Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1900-02-07
A Shaken Attachment.

BY HARRY E. ANDREWS.

~ u
The cannery cook looked nervously
at his watch. Quarter past eight and
no fruit! He stopped to the tank-cock,
apd three experimental jets of steam
sputtered up in impatient bubbles
through the cold water. Somewhat
relieved, he shut the valve and glanced
at the clock on the wall. Apparently
it had stopped like the rest Of the
works.
1.-THE slowest gang OF girls I ever
sawp' he snortel. Dave was high
pressure boiler, but he frequently let
of.
A youngish, brown-whiskered man,
in pink golf shirt, jumped on the
edge of the tank and balanced there
perilously. He was the manager of
(. the California Consolidated company.
Restlessness and vehemence boiled
down, he often said he paid Dave extra
wages to help him fume. One reason
why the manager managed everything
so we'll was because he knew so we'll
how to manage the manager.
"Hang it, D.re" said he, ''the
minute a girl gets to be good for any
thing, she quits and marries. If I
could keep my best help, life would
be worth living. Come, girls, come"
It quickened the workers across the
alf-partition, this clarion call and the
glimpse of the managers tense face.
The boss is ge,.ing cranky" said
brown haired girl with rubber glove
fingers on, hurriedly poking half
apricot through the little round hole
in the top of the can. All the packers
had their fingers protected against the
cruel curve of the tin. White cott.:
rags would do.
s.Haye you noticed how the boss
has duded up lately?" asked 'ps
blonde, who sozzled the syrup ;1,e
the packed cans with the rubber isyg
Z hose that came down from the -.
the attic. She.was rather state ;i2
ambrosial, and reminded one o
on frieze irrig. g..ting her row OF gods
with sweetened water. The California
Consolidated had dumped ton of
sugar into its nectar pots that very
morning.
.'Don't you sabe?" asked another
girl. 'Jessie did, pretty pronto. "
Spanish adapts itself elegantly to
slang IN the southwest.
''Oh, you're locoed" rejoined Hebe
swishing the nectarious nozzle from
ole little tin god to another with an
elysian disregard of the spill. 'The
manager will look above Jessie!" she
added.
.'You seer'
Dave had turned the valve again,
and the steam roared into one of the
big tanks. Another h;ssed and
growled, and the conversation of the
girls was inaudible. The packers had
caught up with the process-room, and
the apricot factory was in full blast
How deftly the sealer blistered the
yarn of solder around the Gun tops,
which spun on the revolving disks in
front of him. The metal string ran
down fr,m coil over his head, the
whirling can caught it, and the hot
iron tied the knot The other workers
might fell behind, but the sealer could
stand in his tracks, hold his hands
over the whirligigs, look pleasant and
keep caught up.
The manager drew breath of sat-
isfaction as he saw the platform of
cans lowered into the Kissing bath.
''Give 'em forty-five minutes this
time, Dave" he said, and passed into
the labelling shed.
If there was anything that pleased
the manager more than another it was
his labelling department.; and perhaps
he could not have told whether his
labels or his labeler gave him the more
pleasure. To the eye they were
equally inviting. The cream-and-
yellow undertones of the enameled
wrappers appealed to ones imagina-
ton; they tasted good. Upon them
the designer had ripened two juicy
apricots, suggesting that the only bite
in the world worth taking came from
the fabulous orchards of California.
s;'Its the label and not the stock that
sells the pack" the manager would
admit in confidential moment. The
golden apples of the Hesperides would
have humbugged more people than
they did had there been lithographers
In those days.
Jessie's left hand picked up glis-
tening label and her right seized can
of fruit; one end of the label firted
daintily through little pool of paste
at the end of her bench; the can re-
yolyed once and rolled itself into the
wrapper-done! An ugly tin had
turned into thing of beauty. Jessie
had merely beckoned and it had
jumped into it's yellow jacket. Small
wonder was it that the other girls
thought she had beckoned the man
ager into his pink shirt.
He stood for moment and admired
her. The lines of her fair young face
and blooming figure had not been
hardened by the months she had spent
In the cannery, earning her dollar and
sixty cents day. 'I wonder if
shall lose her, too!' the manager said
to himself. 1t would be hard to tell
all that was in his thoughts then.
Most of the time he was thinking of
the success of the company and the
difficulty OF keeping good help. SPY
Jove!" he went Oh, his countenance
lighting up with business inspira
ton, "I'll put her picture on the new
pie label!'
This enthusiastic intention was in
tended as a compliment and perhaps
more. With his absorbing devotion
i to the fruit trads.and his glory in the