for one thing, and then the winter was trying 
 for all of us, Ma most of all," Emma reasoned 
 and then meditatively continued : " Ma always 
 did worry a great deal. Things didn't always 
 go to suit her, and I guess in a way it's been 
 a case of ideals with her. Lately, you know, 
 things seem to be going her way and that has 
 brightened her." After a little, as Joe seemed 
 to cherish silence, Emma observed pedantically 
 
76 " WORRY " 
 
 with the serious turn eighteen often affects: 
 " There's nothing like a little encouragement 
 to cheer a person up." 
 
 " I guess I cheered her up some that night 
 I kissed her." Joe smiled, remembering that 
 night of nights and its abandon. 
 
 " I admit you're both cheery and cheering," 
 Emma agreed appreciatively, " but I'm not in 
 the least down-hearted nor — see the stars, 
 Joe," she changed the subject abruptly; maybe 
 she knew Joe's sympathetic turns — " that big 
 one over there's Mars. We've been looking over 
 our astronomy a little at the ' High.' It makes 
 a body just want to sail up in a cloud boat and 
 float from star to star — from star to star the 
 weepy clouds among. The big glowing ones, 
 Joe, I mean. Those little points of brilliant, 
 flashy light, they're suns. Couldn't sit long 
 there — " 
 
 "I've been thinking lately, myself, I'd like 
 to live at s Mar's,' " interrupted Joe artfully, 
 with borrowed pronunciation, " and as for sons, 
 bright ones — " 
 
 But Emma headed him off, and for the rest 
 of the walk wouldn't let him utter a single word, 
 telling him he must not be too liberal with his 
 castles in Spain, nor yet depend quite on 
 " Mar's." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 MAKING A PARTY SUIT THE SEASON 
 
 Time was at last fast on its way toward the 
 first of June. Preparations for the June day 
 party were already completed or nearly so, for 
 preparations never are, or rarely are, fully 
 prepared, there always being a little to occupy 
 the final moment even of such hosts and host- 
 esses as were to be met with, though at long 
 intervals, in Bleakdale, far from elaborate 
 though such preparations were. 
 
 The dress which had caused Mrs. Simkins so 
 much concern in planning the " ways and 
 means " of its purchase, in its selection, and in 
 its making, now lay in a long pasteboard box 
 Joe had got for it down town, finished and satis- 
 factory to all in every detail. It was light, 
 almost filmy — for it had been starched but a 
 trifle — beautiful with its little insertions and 
 edgings of pretty though cheap lace; at least, 
 so it looked to the Simkins family, even to 
 Mr. Simkins himself, from whose hand Myra 
 adroitly removed the cigar before she would 
 
 permit him to enter its almost sacred presence. 
 
 77 
 
78 " WORRY " 
 
 Mrs. Jacobs had been asked to come up and 
 admire the product of her paper pattern, and 
 Mr. Jacobs tagged along, though he had not 
 been to the Simkins house since the accident of 
 weeks ago. He was not so active as his wife, 
 who was said to be some years younger. 
 
 Mrs. Brown, too, popped in breezily about 
 noon of Decoration Day on her way home from 
 the exercises near the " East End " high school 
 building, for Bleakdale, dormant little village, 
 was too dead itself to plan to remember the 
 nation's dead. 
 
 " It is a beauty. I knew it would be when 
 I helped your ma — cut it out." Mrs. Brown 
 remembered in time that half-truths are in some 
 instances the very blessings of the gods. " But, 
 Em," she went on obstinately, " dotted mull 
 would ha' looked scrumptious. You're a wee 
 bit scrawny anyway, and the dots would ha' 
 filled you out kind a' like without spoilin' the 
 style." 
 
 What pleased Mrs. Simkins most of all was 
 that Emma herself really and truly seemed to 
 think the dress almost too pretty to wear. She 
 was delighted with it. Whether because of 
 this or for some deeper reason, all the old taci- 
 turnity, the old lack of interest and of appre- 
 ciation seemed to have left her, and she be- 
 came a happy, sweetly satisfied young woman. 
 Thoughts of how she was to look when attired 
 
" WORRY " 79 
 
 in her new gown were evidently flashing through 
 her imagination. 
 
