The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-07-10
EVENING STORY
The Ostrichette.
BY WILL T. AMES.

Honest to goodness, Edle, isn't she
the funniest tramp you ever saw out
side of vaudeville?"
Shes all of that, Name. All the
buds she's got on, counting them
things on her feet, wouldn't bring
! plugged dime in a rummage sale.
Wonder where Benson dug her up.
Bet he found her living in a tree
somewhere.
Heard Harris cali her an ugly
duckling. Don't hit her at all She's
an ostrlchette."
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 or
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 Jeffs job" And the girls
giggled joyously. Jeff was the drug
store rorstabout, a 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-
I a
Fog Island lighthouse, he and Benson
had been friends, and when old john
] in his last hours, wrote a note to BEN
I 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 II
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 Ill oresseo'
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 halr.
Her eyes We're a pallid blue and her
eyebrows scant. Apparently she had
never heard of such thing as pow
der puff. Her color and skin showed
the marks of the weather and too
much frying pan diet
Worse still. she was reaching up
toward feet 8. walked with the
stumbling gait of a plowman ana
dropped at least one dish out of every
six she handled She couldn't remem-
Der more than one order at time and
frequently got that one wrong.
She smoke Pumpkinville Engl sh,
and Name Kennedy declared she
didn't know there had been war.
But withal there was queer decisive
ness about her.
Matthew's first assistant. who stood
the opposite trick as head dispenser
in Ralphs off hours, was fresh
siangy little fellow named Bartuso-
From Ralph. Julia accepted ad-
monitions. rebukes, satire, actual scold-
| ings with "Reminiscences that was pa
thetic; from the girls she took the
! thoughtless cruelties of their kind with
! bovine indifference; from Bartuso she
would stand nothing at all.
On the fourth day the assistant dis
pensere finding Julia alone in the ice
cream parlor. made some unlSindly
| bantering remark BY way of re-
I joinder Julia punched him on the nose
and wiped him five times across the
face with the table swab, After that
she was let rather severely alone.
Slowly Julia lost much of her clunl-
siness. but it was nearly three months
before she began to show that she
possessed the primary feminine attri-
| butte Then one day Ralph noticed
her standing before one of the cream
room mirrors trying TO fluff out the
| hair over her ears with her fingers
Within the week Edie exclaimed IN
der her breath to Name: For Gawd
sake, see what's got on silk socks and
Louie ounce heels,
1t was even SO. The evolution of
Julia had begun. In another month
the very ugly duckling had become.
not a swan. at least as nifty and
pert looking n chicken as adorned any
soda fountain in town.
Nobody in that store. except Miss
Robbins, of the toilet articles. knew
any more about eyebrow pencils and
lip sticks and brick colored rouge and
such matters; while her taffy colored
hair had been converted into crown
! ing glory of startling design. Julia
had most successfully standardized
herself
whats the Lady Giants game.
| Name" Edie wonderingly remarked
she's dolling something fierce. But
when ii comes to the men, she's some
trapped and put away in the cooler
wouldn't give one of them glad look
on a bet"
search me, kiddo. Mebbe she $
got the movie bug. Some of en- are
like that"
Now Ralph Matthew's was not only
big, but he was fresh coiored and
good looking and cool headed and
capable and had a winning smile. A
head dispenser like that, with bunch
of girls on the counter with him, is
most unlikely to escape being the OBJ
| iect of rivalry.
Name Kennedy, however, acknowl-
edged no rival. she claimed Ralph
for her OWE. And with all her femi-
nine perspicacity she never even
| thought of Julia as sharing her as
piration for Julia never talked to
Ralph except on business. Yet it was
/ for Ralph, and Ralph only, that the
gawky waitress was putting herself
thru the painful process of transfor-
nation into a butterfly, She dumbly,
utterly adored the big dispenser.
II was just after the opening hour.
Jeff hadn't showed up and two of the
soda tanks in the basement needed
to be replaced. Ralph had gone down
to do it himself.
The girls were furnishing UP the
fountain, counter and tables. Sud-
| denly the building trembled. A rend-
ing. metallic roar came from below.
White-faced. the clerks and the
few customers stared at one another
in momentary speechlessness while
Edie screamed long and loud, There