Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-10-25
LITTLE TALKS BY
BEATRICE FAIRFAX

Greta is a white-haired old accom-
modator" who goes out by the day to
help folks who can't afford a regular
maid. She is apple-cheeked and has a
| figure that would do for Mrs. Santa
! Claus. She wears a calico dress that
looks perpetual or at least as If it
must be an open-stock pattern.
Greta, with her two-ffty a day earn
| ing capacity and her roly-poly figure
and her illiteracy, doesn't suggest fairy
godmothers or goddesses out of the ma
chine. And yet that's just what she
! turned out to be in the life of Melora
Pomeroy.
Melora is twenty-five, and under quite
another name she has builded for her
! self a reputation as one of our fore
most illustrators. She gets hundred
and fifty dollars for four black and
whites and twice as much for a color
cover. And she can do both so we'll
! that the big fellows in the magazine
world keep her busy.
Melora lives in THE BIG CITY" in
order to be near her work. Her peo-
pie have a tiny cottage in a far suburb
of town that has just worked it's way
i into the class where it can be called
city at all. And once a week all year
around Greta comes to do the washing
and ironing and help with the heavy
| work.
The Pomeroy home is kept up by
the ceaseless toll of Carrie Meloras
step-sister, a gaunt scare-crow of
woman who was an "old maid" when
Melora was the belle of the high-school.
There isn't any glowing tragedy about
| Carrie Pomeroy; she never was attrac-
| ix-aa OH 70 L., 1,o
! life To Melora she is just a predestined
grub, a dear old sister; content to
lead a drab and colorless life of the
sort to which Greta was probably also
| destined by wise and discriminating
| fate.
| For two weeks every summer Melora
! goes home. She spends her vacation
| at the old homestead. Thus she glad
dens the heart of her father and the
| invalid brother whose horizon has a
radius centering at his invalid chair.
And because she spends a yearly fort
night radiating sunshine all about the
environs of her drab home, and sends
home a weekly part of her earnings,
Melora feels that as a daughter, a wo-
man and a human being she is a COM
plete compendium of the virtues and
crowned with leaves of bay and laurel
| and maybe gold and diamonds.
One day last summer Melora was
standing in the kitchen waiting for
Greta to do hurry-up job on a frilly
white waist the daughter-guest of the
house of Pomeroy was planning to wear
on a motor-trip with the home-citys
most eligible bachelor.
"I have a right to be scrubbing the
front steps," complained Greta. $50
I inlr. H.
keep no clean house. So don't, maybe
Miss Carrie she goes and does"
well, If the steps aren't clean, I
don't mind" replied Melora indiffer-
emily.
But Miss Carrie she do. She mind,
and she scrub. And it'se no her work."
protested Greta. "She's a lady, Miss
Carrie is. She no should work"
well, I don't want her scrubbing
the front steps on my account" said
said Melora amiably. 'Ill tell you, I'll
iron my own waist, and you run out and
, do the steps"
"All right" agreed Greta Just so
Miss Carrie she no scrub the steps.
She hasn't right to be working so hard
Miss Carrie lady. She has a right
to be waited on. She got it too hard.
She has right to be waited on. She
lady"
L Melora smiled, divided between de-
light that old Greta appreciated sister
Carrie, and amusement that the old
woman didn't appreciate that She
Melora Pomeroy--working all through
the year at the beck and call of editors,
labored twice as hard as Carrie.
Presently Greta returned from doing
the steps, and Melora, hot and agitated
E.-z. 0fFZ aNr ..Ysk ~. s-A
1t up for the old woman's inspection.
"See, L worked and 1t didn't hurt
me-" she said with subtlety which
nrn rnnitcnd