 " Oh! I'll just make the loveliest little—" 
 she unconsciously uttered, finishing with a 
 blush as her mother interposed with forceful 
 slang : 
 
 " Come, Em ! Don't go and get stuck on 
 yourself. There'll be plenty to call you lovely 
 if you give 'em a chance. Don't begin the pro- 
 cession yourself, else maybe you won't hear 
 very many footfalls a-pad-paddin' along be- 
 hind." 
 
 " There'll be Joe, anyway, no matter what I 
 do or say," answered Emma loyally, a little 
 nettled to think her mother had caught her in- 
 advertently voiced self-adulation. 
 
 " Humph ! Joe ! " commented Mrs. S. with 
 mild contempt, as though Joe, after all, were 
 hardly worth counting as one to be depended 
 on. " I didn't see him put in an appearance 
 last night." 
 
 " Because I told him not to come. We were 
 going to be so busy." 
 
 " We busy ! " sniffed Mrs. S. Then after a 
 moment, latent affection upwelling, " There, 
 there, Em, my dear, I know you've had more 
 on your hands than you could attend to. 
 Essays must be awful tryin' things. If you'd 
 only took my advice it would have saved you 
 that much worry." 
 
80 « WORRY " 
 
 But the dress was made, anyway, and pre- 
 sumably the essay likewise was finished, for 
 Emma's spirits had certainly been on the rise; 
 although to be sure there was still a full week 
 after the party in which to prepare, since com- 
 mencement was not until the eighth. 
 
 It being a holiday, Joe came up in the after- 
 noon rather late, and the two walked out to- 
 gether across the fields in a sort of romantic 
 ramble toward a brook and the cooling shade of 
 a group of trees near by, back, far back, from 
 the straight lines of houses on each side of the 
 dusty Bleakdale turnpike, and from the clash- 
 clashing and the rumble of the trolley cars on 
 their way back and forth, to and from the city. 
 
 It was dark when they returned, and Mrs. S. 
 with maybe a slight return attack of her old 
 trouble, was down at the gate, not looking for 
 them, just standing there as though there was 
 no place in the whole world like a gate post on 
 which to lean one's head in quiet and profitable 
 meditation. She asked Joe in to supper; but 
 he excused himself, saying he was in a hurry. 
 As he turned to continue on his way down the 
 street, she heard him say, as though casually, 
 to Emma that he would have everything ar- 
 ranged. Woman like — and man like, too — 
 she wondered what. 
 
 Verbal invitations for the evening of June 
 first had several days since been given to 
 
" WORRY " 81 
 
 Emma's classmates, to the Jacobs, the Browns, 
 the three or four families living close by, and 
 to two or three a ways down the car line. Mrs. 
 Simkins had made a special request that Mrs. 
 Jones, the clerk who had been so kind to her 
 in helping her select the lawn dress goods, be 
 asked to come, and Joe had managed it so that 
 a few of his friends would be present. All that 
 there remained- to do was to prepare the refresh- 
 ments for the guests, to make a few final moves 
 toward putting the house in order, and to go 
 out and find some flowers for decorating. As 
 there was plenty of time for all of this on the 
 morrow, the Simkins family retired as usual 
 shortly after the clock struck nine. 
 
 The hour of awakening the morning of the 
 party was just about the same as that some 
 mornings previously when departure on the 
 first car down toward the city seemed a vital 
 feature of the day. This morning, too, the 
 birds kept up an endless chattering, in part a 
 joyous heralding of the dawn, and then in its 
 persistent prolongation doubtless, little love 
 messages sung operatically from mate to mate 
 or else between certain of the feathered chorus 
 intending soon to perfect as yet only whispered 
 interesting plans they had in mind for the 
 future. 
 
 The daybreak symphony served in every way 
 as an alarm to be heeded or to be disregarded 
 
82 " WORRY " 
 
 as each of the family chose. They did not al- 
 ways pay attention to the very early call. This 
 morning to be filled so full of pleasant tasks — 
 for the Simkins once having made up their 
 minds to the money side of the affair hospitably 
 threw themselves whole-souled into anything and 
 everything required of them to make it a suc- 
 cess — all, even Emma, paid immediate and 
 good-natured compliance to the harmonious 
 summons of the birds. 
 
 There was much to do in the kitchen in way 
 of preparation, and Mrs. Simkins wanted to 
 get at it early so that the house might be put in 
 as spick and span order as the somewhat worn 
 condition of the house furnishings would admit. 
 
