Show pr ii sir i J IRISH EYES NORMS CHAPTER O'Connor wan making entries a fat soft hanA In a big Sheila said she would pay That's entirely satisfactory to O'Connor told want quiet-looking and they'll like I suppose you haven't a sister or a cousin who'd like to go with It's quite a the girls ML I Sheila And Uw to herself she when she was Jul In the snowy street I very likely won't go ft She went and found the three dreary rooms of the Bronx P apartment empty and had gone away with and K The sight of the place Sheila of the day's of Ma's Joe's of the Mc Cann who were so ready to that she would run away with their precious son and be married a justice of the RB- Joe had an old imitation leather Sheila dragged it out from m under the big bed and began to pack W crying hard as she did She B. prayed that they would come in and R And her at they would be a long Retime persuading her not to gol m To be she had given O'Connor three but then K what were three dollars in a crisis W like The thought of the money B reminded Sheila of her precious fifty m and she took it out of the ME drawer of the kitchen to K look at it She put two bills K back crying harder than should have Ma hadn't had forty dollars very often In her Less than an hour turning H into their and supporting his exhausted mother with w-a firm Joe said A you see that girl across the i saw guess I'm seeing Sheila Joe looked like I tell said his have that child all them Mc Joe all but stopped short in his slow to give his mother an you didn't take her j part blame that I walking have to hand It to her for Joe having money matter two cents to She didn't want and that was all there was to well for it does o said her thought it few wouldn't jump at a lad that has all he tell the world there you'd not get Sheila to for just because he was a rich man's swear I felt sorry for Joe said as they entered the odorous doorway of I seemed so poor there in that big with every one of us riding had me so twisted said arresting him on the long didn't know what they were Did they want her to marry or didn't think they thought Peter had got her into and the only decent thing for him to do was stand you don't think his asked K He first I thought she and Peter were just stringing he con-H then all of a sudden while we were there It came HK me that she was telling the D hope she's not mad at murmured fearfully at IP the she never stays he said fl make her a batch of muffins JV lor she likes the woman scalds mc that ij she told me she Hp she'd been a I I never said anny-WL thing to her about certainly rode Joe stooping to grope for the door-jm knob in the kl anny more than the rest of I mother protested how Lizzie M but Sheila only minded it M from If say you know darned well how Sheila feels when she thinks you're It's she's not Joe said of the must be Ju'S She couldn't lock her-JK self could Joe pro- the key from its hid- iff lamb n top door God forgive where j. would she she went to W not do She was m with the fatigue that was on P be Joe an M His mother made no Joe heard her whispering prayers as they went into the empty rooms Sheila wore an alpaca uniform that had belonged to some girl who had basely deserted the Hotel the season and a white organdie apron and butterfly She slept in a long loft room above the garage where there were six At one end of the room was a washroom with a shower and two tin and above the basins was hung a card of printed rules for all the chambermaids and waitresses at the They must wear fresh uniforms bathe wear hair-nets and manicure at least once Sheila asked the girl had showed her where things were and what she must Nelly merely laughed Never In the world had there ever been contempt more complete than that Nelly felt for everything connected with the HoteL Nelly's favorite comment upon Sheila's innocence and ignorance was a scornful and Sheila came to the point when she could anticipate the and avoid Sheila only asked questions the first After that she was too tired to be Interested In Her feet her ankles and she told Nelly that her spine was like a rope with red-hot knots in CHAPTER XII Days merged themselves into and nights into Sheila was not conscious of their beginnings or These were lost in a haze of exhausted The dining-room opened at and on alternate days she was supposed to be filling salt cutting butter stacking folding an hour earlier than that On alternate days she could sleep until almost She set reset brushed filled She went out with penciled filled Sheila asked staggered in with loaded out with trays of empty soup The guests at the were paying for everything they wanted Sheila learned not to overlook There was a pimply young man of nineteen in the who checked the trays and made all the trouble he could about doubled He had and anyone who wanted to work in the dining-room had to take orders from it and go out and get their entire order written he said scornfully to Sheila on the first terrible only have to add the two extras to Sheila came in and the mother said they'd have what the rest It up and go out and get the entire order said got their All I have to do is add two more to Benny tore up the order himself and smiled at you go back and get the whole he next time don't lose your head about didn't lose my The two boys came In late be about said lighting a cigarette and glancing up over the match at tell you to go get the order and not to lose your head about dining-room hours were presumably from seven to from twelve-thirty to and from six to This was the official But In fact they were from almost any early hour until after ten o'clock at night At half-past six in the at six fishermen were rattling the dining-room and nurses with fret ful and wakeful babies were clamoring for and at half-past nine at night tremendously good-natured and apologetic persons were arriving for This was all very well for Miss the gracious and capable and spectacled head who got the big but it told heavily on Sheila and the other They had to take on extra to hunt about