Evening star., 1927-04-24
MERE is a curious institution,
widely distributed. called the
waiting room. You will find
specimens almost everywhere,
lantnlc

TNHERE is a curious institution,
widely distributed. called the
waiting room. You will find
specimens almost everywhere,
in railroad stations. in hotels,
in department stores, and in offices
of every description. The waiting
room is a fearful thing. At best 1t
offers boredom: at the worst it is
place where one sits through minutes
that seem interminabe. filled With ap-
prehension, or with despair.
Afillie had had some experience OF
waiting rooms, and she dreaded them.
She had been sitting in this partic-
uIar waiting room at the employment
agency for three days.
She was one Of those women whose
appearance suggests that they have
been wrung dry by the torque and
torsion of their own emotions; a little
woman. thin and taut. and, just now,
curiously tremulous. She was about
Is years old and she sat among the
others without taking part in the pas
sages of conversation among them.
She seemed to be unconscious of their
presence, and her eyes, inf1amed and
weary. looked straight before her.
Sometimes, for no apparent reason,
they became suffused with tears; not
misted with moisture. but drowned in
a drenching flood which flowed down
her cheeks, until she remembered to
wipe away these evidences of grief
On her first day, when she had tried
70 talk with a prospective employer,
her eyes had gushed tears. TIL the
other woman said impatiently:
well, / don't want you, IL you're
the CRYING kind"
Millie had then been rather relieved
than disappointed. She always dreaded
seeking new employment while she
was in the throes of her latest loss. So
she sat all that day and the next and
into the third. Whenever it appeared
that she must talk with one of those
who came here seeking servants, she
averted her eyes, endeavoring TO avoid
attracting their notice, willing TO put
off the inevitable adventure of new
employment.
But. on the third day. she found her
self replying TO questions put to her
by woman. perhaps 80 years old, who
introduced herself by a name which
Millie scarcely heard. She was not
interested in the names Of her mis-
tresses: she had had so many of them.
This woman's name might have been
Smith or Brown. II happened TO be
Mrs. Jones,
AIillie answered her questions as i'm
personally as though she spoke of
some one else. She had been a baby
nurse since she was II. II would be
hard to pack into one sentence a more
tragic biography. A woman who had
loved one baby and lost it, wears for
ever in her eyes the mark of her grief.
But Millie had been condemned by
life to love many babies and TO lose
them all.
Mrs. Jones asked question upon
question. but BIillie asked only one.
''Is it a boy or a girl?"
"A girl" Mrs. Jones replied. and
Miles ravaged face seemed to |
tighten family at the word.
Il always like the girls best" she |
confessed.
They arranged for Aiillie to come |
the next morning, and MilIie was, for |
the rest of that day, little more |
cheerful. Her aching grief fond |
anodyne in the prospect of another |
baby to love.
THERE is hardly another ordeal
comparable to that of entering |
the home of strangers and finding |
yourself an alien, an outsider. liable |
70 instant dismissal, and, at the same |
time, in such an intimate relation to
the life of the family as that held by |
the baby-nurse. Millie was still sick /
over the loss of her last baby. loss |
as irrevocable and grief as poignant |
SIS though the baby had died. But she !
had no more tears, and she entered |
this new household, hiding her misery |
behind a stony countenance.
Mrs Jones was a friendly, kindly |
young woman. competent, sure of |
what she wanted. She was just out |
of the hospital, and there was still a
trained nurse in the house. The little