 " Pa might have had that rocker he broke 
 last winter fixed up," Mrs. S. had said to Emma 
 just the day before. " We need another one 
 to put on the lawn out by the porch, but your 
 pa says he's had enough of the old thing. 
 Wouldn't have it fixed if he had a lot on Wall 
 Street to sell. He don't want to see it no more. 
 It's too bad," she went on regretfully, " 'cause 
 maybe some of 'em '11 enjoy the air better 'n 
 they will the house " — by which Mrs. S. did not 
 by any means intend to convey the idea that her 
 house was without air. 
 
 So very likely reasoning that nicely gotten 
 up refreshments, though of necessity limited in 
 variety, might make up for any deficiency either 
 
"WORRY" 83 
 
 in quantity or in elegance of furniture, Mrs. S., 
 accompanied by her capable assistant, Myra, 
 betook herself soon after breakfast to the 
 kitchen in which they began, and in due course 
 of time brought to delectable culmination, divers 
 siftings, mixings, beatings, stirrings. 
 
 " It's a good thing Decoration Day came on 
 Friday, for that gave us a whole day extra," 
 said Myra thankfully. 
 
 " You could ha' staid at home for once. 
 You'd ha' had to ; there wouldn't ha' been any 
 other side to it," answered Mrs. S. with a duty- 
 first expression. 
 
 Just then Emma burst enthusiastically into 
 the kitchen where her mother and sister were 
 working. 
 
 "I've got it! Oh, I've got it!" she ex- 
 claimed ecstatically, dancing around half like 
 a lunatic. 
 
 Mrs. S. looked at Myra under standingly. 
 
 " She's got it," she passed on the remark 
 mockingly and chant-like, for Emma since 
 breakfast had sat wrapped in thought without 
 offering to turn her hand over to do a thing. 
 " And what have you got, my pretty lady ? " 
 she enquired ironically; then as though fully 
 half convinced, u a hook-worm?" 
 
 " O Mother ! Just the loveliest idea," cor- 
 rected Emma, not in the least perturbed. 
 
 " About what, may I ask? " 
 
8* "WORRY" 
 
 " About our decorations for the rooms and 
 the tables and the little stands. I've got a 
 color scheme all worked out. We'll have it pure 
 yellow," she announced triumphantly. " I'm 
 going to trim with dandelions. There aren't 
 so many here; but there are thousands out 
 through the meadows where Joe and I were 
 walking yesterday. Such a — an inspira- 
 tion! " 
 
 " I guess you're all right, Em." Mrs. Sim- 
 kins restored her elder daughter to immediate 
 favor, changed all at once by the brightness of 
 the scene in her mind's eye. " They will be 
 dandy, for a fact. Dandy Lions! 
 
 " ' Pretty little yellow heads, 
 Blooming in great golden beds. 
 Pluck will I just one round sun, 
 Pluck a thousand ere I'm done ! ' 
 
 " You don't ever want to forget, girls, that 
 your ma was educated 'afore she married your 
 pa, and can quote poetry and such with the best 
 of 'em. Only I've been hampered all my life," 
 she went on sadly, reminiscently. " It takes a 
 party like we're goin' to have to give me back 
 my merry days and make me like I was when I 
 was a chick of a woman like you two," and 
 Mrs. Simkins began to hum softly to herself. 
 
 " Some woman, that ! " commented Myra, 
 mischievously. 
 
" WORRY " 85 
 
 " Now, My, quit that laughing. 'Tain't 
 every day in the year that your ma's light- 
 spirited. I can finish now by myself. You 
 and Emma get your half-bushel baskets and 
 fill 'em full of those jolly, little, sunny flowers." 
 And Mrs. Simkins went busily on, humming 
 contentedly to herself. 
 
 When the girls returned they had quantities 
 of dandelions plucked with as long stems as 
 they could possibly manage by forcing their 
 fingers deep down into the leaves. 
 
 " We'll have to get some old tin cans and fill 
 them with water for vases. There's only one 
 vase in the house, and we can't use cups and 
 glasses because we'll need them all for the 
 lemonade," Emma decided as her mother came 
 to the door to look at their burden of bloom. 
 
 " Cans'll do just as well. You can sort 'a 
 droop some of them long-stemmed ones down 
 over the sides, and that'll kind 'a hide the tin," 
 agreed Mrs. S. optimistically. 
 
