The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1902-01-10
Barbara resolutely gathered up he.

L
| take those" Barbara referred to a
summers experience when in company
with several seniors from the college
she had served as head waiter and
housekeeper at large hotel in state
Chautauqua assembly.
"They are good as far as they CO."
| eyes, mother, and / am sure they
will go far enough in this case. This
family" Barbara picked up the pa
| per and read the advertisement again
4 TO get the street number correctly
sis in crying need of help. They will
not drive me away without a trial,
| references or no references"
Mrs. Clark did not reply, but looked
and felt very anxious.
| 1t was a serious step in her daugh-
ter's life and under any circumstances
] it might have most serious effect on
her future
| 'This will leave me alone here, Bar
bara," she said as Barbara put on her
! hat.
II think l can arrange to come home
| evenings said Barbara, thoughtfully.
eve will settle it all right somehow,
mother" she added with cheerful
courage she did not altogether pos
| sess. For since her mothers consent
she had begun to realize a little more
deeply what she was about to do.
81 hope so, DEAR" was the mothers
answer, and then quite naturally she
| began to cry silently.
| Barbara went up to her at once, and
said: Dear mother, believe it is all
| going to be for the best. / must be
breadwinner. Give me your blessing
as if 1 were a knight of the olden time
going out to fight a dragon"
'Bless you, dear girl said Mrs.
Clark, smiling through her tears, and
Barbara kissed her silently, and then
| quickly walked out of the room as if
afraid of changing her resolution.
| Barbara Clark was not an extraor-
binary girl in the least. She was a>girl
with quick, bright mind, positive in
her convictions, with impulses that
were generous and sympathetic, with
very little self-esteem, affectionate
| towards her friends and ambitious to
| do and be something. 1t seemed very
| strange to her that out of all her class
in college she was one of half dozen
who had not been able to secure posi-
ton even of a secondary character in
any school. Her fathers death had
| left her and her mother alone jim the
world except for few distant rela
| tiveS in the west. Influences that
might have secured a place for her
were not used owing to a compulsory
change of residence to another city
caused by Mr.. Clark's business fail
| urac Tho IND 70 ioir Of o1oca
friends that had surrounded the
Clarks during prosperity was changed
for the cold Wilderness of a strange city
lacking in personal friendliness. And
Barbara and her mother had passed
several weeks in Crawford, practically
| unknown, and with the growing con-
seriousness that the little legacy and
the insurance money were being
drained seriously without hope of re-
plenishing from any source so far as
| Barbara was concerned.
The girls longing to be breadwin-
ner had driven herinto many difficult
places. Under some conditions she
would have gone at once into one of
the great mercantile houses of Craw-
ford as one of its great army of sales
women. But at that time of the year
every position was filed, except few
places that did not offer anything but
starvation wages under conditions
that Mrs. Clark positively would not
allow Barbara to accept SO long as
there was the slightest hope of the
girl finding an opportunity to teach.
So for several weeks Barbara had been,
as she said, not unkindly, eating her
bread at home in bitterness, because
no one seemed to need her in the great
world, where the struggle for exist
ence seemed to her to be a struggle
that made any other existence more
and more impossible.
| 1t was therefore. not without posi-
tive feeling of relief that Barbara
Clark now hurried on to No. SO Ham
! ilton street to secure the position of
"hired girl'' in a family of five, en-
tire strangers to her; and she smiled
| little to herself at the thought of her
anxiety lest a number of other girls
should have been before her and Sc
cured the place.
81 am in hurry to look into the jaws
of my dragon" she said, as she turned
the corner into Hamilton street. 81
do, hope he will not swallow me down
at one mouthful before have had il
blow at him with my-my-broom-
stick she added, not caring whether
the metaphor were exact or'not.
Che nanSed O moment when SHE