Polk County news. [volume] (Benton, Tenn.) 191?-1983, 1919-10-09
The Ostrichette
II
By WILL T. AMES
Copyright. 1913. By the Mcclure News
paper SyndieAts.)

paper syndieats)
Honest to goodness. Edie. isn't sh
the funniest tramp, you ever saw. out
side of vaudeville?"
"She's all of that. Name. All tn
dudS she's got on. counting then
things on her feet, wouldn't bring
plugged dime in a rummage sale. Be
be found her living in a tree some
where"
Heard Harris call her an ugly duck
| ling. Don't hit her at alk She's al
ostrichette."
The two girls behind the soda foun
| tain counter at Benson's had given
much of their first Monday morning
half hour to a critical inspection OF
the new waitress for the ice cream
parlor; who was also to help at the
fountain.
bet you Benson hired her to break
her in on Jeff's job !" And the girls
giggled joyously. JEFF was the drug
store rOustabOut, negro, who washed
the cream cans, changed fountain
tanks and carried an advertising sand
witch afternoons.
Name and Edie weren't the only
persons in the store who wondered,
before the week was out, why Benson
had hired Julia Weeks.
The reason was that long ago, be-
fore old John Weeks went to keeping
Fog Island lighthouse, he and Benson
had been friends, and when old John.
in his last hours, wrote note to Ben
son asking him to give his daughter
a job, he insured for the girl a more
than ordinary chance to make good
But Benson didn't usually explain
things like that to his employees. The
girl told nothing about herself. So 1t
was only known that Julia Weeks was
to have her chance. But she was, as
big, brown-eyed Ralph Matthews, the
chief dispenser, said, IAN awful
mess"
Julia was grotesquely i'll dressed;
her clothes might have been thrown
to her out of somebody's second story
window. She knew nothing at all
about doing her taffy-colored hair. Her
eyes were a pallid blue and her eye
brows scant. Apparently she had never |
heard of such thing as a powder |
puff. Her color and skin showed the |
marks of the weather and too much |
trying pan diet.
Worse still, she was reaching M
oward 5 feet 8, walked with the
gait of plowman and
dropped at least one dish out of every i
tx she handled. She couldn't FFfns NJ
Ter more than one order at trsNE
nd frequently got that one wrong.
She spoke Pumpkinville English.
nd Name Kennedy declared she |
idn't know there had been war. But
yithal there was a queer decisiveness
bout her.
Matthews first assistant, who stood
he opposite trick as head dispenser
! Ralphs off hours, was fresh, SLAM
Y little fellow named Bartuso.
From Ralph, Julia accepted admoni-
ons, rebukes, satire, actual seedlings
18th q Submissiveness that was pa
letic; from the girls she took the
loughtless cruelues of their kind with
Dvine Indifference; from Bartuso she
ould stand nothing at all.
On the fourth day the assistant
spenser, finding Julia alone In the !,
e cream parlor, made some unkind-
bantering remark By way of rejOin-
.r Julia punched him on the nose and !
iped him five times across the face =
it'll the table swab. After that she
as let rather severely alone.
Slowly Julia lost much of her clumsi- :,
ss, but it was nearly three months ),
fore she began to show that she
ssessed the primary feminine attri-
tie. Then one day Ralph noticed her 4
lnding before one of the cream room /,
rrors trying to fluff out the hair
er her ears with her fingers. Within
2 week Edie exclaimed under her :,
cath to Name: "FOr Gawd sake, see :,
lat's got on silk socks and Louie
ince heelsi"
Il was even so. The evolution of y,
liza had begun. In another month :,
very ugly duckllng had become,
not swan, at least as nifty and
t looking a chicken as adorned any =,
la fountain in town.
Nobody In that store, except Miss =,
bbinS, of the toilet articles, knew
: more about eyebrow pencils and
sticks and brick-colored rouge and
h matters; while her taffy-colored ="
r had been converted into q crown .
glory of startling designs. Julia W
most successfully standardized
self
What's the Lady Giants game,
ne?" Edle wonderingly remarked. Try
e's dolling something fierce. But ma
N IL comes to the men, she's some
e wrapped and put away in the mel
er-wouldn't give one of them q Ing
look on a bet" ilsi
Search me. kiddo. Mebbe she's got wa
movie bug. Some Of 'em are like
+" fish
ow Ralph Matthews was not only yot
but he was fresh-colored and car
and cool-headed and cap Els
and had a winning smile. A head
enser like that, with bunch of