 It was far past the dinner hour, though the 
 girls had been so busy they had not thought of 
 eating, before the working out of what they 
 rather largely styled their " color scheme " was 
 completed. The effect as a whole would have 
 appealed to any flower lover and to any ad- 
 mirer of industry, for a vast amount of work 
 was represented. 
 
 Great masses of dandelions were arranged 
 
86 " WORRY " 
 
 here and there throughout the neat little cot- 
 tage, several cans filled to overflowing with the 
 flowers being placed closely together to give the 
 effect of good sized bowls. They were massed 
 in the center of the dining-room table; they 
 were banked beneath the windows in the other 
 rooms ; they were placed on the porch in pretty 
 groups; they even bordered the walk in golden 
 yellow part way down the path to the fence. 
 The girls had not gathered nearly enough, and 
 found they had to return for more before the 
 results met with their approval and that of their 
 just as enthusiastic mother. 
 
 When all was done the girls ate, and their 
 mother's work being over until time for the 
 guests to arrive, they all seated themselves in 
 the sitting-room to rest and to admire the strik- 
 ing success of their " color scheme." 
 
 "Ain't it just lovely! I feel as if I was 
 enterin' the golden gate into heaven just to see 
 them beautiful dandelions. Was it Ten'son, 
 My, who wrote : 
 
 ' Little gold drops, how I love you ! 
 How I want to hug and kiss you! 
 Cook you, eat you, like a Sulu ! 
 Make my stomach learn jiu-jitsu! ' " 
 
 " No, Ma, I don't just think it was," pa- 
 tiently disagreed Myra, her mother's kaleido- 
 
" WORRY " 8ff 
 
 scopic change of disposition was beginning to 
 weigh upon her. 
 
 " Oh, never mind ! Maybe I read it in that 
 Sunday paper your pa brought home last week. 
 I hain't seen much poetry since I was a young 
 lady. It's this party excitement takes my mind 
 back so. I hain't been so frisky in moons." 
 
 " And your geography, Ma, is off," persisted 
 Myra unwilling to allow her mother to slip out 
 of her errors on the easy plea of unwonted 
 gayety of mood. " Your Golden Gate is in 
 California. It's the pearly gates that's in 
 heaven." 
 
 " I see my golden gate lookin' out at them 
 cans of dandelions by the path," insisted Mrs. 
 S. " 'Tain't polite anyway to tell your ma she 
 don't know nothin'," she admonished, still 
 smiling. 
 
 And so wore on the afternoon. Mrs. Brown 
 came over early, and shortly afterwards the 
 Jacobs arrived and a few others. Myra and 
 her mother had changed their clothes rather 
 early ; but Emma, not wishing to muss her new 
 gown by attiring herself too soon, found she 
 had to ask to be excused after these first few 
 had reached the house in order to dress. By 
 six o'clock almost all the guests had assembled ; 
 half an hour later they were all there, busily 
 talking and laughing, save perhaps one who sat 
 
88 " WORRY " 
 
 sedately, almost stiffly, a little back from the 
 center of the merry crowd. 
 
 Already had the lemonade been passed once 
 as a sort of welcoming cup of cheer on the hot 
 June night; already had Mrs. Brown, among 
 all within the reach of her full-toned voice, cir- 
 culated her deeply ingrained opinion concerning 
 the relative merits of plain lawn and dotted mull 
 as a material for a " graduatin' " dress, lean- 
 ing most positively and unequivocally toward 
 the latter; already had Mrs. Simkins searched 
 for and found Mrs. Jones of the dry-goods store 
 down in the city to tell her in detail all about 
 the new dress and its making. 
 
 Just then Emma, who had had at last to have 
 Myra called to assist her in getting into her 
 frock and to arrange her hair, appeared at the 
 stair door, and passing into the room, made her 
 way from group to group, shaking hands with 
 her guests and making them welcome all over 
 again. 
 
 Mrs. Jones was admiring the dress as she 
 passed around the room, looking at it intently, 
 mentally making comparison between it and 
 that of her daughter, off the same piece. 
 
 Emma finally came over her way and Mrs. S. 
 proudly presented her to Mrs. Jones whom, of 
 course, she had never before seen. Before 
 leaving them Emma managed to whisper to her 
 mother : 
 
" WORRY " 89 
 
 " Goodness me ! Look at our beautiful 
 1 color scheme ' ! " 
 
 And Mrs. S., turning, was horrified, then 
 well-nigh stupefied, to see before her blank rows 
 and groups of tin cans — some rusty, some 
 bright, all jagged around the tops, even through 
 the door into the dining-room glimmering at 
 her from all sides. 
 
