The Ely miner., 1931-02-13
THE
MISSES
MITTEN
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BY Fannie Hurst
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(0 by Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.l

|
those neighborhood not on
Il stores that are a panacea for
| a housewives. There, at around
the-corner distance, were needles for
that emergency, tape, red-and-white
checked gingham to fit last-minute
tains, rubber teething-rings, baby-rib-
bon and sewing-silks that matched.
Even in the heart of an enormous
city, with an elevated railroad bang
| ing past its door and the roar of traf-
fic on four sides. the notion store of
the Misses Mitten had managed to be-
come sort of neighborhood rendez-
vous. People from the tall surround
| ing apartment houses, little house
keepers, men whose business brought
them home at three o'clock in the
| afternoon, the youth of the block, had
formed the habit of dropping in for a
few moments chat with the Misses
Mitten.
They were precisely what you would
suppose them to be from the nature of
the calling and from the name itself.
Mitten. Neat-mouthed, minded.
neat-bodied little persons who had
grown up in the neighborhood, who
had inherited the business from their
parents and whose faces were stamped
with starved kind Of virginity.
Minna was forty and Bella was
fOrty-twO and, as is almost inevitably
the case in such relationships, the
younger, although even slightly so,
had kept the fiuffier. Minna was like
little kitten. She had a high, in
cessant little laugh like a small bell
ringing Her pale hair had fuzzy ends
and she had the innocent ways of a
little girl-she was given to clapping
her hands in surprise or fitting her
head askance or pouting prettily if
crossed.
Bella, who was heavier set and
whose brown hair did not friz, had in
evitably taken on a maternal attitude
toward this kitten sister, She babied
her, worried about droughts and diet
and her habit Of wearing too light
clothing in the winter. They were
sweet together and a nice example of
sisters managing to live harmoniously,
OF course-do not mistake it-there
was nothing particularly exhilarating
about the lives they lived. Indeed.
there had been a time when such a
state Of nervous depression had SET
tied upon Minna, that Bella, sick with
dread, had feared for her sanity The
routine, the dullness, the lack of So
cial opportunity and diversion had
done it. Bella herself, when much
younger, had passed through the same
troubled waters. Their youth had
been shut-up, starveling youth,
without any of the gayeties natural to
it.
Bella had fought through alone.
Minna had fought through to the un-
derstanding ministerings of her older
sister.
All that was past now. The Misses
Mitten, ostensibly at least, had be-
come resigned to the fact that there
are gray moths and emperor moths in
the scheme of things, and that their
role apparently was gray.
And just about this time, there came
into the life Of Bella, the elder, a
goOd-natured, good-humored, middle
aged bachelor, a retired stock broker
who lived in the neighborhood and
who liked to while away idle moments
in the notion store. With what in
credulity these two sisters met the
situation is past the telling. Here was
something so unforeseen, so outside the
pale Of hope, so fantastic in it's pos
sibilities, that the Misses Mitten, be-
tween the two of them, could scarcely
scare up the realization to take it in.
Romance was leaning a shy, half
reluctant head into the narrow little
world Of the Mittens.
The kind Of life that had passed by
these two sisters with never a glance
in their direction was slowing as it
flowed by their stoop.
1t was nothing short of breath-tak-
ing to have the shop door pop open
and florists boy, carrying a square
corsage box, or a long one with the
end cut out for still longer rose stems,
burst in with the words, Miss Bella
Mitten?" on his lips.
Flowers for Mitten!
Then, too, the new excitements.
Concert tickets (three) for Sunday in
the Stadium. A twO-pound box of nut
filled chocolates every Wednesday
night. One Saturday afternoon while
Minna remained in the store, Bella
and Dodge went shopping. Shopping,
mind you, for black fox neck scarf
which Dodge had seen in shop win
dow on Madison Avenue and was de-
termined to see around the neck of
Bella in order that he might decide If