The Prescott daily news., 1909-12-20
The Resource
 fulness of Sue

They lived in an apartment that had plenty of closet room-five rooms and bath, to be exact. Sue usually stopped on the way home and bought two lamb chops and a head of lettuce, if it was the beginning of the week, or five cents worth of stew meat and no lettuce, if it was toward the tag end of the week, near pay day. Sue was generally the one to negotiate the at five and came up town on an ex- press train, while Ethelinda's shop didn't close until six
 Now, upon certain evening they had invited Marie and Ralph to dine with them. They could say dine. because they intended to turn in tAe necks of their shirt waists and wear their near-Brussels lace collars and because Marie was going to bring over her finger bowls. It behooved Sue to shut up her typewriter on the very stroke of five, therefore, even if the manager passed her the glance frappee, and make all possible speed to the express train
 She had the list of dinner items complete. Chops, bread, lettuce (oh, this was Monday evening", corn on the ear, meringue pie and some ber- ries for desert. She looked like the Goddess of Plenty as she reached the door of the flat house.
 She had to put down the chops, the bread and the lettuce on the floor of the vestibule while she dug in her bag for the keys.
 Keys? Keys? Here was her pen knife, her handkerchief, pencil, three hairpins, some chewing gum, a pow der puff, nail file, mirror and her list of dinner supplies-but no keys. Clearly she must have left them at the office in her hurry. Now, here was indeed pretty howde-do.
 Ethelinda wasn't due for an hour, the guests were apt to come along any minute, and she had ordered the grocer to send around the four bot ties of ice cold" right straight away and now she couldn't even get in to open the dumbwaiter door.
 It was comparatively easy to col lect the pie, the chops, the bread the lettuce and the berries and go down through the cellar and up the four flights of stairs to her apartment door But then what! She sat down on the stairs and thought some more There were two flats on a floor. She could ring the bell of the next-door lady and beg to be let climb out her kitchen window, across the fire es- cape and into her own kitchen win dow. Fine! Whereupon she rang. No answer. Lady away. Lovely! Now what? And time was flying There was but one other way. The fiat just over theirs was vacant. She might get into that if the door was open, go out the kitchen window, and down the fire escape to her own.
 She carefully deposited the chops. the berries, the corn, the lettuce, the pie and the bread upon the floor and started upstairs. The door of the empty fiat vas unlocked. An, joy She rushed to the kitchen window and gazed down through the fretwork of the fire-escape to the street My! It was a long drop if she slipped. Fur thermore, the ladder was rusty old thing, and as the flat house was at the corner of the block, the fire es- cape hung to the outer wall of the building. The openings in the iron platforms at each floor were right over each other, and offered clear crop, if anything happened. straight to the areaway. She hoped she'd fall uce and plump into the area, and not out on the sidewalk, where every body passing by would have to See her all mussed up.
 She stepped forth courageously desperately, and put her foot on the iron ladder. It seemed firm. She tried not to look down in the street but she couldn't help noticing a man driving sprinkling cart He gazed up in her direction and shouted, pleas antly: "Oh. I say, Maude, the waters fine. Drop in!"
 Two small boys playing ball in the street yelled at companion block away: Hey, Chimmie, hurry up! Pipe de lady burglar"
 "Oh, you blue stocking!' remarked a college youth from across the way And two men who were repairing the street stopped their steam roller and called out: Don't jump! We'll save