 " Land sakes ! What has happened ! " she 
 exclaimed hysterically ; and Mrs. Jones, fearing 
 she was about to faint, supported her drooping 
 form. 
 
 " They're all closed up, Ma ! Every last 
 dandelion's gone to sleep ! Oh ! why didn't yov> 
 think ? You might have known ! " Emma was 
 almost weeping, and rightly thought that age 
 should have known better than to get youth into 
 such straits. "Where's Joe?" she asked, as 
 though Joe might instantaneously alleviate her 
 embarrassment. 
 
 But Joe was out on the lawn with Pa Simkins, 
 and Jacobs and some others; he was not to be 
 easily and quietly called. 
 
 " We've just got to let on we wanted it that 
 way. Lots of people have to let on about a 
 good many things," sagely decided Mrs. S., re- 
 covering herself. " You just go quietly and 
 call My, and have her take those awful lookin' 
 cans off the dinin' table. The rest of 'em we'll 
 just let go. We're not goin' to spoil the party 
 
90 " WORRY " 
 
 because your * color scheme,' as you call 
 it, hain't worked out." And Mrs. Simkins 
 straightened with the manner of one who had 
 on the spur of the moment, through sheer force 
 of will, added yet another vertebra to her 
 " backbone." She needed all the extra backing 
 she could command, for the house which early 
 in the evening had been really beautiful with its 
 gilding of simple, dainty, yellow flowers, now 
 looked bare and much like a caricature with its 
 rows and groups of tin cans on tables, under 
 window sills, even looking out the open door 
 down each side of the path to the porch. 
 
 Myra was startled, and for a good moment 
 could not grasp the situation, nor understand 
 the meaning of what seemed to be a complete 
 and lightning-like transformation. When she 
 did take it all in, realizing fully what had oc- 
 curred, attracting as little attention as possi- 
 ble, without a word — for three-fourths of the 
 guests in all likelihood had never noticed there 
 had been any " color scheme " ; many would 
 not have known a flower from a brickbat — she 
 slipped the cans off the dining table and from 
 other conspicuous places. 
 
 Emma wanted to assist, but felt that after 
 having been so late in dressing, it would hardly 
 do for her to absent herself even for a short 
 time. Anyway, the shock of the discovery of 
 the flowers' unfaithfulness over, thoughts of the 
 
" WORRY " 91 
 
 later hours of the evening and what they were 
 to bring filled her mind. She very wisely 
 looked only to the future; the future to which 
 she looked did not lie, as with some, decades and 
 decades away. Chancing to glance across the 
 room she caught sight of the Reverend Mr. 
 Seton who sat apart from the others, somewhat 
 retired. To him she felt in a manner drawn, 
 not so much for sympathy — for that she would 
 not ask — as in sympathy. 
 
 There was to be no elaborate party supper: 
 only a slice of beef-loaf, a spoonful of creamed 
 potatoes, a couple of pieces of cake with a fork 
 on a plate for each guest. They were to eat 
 just wherever they happened to be standing or 
 sitting, although there were several little tables 
 convenient for those who might wish to use 
 them. 
 
 On each plate, neatly folded under the fork 
 — presumably placed there by a trusted friend, 
 for though Mrs. S. saw to filling the plates, she 
 knew nothing of it all — was a slip of paper. 
 Some curiously inclined opened immediately 
 these little missives; others more edacious 
 dropped them aimlessly, unnoticing. Those 
 who read, and directly afterwards those who 
 hadn't, in the excitement and babble that fol- 
 lowed scarce gave a thought to refreshment. 
 Down did they set their plates as loudly they 
 voiced their congratulations, for the bit of 
 
92 " WORRY " 
 
 folded paper contained nothing of less import 
 than the announcement of the engagement of 
 Emma Simkins to Joe Kuntz. 
 
 When, some time after, refreshments having 
 been eaten and plates removed, the Reverend 
 Mr. Seton, asking for a moment's silence, an- 
 nounced that the marriage of the couple whose 
 engagement had just been made known would 
 take place immediately, the license having long 
 since been procured, excitement almost equaled 
 in heat the June night itself. 
 
