Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1902-01-10
it might have most serious effect on

it might have a most serious effect on
her future.
sThis will leave me alone here, Bar
bara," she said as Barbara put on her
hat.
81 think 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 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. I must be a
breadwinner. Give me your blessing
as if were a knight of the olden time
going out to fight 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 a 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. It 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 in 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
ures. The intimate circle of close
friends that had surrounded the
Clarks during prosperity was changed
for the cold wilderness of 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 her into 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 grea
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 a posi-
| tive feeling of relief that Barbara
| Clark now hurried on to No. SO Ham
| ilton street to secure the position OF
''hired grip in a family of five, en-
/ tire strangers to her; and she smiled
| little to herself at the thought of he1