Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1898-06-16
A NAMELESS Girl.

could lind no patrCn saint in the
calendar who answered to that name
and there was really no excuse for it
but the negligence OF the johnson fam
lily to christen its children. They be-
stirred themselves early only in the
case of my elder sister, who was named
Maggie. Even l, the youngest of
batch of five, never knew the second
child, boy, by any other name than
Brother" Then came Sis" the third,
and Babe" another boy. and finally
l. the last of the johnson brood. 1T"
rang in my baby ears long before I
knew what was meant. l suppose that
being the real baby it would have
caused confusion in the household,
where there was already Babe and
so they substituted st" for that was
my title by right of succession.
I never knew my mother. She died
soon after 1 opened my blue eyes to the
world. Perhaps if she had lived my
nomenclature would not have been so
slightingly treated. Maggie, the eld
est, a quiet, faithful girl, took charge
of us at mothers death. Father was a
teamster and away all day from the
little family, for whom he provided gen
erously out of his slender earnings.
He, too, called me "It" when he took
me up in his lap and rubbed his harsh,
stubble beard over my baby cheeks or
pinched my little fists with his big.
horny fingers. Maggie gave me moth
er's care, as she did the other children,
and L had really no trouble about my
incomplete name until went to school
for the first time.
''Your name is what?" asked the
teacher, when my turn came in 4 long
line, stretching from the foot of her
desk to the last bench in the room.
ct Johnson" I answered, promptly.
"'It' Johnson?" she repeated, with a
doubling shake of the head. Little
girl, you must have forgotten your
name"
NO" 1 gasped for a lump in my
throat almost choked me. To be the
first in the whole room who had any
difficulty about her name was mortify-
ing even to a little six-year-old.
Have you any brothers or sisters in
this SCHOOL,"
'Yes, my big brother is in No. 5"
SEQ upstairs and bring him down to
me-
1 trundled off, perplexed, to find
Brother" Up to the top floor
climbed and soon espied him in front
seat of room No. 3, the door of which
stood wide open. He answered the
summons of my vigorously reckoning
finger and I confided to him the di-
1emma I was in about my name.
''Well, Tt" he said, you are in a
bad fix. You never had any other
name"
"But isn't your name Brother and
nothing else?"
mo, I've been christened James be-
Sides"
"James?" queried. 81 thought that
was fathers name?"
and it's my name, too-James John
SON"
Then for the first time I learned that
brothers" name was James. that isis"
had been christened Cordelia, and that
''Babe. the infringer." was Andrew in
the baptismal record. Only poor, little,
sighted me was 1T" and nothing more.
brother" made matters clear to the
teacher, and she laugbingly inscribed
the name of at" johnson upon the big
roll book of the school
I passed through my school days as
sit" Then, tired of book learning,
went to work in shoe factory. Broth
err was a teamster now, like father.
ISIS was married and lived in the
country Babe" had run away to en-
list in the army, and there was nobody
at home but father and Maggie and
me, for James was boarding in another
part of the city, where most of his
hauling had to be done.
hadn't been in the factory long when
that old phrase you're it" was revived
on the vaudeville stage, and of course
the young men about the place leased
me by applying it to me, real st, ;" an
''It' from her birth to her sixteenth
year.
You're it." they shouted, as they
came up with me in the street. You're
It'll" said their miscellaneous eyes as /
entered the shop and passed the fore
man to go to my table. The foreman
was strict and permitted no noisy con-
duct inside the factory. He was a seri-
ous-lool<ing man, with a young face.
but the mien of one beyond his years.
He called each girl by name as he par
celed out the work and told her what
to do. 'Mollie! Rosina! Gertie! Becky!
Annie! You!" he said, when my turn
came.
''Her name is IT." said saucy miss
who stood close by.
The foreman shot a forbidding glance
at her, then looked rather pityingly
upon me. YOU" he repeated. meas
IRE these vamps and make sure that
they all tally with the sample" And
"You" l remained to Mr.. Joe Parlin-
son, the foreman. for weeks and
months.
The factory hands still called me
cit" I was TT at home to father and
Maggie. But, somehow, there was
nothing CALLING in it any more so long