 Mrs. Simkins had a second attack of uncer- 
 tainness which Mrs. Jones, still by her side, 
 abated successfully as before by supporting her 
 for a moment; Mr. Simkins from his seat out- 
 side, streaked through the house up to his elder 
 daughter, demanding with ludicrous dignity the 
 meaning of it all ; Myra, in the secret since that 
 early morning trolley ride, sat quite serene, 
 looking innocent seventeen. 
 
 Joe, meanwhile, had made his way to Emma's 
 side; and while Pa Simkins held firmly to 
 Emma's hand and Ma Simkins hysterically 
 gripped Joe's as in a vise, the minister ap- 
 proached and performed the short though im- 
 pressive ceremony of his church. When Joe 
 slipped the gold band on Emma's finger Mrs. 
 Simkins burst out crying. 
 
 " You're not going to take her away, Joe," 
 she pleaded. 
 
" WORRY " 93 
 
 a 
 
 No. Not for a while, I guess. We thought 
 maybe you'd like to have another man around 
 to worry you," Joe explained. 
 
 " And I would ! I would ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 S. through her tears. " I always did like you, 
 Joe," she added. 
 
 Then all the guests at this surprise wedding 
 came up in turn to shake hands with the bride 
 and groom and to wish them the trite things 
 customary with the stereotyped on such occa- 
 sions. 
 
 " How about commencement? " inquired Mrs. 
 Jones, as she squeezed Emma's hand painfully 
 in her excitement. " Ain't you going to gradu- 
 ate with Carrie? " 
 
 " I'm afraid Joe would not be able to spare 
 me long enough ; " then she leaned over and let 
 out as some do when over happy. " There was 
 something off anyway with my grades," she 
 confided. " Ask Carrie when you see her." 
 
 " And to think I was a-bleachin' a weddin' 
 dress," stammered Mrs. Brown, close by the 
 bride of the evening. 
 
 " That you were a-what? " questioned Emma 
 incisively, only half catching the remark. 
 
 " Never you mind, dearie, I was just a- 
 dreamin'. Here's your ma again," as Mrs. 
 Simkins came up. 
 
 "What's this, Em, 'bout your graduatin'? 
 Ain't you goin' to graduate? " 
 
94 " WORRY " 
 
 " I'm afraid not, Mother. You see it was 
 Emma Simkins that did the studying, now 
 Emma Kuntz can't take all the credit," she 
 dissimulated just a shade. 
 
 " And your essay," anxiously went on Mrs. 
 Simkins ; " ain't you goin' to read it? " 
 
 " No, Mother. But don't worry ; the essay 
 has never been written. I planned this little 
 surprise party way back in May. So after it 
 was all arranged I stopped bothering my head 
 about the essay. Why, you dear goose," she 
 said, taking her mother's face between her 
 hands, " don't you know that's why I changed 
 the date of the party? I wanted, oh, I wanted 
 so bad to be a June day bride." 
 
 Emma and Joe began housekeeping at 
 " Mar's " after all. Mrs. Simkins with two 
 men folks in the house doubtless was at times a 
 victim of nerves ; but she never again admitted 
 even to herself that she was worried. Joe 
 proved to be so valuable a member of the house- 
 hold and offered so freely of his earnings that 
 many of Mrs. Simkins' anxieties were entirely 
 dissipated. 
 
 As Mrs. Brown took leave of Mrs. Simkins 
 that night at the door after all the other guests 
 had departed, she whispered regretfully: 
 
 " If I'd just have known that was a-goin' to 
 be a weddin' dress you was a-goin' to buy, I'd 
 
" WORRY " 95 
 
 have insisted on dotted mull. It's so hand- 
 some." 
 
 " But not a soul of us knew," answered Mrs. 
 Simkins, disappointment in not having been 
 consulted forcing itself through the joy of the 
 outcome of it all. " Not a soul of us knew 
 'ceptin' those three early mornin' street-car 
 plotters." 
 
 That night, or rather early the next morn- 
 ing, for it was late before they retired, Mrs. 
 Simkins informed her attentive better-half that 
 the evening had saved him exactly two dollars 
 and a half. 
 
 " How's that? " inquired he. 
 
 " No graduating no ribbon sash," laconically 
 explained she. 
 

 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY- 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 .... _ 
 
 
 [ DEC 18 1933 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i-EB 19 1937 
 
 
 
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 NOV 19 1937 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 OCT 2 HW 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 LD 21-100m-7,'33 
 
,YB 47312 
 
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