for tablecloths and napkins not originally to apologize for food that had been used and to make additional trips for They worked in an enormous pantry served from the kitchen below by The order with Benny's O. on went down on the empty each tray had a slip on it when it came Sometimes when a big party required more than one tray a bus boy was summoned to But the girls were not allowed to ask for Benny decided and if he did not like a girl he would smile a teasing smile and observe that she could make two trips of It just as The except perhaps for the favorite of the detested when they were especially tired or nervous he could make things hard for and they wasted needed energy in despising They ran to and fro their collars their little butterfly aprons the girls themselves Sheila never had had much but she developed a pallor that was Her film of copper hair stuck to her wet her clothes adhered to her soaked She flung aside crumpled tablecloths and piled dirty checked penciled orders She talked so little and worked so hard that Miss the head soon singled her out for special there's a party just down from New I'm You'll have to start the order anyway I took twenty-two minutes of Nelly might say Sheila would eye the mock three supreme of grapefruit seven oyster four two cream of When in the had told her that in the quiet say between eleven and twelve each and three and five each she would be free to come up to the dormitory loft and lie Sheila had secretly Lie down with Atlantic City's winter and the glorious ocean at her very door not But by the third day she had dis covered that these intervals of rest were all too short She was not rested by an hour or flat and on her she could not even begin resting in so short a She ached all her nerves throbbed and her head was dizzy with confused her breath was short and her mouth a great she said to a great life If you have an infected let me tell Nelly I wonder why I ever left My-mother run a lots of the railroad fellers come over for But my stepfather done it He was ten years older than and what he put over on her you wouldn't He knew I was onto Much of the talk Sheila heard nowadays was but most of the girls were good Once she heard her own Four of the six girls in the rather small room were lying on their beds one winter afternoon when one of them said Carscadden girl we were talking about is supposed to be staying with They were married all right The Mc Canns have scads of and they hushed the whole thing Sheila lay perfectly her very heart But when a girl idly spoke it was on a different She had left a note for her mother on that dreadful last afternoon of packing and tears and flight I am safe and I will be she had And every few days since she had seized some opportunity to send further Once she had gone Into Philadelphia for an hour or two and mailed a post-card picture of a church from On this she had am praying for Pray for Almost every night she cried herself to longing for her But no matter how hard the work in the dining-room was and no matter how lonely and homesick her free she would not give The loneliness of life Sheila had never known it never suspected it How lonely they these Irish-born and Russian-born who were herded like sheep in the top rooms of great these maids and nurse-girls and chauffeurs and valets who stayed at the They gave their lives to for sixty and seventy and eighty dollars a All very well to have a day a haven't What girl could be at ox or with a part of one day each m which to live her own Less than one seventh of her life hers for she had to serve breakfast her and she must be back In her cell of a room by midnight Sheila grew her manner grew more her forehead had a new her eyes were Physically there was a she was the contours of her face were chiseled to finer She had been ten days on the job when one in the very heat of the between-lunch-and-breakfast Frank Mc Cann found At the moment Benny was making himself particularly disagreeable to an unfortunately argumentative girl named and listening to Mabel's feeble In an agony of sympathy was Inwardly saying to shut you're just giving him chance after chance shut you poor fool he's just leading you when who was assistant suddenly appeared on the This caused a for was a power at the girl Is Mary there's a gentleman wants to see Kearney She sensed going on she asked It was so delightful to see Benny becoming instantly conciliatory to so gratifying to hear Mabel's demure that Sheila quite forgot to worry about any significance her own message might Unsuspectingly Once she heard her own she followed Kearney to one of the little consultation rooms near the main One of the guests of the place had asked her that morning if she had ever posed for trade and had suggested that she let him have her photographed working a vacuum and If Sheila had thought of anything at all except Mabel's triumph and Benny's she would have found some such explanation of the But it was Frank Mc Cann who was waiting for Instantly she was of what she did not She tried to back out of the it's all nobody knows but Frank nothing's going to happen to I promise you I won't give you you find Sheila sitting never lost There was a fellow named Buckley waiting for mc in the hall that Frank with a touch of his characteristic had him follow He's done that sort of thing before he's a plain-clothes as a matter of fact He saw you go into the agency on after that I went know you But an hour later your brother they couldn't locate was she Frank was he half smiled at a dull moment where you he observed you didn't run away at wish people would leave me Sheila said you're a she with a smile and it There was a woman in Uie did she tell on had knows I I told her that night you were O. she all Sheila It began as a casual but suddenly her lips she was He studied her for a misses To this Sheila could make no long you going to keep this don't we've had a great since you Frank told been a reporter on the front step about half the My mother doesn't dare answer the |