The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1920-06-24

the funniest tramp, you ever saw out
side of vaudeville?"
'She's all of that, Name All the
buds she's got on, counting them
things on her feet, wouldn't bring a
plugged dime in a rummage sale. Bet
he found her living in a tree some
where"
Heard Harris call her an ugly duck
ling. Don't hit her at all. She's an
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, 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-
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 a note to Ben
son asking him to give his daughter
job, he insured for the girl a more
than ordinary chance to make good.
L.;
things like that to his employees. The
girl told nothing about herself. So it
was only known that Julia Weeks was
to have her chance. But she was, as
big. brown-eyed Ralph Matthews, the
chief dispenser, said, can 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 a thing as a powder
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 9, walked with the
stumbling gait of a plowman and
dropped at least one dish out of every
six she handled. She couldn't remeIn-
Der more than one order at a time
and frequently got that one wrong.
She spoke Pumpknvflle English,
and Name Kennedy declared she
didn't know there had been a war. But
withal there was a queer decisiveness
about her
Matthews first assistant, who stood
the opposite trick as head dispenser
In Ralph's off hours, was a fresh, SIAN
gy little fellow named Bartuso
From Ralph. Julia accepted admoni-
lions, rebukes, satire, actual seedlings
with a submissiveness that was pa
thetic; from the girls she took the
thoughtiess crueIties of their kind with
bovine Indifference; from Bartuso she
would stand nothing at all.
On the fourth day the assistant
dispenser, finding Julia alone in the
ice cream parlor, made some unkind-
~ bantering remark. By way of retein-
der 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 clumsi-
ness, 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 Eide exclaimed under her
breath to Name :."For Gawd sake, see
what's got on silk socks and Louie
Ounce heelsi''
IT was even so. The evolution of
Julia had begun. In another month
the very ugly duckling had become,
If not a swan, at least as nifty and
pert looking a 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-coIored
hair had been converted into crown
ing glory of startling designs. Julia
Aa0 AAOSI S0ONCSS4OA1y
herself.
whats the Lady Giants game,
Manner" Edie wonderingly remarked.
'She's dolling something fierce. Blu!
when 1t comes to the men, she's some
thing wrapped and put away in the
cooler-wouldn't give one of them
glad look on a bet"
Search me, kiddo. Mebbe she's got
the movie bug. Some Of 'em are like
that"
Now Ralph Matthews was not only
big but ne was fresh-colored and
good-looking and cool-headed and cap
able and had q winning smile. A head
dispenser like that, with a bunch of
girls on the counter with him, Is most
unlikely to escape being the object
Of rivalry.
Name Kennedy, however, acknOwl-
edged no rival. She claimed Ralph for
her own. And with all her feminine
perspieacity she never even thought
OF Julia as sharing her aspirations,
for Julia never talked to Ralph except
on business. Yet It was for Ralph. and
Ralph only. that the gawky waitress