The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1910-11-19

Hooking Up
Business
By Virginia Keith

~ IRST of all this is not a sermon.
The business girl does not need
u to be religious in order to do
good work. But it's equally true that
the girl who never lifts her eyes above
the ledger almost of necessity becomes
sordid. And whenever you find girl
fairly radiating good cheer, happy in
her work, serene of confidence, unruft1ed
in emergencies, and evenly balanced.
rest assured that in some way or other
perhaps by some quiet little method Of
her own-she has the habit of Hooking
up"
A little chat will reveal the fact that
above all things she loves the out-of-
doors. If it's Summer she will find her
way by instinct to the park, just to sit
and revel in the green. Failing that she
has quiet bit of river landscape franz
ed somewhere about her desk, and wee
bit of a window box is almost sure to
be growing beside her typewriter. The
patch Of fern to her is as good as a
sermon. Even while her fingers are still
merrily clicking it enables her to do
some Hooking up"
Another girl, holding a strenuous and
difficult position-one involving RESPONSE
as we'll as her own-keeps tiny book
of nuggets" inside her desk. When
ever things go wrong and she feels her
temper "frazzled''-out comes a little
book for nugget. 1.-THE duck has short
legs; the stork has long ones. You cam
not make the stork's legs short or the
ducks legs long. Why worry?" That
was one choice bit that brought philoso-
ply and finally merry laugh on day
when a nervous chief had been unduly
irascible. "Kindness-a key that opens
the door from the most difficult situa-
tions''-another nugget that proved its
wisdom.
How do you ever manage to stand
the drag Of your position-week after
week, month after month"; Oftenest
the answer is something like this: by
getting away-if only for few
moments To the sociable chat over
the lunch table, the half hour Of organ
music, or it may be the ten minutes
of perfect soul communion alone in the
quiet, empty church. Each is in its
way-according to the temperament Of
the worker-a form Of letting down and
Hooking up.''
One type Of girl finds her best form Of
self-renewal in human service. In q
big store where hundreds of little cash
girls might so easily pass unnoticed, she
gives up twenty minutes of her lunch
hour daily to helping them in their baby
troubles. A letter to be written, a grief
consoled, bit Of cheering advice given
she's always ready. This store has no
office Of welfare secretary" The task
Is one" of love and purely self-appoint-
ed. But If reward were needed, I'm
quite sure she would find it in the name
the tiny flock have affectionately given
her-"Friend of the Little Cash Girls. :"
Is that girl likely ever to find her life
pansion of her pay-envelope? -
More than one busy girl finds some
such form Of soul activity-and with
out going any further afleld than her
own office. Maybe it's only the Office
boy-a shiftless piece Of young imperti-
hence, and very demons imp for mis-
chief at times, goodness knows, but per-
haps after all he's much like other boys.
We know one who inside of six weeks
has taken to devourtng stenography al
voraciously as he once did the dark
mysterious deeds Of Daredevil Dick. I"
BY miracle? Not a bit Of it. only .
little gracious help-one girls kindly
way Of looking up; t..