The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-09-21
The Euening Story
A Peacemaker at Work.
(By Ellis Browne.)

customers Henry Walkers crouch
would have got itself into his letters
to disastrous extent. Form letters,
however, did not hide his personality
| from the stenographers who passed
| blithely into and disgustedly out of
| his employ at the rate of at least ten
| a year.
The office force usually took no
especial notice of a new one except to
classify her as the meek or the
medium or the rneteoric kind, but
the morning that Alberta Rankin
came stridipg into the department and
calmly surveyed Walker, a sense of
something unusual impending was felt
all through that part of the office.
AS Walker turned from a card file
he had been rapidly lingering and
reached for the telephone, he looked
up and met the calm, gray eyes of
| this tall, clear-Skinned, black-halred
| girl.
He paused with his hand on the re-
ceiver, and then, as if to emphasize
the fact that he considered the en-
| trance of a mere new Stenographer or
no especial moment, he called for
number and concluded his converse
ton before saying anything to her.
I'm sent to you by the typewriter
people," she said, as she handed
| walker a card of introduction from
the agency.
"AH right, Miss Rankin" said
book with our form letters in 1t, and
each one is numbered; when I say
certain number, you'll know how to
proceed. See?'
Sure The one word was all, but
it made Walker more uncomfortable
than the usual sepseless questions
asked by beginners at this point IN
his explanation of the work
You'll have to see that your desk is
stocked with supplies. If you don't
find what you have to have, one OF
these clerks over at the files will show
YOU where the storeroom is. Be ready
for work in five minutes"
I'm ready now was the surpr1s-
ing reply, as she took a pencl from
the desk and observed at a glance that
the stationery stand on the desk held
the necessary paper, carbon and en-
velopes.
Walker grunted in reply, indicated
a chair, and by the time she had seat
ed herself he was debating the open
ing paragraph of a letter and giving
her the number of the form to en-
body in it. The work progressed un-
eventually until, just before closing
time that afternoon, Walker had diff
ficulty in getting telephone NUMBER
he wanted and as he slammed the
telephone receiver on its hook he al
most swore at the stupidity of the OPP
orator and of women in general.
OUGHT" said Alberta, holding both
slapped. You must have got stung
good and proper by some woman to
acquire such an fngrowing crouch
against all of u.s.
Look here, young woman, Who do
you think you are, and who do you
think you're talking to, I'd like to
know" Numbered Walker.
well, as for me, I'm human be-
ing, and L suggest that you remember
it when you speak to me. As for you,
why you're human, too, L suppose,
under that bearlike disguise you put
on when women come on the scene"
Alberta concluded this astounding
remark with an audacious laugh, but
she looked so frankly into the frown-
ing eyes of Walker that before he
knew it he was beginning to smile
himself. Then she added: Nursing
grievance always makes it grow,
you know; besides, maybe that woman
who stung you had grievance, too.
You know a difference between two
people has got to have two sides to 1T
or the difference just isn't there"
by George said Walker, pushing
his papers away from him and turned
in his chair until he sat squarely fac
ing Alberta. IT believe I'll just tell
you a thing or two about that differ
ence."
Then he told her of having been en-
gagged to a stenographer a few years
before, and of how they quarreled be-
cause the girl became active in a club
of office women, who spent most of
their Sundays on long cross-country
walks, taking their dinners and sup
pers at roadside hotels or farmhouses.
II insisted that it wasn't respecta-
b1e, he continued, for a lot of girls
to go galhvanting over the country
that way; she said she needed the air
and the companionshfp of her own
kind. and 1 said that she'd develop
into a freakish feminist if she got too
much of the society of those women,
and she said walking over the country
was as genteel as playing pool or 60
ing to the ball games, and that if I
tried to map out everything she did
before we married I'd expect her to
lose all the identity she had afterward,
all been smoothed out all right if L
hadn't happened to be on an interur-
ban car the next Sunday and passed
that gang of women, and what are
they doing but walking along in
row, each one with her hands on the
shoulders of the one in front of her,
and the one at the very rear called
out tc my-to Alice. who was at the
head of the line: Get a move on you,
Alice. If you expect to make that
Walker of yours go all the gaits you'll
have to learn to go some yourself
Then they all cackled like the lot of
hens they were, and I never went
near Alice again, and don't even know
what has become of her"
Toward the latter part of his narra-
tive Walker had been fumbling with a
paperweight on his desk, and when he
looked up at Alberta he was surprised
and embarrassed to see her shaking
with suppressed laughter.
And to think she said, that 1
was the innocent cause of this crouch
striking in SO deep, / was the very
| girl who made that fool remark to
Alice, but I'll vow I hadn't thought of
it since and I don't suppose she has
either. I feel crushed to think didn't